WHEN KNOWING WHAT TO DO ISN'T ENOUGH
Caring for someone can leave you knowing what you should do, while still finding it difficult to make changes that would help you.
This short article explores two complementary ways of working with change — coaching and therapy — and how both can be useful when you're trying to create more space for yourself while caring for someone else.
One simple way to think about the difference between coaching and therapeutic work is to imagine a ball sitting on a platform.
Coaching helps you move the ball. It focuses on what is happening now and supports you to make specific changes — perhaps setting boundaries, changing a behaviour, building a new habit or taking a step towards something that matters to you.
Therapeutic work looks at the platform. Rather than focusing only on what you're doing, it explores some of the emotional responses, patterns and experiences that may be influencing how you respond.
Both can be valuable. Sometimes you know what you want to change and need support to take action. At other times, something deeper may be making that change difficult.
How might this apply to caring?
Caring for someone can bring its own emotional and practical challenges. You may find yourself putting your own needs aside as somehow they seem less urgent than those of the person you are caring for, or perhaps you are struggling to set boundaries or feeling emotions that are difficult to acknowledge.
Although all of this can absolutely be linked to your present situation and relationship with the person you are caring for, they might not just be about this. For example our present experiences are shaped by previous experiences, by our expectations of ourselves and by what we've learned about coping with difficult situations.
Sometimes the most useful starting point is practical. You might want to work on setting a boundary, making space for yourself, changing a pattern or taking action towards something that matters to you. That's the coaching side.
At other times, it may help to explore the emotional responses or patterns that make those changes difficult. This is where approaches such as EFT and hypnotherapy may offer another way of working.
I move between these approaches depending on what feels most useful to you with the aim of creating space for your experience, your needs and the choices available to you.
Wondering if you need some support too?
If this article leaves you wondering whether you could use some space for yourself,
The Carer’s System offers a protected one-hour session focused entirely on your experience, needs and what might help.