Do you sometimes feel an inner restlessness, dissatisfaction with your situation, insecurity? Is something missing inside you? In your life? Perhaps you can pinpoint these thoughts and feelings to certain issues, such as your relationship or your job. Perhaps you also sense that there is more to it.
You are not alone with such thoughts and feelings. And of course the situation, our environment, our partner and our job have a big influence on us. But our own “I-ness” also has the strongest influence on how we feel. Are we more at one with ourselves? More connected to ourselves as a whole person? Or distanced from ourselves? Distanced from our feelings? To our body?
Table of contents
Themes of inner and outer distance or fragmentation
Our work as coaches always takes into account different types of inner and outer distance, inner and outer fragmentation. The types of distance and fragmentation described below may not occur in you at all, individually or in combination. However, one of the following types will probably dominate and be the focus of our work together.
Note in advance: as coaches, we are very aware of where we can help – and where our limits are. If the inner and outer distance or fragmentation is too deeply rooted, if it already has an (almost) traumatic character, then we will recommend that you work on the issues in a therapeutic setting.
Our expertise and our focus is to guide you as a ‘healthy’ person to more strength, serenity, calm and contentment. No more – and no less.
Topic 1 Are you running away from feelings and thoughts? Are you inwardly absent?
Do you sometimes distance yourself from your thoughts? Feelings? Do you bury yourself in activities or in your work to avoid thinking or feeling? Do you prefer to be in withdrawal or attack mode? Do you find it difficult to focus on the here and now, be it learning, work, other people or your feelings?
Or are you consciously aware of yourself and others? So are you “mindful”? On all channels? With all your senses? Do you try to understand the thoughts, wishes and feelings of others?
We call all this Integration of consciousness. This integration, i.e. your mindfulness for yourself and others, is probably the most central building block of your professional (and private) success, your satisfaction and peace of mind and is almost always a central part of your journey with us.
If this is an issue, we will work with you on your awareness of yourself, your thoughts and feelings. And we help you to bring things to the surface and work on them that were previously buried. We give you tips (e.g. meditation) to help you become more mindful and open to yourself.
In interpersonal relationships – whether private or professional – we practise methods of active listening and perceiving others on all levels – on the factual level, with procedural topics as well as on the relationship level (emotions, meanings, values, unwritten standards, etc.).
We help you to consciously go through the three steps of communication: open and unbiased perception, explanation of what you perceive and evaluation of what you perceive, and thus to achieve a much clearer, more multi-layered view of yourself and others.
Topic 2: Are you uncomfortable with feelings? Do you prefer to be rational? Are you accused of being one-dimensional?
Are you or your partner more in rational thinking mode? Are you uncomfortable with emotions that are “thrown at you”? Do you avoid feelings and withdraw into the objective, the rational? Are you accused of being too hard, rational and ‘one-dimensional’, of not allowing other points of view? Do you regularly suppress your own emotions – do you unconsciously collect them in an emotional account and despair because this emotional account ‘explodes’ every now and then and burdens you beyond that?
We call all these effects of horizontal integrationas the observations described are related to a lower ‘joint oscillation’ of the right and left hemispheres of the brain.
Our right hemisphere is responsible for networked thinking, images, non-verbal communication and much more. This hemisphere develops first in our childhood. It supports creativity and innovation, it gives us pleasure and energy in life. It strengthens our empathy for ourselves and for others.
In contrast, the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for linear thinking, logic, language, etc. It develops later, with language, in adolescence. It provides structure, order and focus in life. It determines our ‘hard rational’ part. This brain hemisphere often dominates from adolescence onwards, through school, training, reinforced by studies and work.
If we are not horizontally integrated, we find it more difficult to access emotions (ours and those of others), sometimes appear unsympathetic and rational, often dogmatic and one-dimensional. We don’t see different perspectives and are quick to judge and evaluate. Sometimes we also feel empty, without a soul, the world is gray-on-gray. However, a longing for more color in life, which is often difficult to grasp, is somehow within us.
Our experience: through right-brain strengthening and horizontal integration, a lot of energy and vitality comes into your life. Interactions with others gain a previously unknown depth and intensity. So it’s worth it for you and for others.
What can you do? Your first step is to become more mindful of yourself, to track your thoughts, logic and decisions (left brain) as well as the images, energies and feelings within you. Mindfulness exercises (e.g. meditation) and physical exercises (e.g. body scan) can help here.
We will also show you ways to strengthen your non-verbal, networked, empathic perception, for example by regularly verbalizing your perceptions in a diary. This verbalization is one of the most important ways to allow your left and right brain hemispheres to vibrate more strongly together again, i.e. to reveal thoughts and feelings and to achieve an equal networking of rational thinking and emotions.
Topic 3: Torn inside? Many souls in your chest?
Do you feel torn inside? As if you have different ‘I’s’ inside you? Little and adult ‘I’s? Good and bad? Loved ones and repressed ones? Perhaps you know a rational, strong ‘I’ inside you, structured, consistent? And another self, an empathic, perhaps anxious self, full of self-doubt? Perhaps you know managers who change their egos like‘masks‘, sometimes they are empathic, sometimes aggressive and hurtful?
Perhaps your egos (we will call them ego parts in the following) are also in conflict, sometimes one ego part suppresses one or more others. The inner dialog – if there is a dialog – is then rather hurtful and derogatory (“Me to me: pull yourself together, stupid me.”). If the unconscious interaction between the ego parts is toxic, you will feel this on a conscious level in the form of anxiety, stress, insecurity and pressure.
In addition, your ego parts are often associated with different behavioral patterns , some of which are very deeply anchored and automated. Unconscious triggers can bring you into one of your ego parts in a fraction of a second and trigger the one critical behavior pattern. From then on, you are on autopilot: attack, freeze or flee.
And afterwards – perhaps you are left with a pile of broken pieces , at least injuries to yourself and others, perhaps doubts about yourself, shame and frustration. And the thought: could I change this, stay calm and confident, find other ways to deal with the trigger? Perhaps one part of you (let’s say your empathic self) is downright angry with the other part of you (the rational, controlling, dominating self).
Our experience – You should take two steps to work on your inner conflict. The first step is to bring the conflicts between your ego parts to the surface, to start or strengthen an inner dialog. We call this integration of ego states and help you with methods of inner parts and transactional analysis (especially the ego parts of transactional analysis). The aim is for your ego parts to begin to accept each other, ideally appreciate each other and work together as an ‘inner team’.
In a second step, you will work on interrupting unwanted patterns of behavior and replacing them with better, confidently controlled and non-automated alternatives. Your ego parts will help you with this – as an ‘inner team’. We continue to use resource-based methods, including the Zurich Resource Model, which is incredibly powerful, effective and therefore quite complex to develop.
Topic 4 Too much closeness? Still longing for closeness?
What about you and others? Do you go into attack or flight mode when closeness becomes too much for you? Do you jump back and forth between the extremes of ‘I want a lot of closeness’ and ‘I want my peace and quiet’? Or do you simply get restless when relationships become too intense? Too serious? Do you or others think you are‘not relationship material‘?
Or do you feel uncomfortable when you have to make a clear announcement as a manager? Because then you get close to an employee, because emotions might come up and‘spill over‘ onto you? Because being human and performing somehow get mixed up in a strange way?
Or are you labeled as a ‘social animal’ but somehow feel that your friendships and relationships don’t have the intensity and emotional depth that would do you good. They are shallow, quick, fast-moving.
Or can you instead enter into a deep, genuine relationship with your partner, friends, employees, colleagues, managers? Do you feel that you can do this without giving up or denying yourself? As a leader, can you engage in dialog that is fact-based, focused and empathetic at the same time?
We call all these aspects of integration interpersonal integration.
Your work on this topic starts with you. The basis is your mindfulness for yourself. What happens inside you when you relate to others? Are there any fears? Which ones? What is the background to them? What needs do you actually have within yourself, what possibilities do you have to fulfill them?
It often also helps to look at the inner ego parts (see the previous topic). This is because different ego parts usually also have different needs in terms of closeness and distance, uniqueness and belonging. An inner dialog between your ego parts then helps to find good solutions in interpersonal relationships.
Where necessary, we will also work with you on communication and conflict management, for example when it comes to understanding specific situations in everyday working life and working through communication alternatives.
Topic 5: Distance from life? Is everything ‘gray in gray’? Your physical self – far away?
Does life feel ‘gray in gray’? Are you moving through life without stronger feelings – positive or negative? Is your body perhaps something that is further away? Pain? Repressing it? Go to the doctor? Nonsense. Sport? Maybe, if it has something to do with power, performance and winning. Whether it kills your knees? Never mind.
Is your body reacting? Does it warn you and suddenly take you out of work – almost without being asked? From your performance? Performance? And forces you to rest? Of course, not every illness is a signal. But sometimes illnesses come from deep within you and want to send you a message : “Attention: body to cerebral cortex! Body to cerebral cortex!”
The observations described – distance from life, distance from your body – could be indicators that there is something there. That you may be working on your so-called vertical integration could work on. In neuroscientific terms, this is about the interplay between the body, brain stem, limbic system and cortex.
We help you to work on strengthening this resonance between body, emotions and mind. To build a healthy, close connection. The central exercise for this is the so-called bodyscan, an exercise for mindfulness for the whole body, from head to toe (you can find the bodyscan as an exercise to try out via the link).
We complement this exercise by helping you to understand and work through the background to your disconnection of mind, emotions and body.
Topic 6: How do you tell your life story?
Look at your individual, personal life story. Does it make sense? Can you tell it coherently?
Or do you think: if only I had … then everything would have turned out very differently. Or: if only my parents had supported me differently, more, less! If only my father had been there! Everything would be different. There is sadness, disappointment, resignation, fear or anger within you. Often also a lot of reproach towards yourself.
We also call finding peace with your past Integration of your life story. This is an important topic for you and your environment. It has been scientifically proven, for example, that your children can form strong, secure bonds with themselves and others if you can tell a clear and coherent story of your childhood and youth. When you have found peace within yourself.
Finding peace within yourself opens up calm and contentment with the here and now. Inner peace is a source of strength. And perhaps closed doors will open again. At eye level, with appreciation and respect.
If necessary, we will therefore help you to look at your past in biographical work and accompany you in your first steps so that you can find peace with your past. In some cases, we will also reach the limits of what makes sense in coaching and recommend that you work through your biographical issues in therapy.
Conceptual background
These are the six typical themes of inner and outer distance, inner and outer conflict and lack of integration that we encounter again and again in coaching. Do you find yourself again? Then let’s talk and walk the path together.
Are you interested in the scientific and conceptual background? Then read on.
The conceptual basis for our work on the topics described above is the book“Mindsight” by Daniel J. Siegel. It has the subtitle “The new science of personal transformation”. This small booklet summarizes decades of Siegel’s coaching and therapeutic work. His findings have now been fully confirmed by neuroscience (brain scans).
Siegel begins by describing his vision of a good life. He calls it being “in the flow” and describes this flow vividly with the acronym “FACES“: F: Flexible (flexible in situations, in dealing with other people, etc.), A: Adaptive (adaptable to new requirements, challenges), C: Coherent (consistent), E: Energized (energetic), S: Stable (stable).
Siegel observed that people are not “in the flow” precisely when they are not “integrated” within themselves, for example when there are inner conflicts, such as the six issues described above (Siegel describes two other possible missing integrations, which in our opinion should not be dealt with in coaching but in therapy: the “integration of memories”, e.g. traumatically repressed memories, and the “integration of time”, e.g. the finiteness of life).
Finally, Siegel shows how all the missing integrations described above are reflected in brain activity (measurable brain waves!). Horizontal integration, for example, in brain waves oscillating harmoniously across the right and left hemispheres, vertical integration in signals and brain waves from the brain stem to the cortex.
Invitation
No matter whether you are interested in personal development, leadership, professional development or simply psychology. We invite you: feel inside yourself – where are you well integrated “with yourself”? Where would you like to grow further? Allow yourself to grow!
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