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Participate in the Online Discussion (8/12 – 8/23/19)
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37 Replies
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**Initial Post**
I recently had a client that was struggling with self doubt and negative self talk. She would have an experience that was very impactful and surround with lots of fore thought that when was satisfied with, a sense of pride associated with, the time and work that went into it. Upon completion of the experience she would be able to embody and feel that satisfaction and pride, but then her brain would almost immediately begin to tell her that she is a piece of shit, no one understood what you were talking about, etc. So I ask her to recall a time or times when she felt that price and accomplishment and pendulated between that feeling and the negative self talk, and almost immediately the feelings dissipated. This exercise didn’t seem to be one that she felt she could use and bring with her, however it definitely brought awareness that she can feel different and doesn’t have to stay stuck.
In the same session I started her off on the feeling of the negative self talk and talked her through a 7 breathe exercise because in the session she mentioned meditation and focusing on the breathe. The exercise brought calmness and grounding into the feeling of pride and accomplishment. Basically once again separating the two feelings of what she described and hard to breath to easier to breath. Through the session we were beginning to change ritual and start the process of rewiring the brain.
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Ben,
I love how you bring in the ritual and rewiring together. The act of practice and what is really happening in the brain is powerful. And such an art to be able to articulate that to your client that they are simply having the experience. Thanks for sharing!
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Hey Ben, I missed that you did the exercise about swinging back and forth, too. sorry about that. got in a rush. I think that exercise is really, really helpful for people, even in the moments in which they are getting overwhelmed with their memories as they tell me about what is going on with them. Does it seem to you like there are multiple parts at work with your client, some that even feel a bit overwhelmed when she feels “better”?
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I am not sure that she “feels better” she is more aware that she can feel different rather than stuck in a single emotion or negative self talk.
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Ben,
It really sounds like you hit the nail on the head with utilizing the resourcing with the pendulation!You really allowed her to increase her awareness around what it was she was thinking, and not get stuck in that loop. I also like that you brought in the 7 breaths because she was already somewhat comfortable with meditation and focusing on the breath.
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Initial Post
Hi all,
I’ll focus here on:• How did or could change theory and neuroscience principles fit into your nature-connected coaching session?
My recurring client, K, is a female in her early 40s who in February of this year had just initiated a break-up in an important romantic relationship in her life. She told me that she wanted to explore her feelings around the issue, and move on from a feeling of grief & deep loss, and that is what we have been attempting to do (over Zoom) for the past 7 months. (K is very verbal, in her head, talking non-stop for most sessions)
She was resolved to her decision to break up with the man, D, who she said in numerous sessions “clearly just wasn’t the one for me.” She felt disregarded for her opinions, and a basic incompatibility of lifestyles (ex: she is very health conscious and progressive. He prefers more traditional values, products, etc.). And yet she had deep sadness when again confronted with the prospect of raising her son, and “doing life” alone. When she first came to me, she was in the Contemplation phase, having just completed an abrupt Action phase (she initiated the break-up), and finding it extremely difficult to maintain and support her decision, she was contemplating how to connect with new people, experiences, etc, to lessen her anxiety and sadness.
We went through several sessions outlining actions and goals, yet the homework never really got done—I had this image of her on the fence, never fully committing to actions, exercises, and experiences that would create new neural pathways as she navigated life without D. She did the Action, then was very reluctant to do any Maintenance. After several cancelled sessions, I got a message from K that she was back together with D and life was great! Also, no more need for coaching sessions at this time.What happened here? My read on it is that K never made the Action I thought she had. Yes they split up and didn’t live together anymore, yet they still talked frequently and remained very close. Yes, she made an Action to break up with D, but it was abrupt and so maybe she didn’t do the work in Contemplation or Planning to feel more grounded in her decision, and more forward-looking in her life attitude. The emotional attachment she felt to D—and all those neurons firing together, continued strongly throughout the 7 months, with little else to take its place. That’s the key. . I should have noticed something when no homework was getting done. Many of her statements in sessions had to do with D and the past and I feel now that she needed these very talkative sessions just to see how she really DID feel, and that her previous Action—rash as it was— was needed as a way to call time-out and sort out her feelings while maintaining some connection with D. That seven month’s time for her seems almost like a pendulation between “Here’s my life on my own” and “Here’s my potential life with D.”
D won, at least for now. I’m curious what you all think about this, and whether my read seems on target–and that I’m identifying the stages of change correctly… 🙂
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This is interesting Sandy. I feel like it could be either way for this client, she may have gone through the cycle of change completely through her sessions like you said by just venting and getting everything out or she may still be in contemplation and settled with the lesser of the two evils. I would be curious to see where she is in the next seven months. Either way she was able to find what she deems a viable solution through her coaching experience. Thats the great thing about coaching is we can miss the mark or feel like we missed the mark and the client experience can be something totally different and unexpected. thank you for sharing your experience!
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Sandy,
I love this SO much! Weird as that sounds, but this is such a beautiful example of the timeframe the process of change can happen at. For me, as I know for myself change happens over a long period of time, sometimes I find myself “pushing my agenda” and wanting the client to move along faster. And that simply isn’t the goal at all. It is their process and we are there to support. I really enjoyed your final reference of one long pendulation session. I could definitely see that. Thank you for sharing!
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-Hey, Sandy, so good to read your post! I hear you really hanging in there with this client and putting it in the perspective of a broader sense of toggling between two feeling states seems to make so much sense to me. I had to smile when you said that your client seemed to talk a lot during the sessions. I think I know that sensation. For me it can feel a little difficult if that occurs a lot because I wonder if my client is just spinning with the same information and feeling states and deflecting aspects of possible change. Plus, sometimes I start to wonder if I am just a warm body and start to question how far that goes in being of assistance to someone! Where to put the boundary on those things is something I still play around with and question when I review my day. Especially now, as I have the personal goal of “nudging” people a bit more than I maybe have in the past.
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Sandy,
I’m very interested in this situation. It sounds like you were really able to hold that sacred space. I know it seems tricky sometimes, wondering if anything is actually happening when she appears to be just talking a lot. On the surface it looks like she could have gone through her on stages of the cycles of change, but there might always be more underneath. Maybe she didn’t do the maintenance, or maybe she had a different way of going through it. Either way it is amazing to hear how your experience unfolded. -
hi sandy!
great story sharing. to me, personally, perhaps this client may have felt like they were lacking something in their relationship, and venting to you after all that time, may have triggered a deeper emotion. you never know what the client is thinking, but you showed up for the client, actively listened, and the client seems to have resolved their own issue. it doesn’t seem like it was an unhealthy relationship to be in, maybe after being in a relationship for such a long time, the client just needed to step away in order to see things more clearly. this seems to me like a possible “the grass is greener” situation and you were an awesome coach who helped K through the difficult time.
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Initial Post:
Create a hypothetical situation:
• Provide us with a short back story of the client. Note: it helps to consider people in your life to create this scenario.
• Backstory of client would be overwhelmed with life. Never has enough time for anything and is ready to make a change but overwhelmed with how and where to start.
• Describe how you would Establish the Coaching Agreement
• I always start out my intial sessions by explaining what coaching is and what the client can expect. Additionally, I always make a point to state my personal and professional belief in confidentiality. Finally, if it is someone I know personally, I also disclose the shift of taking on the role of coach for them and asking permission.
• What opportunities could arise that would allow you to apply the concepts learned in this module, and how would you invite it in.
• The opportunities of the change progression of contemplation to integration to relapse. Inviting that in by talking about the change process with my client and identifying where they were at. I love including a technique of education as well to help empower my clients. Not overwhelming, but to provide them with the “why” when appropriate is something I appreciate personally and like to bring in to my practice.
• Additionally, the actual process of creating new pathways to new desired habits. Again, communicating how the actual brain is changing while doing this and the importance of consistency and focused intention in creating new habits. Nature connection could come in big time here. Using different pathways in nature, finding how nature has charted different courses, etc.
• Feeling overwhelmed also is something to work with in exploring existing beliefs around overwhelm and working to play with what it would look like (with the support of a coach) to choose calm. And here as well, nature connection can truly help drive home the feeling of calm and patience versus overwhelm and rushed. Nature doesn’t hurry and it still gets everything accomplished. Note to myself personally as well.-
Taylor! Hi, hi! It is so good to read your post. I doubly appreciated the client you brought forward with the issue of overwhelm. I feel like some days that is the issue de jour in my office. Your explaination of education and support grounded me, too! I appreciate reading the steps you take and how it feels you give them to your clients in just the right size at just the right time. I am reminding myself how I want to sit with my vision council even more when I am with clients, so I, too, can be calm enough and grounded enough to give the right-sized bites to me clients. Miss you already. I hope we can stay connected on our various paths through EBI.
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Hi Taylor,
I really appreciate that you share so much with your clients around brain science and stages of change. I agree this approach of transparency and sharing info with clients can be so empowering and effective. It can really help to point out that re-lapse isn’t ‘failure’. Also, I really like how you are returning again and again to Nature to mirror and be metaphor for all various process stuff that comes up! -
Taylor,
I love your experience around creating the coaching agreement. Clearly stating your own personal and professional beliefs as separate things really seems like it gives a lot more to the client. They get to also be with the different parts of you, and to me it creates a more intimate setting with working with People. That is really important that you establish the intention of coaching confidentiality and sacred space even when working with people that you know. That is something I lack sometimes, but I feel it is important to do. That way both parties are in the right state. Thank you for sharing!
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Initial Post: I am kind of late jumping in here. I have been on Quest, and that took all of my attention prior to going, and of course, the time of actually being there. But I am enjoying reading the posts, and am so glad to hear from you guys.
I have a client that I have been working with for several months. He has a lot of rage, going back to when he was a child, and then through his teen years until now. He reports he does not remember much of his childhood, but feels there is “no reason” for his rage. He is a vet, and although he says he didn’t feel he fit well in the armed services, he blames what he feels is his difficulty in man-ing up and just powering through difficult times, as why he didn’t fit. He has two young girls now and is the primary care-giver for them and is extremely interested in being calm and reassuring toward them when they challenge him, rather than exploding in rage as he has been prone to do.
We have used a number of brain change principles, starting with identifying him as approaching our sessions in a contemplation and planning stage of change. Initially, he and I had to negotiate even how to talk to one another as he tended to take exception to things he felt I meant toward him, or even him feeling comfortable enough to explain what was happening for him. He was extremely attuned to what type of vibe I was sending out and as we identified that his system was hyperaroused almost constantly for particular vibes regarding emotional safety, I did a lot of education about the nervous system and why this may be occurring for him. So I relied a lot on mirror neurons to allow myself to understand better his internal process, provide reflection, and to provide him with a calm and open presence when he was reporting on things that upset his system. Building that structure and trust allowed him to begin trying new methods of self-soothing, which as he had success with that contributed to him feeling more enthusiastic about moving even more into the planning and action phases of change.
As one aspect of the work began to build on another, reinforcing even other aspects of work, shifts began to happen fairly rapidly. He now contemplates what he wants to achieve at each session, and is more open to trying experiments both inside and outside of the time we have together. One type of exercise that I have been taught before is a “toggleing” exercise. In this exercise, he begins in an emotionally neutral, meditative, state. He then reflects on something that in the past would arouse his system and attempts to really feel his body heating up-internally coaching himself to focus and concentrate on the sensation. Then, he asks himself to mentally dial it down to neutral again. And then, swings to the side of the sensations he wants to feel regardless of the external events-in general feelings of being grounded and connected to himself, open, breathing easily, calm mind, etc., Asks himself to turn up those feelings, then down and return to neutral. After he has toggled back and forth several times, it is much more difficult for him to get aroused, and much easier to stay in a calm, confident state.
Perhaps this exercise was outlined during the days I missed at the last toolbox, but if it was not, it is one I find very useful.-
Hi Lisa!
Your post was really inspiring, and I found I was really interested in how you were able to deeply understand the issues your client was dealing with–to attune with his vibe, and he with yours. Clearly this has had a big impact in building trust so your client kept coming back over many months, and got the benefits that they did. Kudos to you.I really appreciate your ‘toggling’ exercise, which feels kind of like pendulation, but maybe should be called, ‘modulation’, as you’re asking the client to self-reference across a wide spectrum of feeling, not just between states A and B.
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Hello again, everyone. This is my summary post. Something that I remembered that I did with the client I talked about before in this post, was that when he was first beginning to meet with me, he so often felt he just needed to give up on his vision for being a calm, strong, confident, father. He had a very active inner critic that once he started saying outloud what the critic was saying to him, was pretty brutal. So I asked him if he would go to his children’s rooms when they were asleep, and be with them for awhile, noticing their breathing and then in a way syncing his breathing with theirs. Then, if he would put one hand on their backs to really feel their heart beat along with their breathing, and one hand on his heart, while he spent time envisioning the kind of dad he is becoming. That is, really feeling into his own body the qualities that he was moving toward. He told me that this was a very emotional experiment for him. He ended up doing what I felt was maybe a lot of grieving, while he also reaffirmed his deeper need and willingness to not give up what he wanted to accomplish. It also seemed to help remind him that he could move toward his objectives out of love, not out of fear, which tended to quiet the inner critic. We were able to use the breath and heart-beat thing later, when one of his kids would get upset, and he could see that child’s base line was way off of what he experienced being with when that child was asleep. So he didn’t have to interpret what his kid was doing as a direct assault on his parenting self-worth, and take it for what it was-his kid was getting dysregulated. It also helped him be aware of his own baseline and doing things to keep his own breathing and heart rate steady and as slow as possible when his kid was dysregulated. So many things we have done are neurologically based, and fortunately, just learned by many of us automatically as we are growing up. But for one reason or another, he didn’t get a chance to experience that first hand, so we did these and other experiments, and they seemed to help.
In summary, though, I am kind of glad that I don’t really need to remember which part of the brain is doing what when I am working with clients. Or at least, I don’t really keep that in mind, and hope that is ok. Because I always forget anyway, and I think if I was thinking about that I would not even be able to keep up with the conversation in the room. I take a lot of reassurance from knowing that cultures that are more earth-based, use things like ritual and ceremony, which seem like they are based on neurology and even are a lot like experiments, and saw that they worked to help with real change in people-even before there were MRIs and CTs to see what was happening in the brain. Let’s me off the hook for remembering that stuff.
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Summary Post
It has been nice to read about how everyone is using what we learned with trauma and the brain. I have found myself using the trauma exercises more and more with clients that aren’t even experiencing trauma and using the exercises to ground the client. Most of the clients I have used pendulation with are able to bring the concept into their daily lives and use themselves. I feel that these exercises are very beneficial in changing and rewiring the brain.
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Summary Post
It has been good to see how we are all shifting our own brains to re-frame our work with clients using more brain science, awareness of stages of change, etc. I am always inspired by how intuitive and creative everyone of us is–and different too. Each of our coaching styles will use and benefit differently from Brain science awareness. For me, I feel like these ideas will really stick with me and become a stronger part of my education/practice with clients: The Prochaska States of Change, the reality of neuroplasticity, and the power of story/myth in porviding the framework for our entire lives.
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Initial post:
The concept of rewiring the brain to develop new habits and ways of beings is not complex to understand, the deep and hard work is in the doing! So much of neuroscience makes sense and so many of these readings explain it in a really digestible way, a way in which I can also explain it to my clients.
As a Coach, I like to use the KISS approach (keep it simple stupid) because I believe it makes it understandable and when something is understandable it becomes doable. How do we explain the enormously complex thing that is the brain and its wiring? On top of that, the concept that we’re pre-wired by genetics, DNA and moulded by influences from even before birth – mind blowing!
So, in my sessions, my personal preference is to incorporate all my learnings without necessarily calling out specifically that we’ll work with one modality.I’m in the fortunate position to have been asked to coach the direct report of my former People Leader. This is a sensitive relationship as my former PL is paying me so she’s the client but her employee is also the client so I was very careful to set clear boundaries about confidentiality and under what circumstances I might provide feedback to my PL. I was also clear that I would not provide any feedback to my PL without first sharing it with my client – a fine line to tread.
I’ll use today’s session as it’s my 4th session with this client and I’ve noticed a pattern with her of both a lack of self worth and a deep need for external validation. She’s newly-married, in her early 30s and was a licensed therapist for 5 years, working with low to non-functioning individuals. She is now in Silicon Valley in a fast-scaling start up and learning to be a Business Partner. Her biggest challenge, as her boss sees it, is that she is finding it hard to transition from being the employee advocate to the corporate steward, usually taking an employee’s point of view over the best interests of the company.
In our previous sessions, she’s talked about the leader she supports as triggering her in a way which reminds her of her mother – enter Partswork stage left! We’ve talked about this peripherally in our sessions but I’m sensing an unwillingness in her to open this discussion, even though I know that having a better understanding of what triggers her will help her to manage it real time. I’m confident we’ll get there in the next couple of sessions. She is also looking for a very direct style of coaching as her own style is to fix and move on so asking questions which generate awareness and learning while helping her to feel that she’s achieving something is also challenging.
As it relates to this topic, she is a classic example of having to rewire her thinking and behaviors; she’s used to being a problem-solver and a doer, both by nature and in her career however, this new role requires a very different skillset to which she is struggling to adapt. She’s trying to understand how to succeed and feel valued without necessarily receiving the external validation she’s used to. She has issues around the concept of being ‘an equal’ and how to coach someone she perceives to be superior to her and she’s finding it a challenge to be more consultative than directive.
The gift to me is that, as a trained therapist, she understands the concepts of neuroscience and is experienced in human behavior so having conversations and helping her to create her own awareness is, I believe, much easier than working with someone without that foundation. I’ve talked to her about tools she can use to manage her triggers – at this point they are not out in nature, per se, but they are nature-based. It can be challenging to coach someone virtually who is in a corporate environment and can’t get outside but, I believe that in the future I may be able to do a live session and I’m excited to see how that might transform her thinking. I notice that her IM is pinging all the way thru’ our session and can see her being distracted by it – something I’d like to work on with her to benefit not just our sessions but all interactions she has with others who should be her whole focus.Because change takes time and willingness, I know that I can’t expect to see change in 4 sessions but I am already seeing her awareness develop. I think she’s in a contemplative state around how things might look different but isn’t yet there in terms of how to do it. Her natural tendency is to provide solutions to others and, if I were to speculate, I think she’s looking to me to tell her how she can do things differently and what to say. I’m deliberately holding back, knowing it will take longer and potentially cause her frustration based on her preference towards action but also being confident that the constant requirement for her to voice her own thoughts and my reflections, will create a stronger and longer term change.
I love that we had the opportunity to understand about the change process at a deeper level because, for me personally, it has given me the ability to build a patience around how and why it is so hard. I believe that this will make me a more effective coach to my clients in supporting their own change processes.
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Response to Sandy:
This was like reading a bad romance novel!
In reading your response, it seems that you are very accepting of the decision she’s made – am I reading that right? What would/will you do if/when she comes back to you and says she’s made a mistake?
I appreciated your insights into the stage she might have been at in terms of contemplation vs action and perhaps how, as her coach, you might have misread her intentions; so easy to do! I guess at the end of the day, you were there for her, created the space for her to work thru’ a lot and while the outcome might not have been as expected, maybe you created the exact space she needed to get to that outcome and perhaps move into a healthier relationship…
I wonder how you felt as a Coach having spent 7 months working with her towards what might have felt like a goal only to have her go back to a relationship that she’d spent months talking about all the ways it wasn’t right? This is where, as a Coach, I find it challenging not to get more invested in the outcome than my client – did you find that hard? -
Response to Taylor:
“Feeling overwhelmed also is something to work with in exploring existing beliefs around overwhelm and working to play with what it would look like (with the support of a coach) to choose calm”
How you posed the concept of exploring existing beliefs around overwhelm resonating so strongly with me; it’s a question I often ask “what does that mean to you” because you will literally get a different answer from every person you ask and it creates permission for that person to articulate their world and reality.
I also like ‘choose’; we, more often than not, forget that we have a choice in almost everything. I’ve been reading quite a bit recently around the concept of choosing to stay in a bad place because it’s familiar (I’ve always called it comfortably uncomfortable). It’s so true that we default to what we know and that it takes consciousness, awareness and a ton of work to move away from discomfort and into the unknown, knowing that it could be worse but could be better.
While you’ve posted in theory, I appreciated how clearly you appear to understand the principles and am excited for you to apply them with a client. When do you think that will happen for you? -
Summary post:
Change is hard! We have years, decades of rewiring to do and sometimes we might not even know what we need to rewire.
The 5 stages resonates strongly with me as I am personally quick to move thru’ the planning stage to action and I believe that, as a Coach, to have a client who sits in planning for an extended time, will be a challenge for me.
I’ve appreciated the points of view shared by others in terms of the humility around how things might turn out and the willingness to just be with them – don’t be more invested than your client!
I thrive on change and believe it’s essential to our evolving lives but, equally, have a much deeper understanding of why it’s hard and how it manifests, sometimes without us even being aware (pre contemplation). I’m excited to continue using this knowledge to help people live their best lives. -
Initial Post:
I have recently begun seeing a client who I will call Tom the purposes of this post. Tom initially found me through my postings online to advertise my life coaching practice. Prior to actually meeting, he had a lot of questions about what Nature Connected Coaching is and my practice. We chatted online some and I was able to kind of build a history and biography, an intake if you will. We spoke once on the phone to formalize our coaching relationship and I explained my process to him. I reminded him both in the online discussions and on the phone that our conversations are confidential.
Since I already has some of his background, it was easier to jump into a full session when we finally met at a nearby park. The biggest thing that he wanted to talk about was anxiety surrounding change in his life. After digging a little deeper, I found that the changes that he is most concerned about, would be positive changes to his life. For instance, he and his girlfriend went through a rocky part of their relationship. But what he’s most anxious about is that now that things are feeling better, they will get worse again. He is in a job that he doesn’t really like and has the opportunity for a new one, but he is anxious about the chance for a change.
Believing that good things are in the works for him, I invited him to tell me what it will be like when there is no doubt that his relationship is strong and what it would be like to have a better job. I had him sit with those thought for a bit. Before giving him homework, I explained the idea of the river forming a new canyon. He has to remain positive and truly believe that good things are coming to be in a position to receive them when the universe is ready to share. His homework was to 1) find a sit spot and 2) journal there daily until our next session, writing as if the good things have already happened. Is life better? How do you feel? How is the new job? How is the relationship? Etc. I wanted him to literally re-route that doubt.
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Initial Post
I have a client I have worked with several times. She battles a lot with uncertainty and change. She is constantly thinking about the next thing, and what she should do, or should have done. Never really allowing herself to connect with the present moment and be with it.
To establish the coaching agreement I always ask for permission to hold a sacred space of non-judgement for her to be her authentic self, and that anything we talk about will not be shared in a very public manner as to expose more than she would like. The next question after establishing this has always been what is coming up/ what do you want to focus on right NOW (emphasis on the now).
When we start talking I notice that there is still an underlying focus on something that happened or might happen in the future. So, I always try to bring her back to the present moment. I do this by incorporating some things from this module, as well as some other studies in neuroscience. I spend a lot of time in the metaphysical world of thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions. I help her notice more about how her thoughts about the event that is causing worry is something that the neurons have just been trained to do, and that you can untrain them to do that as well. Using the analogy of the Grand Canyon, we went through some breathing exercises to bring her centered more into her body and the moment in the here and now. We started to work more from the feeling of presence, and creating from here, vs creating from a cognitive thought-based place.
This seemed to help in the moment. However, I noticed that working with her over time it was always the old patterns that came back up. She didn’t want to do much of the work involved with change, only wanting the results.
I learned that as much as I want other people to thrive and succeed at what they want, I can’t want it more than them. When that happened, I would become drained because I was putting more into it than they were. I learned a lot about myself and just trusting that the client will work through things in their own way, and in their own time. It does no good to lose myself, and not be able to help anyone out. -
Summary Post
After reading through all these different experiences we are all having I can’t help but just be in a state of gratitude and awe. I’ve learned a lot about using so many tools from this module. I use the information about the anatomy of the brain, and neuroscience a lot to help the client paint a picture on something more tangible that is happening to them that seems in the mystical realm. I love hearing how everyone else is using these tools as well, as it allows me to play around with and look at other ways of improving my own coaching style. As well as just becoming a better overall human being in this world. -
hi all,
so sorry for being so very behind, trying to play catch up this week.
I am replying and referring to clients I hope to work with in the future, not from a specific session.as far as setting the coaching presence, i like to take the first couple minutes to both get grounded together doing a breathing exercise. that helps to put us both in the same energy space/level and I find it helps me to attune myself to the client. I also feel that it helps the client to just take a minute to themselves to gather their thoughts and feelings of what they would like to work on for the session. After that I would be able to direct the session by asking the question of “What would be a good goal for us to work on today?” or “What would you like to walk away from this session accomplishing?”
I feel like the stages of change and neuroscience will be an incredible tool for my sessions. There is still so much to learn about it but I think we have been given tools that could really help guide our clients in a healthier direction. For example, if a client comes to me asking how come they know what they want to change in their life, they have tried without success, we can dig deeper into the stages of change and why they keep relapsing. In that situation we would discuss how they tried to make the change before, and discuss what needs to happen for the brain to actually change, and create the preparation for the action, followed by continued maintenance of that action so the change will stick this time.
