Why to Include Coaching in Your Healing

By Nicolina Werther

Disclaimer: Some of the suggestions in this article will not apply to someone who is severely depressed, or in other circumstances that limit their ability to engage with life around them.

When is it time to focus on healing - processing stuck emotions and changing old patterns of behaviour - and when is it time to focus on “doing,” e.g., building a life, career, or family?

Many people feel they need to heal an aspect of themselves before they can take action towards changing their outside circumstances, or they feel overworked and can’t see how they can fit healing into their already busy schedules. Of course, either situation can be the case. At times, someone can be in so much emotional and/or physical pain that healing is indeed all that should be on their agenda. Equally, there may be moments when “fire fighting” and focusing on what is immediately in front of us, need to take priority.

However, most of the time and for most people, healing and building should happen at the same time. Here is why:

When we heal, our relationship with ourselves, others, the world, and even life itself will change – and with that, our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. This is usually when you know if an “intervention,” be it self-exploration, a community experience, or working with a practitioner, has actually worked.

However, we also know that our outside circumstances – the quality of our relationships, our home, work and community environments, societal and cultural norms and structures, as well as collective experiences hugely influence our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours.

If we were to only focus on healing but make no effort to change outside circumstances that aren’t in our favour, we might have a hard time “sustaining” the healing. As some would argue, we can’t even fully heal in the same environment that has hurt us.

In addition, taking action and actively working towards changing something that matters to us can aid in healing. A focus on “doing” will show us where stuck patterns and emotions might be getting in the way of our goals.

When we focus on “doing,” on changing something in our environments or circumstances, we engage our executive functioning, which largely happens in the prefrontal cortex. Executive functioning includes skills like planning ahead, self-control, working memory, and problem-solving.

If someone is completely over- or underwhelmed by their emotions, accessing the prefrontal cortex can be difficult. That is why someone who is highly anxious or depressed can have difficulty focusing or completing mundane tasks, like cooking a meal. In these cases, focusing on nervous system/emotional regulation is indeed advisable.

If, however, someone generally functions well and manages to do most tasks sufficiently, and their main motivation for healing is to experience more joy, ease, success, or similar, then it can be a good idea to ensure their brain has something to focus and work on – like a task or project – while they also engage in deeper healing work.

The need to cultivate some level of focus can prevent someone from getting caught in unhelpful or self-destructive thought patterns. As much as outside demands can at times become too much, they can equally bring structure and direction into someone’s life.

Furthermore, striving towards a goal can further aid healing as any successful “doing” always requires self-efficacy, the confidence that one can achieve desired outcomes. That in itself, knowing that we have the agency and ability to improve our circumstances, can have a positive effect on our overall mood and well-being.

Lastly, it often only requires some simple tweaks to someone’s daily routines to shift an outlook of “having to do” something to actually looking forward to it. Having something to look forward to can increase a sense of excitement, motivation, purpose and, ultimately, satisfaction.

Even though big things to look forward to can have their perks, often it is the small changes, like a change of clothes, playing music in the background, or putting some fresh flowers on the desk, that are enough to change an ordinary, or not-so-great day into a good one.

To sum up, whenever we can, we want to include “doing” in our healing because:

- Confidence can be improved because of self-efficacy.

- A new sense of direction and purpose can be experienced because we are clear about what to focus on.

- It offers opportunities to design moments and experiences to look forward to.

- We will experience opportunities for growth and further healing, as any task or goal will come with new challenges to master.

- Our circumstances can improve because we are actively involved in changing them.

What does all of this have to do with “coaching”?

Traditionally, coaching has focused more on “doing,” whereas therapy would focus primarily on “healing” and “being.”

These days, the differences are much more nuanced and there is a lot of overlap between coaching and therapy – especially, coaches who are also trauma-aware and somatically trained, or therapists who have incorporated aspects of coaching into their practice.

This is where coaching and therapy can be particularly potent – by including both the dimensions of “doing” and “healing” at the same time. Our outside aspirations and projects will show us where internal patterns and behaviours are getting in the way of us experiencing the joy, ease, or success that we desire.

If you are someone who is interested in getting professional help, you can begin by asking yourself what you have been focusing on so far – the doing, or the being/healing, and if it might be time for a change.

About Nicolina Werther

Nicolina Werther is an embodiment coach and somatic practitioner and helps her clients overcome low self-esteem, self-doubt, anxiety, a lack of direction and purpose, emotional childhood wounds, as well as any behaviours that get in the way of living a satisfying and fulfilling life.

Much of her work focuses on establishing a healthy connection to each person's authentic, core self; the part that is already wholesome, full of potential, able to make rational decisions and navigate challenges with ease.

Nicolina enjoys working with creative, gentle, and thoughtful souls. She has studied various personal and professional development tools for almost 15 years, including mindfulness and mindful self-compassion, systemic and constellation work, intuitive and energy healing, performance and success coaching, as well as somatic approaches to trauma healing. She recently finished the Somatic Attachment Trauma Therapy training with the Embody Lab

Meet Nicolina and learn more about how somatic practices can help you on The Embody Lab’s Therapist Directory.

If you’re interested in understanding more about how somatic practices can help you, consider working with a Somatic Therapist or Practitioner. The Embody Lab’s Somatic Therapist and Practitioner Directory can help you find the right practitioner to support your journey towards more self-compassion, connection, and authenticity. Explore our directory and find the support you need.