Beyond the Breakthrough

I’m privileged to work in service to humanity, offering witness and guidance to those who have the courage to come face-to-face with their beliefs, wounds, misconceptions and disappointments in return for the opportunity to create a new way of living.  And yet, I am always very clear that there’s still very important work to be accomplished beyond a breakthrough coaching session.
     
Get a Clear Vision
I always want a client to think about what long-term success looks like.  Success starts with a vision, which is very different from setting a goal.  Where a goal creates action based on a short-term, time-based focus — a vision creates a picture of the outer horizon that pulls the unconscious mind forward with a compelling and inspiring look into the future.  I like to think of a vision as a potential living legacy.   Creating a vision is never a pre-session assignment because most clients aren’t capable of creating a vision worthy of their full potential until they are unencumbered from the beliefs and rules that limit their ability to dream from a place of love, not protection.
 
Align Actions with Vision
Once a client gets clear on what they want, it becomes easy to gauge whether they are being the person and acting in accordance with the legacy they want to create.  It couldn’t be simpler; if the vision states, “I am a woman who operates from a place of love, compassion, patience, empathy and grace so that I can nurture healthy and symbiotic relationships” — this person gets to ask herself with every thought, gesture, and behavior if she is honoring her long-term vision of success.  When there’s incongruence, it’s an invitation to create short-term goals or examine our behaviors for beliefs in an effort to move closer to the vision. 

Continue to Release the Beliefs
In a breakthrough session, I guide clients to clear out old unproductive file cabinets that contain limiting beliefs.  Our focus is always in one area of their life — whether career, relationships, spirituality, health and/or fitness, etc.  And yet, individuals have a lifetime of experiences.  This means that the chance of us releasing all negative emotions and limiting beliefs is unrealistic.  Therefore, I encourage clients to continue to release any beliefs that might surface beyond the session.  This is probably the most important step, but the most neglected by clients. 

The pathway to wholeness and self-acceptance is paved with awareness, accountability and a commitment to continued growth, and this should include a practice of letting go.  (In fact, probably one of my most significant beliefs I’ve released was almost two years after my first breakthrough session, but more a
bout that later.)  Once a client knows how to release a belief, the only task at-hand is to identify the belief.  This should be as easy as following the feelings, which is why I always talk about following the emotion in my post-breakthrough meeting.  This process should be a life skill.  Just two weeks ago I had a post-meeting that exemplified this lesson. 

The client and I had spent the first half of our meeting talking about how different she felt, how her body felt absent of the anxiety that use to reside in her abdomen, and how she was showing up differently in relationships.  At some point, however, she mentioned an unproductive conversation she had in her head regarding a long-standing issue between her and her husband.  We both decided to explore what belief was behind the judgmental comment, because we both wanted the progress toward growth to continue.    

First, I asked her to reconnect to the emotion she was feeling at the time she made the judgmental comment.  It was anxiety.  Once she connected to the emotion, I asked her what was behind needing to judge her husband.  She said, “I want everything to happen quickly.  I don’t understand why he was so passive in his action.”  I asked her how long she had this problem of wanting things instantly.  Not surprising, she said all her life.  I then jokingly said, “Did you walk behind your children saying…hurry up, hurry up!” 

I could tell from the look on her face that we hit upon something significant; something that didn’t surface in our breakthrough session.  I inquired about what I was sensing from her physiology and body language.   She responded, “I could feel emotions of anxiety in every part of my body when you said that statement!?”

This example is a great reminder that beliefs can sometimes sound benign, but the emotion will tell us if we’ve hit the jackpot.  She believes she has to hurry up.  This belief creates impatience, directing behavior, rules for productivity, a sharp bluntness in communication…all in the name of expediency.  

As we prepared to release the belief that she needed to hurry up through life, I asked her when this belief was created — before, during or after birth.  She knew intuitively and instantly it was created during pregnancy.  This was a good sign; the immediacy of her response tells me she is getting to the earliest experience that created this early belief.  This information also tells me she is preparing to free herself from one of the oldest concepts that created the relationship problems she’s been experiencing.  And, that is exactly what happened — she released…because there is always work beyond a breakthrough.