Intimacy + Strangeness as effective partners in your growth.
When you’re committed to evolving (getting that new job, improving your fundamental relationships, finally loving yourself exactly as you are, etc) having a coach that allows both Intimacy and Strangeness can be highly effective (aka, faster and more ‘you’ growth)
Strangeness– thoughts that feel unfamiliar to your current thought framework. Think about this like another language, a different way of driving (on the other side of the road like in England), the taste of water being foreign to your tongue.
Strangeness helps your brain in these ways–
reminding it that there is no ‘one way’ to do anything
lessening its grip on the thoughts it believes are universal ‘truth’
creating some malleability so that new thoughts and perspectives can form
opening the door to new (previously scary) thoughts by reminding it that it’s not the constant belief in one, unchanging thought that creates safety. You can create safety even while allowing thoughts to evolve.
Exciting your brain and stimulating a dopamine response (exhilaration) that is really helpful when moving through to new thoughts
Examples of this:
Travel
New Cultures
Learning a new language
Getting to know someone who thinks radically different than you
Intimacy– honesty, closeness and vulnerability with a trusted human.
Intimacy helps our brain evolve because it’s much easier to absorb new thoughts when we feel safe, but seen. There’s inherently something a little risky about intimacy but when it’s established and rooted in values that keep the connection strong, it will dramatically help new thoughts to stick.
Having an intimate connection to your coach can help with faster growth. That connection itself can’t be rushed, but when it’s established it can help you grow faster.
This is particularly why I coach how I do– longer term engagements while I also live in a foreign country. There’s inherently something different yet also very close about the way I do coaching. And you can engineer that in your own life. Travel. Get to know people who are not like you, who speak another language or have different customs. Get to know someone in your life truly intimately, learn how to first create safety in your brain. And then go out there and evolve, baby!
I’m currently booking 1-on-1 clients between my program launches. Sign up for your first 2 coaching calls here, and then we’ll see what program suits you best.
xo,
s