So this article is designed to share my thoughts and ramblings and to open up further thinking. I don’t have the ‘one’ answer, it's open for personal reflection and personal opinion. 

So let me start with some basic definitions to get the ball rolling.

Firstly; Yoga is an ancient wisdom tradition, going back thousands of years. There are vast amounts of literature and ancient texts on Yoga, but for this article I am focusing on The Eight Limbs of Yoga as described by Patañjali, and a subset of those only. Specifically:

• The Yamas of Ahismā and Satya

• The Niyamas of Tapas and Svādhyāya 

Neuroscience is a term that you’re probably more likely to have heard of in the last 10 years, especially if you’ve had an interest in self development. In a nutshell Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system, with a key component being our brains. It aims to provide understanding of how the nervous system and the brain work.

Lastly, Coaching. It has many forms one definition:

ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership.

We all have goals we want to reach, challenges we’re striving to overcome and times when we feel stuck. Partnering with a coach can change your life, setting you on a path to greater personal and professional fulfillment.

Now lets get into the bones of this.

Starting with the principles of Ahimsā, Satya, Tapas and Svādhyāya.

Ahismā is about non-violence and not causing harm. And in the content of Coaching it’s about thoughts. Harmful thoughts. By harmful thoughts I take this to mean those negative thoughts we tell ourselves, e.g. ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I’m not lovable’, ‘I’m useless’, or ‘I don’t deserve it’. But also any thoughts that keep us stuck, keep us small, and stop us moving forward, thoughts which will have served us once, but now are holding us back reaching our dreams. 

Satya is about truth. It’s about being honest about our thoughts, feelings and actions. Coaching shines a light on our blind spots, helping us to be honest. Once we’re honest and can identify thoughts, feelings and actions, then we have the power to change, to move forward if we choose to.

Tapas is about discipline and patience. It takes time, it takes effort to make change and make change last. Coaching requires a dedication to the work, a commitment both during Coaching sessions and between sessions along the Coaching Journey.

Svādhyāya is about self-study and contemplation. Coaching for me is a process of taking action, reflecting, learning, adjusting and taking action again until I reach my goals. It's continuous, a lifelong journey of self-study and contemplation. 

During my journey I have seen first hand, both in myself and others, how the philosophies woven into the fabric of Yoga apply in this relatively modern practice of Coaching. 

I help clients to be honest (Satya) about their thoughts, feelings and actions and to identity those which are harmful or keeping them stuck (Ahismā). Then to support and empower them to identify their way forward, and reflect and learn (Svādhyāya). And I’m there when they need me as its not easy, it takes work, it takes discipline and patience (Tapas) to make lasting change.

But that geeky scientist in me, always asks the question ‘how does it work?’. I’m on a constant tightrope between belief/trust, and scientific explanations!

Which is why I have been so drawn to Neuroscience. 

My interest in Neuroscience was first sparked when I was looking into Manifestation. Many many years ago I had read about the Law of Attraction, and I’ve used vision boards and other techniques to help me ‘attract’ what I wanted in my life. 

But it was finding To Be Magnetic, a couple of years ago, that helped me to see the science behind the concept of Manifestation, and started my exploration into Neuroscience. 

My explorations (as a lay person!) into Neuroscience has taught me these important lessons:

1. We have the ability to change the way we think. We do not have to be stuck in old thought patterns. As someone who has had their own mental health challenges (as most people have or do), this is such a freeing thought. We do not have to be stuck in those thoughts, we can create new ones! Phew!

2. We need to do it our own way. I always thought I was stubborn, if someone told me how to do something, I wanted to know why and if I didn’t understand why or agree then I wouldn’t want to do it. I used to think I was a square peg in a round hole. But what I’ve learned from Neuroscience is that our brains are wired completely uniquely. So what works for one person won’t work for another person. Yes we might need to gather information and open our eyes to new perspectives, but it’s up to us to decide the way forward, to make our own unique neural pathways.  

3. It’s not easy. You don’t just think a new thought and say ‘that’s the one I will focus on and use’. Holding onto it through sheer will power or through denial or ignorance (pretending the old thought isn’t still there). Then get frustrated when you slip straight back into the old thought patterns. It takes work to create a new thought pattern and for the brain to use it rather than the old one. It takes repetition and intensity. (Tapas!)

Diving a little bit deeper into the science behind these lessons:

Wiring

Firstly, the concept of Neuroplascitisty, the brain's ability to flex and change. This is pretty well accepted science. Our brains are able to change, to create new wiring, new pathways. 

And added to this is the idea where no two brains are wired up the same. There are infinite possibilities of how a brain is wired. 

There are 300 trillion connections in the brain, and the brain is flexing and changing. 

What this means to me is that, what works for one person, won’t work for another. 

Does this sound familiar to you: Someone says, ‘I did …… and it worked for me’. You try it, you try really hard, but it just doesn’t work for you. 

Good news, you’re not a failure, it’s just that idea wasn’t the right one for you. It didn’t fit. 

As a Coach this is a fundamental point, and it’s what distinguishes Pure Coaching from Consulting or giving advice. As a Coach we do not tell clients what to do. We help clients discover what might work for them, we help them create their action plan and the support structures to implement it. And if that idea didn’t work out, we can help the client learn, then create a new action plan and support structures, until the client finds what works for them.

I’ve experienced it myself where I have come to a solution through coaching, and where I have been given advice (albeit well meaning). When the solution fits me, that’s when it’s powerful. And I believe when I’ve gone through the work, to become aware of what’s holding me back, reflected on it, understood its importance to me, generated solutions, selected one, and created a plan with support structures. Then it’s so much more powerful.

Pathways

I personally love the metaphor of pathways. We have pathways in our brains, as information comes in, the brain assesses it and based on previous experiences it will send that information down a pre-existing pathway to a conclusion, and then often an action (or reaction) occurs. 

And the brain likes to save energy, it likes to make life easier for itself, so it will try to shoehorn that information into pre-existing pathways. This explains why it’s so easy to stay in pre-existing habits. 

Now say you have a thought, you see a piece of cake as you go to get a cup of coffee in your favorite coffee shop (insert your vice here), and in the next few seconds without you really thinking about it; your mouth starts to water, you edge a bit nearer to take a closer look. The Barista asks would you like anything else to go with your coffee, and you say, “yes please, a slice of the carrot cake to go”.

Maybe, you’re trying to lose a few pound, maybe you’ve recently noticed that sugar exacerbates your anxiety levels (a recent discovery for me!), or maybe you’ve been recently diagnosed as borderline diabetic. You had every intention to just get a coffee and carry on with your day, you weren’t even hungry. 

Our brain rather unhelpfully here took in the information and pushed us down a pre-existing pathway in the brain. That pathway after years of use, is like a motorway, it’s wide, it’s solid, and it’s free flowing with no obstructions. (If you’re in the UK, the thought of a free flowing motorway is a dream, instead they’re full of traffic and potholes, but you still get my point!). 

Saying to yourself, I won’t eat sugar today. Then getting on with your day. It’s not enough.That’s like using a pair of scissors to cut a path through a field of Hay, it’s barely noticeable, let alone possible to walk down.

We need repetition and intensity to create a new pathway. 

Intensity - by this I mean emotional intensity. Really tapping into the Why. Why it’s important to you. 

Take our example above, with the boarder line diabetic. The Why they want to not eat sugar that day; It can help prevent them becoming fully diabetic, when they’d need to take daily insulin injections, they’d have increased risk of multiple health conditions that could decrease their ability to enjoy life, or shorten their life. And they want to live, and live well, they want to play with their children, run for the bus if they need to, hike up Snowdonia. 

That’s the emotional intensity.

Repetition - this for me is why I often say it’s not easy. We create a new thought pattern, it starts out as a bramble ridden footpath. Everytime we take that path, we make it slightly wider and more easy to use. 

But we’re comparing here, a footpath to a motorway. Remember the brain wants to take the easy route, save itself energy. So we need to keep walking that footpath, till it becomes just as easy, then more easy to use, than the old motorway. 

As a Coach, I help people to create their own new pathways, to tap into the Why, creating that emotional intensity and then help them create action plans to enable them to work on the repetition, with support structures to increase the ratio of use of the new pathway versus the old one.

Bias

There’s so much information and stimulus that floods into our brains. 

Remember the brain likes to save energy, so it has to filter the information coming in. And it will filter that information based on previous experiences, aka selective attention.

Have you ever bought something new, be it a new jacket, bag, or car. And before you never saw it around, maybe occasionally. But once you bought it, you literally see the exact same bag/jacket/car everywhere you go!

The brain is also value-tagging each piece of info. It will value tag logically or emotionally. Logical value tagging is about the brain assigning value to information based on the value it has to us and our survival. Emotional value tagging is about assigning a value based on our ‘social safety’, family, community relationships. Our emotional value tagging may skew the logical value tagging, e.g. fear of criticism may hold us back applying for a career promotion. 

So our brain is selectively choosing what to store and use and what value to assign to it. And then it sends that information down the pre-existing pathway. 

But, if this is starting to sound like a losing battle to create these new pathways, then remember the brain is flexible, it does adapt and change. 

We just need to be actively aware of our bias, or old beliefs and thought patterns. Then open our eyes and all our senses to seek out new information. In To Be Magnetic, they refer to ExpandersTM and the concept that you need to ‘see to believe’.

Expanders are those people who have or partly have what you’re looking for. They can show you it’s possible. This helps emotional intensity, repetition, decrease negative emotional value tagging, boost positive emotional value tagging and increase the flow of information that reinforces that it’s possible for you too. 

As a Coach, it’s our job to reflect back what we hear our clients say, or not say! We shine a light on their blind spots. Helping them to see their bias and thought patterns. We may often ask the questions ‘is that true?’. I love the concept of Expanders, helping us to see what may be possible, and that what we think is true, may not be true. From that place a client can start to take actions to move forward. I personally have used experiments when I’m being Coached, I love to set myself experiments to try between sessions so I can start to challenge my bias value tagging and selective attention. 

So where does this bring me to?

I believe in the science behind Coaching; Neuroscience shows me how and why Coaching works, why it’s powerful. And I see how even the smallest subset of Yoga Philosophy ties into the core of why Coaching works

In summary these 4 fundamental elements shine through:

1. Coaching helps us become honest (Satya) about our thoughts, feelings and actions, and to identify those which are harmful or keeping us stuck (Ahismā). We see through bias, selective attention and value tagging.

2. Coaching helps us to find our own new pathways, creating new wiring that is unique to us. 

3. Coaching helps us to create action plans, ways to reinforce our new pathways, and gives us the space for reflection and learning (Svādhyāya).

4. Coaching is a supportive and empowering space. Creating new pathways and change takes work, it takes discipline and patience (Tapas) to make lasting change. A Coach is there alongside you on that journey.

If you have any questions or thoughts you’d like to share with me about this article, or are interested in my Coaching Programmes, then please get in touch.