Choosing a healthcare provider to coach you through managing your health is essential, but sometimes that’s easier said than done. Disclosing personal information and expressing your feelings might be daunting, but being aware of some key components in the coach-patient relationship can help you make the right choice.
The Coach-Client Relationship
In order to feel motivated and confident enough to share all aspects of your health journey, you need to trust your healthcare provider. They must ask well-thought-out questions, inspiring you to provide genuine answers, leading to real self-discovery. It’s important that their questions empower and involve you in the process, ensuring you take ownership of your decisions.
It’s essential that your healthcare provider is an active listener, guiding you toward identifying the answers for yourself. It’s your health journey, so while it’s important your coach shares their professional knowledge with you, excessive anecdotes about their personal successes or failures can be detrimental.
Likewise, your coach mustn’t pass moral judgments, because fear of judgment can hinder your desire to confide openly in them. Instead, they should make you feel accountable and provide guidance, while boosting your motivation throughout the process.
Healthcare Provider’s Knowledge
To achieve the best results, your healthcare provider must have a strong knowledge of illness and its causes. They should have the ability to guide and inspire you throughout the process, whether that’s making healthy food choices or managing stress effectively. They should also have a good understanding of natural remedies and know when it’s best to incorporate or withdraw specific medications in a safe, timely manner. Having a licensed healthcare provider or one that works closely with your existing provider is ideal.
Your coach should have the ability to identify the connection between your emotional and physical state. By being open to feedback and building trust with your healthcare provider, you’ll learn valuable lessons about how to improve your lifestyle. Remember, the feedback is not a personal attack, but an important part of the process to make the changes you need.
Total Honesty
Being completely honest with your healthcare provider about your personal life is crucial, as it enables you to address underlying issues and make positive changes. An effective coach-client relationship is built on honesty, confidentiality, and trust in sharing significant aspects of your life, without feeling judged.
When a sense of safety and trust is established within the relationship, you may feel more emotionally vulnerable, leading to emotional and spiritual healing. An essential part of many coaching programs is sharing deep-seated secrets or memories that have burdened you. This process of disclosure and non-judgmental support from your healthcare provider can empower you, allowing you to process any emotional pain and move on.
Lifestyle Changes
It can’t be stressed enough just how important lifestyle choices are when it comes to health and illness. Studies and research by the likes of Dean Ornish M.D. at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, have proven that making comprehensive lifestyle changes can effectively reverse severe heart disease and early-stage prostate cancer and positively impact elevated cholesterol levels and arthritis.
When you change your lifestyle, the genes preventing disease are activated, while those promoting illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease, are suppressed. Chronic illnesses such as diabetes mellitus, obesity, hypertension, heartburn, skin disorders, low energy, depression, allergies, colitis, fibromyalgia syndrome, headaches, and adrenal fatigue can all be reversed by making lifestyle changes. That’s why a guided course in mastering a healthy lifestyle should always be the first step in treating chronic illnesses – not the last step when all other avenues have been explored.
In summary, choosing the right healthcare provider to coach you through your health journey should be based on identifying those who prioritize a trusting and open relationship, possess exceptional knowledge of illness and health, and advocate lifestyle changes that lead to improved physical and emotional well-being.
