Mindfulness in coaching
Mindfulness refers to a heightened non-judgmental awareness in the experiences of the present moment such as body sensations, thoughts, or emotions. Long-lasting mindfulness meditation practice helps to enhance attention control, emotion regulation, and self-awareness, and thus, mindfulness practices have been increasingly incorporated into coaching or psychotherapeutic interventions.
Improved attention control helps to maintain the focus on the present moment which is a preliminary consequence of mindful meditation practice. Emotion regulation means an ability to suppress (extensive) expressions or to re-interpret daily life events from a different perspective - both useful skills in social interactions. Self-awareness is a more complicated term referring to an increased awareness of “non-static self”. This means that self can be considered as a product of an on-going mental process rather than a static entity.
Some self-report studies show that already an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction course helps to develop an “observing self,” that is, meta-perspective of one's own experience. The ability to observe oneself from a distance helps to choose how to act rather than to be driven by automatic reactions.
According to Buddhist literature, increasing self-awareness leads to more enduring forms of happiness. This raises, however, a question whether mindfulness meditation increases only an individual's own happiness and well-being? Luckily not! Research shows that mindfulness meditation increases empathy, compassion, and prosocial behaviors. Prosocial behaviors refer to actions that are taken with altruistic intentions to help other people (e.g., volunteerism, charity work, or care-taking).
However, mindfulness meditation focuses on the present moment (being-mode), while coaching often emphasizes future goals and actions (doing-mode). This raises the question of how mindfulness and coaching can work together to complement and enhance each other.
Mindfulness practice helps the coach to be prepared for the coaching session
Increased concentration, empathy and compassion helps the coach to focus better on the present moment and to be engaged in an authentic dialogue
Mindfulness enables the coach to accept whatever is happening in the present moment from which a real change can emerge
Being more aware of own emotions helps the coach to observe also client’s emotions and intentions
Mindfulness exercise helps the client to be more aware of internal needs, motivations, and goals
What would you like to add to this list?
Reference and further reading:
Brown, K. W., Ryan, R. M., & Creswell, J. D. (2007). Mindfulness: Theoretical foundations and evidence for its salutary effects. Psychological inquiry, 18(4), 211-237.
Hölzel, B. K., Lazar, S. W., Gard, T., Schuman-Olivier, Z., Vago, D. R., & Ott, U. (2011). How does mindfulness meditation work? Proposing mechanisms of action from a conceptual and neural perspective. Perspectives on psychological science, 6(6), 537-559.
Tang, Y. Y., Hölzel, B. K., & Posner, M. I. (2015). The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(4), 213-225.
González, M., de Diego, A., & González López, J. (2018). Mindfulness and Coaching: Promoting the Development of Presence and Full Awareness. Psychology Research, 1 (1).
Luberto, C. M., Shinday, N., Song, R., Philpotts, L. L., Park, E. R., Fricchione, G. L., & Yeh, G. Y. (2018). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of meditation on empathy, compassion, and prosocial behaviors. Mindfulness, 9, 708-724.