What
What would benefit you most in your life and health?
Remodel
Use this space to tell people more about what you do or a featured service.
Renovate
Use this space to tell people more about what you do or a featured service.
Redesign
Use this space to tell people more about what you do or a featured service.
Medical Practice / Psychiatric Therapy
-
A highly trained doctor collects signs and symptoms, conducts tests and evaluations, in order to identify a diagnosis for the patient
-
Based on the diagnosis, the doctor prescribes a course of treatment which may be pharmaceutical, surgical, or behavioral
-
The doctor oversees your treatment until it is deemed complete, whether successful or not
-
There is an emphasis on clinical distance between physician and patient, though it is now possible that you may have more engaged clinicians, physician's assistants, and nurses!
Health Coaching
-
An experienced coach discusses your life and various aspects of your health, according to their specialty
-
There will be no diagnosis nor treatment of disorders, conditions, or illnesses
-
The emphasis of your time working together will be on your personal goals and intentions, and cultivating perspectives and skills to help you realize those objectives
-
Your coach is your companion through the whole process, their goal is to help you understand and engage with the process of your own life and health
What is the difference between
medical care & health coaching?
Integrative Alchemy Health Coaching​
​​​​
On Health Coaching as an essential healthcare component:
Coaching has entered public awareness with a mixed reception. As it is not generally regulated or licensed, anyone can call themselves a "coach." This has created a window for a range of ambitious people both to try to serve the community in their own ways. It has also opened the door for skilled and well-intentioned professionals to fill an important and notable void in the modern practice of healthcare. Specifically, medical doctors are the best game in town when you need urgent care, but when you are trying to take proactive care, or tend to yourself when you're not feeling distinctly ill, doctors can come up short. Meanwhile, health coaches can be your every-day ally in building a healthy life, and may work in spheres that doctors do not tread. Have you played the "is this worth going to a doctor over this" game? You will not need that here.
​​​​
My unique style starts with a few simple principles:
-
Health is Ecological = every part of your life is a part of your health, and each part affects all of the others. If you want to produce positive shifts in your health, you are significantly helped by addressing the whole ecosystem.
-
Health is more than the absence of illness or injury = when we are simply focused on trying to suppress or alleviate feelings we don't want to have, we tend to live in a yo-yo between discomfort and inattention. It is possible to access positive states of health which resist injury and illness, and feel genuinely great to live in!
-
Invest in yourself, and your returns will never end​ = there are many attractive, external solutions, and quick fixes can be so appealing. However, if you cultivate a healthy mind and heart, you can grow through everything your life contains, and make smart and satisfying choices about how to care for yourself when you need it.​​
​
Integrative Alchemy signature health coaching offerings build on my personal and eclectic combination of experiences, credentials, and studies:
-
​Taoist Philosophy & Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) Player & Teacher
-
Meditation, Mindfulness, Spirituality, and Personal Development Student & Teacher
-
Veteran Professional Chemical (Systems & Process) Engineer
-
Bodyworker, Massage Therapist, Health Coach, and Health Educator
-
Anatomy, Physiology, Kinesiology, Pathology, Psychology, Sociology, and Ecology Student
-
Permaculture Designer, Environmental Advocate, Passionate Tree Hugger
​Integrative Alchemy Core Elements
"Alchemy" is a short-hand here for accessible change. One of the most powerful things we can learn in life is the sphere of our own influence, and how to act within it to realize the change we want. Each of the categories below will give you a glimpse into a key element that I employ with my clients to help them understand the scope of their influence and how to enhance their ability to wield it.
Alchemy of Presence
One of the largest obstacles to getting where we want to go, is believing that we are starting from somewhere other than where we are. When we are trapped in this unwitting dislocation, our actions are either ineffectual or sabotaged. In order to connect with our reality, we have to develop Awareness and cultivate Acceptance.
Awareness is more than simply seeing, it is the evolution of our perspective to incorporate things we didn't previously understand.
Do not mistake Acceptance for agreement, allowance, or appreciation. We do not need to like, encourage or avoid things that we would rather not be a part of our lives, but until we can Accept when they are present, we will always be driving with the emergency brake on.
​
When we can really understand where we are, we can then be open to seeing choices which move from where we actually are towards our goals, and we can carry out the process with significantly increased effectiveness.
Alchemy of Change
Everything is changing, continuously. Still, we find ourselves stuck with things we would change if we knew how. In order to change your life around you, change has to begin within. To do this, there are two core elements we need to work with: Belief & Motivation.
We carry a million beliefs, and those beliefs are organized into networks we can call "paradigms." These networks of beliefs mean that even if we want to change one belief, chances are the network will resist that change, as other beliefs both lean on and feed into that one. In order to change our beliefs, we often have to rewire whole paradigms. Limiting beliefs will insure we only ever manage to defy them by accident.
Motivation is something that we all have, but the forms of motivation that come built-in are fickle; they often rely on what I refer to as "crisis energy." This energy comes from distress, and the more distress we have, the more we are willing to try anything to get relief from that distress. Only, as soon as the distress decreases, so does our motivation. In order to carry out our intentions successfully, we need to cultivate motivation that we can tap into consciously, even as our relative position in the field changes.
​
When we have dismantled key limiting beliefs and developed our ability to power our actions consciously, we can really start to be agents of change, shaping the direction and content of our lives.
Alchemy of Relating
Health is Ecological, and an Ecosystem is a vast web of integral relationships. How we relate is a critical element of the health of our system. This includes how we relate to our environment, to our loved ones, and to ourselves. A healthy relationship is composed of healthy regard, healthy communication, and substantial compassion.
​
Regard is in turn composed of how we observe as well as how we narrate; a rainy day could be "gloomy" or it could be "cozy," but the rain will still fall outside, and our own assignment defines our experience of the day. By developing our regard, we change the very context of our relationship and therefore how we show up in it.
​
Communication can come in many forms, but all of them serve one purpose: express our internal experience, our intentions and our desires to another. When we are relating to another person, how we communicate can either bring us together, or put us at odds. The same is true when we communicate with and within ourselves. How do you imagine your heart fares if you address it with scorn or contempt?
Compassion is more than just being thoughtful. Compassion is willfully attending to how your actions and the world around you affect your relations. By cultivating compassion, we grow the ability to grant grace; we make space for things to not go exactly as planned and still be okay.
​
When we have shifted how we narrate our lives, how we speak to ourselves and others, and when we can attend to life with care and grace, we can remove tremendous blockers from finding peace, happiness, and capability in all of our relationships, inside and out.
What might your coaching include?​
​​​​​
Living From Your Roots
One of the most central sources of stress and unhappiness is to be living out of connection with your core values. When we are clear about what our core values are, and we know how to make choices which serve them, we discover the capacity to find happiness regardless of the outcome of our actions. We do the best we can, with the knowledge and resources we have, and we uphold the principles that mean the most to us.​ I have developed a system which helps us explore these values, clarify them to crystal, and develop a coherent way of seeing the world through the lens of those values so that we see how our choices benefit them or compromise them. Becoming proficient in this process allows us to maintain our sense of internal Alignment, as the shape of life changes around us each day.
​​
It's the Journey, Not the Destination
It is important to know which way you want to go, but when you are too fixated on where you think you might get, you lose track of where you actually are. Where we get is often far less important than how we get there and what other choices become available along the way. Developing our ability to set our orientation, and our capacity to change our intentions when it serves us and others, is an invaluable tool for making the most of our life. I am grateful to have a lifetime of experience in conscious navigation that I can bring to help my clients develop their own internal guidance system, which suits them in their own distinct and individual needs.
​​
Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Well
If you are here and ready to ask for and receive support, you are ready to be a more active participant in your life. Our modern lives have provided us many conveniences, but they have also encouraged passivity, dependency, and the outsourcing of knowledge and wisdom. No one can manage your health for you, at best they can only assist you in your own process. You are not just the greatest agent for your own well-being, you are the only true agent for moving your life into wellness. I have a great deal of empathy for those of us who bought into the notion that we could simply check the right boxes and live on easy street, but inevitably we will find a time where our life, our health, and our happiness is decidedly not where we want to be. When that time comes, we can either start learning how to take the wheel of our own life, or we can employ the skills we've been developing along the way and start to correct our course. I work with clients regardless of how they come to their work, but my process emphasizes the unavoidable importance of taking responsibility for our own lives as best we can. I support my clients with patience and gentle firmness to fully recognize their own abilities, and to take the lead within their own life to shape it in a way that they are pleased with.