Insights into Burnout

Two observations I like to share and address to you in two questions. Do you know people that are subjected to burnout? Did you know anyone with burnout 5 years ago - Are there more now?

I think most people, like myself will answer on the 1^st question: Yes and to the 2^nd question no or yes but more now. A trend or is it really in the uprise? If in the uprise why? Why are so many people suffering from it? What has changed in our lives that we are not coping.

Another observation along these lines that I like to share with you is that it strikes not only the vulnerable but also people whom I thought that of all people they wouldn’t be susceptible to mental-energy exhaustion.

Burnout is according to the ICD-10 (International Statistical Classification of Diseases) a state of vital exhaustion (z73). On dictionary.com I found the definition: fatigue, frustration, or apathy resulting from prolonged stress, overwork, or intense activity.

I also amongst others found an article published by Wilmar Schaufeli in De Psycholoog (2007) which states the following:

On theoretical grounds it can be said that burnout is a combination of exhaustion and mental detachment. In essence someone in burnout has a shortfall in operation capacity plus a lack of operation willingness. One talks about burnout when there is an exhaustion of energy reserves and psychological withdrawal which take form in insubordination at work, lack of interest, less engaging, cynicism and mental distance...

www.fss.uu.nl/sop/Schaufeli/274.pdf

I think I don’t need to go on, you know what I mean.

Although it has been a while since I wrote a newsletter I did write some blogs which I hope you have been following here if not I would like to encourage you to read “Life Change Units” posted on 27 June 2010 and “Does Your Body need Coaching” published on 8 February 2009. Both articles give insight into this phenomenon and are written from my experience as an Osteopath and Body-Coach.

In short, change and our ability to cope with change is one of the major contributors for our primitive = automatic system taking over the mind. This system doesn’t think, it shuts your mind down which results in dis-connection and if not resolved turns into burnout. We’re living in times where we have no time to integrate the many changes, take time-out consciously. We’re pushed beyond our limits and become literally trapped. Trapped by our physiology, neurological and hormonal system. Talk-therapy will not turn these systems around no matter how much ‘heart’ you put into it. Rest will help but is a slow process. Body-coaching / work has catalytic properties, it facilitates, speeds up homeostasis, a return to normal. When body has released the mind again then healing can start. Psychological help or coaching may still be needed but with renewed access to the mind the integration of the results of this work will be speedier and more beneficial.

The psychological science community is waking up to the idea of the influence of the body on the mind through research in neuroscience but is still far off from integrating it into therapy.

If you like to know more about Body-Coaching please visit my website www.biomotions.com

I’ve also started a training program in Body-Coaching for psychologist, coaches and wellbeing therapists.

Agenda:

25 Sept van 9h - 17:30h - Nederlands

26 Sept from 9h - 17:30h - English

23 Oct de 9h - 17:30h - Français

For more information and other upcoming training days please visit: www.biomotions.com/biomotions/bodycoaching_2.html

Tom

The BioMotions® Body Coaching Workshops

Body-Coaching is a form of Body-Psychotherapy that has proven its benefits in various well-being domains. Doctors, Psychologists, Coaches, Massage Therapists and alike who have implemented it are convinced of its importance within their practice.

The significance lies in its simplicity and at the same time its profound effect on psychological functioning. After a body-coaching session patients have reported an immediate feeling of deep relaxation, clarity of mind, return of focus and better grounding. Others reported to be able to think clearer, integrate information better, started seeing the picture better and more after just 5 to 10 minutes of receiving Body-Coaching.

Body-Coaching can be exercised as a stand alone approach but is designed so that you can implement it in your already existing practice. Body-Coaching goes out from the idea that you are already practicing some type of therapy and that you would like to take it to the next level to accommodate a new kind of demand that is requested by the problems of our society. Maybe you have noticed it too, the world is changing, we’re facing new challenges, we have to adapt ourself incessantly... but how is our body coping with this perpetual need for adjustment? How many people do you know that suffer from burn-out? Did you know as many people suffering from it a year ago?

Body-coaching offers you an easy to learn, and easy to implement approach so you are ready to help those who’s coping mechanism is challenged.

There are 2 levels of Body-Coaching and are given in 2 half-day (4hours) or in a 1 day (7 hours not including breaks) workshops.

Cost is 150€ (VAT incl.) for the two levels together.

Workshops are organized on a regular basis for more information please fill in the form which you can fin via this link: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dE5ycndYX21paXlYMmc0TlYwWEVDdEE6MQ

If you are a therapist and you would like to organize a workshop in your area please do not hesitate to write this as a comment on the form. I’m more then happy to help you to set it up.

The Facilitator

As a facilitator of the healing process where does the participation start? At the moment the person who’ healing system is impeded walks in or already before when that person has made the phone call? I’m not surprised anymore when people say that whatever they had is already much better, or not so intense anymore. So was there already an interaction? Or did this have nothing to do with the facilitator and was it just the psychophysiology of the person at work - knowing that help is on the way - letting go and acceptance of fate instigating relaxation.

Maybe the healing process started when the facilitator decided to be just that. Whenever it started it is an interesting exercise to just stop and think what am I doing. Who am I in this process? What is my role? What is my goal? It is so easy to fall into the trap: Look what I did...

At the end all I do is make an action or process easier, I facilitated a role they call in chemistry a catalyst, no more no less. In each person health is present. Like a puzzle all the pieces are there, the puzzle is whole but is it whole as the picture on the box? How many pieces are out of place? With the latter you have to deal with while constructing the puzzle to its full potential, reflecting the picture on the box. But ones there do you ask yourself questions about how you got there. When you feel healthy do you ask yourself why you are healthy?

My aim is to facilitate a process towards the whole picture, to the person’s full potential. Imagine a moment where you felt whole. “Hold that moment.” What defines that moment? What feelings and thoughts are associated with that moment? Would you say that whatever it is that you are feeling now and the thoughts associated are strongly correlated with the word “free”: Free in mind, free in body, free in spirit, being on top of the world, unlimited, no strings...

Isn’t it then that this “Free” is the ultimate platform for healing? I believe it is. I also believe this is for which we are the facilitators: We go in, we let the matrix unfold, be free again and come out. We facilitate healing, the person becoming whole again. Only then can the curative healing start to take place: This can be in the instant itself or slowly unfold itself over the next days.

Just like breathing, for breathing in you need the facilitation of muscles, then you have a dynamic still point, a moment between the in and out breath to be followed automatically as a result of the facilitated breathing in the breathing out occurs. No facilitation by muscles is needed. Try it: breath in hold and what comes automatically when you let go... How does it feel letting go...

How The Reconenction Changed my work

In my personal story with the Reconnection I describe how I got interested in this work. But what kind of impact has it had so far on my work as an osteopathic Body Coach. Well it is as Eric Pearl describes it is like having an upgrade done in your software. The upgrade has more capacity, is faster and you can do more with it at the same time. This new frequency does just that.

My - feeling, interacting, facilitating - hands now receive far more sensations then ever before. These sensations are also far intenser. When I worked on or above the body I always had the feeling my hands were resting on a cloud or on the surface of water. I sensed a tension field and interacted with that. This tension fields are still there but I feel them as coming through much stronger and the are heavier, weightier.

But not only I am feeling this, all my patients in the last weeks have commented on feeling more interactions within them and also reported light and an uncontrollable desire to smile. These reactions are felt a soon as I interact with the frequency. One even reported two clicks in his head like heavy switches that were pushed on.

These feelings and patient feedbacks started as soon as I had my personal reconnection done. However then I wasn’t aware of the exact use of the frequency. Now that I followed the course and that I’m applying the more specific approach I can feel that I stepped up another level.

I can’t explain why this is. I only know that it is real: I can feel it, patients are reporting new sensations and feelings of wellbeing that they hadn’t felt before.

I’m not trying to convince you but can only recommend that you try it. Start of with on or two Reconnective Healing sessions and feel and see for yourself and then you can decide if you want to upgrade to your next level of evolution. I know for sure one thing I don’t want to go back. Just like when I got my computer software upgraded to Snow Leopard (Mac) I’ve never looked back.

Workshop BioMotions Body-Coaching

My second workshop BioMotions Body-Coaching has taken place on Monday. In my workshops I pass on a very simple principle that when applied has a great impact on an overstretched nervous system through accumulation of stress or a trauma.

Already a day later one of the attendees had used the approach at work when a colleague complained of feeling tired, had a headache and a stiff neck. The receiver send him afterwards an email thanking him for the result this little intervention had had: "I feel much better not only in my body but also in mind and spirit."

Reactions of the first group of attendees were pretty much similar... it's so amazing. I use it every day in my practice and see what it does but now that I'm passing on this approach I'm so grateful and even more convinced that its seeds must be spread.

Life Change Units

Have you ever had the feeling that you’re body was holding you back in achieving your goals? I see frequently patients that although they do not voice it in this way when I bring this question up it strikes a chord. It resonates with how they have been feeling lately.

When I start working with them I can also feel it. The body feels dens and compressed immobilized.

I think that a possibly explanation is that our body is just saturated. Imagine what your body has to deal with on a daily - yearly basis and compare this how it was 50 to 100 years ago. Everything goes faster, we need to do more in a shorter period of time but do we allow ourselves to adjust? The life-changes we go through are sometimes so densely packed in a short period of time : changing country, home, job, making new friends...

Can you imagine that change even positive has an impact on your physical wellbeing? If you’re not convinced have a look on the following link where you’ll find the Holmes and Rahe social readjustment scale and count your LCU’s (Life Change Units). This scale is over a 1 year period.

http://www.cop.ufl.edu/safezone/doty/dotyhome/wellness/HolRah.htm

We haven’t learned to think about the body as a vehicle that needs time to adjust to change. We haven’t learned that our body is limited in what it can deal with. We never had to think about it change was something sporadic. But now we’ve well passed the threshold of what our physical body can cope with.

Business people that travel a lot have subconsciously understood this. They go frequently for a massage when they are on a business trip and from the perspective given here above I can only say that they are right to do so.

Bodywork helps the body to deal with the change process. Osteopathic Body-Coaching goes a step further it makes you light again and allows the normalisation of the biophysiological interferences (Body’s survival mode / Fight - Flight - Freeze mechanism that is over active when chronically over-stimulated) so that body and mind are again realigned and reconnect with each other.

So how are you feeling today? Are you still performing as well as you know you can or is something holding you back?

If you like more information how Osteopathic Body-Coaching can help you please send an email to info@biomotions.com or make an appointment on 0472 399 779 (Brussels, Belgium)

Unwinding the Matrix

BioMotions^®

Body-Coaching

Unwinding the Matrix

How do we feel when we’re healthy?

Free, light, aligned, connected... in body, mind and spirit.

BioMotions^® Body-Coaching (B^®B-C) is a healing¹ approach that unwinds the tangled body matrix to return to that feeling of freedom on a body, mind and spirit level.

The B^®B-C facilitator interacts with the movements of life that are forthcoming in the physical body and body field. He/she follows this flow actively without interfering until a point of equilibrium is reached. Equilibrium is attained when the physical body or body field is in a state of dynamic stillness. This balance point is where a metabolic and energetic change takes place, a moment where the body engages to “reset” & “reconnect” itself with the innate healing mechanism. The unwinding process or disengagement is the natural consequence that follows.

This procedure is repeated several times on different parts of the body and in the body field, wherever is required to return the body matrix to a maximum - as it allows - unwound state.

The body is the sole keeper and provider of health. B^®B-C does’t cure, the facilitator that uses the B^®B-C approach in his / her therapy work applies it to catalyze a process that needed a little push to realign itself with its inherent knowing.

B^®B-C is simple and as close to nature as you can get. You can compare it with breathing where there is an active participation of muscles during the breathing in phase. What follows is a dynamic stillness before the exhalation sets in. Exhalation itself is without effort a natural return and outcome of the inhalation phase.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

Albert Einstein

B^®B-C increases the inherent healing mechanism and therefore offers a wide range of benefits. It can be used to promote recovery after an injury but also a part of a wellness program to keep you healthy¹.

B^®B-C is recommended to accompany all forms of therapy wellbeing techniques including psychotherapy and coaching. B^®B-C has proved to have a big influence on trauma related experiences that have triggered the Fight-Flight response (survival mode)².

For more information or upcoming workshops please visit the website: www.biomotions.com

¹ The root meaning of health is “wholeness.” The word comes from the same Anglo-Saxon root that gives us whole, hale, and holy. http://www.amibes.info/med_int/perfection.htm

² Read more about this topic on http://biomotions.blogspot.com/2009/02/does-our-body-need-coaching.html