Integrative Health Coaching - A New Approach to Mental Health
"Remember when you used to wake up super inspired and energized to take on life?"
I came across this question on a Monday like today a while back, and it felt like it was written just for me. Although it was only 7 months ago, it seems like it was a lifetime away now in hindsight because I was a different person back then. I was writing a book, starting my dream company, and going through a very difficult personal transition (but I’ll save that for another day) that brought up some childhood issues from the past that I never knew existed, and it was all starting to affect my work and family life. I found myself stuck in a rut that left me tired, pessimistic, and feeling lethargic, as if a heavy fog had rolled in, weighing heavily on my mind and body from morning until night most days of the week. I had tried traditional therapy, but I knew it wasn’t quite right for what I was going through. It seemed to take forever to find the right therapist, and to establish a relationship and trust to the point where I could talk about everything I was going through, and it was very costly.
I tried exercising, journaling, cutting down on sugar and wheat and other things that I thought might be the culprit; but the fog stayed, and I had resigned myself to the thought that I might just have to try out therapy again. That’s when I discovered Kamea Chayne’s Integrated Health Coaching practice.
I didn’t know anything about Integrated Health at the time, so I must admit, I was a bit skeptical at first. It was a totally new concept to me, but it peaked my interest when Kamea told me that her certification and practice was rooted in a program from Duke University, a trusted leader in the healthcare industry grounded in extensive research and evaluation.
What I would soon discover was that, unlike conventional approaches, Kamea’s coaching method has a very specific way to focus on an entire spectrum of factors that have an effect on our physical and mental wellbeing, including physical health, nutrition, movement, exercise and environment, as well as mind-body connection, relationships, and spirituality. Aside from all of these, what made Kamea’s program different from traditional therapy approaches I’ve tried was the integration of personal and professional development, which are both very integral to my overall wellness and peace of mind.
But unlike Life Coaching, Integrative Health has a strong emphasis on cultivating Self Awareness and Integration of all factors of our lives. In that way, Kamea’s coaching helped me to cultivate a completely different kind of self-awareness that delivers surprisingly quick results that have helped me to turn my thinking around in a way that has made a sustainable deep impact on my life. Among all of those benefits, what I liked best about her coaching was that I didn’t have to delve too deeply into all of the drama of years of experiences, circumstances that had been piling up and that eventually led to the culminating frustrations and unhealthy mindset in the first place. I found that in Integrative Health, the focus is not on what has happened to us, but rather, it’s a focus on our AWARENESS of how everything has an effect on everything that is important to us, revealing how we feel and what we choose to do throughout it all.
Within the first month of Kamea’s IH coaching, I could see that I was starting to be able to pull back from the microvision I had of everything I was going through; and by the end of the fourth month, I could see an umbrella vision of it all, allowing me to see how everything that was happening could have an effect on all of the different areas of my life.
At the end of the 4 months, what I gained from Kamea’s coaching was a life-changing tool that I now use daily to assess my physical and mental health throughout all experiences and aspects of my life, from the minute to the larger, more monumental changes in my life.
As the Duke University model of Integrated Health suggests, you are the ultimate owner of your life and your health.” Being in the driver’s seat requires a good map; and before you know where you’re going, you need to know where you are, where you’ve come from, and where you want to go. If you’re ready to be in the driver’s seat, Integrative Health may be worth exploring.
If you’d like to know more about Kamea’s coaching practice, and her Duke University approach in Integrative Health, feel free to contact her at www.kameachayne.com. Hope you have a good week, and feel free to email me with any questions you may have. I’d be more than happy to share with you the details of my experience with this unique new form of coaching.
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