When you’re a Wellness Coach working with clients from a holistic perspective, you take into consideration all aspects of their lives. It’s really hard to help someone change their nutrition if their home life is unhealthy and chaotic. One part of wellness you can work to change with your clients is to improve their relationships.
By digging into all the things happening in your clients’ lives, you’ll get a better picture of how they need support. Yes, you can help them create a healthier body by supporting them in better relationship development.
Relationships Are Important
A person’s relationship health is a key aspect of their overall well-being. When our relationships are out of balance, our whole lives get thrown out of balance as well. It’s very challenging to make changes with our health and wellness when our home life is chaotic and our relationships are causing us overwhelming stress.
You might find that when you’re working with a client they hit a strange roadblock in their progress. Perhaps they just can’t give up the emotional eating and it’s happening more frequently. By asking key questions, you can discover if they have addressed their relationship issues or if they need to turn their attention to healing that too. Their roadblocks might clear up more easily once they’ve put in the effort with the important relationships in their lives.
Are Relationships the Problem?
It can be tricky to get someone to open up about their relationships, though they might really want to talk about it with someone. Other clients might not really notice that their relationships need attention, so it’s a great thing to include in your questionnaires and discussions.
You’ll need to determine if your client’s relationships are affecting their well-being. Find out if they’re experiencing stress in their relationships (any close relationships – not just intimate partners). Uncover if they are feeling isolated or lonely and if they have a fulfilling social life and friendships. Do they have a romantic partner and are things going well there? Don’t forget to discuss their relationships at work since those can have a big impact on stress and well-being.
How You Can Help
Once you’ve determined that a client needs support with relationship health, you can plan out specific ways to help that fit their unique needs. It will take a little investigative work on their part with input and support from you. They may know that something isn’t right or healthy, but they haven’t taken the time to figure out exactly what it is.
As a Wellness Coach, you can teach your clients about what healthy relationships look like. This might be something your clients haven’t ever been taught before and this alone might help them make changes. For more stubborn issues, helping them become curious about the situation will reveal further things to work on.
Here are some ways you can support them through this process.
1. Encourage communication.
Effective communication is a hard skill to learn, but with the right knowledge, it’s possible to transform and improve. If your client is having issues with healthy communication in their relationships, they might feel stuck, unheard, or overwhelmed.
Communication that is honest and empathetic can transform friendships, co-worker relationships, romantic bonds, marriages, and family relationships. If your client struggles with certain people in their life, ask them: “have you told those people how you feel?”
Sometimes all it takes is being honest and opening up a heartfelt conversation. Speaking one’s truth and feelings in a positive, constructive way is a useful tactic to recommend.
2. Encourage listening.
Some people do tell others how they feel and, instead, their problem is that they don’t listen enough. Your client might not be so good at listening in their relationships or trying to see the other person’s perspective.
Active listening is the key to a healthy relationship. Teach your clients about what active listening is and isn’t and why it’s so important. Help them learn this skill so they can use it to transform all their relationships for the better.
Remind those you work with: “Once you’ve expressed your heart, it’s time to pause and listen to the other person’s truth.”
3. Remind them that relationships are a two-way street.
It’s common to see faults in others and to avoid seeing our own. You can gently remind your clients that they also need to be accountable for their actions and shortcomings in a relationship. No one is perfect and it’s impossible to do things right all the time.
Help them understand that their relationships are a two-way street and they have a responsibility to solve the issues, as well. Sometimes, the obstacle facing a relationship is coming from inside both people.
Encourage clients to examine their part of the problem. Then empower them to humbly and actively work to find the solution, including creating changes within themselves when necessary. Help them to move on from the traps of blame and anger to transform into peaceful accountability.
4. Recommend stress-relieving techniques and remedies.
Sometimes, the relationship itself isn’t the problem. In our ultra-stressful world, we often get overwhelmed, tired, and irritable. Unfortunately, those closest to us sometimes take the brunt of our feelings toward this stress.
Help your clients identify their sources of stress and find ways to lower their levels. Encourage them to reduce the things they have said ‘yes’ to that they really should have said ‘no’ to. Help them design more self-care into their days so they can relax and recharge.
Once their stress levels have gone down, they might discover the real problem within their problematic relationship. Or they might discover that there wasn’t really an issue with the relationship itself. With less stress and a bit more time, they can devote more attention and care to their relationships, solving many of the struggles.
Heal Relationships for Better Wellness
Your care and guidance as a Wellness Coach can make a huge difference in your clients’ lives. By teaching them that wellness is about more than just food and exercise, you can encourage them to look at their whole lives through a wellness lens. Your support can create transformations on many levels of their lives and help them start down a path to lifelong, holistic health and wellness.
