Holistic Counseling and Coaching with Martha S Bache-Wiig
Holistic counseling and coaching is a powerful approach to help heal your emotional, psychological and existential pain so you can begin to live a life that is abundantly supportive of your needs, and full of love, beauty, truth, and purpose.
Through over 3o years of working with others, Martha has developed a broad range of holistic counseling and coaching services to help adults transform emotional, psychological and existential pain into new energy to live more expansive, fulfilling lives.
The general difference between counseling and coaching is that counseling helps you go deeper into your inner world, including your personal and family history, and coaching offers practical tools to effect changes in your daily life. A holistic approach is one that dips into both counseling and coaching to help you become aware of the various aspects of your human existence – the mental/thinking aspect, the emotional/feeling aspect, the physical aspect, and the deeper aspect is the foundational aspect within us that is commonly known as the spiritual one – and understand how your own special way of being actually works, what you need to feel whole in your life and confident with your own place in the world, and how to get those needs met so you can begin to truly thrive and enjoy your life.
The Individual Journey
The double spiral in Martha’s logo symbolizes how the deeper we go to heal the wounds from our individual and intergenerational pasts, the “higher” we go in terms of quality of life, love and understanding of our purpose as humans and how we can fulfill it, together with others.
Understanding how your early influences and traumas may be negatively affecting you today with the help of counseling is fundamental, because our beliefs and feelings about ourselves and our lives, which took shape when we were children, form the basis of what our experience is going forward as adults. These deep beliefs and feelings can often be so deeply ingrained within us that we are not aware of how they are driving us today. And while learning coaching techniques, doing positive affirmations and trying to force ourselves to follow certain routines every day can be helpful, they are not changing the core beliefs that are like a program running how our life is manifesting in the world.
Our symptoms – depression, procrastination, anxiety, anger problems, uncontrollable mood swings, addictions, unhealthy relationships – are all calls for help coming from the deepest parts of our being.
Rather than consider these cries for help as signals that our brains are not functioning properly or that something is wrong with us if we are suffering and “sensitive”, a holistic approach looks deeply at all the various elements that may be contributing to our suffering. With compassion and care we can learn how to truly embrace our unique needs as individuals and begin to make choices in our lives that nurture us rather than keep us following patterns of behavior and beliefs about ourselves and life that no longer serve us.
By exploring your personal, family and cultural history and identifying your specific needs, aspirations and talents, such a tailored, “whole person” approach helps you work through even the most difficult and painful situations, and develop the respect and love for yourself and others that you need to create a more deeply fulfilling life.
While it is about taking your pain seriously, it is not about finding out what is “wrong” with you, or striving for perfection. It is about finding out what parts of you and your life need loving attention so they can be healed of old wounds, and learning new attitudes and tools that increase your ability to care for yourself and take full ownership of your life.
We Heal Together
Taking ownership of your life does not mean blaming yourself for the choices you made in the past. Nor does it mean having to change and take care of yourself – all by yourself.
To the contrary, it often means realizing that just as we did not create ourselves out of nothing, we were born of two parents and are part of our families and of the societies we live in, none of us heal and evolve by ourselves. We were taught certain things about ourselves and about life by our parents, families and societies that are limiting and sometimes even damaging. To change these often deeply unconscious beliefs we need help from others who can see our struggles with compassionate understanding, because they have addressed their own traumas and negative conditioning, and know there is another way.
The famous therapist Alice Miller, author of The Drama of the Gifted Child, which paved the way towards understanding how childhood trauma affects us as adults, used the term Enlightened Witness to describe the unique kind of help that a person who has worked through their own trauma can offer to others who are still struggling, and today even science recognizes the important neurological processes that happen when we are in the presence of someone who can see us with true compassion.
Holistic Counseling and Coaching grounded in compassion and empathy, science and art
Holistic Counseling and Coaching grounded in compassion and empathy, science and art
It is this compassion that can help us begin to heal not only our hearts but it quite literally helps heal the brain. This is important to keep in mind in this time when AI is changing our lives in so many ways. While AI is certainly wonderful and helpful for many things, it can never replace our need for, and the importance and beauty of, human interaction, perhaps especially when it comes to our desire to live a full life, full of not only material comforts but also love and connection with others.
By learning new tools and perspectives while receiving empathetic emotional support, we slowly but surely come to understand where our blocks really lie – not in the people and the circumstances around us, but within our own thoughts, beliefs and emotional/neurological set-points – and how to change them.
It means slowly understanding how the default trauma responses and defenses like fight, flight, freeze and fawn are operating within us, so we can tune into our deep knowing that we each truly do have purpose, meaning and value and are worthy of love and support exactly as we are. The article highlighted in the link is by a psychotherapist named Pete Walker, who has done excellent work on CPTSD and has deeply influenced Martha’s personal and professional journey. His book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving is extremely helpful for anyone ready to begin to look at their pain from a holistic point of view.
Another important resource is the 12 step program known as ACA or Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. It was and remains a true pioneer in the treatment of childhood trauma and meetings are a great place to begin to understand how your own upbringing may be affecting you today.
Healing and Human Evolution
We each have our own special place in life that we are here to fill; we only need to understand better what that place actually is, and how to show up for ourselves – starting with wherever we may be today.
Changing our deep seated beliefs and patterns is an act of existential creativity; we are quite literally creating a new way of living, for ourselves and others. weFrom the raw material of our own personal characteristics – which are completely unique to ourselves – and our life experiences, with our growing love and understanding of ourselves, others, and of life, we can begin to choose new ways of thinking and acting. Our new choices are quite literally like chisels that transform our lives, and slowly sculpt both inner and outer experiences that we could have never imagined possible before.
As we become more adept at making choices that truly serve our wellbeing and the wellbeing of others, we develop a sense of groundedness and personal agency that brings deep inner peace, and increasing freedom to enjoy your life and your relationships with others.
Whether or not you can see it right now, your healing and growth actually contributes to new ways of thinking and acting in the world. Your increased wellbeing not only releases more positive “energy” into the world in general, but your filling your own special place with loving purpose fosters the development of ever more sustainable, mutually supportive, respectful and vibrant models for living together as couples, families, communities, in our business and creative efforts, in our nations and the world.
This also applies also to your career / business and financial spheres, as the ways in which we earn a living and manage our time and our finances have a direct effect on our general wellbeing. Martha’s long experience as a self-employed person as a musician, educator, and counselor / coach have allowed her to develop important tools for building a prosperous and sustainable work-life and financial balance, so very important for all of us and perhaps especially for those who are self-employed in the helping and creative professions.
Following is a list of the kinds of services available to help you take the steps that can help you move towards the life that you dream of. It may seem impossible today, but once you begin the journey, you may be truly amazed by the changes you can see take place, inside you and in your outer reality.
Click on the headings to get more information, or write to Martha (martha@marthabw.com) for more information today!
Individual counseling and coaching for adults
Relationship counseling and coaching for couples
Counseling and Coaching for groups of people: families, business teams and creative projects
Business coaching for self-employed creatives and practitioners in the healing arts
Family Constellations Workshops
Astrology and Human Design Consultations
Set up a chat with Martha
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