#27 The power of Group Coaching

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Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Today, I am so excited to be telling you all about the benefits of group coaching as I launch my first group coaching program less than a month from today. It is crazy. Life really does come at you fast. I'm going to be presenting a webinar on Monday, April 24th, 2023, if you're listening to this in some year other than 2023, you missed it. But for those of you who are listening now, it’ll be Monday, April 24th at 7 PM eastern time. The topic of the webinar is Become Your Favorite You. I am inviting you all to come to hear the four simple steps to becoming your favorite you, and I really can't wait to see you all there.

In advance of presenting this webinar, I wanted to do a podcast about the power of group coaching and the benefits of being in a group as I see them. So that will be the focus of this podcast.

If you have ever been in a group coaching container, I'm sure I've not thought of all of the benefits. So if you have more for me, please be sure to message me to let me know your thoughts. I would love to hear from you because I'm sure that this is not an all-encompassing list.

First of all, I want to start by saying that I have the most amazing intentions for this group. I will curate a group where you will decide from the beginning that you belong in this group of incredible women. I don't want you to worry if your brain says, “but Melissa, I don't feel incredible right now, so how will I belong?” Of course, you don't feel incredible. If you did, you might not need or want coaching right now. You're listening to this podcast because you know that feeling better in your life is available to you. You know that there is a version of you that is out there, that is more favorite than the version of you that exists right now. And you just need some help seeing the how. Also, don't worry if your brain says, “but Melissa, I already feel incredible. I'm not sure I deserve to feel any better than I already do.” Of course, your brain is suggesting that. And of course, you deserve to feel as incredible as you want.

My clients' lives in mind by the way really start to change for the better when they decide that they don't want to live a good enough life. When they decide that they're willing to give up good enough to go for great. Some examples of going from good to great, what does that look like in practice exactly? It might be leaving a job where you're not respected by your colleagues for a job where they are begging you to be a part of their team. Where they see you as a leader and encourage you to lead like the badass that you are.

It could be learning that your sweet child is on the spectrum. And in doing so discovering that you too are on the spectrum. You start giving your child grace for his idiosyncrasies and giving yourself grace for what you once thought of as just weird things about you, but now they totally make sense with your new diagnosis. It could be being out in the dating world and finally trusting your gut feelings about the people you go on dates with.

Learning that if you you're questioning if you like someone, you probably don't. And you can trust yourself to move on and go on more until you find the person that you know for sure you like. Or, if you go on a date with someone and they figure out that you are not their person, you don't make it mean anything about you. You just aren't a match and the less time you put into the people you're not a match with, the more time you can find you can put into finding your actual person.

It could be recognizing that although you love your job as an employed physician, you could start your own direct primary care practice and finally be able to provide exactly the type of care you've always wanted while at the same time having so much more freedom to create your own life exactly as you want it. It could be figuring out that avoiding what you deem as uncomfortable conversations with other people is holding you back in life. This would mean finally realizing that the discomfort of living a life you don't love is way more uncomfortable than sharing your thoughts with your colleagues and your loved one. It could be figuring out that all the things that you have thought of as, quote unquote, shitty things in your life. Have all led you right where you are right now, figuring out how to see yourself as the superhero of your story. Figuring out how it all happened for you instead of to you and living into that power. I could go on and on and so many of my clients are going to know that I'm speaking about them.

We've been through some incredibly powerful shifts together and I'm so grateful to have had a front row view of these incredible women becoming their favorite versions of themselves. I, of course, get choked up every time I think about it.

Okay, so once you decide you belong, you will get to see that every woman in this group is a human being with human problems and that we are far more similar than we realize. Having a group of women who are supporting you as you discover your favorite version of yourself is so empowering.

Seeing other women is examples of what is possible for you and maybe even being an example of what is possible for the other women in the group. This is powerful shit.

There is also power in sharing your vulnerabilities with others in a safe and confidential space. To be able to say the shit that you're afraid to say with your friends and your family or your work colleagues, they seemed to all have the most incredible memories at the most inconvenient times. You can say shit that you are thinking, but that none of us feel comfortable sharing with people that we know in our real life. I've said it before, and I will say it again and again. Shame thrives in hiding. Shame thrives in silence. Sharing with me and with the group will help you start your healing process. Your favorite you definitely has less shame in her life.

Group coaching helps create a sense of community. It offers you the opportunity to share your feelings and experiences with others and creates a feeling of belonging and support. It provides you with the opportunity to interact with a diverse group of people with different insights, different perspectives, different values, and may give you a way of thinking about things in your life that you might not be able to access on your own.

Being in a group container can definitely improve empathy and awareness. I had an experience once when I was receiving coaching in the group container. I can't remember the specifics of what I was being coached on even though I tried. But I know for sure I was needing help understanding something that Jon was doing what didn't make sense to me. After describing the situation and how I was thinking about it, one of the other clients in my group offered me a different perspective. This was someone that I had grown to know and love and admire over the course of our months receiving coaching together. What she offered was so interesting, she said, “Melissa, I'm your husband in this situation. This is exactly what I do.” And the way you reacted is exactly how my husband would have reacted.

And when she explained to me what she was thinking and feeling to make her act the way that Jon did, it was so far off from my initial assumptions about what Jon must have been thinking and feeling to act the way he did. It was so impactful and helped me realize that I do a very shitty job when I try to read my husband's mind. It turns out that asking him what he's thinking and feeling works out so much better for me every time.

We all tend to think that our issues are unique to our personal experiences, our relationships, our occupations, Yet, when you see your challenges verbalized by someone who is not living your everyday experience, it can really help crystal lives your own personal experiences more easily and readily than figuring it out in your own mind. Once you take your big emotions and the personalities that you're dealing with out of the equation, it becomes so much easier to see for the other person. And then you can decide if you want to adopt the new thoughts and ways of thinking and feelings feeling about things as your own. Or not, it's up to you. The other thing in groups is when you see others obviously people pleasing or thinking negatively about nearly everything in their lives or living in judgment of others and themselves instead of seeing things with curiosity.

When you see the others in the group lacking trust in themselves, lacking grace for themselves, lacking compassion for themselves, and others, it really amplifies the return on investment in coaching by seeing these problems and others that you admire. It often allows you to absorb the approaches that you're going to need to take care for yourself. It's often an epiphany for everyone in the group that has struggled similarly. It leads you to think, “holy fuck if she can do this for herself. If I can see the potential that she has, I can totally do this for myself and start becoming my favorite version of me.”

The other thing about group containers is that some people learn much more effectively and efficiently by observing other humans. By seeing her go through the experience of being coached. Sometimes when you are in the midst of it yourself, you become overwhelmed.

There is definitely power in seeing the collective humanity of the group. Knowing that whatever else is going on in your life that you will have at least one hour per week dedicated to you in your amazing brain dedicated to you becoming your favorite you, one hour to come on Zoom and share, and the ability to receive written coaching between the live sessions, it’s powerful to have this kind of consistent support over a six-month period.

So the next powerful step for you to take would be to sign up a consult to join my group. You may do this by going to www.melissaparsonscoaching.com/group

You can sign up for a consult there so we can discuss where you're close to being your favorite you and where you're not so close. We can figure out all the ways joining the group can help you. The last day to sign up for the group will be May 7th, so you will want to do your consult before then.

I can't wait to talk to you. Also, if you're not on my email list, please go to my website and subscribe to my emails today. That way, you'll always be in the loop of what is going on over here at Melissa Parsons Coaching. I don't want you to miss a thing. There will be links to join us for the webinar on April 24th at 7 pm Eastern in the emails that are going out over the next week or so. And if that time and date doesn't work for your schedule, don't worry, I've got you. My team will send out a replay to everyone who is registered so no need to worry if you can't join live.

I'm back to the podcast next week. For sure, it's going to be a good one. My boys and I will be sharing all the ways that I have fucked up as a mom. I can't wait for you all to listen into our intimate and whole conversation. I was so proud of them when we recorded it a few weeks ago, as I am proud of them every day.

All right. See you guys then. Thank you so much for listening to and loving on me and the podcast.

It's no longer a secret people. I'm officially starting a group coaching program for women who want to become their favorite version of themselves. I'm calling the group Your Favorite You because I value simplicity.

I'm forming this group specifically for you since you are listening to my podcast. You will get amazing coaching. Plus, the beauty of a community of other women who are interested in thriving as much as they can. And who will also want you to succeed at becoming your favorite you.

There is undeniable benefit from watching another woman being coached on an issue you've had in the past or one that you're currently having. Our brains just see so much more possibility when we are not the ones in the hot seat.

You will also have the ability to come every week and share yourself vulnerably while other share vulnerably too.

We know that shame only grows in silence and in hiding, and there’s power of being seen and held by other incredible humans, and we're often caught in the same traps of thinking that you are is undeniable.

Please go right now to www.melissaparsonscoaching.com/group and schedule a consult with me so I can hear from you and help you. And we can decide together if you're a great fit to join the group.

We start on May 17th, and the women who've already said yes to themselves and to the group are a wonderful group of humans who are on a journey to becoming their favorite versions of themselves.

Please join us. You will not regret it.