Course Content
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Coaching Application
By January 1, 2021. All attendees for the coaching pilot group are screened by application and interview. Please answer the following questions and follow the instructions in this module. The application assignment includes scheduling an interview appointment with the Crisses.
- Coaching Group Introduction
- Better Spoons Introduction
- Background Info
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Group Coaching Application
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Developing Better Spoons Forum
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More About Spoons
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Understanding Panic Cycles
January 5th, 2021 group coaching session prep. What are panic cycles, how to recognize them, when we need them, and what they're doing to our body & mind.
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Introduction: What is Panic Mode?
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Selves-Assessment
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Panic Reactions: the F-Words
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Chemistry Lessons
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Benefits of Panic Mode
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How Being in Panic Mode Hurts
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When Panic is Warranted
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Developing Better Spoons First Live Session
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Assignment: Noticing Game
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Extra: Spirituality & Panic Mode (optional)
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Extra: Questioning Corollaries (optional)
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Live Session Follow-Up
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Presence & How to Achieve it
Live on January 12, 2021 group coaching session prep. Putting an end to panic cycles gracefully when they are unwarranted; presence techniques, alternatives to grounding, peace mode, the Here & Now.
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Intro: Moving from Panic Mode to Presence
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Awareness
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Time-Sense
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Assessment
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What >Is<
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Locus of Control, Circle of Influence
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Developing Better Spoons Second Live Session
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Assignment: Building Respondability
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Corollary: Assessing vs. Accepting
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Live Session Follow-Up
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Assembling Better Spoons
January 19, 2021 group coaching session prep. How to leave peace/presence mode by way of passion/heart rather than returning to panic mode when you want to get things done again.
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Introduction: Moving from Presence to Safety Mode
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Passion: Finding Your Why
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Adventure & Reframing
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SMART vs SACRED: Loving What Y’all Do
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Maslow’s Heirarchy, Seven L’s and Quality of Life
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Your Sacred Cause – Exercise Preview
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Developing Better Spoons Third Live Session
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Assignment: Brainstorming Your Adventure Toolbox
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Live Session Follow-Up
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Gratitude
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Panic Happens: Handling Mode Switching
January 26, 2021 group coaching session prep. Life is full of panic-worthy situations. Learn to recognize when you're back in panic mode again and get back to better spoons.
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Introduction: Backsliding
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Developing a Presence Practice
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Developing Better Spoons Final Live Session: Q&A or Review
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Final Follow-Up
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Coaching Group Evaluation
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Background Info
Hi, prospective applicants,
Here’s some “background info” about this coaching group before you sign up.
We presented on the topic of Better Spoons at the 2020 Plural Positivity World Conference — that’s a great start. It’s audio described and captioned, please let us know if you have any accessibility issues with it. (Also you can check out the free PDF excerpt from our 2010 book: SurrenderToPassion.PPWC2020)
This course ties into trauma, panic, immune systems going bonkers, inflammation, and how do we stop the cycles so we can actually live more comfortably.
We wrote a book after researching both caregiver burnout & white collar burnout named SURRENDER™ to Passion: Worried to Wonderful in 28 Days. It’s not a great book, though the concepts behind it were about 12 months ahead of the times — we published in 2010 and mindfulness was “discovered” by science in 2011. But our concepts go further into why we need presence & mindfulness, and where to go after we get to presence.
We created diagrams alongside the book and decided to omit them. We were originally writing a longer work (working title Healer in the Hotseat) with a lot more references and technical info, when we were hit with the idea for the shorter and much more practical work that we ended up publishing.
We presented the materials over the next couple years in small local workshops, and talked about it in conjunction with other works — including the chapter of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill called “Secrets of Sex Transmutation” that is often misunderstood (and definitely disgustingly misogynistic) — but touches on the underlying issue of what motivates people better than “panic mode”. By “better” we mean less harmfully.
It didn’t go far. So we dropped it, basically, until we did the Better Spoons presentation for PPWC. The underlying ideas are sound, but how to package them for spoonies? Sometimes you just have to talk about it and share it and get more feedback. That’s where we are. We need to figure out how to talk about this in a way that it’s accessible and adaptive because it’s too valuable to dismiss it.
That brings us full circle to this coaching group. Check out the Better Spoons video from the PPWC above, and decide whether you want to be involved with practical applications of how you can improve on your personal energy and motivation, as individuals and as a group. And probably be a lot healthier (in terms of distress, epinephrine/adrenaline & cortisol) in the bargain.
Panic mode won’t go away. But maybe we don’t have to live immersed in it all the time.
Good luck with the application process!