The Shift

By Valerie Driscoll, Lead Coach and Coaching Program Developer for Apollo Health

Among the many benefits of working with the brilliant coaches I am fortunate to call colleagues, is that sometimes I get coached myself, often when it is least expected. This recently happened to me when working on a project with ReCODE Coach, Lynn Killips, and I mentioned that I often refer to the Bredesen Protocol as being “hard”. Her response: “I prefer to use the word ‘different’”.

Consider me coached. With that word, I sensed the fixed tectonic plates of my protocol mindset shift, literally feeling and hearing a kerplunk in my body as it settled.

There it was: the Bredesen Protocol isn’t hard; it is just different.

This particular shift landed so strongly because “different” is a word that resonates profoundly with me, as I have a brain that often views the world and its various processes and rules uniquely. While this brings certain challenges, I have come to value being a little different and the gifts that come with it.

During my meditation practices these last few weeks, I have sat with these words, hard and different, paying attention to what happens as I reflect on each and noticing what kinds of things show up. In mindfulness practice, we often use the terms sensation, emotion, and thoughts/words. To me, “hard” shows up as implacable, solid, set, and exhausting without much space. Hard is heavy and sluggish. Hard with regard to the Bredesen Protocol comes with a sigh and effort. Surprisingly, I thought I was not carrying around much “hard” with relation to this protocol, but I was.

Sitting with “different,” I feel the hardness fall away and be replaced by a sense of movement and ease. Hard comes to me as a solid state, but “different” is an outcome. Outcome energizes me, as I want a different outcome than the one predicted by the factory settings given to me by my parents. How I choose to live each day differently is how I live a life differently. Different input; different outcome; better life. What a shift.

Might some mindset shifting also be beneficial to you, especially if you are stuck in a current mindset that is not serving you? If the answer is yes, and you care to create your own shift, here are some pro tips: Please keep in mind that although I described my experience in two seemingly simple paragraphs, this distillation represents a process that happened over several weeks and is ongoing. Your “kerplunking” will be different than mine, rest assured.

Start your own shift by paying attention to the words you currently use to describe your protocol story. What do you say to others about your experience, and more importantly, what do you say to yourself? And don’t just pay attention to words said over your breath; pay attention to those said under it as well. Do this with as much curiosity, sense of exploration, and lightness as you can, rather than making it feel laborious. Notice how you sense these words and stories in your body. What emotions are present? Pay attention to anything and everything; honestly … it all counts.

Next, how can you play around with some new words and stories, and how do they show up? An extremely useful exercise to get you going could be to Google the words “values list” and peek through a few for some inspiration. Can you find a word or words that resonate in some way? A word that shifts you will often be one that you recognize from another part of your life, but discount nothing. Read the list slowly and out loud, and see if you feel you own version of the kerplunk – even a tiny one. As I read through this list other words that I could feel in my body were agility, bravery, daring, and elegance — and I only got to E! Don’t overthink it; let it be light. Like the protocol, this is a journey.

The work I do every day with the protocol remains the same, be it in my own journey or as a coach.  However, who I am as I am doing it has changed for the better, and all from one short coaching conversation that I did not even know I was having. This is the beauty and elegance of coaching; it allows one to make a shift when we didn’t even know we needed it.

It also prompted me to redo my first tattoo; placed delicately in white on the inside of my wrist, it is a single word in simple script: shift. It has become quite faded over time, but I believe an update is in order.