Dear Subscriber First Name

After many, many years practicing both therapy and coaching, it was an major personal milestone to further ‘rubber stamp’ my coaching credentials with a Certificate in Schema Coaching.

Disclaimer: I’m trying to picture giving myself a pat on the back celebrating this as an exercise in enacting my healthy adult, which it most definitely is!

But, I’ll hop off my soapbox now before my approval seeking gremlin knocks me off and I start quoting Lord Byron…

On with the show!

🧂 How did your Schema Spice Rack experiment go?

In case you missed it: Feel like spicing things up?

I’d love to know:

👉 What did you notice when you looked at your own mix?

👉 Which “flavours” showed up most strongly when things got stressful?

👉 Was there a ‘theme’ of ‘pattern’ e.g. a particular task or conversation that stirred things up

👉 In your home life, were there circumstances or events that revealed some different ‘spices’, or similar but in more or less quantities?

A had several very reflective (and extremely comical) responses from readers, including – “I think I’m just plain salty…” to “can you suggest a recipe to water down an over-seasoned response to my perfectionism – chicken preferably….”  

Hard to believe I stopped myself last week from adding a rather blue Dame Edna Everage line about which “spice” she’d be if she were a Spice Girl.

Just as I hoped, it seems everyone could find common ground on this whacky and personable way of looking at our unique (and very normal) differences.

🧘‍♀️ The Year-End Burnout Blend

If you’re feeling the telltale signs of burnout - short fuse, foggy focus, or the “just get me through to Christmas” mantra – I’m hearing ya.

This is prime time for schemas to take the wheel.

(Remember this?: the million dollar challenge exercise)

So, given the craziness of the next month or so I reckon it’s fitting we launch an all out assault on those sneaky (unhelpful) little habits that seem to creep in when our guard’s down.

Say for example, you finally log off for the day, but five minutes later you’re back on your laptop “just checking one more thing.” Before you know it, an hour’s gone - dinner’s cold, and so is your mood. Argh!

That reeks pretty strongly of our old friend the ‘Unrelenting Standards' schema. Or we might call it “the no off switch”.

It whispers, “Just finish it, you can switch off then”.

You promised yourself you’d go to the gym today - but somehow you didn’t. Or maybe you decided not to take on the kids’ basketball coaching gig this season.

Immediately, the self-criticism starts: “I should be doing more, I’m letting everyone down, I’m slacking.”

Could that be your Unrelenting Standards / Self-Sacrifice schemas talking?

Which leads me to where to what comes over the next few weeks, when the calendar has even more colours in it and we try to push a bowling ball through a hose….

Bring on the healthy adult toolkit…

You can reach me below, or simply hit reply and I’ll reach out to you (in a week or so!):

• Visit the website / Book a call 📱

• tim@schemacoaching.com.au 📧

Looking forward to connecting!