JP Sears is a holistic lifestyle coach who helps to empower people to live more meaningful lives as whole individuals. He works by guiding clients to move beyond their symptoms of pain and personal sabotage so they may discover and reconcile their inner imbalances.
In this case study, JP describes a client’s emotional healing journey.
Michael’s story
“I’m broke, I’m continually getting fatter and I have no one to love in my life!” exclaimed Michael in our first session. Michael, a middle-aged man, had not only hit rock bottom in his life, but he had been there for a few years already.
He had previously attempted to remedy the surface-level destruction in his life by consulting with financial planners and personal trainers to get his finances and health back on track. These different attempts at change failed as they were only addressing the obvious symptoms, whilst completely overlooking the real issues going on deep inside Michael’s heart.
In our sessions, aiming for the root of the matter, we quickly discovered how Michael’s unresolved issues from his past were controlling and preserving the frustratingly negative circumstances in his life today.
In his mid-teenage years, as Michael was becoming his own person, he was no longer able to effectively please his mother by meeting her expectations about who and how he was supposed to be. He was met with harsh and neglectful disappointment from his mother and the more he became his natural self the more her disapproval grew. Eventually she demanded that Michael move out of the house even though he was only 16.
As a teenager, Michael shrugged this experience off, moved on with his education and life, and did what he needed to do to survive. At the time, Michael didn’t feel much more than a scratch of pain, his true feelings were buried deep inside, out of sight and out of mind.
Together, we discovered that this experience in Michael’s teenage years left far more pain deep in his heart than what his mind could recognise at the time. The symptoms of his deep pain persisted and he continued to resist this hurt over the subsequent decades.
The symptoms of financial ruin that were plaguing Michael were a direct manifestation of how worthless he felt he was to his mother. His continual weight gain was linked to the deep shame he felt about his failure to make his mother happy.
The absence of a loving relationship in his life was a reflection of how he has closed his heart to deny his love for his mother because it didn’t feel safe to love her once she had demanded he move out of the home.
Once these hidden wounds were brought to light, Michael began working with them wholeheartedly to help himself heal the hurt and digest what had been hidden away all these years.
After several sessions together, as well as self-work in between, the symptoms of Michael’s finances, weight and love life are beginning to rebalance. He’s been able to stick to a plan to get himself out of debt, he’s shedding pounds and he is dating again with excitement. More importantly, he is genuinely and vulnerably nurturing the wounds in his heart for the first time in his life.
