Specializing in
kids, teens, and young adults!
How We Differ From Other Coaches
"Your body hears everything your mind says."
- Naomi Judd
Naomi Judd is an American country music singer, songwriter, actress, and activist.
Kairos Chronic Pain Coaching Basics.
We developed Kairos Chronic Pain Coaching to help chronic pain sufferers and their families navigate through the confusing and often, challenging labyrinth of secondary effects of chronic pain by educating, supporting, guiding, and arming our clients with holistic, integrative, non-pharmacologic coping techniques. Furthermore, KCPC was carefully designed around proven methods, research, and protocols.
Regardless of where you are in your plight with chronic pain, The Kairos Chronic Pain Wellness Coaching Programs were designed with your unique story in mind. The goals we set, the topics we address, and the work we embark on will be all be your own personalized program.
To see a list of just a few of the subject matters we can focus our energy on, please click here.
With each client, we strive to achieve 3 basic goals:
-
Assist you and your family let go of what was
-
Help you and your family accept what is
-
Instilling hope for an empowered future by teaching a variety of skills that better balance the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual body systems
With that said, there are also 5 foundational themes that will not change from person to person or program to program. Why? Because every person I've met in chronic pain has shared these difficulties in varying degrees.
1. Increase Activities of Daily Living (ADL's) + Redefining Realistic Roles and Goals
2. Patient + Family Education on Chronic Pain, Communication, Holistic Physical and Emotional Coping Skills
3. Paradigm Shifts to Change Relationship + Behavior Responses to Pain
4. Accountability + Self-Management
5. Finding Balance in the Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual Body Systems to Increase Overall Functionality
Integrative Wellness Coaching
A traditional (or general) life coach is someone who typically is known for helping their clients reach a goal or make a change in their life and is customarily defined as a person who counsels and encourages clients on matters having to do with personal challenges.
The word integrative as defined by the dictionary is: Combining allopathic and complementary therapies and/or serving or intending to unify separate things.
An Integrative Wellness Life Coach is certified to help their clients reach a goal or make a change in their life and counsel and encourage their clients on matters having to do with personal challenges - BUT unlike traditional life coaches, an Integrative Wellness Life Coach is trained to help their clients gain freedom from the past, by healing core issues and overcoming negative habits and patterns - while
empowering their clients to change their life with effective tools, techniques, and specific action steps
It was for these reasons, founder, Christina H Chororos carefully chose to obtain her certification from Integrative Wellness Academy
As it's related to Integrative Wellness Life Coaching, balance means wellness, harmony, and wholeness.
An Integrative Wellness Life Coach does this through a holistic and integrative approach. By coaching towards balance in all four body systems (the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual systems) we move life coaching from simply counseling and encouraging to fully equipping and empowering clients to make effective, lasting change.
I strive to teach about the interconnection and effects between all four body systems. What this means is as we move towards balance in the physical body system, we must take the other three (mental, emotional, and spiritual) systems into consideration.
Coaching towards balance isn't about having you dramatically change everything you do. In fact, there is growing research that shows that changing behaviors in order to move towards healthier lifestyles is a science. During our coaching sessions, we will discuss the latest research and work to apply it to your life in small, digestible steps.
Learn about MEPS (Mental, Emotional, Physical and Spiritual) Body Systems
Inside-Out-Outside-In Coaching Model
The reason so many of us have experienced the ineffectiveness of trying to will change (like losing weight or quitting smoking) is likely due to the core issues that are at play. A simple exertion of one's will to try to force change from only the outside-in is about as ineffective for permanent change as telling yourself affirmations but not being in agreement with the new ideas in any capacity.
To give you an example of this model in practice would be the following scenario:
Let's imagine a little boy learning to ride his bicycle. He falls and skins his knee. As the caring adult in his life, we would put a band-aid on his knee. But stopping there wouldn't be healing him completely. In order for that to happen, we would need to teach him how to correct the mistake so he doesn't fall again, help him get past his sadness and fear now associated with riding his bike, and encourage him to connect with his full abilities.
Mind-Body Medicine
Mind-body medicine uses the power of thoughts and emotions to influence physical health. Western medical views have largely been shaped by the system of thought that mind and body were separate from each other.
In the United States, interests in correlating a relationship between body, mind, and emotions date as far back as 200 years ago!
People like Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, Dean Ornish, MD, David Spiegel, MD, Bernie Spiegel, MD, and Bruce Lipton, PhD, have played significant roles in furthering the credibility and significance of mind-body connection in modern medicine.
However, mounting evidence for the role of the mind in disease and healing is leading to greater acceptance. Suddenly our grandmother nagging us that "too much stress will make us sick"...has some validity after all.
The National Insitute of Health (NIH) wrote the following fact-sheet on mind-body medicine:
"The concept that the mind is important in health and illness dates back to ancient times. In the West, the notion that mind and body were separate began during the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras. Increasing numbers of scientific and technological discoveries furthered this split and led to an emphasis on disease-based models, pathological changes, and external cures. The role of mind and belief in health and illness began to re-enter Western health care in the 20th century, led by discoveries about pain control via the placebo effect and effects of stress on health."
Mind-body medicine focuses on:
The interactions among the brain, the rest of the body, the mind, and behavior
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is the component of the NIH that studies complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Within CAM, some examples of mind-body
medicine practices are meditation, hypnosis, tai chi, and yoga."
"The ways in which emotional, mental, social, spiritual, experiential, and behavioral factors can directly affect health." (1)
To read the full fact-sheet please click here.
Cited Articles:
“NIH Fact Sheets - Mind-Body Medicine Practices in Complementary and Alternative Medicine.” National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, report.nih.gov/NIHfactsheets/ViewFactSheet.aspx?csid=102.
The Bowen Theory
As suggested by the National Institute of Health, and arguably, the most overlooked, yet most critical component in the treatment of any health problem is providing care for both the family unit and the identified patient. Herein lies the pivotal substratum.
Originated by psychiatrist, Dr. Murray Bowen and founder of the Georgetown University Family Center, the Kairos Chronic Pain Wellness Program uses the "family systems theory" as our program's fundamental guiding principle.
Bowen family systems theory is a theory of human behavior that views the family as an emotional unit and uses systems thinking to describe the complex interactions in the unit. It is the nature of a family that its members are intensely connected emotionally. Often people feel distant or disconnected from their families, but this is more feeling than fact. Families so profoundly affect their members’ thoughts, feelings, and actions that it often seems as if people are living under the same “emotional skin.” People solicit each other’s attention, approval, and support and react to each other’s needs, expectations, and upsets. The connectedness and reactivity make the functioning of family members interdependent. A change in one person’s functioning is predictably followed by reciprocal changes in the functioning of others. Families differ somewhat in the degree of interdependence, but it is always present to some degree. (1)
However, we didn't stop at just incorporating "family systems theory" into our wellness programs - I decided to partner with the Founder and Clinical Director, of Hellenic Therapy Center, Maria Sikoutris-DiIorio, MA, Ed.S., LPC, who studied alongside The Bowen Center's best and brightest and uses the Bowen Theory in her private practice.
So Why Do We Treat Both You and Your Family?
By treating you, your caregiver and/or spouse and family, we will begin to heal the wide-ranging toll chronic pain takes. This was an extremely hard concept for me to understand - I was the one in daily pain so I was the only one in pain...right? Not really. Change of any kind requires an adjustment period. For chronic pain sufferers, suddenly our lives seem to revolve around our limitations, not our contributions. We miss who we once were, and all the things we used to be able to do so easily. We're grieving the people and the lives we once had...however, so are our loved ones.
Family theory dictates that which affects one family member affects the others.
Cited Articles:
Kerr, Michael E. “One Family’s Story: A Primer on Bowen Theory.” The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family. 2000. http://www.thebowencenter.org.