Fight Against Camouflage

Fight Against Camouflage; Sounds pretty punchy.

What is this core value all about?

For some clients and friends I have worked with, often a running theme that has appeared is a story of nervousness about moving forward. For some, they felt they were too quiet and struggled to make their voice heard, while for others they had certain jobs or tasks that for some reason would immediately find a reason to flee the task, and do literally anything else that came to mind.

For me and my experience, I saw a link between all these different situations, one where the body's nervous system (using the polyvagel theory) was writing a self defence plan of camouflage.

Where did this come from?

When I began my first business a few years ago, I knew there was a lot to learn. Finding suppliers, testing products, website design, finance tracking, the list goes on and on. And of course the inevitable social media. I knew that I would need a business social media profile and I would need to regularly post stuff to keep people interested, and liking and sharing etc etc etc.

And though I am not big into social media personally, I didn't think it would be too much of a challenge. But I hit a huge wall. I couldn't keep a consistant posting schedule, I struggled to come up with ideas and I always found a reason to focus on something else. And then I found myself having the same feeling when I started telling friends about my new business. Physically, I could feel tension in the back of my neck and I tried to hide.

After a lot of work to try and delve into the feelings further using my own coach and mentor I realised that there was a key link running through my nervous system. The story being written was "Camouflage is Safety".

With this story out in the open, I was able to relate so many other aspects of my work and life where I noticed that I would hide or avoid telling people. Even good things. And by having the story out in the open I was able to rewrite that story, and start to move through that safety net my system had created for me.

How has this come to be part of your coaching?

The more I thought about this concept, the more I realised how many links and understanding others can have with it. Often, coachees simply think that they are quiet people, more insular or introverted and are happy to just go with the flow. And for some, this idea that the system is keeping them held back, is trying to stop them from standing up and moving forward has been so interesting.

By bringing this concept into my coaching, I try to give people the space to really think about their feelings and reactions, both mentally and physically, that they feel in certain situations and try to identify exactly what story is running through their system. And with the confidence to know that your system isn't hiding, it helps them step forward.