Why ‘The NeuroWise’?

Coming up with the name for my coaching practice wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be.  I touch on this a little bit on my website but I thought it would be a good idea to provide a more in-depth exploration of where The NeuroWise name came from and what message it was I was hoping to convey. 

When I made the choice to pursue coaching full time I wasn’t sure what my focus was going to be at first (some people call this your ‘niche’ but that feels a little more like letting marketing decide my practice). I knew I wanted to work with people that were neurodivergent because both myself and my girlfriend experience neurodivergence and have struggled with the symptoms associated with that our whole lives. I knew I wanted to work with people that had overcome addiction and were at a point in their sobriety where the numbness had worn off but there were still leftover behaviors simply being sober didn’t remove. I knew I wanted to work with people that had done a lot of self reflection and introspective work on their own but had hit an impasse.  I knew I wanted to work with people that wanted to break free from people pleasing, that wanted to gain ground in their identity, wanted to become their own person. It seemed like I wanted to work with everyone!

I realized that all these things had a main commonality – behaviors and patterns that were causing more harm than good.

With that in mind I started to write out things I had done to move beyond some of my more destructive and unhelpful behaviors. I’d borrowed from so many different modalities, practices, and processes that it became challenging to sift through it all. I’d gone through a dozen names and none of them seemed to fit. One of the concepts that stuck out at me was the one that seemed to be the linchpin to my consistent growth away from these patterns. The stoics called it your reasoned choice while in DBT it was called something else: your wise mind.

I am sure there are many, many different names for the same thing but the overall concept goes like this:

All of us have emotions and all of us take actions but there ALSO exists in all of us this gap between the two where our best decisions can be made. There are times where this gap is a canyon and we make our wisest choices based on our experience, our desires, our ambitions, and our goals.  But other times this gap can be so infinitesimally small that it seems like it doesn’t exist. Like we are led by emotions, unable to make any choices. Impulse bypasses decision making and goes straight to some sort of action that seems outside our ability to influence. I think at any time any human can understand what this feels like. Sometimes it sounds like this:

“I yell when I am angry and I can’t help it!"

“I only said that because I was upset."

“I can be really short with people when I’m in a rush or feeling anxious."

This isn’t to minimize or discount that sometimes we react poorly to our emotional states. Sometimes these actions can be pretty destructive to us and the gap between them and action can be small because of trauma or other concerns. For me, much of my poor action and choices centered around fear: fear of abandonment, fear of failure, fear of being treated poorly, fear of never being loved, and on and on. Hurt people do indeed hurt people. However, while this can be true there is still a matter of responsibility for us to find a way to manage that gap before we act. At the heart of it all is the fact there is always a choice before we act.

I struggled with alcohol, with a dysfunctional home life, with relationships. I’ve both lived in a world where life happened to me and one where I live my life with intention (sometimes at the same time it felt like).  As someone who no longer expresses the Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms I was diagnosed with, I can see what working on that gap can achieve. I can see how much life can change when living with intention and within my reasoned choice. 

It was not easy finding pathways through the life I lead.  It certainly wasn’t easy breaking through some of the behaviors I felt were just in my DNA.  People pleasing, dishonesty, codependency, dysfunctional attachment behaviors, lack of ambition, giving up at the first sign of resistance, and on and on. 

Finding a way to broaden that gap is challenging and often cannot be done alone. Not only is it difficult, but it can take constant and consistent effort and intention. There will be setbacks, there will be plateaus, there will be the desire to give up. This is ultimately what led to me creating my coaching practice and this website. It is my intention that over time this will grow into a community of like-minded individuals who can work and grow together. A community designed to help develop the wise mind and one that can be there when we act outside of our intentions.

Of becoming The NeuroWise.