Avoid the Holiday Blues

By Shel | Published: December 27, 2009

I hope you are all taking the opportunity to enjoy your family and social connections now that you are half way through the year end holidays. This is a fine time to show your family how much you appreciate them no matter how they behave. You are who you are because you act the way you do. So remember to maintain your equanimity, dignity and keep developing your ability to understand and honor your elders and siblings.

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Staying Committed: Part 2

By Shel | Published: May 29, 2008
Key words: leadership communication negotiation parenting commitment coach success work love balance NO
Summary: Success at both work and love enhance each other. The necessary negotiation and communication skills lead to success in both the bedroom and the boardroom. One of the most important skills involves keeping promises, especially the commitment to oneself that comes with the power of a positive “No.” One also needs external feedback to really Know Thyself. It is possible to create an effective and dignified work family integration if not balance. Specific “must” suggestion are offered by the author, an executive, family and divorce coach.

Excerpt:

Just as ―it takes a village to raise a child,‖ it takes a community to maintain a marriage, a family, and a career. In summary:

– 5 – May 29, 2008

 Delegate tasks while you engage in compassionate and appreciative relationships with others.

 Improve your competence evaluating specific requests in relation to your carefully crafted goals.

 Nurture yourself with experiences you find nourishing such as massage, yoga, and romantic weekends away.

 Nurture your loved ones with surprises – something you know they would love to have or do – a special book, a dinner out, a time away from child care responsibilities.

 Navigate formerly hidden emotional vulnerabilities (problems saying “no”, or dealing with conflict without needless guilt) by talking with an executive or marital coach, religious advisor, or trusted friend.

 Increase self-awareness and effective dialogue by listening to the tone of your own voice and listening carefully to others with the kind of attention that increases your awareness of what they need and want. Provide that whenever you can. Say “No” to the rest.

You may download the full paper as a PDF

PART 2 OF 2 – It’s hard to stay a committed couple or boss when there so much screaming! ©

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Staying Committed: Part 1

By Shel | Published: May 29, 2008
To develop these positive moods, one of the highest priorities is creating clear boundary marking. Eliminate chronic struggles over rule making, limit setting and the division of labor. The servant leader needs to be a giver but he/she also really needs another basic skill: the technique of the gracious ―no.‖ Saying ―No‖ is one very important relationship coordinating language skill. It is just as important to serving the other’s needs as when promising ―Yes.‖ An executive, especially, must show solid executive functioning in her use of language.

To develop these positive moods, one of the highest priorities is creating clear boundary marking. Eliminate chronic struggles over rule making, limit setting and the division of labor. The servant leader needs to be a giver but he/she also really needs another basic skill: the technique of the gracious ―no.‖ Saying ―No‖ is one very important relationship coordinating language skill. It is just as important to serving the other’s needs as when promising ―Yes.‖ An executive, especially, must show solid executive functioning in her use of language.

You may download the full paper as a PDF

PART 1 OF 2 – It’s hard to stay a committed couple or boss when there so much screaming! ©

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Executive Coaching Agreement

By Shel | Published: August 28, 2007

Now you can download this consent form right from my website and read it at your leisure. Please sign and bring to next meeting.

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Professional-Client Agreement

By Shel | Published: March 1, 2007

Now you can download this consent form right from my website and read it at your leisure. Please sign and bring to next meeting.

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Consent Form For Audio and Video

By Shel | Published: October 20, 2006

Now you can download this consent form right from my website and read it at your leisure. Please sign and bring to next meeting.

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Relationship Coaching

By Shel | Published: November 28, 2005
Perhaps the most famous face to face coach, (some would say “in your face”), confronting high conflict couples and families is Dr. Phil. Many arrive to the first few coaching sessions with a report of a breakdown in ability to communicate, and a loss of a sense of humor. I know that it will be important to not only stimulate new awareness and
accountability but to inject a few laughs as well. What I also know is that it may take a long time for people to let go of their early learned and deeply ingrained loyalty to the images and voices of one’s extended family. So no matter how much time one may spend practicing new styles or modes of communicating, and laughing about one’s flaws, the bottom line is to give oneself permission to face fear – to move on into an uncertain future. Growing up means listening to one’s own voice and creating one’s own image of relating while the competing voices and images of our models pop up and derail our best intentions. We “can’t communicate” usually translates to I am having trouble communicating with my own self and “I don’t want to know it.”

You may download the full paper as a PDF

The H.A.R.D. Reality of Relationship Coaching©

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Changing the Culture of Divorce: A Review

By Shel | Published: November 24, 2005
Following Jung, who said “There is not birth of consciousness without pain, she reminded us that suffering, loss, and death can lead to rebirth? At one of the later convention workshops on Advocacy versus Empathy, reference was made to “the initial trauma of divorce” and the need to wait until people emerge from the shadows in order to be able to fully function under the strictures of the four way agreement and be able to make wise decisions about their future needs in the legal process. Divorce rituals may be the most efficient paths to achieving such an end for those couples struggling through the legal divorce. As we all know the emotional divorce does not easily happen in sync with the legal, economic, and social or community divorce processes.

You may download the full paper as a PDF

Review of Marilyn Beloff, Ph.D. ’s October 21, 2004 Workshop, "Changing the Culture of Divorce: A training in the Use of Healing Ritual" at the Boston Law Collaborative

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Trying One’s Patients

By Shel | Published: November 17, 2005

Insight Into a Hospital Stay

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The 4 F Model of Divorce

By Shel | Published: November 14, 2005

Here is a useful model for the divorce coach team member who is facilitating a 5-way meeting in the collaborative law approach to divorce.  This model dovetails with a set of expectations of ideal conduct appropriate for both attorneys as well as each spouse.

Forgive (what happened in the PAST )

  1. Letting go is always a possibility, even if in the background when not yet ready (relinquish).
  2. Emphasis on kindness and mercy creates a positive energy and attitude.
  3. When from the heart, your forgiving helps you finish to this marital chapter of your life story.
  4. Forgiveness may need to be more the purview of therapy than divorce coaching.

Focus (in the PRESENT with control over one’s emotions).  Negotiate sensibly.

  1. Stay on concrete points of fact rather than negative emotions.
  2. Appeal to both your own and your partners strengths; overlook flaws.

Read More »

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The Holidays

By Shel | Published: November 5, 2005

My coaching clients come in or should come in to develop more confidence when facing life’s milestone events. They come at those moments of pain, perhaps when planning a a family holiday reunion, a wedding, a graduation, confirmation, anniversary, or 30ieth birthday. In fact that is why I became the first Psychological Event Planner. I noticed that so many people planning such events suffer tremendous angst in the process. Why are so many happy milestones leading so many people to “lose it” when they should be experiencing the joy of letting go, moving forward and celebrating with their community of significant others. If it takes a village — it best not be a village of idiots: jealous parents who never moved on from their own divorce or
other grudge holders who make it all about them and leave you feeling or acting like the village idiot. I found I can help people at these crucial times to develop life-giving life strategies for dealing with the first ever reuniting of their divorced parents, for example. Perhaps they are facing a Monster In Law as played by Jane Fonda, peeved at losing her special only child to the not good enough daughter in law. In that movie she had never learned how to deal with loss and is forced to face her perfect storm: losing her son, her youthful body, and her job as a famous host of her own television show. But not everyone gets it that these moments of transition and loss are the time to seek help. The American way is to procrastinate. My plea to all thee who
delay: Procrastinate Later!

You may download the full paper as a PDF

Your parent’s or mine for the Holidays: The first post honeymoon decision!

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Divorce Coaching

By Shel | Published: February 14, 2005

MY MISSION:
To lift spirits by restoring hope and peace in families struggling with conflict.

This brochure defines the nature and benefits of Divorce Coaching.

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  • “Unhappiness is in not knowing what we want and killing ourselves to get it.”

    Don Herold


  • “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”

    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


  • “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

    Sir Winston Churchill


  • Shel J. Miller, Ph.D.

    About Shel
    I build relationships - relationships that restore joy and meaning. My clients and I focus on their relationship strengths, on what's strong rather than what's wrong. I am a psychologist coach capable of effective, efficient transforming of conflict whether it emerged from the bedroom or the boardroom. Thus I offer executive, family, marriage and divorce coaching in order to provide solutions to personal or business conflicts.