The value of coaching for cosmetic surgery patients

I was recently asked, "What's the difference between what you do with life-coaching clients and patients having surgery?" In my opinion, there's not much difference; both involve coaching, and the purpose of that coaching is to help people achieve their desired outcome.

When people come to me for life coaching, they have an awareness that something in their life isn’t working for them and they want to change it. For patients having surgery, it's not always apparent to them they need support during their transformation journey or that there are internal shifts they can make that will make a big difference in how they feel about themselves, and how well they recover.

The patients I coach and the private clients I work with share many of the same challenges. We all experience periods of overwhelm or anxiety, and we can all get stuck in a pattern of mental activity that leaves us feeling stuck or unhappy. These problems aren't unique to any one type of person; they're part of the human condition and apply to all of us at some point.

Having the opportunity to discuss concerns before surgery is beneficial for my clients as it can help alleviate stress and change how they think about these things. The common concerns I hear from my clients include; worry about who they should tell and how people will react to their surgery, guilt for having elective surgery and spending money on it, and most commonly embarrassment around wanting or needing surgery because of their condition.

Most of my clients struggle with the same three things: They worry about the future; they have a deep-rooted belief they're not good enough and they use their past experiences as a guide for how they should expect things to turn out. These three issues show up more often than not, and what I do is help people understand how their experience of life is being created so they can change their relationship to the things causing them conflict or suffering.

Worrying About the Future

We all do this to some extent. Our minds go to work imagining possible outcomes, and these usually tend to be negative or scary. The more we think about them, the more scared we get. Before long, our thoughts are running wild and we're drowning in a sea of anxiety.

Our brain’s primary function is to keep us alive, so it makes sense that it will naturally focus on potential threats rather than positive outcomes. Unfortunately, the brain doesn't discriminate between real threats and those we make up with our own thinking. Even when we are safe physically, our feelings of fear can persist when we focus on our fearful thoughts.

When it comes to surgery, thinking too much about what will happen can cause stress. You might worry about what people will think or how you'll cope. No matter what scenarios your mind conjures up, they're at best a stab in the dark. When we try to imagine the future, it's totally made up. Yes, that's right. The brain needs to be able to calculate what will happen, and when it doesn't know, it uses whatever it can to fill in the blanks--because knowing for the brain is safer than not knowing.

When we focus on the negative, it has a negative impact on how we feel. By recognizing that this is what your brain is doing, you open yourself up to other possibilities. There are many possible outcomes available for you to think about--what your mind comes up with is just one. So if your mind comes up with something that leaves you feeling worried, it can equally come up with one that leaves you feeling calm, at peace and even excited-and who wouldn't want to feel like this instead?

If you are experiencing this kind of negative thinking before surgery, coaching can help you challenge that thinking and explore other ways to view your situation.

Using The Past As A Point Of Reference

I recently spoke to a patient who had had an awful experience with another cosmetic surgery clinic. Based on this experience, she was worried the same thing would happen, leading to anxious thinking and a lot of worry.

This worry was keeping her up at night and she was starting to doubt whether she should go ahead with the surgery at all. While we all innocently do this from time to time, worrying about something unrelated to your current situation makes no sense at all. Not convinced?

Let me explain...

The brain loves predictability, it thrives on it. The more it knows, the less work it has to do to keep you alive. Familiar situations feel safe because we know them, and we 'know' what we can expect. When we know what we can expect, we can prepare ourselves. Again, this is your brain doing what a brain does.

When we use the past to predict the future, we are living from a memory that no longer exists. All it is, is a brain, using the information it knows to make the best prediction of what the future could look like. But the most important thing to know is, brains cannot predict the future. Brains don’t know what they don’t know… they only know what has already happened.

Getting caught in a mind’s fearful story about the future can lead to an inability to enjoy life and be open to seeing things differently. For many of my coaching clients, having someone to talk through their fears with can help shift their perspective and make the difference between experiencing their surgery with anxiety, or experiencing it with a calm mind- and this has an impact on their overall experience.

The Belief Of Not Being Enough

On some level, we all struggle with the belief that we’re not 'good' enough. It shows up differently for everyone, but it shows up, nonetheless. Whether you're able to see it in yourself or not, it’s the belief that often leaves us feeling unhappy with who we are and is the driver behind a lot of why we do what we do. We all want to feel good. It's hardwired into us.

So, if feeling good is hardwired into us, then feeling good is our birthright! The key to attaining this is the understanding that feeling good is not the result of any outside things. If the feeling of ‘not being enough’ stems from a belief, then the only way to change it is by addressing the belief that created it in the first place.

For my clients having surgery, this is the piece of the puzzle that often leads to them learning how to love and accept themselves wholeheartedly. It also helps them enjoy their results more fully, and let’s be honest, who wants to invest money in themselves to feel good, only for that belief to show up somewhere else, leading to more thinking of not being 'good enough'!

So, although coaching is not a necessary part of the cosmetic surgery journey, it’s a useful tool that will support you with any anxieties or worries ahead of surgery, will keep you grounded during the process, and most importantly will help you make the internal changes that will match the outside one!

If you're thinking about having cosmetic surgery in the near future, talk to your cosmetic surgeon or aesthetic care provider about the possibility of a conversation with a coach (or get in touch with me) to help ensure your goals of feeling good about yourself are met, and the process stays stress-free!