What is Health Coaching?

Health Coaching is a unique partnership between you and your coach. It's unique for several reasons.

- - - - You are at the very center of our relationship.
      - You are the expert. (Seriously, you are the expert of you!)
      - We are present and future-focused. (Yes, the past matters but let's explore where you are and where you want to be.)
      - We leverage your strengths, and empower you to take charge of your health. (Some clients don't recognize their strengths. You definitely have them. Let's uncover them together!)
      - Mindfulness, action and learning are key to making change.

Why Health Coaching for Parkinson's?

In June of 2017, I was invited to attend The Colloquium on Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation Care for Parkinson’s Disease: Building Your Team, Enhancing Your Care. It was an honor as all attendees (except me) were Speech, Occupational and Physical Therapist. Dr. Nina Browner and Jessica Shurer wowed me with the details of creating this amazing "cookbook of care" for people diagnosed with PD. Someone with PD spends half a day at the UNC-CH Movement Disorder Clinic and receives a detailed plan for care based on input from their Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation Care Team. (That's my quick summary. Don't quote me.) During the Colloquium, a panel of two people with PD and one carepartner spoke about their experiences. Their appreciation for the care provided was obvious. It was also clear that the detail and recommendations were overwhelming and in some cases almost paralyzing. Many experts with the best recommendations. Where does one begin?

It was apparent. Health Coaching could be invaluable in supporting people diagnosed with Parkinson's and their care partners.

Whether you have an Interdisciplinary care team or not, you certainly can benefit from finding your way to the center of your care. Many clients have shared,

I am not my PD. I am more than my diagnosis.

Through coaching, clients often realize Parkinson's is running their life and they are ready to take charge of their health. (Testimonials from clients with Parkinson's are included at the bottom of this page.)

Waking up to your life, exploring your options, and finding your personal Health + Happiness does not happen with a snap of a finger, but the journey from feeling stuck in a diagnosis to creating a Health + Happiness plan that sticks is a daily practice you can actually enjoy.

What makes Health Coaching different?

Integrative Health Coaching is about you taking charge and being the center of your health and wellness care. Whether focusing on PD or other chronic conditions on the rise (diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, obesity, improved lifestyle choices can decrease health problems or diminish these problems before becoming chronic. Whether behavior change is recommended by your healthcare professional or personally driven, integrative health coaching is a powerful solution for engaging you in lifestyle change.

Celebrating life long health behavior change is about identifying goals, creating action plans and making change!

Change can be challenging and coaching is an enlightening journey. If you have never thought about your optimal vision of health, what are you waiting for? Let’s do it now! Establishing your vision, understanding your values, being real about your life and partnering with a coach is an awesome combination for success. Of course there will be obstacles, but together we will navigate the bumps along the way.

How We Work Together

As your coach, I’m also your partner in Health + Happiness. I’ll ask you questions and invite insights and clarity through personal discovery. Together we will:

Explore your optimal vision of health
Review your values and concerns
Pinpoint desired changes and commitment to change
Discuss possible obstacles and back up plans

Accountability, lessons learned and celebrations of success will continue to empower change. As an expert on behavior modification, I will support you through your Health + Happiness transformation.

Here are things you can do right now to start your Health + Happiness journey!

Meet your Health + Happiness Coach

I'm Meg Poe, the Coaching Yogi. My passion for Health + Happiness comes from years of yoga practice and health coaching experience. I’m motivated by the “stickiness” that comes with finding the bigger picture, passion and purpose in life. You can read more about my personal journey here.

Everywhere I look there are opportunities to add value, to make magic and to partner with amazing people. I created Poe Wellness Solutions to form valuable Partnerships with my clients, Optimize their pursuits for self-discovery, and Empower their goals for Health + Happiness.

If you have never thought about your optimal vision of health, what are you waiting for? Let’s do it now!

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Health Coaching for Parkinson’s different than Health Coaching for anyone else?

Then why is there a Health Coaching for Parkinson’s page?

What does a Health Coach do?

A health coach partners with you in achieving optimal health, happiness and well-being. Your health coach recognizes that you are the expert of you and works to help you remember that. Your coach helps you identify what is most important in your life. Your coach asks lots of questions and listens with curiosity and an open heart and mind. What do you want? How do you envision your life? What steps do you take to reach that vision? Your coach helps you perceive solutions to obstacles, learn new skills and implement best choices. Your coach is your accountability partner. Together you explore lessons learned and celebrate success.

How am I the expert?

No one knows you, better than you. You have doctors, therapists, a care partner, an entire interdisciplinary team evaluating, testing and supporting you but still you know you best. You know your strengths, what excites and motivates you, as well as what does not motivate you. You know what you like and what you don’t like. You know how you have been successful in the past, made change, gotten to where you are. The only way you can reach your highest quality of life is to live your life the way that works for you. You are the only one that knows all of that.

I already have a therapist. How is working with a Health Coach different?

Although there is overlap, there are typically distinct differences between therapy and coaching. Coaching takes a positive, proactive approach versus coming from a disease model. We take a health and growth perspective. Coaches start with the assumption that the client is the expert of their own life situation. Coaching focuses on the here and now of events and their possible effects on the future. Conversations focus on goals, unutilized potential, solving problems and developing critical skills for success. Coaches help clients find their own motivation to function at their highest capacity. We are action-oriented. We envision a goal and clearly delineate the process for success. Together we anticipate obstacles, design solutions, build on personal strengths, learn from experiences and celebrate success.

How do I know you are the best health coach for me?

What experience do you have with Parkinson’s?

My first experience working with clients with PD was as Director of Wellness and Rehab Services at a Continuing Care Retirement Community in MD, 1998-2001. In 2016, I initiated the Pilates for Parkinson’s class in Durham, NC and since 2017, as a partner in the Parkinson’s Movement Initiative have offered Pilates for PD classes at the American Dance Festival Scripps Studios in Durham, NC. I’ve been very lucky to either attend, volunteer or be invited to a variety of events to deepen my knowledge of Parkinson’s. Most relevant for partnering as your health coach is creating POE Women for PD an Integrative Health and Wellness Program for women with Parkinson’s. The grant-funded coaching for 20 women. Currently, June 2019, we are finishing up coaching sessions from the grant and completing the final report for the Parkinson’s Foundation. I am excited to share about the experience in the near future. It’s been a great year with life and health behavior change for everyone involved.

While it is important that I understand PD, it is far more important that we see you as more than PD. You are a person wanting to take control of your health behavior, choices and habits. I’d love for us to chat about the opportunity.

I think my care partner could benefit from partnering with a health coach. Can he/she work with you? Can we do it together?

Can I get health coaching for free from a grant?

How do I get started?

Testimonials

I've always been positive about my diagnoses and sharing with people to spread awareness. Since day one I have said, “I have PD but PD doesn't have me." Well, guess what I realized through my sessions with Meg? I had been allowing PD to control my existences. Not only did I have PD but PD was ME. The total opposite of how I want to live! Meg's coaching helped me realize I wasn't living my life to its full potential. What I thought were the major areas change was needed, can't be changed until I truly look on the inside. I thought my issues were eating and exercise. Although these are important in me living with PD. I must look inside and put 'me' first. I am a person. I am not PD. The cool thing about this is my exercise and healthy eating is now happening! This realization is not something I'm in the habit of doing so I fall back into being the disease but I now know what I must work on.

Having a knowledgeable, caring individual to report successes or failures to is more than useful. Then to take the time to discuss and learn from those very actions is meaningful.

Before this program, I tended to deal with PD by ignoring or bracing myself against its negative impact on my life; but this meant that I also ignored possibilities PD was presenting. For example, when I tried to ignore the physical pain, loss of ability, and fear of the future, I was becoming increasingly numb to the new potential relationships, growth possibilities, and my own courage that came along with the vicissitudes of PD.

When I signed up for the Wellness Solutions program, I was still harboring the need to deny my diagnosis of Parkinson's and to avoid organized support available to me. With Meg's assistance, I have pretty much shed the negative attitude and feel so free!

Throughout this program I've tried to explain/define the specific benefits of POE Women for PD and often felt unable to do it justice. Having PD and dealing with the ramifications of it can take over one's life. For me, this program keeps it more manageable and contained; it lessens the sense of being overwhelmed by all that PD may encompass. That is life enhancing.

POE Women for PD has me continually taking a 'time-out' to stop and determine what is the next most important thing or task I need and/or want to tackle. Sometimes the task is complicated, other times it's as simple as taking a break to connect with a friend or read a book.

Health Coaching has provided a useful sounding board and a way to reflect on changes in my condition and how I can respond. Meg makes me feel as if I have someone on my side, who is very encouraging.

I am working in a direction that I didn't think of before starting this work. I feel that positive idea is worth it all.

Health Coaching for Parkinson’s