It’s the end of the day and I find myself responding to a question on the Coaching At Work LinkedIn group – a great forum for coaches. There is already a line of responses to Len Williamson’s provocative question: “How do you change a thought?”

I decide to offer a few thoughts of my own before I close at the end of the day:

I smile when I read you say “I am trained in Gestalt (but still learning so much)”. What a different thought this is if you replace the “but” with an “and”!

What a rich diversity of responses, too. I am so grateful to Coaching At Work for providing this place of exchange as well as to you for asking the question and to everyone who has (and has yet to) respond.

A few random thoughts of my own. NVC (Nonviolent Communication) uses feelings as a route to awareness. Why am I angry, sad etc.? The aim is to connect with underlying needs that are or aren’t being met. Also some emotions (anger, guilt, shame etc.) point to a particular way of thinking – that somebody (self or other) has done something “wrong”. A practitioner of NVC understands that thinking this way gives away our power and limits our options.

Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) offers all sorts of ways to change one’s thinking – and so it should! Bandler and Grindler and their followers have set out to beg, borrow and steal (a matter of perspective!) the best that’s out there.

As coaches, don’t we ask loads of questions that invite awareness, open up options, facilitate thinking choices – at the “this thought” and “all thoughts” (meta-programme) level?

Maybe the most liberating thought of all is this: that we get to choose what we think and it’s OK to do so.