Surprisingly Skillful Handling of Emotions
A series of experiences put me in awe of how coaching can transform our lives. This is one of them, and this one demonstrated how skillful coaching techniques are at handling emotions.
A psychotherapist I was seeing to help me deal with some past trauma was, quite frankly, brilliant. And he came with eons of experience and impressive credentials, including many certifications and books about dealing with trauma.
Yet month after month after month he and I flogged away at my internal iron grip of past hurt. Despite my outward efforts, internally I just did not want to let go of the difficult emotional residue and was completely blocked. It was frustrating and kind of depressing.
Coach-in-Training
By this time, I had seen how very useful coaching could be in helping people to make positive changes in their lives. So much so that I embarked on some rather intense life coaching training, hoping to use the techniques to help my health and nutrition clients make lasting lifestyle changes.
It was during one of these training sessions that my eyes were opened about the wider possibilities and promise of the coaching techniques. We were practicing some of these very techniques with fellow students. It was my turn to get coached by my partner who, like myself, had not had extensive prior knowledge or experience with coaching or therapy or anything like that.
The Golden Technique
The techniques we were practicing involved emotions: how to make a safe space for the client to acknowledge feeling a difficult emotion, how to let them explore and process the emotion and then, when they are ready, to ‘return’ with more insight and self-understanding and less emotional sludge weighing them down.
The Emotional Journey
You only get out of something what you put into it and I really wanted to learn these techniques. So I took a risk. I chose to tackle my long-time block. Not fully disclosing all the private details but just enough to give the coach context and lead me through my emotional journey.
First, I was surprised this even worked, since the coach knew so little of my history or problem. But, since I understood it fully, it was enough for me to dive into the feelings. And I really went deeply quickly with guidance and prompts from the coach. I was given the space to follow my own rhythm and inner timing. I didn’t feel self-conscious and I didn’t feel rushed. So I went deeper than I ever have before and fully, as they say, felt my feelings.
The Return
When it seemed to be enough, when my own inner compass said ‘I am satisfied, it is done’ then I signaled to my coach and she gently guided me out of the deep feelings. Things had changed! I felt LIGHTER. More peaceful. And I had less negative self-judgment. Instead, a settled and understanding attitude filled my inner dialogue. It was truly incredible!
I then realized that life coaching was not only great at meeting goals and making positive changes in your life, but also had huge potential for doing serious inner work.
The Lasting Effect
The benefit of that session has remained in me, many months later. I also had a number of other experiences and insights that only added to these realizations, leading me to change my main focus to becoming a life coach so I could make a greater impact on people’s lives.
