Your coaching session is derailed by unexpected emotions. How can you steer it back on track?

These emotions are a signal that something powerful is happening with the coachee. It could be something related to the session's topic, a personal issue, or even a subconscious process that is emerging. Whatever the cause, it's a synchronicity and should be treated as valuable info. Firstly, consolidate the safe space for the coachee to keep manifesting those emotions and become aware of them. Secondly, raise the coachee's awareness of what is happening and invite him/her to follow the intuition and see what message/insight lies behind the emotional flow. Use the findings as a topic for discussion, delicately and without pushing the boundaries. Let the awareness and discovery process unfold naturally.

Emotions are a treasure in coaching, especially in a world where we often operate solely from our left brain. Rather than seeing emotions as a derailment, embrace them to enrich your sessions with depth and color. If at any point your client’s inner saboteur takes over, redirect the focus back to their inner strength and limitless possibilities. Emotions offer valuable insights and can be the key to unlocking greater self-awareness and transformation. Use them to empower the client rather than steering away from them and allowing your client to experience life only through brain/thoughts.

Unexpected emotions can easily derail a coaching session but handling them with care is key. How can you steer the conversation back on track without losing focus? Acknowledge the Emotions: Take a moment to validate your coachees feelings, showing empathy while keeping the session grounded. Refocus on Goals: Gently guide the discussion back to their objectives by asking how their emotions relate to the challenges they’re facing. By balancing empathy with goal-oriented focus, you can address emotional moments while keeping the session productive and on track.

Let's be honest: a coaching session without emotions is hardly successful and sustainable. Challenge of the coach is to listen with her/his heart actively and show your understanding. So there cannot be any unexpected emotions. Yet an emotional outburst wants to be handled with giving time to the coachee to fully express the feelings yet in case this appears to endlessly loop it needs interruption and bringing focus as well as solution-orientiation by the coach. This is similar to mediation practise where handling of emotions prevail.

This sounds very judgemental. No emotions are unexpected in coaching, just because you think a client might feel X doesn't make it their reality. The coaching session is about the client, not the coach, so if they are expressing an emotion that you did not expect you need to explore it further with the client in the session and then self-examine later to discover why you are bringing your expectations and interpretations to someone else's coaching session and reality. As a coach, you need to validate the client and their feeling, without bringing your judgement into it.