3 unconventional ways to honor the small stuff that makes the big stuff better

Today’s article begins with a story shared by this week’s featured coach towards the end of our conversation. It feels like something we all need to hear as we take stock of 2022 and gear up for all the goals we’ve laid out for the months and year ahead.

“I had a client who hated cooking. She came to coaching and asked, can you help me with that? I love my family and I want to feed my family, but I hate cooking! I said, “Alright, let’s talk about cooking”. When she hears what she has to say and she realizes the stories she’s telling herself around cooking, and food, and gender, and the role of boys and men in her house and the roles of girls and women, and how she was raised, and what cooking means; suddenly she comes to the realization of what it means to be in her family. And then she can go and have conversations with her family, that don’t revolve around cooking, by the way, that revolve around her feeling more valued as a human being.”

Did that already shake something loose for you? Does it make you anticipate the ways in which the “little things” you take for granted may go so much deeper than we think? Are you resonating with how the frustration you feel after gathering your kids into the car for the trip to school shows up in your first meeting at work? Me, too.

Erich Viedge

I first met Erich via my children, who’d met his at a poolside in the apartment complex at which we were neighbors. From that moment to this, he’s been a straight-talking challenger of thinking, whose genuine care for people and their ways of being in the world helps them do some uncharacteristically amazing things. For one, he set me on the Toastmasters path that has led me to gifts ranging from self-acceptance, confidence, and asking myself great questions beyond speaking to crowds. He’s demonstrated his commitment to supporting people in what they want to achieve as a leader of corporate and non-profit organizations, as a coach, and as a multilingual lifelong learner whose diverse personal and professional experience allows him to connect with people in at least 5 different languages.

Erich explains, “At its base, coaching is to give someone space to hear themselves talk. Sometimes we need a sounding board. Sometimes we want to achieve something in life. Whatever that is. We want to create something. It’s useful then to have someone that we can bounce ideas off. At its base, that’s what coaching is. And if you’re doing it well, the client will come back because you help them listen to themselves in a way they haven’t heard themselves before. And if you do it well you can uncover the hidden patterns in all of us that keep us stuck. That keep us from standing on that stage and claiming our voice. And if you do it badly you give advice. Have a goal by all means, but if you’re sitting in my chair you don’t have to. I will not judge you for not having a goal.”

How can the small stuff help?

There’s a lot of love in Erich’s approach to coaching. Speaking to him, it’s clear that he places a high importance on understanding both what you want and what you may need. Some of the approaches he shared may go against the conventional grain of "self-improvement" wisdom. I’d love to hear how they land with you. These are the 3 lessons that stood out for me from our conversation.

1. Listen to your “inner critic”

This one is only “small” in that we all know that internal voice all too well. There’s a temptation to jump straight to reframing when old unhelpful stories show up in our thinking. When we’re scared to give a speech that is part of our goals, we want to go straight to convincing ourselves that the fear is unhelpful and that we need to find a better message. We may want to go right into the affirmations and find ways to make ourselves follow through with the commitment. We practice rejecting our “inner critic”.

Erich points out that doing this could mean you give that speech in someone else’s voice. He believes that there is value in “listening to that voice”. Knowing that the messages it sends you serve a purpose, like keeping you safe. That doesn’t mean giving up on the goal - while this may not serve what you’re working on, rather, finding out what it’s communicating can help you respond appropriately and with kindness so that you can work towards what it is you actually want.

2. Understand that healing is not mandatory, but it is empowering

A small concept with big implications: You don’t have to heal. Does that one surprise you? I don’t know anyone who would choose to stay wounded, but it can be painful and difficult to do the introspection true healing requires. You often encounter painful memories or truths - sometimes about things you experienced, but possibly also about things you’ve said, thought, or done. So maybe it isn’t surprising that many people choose not to do it.

But, as Erich points out, “if we’re prepared to do that rewarding and painstaking, and delicate work. If we are prepared to sit and be brave with ourselves and each other, then the only thing we’re accountable for is to heal ourselves. Because if we can heal ourselves, we can heal the world.” Recognizing the power of approaching your healing as a choice, rather than an imperative can give you the power to stride towards what you want, rather than feeling pushed by obligation.

3. Know that “What happens in the small, happens in the big”

Erich shared this simplified translation of the ancient concept, “That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above”. You may have heard it named, “As above, so below”. In this context, it means what shows up in minor areas of your life, is often amplified in others. This is like the cooking story at the start of this article - the “small” task of cooking, represented so much more in the bigness of that client’s life.

Erich considered another such example - a client’s strained relationship with an employee. The question that helped her connect the small to the big was, "Does he remind you of anyone?" It turns out he reminded her of her son. Neither were “performing”, or meeting what she saw as their potential, and she saw it as her responsibility and burden to motivate both. But there are few things more outside of our control than the behaviors of others. Identifying what lies behind our thoughts and feelings in the “small” problem, helps give us a clearer sense of what the real problem is, and that’s often a lot bigger. It may not be about your son, any more than it’s about cooking.

In the cooking story, Erich’s client realizing that it wasn’t about cooking at all meant she could have conversations with her family to find a solution to the real problem. “Conversations that revolve around her saying, you know we’re all getting older. Can we just reorganize, or reassign the tasks so that I feel less resentful. And then the cooking happens. Because when she’s feeling less resentful when she’s standing in her kitchen, she’s feeling less resentful when she’s standing with her clients. And when she’s creating courses she’s going to do it with a different sense of contribution and a different sense of energy because she feels valued in the world.”

Erich doesn’t offer a magic formula for any of these areas, rather a non-judgmental space to consider them and what they mean for what you want to create for yourself.

What have you decided isn’t good enough for you anymore?

Erich is a Leadership coach and an accredited Lighwalker coach , and I encourage you to visit his page and book a discovery call to find out more about what that means. He also runs the Relationship Coach Show on Apple Podcasts. Erich works holistically with his clients, many of whom are mid-career professionals, and his open invitation is “please come to me if you hate cooking.”

When you decide that resentfully chopping onions, or yelling at your teenage son isn’t good enough for you anymore, when you’ve realized the ways in which this is showing up in your work with the people you serve, and if you’d like a sounding board to help you hear what you’re really saying through these feelings, Erich may be the coach for you.