An axis point and an access point

A while back, I was struggling with some feelings of self-criticism and pressure in my work life. There was a professional milestone I had long wanted to achieve, but hadn’t. I called one of my friends, a coach, and asked if she would do a little coaching session with me around the topic. (Lovely benefit of being in the coaching world: knowing lots of coaches and having free back and forth coaching sessions!)

We got on the call and I shared my disappointment about having not reached this goal. I shared the pressure I felt to somehow get there, and the persistent thoughts that I was already too late, that I should have gotten there long ago.

A part of me wanted the coaching session to be about how to reach the goal. I wanted my game plan! I wanted my action to scurry into! I wanted her to agree with my inner critic on the whole thing and brainstorm some plans with me to remedy this problem of not having achieved the thing! (That part of me feels a little like the old part I remember from my teens and twenties – the part that would get uncomfortable about something in her life, or that would feel critical about some part of her body, and seek out the diet to launch into. Just give me a distraction from the feelings, give me the illusion that I’m about to become someone different.)

My wise friend did not let the conversation go there. She listened, and listened some more.

Then with a kind of potent intention, a slowness, a deep centeredness, she said, “How do you know this is still your goal?”

“What?” I asked back, almost not understanding the question.

“How do you know this is still your goal?” she asked again.

To answer that, I had to (first close my mouth which had dropped open, and then) look inward. How did I know this was still my goal? Was it still my goal?

I felt into my experience, I felt what this longing in me felt like. I noticed the thoughts that went with it, familiar, heavy, painful ones. In my mind, I heard some old influences from my childhood talking to me about how I was not living up to my potential. I noticed how familiar it was, to feel unsatisfied with what I achieved, to feel like I was living with a “not until” hanging over me.

“Maybe it’s not,” I answered back. “I’m not sure yet.”

“What is a goal that really feels true and current for you?” she asked next.

I went back inward to look, as if shining a flashlight to seek out the answer. As if feeling into a space within. Some ideas for other goals, other trajectories started to bubble up. My shoulders released. The pressure to reach the old, made-up goal loosened some.

I felt a sweetness, even a quiet joy, as I experienced a whole new space that had opened, the space of playfully and choicefully considering new goals. It was a huge landscape of possibilities, a landscape that I hadn’t even glanced toward in years, because my attention had been fixated on this other aim.

That conversation occurred more than ten years ago. I still remember it in the most crystal clear way. And I find it to be a beautiful example of what good coaching looks like and can do.

• My friend showed up with a loving energy, but not with an enmeshed one. If she had felt obliged to collude with my mind’s narrative about the situation, the coaching wouldn’t have served me well.
• She had listened very carefully, and her listening had guided her to what question to ask.
• She was able to deploy just a few words, but a few words that became an axis point on which the whole conversation turned. An axis point and an access point.

It’s this kind of coaching – focused, question-centered, fiercely loving but totally different from how we’d show up in a normal friendly interaction – that I use and teach, and that we’ll be exploring in this series.

In different ways, you can bring this kind of coaching stance into:

• mentoring
• managing
• caring for young people
• consulting
• supporting loved ones in your life
• and of course, they are at the heart of coach/client relationships too.

Stay tuned for more on this kind of coaching coming up. I’ll be sharing about my take on what coaching is (and what coaching is often misunderstood to be, but is not!).

Registration for The Coaching Way course will be opening soon! To learn more about this program and to get access to your early bird registration discount, sign up here to be added to the advance notice list.?