Corrosion of Shame Leads to Self-Sabotage

Recently I heard someone argue for shaming a client into having the motivation to be accountable. This was justified as a coach's responsibility to be honest in ways that friends won't or can't be.

This advocate equates confrontation with using a tactic of shaming. Then disavowed responsibility for inflicting intentional emotional damage by claiming that shame is not an action but rather a perception that lies in the eye of the perceiver.

This, folks, is an argument that suggests a personality disorder.

It's a position that terribly misguided parents consciously or unconsciously hold that leads to manipulation and disempowerment of their children at best, and potentially severe, life long psychological impairment.

The consequences of being subjected to what psychologists call a shaming environment is directly tied to learned habits of self-sabotage. Our view of reality and interpersonal dynamics gets drastically skewed when subjected to being shamed.

Shame robs us of our emotional and spiritual bearings. We get mired in believing we are irredeemably flawed.

It steals our sense of being good enough. It drives us into dysfunctional and paralyzing perfectionism. Or worse, it creates the need to self-medicate away the pain with alcohol and other drugs, food, escapist or risky behaviors, and toxic relationships and religions.

Although this may be a tactic still used by drill sergeants in military boot camp, no self-respecting coach, therapist, or parent would intentionally shame someone into their idea of compliance.

Just like arsenic is not a culinary seasoning, shame is not a coaching tool.

If you have a coach, therapist, teacher, parent, or partner in your life who uses shaming tactics to get you to agree with them or change who you are, it's time to tell them you won't accept their attitudes and behaviors any longer.

If you are suffering from shame, there's likely a small child inside of you who needs your fierce protection. The way out of the corrosion of shame is to take back your power.

A Role Model and 5 Keys for Reinventing Yourself

This morning I caught a segment on the Today Show about Claire Cook who -- in her mid 40s -- wrote her first novel in long hand, sitting in a minivan outside her daughter's 5 am swim practices. Now that's the ultimate in focus and dedication.

Her second novel was sold as an endearing movie you probably saw: Must Love Dogs with Diane Lane and John Cusack. Wow, and that's what happens when you move forward with belief in yourself.

Claire Cook is the epitome of midlife reinvention. She'll tell you herself: success like this doesn't just happen.

One thing stands up and shouts when you look at her website and blog. This is a woman who has unleashed her true self. And she's having the time of her life spreading her reinvention message. Her advice (slightly reinterpreted by me) for all of us midlife women is:

1. Don't pay attention to others' negativity about your dreams
2. Believe -- in yourself, and in being the dark horse winner
3. Live in insatiable desire for doing the work, not for the success it will bring
4. Root yourself in your own strengths -- let go of being driven to please everyone else
5. Find and follow your most vibrant passion -- be dogged in keeping after your One Best Talent

What are you yearning for? Are you secretly longing to reinvent your life before it's too late?

Then take stock of your strengths and talents, capture those lost hours spent waiting or in pursuit of meaningless trivia, prioritize yourself, and make it happen. Get a coach, if need be, to keep yourself on track.

You owe it to yourself.

What Are You Waiting For?

I've begun to think that the old adage that patience is a virtue may be an outmoded relic of the past. It needs examining, if, as I suspect, the character trait of patience becomes the behavior of waiting too long to make change or manifest your dreams.

Much of so-called patience is just procrastination. And procrastination is a form of self-sabotage.

Patience can be sneaky. It sounds good to say we are waiting for right timing, or more resources, or for someone else to respond or take an action. A particularly deceptive form of sabotaging patience is in the idea that things are in motion and we are letting them play out.

Oh, I admit that all of those things may be true and valid in and of themselves. And what I see in many of my coaching clients is that this mindset can also be the mantra of excuses-making for staying too long in a comfort zone when there is an underlying commitment to be risk-avoidant.

If you believe yourself to be a patient person, if you take pride in that, it may well be an admirable virtue in your character. And nonetheless, I encourage you to ask yourself these powerful self-reflective questions, and see if you uncover a saboteur you didn't realize was lurking in you.

• Today, what am I waiting for? Is there really no forward movement I can take?
• Is what I'm waiting for contributing to a delay in making progress on other goals?
• What am I feeling while in this waiting state?
• What could I be doing on this or other projects that might move me forward differently, or faster?
• What risk am I avoiding by this waiting? Is that really a good idea, or is it hurting my success?
• If today's waiting is really productive, what else can I start or work on or finish in the meantime?
• What alternatives to waiting would be best for me right now, or best for my long term goals?
  

Yesterday Saturn -- the astrological indicator of karma, discipline and structure, and building for the long haul -- came out of its 5+ month, low energy / depressive / introspective funk to return confidence and commitment to those willing to work hard on their path toward success.

Saturn promotes commitment (self-accountability) and endurance in manifesting our dreams. This is THE astrological energy that reinforces a sense of responsibility in order to gain wisdom from experience and effort in a one step at a time manner.

But there is also an element of taking great leaps forward with Saturn, especially in business when inner confidence, spirit, strength, compassion for and understanding of one's Self are engaged.

I'm newly seeing Saturn as the quintessential coaches planet or indicator because of our focus on structures, accountability, wisdom from experience, direction, resilience, and moving through fear -- all features of Saturn energy in an astrology chart.

Saturn is the ruler of my Sun sign, so it's no wonder I've been atrracted to coaching as a profession.

A colleague has been encouraging me to combine my work as an astrologer with my coaching services. I think she's right.

~ Deah Curry, CPC
Astrologically Coaching You In Manifesting Your Destiny :)

What's Your Prime Motivation?

About an hour from now I'll be speaking with my coach -- yes! coaches have coaches!! -- and she's going to ask me two critical questions:

~ Why do I want to accomplish my goals?
~ What's in the way?

Like many coachees, I want to just plunge right in to action. I don't want to waste time analyzing motivations, and pondering insights, and wander around inside my head until I make a discovery. No. I want to design an action plan and get going.

She's right, though to encourage me to take a breath, and a step back, and make sure that my actions are directly connected to my motivations. Otherwise, how can I possibly know whether I'm working on the right goals. How would I even recognize what the immovable obstacles are, or find the doorways to go through them?

Creative Alternatives Coaching sounds like it's all about action, and much of the time it is. But before action can be productive, we just might need to apply a little creative alternatives effort to the thinking process as well.

So today's coaching questions for you, dear reader, are:

1. What do you really really want in your life right now?
2. What is your prime motivator for wanting that?
3. From your current point of view, what is in the way of having it?
4. And go deeper -- what thought or belief or emotion is in the way of removing the obstacle?

Being Coachable

Are you coachable? That's the question a coach is silently asking during an initial conversation. What does that mean?

Recently I surprised myself by not being at all coachable on a particular issue I requested to work on. This has me thinking: what should coaches really be aware of and ask before agreeing to take on a new client.

Since coaching is all about effecting change, a prospective client must really want things to be different. Really wanting is not the same as being persuaded by external forces such as family, doctors, or societal norms and expectations. True desire to change is an internally felt pressure.

A coach should ask: on a scale of 1-10, where is your true desire for change?

Because coaching is oriented around moving forward, a prospective client must have a genuine willingness to name goals, design plans, and take action that is either self-generated, or co-created with the coach. Or clients must at least be willing to accept and follow through with the bold requests of the coach for a specific period of time. Willingness is the motive power that makes change happen.

A coach should ask: what priority does effecting this change have for you in relation to other priorities? In other words on a scale of 1-10, where is your genuine willingness to work for it?

Another key dynamic that should be addressed is the issue of resistance. Clients sometimes believe they want change and will say they are willing to work for it, but will have strong resistance to giving up old habits or changing self-sabotaging attitudes. Sometimes resistance signals a need for counseling rather than coaching. The question is, can the client honestly examine their resistance and experiment with what life would be like without those old habits and attitudes.

A coach should ask: what will sabotage you as you work towards your goal? Are you open to examining and experimenting with some different choices and perspectives?

In my personal and professional experience, the coachable client desperately wants change, is eagerly willing to work for it, is more than ready to examine their saboteurs and resistances, and is self-reflectively open to experimenting with new choices and possibilities.

Are You Drowning in Ezines?

This morning I found 17 ezines in my email spam folder. That's not even counting the 8-12 regulars I already had waiting to be read in my inbox.

I realize we're in the Information Age -- but I'm drowning in ezines. Does this happen to you?

Part of what overwhelms energy, and sabotages time is a subconscious fear of missing out on something important if we don't keep up to date all the time on everything we think we should know. Problem is, there's just not enough time in a day, or a life, to absorb, process, integrate, and use all the information circulated on a daily basis.

Funny thing is, though, that lots of ezines out there are all saying the same things. Maybe not in the same week, but over time there's only so many ways that universal wisdom can be explained. So how can we get what we need in the most efficient way possible?

Here's a creative alternative to drowning in your email inbox:

1. Limit real reading to no more than 3 ezines a day / no more than 5 minutes each.
2. Skim topics -- save only those that are addressing what will help you complete this month's highest priority.
3. Unsubscribe when an ezine fails to give you brilliant, easy to implement tips for 3 issues in a row.
4. Keep ezines that you'll use, but be ruthless in weeding them out once you've incorporated their advice.

Empowering Fearlessness in Turbulent Times

What if you could be 10 times bolder in the face of fear? How could your life be better right now if worry could be reduced significantly? Where would you act courageously if you could trust that all will be fine in the long run?

Coaches ask bold questions, designed to help clients keep their focus glued on an achievable vision of an ideal future -- questions like these. All of us have our growing edges, that line we're afraid to cross because the unknowns on the other side are too big. Many of us reinforce our fear and stagnation by telling ourselves catastrophe stories of imagined awful outcomes.

What if we took a different approach instead, one that is more empowering? One that looks fear in the eye.

Think about this:

• Successful entrepreneurs feel the fear of failure all the time, they just don't let it stop them.
• High achievers prioritize the potential gains of taking calculated risks over the known comforts of feeling safe.
• Worry can be turned into supportive structures and practical action steps if we treat it as "just information."
• Trust is a choice -- it's a decision to remember your own resilience and see an abundance possibilities.

What do you need to be more bold about? What's the first step you'll take in that direction?

What information is your worry giving you today? What productive choices can you make based on that information?

Will you decide to trust yourself, and your knowledge and abilities? What empowering one sentence can you believe about your ability to survive, no matter what?

There ya go -- coaching by blog! LOL

Challenging Clients

A coach's job is to challenge her clients to perceive with a different mindset, to seek solutions by looking for opportunities to go beyond the norm, and to support and encourage clients to dance on their growing edge of taking the necessary risks that lead to success.

The coaching relationship is all about helping clients see their own possibilities and design the action steps to make those possibilities a reality.

At times we make bold requests or ask powerful questions that can challenge a person's most cherished -- or unconscious -- priorities. While each coach has their own style, and while some do more teaching or mentoring than pure coaching, at the heart of the practice, coaches should vigorously hold the belief that it is how our clients think about what they can ask of themselves that supports and nourishes transformative change.

Our job is to help clients think on a larger scale than they previously have, to expect more from themselves than they usually do, and to believe as much in their ability to succeed as we do.

Trust -- THE Power Tool for Living Large

In coaching we talk about using power tools to help our clients reach their goals. Although many power tools are discussed, what they all have in common is the intent to break old mental, emotional, or behavioral patterns, and establish new ones.

For example, one power tool discussed in training is that of Trust vs Doubt. Many coachees start their growth process with a lot of doubt that they can have the life they truly want. We live in such a cautionary environment and have such little support for learning how to deeply trust ourselves, that doubt gets beaten into us from a very early age.

But trust is perhaps THE essential ingredient for living large -- that is, for having shining confidence needed to take the risks necessary to succeed at our goals. We must be willing to trust our instincts, judgments, perceptions, knowledge, training, and skills. And perhaps more importantly, we must be able to trust our ability to recover well from choices made with incomplete information, bad timing, or even too much trust in others' opinions and persuasion that lead to undesired outcomes.

In part, trust is developed by taking small risks and having small successes. And, trust grows by reflecting on the track record one accumulates in having recovered from less than optimal choices. But also, trust is an exercise in faith -- a belief in something unknown, unseen, or unprovable at the moment of making a trusting decision.

Trust fuels personal empowerment. The more trust you have in yourself and your ability to make things turn out better than just okay no matter what, the more empowered you truly are.

Coaching question: How will you exercise your trust in yourself today?

Swim, Gallop or Fly?

Coaches often wonder about the difference between coaching and counseling. A recent forum post captured my interest and prompted this response.

I take as my role the job of helping clients not just see the light at the end of the tunnel and figure out how to get there. As a coach, my job is to help the client jump the tracks and take to the air -- in other words, to leave altogether the paradigm of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and building the track to reach it.

My job is to help coachees envision a completely new view of themselves and their possibilities.

In other words, (and switching metaphors) a fish never imagines it can gallop because it has no frame of reference for being a horse. As a counselor, my job is to help the fish adjust to the disappointment and sense of loss it may experience if it happens to see a horse and want to be one, to teach effective coping tools for the inner urge to leap out of the fish tank, to tame the post traumatic stress of being nearly stepped on by a horse, to heal the depression or anxiety about the inevitability of being a fish, and to reintegrate its identity as a fish with a sense of belonging to its pod or school of origin.

As a coach my job is to help the fish imagine how horse-ness might work in the fish tank, to help the fish identify what it would need to be more horse-like within the parameters of obvious physical limitations, and to guide the fish in creating the action steps for experimenting with incorporating selected horse traits into the fish's world view and behavior patterns.

In other words, my job as a coach is to help clients think big, act brave, take the next leap, and discover they can not just gallop, but fly.

The Gift of Time

Once a year we get an incredible gift – by the grace of whatever consensus that gives us the return from daylight savings time, we get to re-do an hour of our lives.

Sure, for most of us this occurs in the middle of the night, as clocks are set back at 2 am. And if you’re chronically fatigued like I am, you probably spend this precious hour sleeping. But think of it. What if you could use that hour to undo an argument, take back a harsh word, or remove yourself from a conflict? What if you could push against the obstacle just one more time and this time gain the breakthrough?

What if you used that hour to pause all the fear and worry, and look instead at what you’re grateful for, and at what makes your life content, if not wonderfully happy? What could taking advantage of this gift contribute to you?

Or, an even better question is, how might you use this small bit of extra time to contribute to making someone else’s life better?

Often, it’s not the big efforts that define a life, but the small, daily, unnoticed and unapplauded ones that create who we are on the moment to moment basis. It’s the unconscious, reflex reactions that are the evidence of what we truly value, and we rarely stop long enough to really examine how are beliefs and assumptions are getting put into action.

An hour is enough time to think a new thought, change perspectives, give forgiveness, voice an apology, ask for what you want, or finally own your power. It’s enough time to make a new commitment to yourself, and to specify at least three action steps for accomplishing that.

An hour is enough time to begin to change everything. How will you use your gift of time?

Getting Fit

I bet you thought this entry would be about physical fitness, didn’t you?

Well, sorry to disappoint -- I’m speaking here about getting the right fit between coach and client. And maybe there will be some similarities, if not analogies or metaphors that can be made between the two concepts.

Why is getting fit important? I think there are a number of obvious reasons. For example, without fit:

· Coach can become an obstacle in coachee’s process

· Coachee may struggle with investing in the process

· Coachee may not feel understood or supported

· Coach may be unable to assist in goal attainment

Although it may not be possible to have a perfect fit, just due to the nature of differing cultural and experiential backgrounds, education, or personalities, there may be a few ways to ensure the best possible match, such as:

· Coach can market to an ideal client niche

· Coach can resist temptation to take on everyone

· Coach can claim her own expertise and stick to it

· Client can be clear about her initial goals

· Client can ask for what she needs and wants

· Client can be view herself as a hiring authority

· Coach can be quick to say when there’s not a close enough fit

It’s not a bad thing to refuse a client, or for a client to decline to hire. In fact, I suggest it’s a sign of integrity to know your limits, know what you want and accept only the best chances of getting that.

Here’s how this resembles physical fitness, which is about toning muscles and improving functional endurance.

Getting fit between coaches and clients is a process of exercising the mental, emotional, spiritual muscles of truth telling, empowering relationships, investing in self-commitment, asking for what you want and need, and knowing that it is in everyone's best interest to do so. And that is what improves the functional endurance of the coaching relationship.