Coaching Session #13 of Love Coaching Social Experiment – watch me coach Jodi, a single, bright, beautiful, late-thirty-something lady to help her attract the man of her dreams – reality TV style, right in front of your eyes and ears.
Read full introduction to this social experiment, follow the links from there to previous coaching sessions and then back to this post.
Jodi and I have come to a certain point, a junction in our coaching relationship.
This happens in every coaching relationship with my clients – the point when the client realizes that we are not playing around in coaching, that this is no lighthearted matter of patching up some holes in their relational ship, so that they can sail happily along. At some point, every client who works with me comes to realize that if they are going to get what they want – a thriving, loving relationship – they will have to change and grow themselves. Then the client realizes that change and growth is hard work that it will require them to learn how to interact and respond to the world and people differently. The client also realizes that change and growth takes time and energy.
Did I just turn you off to growth, change, coaching, and working on your love life? I hope not, because although the price for growth is high in terms of energy and time, the reward is an open heart and a quality of connection and love that most people can only dream about.
That is where every client gets to make a choice – stay and work with me on changing and growing or stop and go back to their life the way it was. This is the point where I make it very clear to every client that going back to the way things were means very possibly never getting what they want. Meaning, if they came to me because they wanted love and didn’t have it, and they walk away without changing, they will walk back into that same exact life where they want love but do not have it.
About half the clients at this point choose to walk away and about half the clients stay and transform themselves. I hold no grudge and wish well to those who leave. I feel sad, though, knowing that if they were willing to walk through the fire of self-transformation that they would be much happier and more satisfied on the other end. Yet I know the work we have done together makes a difference in their life. I know the words I have said will rumble around in their heads, slowly helping them to make changes in how they live. I let them go hoping that they will return when they are ready to tackle their personal transformation head on.
The clients that stay either move forward quickly, or struggle and plot along for a while, until they gain momentum and can finally start to see the fruit of the changes they are making.
Jodi and I have been going around and around for about a month now on whether she will leave or stay, and how, and what work she would be willing to do. Jodi has decided to stay and I am proud of her, and she is plotting along towards transformation.
Jodi said the path has been hard for her. The conversations she and I have, and the work I am asking her to do keeps throwing her off center. She regains her equilibrium and then she is thrown off center again. The thing is, she thinks the equilibrium is good, but she is actually more open and real when she is off center. So I keep encouraging her to be off center more, therefore allowing her to be herself more.
Jodi talks about a crisis at her work and ends her post asking me if I think she will make a good supervisor, a position she was just offered at work.
My answer is: Yes Jodi, you will be a good supervisor. Yes, you can supervise well, in spite of having unresolved relationship issues. You obviously know your job for your boss to offer you this opportunity. You are bright, and a go-getter, yes, you will be a good supervisor.
However, there is another question embedded in Jodi’s email, one that she didn’t ask, but one that rings more real and relevant to me. I think Jodi is asking if she will be ok, having discovered that she really does have relationship issues. She is no longer looking out there and wondering why every man is unavailable. She finally realizes that the issue has been with her all along, and she now knows this not just by hearing it from me – she feels it in her own being.
And my answer to this unasked question of whether she will be ok is a resounding YES! Stick with me kid and I will lead you through the dark valley of your issues and out into the light of connection and love. You will be ok.
Since Jodi is tiptoeing into her issues, our coaching relationship might go on much longer then any of us had unanticipated, but that’s ok, we have plenty of time.
So, Jodi, what are you willing to do next to move forward?
Do you want help fixing what’s not working in your love life? You can get help from me, privately, by hiring me as your love coach. Learn more about working with me as you coach.
From the Heart,
Comments on this entry are closed.