Last Coaching Session 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.
In general coaching has been hard on Jodi because she didn’t think we would do anything deep in coaching, and here we are, having gotten to the bottom of her issues.In my last coaching to Jodi I asked her what she would be willing to do to move herself forward in dealing with her relationship issues. I told her that she will have to find a way to take daily action towards growing herself into a warm, open, and connected person.
You see, at the very core, Jodi’s issue is that she does not trust people. She believes that ultimately everyone will hurt and abandon her, turn on her or just plain turn crazy and then turn on her. After all the two most significant people in her life – her parents – did just that. Her dad abandoned her and left when he divorced from her mom, and really only occasionally came back into her life when he needed something. Her mom is manic-depressive, although not abandoning Jodi physically, she was basically never there. To top it off, a significant man in Jodi’s life, Ron, turned out to be some sort of mild pedophile. Who could trust people after that?
Yet, if you were to meet Jodi on the street, talk to her on the phone, date her or even become her friend, you would never know that Jodi is terrified of being hurt and abandoned. What you would see is a well-adjusted, happy, productive lady who is a go-getter, a doer, and a self-starter.
This is a good thing to know for many of you out there. You may function well in your life, you may look good on the outside, but if you are struggling in relationships, deep inside of you lurks issues that are not going to go away until you figure out what they are and deal with them.
It’s this stark contrast between what’s going on inside and outside of Jodi that gets her into trouble. People don’t get her, people think she doesn’t need them, that she doesn’t want to connect with them, and so they don’t connect with her. Meanwhile she is starving for connection. She won’t admit it most of the time, but she is.
On top of this, when Jodi is in pain or uncomfortable she runs. After all, this is what she learned to do from her parents. When life gets too much run physically – dad – or run emotionally and mentally – mom. This means that people never get to see her fall apart, so they can’t offer her love and support – connection – because when she falls apart she runs and hides.
Finally, because Jodi can’t trust she only allows herself to connect with unavailable guys, that way she never has to fall in love and risk being loved back, never has to trust and never has to deal with her trust being broken.
The key for Jodi to attracting real love, and real friends, is to learn how to trust the right people, to learn to know that just because three people in her life were not trustworthy does not mean everyone is not trustworthy. She has to learn how to tell trustworthy people from non- trustworthy people, and only give her heart to trustworthy people. She needs to learn to let herself fall apart in front of these people, so that she can be loved, because to be loved takes a certain amount of vulnerability.
However, this kind of emotional learning does not come easily or without cost. When a person who has been protecting herself emotionally all her life starts to experience the cracks in the mask of happy-go-lucky lady, things don’t feel so great for a while.
That is what’s happening with Jodi now – she is feeling very distressed. Having realized what really holds her back from love, and faced with dealing with pain of her childhood and her past relationships, she can’t really take strong action to move forward. She is submerged in her emotions.
The major difference between working with a coach vs. a therapist is this: A coach will recommend action that will help a client’s emotions and goals and will support, motivate and cheer the client on to take that action. A therapist will sit with client in the emotions and help sooth them.
For now, in her distress and inability to take decisive strong action towards healing her heart, Jodi needs a therapist much more than she needs a coach.
While I continue to be available to Jodi to support her, I have strongly recommended to Jodi that she go find a therapist, do a few individual sessions then join a therapy group to both get support and get more true connection with more people. It is this connection that will ultimately help her heal her heart, so that she can become ready to open it up to a healthy, available man.
Jodi and I will be taking a break from public coaching while she handles the distress resulting from getting to the heart of her love issues. She will possibly come back into being coached publicly when she has gotten a handle on her trust issues and when she has learned to connect deeply with people. I will then be able to teach her how to distinguish available from unavailable men and how to attract and build a loving, life-long, sustainable relationship.
Jodi has told me that although we have not yet gotten her to her final destination if attracting a wonderful available man, she is thankful for my help in unearthing her relationship issues, so that she can finally work on resolving them.
Do you want my help in getting to the bottom of your relationship issues? I have created a special one time coaching session in which I do just that – go to the bottom of your issues and give you an action plan on how to resolve them.
Update: Jodi was not only being coached by me, but was also working as a pro bono assistant in my business. She was offered a well paid position as an assistant to another relationship coach, and to prevent conflict of interest, she had to permanently stop working with me as her coach and as my assistant. I wish Jodi well and send her deep love.
