Do you give yourself permission to be who you want to be ?

Hi, it has been a while since you have received post from me. Main reason for this is that I was in the middle of a job switch. I am now working for one month with my new employer. It is all of what I had expected and a little more of it.

I did not expect great luxury but found that it was worse than I had expected. Also and more importantly I had expected my colleagues to be friendly and understanding and I found more than that. People are really who they are, do not put up a façade (what you quite often see in multinational companies). They are friendly and open. Also I knew that the company organizes personal development training that you can follow in your own time. There I have found a wider range of training possibilities than I could imagine and covering subjects like mindfulness, yoga, meditation, alfa training, being before doing, … There is also an alfa room available as a retreat if you want. Do not imagine great luxury there either (a forgotten room next to the airconditioning motors on one of the top floors, with blankets, matrasses, cushions) : all you need is there ! Great !!! I have found myself a place that really suits me : )

I want to share with you today an aha-moment I had during one of my coaching courses at ICA. The facilitator and other coach-pupils were coaching me on a blocage in one of my coaching relationships.

The background : I had aligned my energy level to that of my coachee who felt quite down and had reasons for it. I didn’t dare to really ask probing questions first to kind of spare her and also because I felt she was overall quite sceptical about coaching and the ’emotional’ approach (how do you feel about … ?). These were difficult questions for her. For 5 sessions I felt little progress.  My coachee did not really share breakthrough steps except for her feeling better after the sessions and also she mentioned that they helped her not to let herself pull down by the circumstances what she would normally do.

I want to share some aha-phrases in my yesterdays session in ICA class : your client is like a mirror of you (she wants to have an impact on her life as much as you want to have impact on her), probing questions : what contract do you have with [your limited belief] ?, what is withholding you to dream big ? but the best one was :

Do you give your client the permission to dream big dreams ? By acknowledging your client for where he or she is, by enthusing him or her, …

And also

Do you give yourself permission to be the coach you want to be ?

This was an eye opener to me : I was withholding myself, not daring to fully follow my gutfeeling in the coaching relationship, being afraid to hurt my coachee. I physically felt a change, an ‘opening’ after having heard that question. Yes, that was it.

‘What coach do you want to be ?’ I would fully stay in my own positive energy, dare to ask powerful questions, accept longer silences, allow plenty of space for the coachee to think.

I believe we (my coachee and I) have reached a breakthrough during our 6th session and have touched on a UAC (underlying automatic commitment=an absolute belief you are committed to). We will be exploring and working on this during the coming sessions.

Do you give yourself permission to be who you want to be ?

In case you feel stuck ask yourself that question. How does the above work for you ? I would be happy to hear about your experiences…