i recently had a 3-year coaching relationship come to an end. how and why it ended gave me a clarity on where my coaching practice is and where it's going. this client and I have been through a lot together. i was there when he left his corporate job to go all in on a start up, pivoted the startup to an agency, and left the agency to follow his true passion of becoming a creator and building his own businesses. I held space for him on zoom, over the phone, in person. I did my best to listen, mirror, and offer insight or suggestions based on our shared context and my objective perspective. our relationship demanded all of my abilities and lessons I've learned as a coach. and I loved every minute of it. he was the epitome of the kind of client i wanted and the kind of coaching i wanted to do. I've been coaching clients like him for four years now and at one point felt if I could have 5-7 clients like him and work together for years together I'd want nothing more. so I was surprised when we both agreed that our coaching/client relationship had come to an end. he came to a point where he embodied much of what we were working through, had his own momentum, and was more than able to step into this next chapter of his life. our relationship ended not because our coaching relationship didn't work, but because it worked so well! it's like when I went to a physical therapist to help me fix a pain in my shoulder. we had regular sessions, he knew exactly what was wrong, gave me a program to fix it, I followed it, and my shoulder pain was gone. and so i didn't need to see him any more. our time together worked! this analogy highlights the success and the fundamental shift in the way I think about my coaching. the coaching i've received, i've done, and see so much around me hinges upon a specific assumption that people need improving. that you only go to a coach or a physical therapist when something is wrong and you need to get fixed. so much of coaching is pitched on the premise that you don't know something, or something isn't working. "so work with me, the coach, and you will be better! you will improve!" this premise isn't just in coaching. problem/solution what modern advertising is built on. and while this is helpful for shoulder pain, it's toxic for personal growth and transformation. even if I started with clients on this premise, I found myself consistently reminding them that they knew they had to do, they had everything they needed to do what they wanted to do. I recently started studying with Aletheia and what I'm learning there has cemented this belief even stronger. we aren't lacking or in need of improvement. we all possess essential goodness, an essential wholeness from which we allow things emerge and unfold. my role as a coach isn't to just mirror and spout insights, but to meet them where they are to be present and feel with them through what is unfolding. i believe the coaching relationship itself becomes a catalyst of growth and transformation. the relationship itself heals them, loves them, accepts them. this is where my coaching practice is going but right now I'm in this place of liminality where I know how I want to live out this life calling of coaching, but I'm not there yet. i have to first embody and be transformed by this idea of essential goodness and unfoldment. i have to do the work, and these past four years have been a journey to embodying my essential goodness and letting it unfold in my relationships, my faith, my work, and ultimately my relationship with myself.

@elocinationn wow it’s that good?

@christineist what IFS has meant for your life!

@laniassaf @AnthropicAI @sammcallister wow!! they are so lucky to have you lani!!

i think in that analogy, thinking about or talking about the pain doesn't help in alleviating the pain or the reality that you are injured. you have to go and get in there and actually get it fixed. it's helpful to distract you or to avoid it long enough that it's bearable, but the most effective work is to go and get it popped back in then the work to heal it and recover it to how it was before the injury

@heynibras it's been about 2 months for me and i think one more month and i will know for sure. i'm already leaning towards yes.

@elocinationn it may feel worse in the moment, but once the emotion is felt, accepted, and loved it gives way to clarity and some deeper insight than talking could ever do.

@elocinationn “treating the injury” in my experience has been to allow myself to feel the emotion, and work with it either somatically or through parts work to understand why you are feeling through it.

@michele_dutoit i’m so sorry for your loss…

@melodaysong how would you explain consciousness to a friend who is curious about the term? i’ve been trying to think of what i would say.

@stephsoussloff us crying/laughing while eye gazing. i think that whole scenario explains our friendship perfectly. lol

@michele_dutoit 😔 praying for you and the family

@michelleakin 🙏🏼

the feeling is still here and i don’t know if it’ll ever go away, but now it’s welcomed.

@tinyrevver oh no….

every mirror, especially the ones of our shadow, is an opportunity to increase our capacity for grace