FOCUSING ON SELF

Seeing a Life Coach

The third session was an eye-opener — she understands!

She’s onto me. The coach — let’s call her Nelle — she gets me. When the opportunity arose to see a coach, I jumped at it, desperately needing someone to talk to.

Choosing a coach over a psychologist

During our third session, I admitted to Nelle that before coming to her, I had been thinking about going back to the psychologist who helped me when I collapsed the year after my mom passed away. One thing constantly kept me from contacting her. One thought going round and round in my mind.

You see, I know I keep people at a distance. When they come too close, I draw up a wall. I tell people I’m okay, or that I will be. I figuratively close the door on them, and the determination with which I tell them I’m okay, warns them not to pry; not to ask. I do this with everyone.

I also did this with the psychologist all those years ago. When this year I realized I might need help, I found her card and kept it close. I wanted to contact her; needed someone to talk to. She’s kind. Really kind. The one thing that kept me from contacting her is thinking she wouldn’t get through the wall I draw up. It’s a dichotomy. I draw up the wall, not wanting her to come close, and at the same time I want her to get through to me. To my real feelings. To break it open. She hadn’t before, and I didn’t feel she could do it now.

I don’t know how to let people come that close. Don’t know how to open up. It hurts too much. I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle the pain, but I needed her to get through it; to break down the walls, and not just take my words ‘I will be okay’ as truth.

I wanted her to find the me behind the words.

So, I opted not to go to the psychologist.

What is coaching?

I have heard about coaches before, and during my study learned that a coach unlocks the potential a person already possesses to improve their own performance. Simply said, they get out what’s in the person already. A life coach is not a therapist, but seeing one can be therapeutic.

A coach looks at your present to help you create the future you desire, while a therapist looks at your past to help you manage your present. Tess Brigham

Not trusting the psychologist to really get to the bottom of my pain, but still needing someone to talk to, I accepted the offer to see a coach.

The first two sessions

When Nelle called me to set my first appointment, she asked me to briefly tell her what’s happening in my life. I mentioned my son’s bad mental health, the suicide attempts, and I told her about my husband’s stroke, and then being diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

During the first appointment I filled in some of the blanks, and elaborated on what I had told her about the health situations of my husband and my son. I added more.

I told her about my youth. About my daughter who was born when I was sixteen. How my parents reacted, but also that it wasn’t an accident. About my mom passing away and how I haven’t really worked through my grief. How I regret the things I hadn’t said to her.

Also about the corporal punishment from my parents — mostly my father. Then his preaches following the spankings, about how it was my fault he had to punish me, that he didn’t want to, but had to, because I was naughty. That a psychologist once said he had raised me with a feeling of guilt.

I shared that I always feel guilty about so many things. Like calling in sick. Even when I am really sick, I still feel guilty for letting down my colleagues. Or guilty for going to the doctor, like I’m only pretending to be sick, even though I know I’m not.

There were tears, many tears. On the phone before we even saw each other for the first time, and during those first two appointments. I talked, and she took notes. Asked questions and took more notes.

The third session

Then came the third session. In three sessions, Nelle gets me.

On that Friday afternoon she asked me: “What do you expect from these sessions.” The question overwhelmed me. At first, I had no answer. I stared at the wall, looked out the window, and then I knew. “I want to get in touch with my real self. To be able to be myself. With confidence.”

That’s when I told her about the psychologist, and why I had decided not to go back to her. What she said next, surprised me.

“In the previous two sessions, I noticed you revert to telling me different stories from your life when I got too close. You were trying to keep me out.”

I started crying. For the first time in… forever… I felt as if someone might finally understand me. Or rather, help me to understand myself. Accept myself.

Nelle wanted to share her insight with me. She drew a circle on the flip chart, and inside she wrote ‘Authentic Marie’. “This,” she said, tapping her finger inside the circle, “is who you are.”

I just nodded.

I can’t remember her exact words, but she talked about me as a child. How I had been manipulated into wanting to please people. My father played the biggest role in the manipulation, with the preaches he gave me, making me believe I wasn’t good enough. So I kept on trying to be good — over and over — and failed. No matter how hard I tried, his preaching never stopped. He kept on telling me it was my fault he had to spank me.

What happened back then, formed the me I am today. I’m strong, Nelle said, because of the ‘authentic me’ inside. She’s there, and she wants to be in charge. I just need to recognize all the ‘personalities’ around me, keeping me from being ‘Authentic Marie’.

No, this doesn’t mean I suffer from multiple personality disorder. It’s nothing like that. It’s that there are ‘enablers’ that take over and determine how I will react in any given situation. Parts that keep me from being myself. The ‘enablers’ or ‘personalities’ she came up with were:

• The one hiding behind a laugh;
• The poser — telling myself not to pretend something is wrong;
• The one always feeling guilt;
• The one always worrying… what will ‘they’ think of me? — feeling shame;
• Not allowing myself to feel;
• The satisfier — always keeping others happy;
• The one telling people I don’t need anything;
• Not wanting to give up, but pushing through regardless;
• The slave driver;
• The perfectionist.

Beneath her diagram she wrote:

• What I need or feel is not important.
• I don’t deserve to feel or ask.

I cried when she explained some of those things, but most of all I got it. The diagram she drew on the flip chart — that was me. Is me.

I’m in there, she said. I’ve always been in there, and I’m strong, but I allow those other ‘parts’ to take over and tell the authentic me I can’t be without them, because after all, they have always ‘protected’ me. And they have, but they have also taught me not to be true to myself, to always put myself last.

She referred to how I fell pregnant at 16, and the circumstances surrounding that. I told her, I have always done things my own way, in the end, but not always for the right reasons. The last thing she wrote inside the circle under ‘Authentic Marie’ was ‘the adult rebel’.

I’m a rebel, Nelle said, doing things her way, but in an adult way, in a responsible way. (Just a note: Nelle doesn’t know my pseudonym, or that it has been derived from a chat name I have used for many, many years: rebel.)

Recognizing those nine things as part of me is only the start. I still don’t know how exactly they determine my reactions, or how to change it so they don’t influence me anymore. But, that’s what the coach is for — to guide me on this road of discovery.

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