Miriam

It feels like this time of the year invites to look back and say thanks. I think there will be a number of posts that will do just that … after this one.

And this is one about something I am – smack – right in the middle of.

If my journey of becoming a coach has taught me one thing, it is that my path of development will continue for as long as I live and that on this path, there are always things I don’t see. So, if I want to move forward, I’ll want a guide with me who can see and make sense of what is in my blind spot.

A month or so ago, I started walking alongside my coach Renée. I was pretty clear on what I wanted to work on. I had this idea in mind of what it feels like when I’ll have progressed in my topic. And although I know what we do and how we work, I was again surprised about the layers that she uncovered in my topic, the old narratives that seemed to reach far back in my life and that seemed to drive my way of thinking until today.

And what I love most about the work with her is that in our sessions I can show up as messy and real as I am. No need to make sense. Just leaning back and letting myself be guided by her. It feels like wellness for my entire being. I can feel progress and breaking free from some old beliefs after engaging in my first practices. Like layers of assumptions coming off that obstructed my view on what really matters, on what I really want to do, how I really want to be.

Not only I can feel it! She makes my family part of my practices and I can see and feel the transformation coming alive day after day.

 

It’s great to see and feel the impact of coaching work on me and my own life! It’s reassuring and relaxing to be guided and held by a superb professional and I’m looking forward to more impactful transformation in the next months.

Thanks Renée for helping me grow and wake up!

This is it. The frantic planner inside me has realized that the end of the year approaches and that in order to not be stressed in the last days of the year I should start preparing things now. Great idea and that has me be somewhat … stressed.

It’s almost like the old machine has kicked in again. I can’t remember for how many years November and December have had this rhythm. Probably ever since I started working. Finishing things before year end and getting ready for restful family time over the holidays. So, for 20 years, always the same frenzy – why this year?

There are only few things that my new status as freelance requires me to finish for year-end. No complicated budget planning needed, now headcount targets to achieve, no strategic plan my boss wants to read over Christmas. And yet, I feel that I want to finish things for the end of the year. Is this in my DNA? Am I just reproducing old patterns? Do I just go with the rhythm of my environment? Would it be better to finish an online course a week before or after Christmas? Does it make a difference if I have all my blogposts and practices for next year planned before it starts? …

It probably does not matter that much! And maybe many things in the past years did not matter much either. It probably matters much more how I am with my kids, my clients my family. That I am not getting stressed and that I do what needs to really get done rather than shining all the plates before the 31st December – which is just any day (well, not really, because it’s my oldest daughter’s birthday, but in many regards it is just an ordinary day).

So, as a practice in theses weeks more than most other weeks in the year, when I feel my jaws tighten and the stress rise in my stomach.When I think “just finish this. Quickly. Today”. Then, I’ll pause for an instant, take a deep breath and ask myself “does it really matter if it gets done today?”. And you? Why not practice along with me and maybe let me know how you do?

Sometimes it’s hard to set priorities and to uphold the boundaries between family and work, right?

Today is such as day – client conversations scheduled since weeks and a little accident at home this morning has me decide that my 4-year old will stay home. Give him some extra time, some rest and make him feel loved and cared for.
Great idea. And it seems to work. Little man plays peacefully in his room, my client call starts and then a little face appears in our FaceTime conversation. Unfortunately not just the little face comes in, but also many words…

Here I am, in the middle of a deep conversation with a client and little man wants attention and someone to talk to. I feel bad about my interrupted conversation and I’m trying to offer him things he can do, some audiobook to listen to. It works! For 3 minutes… then, against my convictions, I give him the electronic babysitter and Fireman Sam does the trick.

I can go on with my client conversation. We explore and go deeper – here I am again, Miriam the coach, not Miriam the mum. While it is a rich conversation, I can still feel that I’m not quite in my usual state, a bit embarrassed about the interruption .

My client has a quite different view, she’s happy she saw my son. She feels more deeply that I know a multi-layered life from the inside out, that I can relate to her struggles. She even saw me struggle to respond to both my roles. And my son? He’s happy that he gets to watch some youtube clips, which he usually doesn’t.

And me? I am not quite sure how I feel about this. In a way this did not match with my idea of professionalism as a coach or skillful parenting as a mum. Yet, when both roles can’t happen sequentially, I may need to live with “good enough”. I’ll carefully see which clients will be OK with an interruption or maybe hire the electronic babysitter a bit earlier.

How about you? What are your moments when boundaries between roles collapse? What are your strategies to deal with them and what expectation do you need to let go of to be able to navigate those moments?

As for me, I’ll be working a bit on the elegance of my navigation and make peace with little man watching a few more youtube clips…

Working with my clients these past weeks, I was reminded of an important role that I have as their coach, which I sometimes tend to overlook in the other areas of my life: celebrate progress!

It’s quite easy to only see all the things we still want to achieve, the areas where we are so far from being able to do what we want to learn or achieve. And so we are blind to those baby-steps we do every single day, to how we are able to get more fluent and skillful in dealing with the stumbling stones on our way. We are so busy looking forward that we don’t take the time to stand still and take a look at what we did well and where we made progress.

And, I am guilty of that as well – as a mum and for myself. I’m sometimes so caught up in the busy schedule of my life that I just look at the way ahead. At all the things I want to learn and I think the kids should learn as well, so that I tend to not even notice for a while when my youngest dresses himself (!) or I manage to stay calm in the midst of morning grumpiness and a full day ahead.

It’s when we look back over the last few months that we start adding up all the baby-steps we have taken and that add up to a quite considerable change or progress. We realize that we have built new capacities and that maybe the way to go is not quite that long anymore.

These are two things that I do now from time to time: I try to be present and receptive in any moment to notice when something that used to be difficult for me or others suddenly got easier or lighter. And, regularly, I lean back and reflect on those longer term developments and where I stand with those. Like this website: the first blogpost took me a full day to write and now I am able to write two posts almost every week. Yes, I sometimes struggle and it feels like I have nothing meaningful to write. And still, I do it and it gets easier every time, little by little.

How about you? What are those big projects in your life and how have you progressed in the last 6 months? And where can you see the baby-steps every day, maybe in a specific situation?