I originally wrote this article for the Institute for Life Coach Training blog.

Have you ever hit a wall with a coaching client? Did you find yourself thinking that person might not be “coachable”? Our clients inevitably encounter obstacles as they pursue their ideal life. As coaches, our mindset about these obstacles has a profound impact on the coaching process as well as the outcome.

Imagine that you’ve recently started working with a coaching client who wants to move in a new career direction. You’ve had several very positive sessions so far. She’s completed her fieldwork each week and has challenged herself to try out new options. She’s come to each session with new insights and a lot of excitement about the progress she’s making toward her goal.

Now it’s nearing the end of her fourth session, and it sounds as though she’s got a great plan for the next week—it’s a stretch, but not too much for what she says she can handle. You ask how likely she is to follow through on the fieldwork the two of you have designed together. She says 100 percent—she’s really going for it! You’re excited to see her moving forward, as you really want her to succeed.

Fast forward to the start of your next session with this client. Zero. Nada. She hasn’t done a thing regarding her plan. When you ask her what got in the way, she says one (or more) of the following:

• I didn’t feel very positive this week.

• I’m stuck.

• I feel powerless.

• I didn’t get to my fieldwork—I just didn’t feel like it.

• Figuring out a new career seems like too much work.

• My current job isn’t all that bad.

• I need a vacation more than a new career.

• It’s ridiculous for me to go for such an ambitious goal. What was I thinking?

• I don’t think this coaching stuff is working. Maybe I need therapy. Or maybe I just need to go out more and have some fun.

You smell a gremlin—perhaps an entire herd of them. A gremlin is a negative inner voice that blocks success and satisfaction in life. Whether conceived of as an inner critic or saboteur, a reflection of low self-esteem, or the voice of fear, doubt, procrastination, or another emotion, a gremlin is a creature that represents some form of negative self-talk.

The term gremlin, as used in this context, originated with Rick Carson’s book Taming Your Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way, originally published in 1983. Carson explains that a gremlin is

the narrator in your head. He has influenced you since you came into this world and he accompanies you throughout this entire existence. He is with you when you wake up in the morning and when you go to sleep at night. He tells you who and how you are, and he defines and interprets your every experience. He wants you to accept his interpretations as reality, and his goal from moment to moment, day to day, is to squelch the real, vibrant you within. (pp. 3–4)

Carson continues,

Your gremlin wants you to feel bad and he carries out this loathsome pursuit via sophisticated maneuvers . . . and by convincing you to waste time reliving the past, worrying about the future, and analyzing the relationships between all sorts of people and things. He wants you to believe that he has your best interest at heart and that his primary purpose is to serve and protect you. His motive is actually much less honorable. He is intent on making you feel lousy. (p. 4)

A web search on coaching sites yielded a host of descriptive terms on the nature of gremlins, including sly, sneaky, subversive, fear-based, negative, pesky, sneaky, pushy, relentless, snarky, and powerful. Common perceptions would suggest that gremlins have nothing good to say about you or anything you do, and that they want you to believe that anger, hate, greed, jealousy and procrastination are good things.

If that’s true, it would make sense to try to slay or banish them so our clients are freer to reach their goals. However, if you’ve tried to implement these kinds of strategies with your coaching clients—or in your own life—you know that they don’t work. The reason that going to war with gremlins doesn’t work is because it involves banishing parts of us, which forces those energies to become more insistent and extreme in their attempts to get our attention. As Swiss psychologist Carl Jung said, “What you resist persists.”

What if that view of gremlins isn’t accurate? What if they’ve just gotten a bad rap in a culture that doesn’t like to look at its dark side? What if, as the Internal Family Systems approach asserts, gremlins have positive intent at their core? And what if they actually hold crucial puzzle pieces in the quest for success?

When we learn to listen to gremlins, they transform into powerful allies that can make important positive contributions to our lives. We need only open the door and develop a respectful, appropriate relationship with them for the switch to take place. Far from wanting to make us miserable, these little guys actually want to help us move forward in our lives. For that to happen, we just have to start listening from a centered place and provide them with witnessing and wise leadership.

In future blog posts, I’ll write about how to befriend gremlins and enroll them in a partnership that can powerfully support your clients in their coaching goals.

When I share with people that I’m a certified life and wellness coach, a common response is: “I’d probably make a great coach—I’m always giving people advice.” When I hear this, I chuckle to myself and calmly explain that coaching isn’t about giving advice—it’s about empowering clients to access their own “inner advisor.”

Why is this distinction so important?

As coaches, we have a wealth of life experiences that have shaped our perspective on what empowers people. However, we really don’t know what exactly will work for any particular client. Supporting clients to deepen their inner sense of which steps fit and which ones don’t allows their true path to emerge over time. As they try on various options and get a sense of “that’s not quite it, but we’re getting closer,” clients take their theories about their lives out for test drives and make course corrections that point them in the right direction.

To the extent that we think we know what a client needs, we’re likely operating from our own assumptions rather than a quality of presence that’s crucial to the coaching process. When we hear an inner voice thinking, “What you need to do is [fill in the blank],” we’ve lost touch with our coaching mindset and need to find it again.

How do we access that quality of presence?

A great strategy for accessing presence is to bring our awareness to whatever isn’t presence. One way to think about it—borrowed from Internal Family Systems (a brilliant psychological model)—is that we each have a Self that is naturally calm, caring, compassionate, and other qualities that combine to create presence. We also each have many “parts” (subpersonalities) that have various agendas and that sometimes interrupt our ability to be present. Examples of coaches’ parts that may interfere with presence include:

• Parts that may want to be directive instead of following the client’s lead
• Parts that retreat into analyzing because it’s safer or more comfortable
• Caretaking parts that may feel, and even convey, a “you poor dear” sentiment
• Parts that fear a client’s strong emotions and that may try to keep a tight lid on a client’s feelings by steering the conversation away from certain topics
• “Need to be needed” parts that may try to arrange for the coach to be indispensible
• Parts that get distracted or restless while on the phone with a client
• Parts that identify with a challenge the client is experiencing and become enmeshed or overwhelmed

If you notice one or more of your own parts getting triggered during a session, you have several options:

• Internally ask the part to relax and assure it that you’ll give it attention after the session. (Be sure to follow through later by listening to its concerns.) You may find it useful to write a quick reminder to yourself so you can let go of the thought for the rest of the session.
• Say to your client: “I need a quick moment to ask one of my parts to relax and step back.” Far from being an interruption in the coaching, you’ll be modeling Self-leadership for your client.
• If appropriate, you can share with your client about your part that got triggered. This one is particularly useful if a client gives you feedback about a misattunement. For example, you might say: “I have a part that’s really rooting for you to succeed, and it occasionally jumps in and tries to get me to rush the process. I realize that rushing interferes with our work, so I’m going to ask that part to relax and step back. I’ll also work with that part on my own and help it to trust the process of our work.” Again, that’s great modeling—it helps to build trust with clients because they see you taking responsibility for any of your triggered parts and setting an intention to work with them from a place of Self. At the same time, it’s important to keep in mind that the appropriate main focus of sessions is the client’s coaching goals, not interpersonal processing between the coach and client.
• Work with the part after the session and attend to its concerns. Also ask yourself: What will enhance my ability to lead from Self with this client?
• Work with a mentor coach or a colleague to calm down and attend to any parts that habitually get triggered in the process of coaching clients. This is also an appropriate place to explore when it is and isn’t appropriate to disclose to a client about any of your own parts.

It can be tempting for coaches to align with the parts of clients that want to move full steam ahead toward a goal. It’s crucial for coaches to recognize our own parts that are obscuring our access to Self. When we’re in Self, we trust the client’s process—both the pace and the route. Self-led coaches do our utmost to notice when we aren’t in Self and to cultivate our ability to return to a state of presence with our clients. We also learn to compassionately attend to our distressed parts so that, more and more, being present comes naturally to us.

I’ve started writing a monthly blog post for the Institute for Life Coach Training and will be posting my articles here as well.

I’ve always been fascinated with personal growth—ever since my first therapy session at age 19. As a young adult, I was fortunate to have a close association with the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland as a therapy client and workshop participant. Years later, I attended workshops there to help round out my professional training as a psychotherapist. From therapy client and workshop participant to graduate student to licensed psychotherapist, the quest to understand what helps people heal, grow, and fulfill their potential has long been a guiding force in my life.

As a therapist, I was privileged to support many clients through pivotal transformations, and I was awed by the healing power of presence and empathy. Yet psychotherapy was never the right career fit for me. It wasn’t until I discovered the field of professional coaching that things “clicked” and I knew I’d found my true path within the field of human development.

Many therapists add coaching to their skill set instead of replacing therapy with coaching. As long as they’re professionally trained in both fields, hold the necessary credentials, and practice within the ethical bounds of each profession, this is a perfectly viable option—as long as they’re not simultaneously seeing the same clients for both kinds of work. Other therapists choose to leave behind their therapy practice in favor of coaching.

Coaching was a better fit for me for several reasons. The coach-client relationship is essentially empowering in nature, while the therapist-client relationship is often reparative. On some level, every positive relationship we have with anyone—client, friend, colleague, or even grocery clerk—is reparative, but psychotherapy is designed to place the reparative element front and center. A certain level of responsibility comes with the territory of being in that reparative role with clients, and it’s common in psychotherapy to assume that responsibility for years at a time. For me, coaching has a lightness to it because I’m not in that role. Although I respect and honor the unique role I do play in the lives of my coaching clients, it never feels weighty or burdensome.

Another reason that coaching is a great fit for me is because I work with clients who come to me motivated to move forward in their lives. Therapy clients aren’t necessarily thrilled about the process they’re engaged in, and they often start therapy because they’re stuck and in a great deal of pain. For some clients, therapy sessions feel like going to the dentist—a necessary procedure for addressing a problem but one they don’t look forward to or revel in.

Coaching clients don’t necessarily have clarity about how to move forward—that’s what we discover together—but they bring to coaching a lot of “juice” to power the process. They seek me out as a coach when they’re ready to try new strategies and get new results, and their hunger to reach the next level of their lives is a powerful ingredient in the coaching process. Working with clients who bring excitement and readiness for change to our sessions is exciting and deeply satisfying.

It’s crucial to be mindful of any agenda I bring to sessions. My responsibility—and great joy—as a coach is to support my clients to become their best selves according to their vision, not mine. The pace at which they progress is their own as well. Yet on the whole, I see more visible progress with coaching clients than I did as a therapist. The faster pace definitely “ups” the satisfaction factor for me.

Some practitioners have a gift for “sitting in the soup” with clients and helping them to get out. Other practitioners have a gift for supporting clients to design strategies for moving “full steam ahead” toward their goals. My gifts lie more in the second category, and it was liberating to finally realize that and move forward grounded in that understanding. Everyone wins when we identify our unique gifts and contribute them to the world.

“That insight is hidden in the word ‘vocation’ itself, which is rooted in the Latin for ‘voice.’ Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I am to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live—but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.”

—Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately. I’ve been reading a book by Fred Luskin titled Forgive for Good. I’ve been interested in forgiveness for many years, in large part because I was raised with polar opposite messages about forgiveness. My father was the king of holding a grudge, where as my mother seemed to me to advocate what Janis Abrahms Spring calls cheap forgiveness—in Spring’s words, “a quick and easy pardon with no processing of emotion and no coming to terms with the injury.” With Spring’s permission, I’ve posted a summary of her brilliant ideas on forgiveness on this blog. Her work has been invaluable to my healing process, and (through no fault of hers) I’ve known for a while that some piece of my healing wasn’t yet finished. I heard about Luskin’s book a while back and got it from the library.

The reason I’ve known that some piece of my healing wasn’t finished is that I’ve continued to have “grudgy” feelings toward my previous partner. (I’ve written a bit about that relationship on my process art website on a page about meeting my husband, Charlie.) It took me a long time to realize that the previous relationship was abusive, most likely because I used to think that abuse was limited to the physical and sexual varieties. I’ve since had my eyes opened by Maggi Scarf’s book Secrets, Lies, Betrayals as well as John Gottman’s work on what he calls the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:

• Criticism
• Contempt
• Defensiveness
• Stonewalling

Once I understood that these are forms of abuse as well, I understood much better why I was so miserable in that relationship, and I got out.

I did a lot of work in therapy to process that relationship, and I’ve still had lingering negative feelings toward the ex. Much of Luskin’s book seemed to be trying to “logic” people out of grievances (for example, by saying it has a negative impact on health), but the book didn’t answer—for me, anyway—how to authentically process abuse in a way that heals resentment and grievances. Or maybe it did as a result of reading between the lines. At any rate, here’s what I came up with:

I’m able to let go of a grievance when I can graciously and gratefully accept a life lesson from the Universe and not blame or feel vengeful toward the messenger, who’s really just an actor in a play.

That perspective places a negative situation or relationship in a much larger context and makes it not about the person. (“Don’t take anything personally,” Don Miguel Ruiz says in The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom.) It affirms my trust in the Universe to deliver the appropriate life lessons and returns my focus to my commitment to my development as a human being. I can keep bringing myself back to this perspective if grudgy feelings come up—about the ex or anyone else.

I don’t use the term forgiveness for this process, though I know Luskin and many others would. Luskin describes forgiveness as “. . . the feeling of peace that emerges as you take your hurt less personally, take responsibility for how you feel, and become a hero instead of a victim in the story you tell.” His idea of forgiveness doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the other person.

In contrast, Spring conceives of forgiveness as “. . . a hard-won transaction, an intimate dance between two people bound together by an interpersonal violation.” What I’ve come to is instead what she calls acceptance: “. . . a responsible, authentic response to an interpersonal injury when the offender can’t or won’t engage in the healing process—when he is unwilling or unable to make good. It is a program of self-care, a generous and healing gift to oneself, accomplished by the self, for the self. It asks nothing of the offender.”

What an incredible sense of freedom.

I have a daily practice doing process art and blogging about it for all of 2012. It’s called Process Art Journal. Some days I have something profound to say, and other days I don’t. I recently had a meaningful day with it, so much so that I’m reposting it here.

I don’t know where this drawing/painting came from, but I got such a sense of something powerful while I was working on it. It was if I was sensing some magnificent energy that’s not yet manifest, but it’s on its way. In my May 22 post, I included a wonderful quote from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love that I’m going to include here as well because it’s so fitting:

“My thoughts turn to something I read once, something the Zen Buddhists believe. They say that an oak tree is brought into creation by two forces at the same time. Obviously, there is the acorn from which it all begins, the seed which holds all the promise and potential, which growns into the tree. Everybody can see that. But only a few can recognize that there is another force operating here as well—the future tree itself, which wants so badly to exist that it pulls the acorn into being, drawing the seedling forth with longing out of the void, guiding the evolution from nothingness to maturity. In this respect, say the Zens, it is the oak tree that creates the very acorn from which it was born.”

I got a sense of something important coming through me when I finally find the time for more stillness in my life. Right now, I’m  busy with work projects most of the time, so much so that when I’m not, I’m usually either taking a morning walk or enjoying some downtime with Charlie by watching a movie.

But I know it’s not going to always be this way. And the reason I know is because there was a time when I wasn’t in a nourishing, respectful relationship, and my vision far exceeded reality. And then things changed.

And there was a time when I longed to be a writer, and my vision far exceeded reality. And then things changed.

So I think what there is to do is to nourish my vision of having time each day for deep stillness and listening, and to trust that reality will catch up.

So many people live their lives with reality leading the way. My experience tells me that’s not how it works if you want to create something in your life.

I’ve been a huge fan of boundaries ever since I figured out (in my early 20s) that a lot of my woes came from not having any. A boundaries handbook should be required reading in school—every year. I read Carolyn Hax’s daily advice column in the Washington Post, and I’m amazed at how little the people who write to her know about boundaries. Let me clarify that. I’m not surprised at all that so many people are ignorant of their boundaries or their right to boundaries, given the fact that boundary violations are so commonplace in our culture and that people who set boundaries are so often stigmatized. What I’m amazed at is how people can survive without boundaries and how entrenched so many families seem to be in unhealthy patterns around boundaries. It sure makes life more challenging if you don’t know that you have a right to your own tastes, preferences, and time, not to mention your own body.

Boundaries are one of the topics I offer life coaching on. I’m completely inspired by the progress I see people making toward reclaiming boundaries. It’s an honor to be part of their journey and to witness how many struggles evaporate when good boundaries are present.

Here’s a link to a CNN article about how supporting children’s boundaries will serve them throughout their lives.

If you look for books on boundaries on Amazon, you’ll find a very long list of ones written from a Christian perspective. If that’s not what you’re looking for, check out these books by psychologist Susan Campbell. They’ve had a huge, positive influence on my life.

Getting Real: Ten Truth Skills You Need to Live an Authentic Life

Saying What’s Real: 7 Keys to Authentic Communication and Relationship Success

Truth in Dating

Here’s another one I also recommend:
Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives by Pia Mellody

And I haven’t read this one, but it got really good Amazon reviews:
Set Your Boundaries Your Way: 7 Easy Ways to Say No to Difficult People by Stephanie Sterner

I’ve been having an enlightening experience lately as I’ve been focusing on my “ideal life.” Up until this past week, I’ve been thinking about it in terms of bringing my life more in line with my vision. For example, I have X, Y, and Z goals, and I’ve been working on identifying steps to reaching them.

I had an “aha” moment last week related to something my friend Karma once shared. She said that she knows what she’s committed to in her life by looking at what she’s doing. For example, she knows that she wants to attend a workshop when she notices that she’s taking steps to registering, handling travel arrangements, and so on. That approach is a real about-face when compared with my own. I decided to try it on in tandem with decluttering—getting rid of activities and things that no longer satisfy or serve me. Here’s what I noticed:

1. I quit two part-time freelance gigs. One was a recurring monthly editing gig that I’ve done for eight years and that’s been highly annoying for at least four. Every time it came around, I grumbled through it and comforted myself with the knowledge that it would soon go away again for the better part of a month. Then I made it go away forever! (Very liberating . . .) The other one was just something I outgrew. When I finally realized I had considered letting it go every week for the previous two months, I knew it was time to let it go for real.

2. Right after I let go of those two gigs, some new opportunities showed up that are much more in line with my passions. They involve new writing projects for educational publishers, something I’ve done for eleven years and utterly adore. (I’d wanted to be a writer for a decade before finding my writing niche.) Nature abhors a vacuum, the saying goes, and decluttering really works in attracting new possibilities.

3. I stopped holding the perspective that my work life isn’t how I want it to be, and I started noticing that 90% of it is exactly as I want it to be. Instead of thinking I “should” build my coaching business more, I realized I have exactly the number of clients I can give good attention to. And I realized that even though my writing and editing work can be too busy at times, I’m connected with good people and companies, and I have plenty of work.

I still want to add a few other elements to my life, and I’ll take steps to do that—just not today. Today I’m going to rest and enjoy.

My friend Karma and I traded coaching sessions this afternoon in the first of many sessions to give birth to something new in our lives. Even though I do very satisfying work—particularly coaching and educational writing—it feels as though there’s another aspect of my highest purpose that I’m not yet doing. I’ve decided to seek it out instead of waiting for it to come get me. I’m going to be exploring with Karma the steps to getting there. Today’s session was about identifying how to prepare the ground and also any parts (subpersonalities) that might need some attention at this stage in the process. I can’t see into the future beyond how to prepare the ground, but I trust that steps G, H, and I will show up after I’ve taken care of A through F.

So, A through E are about attending to some things in my life that will support me in doing qigong (F) regularly, with the understanding that doing qigong regularly will support step G and beyond. I’m going to take care of those things over the next week and start doing qigong again. I can feel that it takes strong intention to change the trajectory of my daily life, but much of that trajectory is the fallout of old habits and stress, so changing it is a very good thing.

I have a process art practice, and I have a strong sense that it’s one of the key components in giving birth to this new thing in my life. It’s a way of honing my ability to be present to what’s arising, which feels like a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Yesterday was Charlie’s and my first wedding anniversary! It’s quite amazing to grasp the fact that I’ve been married for a year, especially after all my past rants about the institution of marriage. A few weeks after we got married, I incorporated some of them into a blogpost on marriage that I posted here.

We wrote our own ceremony, which I still find completely inspiring. Here are our vows:

From this day forward, I will treasure you as my companion, my equal, and my divine right partner. Loving what I know of you, trusting what I do not yet know, having no illusions about who you are, I will respect your integrity and individuality. I will cherish and uplift you, be open with you, and bear witness to your life. I will revel and share in your joys and accomplishments, comfort you in times of sorrow, and be with you for all time.

I promise to be loyal and faithful, to celebrate the joys of life with you, and to give you my companionship and love. I promise to support your dreams and walk beside you, offering courage and strength in all your endeavors. I have faith in your abiding love for me and in all that life may bring us.

I vow to always strive for an intimacy that honors our bond while also allowing each of us to live a life as big as our capacities. I will continue to nurture our relationship as a sanctuary of warmth and peace, and a refuge of love and strength. As our intimacy deepens, I trust that the Universe will help us channel our love for the benefit of All That Is.