Dawn + Eve

Lately I’ve been wondering what it means to be a coach, and specifically a life coach? I’m asking myself this because shortly after finishing my coaching program I started toying with the idea of giving up on coaching. And a lot could be said about this decision, that it might be coming from a fear of failure and that resilience is necessary in order to be successful at anything. And I agree with aspects of these reactions and can see how rooted in fear my decision might be. But when I go deeper it feels more existential than that, which is by now becoming less surprising to me. 

When I think about coaching, I get stuck on finding just the right place to be between teaching and learning. I am so in my process, and so deeply humbled by the work of just being (which at times feels so damn hard), that I question whether I want, or even should, be coaching. I am brought to my knees most days with the enormity of how big life feels, and am often just trying to remind myself to relax and to breathe and to have a little fun (or ideally, a lot of fun). Even beyond my own internal processing, I struggle with some of the apparent expectations around coaching and what it means to have and hire a coach. The act of ‘coaching’ does imply that the coach has something on offer, some bit of information that just might help you figure it all out.

The idea that any of us can inform or direct others in how they live seems absurd at times. And what wisdom does a 30-something-year old have (says every 30-something-year old ever)? Am I contributing to an industry that once again claims to have all of the answers, and when/how do you know if you’ve landed on any semblance of a greater truth? How can anyone know their way is the way? What if what worked for me doesn’t work for you because you are a completely different person with completely different lived experiences and life circumstances?

But once I’ve cycled through all of my questions and doubts, and get still enough, and quiet enough, there’s a little tug that prevents me from completely dismissing the concept that I might have something to offer. There’s the knowing in my bones that the very act of humaning, and trying to do it in a conscious way that also happens to be uniquely my own, gives others permission to do the same. That reflecting and asking questions holds me accountable to the immense degree of responsibility required in order to support others (not to mention asking for money in return). That we’re not meant to do this on our own, and coaching may just be getting to sit beside someone on what feels like a bumpy fucking ride at times.

That when I tune in to my role here, and in a way all of our roles, it’s in part to simply witness someone else in their humaning and remind them that they are still deserving of love and acceptance. That coaching has become one way in which I get to remind myself that I too am deserving, and showing up for others ensures that I first need to show up for myself. In order to do this I increasingly have to step away from over-reaching, over-absorbing, and a constant inputting of information from external sources. It’s once again an over-reliance thinking and logic, where we’re attached to having to get things right. But a softening into the process requires putting on the brakes a little bit, and returning to a sense of our own intuitive knowing, and my own intuitive knowing — which I innately believe we all have. 

I’ve learned that quiet and stillness is where wisdom resides, and not the wisdom of just age or experience but the even older kind that has been doing this for a very long time (beyond even a sense of time). It’s in the trees and the animals and pets, the bees and seasons and grass and this planet. I can feel it in the waves when I walk along the ocean, and sense it in the stars and galaxies that exist so far beyond and within us. If I get to share that sense of awe with just one other person, shaking our heads at how crazy it is while recognizing that we’re somehow in it, and of it, all of us together, then I’ve shown up to work and to humaning that day and sure, we can call it coaching.