I have a client that I've been working with for almost a year. It's a non-traditional sort of life coaching. I am hands-on in her life and she is open to whatever help I can give.
Over breakfast every Friday we work on finances, saving money, losing weight, getting along with family, relationships, future dreams and aspirations. It's all on the table. On this particular day, we are driving up the hill to my house to do a workout and she is telling me about her home situation, and I am falling in a hole with her. I'm thinking, "How unfair! How will she ever get out of this situation?" I am feeling a sense of urgency, that something must be done NOW, but I don't see a way to turn. I know my thinking is off...
We arrive at my house, and I am still caught in the weeds with her as she continues to tell me the details of her situation. It occurs to me to say, "You know there's absolutely nothing I can do about this, right?" She knows.
As conversations do, ours turned to other subjects, and I noticed she was smiling, relaxing and telling me she was proud of herself for some changes that she had made recently. All of a sudden, in that moment, I saw the way out! I asked her to notice how when she wasn't thinking of her situation, that it ceased to exist to her. I pointed out that when she had layers of thinking, just moments ago, she was suffering. Thoughts are made to come up, move on and drop off and I watched this happen in real time. In this calmer moment, we were able to come around again to her current situation. She could now see things that weren't visible before and why she is being called by some higher power right now to stay exactly where she is. She's needed there. She has something she has to take care of.
As a coach, I had my own insight today. As a human I fell into the hole of my own thought and forgot where the door was. As it happens, the door is always there, behind all the thought.
