Coaching - Feel for yourself, fight for yourself
Let’s start with tenderness.
If you decide to work with me, that’s what I recommend, that we start with tenderness…
For you.
I think of coaching as sacred time…
Personal sacred.
Because in your sessions…
You get to ask for what you need, simply and directly, not what you think you should need, but what you really do need.
You get to tell the truth about how you’re hurting.
You get to shut down the attacks of your inner critic.
You get to settle into what’s deepest in your heart.
Do you know what it’s like to have someone listen to you so intently you find yourself digging deeper, and then deeper?
And…
You surprise yourself with what you hear yourself saying.
And then…
Those surprises turn into your future.
How about if we make your coaching work like that?
When I was in coaching school, fellow students told me, “You have a very gentle way of doing very powerful coaching.” I didn’t pay attention until the fifth time I heard that same thing almost word for word.
This wasn’t something I was trying for consciously. But when I thought about it, it made sense because more than anything I believe in the power of love. I don’t believe love can always work miracles. I don’t believe it can’t be defeated. But I do believe in living by love no matter what.
So when people ask me what kind of coach I am, I tell them I’m intense, because I’m serious about my clients getting what they need. But I’m not a tough-guy coach, because the most effective coaching is also the kindest.
My favorite thing is to help people deepen their self-love. And I believe self-love is at its best when you can both…
Feel for yourself and fight for yourself.
And fight for…
The people you care about.
How you want people to treat each other.
What you believe in.
And the way you wish the world could be.
And along the way you get to discover that…
The more deeply you feel for yourself, the more fiercely you will fight for yourself.
Why do I say “fiercely”? Why that word?
Because look at what we’re up against…
We’re a species in terrible danger.
It’s getting harder and harder to hold onto hope.
Tens of millions of people are losing their minds.
Countries around the world are taking a hard right turn into authoritarianism.
Heartless sociopaths are taking charge of major nations.
Wars are still erupting.
Mass suffering goes on and on.
In response, an awful lot of people are hardening themselves, shutting down inside, so they don’t have to feel how bad things really are. Which I believe is exactly the wrong thing to do, even though staying open and vulnerable is such a challenging thing to do.
Despair is spreading everywhere. It’s in the ascendency. Given what’s going on how could it not be? When I step back to look at the big picture, what I see is that…
Despair has become a global dementor hellbent on sucking out our souls.
And…
It wants to take from us everything that makes us a blessing to the people in our lives.
So we need to defend ourselves. We need to fight for ourselves with everything we’ve got. And with a fierceness that matches the danger we’re in.
Of course when I say fight, I’m not talking about fisticuffs or other kinds of violence. I’m talking about calling on all our inner resources. Getting them in play. Making them stronger day by day.
I’m talking about…
Putting our whole hearts into taking the best possible care of ourselves and each other.
And I’m talking about letting ourselves be vulnerable, because…
Our fight can only be as fierce as our tenderness runs deep.
So how do we do this? We need something that goes way deeper than…
Ten easy steps,
Or conventional advice,
Or pep talks.
What I do, what I offer is…
Primal-play coaching.
Does that sound like something odd? It’s really not. But let me explain why I love it.
In my twenties, I worked with abused kids in a psych facility. They had been mistreated, they were hurting, but I didn’t know what I was doing. I cared about those kids, I knew they could feel that, but I couldn’t help them in anything like the way I wanted to.
I had to do better. My dear friend Kate and I heard about a child abuse prevention program in Columbus, Ohio, that taught kids how to stop bullies, how to get away from molesters and kidnappers, and how to get help if a familiar person was hurting them.
The two of us were born-again about prevention. We helped set up projects in counties all over our state. We wrote legislation with Maxine Waters and got $10 million per year for five years. And during that time, four million children got training in self-defense.
So we were grandly successful. And we got to meet kids who had used our training to break free from kidnappers, to escape molesters, and to get help for their families where abuse was happening. Which was thrilling every time.
Then in a flurry of budget cuts our programs got defunded, and it was heartbreaking. For a while I couldn’t talk about child abuse or even read about it. It was too painful.
But then I found a book about play therapy. The guy who wrote it wasn’t doing about therapy that stays on the surface. He used play to help kids deal with the trauma of sexual abuse, physical assault, serious neglect, and severe dysfunction in their families.
And then I found another therapist who did the same.
I started calling this…
Primal-play therapy.
Primal because it went so deep with the kids, and helped them with their profound depth of hurting. And because deep play worked with these kids like insight therapy never could.
These two therapists had written five books between them. And these books were full of stories of kids doing better, caring about themselves, and getting beyond trauma.
I loved those stories, I just loved them.
They inspired me to develop primal-play coaching for adults. Because we need to go deep, too. Especially now. We need to go down to the bottom of the human operating system to…
Find the deepest kind of fight humans are capable of.
But why play? Isn’t it kid stuff? Isn’t it too lightweight?
Look at children in their daily lives and you see that…
Play is the superpower of human development.
Kids play their way into adulthood. At least that’s what we hope for them. Lots of kids don’t get to play like they need to because they get traumatized or shut down. But play is the best path to growing up.
We adults can use this superpower in our time of need. And because of our life experience, because of our maturity…
We can make of play something way more than it was in our childhoods.
We can use it to empower ourselves. You don’t have to inch your way forward, you get to take leaps.
And as you get to know primal play, you find out…
It’s spirited.
It’s got the heart of a rebel.
It’s an adventure; it doesn’t become a grind.
It breaks the spell of ordinary thinking.
It’s ready, willing, and able to take on big odds.
It can solve problems, but it can also dissolve them.
And what’s really fun is that…
Play is kryptonite to despair.
Despair can’t handle it, doesn’t know what to do with it.
And there’s more—a cascade of blessings that primal play can open for you. Here’s my favorite dozen for starters…
1. You get to pull shame out by the roots.
You can really do this. Once you know the secret of its ancient origin, you’ve got the upper hand.
2. You get to break up with your Inner Critic.
Your Inner critic is not really yours. It got you through childhood, but you paid too big a price. It’s now turned against you. You can replace it, entirely replace it with your own moral values and decision-making. You don’t need it anymore. Once you understand these facts, you can have a kick-butt goodbye conversation with your Critic.
3. You get to pull the rug out from under co-dependency.
You get to quit over-functioning while others in your life are under-functioning. And do so using the element of surprise and a touch of mischief.
4. You get to approach intimacy in a radically different way.
Ever had someone say this to you: “You should be good at intimacy!” But no you shouldn’t be good. Evolution didn’t design us for intimacy. It’s not natural. The odds are against you. But instead of listening to wrong-headed shoulds, you can play your way into the deepest kind of intimacy.
5. You get to become best friends with the gutsy side of nurturance.
Nurturance seems like a mild-mannered word for a mild-mannered thing. But it’s not mild. It’s not nice-guy stuff. It’s a force. And when necessary, it’s fierce.
6. You get to be with sorrow whenever you need to.
There is so much sorrow in this world. You get to transform your relationship with it so it nurtures you instead of dragging you down. And remember, sorrow is a living thing, whereas despair is not.
7. You get to replace hope with fight, whenever hope disappears on you.
Whether that’s for a day, a week, a year, or forever.
8. You get to follow the lead of pleasure, instead of struggling your way forward.
At first glance, it might seem contrary to think about following pleasure in a scary and desperate time. But now is when pleasure matters more than ever because it can lift you up out of the reaches of despair.
9. You get to conjure imaginary friends.
Or call them inner guides if you like. You conjure up the ones who know you intimately and love you and wish the best for you and help you get what you need. They make good company, and they’re just plain fun to have around.
10. You get to be there for family and friends who want to deepen their self-love.
As you get better making breakthroughs with primal play, you become more ready to help loved ones and friends start using play for their own breakthroughs.
11. You get to practice half-love with your whole heart.
Here’s the dilemma. We’re told we should love all of ourselves, the good and the not so good. But the problem is if you go down to the bottom of the human operating system, which is there inside each of us, you come face to face with the source of human evil, and personally, all I can say is, “No, I can’t love that.” But I can love the part of me that fights for better. I’m happy to cop an attitude and just love the parts of me I choose to love.
12. You get to take the best in us and make it better.
You don’t have to settle for the status quo. You get to make of love something way better than the default evolution gave us. And you get to have the time of your life doing this.
Next, here are five questions people ask me about coaching…
What’s it cost?
I charge $100 an hour. But if at the end of your first hour, you’re clear I’m not a match for what you need then that session is free.
I’ve been told by colleagues that given my experience and the depth of the coaching I do, I should charge $200 or more. But I don’t want to do that.
I want my coaching to be affordable. I want the people I work with to be able to afford more coaching time and make faster progress.
And I’m old-fashioned enough to still think $100 is serious money.
How often do we talk?
I recommend an hour each week or an hour every other week.
How does the first session work?
I used to do a “sample session” so people could check out coaching. But I noticed that some people thought that meant a pretend session. So now I make it clear that the first session is for real. We’re doing real coaching from the start.
Here’s how it works. I’ll handle the coaching. And I’ll make sure you’re okay every step of the way. All you have to do is keep saying what’s true for you moment by moment. And keep telling me what you need as best you can. I say all, but if you do those two things that’s a lot, isn’t it?
In that first session, feel free to push on me to see what I’m made of. The most important part of coaching is the match between the client and the coach. So please ask me your hardest questions. No need to be polite. No need to hold back. This is your time. It’s your turn. After all, this is your life we’re talking about.
What are the sessions like?
We’ll design them together. And we’ll design them around how you personally make progress.
Your sessions may follow a pattern if that works for you. Or they might be very different one from the other.
For example…
Some days you might come prepared with a clear agenda that you want to work on.
Some days you might show up with an agenda, but then get surprised and something entirely new happens.
Some days you might come to your call rattled or stressed and you haven’t had time to think about what you want to do with your session. That’s fine, too. That won’t slow us down one bit. We’ll explore and discover, and sometimes these totally improv sessions are among the best ones.
There are no shoulds with coaching. Which means you don’t have to be a “good” client. You get to be you. In fact, if there’s a day when you need to be a “bad” client with a bad attitude, go for it.
Maybe you’ll tell me, “I’m not in the mood today.” Or “I’m tired of working on myself.” Or “I’m sick of coaching.” Down at the bottom of such feelings, there’s always something delicious, maybe even a breakthrough.
How do we know when to stop?
Endings can be uncomfortable, but they don’t have to be. When you’ve got what you need from coaching, that’s it, you’re done. Let’s not continue to drift along out of habit.
Just tell me you’re ready to stop and we’ll bring the coaching to a graceful close. Maybe you’ll want to take a bit of time to talk about what’s next for you or to celebrate your victories.
For my part, when someone I’ve been working with stops coaching, I miss them. Coaching is a serious commitment on your part and on my part, both. So I miss people when they leave. And I’m glad I do. I’m glad to have had that kind of connection.
The coaching I do is intense. It has to be in order to have the power to respond to the challenges we’re facing.
But maybe you’ve got mixed feelings about intensity. Maybe part of you is intrigued and wants to give the primal-play thing a try, but at the same time, part of you is a bit overwhelmed and not at all sure about this.
If so, you’re welcome to contact me, and we can take an hour to talk this through so you can make a definite decision, the one that’s really right for you.
Please don’t feel shy about asking for your hour. I love having these conversations. If it turns out you decide primal-play coaching is not what you need, bravo. You won’t waste any time on it.
But if it turns out this is something that could be good for you, then I don’t want you to miss out.
And if you decide to say yes, I want you to know this: Primal play asks a lot of you, ohmigod does it ever. But then…
It gives back way more than what it asks.
Next step:
If you want to check out coaching, use the form below to send me an e-mail with three good times to talk and I’ll see if I can match one of them. I’m in California, so that’s Pacific time.