That was the first time that I uttered the words out loud. For a moment, I was astonished at the sound of my own voice, as I was alone at the time.
My blog earlier this year on “Even Coaches Need Coaching” made me realize that I ‘was the plumber with the leaky faucet’. Time to take my own advice.
I’d been feeling really flat for quite some time. I had every reason to feel like that. My beautiful adopted Border Collie had been diagnosed with Chronic Heart Failure and it was merely a matter of time.
I am mad about my animals. Tell me anything about animal abuse and I go crazy! So parting with him and knowing he won’t see the year out, has weighed heavily on me.
Work was going well and I was operating at my usual pace, without feeling as though I was dropping the ball, but by the end of the day, I was wiped! My personal wellness was being neglected.
And then I heard myself say “Help! I need help!” This coach needed some coaching. I decided to reach out to someone in Johannesburg that came highly recommended, and who used a different technique from our usual coaching practices.
I started a series of zoom sessions the very next day with an Alexander Technique practitioner.
Alexander who? That was kind of like what I thought when I received the recommendation and my colleague said – try it!
The entire focus of the session is about what your body is telling you…The voice of the body. That I was feeling a large degree of grief was not rocket science, but there were times that I felt overwhelmed. I was neglecting my own wellness…hence those beautiful, vulnerable words…Help me!
Words that we so seldom use, because it makes us feel so vulnerable, so uncomfortable. Why is that? Because we don’t want to be seen as weak, needy, helpless or vulnerable.
What will people think? What will my boss think, my colleague, my partner, or my friend?
Have those reasons ever stopped you from asking for help? It’s not weakness to ask for help, it’s actually a strength.
I’ve been a coach long enough to argue that point strongly… it makes us human!
I consider myself an upbeat, energized and happy person, but this sad, painful heartbreak had overtaken my usual bonhomie and I felt incredibly helpless, grief-stricken and this was foreign to me, so I kept pushing it away, distracting myself. ‘This is not me! This is not who I am.’
Until I was told by the practitioner to ‘acknowledge’ what my body was telling me and feeling. To work with my body as opposed to, against it. To realise that I will go through stages of life that will have loss in it, or events that challenge my very limits, but that it was still ME…a different part of me.
As I processed this, a sense of acceptance came over me and I felt a profound lifting of the weight I was carrying emotionally.
It didn’t alter the circumstances, by no means. However, it did alter me in a way that allowed me to move forward with the circumstances I was currently in.
Am I still sad? Absolutely! But I now embrace the feeling and in just acknowledging and giving myself permission to feel it, halved the burden of knowing what’s to come.
Will my heart break when the time comes? Yes. Will I feel joy again? I have already.
No matter how tough the day is emotionally, there is always something to smile about, show gratitude for and share humorous exchanges with my clients.
The best thing is, I’ve learnt a new language…the voice/language of my body. It doesn’t talk to me in words, but it communicates in the most basic way. My self-awareness and what my body needs, is back on track.
We are so proficient in verbal and non-verbal language/communication with everybody around us, yet the most important voice of all, is the one we know least!
Let your body do the talking!