Life Coach Training- Vulnerability, Emotional Purging & Intuition
The last two weeks have been such a gift, the first being my Adult Chair intensive training in Flat Rock, NC, and the latter spent relaxing at my dad's little house on the ridge outside Nashville. The first time I visited him and Stacey there, they were worried I'd be bored on a dirt road in the boonies. I assured them that after spending nine months floating around the Pacific Ocean in a tin can surrounded by 3,000 people and working 14 hour days, sitting on a small porch with nothing to do surrounded by miles of trees was sheer bliss. And it's been one of my happy places ever since.
Even though I haven't worked on ships in six years, their home was an equally perfect landing pad following a week of intense learning and emotional mining. Though I don't think I can ever entirely pin the training down to a precise definition, some words that come to mind when I think of that week are; moving, comforting, healing, humbling, powerful, life-changing, confronting, inspiring, scary, and necessary. Or "necessscary," as my coaching mentor said during a demo.
Vulnerability
I arrived feeling excited yet almost immediately began comparing myself to the other attendees as they trickled in throughout the day. My inner critic didn't just denounce my thirty-seven years of life experience as not good enough; it completely wiped it from memory for the first twenty-four hours. According to Ren, everyone looked more experienced, more confident, more capable, and more knowledgeable than little ole me, and I was in over my head. (I named my inner critic after the cartoon Ren & Stimpy because Ren was always such an asshole to Stimpy. Genius, I know!) When I discovered that a good portion of my classmates had attended an Adult Chair workshop last year, Ren used that detail to back up his baseless stories.
Thankfully, those fearful ego narratives didn't stick around for long. As we began sharing what led us to The Adult Chair, I was blown away by the openness of everyone. No awkward small talk there, just a head-first dive into vulnerability. The more stories I heard, the more I realized how much I had in common with everyone- quite the opposite to Ren's chatter when I arrived. While everyone's stories landed scattered across the broad spectrum of human experiences, I noted shared themes of trauma, grief, childhood wounding, abuse (emotional, physical, and mental), addiction, feeling unworthy, and assholey inner critics.
The one thing we all had in common was a deep desire to live more authentically while helping others do the same. At first, I found it disconcerting to be surrounded by so much empathy. Whole tables would lean in closer, ask you to say more, hold eye contact while you spoke, and listen without distraction. By the end of the week, most of us were slightly anxious to return to the real world after living in a bubble of love, kindness, and empathy for seven days straight.
As quickly as the inner critic stories lost their power, so did my game plan shift for the next six months. I went into that training thinking I would focus on my own inner work for the week, then redirect that focus to practicing on others for the remaining 5.75 months. However, by day three, I realized that, while not wholly inaccurate, my assumption was missing a vital third component- continuing my inner work with the loyalty and patience of a labrador retriever. If I want to be a successful and authentic life coach, trusted to guide others through their mental blocks, access their vulnerable parts, and transform long-forgotten sorrow, it is vital to check on my own heart daily. I can only lead someone as far as I've gone myself.
Emotional Purging
As I suspected would be the case, I cried quite a bit that week, but three moments stood out more than the rest.
Number one was a complete surprise, as it occurred while watching someone else on stage during a coaching demo. I was prepared to cry from digging through my own emotional vault but had no idea that watching someone else be vulnerable, and put words to things I also struggle with, could evoke such a reaction. Inner fraud, resentment, scared, and not good enough were the words and phrases that popped my emotional bubble. And I wasn't the only one; as I started to heave with tears, I looked up to see my whole table in a similar state, as well as at least half the room. It was a live-action lesson in how healing ourselves can heal others. Proving yet again that we're not as separate as our egos and hatred would like us to believe.
Cry number two happened after a grounding exercise. I had woken up feeling a bit flat that morning. Ren tried attaching many stories to that flatness- "You need to be on, you should be excited for the day, this won't help you make friends," etc. Thankfully, wise inner Cat piped up with, "You don't have to be "on" for anyone, no one here will judge you, and it's normal and healthy to feel something other than happy, especially when doing so much emotional work." A few hours later, while we were all on our feet, eyes closed, gently swaying back and forth (a simple exercise to regulate the nervous system in times of stress), I noticed subtle changes in my inner landscape.
At first, I felt more peaceful, like extra space had grown around the flatness. As we moved on to the next lesson, that space allowed my flatness to shift, and it slowly morphed into sadness, with tears materializing a few minutes later. Going outside redfaced with tissue in hand alerted the coaching mentors, one of which came out to check on me. After asking my permission, she sat on the ground with me quietly in moral support. Again, a bit disconcerting but equally healing.
Not that you always need to know why you have emotions to let them pass, but I knew exactly what this was and welcomed them like old friends, "Oh hey; there you are, my dears. I was wondering when you'd turn up." This undercover sadness was residual from when I was struggling in Perth. There was an entire year where I constantly felt overwhelmed, alone, lost, heartbroken, and scared my dad was dying. I did the best I could to hold space for all those stressors, but the survival mode work/study/housesitting schedule managed by Ren didn't contain much self-compassion. I've been waiting almost three years for those little calcified nuggets of sorrow to show themselves.
The third purge was on the final night during our closing fire ceremony, just when I thought the heavy emotional work was complete. Earlier in the day, Michelle had instructed us to write down who we were before the training and who we were moving forward. We would take turns chucking our papers into the fire to watch the smoke carry our intentions up to the ethers. As I listened to the brave souls that went first, I reached into my pocket for my letter. A sinking feeling came over me as I realized I had grabbed the wrong piece of paper from my binder, and my list was on the other side of the property back in my room. As Ren's chest puffed up from the fuel of my mistake, I took a deep breath and considered my options.
I could speak what I remembered from the list and burn the used tissue in my pocket. Creative and symbolic, but that didn't feel quite right. I NEEDED to burn the original letter so the week felt complete. Ok, so that means I would just go get the letter. There were still thirty people to go; I could get back before the ceremony finished, no problem. But that didn't sit right either. The magic of the ceremony would be lost if I couldn't witness everyone else's words and vulnerability. I needed to be somehow present for the entire ceremony AND still get my letter into the fire.
Another sinking feeling came over me as I realized what I needed to do and chuckled at the irony. Before losing my willpower, I stepped up to the fire and greeted my new friends. "Hi, so I just discovered I don't have my letter with me, which is funny considering I struggle with perfectionism. I know I could go get it right now, but I don't want to miss any of you taking your turn. I also really want to be able to burn my paper. I'd really appreciate it if someone could take me back to my room on the golf cart after the ceremony so I can hurry back and burn my letter with all of you."
Sounds simple and reasonable as you read it, right? Not for this little lady that doesn't like putting people out. When I got to the part where I was stating what I would like to happen- requesting help AND people to wait for me because I made an error- I was fucking sobbing. At this point, I didn't care if anyone helped or waited. I knew my transformation wasn't in achieving my request; it was in the act of asking for something I needed from a group of people that could disrupt the flow of their evening. I stepped outside the circle to let my emotions do their thing, and boy did they. My friend, Josh, hugged me as I wept. After the cries turned to sniffles, I felt nauseous, shaky, and my whole body started to tremble uncontrollably. My coaching mentor noticed and stood with her arm around me until the trembling waned, probably a solid five minutes.
Can we acknowledge the fact that my body legit had the same reaction to asking people to wait for me that it would've had if I'd just survived a near-death experience? Let that sink in.
Intuition
Part of the training for being a good coach was practicing with our intuition. We did several intuition exercises that week, but I'll just share the most powerful one, your reward for being a good sport about three crying stories.
Michelle instructed all forty-six of us to remove our shoes and put them in a long line at the back of the room. We returned to our seats for a few minutes to chat while we received the rest of our instructions, allowing us to get distracted. We then had to grab a pair of shoes from the line and sit with our feet touching them while doing a short grounding meditation. After the mediation, we spent five minutes writing down any words, phrases, or ideas that popped into our head about the person who belonged to the shoes. While I was compiling my list, I kept getting an image of someone's face, one of the other trainees. Though I was bummed her face did not belong to the shoes I had, many of the phrases I wrote down were accurate for my person. It was a positive experience, but it didn't blow my mind. UNTIL... I looked over to see who was holding MY shoes, and I nearly shat myself- the woman whose face kept interrupting my thoughts during the brainstorming session.
The Next Six Months
If any of this resonates with you and you'd like to help a girl out, I will need quite a few people to practice with. I can't practice on family, but friends are fair game. But don't worry, family! If you'd like to participate, I can always forward your details to my 46 new friends who also need non-family members to practice. We can do it through Zoom, so no location is off-limits. The sessions will be an hour-long, and there is no charge while I'm practicing until the end of August. The only thing required of you is giving honest feedback via an online form I will send you, and none of the comments go to me, just my program administrators and mentors. I have to get ten sessions under my belt with classmates before branching out, so friends and strangers will start in a few weeks.
If this REALLY resonates with you and you don't want to wait a few weeks to start learning about your adult chair, there are always 300+ podcast episodes to binge, which is what almost always happens when someone discovers it. I recommend listening to the original four episodes first, which explain the model and chairs more in-depth, then you can search by keyword for whatever you're experiencing. She has other free resources in addition to the podcast, like journalling prompts, inner-child work, and meditations.
As always, thank you for spending your valuable time reading about my experience. Especially this one because I reckon it's the longest post I've put out in ages.
Love,
Cat