In our group coaching class tonight, we started an interesting discussion about sharing concepts with life coaching clients. If we have an idea about what might be going on, how do we share that without leading or forcing our ideas onto our clients?
The discussion arose out of our topic of Using the Ego to Your Advantage. We talked about ways we could identify when our egos were feeding us some disempowering thoughts, become conscious of that, and find the empowering approaches, because of this consciousness. Very useful in discovering and living truth and love, and freeing ourselves from illusion and suffering.
The question came up, how can we avail our clients of this idea? In real life coaching examples of a client who reacted from ego at a meeting, how might we, as coaches, respond?
Here are some of my thoughts…
- Of course, we are not coaching when we are leading our clients anywhere…If you find yourself tempted to lead, you are already outside of the coaching groove…
- Questions that can illuminate the situation will always lead to more understanding…Consciousness automatically leads to learning
- You’ll be more natural if you are not in the habit of making too many assumptions about what is going on
- Commenting on things you’ve learned in your experience as a coach (or a human) CAN be appropriate…This might sound something like…I’ve observed many times that people sometimes overreact when they feel threatened…Could that be part of what was happening for you? Again, you want this to be a real question, not one that you already “know” the answer you “want” to hear.
- Introducing clients to concepts can be appropriate as well. This can be stated just as such…You putting forth an idea that you are asking your client to consider if it is true for them or could be helpful for them.
Again, as a coach, if you are making assumptions about what a client “needs” to know, you will be getting in the way. Let the client’s wisdom emerge via your non-judgmental, open, curious, present, loving approach.
