Notes from the Coaching Underground: The Worried Client

(Note: The client and situation in this story – and all my coaching stories – are composites drawn from thousands of coaching conversations. I do not use real names or identifying details.)

I was working with a client who was a self-assessed “worrier.” She worried about work. She worried about her kids. She worried about the people in power and what might happen to the economy, to her family, to the earth if things didn’t change drastically.

This worry was becoming a full time job for which she was paid only in a twisted up tummy and an aching heart. We had talked about this tendency of mind to lose itself in worry but, frankly we had made very little headway in our first few meetings and I was, myself, beginning to worry about whether the coaching was helpful.

 One day, I was a couple of minutes late for our meeting and she confessed to being worried about me, worried that I’d given up on her or maybe that something happened to me and she would have to find a new coach.

 This gave me the idea to start our session by telling her about a friend of mine.

One morning, this friend decided to clear his head by going on a walk in a park near his home. As he was walking, admiring the tall grasses all around him, the intensity of the sun and the impossibly blue sky, he could feel his body beginning to relax. It was a welcome feeling after a difficult few days at work and at home. 

As his body relaxed, his mind started wandering. As a felt the sun against his skin – it was quite hot for that early hour – he imagined a tall tree that might provide some shade for him. In that instant, to his surprise, an enormous oak tree appeared out of nowhere. He was a bit perplexed, but not frightened, as odd things had happened to him on this walk before. That was one of the things he liked about it. He sat down, his back against the trunk of the the tree, drinking in the relative coolness beneath its canopy. He felt at peace.

After a bit, the thought arose that it might be nice to have a little food so he wouldn’t be distracted by hunger on his walk. No sooner had the thought appeared than a small brown grocery bag filled with bread, cheese and fruit appeared to his right. Bemused, he took the contents out of the bag and begin to enjoy the food.

As he was finishing up, he noticed an ever-so-slight feeling of loneliness creeping in and his mind imagined what it might be like to have a friend to chat with beneath the tree, to talk about his week. To his mild surprise, a friend – a dear friend whom he hadn’t seen in years but who had just posted about an important event in his life on social media – appeared next to him, in the middle of a sentence, as if they’d been talking for hours. My friend entered into the conversation easily, but was aware of a little itch, a little bit of discomfort in the back of his mind, as he had never had a human being appear out of nowhere before.

As he continued the conversation with his long-lost friend, he tried to identify this mild feeling in the back of his mind until grew into a full blown thought that maybe there was some kind of maleficent spirit behind these thoughts becoming things. It was silly, but … possible? His stomach churned.

Immediately, he became cold and he sensed a presence behind him. His friend stopped talking, rubbed his arms and looked over his own shoulder. There behind them were a half a dozen shadows circling the tree. 

Of course my friend was deeply troubled by this and wondered what if the spirits were confined to the tree or if they might peel off and do something to him and his friend. Would they tie them up? Would they strip them of their phones so they could not call anyone for help?

Yes. They would. And quickly.

Moments later, as he hung upside down, swinging, a rope attaching him tightly to the lowest large limb on the oak, my friend began to take long, slow, deliberate breaths in and out and advised his friend to do the same.

He knew that there were thoughts passing through his mind, even in that very moment – he could see them – but he resolved not to approach them, not to “think” them. 

He would just let them pass by and focus on his breathing.

After about 20 minutes, he noticed his heart rate had slowed and his body had relaxed – as much as it could, hanging from a tree limb. Very carefully, he brought to mind an image of his kitchen, a pot of coffee and his wife laughing her awkward, beautiful laugh.

“Can you believe it?” His wife, said, smiling widely and lifting her mug to her lips.

“I can believe it,” said my friend. “I absolutely can.” 

When I was finished, I could see my client go inward with this story. After a minute or so, her mouth turned up slightly in a smile. She said, “Let’s leave worry to the side today, I want to talk about making a new relationship with my folks. She’s not getting younger, and ….”

My client talked and talked about the vision she had for the relationship with her mother. Each time she began to replay all the slights and injustices that had befallen her in the relationship, she would pause and go inward. Slighly smiling, she would return to talking about what she really, really wanted for her life.

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Powerful Questions for Coaches

• What vivid images are playing on the screen of your client's mind right now? How is that movie impacting their physiology and how is it impacting the choices they are making?
• How can you learn more about their movie? How can you teach them to become a viewer of their movie - or a director! - instead of a character lost in it, reading from a script they didn't write?

**Coaches: When you're ready to take your coaching to the next - deeper - level, Eric has 3 open spots for new mentees in 2020. No fancy websites. Eric works through referrals and direct requests only. Contact him at erosslarson@gmail.com to start the conversation.**