Regarding Support: A Case Study.

Your client and her partner are in highly demanding jobs.  She is an intensive care nurse at a regional medical center. Her partner is a high school guidance counselor. Together they parent two school-age children. 

Your client says she knows they both love their work, their children and each other, yet the frustration keeps her awake at night. When you ask her what kind of support she is yearning for she responds with, “I don’t know. Sometimes it is easier to do everything myself.”

How will you coach her?

Robust support calls for clarity about what one needs support with, when, how, and from whom.

The Coaching Masteries® #6, Clarifying, guides us to

 “Reduce/eliminate confusion or uncertainty; increase understanding and the confidence of the client.”

Our client in this example is unclear about the support she needs. Is it emotional, physical or financial? Is there an underlying issue in her relationship with her partner, her work or her self-acceptance? Is the support she seeks something she has yet to discover?

Your client gets to gain a more precise understanding of the issues she faces so that she can clarify her needs.  Before exploring the possibilities with you, She gets to be to be curious about what may be causing her to feel frustrated and why she thinks it is easier to do everything herself. As her coach, you can uncover the nature of the support that will meet her needs best.

Many caring, compassionate, and generous people are prepared to give support to those in need.  All one has to do is ask, right? Asking is step one. Receiving support is step two.

Inherent in receiving support is humility. By that, I mean a deeply felt worthiness and self-love. Once our client in this example can feel beyond frustration, we can begin the conversations about intentions, possibilities, and ways to create supportive situations.

  Here is a question you can ask yourself before you ask her: How prepared is your client to receive support? 

Martha Pasternack, MMC;  My passion for witnessing the beauty and mystery of life, healthy healing and the promotion of Peace on Earth are integral to my daily life. I have been life coaching since 2004 as a Fearless Living Coach after working 30 years as a health care professional.

www.CircleofLifeCoach.com