With the new skills we've learned in our course and certification, how do we as new coaches set boundaries for ourselves in stepping in with "coach skills" for our personal relationships?
On Tuesday Septemeber 14th Kimberly Weeks posted in the IAOTRC Mighty Networks the Supervision Question of the day -
"How do we as new coaches set boundaries for ourselves in stepping in with "coach skills" for our personal relationships?"
Link to original post. Kimberly wrote "Some of the brilliant responses were it depends on:
1) Type of relationship you have with the person
2) The topic being discussed and how intimate it is
3) Whether you've disclosed that you are a coach
4) Whether you've asked for permission to ask questions or offer insights
We discussed that like the practicum, there are two levels of offering the new communication skills you've acquired through your training. They fall in two categories on the feedback forms from practice group: Holding Space or Direct Coaching.
HOLDING SPACE: Overall relationship building, Attunement, holding emotions adeptly, pace and flow organic can be done with anyone anywhere.
DIRECT COACHING: Asking clarifying questions, Psychoeducation, and allowing the interaction to be client led is more in line with a permitted interaction with a person in a business setting where they've asked for or invited you to coach them.
This will help us maintain healthy boundaries with our new skills."
With a deep well of openness and honesty, what I'm about to share with you, I've been through as well. The adventure, the personal growth and the deepening understanding. There can be no blame and no shame when it comes to Trauma Coaching and our personal growth. Otherwise we remain in unending cycles of no growth. We'll discuss this more as we go through the journey of unpacking the deepening.
Where to begin?
Integrity:the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
When we as coaches begin with integrity we're setting the foundation for all of our relationships. Both clients and our personal relationships need to experience we have integrity.
What does integrity look like in our daily life?
The first port of call will be our personal values. It's important to have a top 5 you know you can rely on during tough interactions with clients and with close relationships. When we have a top 5 we know we can be congruent. We experience how in our interactions we can line up how we feel, what we think and how we behave and they all come together as one strong person who understands what is healthy for them. Not right, or wrong, because that is inflexible.
Becoming healthy is our goal. Think of the last person who said "take me as I am or don't take me at all." Did any of us take them? No. Because they showed us how inflexible they are to be around. We know enough now to understand that narcissistic type people are all about control, want things their way, or not at all. We choose not at all because it is unhealthy.Therefore we need to check in with ourselves when"coaching" be it professionally or out of the office, and ask ourselves "am I expecting this person to do things my way or am I comfortable loving and accepting them for the path they're on and the choices they will need to make or not make?"
A vital question I began to ask myself after 2 girlfriends going through the similar marriage challenges didn't use my advice, as is their right to do so, was "should I be coaching outside of a professional space?" Now, this was the defining moment of my values and integrity and undoing some trauma responses like people pleasing and needing to be right. Yes, as trauma coaches who've also experienced trauma and have often been looking for answers for decades, we want to throw this new found knowledge around like confetti at a celebration. After all, who wouldn't want to know there's real answers available?
Adults, other adults, who are on their own journey making their own decisions.
I found one of my growth challenges after having to be on alert for adult needs as a child was stopping being on high alert for adult needs as an adult. We do come out of our toxic families with a psychological wound and we do need to address it. One of the ways to recognise this psychological wound is to recognise when I'm behaving out of a need to feel safe, to keep everyone around me emotionally safe. It's subtle because we can pass it off as simply caring for others, and it is but when we've got a trauma background we have to delve deeper and see what's driving the caring.
Fortunately for me my friends have been super patience with me as I worked through how to better manage this as an adult. I do care as an adult, there's no denying my big heart of caring. What I needed to be able to learn to see was what they needed from me, what best served them as a friend, and how I could navigate this space as a friend, not a trauma coach. I'm thankful for their trust in me. When the topic came up about their challenges and we were all in one space I made a different decision to previous get togethers. Instead of spouting off about behaviour and repetition and alcoholism I turned it all around to empowering them.
