Erica Staab

Emerging

I have long believed that everyone at some point in their lives should go to therapy.  I think as long as you live your life in this world, you are bound to experience love, loss, belonging, feeling adrift, finding your purpose and wandering aimlessly.  Gifted therapists are worth their weight in gold and can help you find your way back to yourself when life pulls you a little off course.

After getting off the phone with my coach this last session I am even more convinced that everyone needs a life coach too.

The way I see it therapy looks to the past, releases you from it’s hold and invites you to begin to see a new way of life.  Coaching is the plan for your new life, it is an invitation to participate in building, creating and falling in love with your life.  The first time we talked my coach JoAnna
said that what she does is simple-  “I help people fall in love with their lives”.  I think that sums it up perfectly, and I haven’t come across a better definition.

My friends have been asking all sorts of questions about working with a coach, what is it like, is it worth it, what do you do?  And I thought I would share some of the things that keep running through my mind and the things that I think after I hang up the phone:

• Of course!  It all (or at least most of it!) makes sense now.

There is something magical about having someone to listen to you, to have their sole purpose to help you untangle the threads of your life.  Someone there to be a compassionate witness, someone to help you through your stuck places, to see you through your struggle and celebrate your growth.

• She is like a friend on steroids.

I enjoy our conversations.  I hang up feeling like I can tackle the world, and even better I have the action steps and goals to do it.  Her sole purpose is to help me get where I want to go and to be a cheerleader in the process.  There is something incredibly affirming about investing in yourself enough to purchase a cheering section for solely for you.  I still need my friends and family who are in my corner, waving wildly and smiling broadly, but there is something about having someone suit up on a regular basis for your game plan that is priceless.

• I have honored my commitment.

When she first asked if I was willing to make the commitment to myself, to my dreams, to falling in love with my life I said yes… but I realized after hanging up that I really wasn’t sure.  To say yes meant that I had to show up, I had to put my money where my mouth was.  To say yes meant that I believed in me enough to commit to an investment, it meant I had to say no to excuses, yes to me.  Every two weeks I had to say yes, I worked on these things, or no I didn’t… in reality the only person that I was truly committing to was me, she got paid regardless of whether I did or didn’t do my part… but knowing that I was going to answer to another human created a different level of responsibility.  Before this commitment I kept talking about what I was going to change, what I was “going” to do, but there was always something that got in the way. And until you make that commitment “something” will always be in the way.  I finally realized that the world will not stop for me to grow/change/grieve/stretch etc..  So I needed to figure out how to grow in the midst of my life.

• I have been challenged.

Although we laugh, although I always leave feeling better that I started, that isn’t to say that we don’t talk about tough stuff, that we don’t delve through the mucky stories that I tell myself to keep me rooted in fear and stuck in old patterns.  Part of her job is to gently challenge, to reframe and invite me to see an old problem/issue/habit in a new way…  and this is where the dance of past, present and future happens… uprooting old ways of thinking, inviting new patterns and habits and dreaming of possibility.

• Wow, I did that.

In our sessions it is very clear that it isn’t just about to do lists, and tasks to check off, but part of the session is always devoted to celebrating what has been done.  It is important to take a moment to recognize all of the action steps in moving forward, it is about enjoying the process, not just the end goal.  And so often I found myself moving forward always in anticipation of the “end”, whatever that may be.  But this has helped to remind me to celebrate and honor the process too.

• Clarity and Focus

There is something that happens in our conversations that helps to bring clarity and focus to what I want, to how I am going to get there.  By asking insightful questions, by offering different ways to look at something suddenly things seem to make a little more sense.

My book will be coming out in the next two weeks, and I know that part of the reason that it is finally here is because I said yes to investing in my life.  And without a doubt saying yes to coaching has transformed my life.  I have heard that time and time again from people who have done it. Mentoring, coaching etc., it goes by many names, but the outcome is often the same- breaking through fear, leaping into a life you love, celebrating new accomplishments and investing in the most valuable commodity- YOU!

What are you ready to invest in?  What parts of you need nurturing, unraveling, truth-telling, hope and kindness?

I invite you to consider coaching as a way to stretch just a little beyond your comfort zone.  See what coaching/dreaming/emerging/stretching might do for you.  Most coaches (myself included) will offer a complementary session to see if you will work well together.

For more information on my coaching philosophy click here.

For more information on my coach JoAnna (who just happens to be fabulous!) click here.

And if you are just ready to mull over some good questions try these:

10 Questions That Have No Right to Go Away- David Whyte

Or e-mail me and I will send you a pdf of 50 Powerful Coaching Questions– compassioninallthings – at- gmail.com