Puzzled, in pain, fucked up.<\/p>\n
Closed off.<\/p>\n
Desperate.<\/p>\n
Uninspired.<\/p>\n
Exhausted.<\/p>\n
But how do I know what that means?<\/p>\n
WHAT do I know?<\/p>\n
It took me years to even start being okay when this happens, or, better: when nothing seems to happen.<\/p>\n
Oh god, now what!<\/p>\n
I used to be like the motivational coach who only knows the power of drive and enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
Feeling responsible turns into pushing and selling very easily.<\/p>\n
Wanting to help a person can become a frantic mix of working really hard, trying to convince them and smothering them in arguments and metaphors and examples.<\/p>\n
As if the necessary change is up to you.<\/p>\n
As if you know what the outcome should be.<\/p>\n
Now there\u2019s a time and a place for all of the interpersonal magic.<\/p>\n
Enthusiasm is awesome and one of my biggest traits.<\/p>\n
My metaphors (both old and new) are pretty powerful and solid.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just that expectations, like always, can get in the way.<\/p>\n
Constantly scanning the face of a person, reading where he or she is at and (especially) making up what that means, can be paralyzing.<\/p>\n
And you don\u2019t need to.<\/p>\n
A session can never be what it\u2019s not, and people can never see what they\u2019re not ready or willing to see yet.<\/p>\n
Every encounter you will ever have, is and will be perfect.<\/p>\n
Always.<\/p>\n
So, one and a half hour after we started talking, the guy still looks the same.<\/p>\n
But I no longer make up what that means.<\/p>\n
Or whether I am doing it right or wrong or slightly right (but not right enough).<\/p>\n
I am completely free to be with him, just the way we are right now, without being concerned about a future version.<\/p>\n
And that’s incredibly liberating.<\/p>\n
This is the best and most helpful conversation we could have, right now.<\/p>\n
And I don\u2019t know what he\u2019ll see an hour from now, or tomorrow morning, or a week from now.<\/p>\n
We were both there, an enthusiastic, pretty relaxed coach, and a temporarily lost and seemingly fucked up client.<\/p>\n
The rest will be history.<\/p>\n
Perfect as always.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(Photo by @anthonytran, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ninety minutes after our conversation started, he still looks the same. Puzzled, in pain, fucked up. Closed off. Desperate. Uninspired. Exhausted. But how do I know what that means? WHAT do I know? It took me years to even start being okay when this happens, or, better: when nothing seems to happen. Oh god, now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[97,117,100,116,113,103],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31187,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31185\/revisions\/31187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}