Coaching - Feel for yourself, fight for yourself
Let’s start with tenderness.
If you decide to work with me, that’s what I recommend, that we start with tenderness…
For you.
I think of coaching as sacred time…
Personal sacred.
Because in your sessions…
You get to ask for what you need, simply and directly, not what you think you should need, but what you really do need.
You get to tell the truth about how you’re hurting.
You get to shut down the attacks of your inner critic.
You get to settle into what’s deepest in your heart.
Do you know what it’s like to have someone listen to you so intently you find yourself digging deeper? And you surprise yourself with what you hear yourself saying. Then…
Those surprises turn into your future.
How about if we make your coaching work like that?
When I was in coaching school, fellow students told me, “You have a very gentle way of doing very powerful coaching.” I didn’t pay attention until the fifth time I heard that same thing almost word for word.
This wasn’t something I was trying for consciously. But when I thought about it, it made sense because more than anything I believe in the power of love. I don’t believe love can always work miracles. I don’t believe it can’t be defeated. But I do believe in living by love no matter what.
So when people ask me what kind of coach I am, I tell them I’m intense, because I’m serious about my clients getting what they need. But I’m not a tough-guy coach, because the most effective coaching is also the kindest.
The way I see it, my role as coach is to be…
Your advocate—someone who is on your side, always.
Your ally—someone who stands with you on the edge of your breakthroughs so you can stay the course when it would be so easy to give up.
Your champion—someone who keeps remembering who you are and what’s possible for you, especially when you forget.
Your witness—someone who is backstage with you, someone who doesn’t just see the results you get, but who you had to be and what it took to get those results.
My first wish for you is that you get to…
Feel for yourself then fight for yourself.
And fight for…
The people you care about.
How you want people to treat each other.
What you believe in.
And the way you wish the world could be.
That’s the formula for basic nurturance, feel plus fight. But…
We need better.
So my second wish for you is that you get to…
Feel for yourself deeply.
Maybe deeper than you ever have before. Maybe deeper than you’ve imagined.
Then…
Fight for yourself fiercely.
As fiercely as you really need to.
Why do I say “fiercely”? Why that word?
Because look as this world of ours. It’s going crazy…
Scary crazy.
And…
Mean crazy.
You know the litany…
Heartless sociopaths are taking charge of major nations.
The majority of the human population is living under dictatorships or authoritarian regimes.
Leaders are starting wars they don’t know how to stop.
Pundits are casually speculating about the use of nuclear weapons.
The most powerful country in history is blithely destroying itself.
Tens of millions of people are losing their minds.
Lies are winning, the truth is losing.
AI is getting ready to do god knows what to us.
Brutality is trending.
Mass suffering goes on and on and on.
No wonder despair is taking over.
I’m not talking here about ordinary, garden-variety despair.
It’s not that a few bad apples are spoiling the bunch of us. We’re failing as a species. We’re not taking good care of ourselves. We’re giving up on ourselves. We’re giving up on humanness itself.
And the problem is down deep in us. Our operating system is failing us. Which means we’re dealing with…
Ontological despair.
This is the deepest possible despair. It’s despair at the level of our very being.
And it’s assaultive. It’s vicious.
When I step back to look at the big picture, what I see is this…
Despair has become a global dementor hellbent on sucking out our souls.
And if you let it, it will take from you everything that makes you a blessing to the people in your life.
Given that we’re in terrible trouble, I want us to declare…
A state of emergency.
We need a response that goes as deep as our hurting goes. And as deep as the danger we’re in.
Pep talks won’t save us. There aren’t ten easy steps for dealing with ontological despair.
What we need is…
Primal nurturance.
Which is deepest kind of human nurturance possible.
It’s the partnership of…
Feeling deeply plus fighting fiercely.
The good news is that…
The more deeply you feel for yourself, the more fiercely you will fight for yourself.
And as you get better and better at this, primal nurturance will bring you a cascade of blessings.
For example…
You get to shut down shame.
I mean it, no kidding, you can really do this. If you go all the way back to the origin of shame in the lives of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, you will discover the most powerful strategy ever for stopping shame.
You get to break up with your Inner Critic.
Your IC got you through childhood, but you paid too big a price. And it’s now turned against you. But you can replace it, entirely replace it, with primal nurturance. And let it guide you in your decision-making. And it will prove to be enough. Then, finally, you’ll get to have a kick-butt goodbye with your Critic.
You get to pull the rug out from under co-dependency.
You get to quit over-functioning while others in your life are under-functioning. And that’s good both for you and for the people you call to a higher standard, because co-dependency is bad for everyone involved.
You get to approach intimacy in a radically different way.
“You should be good at intimacy!” Ever had someone say that to you? But no you shouldn’t be good. Evolution didn’t design us for intimacy. It’s not natural. The odds are against you. But the better you get at primal nurturance, the more intimacy will shift from work mode to play mode.
You get to become best friends with the gutsy side of nurturance.
“Nurturance” seems like such a mild-mannered word. But it’s not a mild thing at all. It’s not nice-guy stuff. It’s a force. And whenever necessary, it’s fierce.
You get to sit with sorrow when you need to.
There’s so much sorrow in this world. You get to transform your relationship with it so it nurtures you instead of dragging you down. And remember, sorrow is a living thing, whereas despair is not.
You get to replace hope with fight whenever hope disappears on you.
Whether that’s for a day, a week, a year, or forever. We’re told it’s binary, hope or despair, pick one. But primal nurturance gives us a third option.
You get to conjure imaginary friends.
Or you can call them inner guides if you like. You get to conjure guides who know you intimately and love you deeply. They’re eager to help you get what you need. And they’re just plain fun to have around.
You get to practice half-love with your whole heart.
We’re told we should love all of ourselves, the good and the not so good. But the problem is if you go down to the bottom of the human operating system, which is there inside each of us, you come face to face with the source of human evil, and personally, all I can say is, “No, I do not love that.” But I do love the part of me that fights for better. I’m wild about that part.
You get to be there for family and friends.
The further you go with primal nurturance, the more you can help loved ones and friends find new strength when they’re getting beaten down by despair.
You get to take the best in us and make it better.
You don’t have to settle for the status quo. You get to make of nurturance something way better than the default evolution gave us.
And there’s more—this is just the short list.
What would you like to do with the power of primal nurturance? What would make your heart sing?
If primal nurturance calls to you, I’ll bet it’s already in you. I didn’t invent it…
I didn’t even know I wanted it till I stumbled into it.
Then, wow, instant connection and fierce desire.
My reaction was, “This is what I need.” But even better…
“This is me.”
Now as an old man, having spent decades living with it, I can tell you this deepest nurturance what I love best. It’s pulled my life together. It means the world to me.
And…
It’s the gift I most want to give.
So if you want it, I’ll put my heart into helping you find it in yourself.
We’ll go back through the stories of your life and coax it out. You’ll discover your version of primal nurturance. And you’ll get to…
Make it your own.
Questions about coaching
Here are five questions people ask me…
What’s it cost?
I charge $100 an hour. But if at the end of your first hour, you’re clear I’m not a match for what you need then that session is free.
I’ve been told by colleagues that given my experience and the depth of the coaching I do, I should charge $200 or more. But I don’t want to do that.
I want my coaching to be affordable. I want the people I work with to be able to afford more coaching time and make faster progress.
And I’m old-fashioned enough to still think $100 is serious money.
How often do we talk?
I recommend an hour each week or an hour every other week.
How does the first session work?
I used to do a “sample session” so people could check out coaching. But I noticed that some people thought that meant a pretend session. So now I make it clear that the first session is for real. We’re doing real coaching from the start.
Here’s how it works. I’ll handle the coaching. And I’ll make sure you’re okay every step of the way. All you have to do is keep saying what’s true for you moment by moment. And keep telling me what you need as best you can. I say all, but if you do those two things that’s a lot, isn’t it?
In that first session, feel free to push on me to see what I’m made of. The most important part of coaching is the match between the client and the coach. So please ask me your hardest questions. No need to be polite. No need to hold back. This is your time. It’s your turn. After all, this is your life we’re talking about.
What are the sessions like?
We’ll design them together. And we’ll design them around how you personally make progress.
Your sessions may follow a pattern if that works for you. Or they might be very different one from the other.
For example…
Some days you might come prepared with a clear agenda that you want to work on.
Some days you might show up with an agenda, but then get surprised and something entirely new happens.
Some days you might come to your call rattled or stressed and you haven’t had time to think about what you want to do with your session. That’s fine, too. That won’t slow us down one bit. We’ll explore and discover, and sometimes these totally improv sessions are among the best ones.
There are no shoulds with coaching. Which means you don’t have to be a “good” client. You get to be you. In fact, if there’s a day when you need to be a “bad” client with a bad attitude, go for it.
Maybe you’ll tell me, “I’m not in the mood today.” Or “I’m tired of working on myself.” Or “I’m sick of coaching.” Down at the bottom of such feelings, there’s always something delicious, maybe even a breakthrough.
How do we know when to stop?
Endings can be uncomfortable, but they don’t have to be. When you’ve got what you need from coaching, that’s it, you’re done. Let’s not continue to drift along out of habit.
Just tell me you’re ready to stop and we’ll bring the coaching to a graceful close. Maybe you’ll want to take a bit of time to talk about what’s next for you or to celebrate your victories.
For my part, when someone I’ve been working with stops coaching, I miss them. Coaching is a serious commitment on your part and on my part, both. So I miss people when they leave. And I’m glad I do. I’m glad to have had that kind of connection.
The coaching I do is intense. It has to be in order to have the power to respond to the challenges we’re facing.
But maybe you’ve got mixed feelings about intensity. Maybe part of you is intrigued but at the same time a bit overwhelmed and not at all sure about this.
If so, you’re welcome to contact me, and we can take an hour to talk this through so you can make a definite decision, the one that’s really right for you.
Please don’t feel shy about asking for your hour. I love having these conversations. If it turns out you decide primal-nurturance coaching is not what you need, bravo. You won’t waste any time wondering about it.
But if it turns out this is something that could be good for you, then I don’t want you to miss out.
And please know this. Primal nurturance asks a lot of you, But then…
It gives back way more than what it asks.
Next step:
If you want to check out coaching, use the form below to send me an e-mail with three good times to talk and I’ll see if I can match one of them. I’m in California, so that’s Pacific time.