Words that Work

Archive for the ‘personal coaching’ Category

In the U.S. today is Groundhog Day and at sunrise at Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, predicting six more weeks of winter. Perhaps it is easy for a groundhog to deal with seeing his shadow. He can simply hibernate for the remainder of the winter. How easy is it for you to deal with seeing your shadow, your shadow self? What happens when you hibernate from your shadow? How do you integrate the shadow self into working with business coaching or personal coaching clients?

Seeing your shadow can initially be uncomfortable. Even while writing that sentence I re-experienced the physical sensation of seeing my shadow self:

• My throat is tightening a bit
• My stomach is making noises (and only moments ago I finished lunch)
• My fingers are tingling from some anxiety as they touch the keyboard

As I am in the moment of this experience I am imagining what it would be like to hibernate from my shadow self.

My body is still physically uncomfortable, which is my clue that hibernating may not be the best practice when seeing my shadow. Yet, might there be some benefits of seeing your shadow? What could happen if you hibernated actively?

• Use the quiet that is possible in winter to learn from your shadow
• Ask what is good about your shadow, for those of us who are uncomfortable seeing our shadow
• Move into even more sunlight with your shadow, which will be with you anyway as, “You take yourself with you wherever you go,” and see what shows up in the brilliance of the sun

Notice what happens in your body when you read about the benefits of seeing your shadow? Here is my in-the-moment experience from going through the exercise and recording it:

• My throat opened up a bit
• My stomach stopped making noises
• My fingers are free from the tingling of anxiety

Comments are welcome on what you do when you see your shadow. And, in the spirit of Groundhog Day, comments are welcome on what you do when you see your shadow.

This is another story about learning about words that work as they relate to taking care of the elderly who are cognitively impaired, which in my case is my mom. Mom lives at home, and since 2006 she has had home health aides who provide 24/7 care. I manage the human resources functions and am the liaison with the aides.

Throughout, I have been applying the practices and principles I use in my work doing business coaching, life coaching and transitions coaching, especially as I learn to adapt communication skills to mom’s memory loss. As part of creating a sense of safety, early on mom and I co-created a ritual in which we engage in during daily conversations.

After our ritual greeting, mom says, “Don’t ask me any questions about what I did today because I don’t remember.” I comply, and we talk about what I did.

In 2009 we used an agency to identify candidates and conduct the initial screenings, after which I interviewed prospects by telephone and if possible in person. The turnover rate of the aides was high.

At the beginning of this year once again we needed to hire a new person. I interviewed two candidates by phone and then in person at my mom’s. Both my brothers were able to participate in the interviews at mom’s house. Satisfied with our selection, the new person began work a few days later.

After our ritual greeting on the third day with the new aide, mom said, “Ask me some questions.”

What a dramatic departure. So, I went with a standard, “What did you have for dinner?” She answered with, “I don’t remember. Ask me more questions.” I continued. “How many symphonies did Mozart (her favorite composer) write?” She gave the correct number.

By then I was sensing she wanted to communicate something important, I asked, “Do you want me to ask you questions to which you can answer yes or no?”

“Yes,” she said. I asked, “Is this about the new aide.”

Again she said, “Yes.” “Is she treating you kindly?” I asked. “No,” was mom’s response.

The next day from the staff at the day program mom attends I learned about the aide’s abusive treatment of my mom.

With her cognitive impairment and memory loss mom quickly and creatively established a communication system in which the only words that worked were yes and no.

What happens when someone who had been using words that work full of compassion and understanding to keep her children connected to each other dies? Is the oldest sibling, let’s call her Genevieve, responsible for keeping family members, who live within an hour’s drive from one another, connected? Some in the family suggest that Genevieve bears the responsibility for a rift because she will not nor does she want to accept an act that her sibling, let’s call her Maureen, engaged in some 20 years ago. The act, a religious ritual, went against Genevieve’s strong religious beliefs and practices. Neither Maureen’s husband nor her mother understood Maureen’s decision. Neither liked the decision. Neither allowed it to disrupt their connection with Maureen.

Genevieve wanted to tell her spiritual leader who was conducting the mourning rituals in which Maureen was also participating about Maureen’s long-ago action. Knowing that I do business coaching and life coaching, especially with people struggling in tough times, Genevieve wanted my input.

Rather than provide direct answers, and after setting clear boundaries that I would be present as my coaching self rather than as a fellow mourner, we engaged in a conversation about responsibility during which I asked Genevieve several questions:

• Who does she believe she is responsible for?
• What does she believe she is responsible for as a member of her family?
• What does she believe she is responsible for as a member of her larger religious community?
• How does she decide to whom she is responsible?
• How does she decide for what she is responsible?

Answering under the circumstances and time constraints was challenging so I invited Genevieve to consider how sharing the information would affect her ability to grieve and how it would affect Maureen’s ability to grieve their mother’s sudden death. Each lost the one person who loved unconditionally.

There are so many ways to honor the spirit and memory of a loved one. Borrowing from the coaching technique of “acting as if,” I suggested Genevieve act as if she were her mother for the remaining two days of the mourning period and to describe the scene and actions her mother would take. She said that acting as if she were her mother would mean making a conscious choice to refrain from sharing the information about Maureen’s action with her spiritual leader. Genevieve agreed to take responsibility for her inability to accept Maureen’s action and to withhold the information from her larger religious community, thus honoring her mother.

Under different circumstances, I would have invited Genevieve to identify where in her body she felt her responsibility to share Maureen’s long-ago action and then to describe the responsibility in terms of shape, color, taste and touch and how it moves as ways to gain clarity and become calm and develop a different relationship with responsibility.