A client—who's been seeing some changes in the way they approach and react to situations—asked me how they could help their partner when they were struggling.
It's the most natural thing in the world, to want to help others (humans are awesome!) and this specific question speaks to the wider issue:
So I decided to write a few posts on the topic. I've been doing this myself for coming up to 8 years now, with almost 1,000 coaching hours under my belt, so I've seen a little bit around what works and a lot about what doesn't.
I shall give those hungry little left brains of yours some numbered steps to work with in forthcoming posts, but first we have to lay the groundwork by reminding ourselves of one critical fact.
There are TWO minds in play
Before we get anywhere even close to opening those ‘helpful’ little mouths of ours, we need to be super-mindful of this.
Because it's not always obvious. And it needs to be, otherwise that good old Ego Construct 📦 of ours is going to be a bit like a bull in a china shop, and it's going to break some things.
Which is the opposite of what we want.
No, we have to be mindful of this:
It took me some considerable time to appreciate the need to prioritise my own mental state, above all else in these situations. It's pretty easy when I'm in a formal coaching situation—it's my job!—but for general, day to day pointing of loved ones to their innate health, it's way too easy to be coming from ego, instead of love:
- 📦🗣️ If only they could see they're feeling their thinking right now, it would really help them (= Ego)
- 📦🗣️ They're so caught up in their thinking right now, I should point that out! (= Ego)
- 📦🗣️ They've lost sight of their innate wellbeing, I want to show them they're ok (= Ego)
- 📦🗣️ This is just making mountains out of molehills – can't they see it's all just thought?! (= Ego)
- 📦🗣️ This is impacting me, us, everything! It's time they saw something differently (= Ego)
See what I mean? You could almost say that if you feel like you have a strong urge to share the 3Ps in a situation, that's exactly the time not to! Because there's a strong chance you'll both be in the ‘head’ space, rather than the ‘heart’ space, and as you'll know from your own experience, people don't tend to have insights when they're all up in their head.
🤷🏻♂️
I think the key word in the diagram above, is ‘carefree’.
I shall revisit the topic in the coming days, with some more pointers, but in the meantime, I shall leave you with some heartfelt advice I received myself, back in the early days of coming across the 3Ps and wanting to ‘help’ everyone in my life:
How you're being (and the feeling you're coming from) is going to be a far more persuasive form of communication than anything you say.
💟
Giles
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Giles P Croft
Step 0 of a 3-step process 😉