My Coach Kate

Who is it that you most like to connect with? Do you have the time, the energy, and the ideas of what to do to connect with the people that you though of as much as you would like to? For many of us, we would love to spend more quality time and fun time with our friends, our children, our partner, our extended family. Sometimes we run into friends that we haven't seen in years and promise to get together. And then life gets in the way and plans are not made. Let's borrow a principle from the coaching world to help us to make the connections that we really want in our life. 

When was the last time that you shared what was on your mind with your spouse or partner? What about when it was something that you knew might get a reaction that is not the reaction that you would want to get? Would you share that thought? Or keep it to yourself? Listen to my example to see what happened the last time that I shared with my partner at a most imperfect moment and what the surprising result was. 

This is Part 2 of a 2-part series. In Part 1, you learned about adding to an emotional fire with our own focus, attention, and reactions. You learned that the concept of 'neutral energy' is the idea that can work to begin to put out that fire. In this episode, you will learn exactly how to do that when the emotions and energy is running high and it feels hard to do. 

All of us get triggered at times. As we go through our day, there are behaviors and actions and words around us that we don't like. We may have boundaries that are crossed. We might feel disrespected. When we think about the times that those things are repeated or consistently done, our reaction is a part of the fire that keeps that emotional response burning. We aren't aware that we are contributing. We actually think that we are trying to make a behavior stop. Join me for Part 1 to learn how to change this dynamic. 

Some of us live for the next vacation. As soon as one is done, the next vacation is immediately booked. We do it for our mental health. We do it so that we have something new to look forward to. When we go, we can feel the difference in our perspective on life. What if we could get that same feeling by taking a walk in a new neighborhood. By being outside and breaking out of our daily routine. Is it possible to live like we are on vacation and to do it for our brain benefits?

Have you ever been in the position where someone close to you was struggling? And it just happened to be in an area that you have some expertise? But they aren't necessarily asking you for your help. Or are they? How do you know? Do they really want help? Or maybe they ask for it and they have asked before. But you suspect that they aren't quite ready for help yet. What is a coach to do?

Have you ridden on a roller coaster before? If not, you know how the ride goes. The anticipation of chugging up that huge hill, with only the peak and the sky in sight. And then the thrill of riding down the other side, just to go and do it again on the next hill. How does that relate to our life? Where, in our life, does the anticipation of the ride up feel representative of? What part of our life is the fun on the way down? And how much time are we spending in those actions? Come along with me for the roller coaster ride. 

Building good connections is important to all of us. What if there was a little party trick, that really worked to get others to open up and to trust us and to talk to us? Would it be something that you wanted to learn? It's not actually a trick, but a skill. One that many of us don't realize because we learn that silence in a conversation can be awkward and uncomfortable. Learn how to navigate it, in a way that is helpful. 

Whether you are a parent, a teacher, or a grandparent or aunt: have you found yourself in a situation in which you gave a direction to a child- clean up, time to go, no hitting, walking feet- whatever it is and they just didn't listen? Not the first time, not the second or third time that you asked? It can be frustrating and it can trigger your own feelings of losing control. Here is a way to shift your thinking so that you can be helpful, rather than reactive. 

How often do you clearly ask the people in your life to give you what you want? It could be things, it could be time, it could be anything that you find yourself wishing for. If you don't always ask, what do you suspect are the reasons that you don't? There are many common ones that come from what we learned growing up. Let's look at the pitfalls that come from not simply asking.