Embracing Frustration: How Seeking a Life Coach Unveiled Some Essential Questions
Hello friends!
Thank you for joining me once again! While I also intend to share tools and things that inspire me, today I want to delve deeper into my own path and share some of the profound questions that have shaped my personal growth. As we strive to create a warm and nurturing community, I want you to know that many of the thoughts and feelings you’ve had, I’ve had too.
While the idea of personal growth wasn’t new to me, I had never fully committed to the process with someone who provided a safe and nurturing space for vulnerability. Even in a safe space, it can feel intimidating to venture beyond the boundaries of our comfort zone, to confront the aspects of ourselves we’ve grown accustomed to avoiding. I had studied psychology, sought therapy, and read many books…I knew many things logically. What I hadn’t done was embody the things I knew. Because to embody these things, to live them, meant I had to release old beliefs and behaviours that for years had kept me safe, allowing me to reach a seemingly ‘good enough’ place in life.
I had great friendships, I got along with my family pretty well, and was building a small business that I loved. Things couldn’t be that bad, could they?
The thing is, why do so many of us wait for a breaking point before seeking support? Why, in 2023, do we still expect ourselves to instinctively possess healthy coping mechanisms and communication tools, when the vast majority of us have never been modelled them. We more readily accept the notion of seeking guidance for our physical health, whether that’s in the form of a family doctor, personal trainer or nutritionist. And while it’s crucial to take care of our body, my hope is that we learn to embrace taking care of our soul at the same time.
For me, the catalyst that led me to seek the guidance of a coach was a growing frustration in my romantic life. Going on dates and initial connections weren’t an issue (although it did feel exhausting at times) but I was struggling to establish or maintain anything long-term. As each relationship ended, or sometimes barely began, my unhappiness grew. Despite the blessings in other areas of my life, I fixated on the absence of a successful romantic partnership. I began to question my happiness, as I had placed my self-worth on an external factor…namely, my relationship status. And the more I clung to this external gauge for happiness, the more I tried to bend and mold myself to be who I thought others wanted me to be.
With the compassionate guidance of my coach, I began to question where the belief that I need a romantic relationship to be happy came from…where the idea that happiness depends on the things that I have, versus the things that I embody came from. Why did the idea of being ‘chosen’ by someone else carry more weight than abandoning myself in order to feel chosen. These are big questions….and while I wanted to explore them, I also had to learn how to explore them with self-compassion. More on this later!
These are just a few of the big questions that emerged when I dared to delve deeper. While a voice inside me felt frantic and scared to explore them, urging me to leave them be, there was a calm voice in the background that whispered “let’s just see.”
So if you’ve ever experienced any of these thoughts or wrestled with similar feelings, stay with me…and “let’s just see.” Let’s embrace the uncertainty together and explore these questions with curiosity and compassion.
With heartfelt gratitude,
Christina
