But stay human
TL;DR:
If you read a good solution and still didn't act, skepticism, anger, fear, and shame are likely sitting between knowing and doing. Reading about emotions won't build the capacity to face them, but reps with a trained partner who can hold what surfaces will.
This article won’t make much sense if you skipped the previous one. I recommend you start there. It takes 6 minutes to read, this one will wait for you.
What did you feel after reading my last article? I’m really curious, although it should be more interesting to you. Did you feel confident in any way, or did you feel skeptical maybe? Angry? Slightly afraid? What about shame?
If you’re a long-time reader of mine, that article might have felt different. It was entirely cognitive. I felt confident writing it and that might have reached you too, but the more important feelings are the “heavier” ones. Wait, what?
You don’t read anything because it sounds confident. You read to learn or to feel “heavier” emotions, or both. This is why I read anyway. I even gave you steps that, if you followed them, would make you a more effective decision maker. I’m sure of it. But you won’t, because life is not that easy. It wasn’t for me.
You see, this is why I feel hesitant to write such articles, because the best that could happen is that you nod along, take some notes, then forget everything within an hour. Every piece of information could be read if you put in the effort. You don’t need me or any other coach for that, I promise. But why?
Because information means absolutely nothing without taking action and integrating it. Nada.
I feel you’re nodding again. So, what did we miss in the previous article? Emotions.
There was a solution to indecision in the form of research and making educated decisions. But did you stand up from your desk and take actual action after reading the article? I’m sure not. Why?
I have the following ideas. On the surface, you might have been skeptical. I wrote about the tech industry and you just waved your hand, stating that it’s easier in tech, it’s one of the most lucrative professions. And you’re not wrong, you just outsourced responsibility. You might have thought that it was easy for the CEO because it’s their job to make decisions and besides, they can just find another employee. If you thought this, then you completely ignored his problem, that if he had made a bad decision, he would have lost at least 3 weeks of his time with me. More if you count probation.
Skeptical is right, but the less nuanced and noticeable emotion is anger. Did you feel angry? Angry at the article that some people just get ahead better than you? Or better yet: did you feel angry with me? That’s great, and now we are talking. This is why you might need me, to safely feel angry with somebody who can hold it. That anger might have stemmed from a different turn in your life, a missed opportunity or an ambitious colleague who reached a goal before you. That anger is likely pointing to the fact that life is indeed not fair. What’s more important is that it just shed light on your attachment to your anger. That you still hold it close to your heart. It’s good that now at least you’re aware of it.
Let’s take another step to fear. It’s not always true, but it often happens that fear hides behind anger. Fear of being judged, fear of consequences, fear of your responsibility when it all goes wrong. After you make a decision, you lose the moral high ground of how the circumstances were the reason for a bad decision. And that responsibility has heft to it. It will push on your shoulders. But that heft is the adulthood we have all been waiting for since high school. In adulthood, though, we often feel that we are on our own under the weight of emotions. Coaching gives you that sense of not being alone, with a partner who can hold your loneliness with their sheer presence. Being afraid of judgment and the loneliness created by it invites an even more interesting guest to the party.
Anger was good, fear is better. Feeling and naming it, I mean. But the one I find more liberating is to face shame (a more nuanced sadness). Shame is tricky because it lurks. All the anger and fear you feel might take up enormous space compared to shame. Those emotions try to protect you by forcing you to move (except when you completely freeze in fear). But shame acts like this invisible barrier. It makes you believe that the risk you’re trying to take is not worth it, because if you fail, you will lose big time, invoking fear with it. At its peak of trust, the coaching relationship is there to support this seemingly tiny, in reality huge step of admitting shame by saying it out loud. Sounds easy, but it’s one of the most difficult things to do, even after years of work.
Reading more about emotions will raise awareness, yes. You will become more knowledgeable. But have you ever seen a knowledgeable Olympic medalist? I’m skeptical about that. You know how they got there. They put in the reps. That’s how it goes with emotions too. You need to expose yourself to them in safe and controlled environments, where you can practice how to notice, feel and let them go. Life will expose you anyway. But that ain’t pretty sometimes. I’d much rather practice emotional work with a professional than with my wife, because it’s not my wife’s responsibility to practice it with me. It’s mine and the responsibility of the professional I choose.
We are not taught how to feel. We are suppressed from our early years and then through adulthood. There’s very little room for healthy ways to express emotions. I emphasize expression here. Feeling them is a step, naming and labeling them is another, but letting them go through expression is nicer, healthier even.
What is the work then? I think it’s exploration, understanding, acceptance, and responsible decision-making, then release. All that connected to one person’s emotions. Individuality is important here, as emotions are universal, but our connection to them and how we feel and let them go are singular to everybody.
Put everything above to the test: look for a decision you avoided until it started to make you tense, even hurting. Try to remember where you could clearly see yourself in the emotions above (skepticism, anger, fear, shame). What did you feel, and what did that feeling try to tell you? What did it try to warn you about? Did you dare to face it and say it out loud? If not, what could have helped?
When I started, I thought the goal was balance. I imagined life as a tightrope where all my emotions were weights. I wanted to find the right balance between heavy emotions (fear, anger, sadness) and lighter emotions (happiness, surprise). I also thought I could just switch them off, like there was a way to just, you know, forget about them. None of those ideas were wrong, those were the lenses through which I could observe my relationship with emotions. Now I think they are like notifications. One pops up because it wants to tell me something. It’s my job to listen and decide how to react. It’s my responsibility to choose the reaction instead of letting the emotions tell me. It’s also my responsibility to learn not to look at the notification excessively, not to hold it until my palm bleeds. Am I perfect at it? Nah, just ask my wife. But I’m certainly better at it than I was ten years ago. And my goal is never perfection, that doesn’t exist. My goal is openness and curiosity, to remain flexible enough to change.
I believe coaching is more interesting in this more emotional area. Cognitive decision-making is always connected to emotions or their lack thereof. You just don’t want to face it. Frameworks are cool and will definitely make you feel confident in your progress, but if they lack an emotional layer, they rarely create lasting change in clients that they can bear the responsibility for. Coaching at its best is emotional sparring where people can explore and expand their own emotional capacity while also solving their day-to-day troubles.
If you think this was more interesting than just the cognitive level, I’ll have another one in store for you, which is going to be my last one in this unplanned series. The identity level, where lasting change and integration happen. I’ll also touch on why using frameworks as the sole approach is not the solution I would opt for, even if that makes my marketing way harder.
If you’re ready to practice with a professional who was trained to hold your emotional world, please feel courageous to reach out. I’ll never judge you for feeling your emotions, I’ll help you hold your own emotional world.
It’s perfectly okay to ask for support. You don’t have to figure everything out on your own. While I believe everyone is their own best expert, I’m also a big believer in asking for help to create change together. It’s comforting to have someone by our side as we go through transitions. If you’re feeling motivated to expand your comfort zone and curious about how I can support you on your journey, let’s talk.
