TL;DR:
A stranger burned by bad coaching kept me up until sunrise, turning the tables, and forced me to face a mirror I'd been avoiding myself. A late-night confrontation, an accidental self-hug, and Fleetwood Mac revealed why honest self-reflection is the center of it all.
Two weeks ago, I had a provocative conversation until the sun came up where I wasn’t the one asking questions. After a day of cycling, I found myself in a cottage where I only knew my best friend and joined his friends’ table as they opened the summer season.
The density of intellect was intimidating: two lawyers, two neurologists, two entrepreneurs and the two of us, street kids compared to them, a financial analyst and a professional coach. I’m sure only terrible jokes start with an opening like this.
After a couple of rounds of table-top games, Emma — let's call her that — asked what I did for a living.
I answered and thoughts froze midair; Emma put down her glass, leaning in to confirm: are you seriously a coach? I nodded, not knowing how my next two hours would unfold. One of the guys even brought some popcorn.
Cycling home, the morning breeze amplified my feeling of emptiness. I couldn’t assure Emma I’m not one of those impostors who left her burned and made her question the ethics of coaching. Rightfully, might I add.
I feel what made Emma doubtful. The noise that’s fighting for attention is maddening. You see the word coaching, only for your eyes to start twitching.
Days later, Landslide by Fleetwood Mac started to play in the car, inviting me to look into a mirror, and my self-image collapsed as I reimagined how Emma put me on the slope myself. Unfortunately, I couldn’t share my new idea with Emma:
“And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
Till the landslide brought me down.”
Betwixt Self-Knowledge States
Throughout my brief time on this spinning rock, I encountered five states when it came to self-development, Emma probably sitting between 2 and 3:
This is all witchcraft, “Begone, before somebody drops a house on you too.”
Self-development won’t work for me; I can’t imagine how this works
Trekking is exhausting, so is staying the same
Yeeeeah, now I have a thirst to connect to the source itself
I’m enlightened already, just waiting for my calling to enter Nirvana
Of course, I jest, there are many more and I mean no offense, I hope you can crack a smile. Otherwise, your reaction might have just revealed a trigger of yours, to you. I don’t know, I’m living in the future already.
What the hell?! - Thank you for asking!
To move between states, a powerful idea comes to your aid: when you look into a self-reflective mirror, you should be able to observe what might be triggering you and appreciate what makes you whole at the same time, a person worthy of being loved for being who you are. Those two coexist as long as the sun rises in the east; there’s no removal.
Good coaching should notice an unusual pattern mid-sentence such as a brief self-hug that revealed an underlying burden for my client. The realization made us both pause to recognize the hidden emotional burden they were carrying, unknowingly, released by tears.
When we noticed and named the self-hug, it offered us a brief chance to break down defenses they didn’t realize existed. It felt vulnerable and caught my client off guard to induce a slight emotional overwhelm.
That was the moment of truth when we sat silently for a minute to decide if we dared to truly look in the mirror. They thought they knew themselves and needed a moment to accept that, maybe, they didn’t. On that night with Emma, we focused on my past and credentials instead of this exact tender moment.
“Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?”
There’s one trick: if you’re not enlightened, you can’t hold the mirror for yourself. To remain objective takes so much effort, even professionals don’t rely on themselves either. They know that their mind will deceive them and won’t let them spot triggers in the mirror; they dare to ask for help too.
Your Mind Playing Tricks on You
It’s not a jerk, it’s your biggest ally, the sole reason you’re alive. The reason it deceives you is for your own good. What your heart couldn’t handle, your mind buried to keep you going.
If you have ever seen a rug that couldn’t hold more dirt underneath, you can imagine why it’s so exhausting to keep on reacting to triggers the same way over and over again. You have to start cleaning eventually.
If your visceral reaction is that “triggers are the devil’s work”, let me offer you a hug. They're simply proof that you've lived, and whoever lives, experiences. Some of those experiences cut deeper than what we can calmly handle, and that’s okay.
But Csaba, it’s not okay, I’ve had enough, please end this misery! I read books, follow gurus on social, and open your newsletter like it’s my job. When does relief come?!
Until you look honestly into the mirror, it won’t.
Do You Accept Your Reflection?
Here’s the bad news: triggers won’t get better with time and can even get calcified like snappy hags under the sun telling you to beat it because this is how they live life now. I agree it’s their business, but I’d rather be a smiling old dude who can still be in awe of how beautiful life can be, even after 90 years.
“Well I’ve been afraid of changin’
‘Cuase I’ve built my life around you”
And I know, facing ourselves can be frightening and sometimes shameful when we realize how long we’ve carried a hidden self-image. Trust me, it's never too early or too late to lighten that luggage.
Here’s the neutral news: everyone struggles to accept what they face in the mirror, and there’s no generic remedy or fast lane toward acceptance, only the gradual practice of self-empathy, slowly accepting what is good enough.
It can also happen that finally seeing clearly what was hidden in the shadows might start this proverbial landslide leaving you feeling more overwhelmed because of how deep the rabbit hole might go, and you know, that’s okay. At least now you know what the deal is.
Great, now I feel like shit; any good news?
You bet, two actually!
For one, even though Emma left that table with her burns intact, you sat with the discomfort of what it could look like to observe yourself through the mirror. You don’t have to trust me, trust what feelings surfaced while you were reading.
Coaching offers you a chance to dare to look in the mirror and maybe start a landslide. Good coaching also promises to stay next to you while you try to stay strong against elemental forces and helps you let go of emotional burdens, surrendering safely to the slide.
On the other hand, if you recognized yourself somewhere in these lines, I’m here to help you not to face alone what might frighten your family, trained not to flinch when we tread knee-deep in the mud.
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.
If you found yourself nodding along more than once, that's worth paying attention to. Online life coaching can help you figure out what to do with it.
