Client Insights is an occasional series of articles on breakthroughs that clients have experienced during coaching sessions. Client details changed to protect those released to fly.
One special client I worked with was Susan. She embodied the spirit of beauty in all aspects in her life. She found unending joy in creating beauty in her home, with her clothes and accessories, and in life in general. What she saw in beauty and creativity was excitement, and bringing them to life gave her that thrill. Her local art store was the first place she headed to when she felt disconnected from her creative source.
Susan wanted to see if coaching could help her improve her physical condition so she could continue taking on creative projects. She had been diagnosed with a disabling condition that was expected to worsen over time. She wanted to explore the options she had to continue her deep connection to creativity. When we first started working together, she had put her creative projects on hold to focus on her health.
She felt she was handling her health well – doing all the things she could to take care of herself and surround herself with caring specialists and talented alternative therapists. I asked her to check out her hormone levels with her doctor. As we hit peri-menopause, our sex hormone levels start bouncing around from day to day and underlying stress hormone issues can pop up. Some of the symptoms we attribute to other conditions can potentially be the symptoms of stress.
Understanding Your Strengths
It was easy to see that Susan could count on her strengths of creativity, kindness, excitement about constantly evolving and expressing herself through art. Her heroes were women in the popular media who made a success for themselves by being true to their creative, nurturing spirit. They were the ones we all love – who’ve lived their lives along with us.
Her immediate circle – family and daily contacts – were much more conservative and “left-brained” thinking. As much as they loved her, they didn’t know how to react to her “flightiness” – her multiplicities. As much as she loved them, Susan felt a bit like a fish out of water with them. Even though she didn’t really think of herself in these terms, she was the sole artist in her world. They did not get her talents.
And when she looked at the world through their eyes, she did not get her talents, either.
I asked her: “Have you ever done anything to savour your accomplishments?” She found them hard to see as accomplishments even though they were of staggering brilliance (her talents shone in design and she could make just about anything). For her it was moving from one challenge to another, without making a big deal out of it.
When she stopped to savour her talents and really look at how she was using her strengths all the time, she was excited by the amount of creativity that already existed in her life.
Susan’s big shift was realizing that she didn’t have to work towards what she wanted. She already had everything she needed. When she realized this, she got a sense that time opened up for her. Time wasn’t something she had to fight to preserve anymore. She was free to savour the time she had now.
When she re-ignited her creative vision, she grew even more in patience and kindness to help teach the people around her what she needed and how they could support her vision.
The shift that Susan made in her own thinking created space for her to disengage with the fear of change in those around her. The symptoms of her condition improved, opening up more possibility for new creative projects. She looked great and said she felt great.
Now my question to you . . .
Do you savour your life? Do you look at your talents and uniqueness with a kind and loving eye?
Image: iStockphoto
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