One of the things I love about coaching is how it can help us decenter the problems and emotional “issues” in our lives. While therapy is incredibly useful, it can perhaps sometimes encourage us to re-process difficult situations, relationships, etc., beyond the point of usefulness. We start breathing life into the dark, difficult, negative aspects of our lives. We get stuck on what we did wrong, what we didn’t get, or who hurt us in the past.
Remember: Your “issues” are only ever just a tiny fraction of who you are. They are potholes in the road. They are a puff of cloud temporarily blocking out the vast Sun of your being.
Of course, be careful not to bypass difficult emotions or fail to take accountability for unhealthy behaviors. When we leave these issues unaddressed, they eventually come back to haunt us and those in our lives.
But you don’t always need to go back into the pain and difficulty over and over. I think you’d be surprised how often it’s OK to just focus on the truth of who you are and the positive vision you want to bring into the world.
Where in your life might you simply hang up the phone, let it go, and move forward?
Peter Schulte
I help aspiring changemakers do good in the world and feel good in the process.