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Coaching Demo Transcript

Emily: Alright, good evening, thank you for joining me today! And in opening, I’m curious what you’d like to focus on for today’s session.

Client: Hi, Emily. Well, I’m trying to figure out what kind of path I should take with my life. I’ve had some very traumatic – my son passed away this past year – and one of the things that I thought I was going to get back into was I’m a certified yoga instructor but I haven’t taught since he passed, and I keep thinking that I have to get back to doing it, and I set it up that I would start in the fall, but every time I think about doing it, I really just want to set up my own room in my house and, you know, practice with myself and with people really close to me. And I just feel like then I’m wasting my certification that I worked so hard on and the money and everything. So I’m just not sure what to do about that aspect as well as everything else in my life. So … yeah.

Emily: Okay, so there’s a lot going on. So it sounds like there was a lot of upheaval, of course, when your son passed away and you haven’t taught since then.

Client: No.

Emily: Okay, so I’m hearing a lot of conflicting thoughts around how to move forward and that’s completely understandable in a situation like this. And so what I’m hearing is you’re a certified yoga teacher, and you were teaching before your son passed away. You were teaching pretty regularly?

Client: Right. The last class was the night before. So …

Emily: Wow. And have you been going to yoga?

Client: I’ve been back a couple of times. I didn’t go for probably about 5 months, and then I’ve only been back maybe 5 times.

Emily: Okay. And I heard you say a couple of interesting things, so one being that when you think about teaching again, what really comes up for you is wanting to have our own space in your own home, it sounds like, to just do yoga on your own, but there’s this other piece that’s feeling like you invested money and effort into becoming a certified instructor and so you feel you should teach, and you set yourself up to go back to teaching, but it just doesn’t — I’m also looking at your face and it doesn’t look like it’s something that’s very alive for you when you think about it. And so I’m curious what would be most helpful to have in place by the end of our session today?

Client: Um, I don’t know, I guess maybe talk through whether or not that’s something I really should do? Because there are just days where I’m just — I can’t even get out of bed. So I think a lot of it is just committing to something like that, being somewhere regularly every week. But I know that there are other people that have the same — maybe not the same issue, but, you know, where they don’t want to be somewhere but they do commit and they do make it. So I don’t want to use it as an excuse, but I just don’t know. I don’t know.

Emily: Okay, so fro what I’m hearing maybe for the session it would be helpful during our time to talk through what it would look like if you went back to teaching, what would it look like if you set up your own studio at home, if you just practiced privately, versus whether you were leading others, and it sounds like maybe the commitment piece is something that’s a bit of a concern because there are days that are extremely difficult to even get out of bed – and that’s the baseline, right? – so to think about teaching a class on top of that and have people depend on you, might feel like a lot right now.

Client: Yeah. Right.

Emily: Okay, and how will we know at the end of our session if we’ve met your needs? If we had to sum it up, what would be the answer you’re looking for?

Client: I guess if I feel by the end of the session whether I should do it or not.

Emily: If you should teach, specifically?

Client: Yeah. I mean, I am definitely going to do the room in the house. That’s for sure. And the class that I devised for in the fall that I thought that I would do in the fall was going to be specifically for mothers that also lost children, and just see how that goes and see how people respond to it and if they come, just because it is so difficult for me to go and be with “regular” people for yoga or anything else, so I thought maybe if it’s difficult for me it’s difficult for other people too, and, you know, that it would be a safe space for them. So I do think it’s a really nice – a great idea – I just, um, I guess I probably should just do it and if it doesn’t work out at least I know I tried.

Emily: Okay —

Client: (Laughs) So, I answered my own question. I don’t know. (Grimaces).

Emily: (Laughs) Well, I’m seeing a little teeny bit of a grimace when you say that. But what I’m also hearing from you is that it’s difficult to be around I think you said “normal” people or “regular” people — people who haven’t experienced a traumatic loss.

Client: Right.

Emily: And creating space for others who have had a similar experience might be really valuable for them, and I’m wondering if it’s something — you know, you said “I answered my own question” — and I’m wondering are you also feeling that it would be valuable for you to be the one that facilitates that space for others?

Client: Most days I think I would like to do that. You know, like, to be helpful, if it helps other people, because I’ve kind of come to feel that if I am experiencing something then other people are too, and if I can create a space where they can go and just be and not have to “fake” happiness or whatnot, so I think it would be doing the community a service, um, and maybe kind of give me, like, an outlet for doing something worthwhile instead of just being sad all the time. Doing something for — in memory of him, and … yeah.

Emily: Okay, so it sounds like for you there is value in — I heard several times if it’s something that helps others, and if it’s of service to others, and if it’s good for the community, I’ll do that. But I also love that you said that it’s something that would honor him and so, really what I’m hoping to get at, in transparency, is a lot of us are — after experiencing a loss — a lot of us are told, like “oh, the way through it is to help others and just continue to be of service to others, and give and give and give, and we already give a lot, and so I’m just kind of looking at it from all angles to also make sure that it’s something that’s going to be good for you. And not just giving where you don’t have something to give. But it sounds like, you know, you said most days you feel like you do want to do it – is that right?

Client: Yeah — I do. I think I just — I guess there’s just the fear too that it wouldn’t work out well, but if it didn’t, at least that I gave it a shot. But yeah, I think it would be beneficial to me too. To, you know, practice with other mothers. And try to just build our own little community of practice.

Emily: Yeah, and that could be valuable as well even outside of the studio.

Client: Right, yeah. Yeah.

Emily: Okay, so I want to hop back for a moment to the fear of it not working out, but you said “at least I will have tried!” so would you be interested, or would it be helpful, to do kind of a walkthrough of, okay, let’s say you get to a class, what is your definition of it working out, and if it doesn’t work out, then what? Would that be helpful to explore?

Client: Yeah. That sounds good.

Emily: Okay, so you mentioned kind of wanting to set up classes starting in the fall, and have you already spoken with the studio that you used to teach at?

Client: I did. Um, and she suggested instead of having the people that come pay a regular class price, possibly make it donation-based instead, and that I could donate it to a charity and at first I thought — no — and then I thought oh no, actually that’s a great idea! Because we do have a foundation set up so, and then I took it a step further that maybe one — depending on how often I do it — I think I would start out with every other week but if it ended up being something that a lot of people did come to or even a few people but that they wanted it more regularly, I was thinking of opening up one week a month where somebody else has a charity in the class, that we would have the donations go to their charity. You know? And kind of spread it around once a month, you know, give it to someone else, so, but I thought, yeah, I’d start out with every other week and see what kind of attendance there was, and then kind of get a feel for whether they wanted it every week, and do it as a donation based thing.

Emily: Yeah! And it sounds like that might be good information as well for you to see, do you want it every week.

Client: Exactly! Yeah. Yeah. Because it is a lot. It is a bit much. And that’s what I was doing before and it was fine, but yeah, it would be different now because there’s so much, you get a lot of energy, that I don’t know if I’d be wanting to take that on very single week, but yeah, so we’ll see. But that’s the thought!

Emily: Okay, well I know that was sort of brief, but it sounds like we’ve gotten it to a place — what I’m hearing at this point so what you were hoping to have in place was just kind of clarity around whether or not you wanted to teach anymore, and it sounds like you do feel comfortable with trying it out in the fall, every other week, and seeing how it goes.

Client: That’s a good way of putting it. Trying it out. And then I don’t feel so stressed, yeah. I like that. Yeah.

Emily: Okay, good. Are you feeling complete in that objective?

Client: I think so, yeah. Yeah.

Emily: OK, good. I really just want to acknowledge you for working through that for yourself to say what’s it going to do for me, and for the community, and what benefits could there be, and also that it’s a no-pressure situation where you can just test it out and it looks like you’re feeling good about that.

Client: Yeah! Yeah. But it’s true that making it no pressure, and knowing that I don’t have to do it, um, then you can enjoy it. Or hopefully enjoy it. But just give it a chance. Because I don’t like to be afraid of things, I want to do the things that I’m afraid of so that I’m not afraid of them, so, yeah. So that’s true. Yeah, no pressure, not put pressure on myself.

Emily: Yeah. We have enough pressure without what we put on ourselves.

Client: Yeah.

Emily: Alright, great, well, thank you so much!

Client: Thank you!

Emily: And we will check in next time.

Client: Okay. Alright, sounds good Emily. Thank you!

Emily: Have a good night!

Client: You too! Bye!Emily: Bye!