Learning the Intrinsic Coaching® methodology is helping me help my daughter who is diabetic. She's 27 now and has been a diabetic since she was nine. I have always been the food police to her. She's been very ill over the last two years including a coma, she was hospitalized about forty times, and she had to move in with me and my husband. Recently, she moved out on her own again, having had no hospitalizations in several months. Then, last week, she was hospitalized again. When she was released, she was returned to our home for a few days.
When she was nearly ready to the time to leave, I asked her, "Can you help me out? I need to do a coaching session. Would you like to participate?" And she said, "Yes" to my surprise. So I said, "It will only take ten minutes and is going to be mostly just asking you questions, no right or wrong answers. So how would you like to spend the next ten minutes?" And she said, "I want to talk about getting my life on track and getting a good job."
And she mentioned having fun again. So I asked her what these things looked like to her and she said, "Well, being healthy, being able to do things spontaneously, going out with my friends, and not having to watch every penny, from paycheck to paycheck." And I said, "What do you want most in this moment?" and then she went on to say that she wanted a job and to be healthy. The conversation progressed but it was slow with long pauses. It lasted 17 minutes.
When we were wrapping up the conversation, I found the conversation went in a direction that I had no idea happened! Things were on her mind about work and being scrutinized and she was concerned about going back to work because she had missed three days and she knew people were going to ask about her. But she likes her privacy and doesn't like people worrying about her. And she got a chance to actually say all of that and at the end, I said, "Well, all right, we're going to kind of wrap things up" and she said, "You know, I can have all these things (health, permanent job, and spontaneity), if I maintain my diabetes." That was such a shock I almost fell off my seat! For my daughter to articulate that, after years of me begging, pleading, and crying for her to take her diabetes seriously was major. She knew that she would not have had these complications if she had done that earlier. More importantly, she said it on her own and I think it was real to her. The answer came from her because it was there all the time.
I asked her, "What are you going to take away with you from this conversation?" She said, "That my health is important and I'm going to take care of my health." I was elated because I knew she meant it. I didn't push any further and I didn't ask for a next step because I felt she's a smart girl and she's will to be thinking about this.
The next morning, I was talking to her and gave her a "wanting for" statement. I said, "I'm wanting peace for you," and she said, "Are you supposed to say that to me?" And I said, "Well, I'm supposed to give you a wanting statement and my wanting statement is that I want peace for you." I said that because I could see that she was stressed by her health and trying to keep her apartment and get a job that's a permanent position.
Then, later on, I asked her, "How's your day going so far?" and she said, "Good, and, yeah, everybody's concerned about me, but that's okay." And the mother in me couldn't help but ask, "Do you think talking about that last night helped you today?" And she said "Definitely."
I can see that I listened, for the first time in, probably, eighteen years. I really listened to what she was saying, instead of thinking of what I wanted to know and wanted to say to try to keep her well, which has not worked in eighteen years. And I said over and over to my husband, "I wish I had known about Intrinsic Coaching® when she was first diagnosed." What a totally different scenario we would have experienced.
And I mentioned how hard it is to coach someone that you know and how I really wanted to coach her but I was afraid that she was going to think that this was going to be another lecture. But when I coached her, I said to myself that she'll know it's not a lecture because I was shutting up. She did all of the talking and she's not one to just open up and tell her innermost thoughts because she wants to be in control and she holds on to everything. However, when I coached her, she just let it flow. She got a little emotional at one point, but she was still able to just speak her peace, and I could tell that she was relieved by the conversation.
And I felt like I worked a lot less hard than I had ever worked before.
It's such a gift, such a gift, such a gift! I asked her, "At some point would you be willing to do this again?" And she said, "Oh yeah." And then I explained the premise of Intrinsic Coaching® and I could see in her eyes that she liked it. And a final post script is that she is starting graduate school next winter.
Sharon Smith, BS
Fitness Coordinator Mather Lifeways
Certified Leader for Tuft’s University Strong Living Program
Prime Time Sister Circle Facilitaor
Chicago, IL