Life Coaching to Support Your Personal Growth

“Embrace your pain for there your soul will grow.” -Carl Jung 

This invitation from Jung is not for the faint of heart. Why would I, in good conscious, willingly submit myself to a painful and potentially unstabilizing feeling? This is a valid reservation and concern, especially when we consider just how deep and scary some of our pain can be. Ironically the very pain we avoid will creep into our daily lives if not resolved. We can attempt to pretend that this isn’t the case but the spirit and body know. It can show up as self-doubt, anxiety, procrastination, perfectionism and even in the more obvious self destructive vices. As we become more sophisticated in masking our pain so do our strategies to avoid the pain. This delving into our past can often be done with the help of a therapist and the path forward from there can be supported and discovered with the support of a life coach. As a life coach what I have noticed lately is an avoidance strategy that looks like detachment from intimacy. I believe this is a sophisticated way of avoiding our pain or the potential for pain.

The world is set up more and more to support us in this comfortably numb detachment. When you look around people are having dinner while on their phones, an entire family can be on a different device and in different rooms but under one roof and sadly time is often spent in front of a screen rather than in conversation. There is something alluring to connecting via mediums that do not require face to face interaction, that are quick shallow and one sided. We have forgotten how to connect and have forgotten the value of conversations. Instead we tend to value the ease of social media comments, text messages over phone calls. Do you remember those lively conversations that would start at dinner and roll into a late night below the moonlight? Those seem from a long and distant place and time. I have a suspicion that we are scared and out of practice now when it comes to the effort required of us for a conversation, and subsequently in connection. Showing our vulnerability and the intimacy required of all these acts is risky -- what if it doesn’t go as planned? what if I fail at connection? It’s so much easier in a text or comment to just walk away, or ghost someone, try doing that eye to eye...now that takes courage. In my life coaching practice I often assign journal prompts to begin the journey inward. For example and in this context I would invite you to answer the following, How do I hide my fear, disappointment or the cracks in my armor from myself and from others? What am I protecting myself from? How might my protectionism be keeping me from the connection and belonging I so desire? As a life coach I am interested in what is really motivating you, what is really at play and keeping you from connecting with others, there is more than what is on the surface.  

What We Really Need

Ironically what we really need and so desperately want is love, to be heard and to know belonging. The very thing we need above all else as humans scares us and requires vulnerability as it asks us to face our pain and our fears. A consistent theme in my online life coaching sessions is this need to find connection, the fear of not ever finding intimate and real connections manifests itself in anxiety. Often what the underlying fear is, is a fear of being alone and experiencing loneliness. We want to be known and we need to be known, as we are-- with all of our past and our pain-- but this won’t happen without the courage Jung refers to. So I ask you, how is your fear of facing the pain you carry keeping you from connecting in a real way with yourself and with others?

The Online Life Coaching Resources

This life is a classroom and it is work but it is also a joyful dance should you choose it. Let fear go, let life be and find your belonging and connection with others. You have all the resources and the answers within to begin your exploration and life coaching guides you along the way. It all begins with a very small first step. What small steps can you take today? It would be my honor to walk with you on this path. 

All the best,
Alina

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