confidence

Hello and Happy 2013!!

I want to start by saying how grateful I am to all of you, as my clients and my readers. You are a strong, courageous, unique group of individuals who choose not to take the easy path, as you regularly apply yourselves and do the the hard work that it takes to build foundation and be the best you that you can be. I acknowledge your efforts and I bask in the glow of your progress – I am honored to be a part of your support system and I look forward to coaching you in 2013. I want you to be strong, empowered, confident and happy in the New Year, so let’s get to it!

With the holidays falling mid-week last year, it made the start to the new year a bit of a slow one to congeal, let alone to gain momentum.  That said, I always encourage clients to take a moment to review the lessons of the past year before stepping into their goals and intentions for the next twelve months.  Best to learn the lesson on the first go around!

2012 left us with a lot to process – it was a year of internal and external transformation for all – relationships shifted and changed, many of us had to navigate the passing of a parent or a grandparent and everyone caught the flu. Then the year closed out with a storm called Sandy and a shooting of the same name that really got the collective moving.  It seems like we all had to walk through some sort of intense loss or release on some level, be it physical, emotional, or spiritual.

So process it through – what did you learn in 2012? How are you stronger today than you were this time last year? Take a moment to inventory this. Write your answers out on paper to drill it down and anchor it in so that you won’t have to do it again! This is part of your foundational build-out, which is SO important to cultivate. Having a foundation that’s jam packed with coping mechanisms and internal resources (which we all need just to live a happy life in this modern world that we’re all working so hard to thrive in!) will be integral to your success as we transition into 2013.

The 3 most important things I learned in 2012 are:

1. _________________________________________________
2. _________________________________________________
3. _________________________________________________

Do you know how you will apply your new-found knowledge and experience moving forward? Got it? Good, now we can move on!

2013 is offering us a blank canvas – what do you want to create? 2013 promises to be a synergistic year packed with fresh, new, inspired ideas, synergy and Universal support.  In short, you get to create anything you want and I want you to dream BIG. I am here to support you as you step into a new way of being and a higher level of success, happiness and gratitude. You can be unstoppable, and I want all of that and more for you. Together, we can set the tone for the new year and get you started off right! I look forward to watching the magic of 2013 happen with this brilliant group of fearless and empowered co-creators.

For a while now, and for the first time in my life, I am really truly happy.  Not the kind of giddy happy with rollercoaster highs and lows, that fluctuate wildly based off all the other circumstances in life, but hapy with this calm, deep contentment, a self-confidence, a sure, steady, powerful happiness that I never knew existed before.

All in all I’m so content and happy and life is really SO god it feels almost surreal.  I decided although there are always still things I can work on, I just wanted to soak in this most amazing and affirming feeling for a little while – so I decided to take a temporary break from sessions just to be, and enjoy and practice all these tools for a little while.  Of course I still have TC’s number on my speed dial and she’s still my life coach, and I don’t plan to be away long!

I felt like things were generally going better since my coaching sessions had started.  I had made that huge communication breakthrough with my mom and applied it to other relationships.  I learned about expectations and boundaries.  I had learned how to self-care and really had the chance to put it into affect with the passing of my horse.  But as I recovered from this grief, I was realizing another pattern in my life that I wanted to fix.

As I once mentioned way back in the beginning of these blogs, I am fabulous at interviews.  I feel like I make great first impressions.  I can be outgoing, exciting, interesting—I know all the small talk questions to ask to draw people out and engage them…however, then once I’ve got them hooked, I fall flat.  I often get hired for jobs based on my personality – this outgoing, exciting persona I convey, that I do feel is really true to myself, but somehow once I get the job, I freeze up.  Then I get insecure.  Am I really the right fit for this job? Am I going to be able to write the articles in the style they want? Am I going to say and act in a way that will build camaraderie with my colleagues or isolate me from them? My insecurities cause me to go into a shell and actually shut down, and ultimately, work to isolate me and destroy the great foundation I started.  It can take two or three months for me to get comfortable enough in a new job to come out of this shell and start being outgoing and fun again, and often by then, it’s too late for good impressions.

This not only happens with jobs, it happens in other areas of my life.  Friendships, relationships.  People that I care very much about, I can first impress, but then when I realize how much I like them and that they have given me that chance to be in their life, I freeze up.  This happened when I first met Jess and almost killed our relationship before it could blossom.  I’d heard of getting insecurities about first meetings, but mine is almost the opposite.  I do great at first meetings, but then when I realize I’m committed, that’s when the insecurities strike.

I talked about this confusing problem with TC and she immediately had some good suggestions.  She told me she wanted me to start working on an exercise.  “It doesn’t have to be perfect right away,” she said.  “Just try to remember it, and think about it, and the more you think about it the more you’ll be able to put it into practice.”  She wanted me to stay focused on the present moment.  She said she thought a lot of my problem was that instead of listening to the conversation at hand, or being myself in the present moment, I was constantly over-analyzing my behavior.  For example, “what’s the appropriate response to this?” “What can I say that will make me sound cool?” “What’s the right article to pitch that’ll prove I’m a good reporter?” Whereas in fact, if I just stayed in the present moment and blocked out these insecure voices, my ideas and responses were already cool.  Being perfect, really, was as simple as not being insecure.

I started putting this into practice and immediately noticed a difference.  I wasn’t necessarily able to change my behavior right away, but just being aware of it made a difference.  Often time during conversations with people I would notice that instead of focusing on what they were saying and being in the present moment, I would be drifting off into my voices of insecurities…”what’s the appropriate response to say to this?…How should I respond to that?” It was really silly, because of course I could already naturally respond more than appropriately and it was nothing to worry about.  Once I recognized that I was doing this, I was able more and more to put those voices aside, and snap myself back to being in the present moment – listening to the conversation that was taking place, and just responding as myself, naturally, and as such, much more impressively.

Although my week of self care was improving my life in general, I had a stressful weekend situation to deal with.  It was my dad’s 59^th birthday party—really, a great thing to celebrate, considering he’d almost died last year, only it was just I was so burned out on talking about anything to do with the stroke…and really, burned out on more than just that, as TC would later point out.

I had a really hard time with the birthday party.  The caregivers had been calling me and trying to get me involved in things for the last week, and I kept making excuses.  (Later, I would learn from TC that I don’t need to make excuses, I can be honest and say, “I’m worn out from this, I really need you guys to handle this on your own this time around”…but I hadn’t learned that tool yet).  I felt pressure from all sides.  I had just moved into my apartment the week before, and was still yearning for my own time and space.  My mom arrived on Friday to stay for the weekend and really wanted to spend time with me.  She was asking to stay in my apartment with me, and I kept suggesting she stay in the spare room at my dad’s instead.  “All the furniture’s still a mess here…” I kept finding excuses.

The party was grueling.  I was happy for my dad, but I was emotionally exhausted.  Living with a suddenly brain-damaged parent for a year and basically being their “parent” had taken its toll on me.  All the people at the party were caregivers, friends of caregivers, Dad’s PT doctors, and other friends of my dad’s.  Everyone was making small talk, and everyone was talking about the stroke.  I couldn’t think of two worse conversation situations for me right at this moment.

With my emotions running on overdrive, I couldn’t do small talk.  Not at all.  Certainly not small talk about the stroke – the very thing that had caused these huge emotional barricades in my life! I tried to busy myself helping with food and music so I didn’t have to talk to people.  But my mom kept coming up and trying to hug me and connect with me.  She would come up and say really off-the-wall stuff in attempt to talk to me, like “What an interesting pattern on that seat cover!”  And she has this really passive, hippy way of talking, with lots of soft “oohs” and “awws” that just drive me nuts.  I couldn’t handle it.  I dealt with it by not dealing with it.  I felt bad, but I pointedly ignored her.  When she’d come up and say something weird and put her hands on my shoulders, I’d turn to someone next to me and strike up a conversation.   By the end of the evening, I was exhausted.

This was Saturday night, and Sunday, she and my dad were going to be having dinner and they invited me, but I excused myself.  “I’m just so busy, sorry…” again, more excuses.

That Monday morning I couldn’t wait to tell TC about all this.  I couldn’t possibly think how to solve this problem of dealing with my mom, and things just seemed to be getting worse.  TC immediately pointed out the essentials to me.  “You can’t change your mom’s behavior,” she said.  “But you can change yours.  And when you change your behavior, you will also change the dynamics of your relationship with your mom, so your mom will have to change.”

TC pointed out that my mom’s passive, 50’s upbringing was affecting the way she communicated with me.  But then she pointed out that my communication style was just as bad.  “You’re both skating over the ice with each other, avoiding anything real that might be under the surface.  When confronted with your mom’s clinginess, instead of telling her how you really feel about it, you skate away, you make excuses or change the subject—you don’t address what really matters.”

She was totally right.  But I felt I’d been really straightforward with my mom in the past, and that hadn’t worked either.  “I’ve told her I needed my space, and she was being too clingy, and nothing changes,” I said.

We talked about expectations and relationships.  TC pointed out how everyone has expectations about relationships with other people.  This is a natural thing.  But sometimes those expectations are unrealistic and we need to readjust them.  I realized since my dad’s stroke, I had been actively seeking that strong parent figure from my mom.  But she had never been that person for me, and, as TC pointed out, certainly couldn’t right now.  “She’s dealing with a lot too,” TC said.  “She went through a divorce with your dad just six years ago, then the stroke…she’s trying to figure out her life too.  Maybe you need to change your expectations of what you need from her.  What you want is a parent figure.  But what do you really need?”

“I guess I really need…to be able to talk about real things with her,” I finally said.  This also connected to my abhorrence of small talk right now, and cutting out friends who couldn’t support me emotionally.  “I really need her to be able to have meaningful conversations with me.  I don’t want to have this avoidant, surface relationship anymore.”

“There you go,” said TC.  “Can you tell her that?”

“I wouldn’t know how…”

Forty-five minutes later I hung up from our session, brushed up my make-up, and went to meet my mom for lunch.  I used every tool TC had taught me.  One secret of life coaches that she had just revealed to me was to use questions as much as possible.  This not only gets the point across without sounding so aggressive, it also forces the other person to involve themselves and participate.  So this is what we did.

I sat down and sipped my Chai tea, and said, “So, Mom, what do you think of our relationship lately?”

TC had totally prepared me for if she tried to be avoidant, to steer her right back to my question, but to her credit, she met me straight on.  “Well, I think it’s pretty emotionally rocky and we’re not really communicating,” she replied.

I was pleasantly surprised, and continued with the tools I’d just gathered from my session.  “Why do you think that, and what do you think we could do to make it better? What do you need out of our relationship?” And finally, “I feel like you avoid me a lot.  It seems like you try to avoid upsetting me.  What are you afraid of?”

At this, my mom burst into tears.  “Oh honey, I’m afraid of losing you!”

What?? I was shocked.  “Losing ME? Mom, I’m your daughter! You’re stuck with me for life! You’re never gonna lose me!”

We hugged, and she opened up and talked about how the divorce six years ago had totally shaken up her world.  “I thought that marriage was forever, and if that could fall apart, anything could.  If I lost my husband, I could lose anything.”

“I’m slowly realizing differently,” she went on.  “But it’s my greatest fear.  And that’s what I’ve been so scared of with you for so long.”

“But Mom, I’m your daughter.  You’re like my right arm! You’re never going to lose me.”

We talked all about what I’d talked with TC about.  How I’d felt like we were always skating over the surface.  “What I need in this relationship is to be real.  I want us to be able to talk about our feelings, and meaningful things,” I said.  “I want you to be able to get upset with me.  I don’t want us to be always avoiding important issues.  If we notice each other doing this, can we remind each other?”

She agreed.  After we’d talked all about our relationship, I even brought up the life coaching sessions, and what a help TC had been to me.  My mom was fascinated by the things I’d learned about boundaries, standards, and tolerations.  I gave her the papers TC had given me on the subjects, and told her how to make a Tolerations Checklist, and how that would help her create boundaries in her life.  She was so impressed she was taking notes on everything I said, and is now seriously interested in also taking life coaching from TC.

I came back from lunch feeling like I’d reconnected with my mom, and really been able to talk to her for the first time in years.  What an incredible breakthrough! This communication stuff really isn’t so scary once you have the proper tools…

Learning Self-Care:

The next day was Monday, and our official scheduled phone session.  That morning was a disaster for me.  These apartments can lock from the inside, which creates a problem when you’re especially scatterbrained like I was feeling.  I had an appointment at 10am, but ran out of the apartment leaving the keys on the kitchen counter, and locking the door behind me.  As soon as I was outside I realized what I’d done.  My apartment and car keys are all on the same ring, so I couldn’t even drive to my appointment and then figure out what to do.  Luckily I still had my phone, so I was able to google a locksmith to come let me back in, but this took over an hour until they even got out.  I had to cancel my appointment, and the locksmith let me back into my apartment at 11:58, precisely two minutes to spare before my phone appointment with TC.

So of course I was still a little frazzled when I called her.  I told her about my hectic morning.  It just seemed like a continuation of Sunday’s chaos.  “I just don’t know what’s going on with me and mornings anymore,” I said.

Well, TC did.  “You need to slow down, and take care of yourself,” she said.  “This is a sign.  You being this scatterbrained, starting to forget things and feeling frazzled like you are, this means you’re not taking care of yourself, and it’s wearing you out.  The number one lesson I want you to take away from today’s session is self-care.  And this lends itself to other things that you want to work on as well.  Once you’re taking care of yourself properly, you feel good.  When you feel good, you have more self confidence.  When you have more self confidence you are naturally more assertive.  Do you understand where I’m going with this?”

Yes, of course, now that she said it, it made perfect sense.  We went over the Tolerations Checklist that she’d given me the previous week, and I had been filling out.  I was surprised how many tolerations I’d already taken care of.  I’d told my friend kindly, but assertively that I needed to be left alone for a while and she’d understood.  I’d told my other friend to stop making snide comments if he wanted to stay my friend, and he apologized.  I’d been giving myself more time and space to myself, and so on.

“So now you’ve located the cracks in your teacup, and you’re repairing them, so your life energy doesn’t keep draining out.”

Sure, this made sense.  I have to take care of myself before I can feel strong enough to protect my standards and boundaries, or even take care of other people.

“So your homework for this week is taking care of yourself,” TC told me.  “This is your exercise this week.  Whatever you do, before you do it, ask yourself first: is this going to drain my energy, or give me energy? With everything you do.”

Our hour was up, and I hung up thinking this was going to be slightly challenging for me, but good.  As I mentioned previously, I had been brought up by a very 50’s house-wife style mom.  Though she tried to have me turn out without that baggage, independent and modern and all that, of course she couldn’t help passing those old 50’s habits on to me.  So I was very used to thinking about and helping other people.  But myself? Down to measuring each activity I do on whether it will make me feel good or not? However, this was obviously something I didn’t know how to do, and it would be good for me.  As TC had explained, taking care of myself was the first step that came before anything else.  Confidence, or assertiveness, or taking control of my life, or anything that I wanted to work on.  So I better start learning how to do it.

The Tolerations Checklist was fantastic.  I had so many things that I was tolerating.  One of my friends being too clingy, one of my friends being a bit of a dick, one of my friends only talking to me via texts when she was drunk, having to parent my dad, having no space to myself, the pushy lady at the spa who wouldn’t give me the chance to talk about getting a refund for a series of treatments I’d ordered that I didn’t want anymore, and the list went on and on.

There was something freeing about writing these things down.  Instead of lurking in the depths of my awareness, by writing them down they were brought to the fore.  And this made me start acting on them.

I talked to my friend who was being too clingy and told her I appreciated her as a friend and as a person and how much she’d supported me in the past, but I was just processing so much after this last year, and this summer, and I just really needed my own space right now, and I couldn’t be there for her right now.  I would be able to in the future again, I just didn’t know when.  She took this extremely well and was grateful to be communicating (she probably had no idea that I’d felt that way) and told me she was sorry if she’d pressured me, and to just let her know when I felt ready to hang out again.

I went in to the spa and talked to the pushy lady’s assistant (the pushy lady herself was away for two weeks) and was very firm about needing a refund.  The assistant kept telling me she wasn’t authorized to do it, but I finally got her to check with her higher-up and get the okay, and she refunded my card.

I confronted my friend who was being a dick and told him that the comments he’d made were completely unacceptable, and if he wanted to stay friends he needed to stop talking like that.  He also apologized.

Some things were going on in my romantic relationship too.  After having the most amazing time together in LA, Jess had suddenly been really off with me this whole week.  On Friday night, after a week of practicing being more assertive, I decided to bring it up.  I told him he’d been really grumpy with me all week and I wanted to know what was going on, I felt ignored and unappreciated.

It turns out a whole stew of things had been going on for him that I hadn’t known about.  His best friends had just moved across the country, he was trying to get back into the swing of classes and homework, felt he might need more space to himself, and then a big one, he was considering going travelling abroad for a year, in the future, and if he decided to do that might not be able to continue having a relationship with me.  But it was all up in the air still.

Well, of course that threw me for a loop.  I told him so, and told him how I felt about it all, and how I felt about everything being on the fence (I didn’t like it), and about how I felt about him (totally in love), and brought up possible solutions or other approaches to the travelling/long distance quandary.  It didn’t bring any of the answers that I was craving so badly, but at least we were communicating.

At the same time I was moving back into my old apartment.  For the last year after my dad had the stroke I have been living with him to take care of him, but slowly I built up a very competent team of caregivers that he has bonded well with, and they were now on a 24/7 shift schedule with him, so I could slowly start moving back into my own life.  However, this was hard for my dad.  My dad’s biggest fear has always been being alone, and even though the caregivers are around all the time providing good company for him, I’m sure this started flaring up again.  I told him I’d be spending more time at my apartment, and probably sleeping there (my apartment is five minutes down the road from his), but I also arranged to do Daddy-daughter dates Mondays and Thursdays where we would have dinner and then I’d help him get ready for bed and tuck him in.  Despite this, Dad was still sad about me being at the apartment less.  After just one day had gone by, he told me he was missing me so much, and he really wanted to see me again.  This was hard, because I felt terribly guilty for leaving.  On the other hand, I’m 26, and I needed to start getting my life back after a whole year of putting it completely on hold.

This weekend I was also supposed to do a motorcycle training class to learn how to ride.  I got to the first class just fine, and did great, but the second day my road was closed off due to a marathon and I was 45 minutes late to the class.  Even though I gave them the policeman’s card who had told me I couldn’t leave, they had a strict late policy, and my instructor was a square, so they wouldn’t let me finish the course.  This was the last straw in my already stressful weekend, and I drove a little ways, then pulled over and cried.  It was early in the morning so no one was awake, and even if they were, who could I call? I was raising my standards and that meant there were a lot of “friends” I no longer really considered friends anymore.  I had put a lot on Jess in the last few months, but I couldn’t talk to him right now because a). he was asleep and b). he was part of the problem.  Out of desperation, I tried calling my mom, but that went terribly.  She seems to have turned to her hippy friends for consolation from her problems lately, and now she talks just like them.  I was told the universe seems to be shifting things around for me, and I should go out and listen to the wisdom my horses have to offer.  I told her I had to go.  Finally I texted TC that I was having a terrible weekend and she called me and we talked for probably about a half hour.

She calmed me down and told me she wanted me to go home and spend the rest of the day doing things that were nice just for me.  “I want you to have a self-care day,” she said.  “Whatever it is that makes you feel good.  You can’t control Jess.  You can’t control your dad, or your mom.  But you can control you.  So whether it’s watching movies and eating ice cream, or having a hot bath, or whatever, I want you to go home and do that.”

I explained that I really wanted to watch movies, but the TV cables weren’t set up yet, and the furniture was all in disorder, and my suitcases weren’t even unpacked, and there wasn’t any food at the apartment.  “I want to pamper myself, but nothing’s set up to do it with,” I protested.

“Look, don’t worry about unpacking for today,” was her answer.  “I know you want to get your apartment all cute and organized, and you will, but not today, and probably not tomorrow.  Just make sure you have the basics, set up a little corner in one of the rooms that’s yours, and camp out in it.  Just get the basic what you need to take care of you.”

Then it struck me that I’d been taking care of other people so long I didn’t even know what I would want to do that was relaxing and nice for myself.  The whole concept seemed a little mind-boggling to me.

“So what you’re telling me,” said TC.  “Is that you’ve put your own life on the shelf and you put it up so high and for so long that you’ve forgotten where you put it or what’s even up there.”

That was exactly it.  I needed to get it back down and wipe that dust off.

We talked a little more until she was sure I was calm and focused again.  I drove back home.  I still couldn’t get back to my apartment because of the marathon, but I finally parked some blocks away and just walked back.  I had a long, hot bath with candles, and spent the afternoon reading my book (which I haven’t gotten to do since I can’t remember when), and then my best girlfriend brought wine and snacks over and we had a good girl talk.  This was Sunday, and TC and I would continue the self-care lesson the following day.

Jess texted me on a Saturday that his girlfriend was in need of a life coach. “Great!  Have her give me a call” I texted back.

I like to chat with people on the phone before we meet, I like to get a feel for that person and hear about their agenda. Camille called me the following Monday at my office we had a nice talk about how her passivity was preventing her from doing the things she wanted to do in life and how it was starting to have a negative impact on her new relationship.  We set up a coaching date for the coming Saturday then we went through the rest of the steps that get the coaching process started.

I am always excited to meet new people and help them strengthen their foundation.

This beautiful girl named Camille finds her way into my Beverly Hills office. Camille is a writer in her 20′s I had no expectations of her and it was only a short while for me to know that she was ready for change.  I can tell that she standing directly on the edge of transformation, I think to myself, this is going to be a fun client to coach.   She starts telling me about her dramatic personal and family experiences over the past twelve months and how she is at the end of her rope. I don’t blame her, she has been through a lot, Camille is BURNT OUT.

I do realize that most of the time I am meeting people I am their first experience with a life coach,  I always want that experience to be pain free and five star. The first time I made a cold call to a life coach I had butterfly’s in my stomach.  I don’t know why, I think I was in fear of her expectations of me, how would I measure up?

I know that it’s nerve wracking to do something  you are afraid will stretch you out of your comfort zone.  I am always trying to think of creative ways to tell people what coaching is about I want to help them understand the how and why coaching works. Since Camille is a  young writer, a coaching client and on a huge personal growth curve I thought it would be really cool if she would be willing to  share her story with us. My hope is that hearing her story will demystify the coaching process  for you the reader.  Your experiences and challenges are probably not the same as Camille’s… Or maybe they are?  I hope this series will provide the support you need to reach out for coaching if you are doubting or having some fear around asking for help.

Please allow me to introduce to you a new segment on my blog called Camille’s Coaching Crusades this is a true story written by my client Camille Pandian about her experience of coaching with me from the beginning.

Introducing Camille’s Coaching Crusades

My Intro to TC…

I didn’t really think I had anything I needed to  improve about myself until my boyfriend of one month told me that I was passive and a pushover.  Take into account this is one month into our brand new relationship and I was head over heels in love with him.  We were also on our first vacation together in New Orleans.  He’d been grumpy with me all day, and finally sat me down and told me this news.

I was shocked.  I considered myself a very strong person.  I reacted extremely defensively.  I told him he obviously didn’t really know me, or anything I’d been through.  I cried.  I pouted.   He eventually calmed me down and we sat in a park after dark and talked for hours.  It ended with me promising to try to be louder and bolder, and him promising to be patient.

We went another month before things blew up again, this time though, I could see the pattern with my own eyes.  I brought a girlfriend to my boyfriend’s DJ night. In all the time I’ve known her she could never hold her alcohol.  She would be plastered after only a couple drinks.  Well, that night she drank a lot before she even got to the club-night. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I went outside at the end of the night and saw her clinging to the wall and, giving her number out to random strange guys on the sidewalk.  She was the joke of the bar, and as she was there as my friend, it was pretty embarrassing, to say the least.  After seeing that she got home safely I went home and really thought hard about the friend’s I’d made in Portland in the last few months.  How many of them were real friends? How many did I really respect? With horror, it began to dawn on me how few friends I had that I could say I truly respected.  What good was a friendship if you didn’t respect the other person? I decided I no longer wanted to continue any “friendships” or relationships where I didn’t respect the other person.

Rather cut up by this revelation, I brooded about the next day, and finally met my boyfriend, Jess, for a movie and chat.  It still took him some prompting to get me to open up, but once I did I poured my heart out to him about my dissolved friendships as well as the trouble I was having with my mom.  The first thing he said was that I was in danger of letting passivity over run my life.  Wait.  What?? Here I was having a hard day and looking for some sympathy! But he went on.  “Just listen to yourself! You’re apologizing for complaining to me about your bad day!” It’s true, I had been.  “Why are you apologizing? Who in your life told you that it wasn’t okay to vent about a bad day?”

I froze.  No one had ever pointed that out to me before.  Moreover, it had always been normal to apologize for anything to me.  I had lived in Britain for a long time and the Brits apologize for everything.  But it’s true, who said complaining was bad? Maybe he had a point.  And what was I doing making friends with just anyone who stumbled into my life, regardless of values or standards? Wasn’t that, after all, being passive?

However, I was still in a huff.  I couldn’t believe not only was he calling me passive, but I was getting no sympathy after pouring out my heart about my bad day.  I angrily told him as much in the car.  “I’m not attacking you,” he kept saying.  “Stop being so defensive.  You have to recognize that the passivity is a part of you.  The choices you made that led to the consequences of last night were passive ones.  I mean, how do you choose your friends? Or do you choose them?”  He parked on the side of a street and again we talked for hours in the dark car.  This was when I first heard TC’s name.  “I know someone who could help you with this,” he said as he parked.  “I used to see this life coach in LA.  Her name was TC Conroy.  She told me so many things I didn’t want to hear about myself, and it was so hard to sit there and listen.  But I made myself listen.  I would force myself to sit there and take notes.  She completely turned my life around.”

Right away I was determined to see her.  I knew he was right.  I was terrified of being passive, like my mother, but it was undoubtedly controlling a big part of my life.  I was willing to do whatever it took to improve my life.  A highly-rated life coach in LA sounded like a good start.  We were planning on going to LA for the weekend anyway the 1^st of October, which was in two weeks.  I hounded him to contact her and see if she could squeeze me in.

Sure enough, not only could she squeeze me in, she wanted to chat with me on the phone as soon as I had a spare moment.  I was thrilled with my proactivity.  I may be passive, but I am never lazy.  I had a good impression of TC from the moment I said hello to her on the phone.  I was a little worried someone with so much publicity might be hard and overbearing, especially after what Jess had said.  But the voice from the other end of the phone was warm and friendly and immediately put me at ease.  I actually despise the phone.  I hate not being able to see the other person I’m talking to.  I have been told by employers I have fantastic phone manners, but I personally feel awkward on them.  However, awkwardness was nonexistent with TC.  In our first ten minute conversation, she guided the conversation effortlessly.  I felt thoroughly listened to but she never let me get distracted.  I got across the main points I wanted to work on, as well as some of my background, and I got a feeling of her just over the phone.  I thought we were going to make an excellent team.

Over the next two weeks I filled out the forms she had emailed to me, tried to be more aware of when I was being passive and what I might be able to do about it, and eagerly looked forward to our face-to-face meeting in LA.

Tune in next week for Camille’s re-cap of our first coaching session.