A good coach, in my view, is also a committed learner. After all, whether your clients are senior executives, Olympic sportsmen and women, or any other man or woman who (like you and me) is trying to find their way in life, who wants to work with a coach who lacks the wisdom that comes from engaging in their own learning?
When my friend Alex invited me to a session of Emotional Freedom Technique, something he has recently invested in learning and is now beginning to practice with clients, I am aware of all the experiences that have prepared me to try out this new technique. I am also comfortable to try something that is as yet unknown to me.
This proves to be just as well, not least because we hold our session in the open air outside the Royal Festival Hall. I am comfortable that passers by may see – watch even – a process which involves tapping on my hands, face and body, like acupuncture without the needles. I am also comfortable that, should the process stimulate emotions in me (which it does), passers by may see – watch? – as I sit with them.
On the surface, the issue I choose to work with is not close to the emotional bone. In the summer of 2007 I started to experience some physical discomfort in my left knee which has not completely disappeared. Still, as the session progresses I start to make some connections. A penny drops as I realise this started less than twelve months after my father died. Is there a connection? I also realise that, whether or not there is some causal link, I have made a link in my mind, fearing that this is the beginning of a journey towards a debilitating old age. No wonder I am impatient and anxious when I think of my knee.
As the session progresses Alex asks me what’s coming up for me so that I am able to share the thoughts, the emotions and the physical sensations I experience as we go. Throughout the session he is ready to go with the flow, adapting to whatever comes up along the way. At the end of the session I am experiencing no changes in the physical sensations in my knee, though I am open to the possibility that change may occur and I have made some connections along the way.
Over the weekend, as I go about my usual activies (walking to Blackheath and back to collect my dry cleaning, digging in the garden, etc.) I notice the sensations in my knee. There are moments when the pain shifts to another part of the body altogether. There are moments when my knee is quite comfortable. Above all, my relationship with the discomfort I experience is changing. I know that the changes I am currently making to my diet are likely, over time, to create the optimum environment for good health in the second half of my life, I know that my father’s experience in old age need not be mine, I know that – whether the pain goes or stays – I can handle whatever comes my way.
