Coaching Changed My Life

People make jokes about "mid-life crisis." I used to say that I had my mid-life crisis at 23. Now at 46, I've actually lived through much of the inner questioning and emotional challenges that people joke about but never discuss.

"A man," writes Robert Bly, "has an effect on 'the world' mainly through institutions. So we could say that in the second half of life a man should sever his link with institutions." (Bly confesses to have no idea what it must be like for women.) What Robert Bly suggests toward the end of his work, A Little Book on the Human Shadow, is that we give much of our attention trying to satisfy all the expectations and concerns handed down to us through institutional structures and cultural norms. Doing so, we often fail to actually get to know ourselves. In order to dig deep into our hearts and develop true awareness, we have to let all this go.

Several years ago, I began to notice emotions I had been suppressing, unresolved anger in my life. I didn’t realize it was anger. What I noticed first was the glass of bourbon I had started drinking every night before bed.

I had always been mindful of my alcohol consumption, never drinking too much. I never wanted to have that feeling of being out of control of my words and actions. It’s happened to me twice in my life. Once in good company at a friend’s apartment, where I vomited margaritas all over the porch. My friends loved the idea of getting my responsible self unhinged and the tequila was barely noticeable. Not my best moment. I felt horrible the next morning. The second time was in seminary. That’s right, seminary is not the pious place everyone thinks it is. Priests are real people with real issues like everyone else. A lot of pious things happen in seminary. A lot of humanity happens too. Several of us had gathered outside one night with too many bottles of scotch on the table. Next the you know, a classmate from Newfoundland was marching around us with the Canadian Flag and a picture of Queen Elizabeth in hand, singing a hymn that none of us recognized. We toasted far too many times to the Queen’s health. Amanda and our kids had been in Florida with her family, so I did not have her gentle reminder that it was time to come inside. I picked them up from the airport the next morning and had to pull over on the way back to campus for fear that I would throw up in the car. As you can imagine, she was pretty happy with me. These less than desirable occurrences and the horrible headaches that followed, remind me to keep my intake modest.

And then I noticed something one night, as I sat on the couch with Amanda, enjoying a glass of bourbon, neat. I had been having a glass of bourbon, sometimes two, every evening for the past three months. I had not been overdoing it—modesty and all, and I had been drinking EVERY night. Noticing this pattern led to me wonder if there was something lurking behind this new habit.

I stopped drinking for several months. I needed to clear my system and deal with the shadow in question. I began a regiment of breathing and meditation each morning from 4:30AM - 6:30AM, which gave me two hours of silence before anyone else woke up. I practiced my breathing for 30 minutes, drifted into contemplation for another 30 minutes, and then read for an hour. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the alcohol had been keeping me from dealing with my anger. But I wasn’t an angry person.

Over the years I have worked with a couple of spiritual directors and a handful of therapists. Each in their own way have been meaningful and helpful guides. At the same time, I needed someone to really challenge me if I was going to get to the bottom of what was behind my suppressed anger. That’s when I got a personal coach. Coaching changed my life!

Coaching is not the same as therapy. It’s not spiritual direction and nor is it counseling. And, it really is all of these things woven together, with a deliberate focus on the vision a client wants to live into, with clear outcomes, crafted with a coach, which the coach uses to guide the client and the client commits to living into. I call this the Path to Aliveness.

Working with a coach, I came to see all the survival strategies I had constructed around me like a kind of scaffolding, a support system of disablement. Everything was working pretty well, until it wasn’t.

Without ever realizing it, I had been putting various parts of myself into what Robert Bly describes as a long, invisible bag that we drag behind us from childhood into adulthood. When we say or do something people don’t like, says Bly, we feel guilt or shame and put that part of us into the bag. As we get older, we have done this so much that we barely know who we are or what we’re moving toward. Awakening to this reality was helpful; coaching helped me harness the energy stored in my bag to name with clarity and kindness what needed to come out. On top of this, I was able to craft with my coach flourishing strategies that opened me to deeper aliveness.

At first, this was hard and led to some difficult—even fierce—conversations in my life. And, these conversations have born much fruit, opening to deeper trust and honesty in all of my relationships.

I was so deeply impacted by coaching that I wanted to develop these skills to help others. I’ve been providing counseling and spiritual direction for years. I wanted to facilitate this same clarity of heart for those I serve.

Coaching has made me a better husband and father, a better teacher, listener, counselor, guide, friend, neighbor and all around better human. It came right on time, for me, which is one of the key elements of coaching. You’re not late to the game, and it’s never too late. You’re right on time for what you’re recognizing, working through, addressing, naming, and wanting to work through in your life.

The path to aliveness forms beneath our feet as we walk. We just have to start walking.