Loyalty and my inner child

Another challenging, but really good coaching session yesterday. I need to think about having some tough conversations with the people managing me – because my coach feels I am not being allowed to be all that I can be in my job - as much as I love my company - and she believes there are other options for me. Whether I agree with her, and believe as she does, is the hard part to figure out because I am so loyal, and I’ve always trusted that everything will work out ok for me in the end…

Today we examined and questioned the notion of loyalty, and what this means to me. My mom has modelled this for me in her relationship with my father, but sadly this is not a good illustration of healthy loyalty – it is essentially an abusive relationship where loyalty is largely has taken away her power. While the tendency to be loyal is a strong part of my personality, I need to guard against misplaced, unreciprocated or inappropriately fierce loyalty when it comes to certain people and organisations.

We also discussed my inner child, and my need for nurturing, affirmation and protection from the outside world. I need to be able to take care of myself fully, and it’s going to take a little recalibration. Without this, I can never operate at my highest level in any sphere of my life, and it will sabotage my career growth in subtle ways. I need to make sure that before I have my own children, I am operating fully as an adult myself – otherwise I risk transferring all of my needs and wants onto my child.

We’re moving quickly with this coaching process, and I feel like it’s really working well for me – but I do need to check in afterwards and make sure that I don’t make rash decisions while I am still, literally, in process. Journalling, as I have been, has been helpful.


HoneyChild

Life coaching part 2

My second coaching session was a tough one – I have felt shattered for two days. We started talking about how to integrate certain elements of my subordinate ID into my primary ID. In a nut shell, I need to acknowledge some more of the male (rather than just the ‘nice girl’) characteristics from the hidden part of my consciousness and allow them to be acceptable responses to my environment, particularly work and career-related factors.

Once I can do this, the way I show up in my other relationships, like the one with my dad, should also fall into place naturally. We identified a couple of incidents from my younger life which may have created the edge behind which I learnt (and still tend) to hide my voice in conflict situations, and the aspects about me that are not nice, right, obliging and sweet. I am at my core a nice person – I know that. As an adult, I now have to realise that I will always be considered ‘nice’, even when I need to have a hard conversation, or say no. Difficult conversations are merely a platform for discussing the assumptions and opinions of two or more people. I don’t have to think of them as something to fear anymore! Wow, that will be empowering.

We explored the public and the hidden arenas of my own Johari window, and my homework this week is to think about the other two quadrants - my blind arena and my unknown arena. I also have to imagine what I would do if I could do anything for a day, with no consequences – what do I dream for my life? I'll have to know by next Tuesday, I guess.

HoneyChild