I was not always like this. If I had met you five years ago you would recognize some things, but not everything. I might show up to you as a completely different person. I do to myself.

I had this idea when I entered the Coach training program that I took in 2013 that I would make some good new relationships, that I would learn some tools and tricks, and I would launch a new career. Along the way I would find a way to save my marriage that felt it was slipping through my fingers and I could not grasp no matter what I did. I would create a life that I really enjoyed. I would fully become myself. Just a few easy steps. A year. $15,000CDN-ish.

That story was good enough to get me in through the door.

My ex- took the same Coaches training program the year ahead of me. I heard from her what she was learning and getting from the program and I felt a longing to get that for myself. At the same time I took on a Coach and started working with her to get a handle on my life, where it was going. It all seemed like a simple plan. My engineering business was going well. I was creating a good income that had space for all of this to happen.

The trouble was, the results I wanted were not coming – or at least coming in the form that I wanted them to. Foremost amongst my goals was to create the connection in my marriage that had been missing for me for a long time. I believed it was possible. I was looking for a way to win for myself and have my marriage work. I applied myself with all the tools I knew how to weild. Unfortunately it seemed the harder I tried, the further I seemed to be from my goal. The distance became increasingly physically painful to me. My Coach supported me every inch of the way as I struggled and seemed ensnared in this impossible battle.

And then, in one conversation she asked the first devastating question. “Are you ready to loose your relationship?” It is not a classic Coaching question – not fully open, with many ways to answer. This was a yes/no. I did not need to answer the question. It literally shattered the mind I had been bringing to bear on the ‘problem’. I had no answer; I just had the pieces of a shattered dream lying on the metaphorical floor in front of me. And I opened into a new space, one where I could contemplate all the possibilities of my life. I still wanted the marriage to work, however the world had suddenly got one whole lot larger. In it I got to see myself, my needs, what I wanted. And I also tasted despair of a distinct possibility; that this was not going to work out as I had planned.

It took another six months before we made the decision to split up. It was not a lot of fun. It was hard and I regret the impact that my strong words and unregulated emotions had on the safe space that my kids had grown up in until that point. And then, I was half way through a Coaching program having moved out and started the journey of co-parenting my two boys 50/50 with my soon-to-be ex.

I got through the program. I learned a lot. I survived a lot. I tolerated a lot. And at some point I realized I had found a comfortable balance within an ages old pattern of resignation. I wanted life to be different. The gap between what I was experiencing and what I wanted seemed to be a yawning gulf. My confidence was shot. I cried a lot. My energy was all over the place. And in the midst of this I was learning my craft as a Coach. And it seemed at the time that Coaching was all about committing to things and doing them, hang the emotional impact. I felt like my life was just an open wound and the Coaching I was allowing in at the time just landed as an impossible attempt to climb out of this abyss on the thinnest of strings. It just cut into me and hurt.

Something else you should probably know about me. I am tenacious as hell. If I decide to do something I will bloody well do it. And I had set myself on being a Coach. Apparently I was fairly good at it, and so I stuck with the Coach training program, this time as a mentor Coach. I was still hurting. I was looking for a way through and out. I was hoping to find it. I was scared I might be looking in the wrong place, but at the time it was all I had. It seemed that the only way forward was through this experience.

After a few months I had an epiphany that was the catalyst of the next major change. On a call, one of the lead Coaches from another program took one of our group training calls. Within 30 seconds of her starting to speak, I knew I needed to work with her. Here was a Coach showing up in a way I had not experienced up to that point. Someone that I could allow myself to hear, bringing their heart fully into the conversation. It was like someone had just taken the curtains away and the sun started to stream into the room (Hi Denise!).

New Years Eve 2015. I was ready to quit as a mentor Coach. I was frustrated, disappointed, angry, hurting. I could not find a refuge and reasoned that I could simplify my life which meant withdrawing from the Leadership training I was getting as being a mentor Coach and the commitment of travelling to Seattle each month and all the other tasks that commitment entailed. I was done with coming home after those weekends hurting, spent.

It took three conversations from three highly committed individuals. The first listened to me, reflected and let me have my experience (Blessings ?). The second (Hey David!) held me as I dropped deeper into my despair. The final call was to my Coach which created some magic. She did not have to do anything and she did everything that I needed. She opened up a huge space into which my lungs, my tears and snot could be expressed until there was nothing left. And so I did. And then.

And then.

In a moment it stopped and into my heart a knowing warmth and lightness surged. It felt like falling in Love. All my suffering and struggle melted away in a moment. At some level something seismic had shifted.

All I recall of the next 3 weeks was that suddenly everything that had seemed so hard and filled with struggle became easy and light. It was breathtaking. I shared with all the people around me how I felt, what was going on. It was beautiful. The intensity of the experience faded after about 3 weeks. Old habits and patterns came back but this time I started relating to them differently. I could see more of the quality of what they were; stories about myself and the world separate from the world itself. Maps. Not to be confused for the territory I found myself in. I fell and skinned my knees, finding myself in some of the same old holes. But no longer as a resident – this time as a temporary visitor.

That was the first breakthrough of many. The work of a lifetime continues to unfold.

I heard an adage today that seems appropriate. Therapy (which I have made use of on the occasions it was what I needed) raises the floor. Coaching raises the ceiling (and brings into question the need for those pesky walls at the same time…)