Cathy Liska My Journey through Coaching – Blog 1 of 12
Part 1: A Reluctant Coaching Client by Brandi Alvarez
The purpose for becoming a coaching client, then a student in the coaching certification program, and finally a coach was to complete an internship for my Masters. When I started this process I honestly was viewing it as an end to a means: complete a practicum by having my coaching sessions recorded for training, then take the class, then coach, and write about it and then walk away. Instead I found myself on a personal journey. A journey of discovery, self-expression, and at times doubt about me and about coaching as well.
I began all of this as a coaching client and before I started I knew nothing about coaching and or the process, much less the road I would be headed down. After the introductory session I knew this would be different. I realized that this is not therapy. There is no one on the other side of the room listening to my problems and offering me advice or solutions. Instead there is someone listening, a thought provoker, and a sounding board. In my coaching session I found that the things I randomly think about or dream about without ever actually putting them on paper or saying them out loud are spilling out from me. This process is making me look at “me” and not the “me” that everyone thinks they see. I am not a Norman Rockwell painting. I am not a perfect wife, mom, homemaker, friend, or daughter nor will I ever be and that is okay. I am still the nonassertive girl unsure of herself and her abilities that I have been since high school, the face of “me” that I have become very good at hiding. In coaching there is nowhere to hide, no story to make up, it’s just me out there raw and exposed and there is no prescription pad at the end of the day that is going to make all my insecurities disappear. At the end of this first day I look back and think about how amazing I could have become I had known about this process at 20, 25 or even 35.
