Choices -- coaching and WOW!

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. Beverly Sills

I am coaching at Choices this week. Five days of being 'on purpose'. Of being part of this incredible, magical, amazing journey of my lifetime lived in the power of WOW!

On Wednesday morning, when the coaches arrive, we spend the morning with Thelma Box, Choices founder and facilitator for the seminar. Over the course of the morning we learn more about our responsibilities during the week. Our purpose. Our role in lighting up the world and being part of "changing the world one heart at a time", Thelma's purpose in having created the program twenty-six years ago.

It's always a reflective time. A time of deep sharing and learning. A time to open up. To speak up. To give voice to all that connects us, makes us great, inspires us.

For the 'newbie' coaches, there's always a sense of 'worry'. I remember the first time I coached my biggest fear was -- I'm going to destroy someone's life by saying or doing the wrong thing.

I'm not that powerful.

And, in the Choices room our job is not to provide answers or to give advice. As a coach, my job is to listen. To listen to what the trainees say and to create a space for individuals to share what is on their hearts and then, to guide them through the processes so that they can find their own answers.

As Thelma always reminds the group, "I don't have your answers. I just have some questions to help you find your answers to the degree that you are willing to ask yourself the tough questions."

This morning, as we chatted in the coaches circle about how our lives have changed through our Choices experiences, Joe Davies, Thelma Box's son-in-law commented on something he'd learned about how the tools we learn at Choices are good in good times, but in the tough times, they're really amazing. He shared a tough time he and his family had had and told about how knowing the tools helped them cope.

I listened and suddenly it hit me -- one of the greatest values I have received through being involved in the Choices training program.

I grew up in a very unpredictable and dysfunctional family environment. As a child, I do not recall felling safe. As an adult, I realized that one of the things I had wanted to do for my daughters was to create a safe environment for them -- and then, I did exactly the opposite. I created my childhood environment -- different scenarios, different people, but through my daughter's teen years, they did not feel safe. How could they? Their mother was disappearing before their eyes into an abusive relationship that even they weren't aware of the depth of its impact upon me.

When I walked into the Choices training room as a trainee four years ago, I thought I'd healed my wounds. And, I felt I was doing a good job of helping the girls heal theirs.

I didn't know what I didn't know.

Through being involved in Choices, through the three of us going through the seminar and then coaching several times together and separately, the wounds I couldn't see began to heal.

When my daughters were teenagers, I created an unsafe environment for them.

Post that traumatic period, we have created a safe and loving space for the three of us to heal, to grow and to connect on a deeper, more meaningful level than ever before.

It was quite a WOW moment for me. To realize that what I did through the Conrad relationship created an unsafe environment for my daughters. It had a certain familiarity for me -- and it was exactly the opposite of what I wanted for them.

That was then. This is now.

Now, I am in awe of the healing we've grown through. I am in awe of my daughters courage and strength and love and compassion and, I am in awe of how we've healed.

Through the gift of sharing this amazing journey together, we have been given the gift of a relationship that is deeper, more loving, more caring than I could ever have imagined.

I have broken the cycle of my past and created a safe place for all of us to live and love and be exactly who we are meant to be when we live fearlessly and passionately in the rapture of now.