Putting Yourself inside the Coachee

January 1, 2022 AURELIS Coaching No Comments

It is not the intention that anyone is or will become an expert in this in the short term. It is, however, a kind of objective that one can and should keep before oneself, with every consultation anew.

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What is it not about?

It is not about feeling that one is sympathetic to the other. It is not about thinking to understand the other intellectually.

It is not about trying to mold the other according to an idea one has of what the other should meet, how the other should behave, and how the other should be.

What is it about?

It is about (trying to) fully accept the other as he is.

As for the AURELIS coach, the coachee is perfect overall. That, of course, includes his will to change, to grow. It includes his problems, fears, frustrations… all the fuss. The other is perfect and infinitely valuable.

This is not a utopia, but an assumption. It is, if you wish, not just an assumption. It is a reality that one can see if one opens oneself thoroughly to it.

If this is not yet the case, one can also start with a basis of trust in this and then try to experience it more and more deeply.

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EXERCISE: LEARNING TO SEE THE OTHER AS A TOTAL PERSON FROM MEDITATION

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How you can facilitate this in your own consultations:

Think back to this exercise.
You can repeat the exercise with someone in whom you place a lot of trust.
You can practice with your own reflection. Recommended!
You can practice with anyone: on the street, on the bus… (be careful not to disturb people) or even just with photos.
You can of course think about it explicitly during consultation and practice with your coachee.
Especially if you know that a rather annoying person is coming, you can sometimes take the time for a short meditation before the consultation.
In the course of a longer meditation (e.g. we organize meditation weekends) you can think back of specific people during the meditation itself.

Not only looking is interesting here, of course, but also listening and thinking.

Try to see the other as ‘perfect’ in everything. [Of course: even if that ‘other’ is yourself.] You will notice that this will make you find the other (even) more interesting.

Interesting

Literally even : the word ‘interesting’ comes from the Latin <inter-esse> and means <being between>. Something is happening between you, something that has to do with the fundamental quality of being there. By looking at something or someone in this way, he becomes/is ‘interesting’.

And vice versa: to find something or someone ‘interesting’ simply means that you can look at it/him with this view. What is ‘interesting’ touches you, it makes you grow. It shows a deeper connection, a unity between things and also within things.

In other words, it shows the behind-behind-behind-behind goodness, the foundation of everything.

Role-plays during training

In these, someone must always empathize with the coachee.

This is a very important exercise. The AURELIS card about role-playing contains some important advice in this regard, so important not only for the role-playing itself but for any AURELIS coaching. “Becoming the coachee” is an art that overlaps with a good acting game, where one “becomes the played figure”.

An additional way to achieve this

It goes as follows: You try to feel every reaction that comes from the coachee as a reaction that actually comes from you. You are the one sitting in the coachee’s chair. You’re the one who talks so-and-so, behaves so-and-so.

Then don’t question these words and behaviors. Let them come out of you (i.e. the coachee) as spontaneously as possible because there is no other way. You (i.e. the coachee) are just like that. Accept yourself, including your desire to change.