What motherhood Taught Me About Coaching

When I gave birth to my daughter, the cord was wrapped around her neck.

I’d push. The cord would tighten.

Her heart rate would spike. I would breathe. Her heart rate would return to normal.

The cycle would start again.

The doctor clipped the cord just before she emerged — a moment that saved her life.

The struggle left a little cut on her neck. Proof of her struggle — and her ultimate survival.

It was also proof that if I trust the process, participate with all my being, and that miracles happen.

Giving birth and raising children taught me everything about being a coach.

As people find themselves, the nature of their discontents, the sources of their struggles and ultimate freedom — all of these and more are little births.

In that process, I am part doula, part midwife, part cosmic mother — and always coach.

When my daughter was 12, I brought up the subject of peer pressure.

As with most moments in parenting, I soon learned that I was already a couple steps behind.

But she was generous with me, patient.

“Oh, mom,”she said. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t tell anyone else this,” she said confessionally, “but I know that I am smart and strong and pretty. I don’t need other people to tell me that.”

It was as though she were training me, not the other way around.

As with my clients, the timing is theirs. Not mine. You already know what is true.

Great coaching is providing the conditions for you to discover that, claim it and bring it forth into the world.

While, my daughter, now 29, sometimes still debilitating empathy for others, her self-worth ultimately rises strong. And those are the moments, I’d love to take credit for.

But all along this journey of parenting my daughter, she has taught me how to parent her.

This is true for coaching.

Clients know. People know. Having a plan for my clients, trying to make something happen, would be robbing them of this power.

Today, my daughter is a powerhouse — a natural, if somewhat unwilling, leader in every space she enters. She knows how to negotiate salary like a boss.

As she has done with me gently her entire life, she trains those around her to get the most out of our shared time together.

She is learning be a champion for others and take care of herself at the same time. This, of course, will be a lifelong practice.

Coaching has become the continued flowering of the training that began in the delivery room and on the frontlines of parenthood

My children were my first teachers. They taught me to listen deeply and to be fiercely courageous in service of their growth.

My clients continue to call me forth into that big-hearted, full-throated space where I witness and guide transformation — and sometimes miracles — on a daily basis.