What if this is true? What if it is possible for You to not be wrong?
My very first experience with coaching over a decade ago posed this idea and from the moment I accepted it, it changed my life forever.
You see one of the basic tenants of coaching is that there are no wrong answers. Everything that comes to mind either in language or imagery and everything that you feel in your body is valuable information. You might even call it communication.
This is how they explained it on my first day. People are not wrong. Facts are wrong. We often confuse ourselves with the facts which we debate and discuss. This creates immediate conflict between individuals, who may be honoring the same value in different ways, and their “facts” or story.
This isn’t to say the actions of someone cannot be judged and when judged, it is a judgement of fact. The individual, the being, the breath and the heart of something can never really be wrong.
So What?
I’m posing this today to encourage the question, where do you make yourself wrong? Where do you honestly think you are doing something wrong or even thinking that you are somehow being wrong?
If you’re not sure how that might feel or show up, let me give you a few clues. First, the word should is almost always attached to making yourself wrong. Emotionally, anger and/or guilt show up almost immediately and as a close second, fear and defensiveness join in to tell the story that justifies how wrong you or someone else is.
Whether it’s what you think you can’t do, didn’t do, aren’t doing enough or you just fundamentally believe something about you is wrong; making yourself wrong is an invitation for storytelling that keeps emotions on the surface and your inner voice down below where it can be very hard for you to hear it.
At work, at home, in relationships, communications or everyday actions; everyone makes themselves “wrong” sometimes. While noticing that you might have this habit is extremely important. There is something even more important than seeing it happen. Can you guess what it is?
Now What?
More important than noticing when you make yourself wrong is being intentional about what happens next. That’s because what happens next either drills in the “I’m wrong” story or breaks the cycle of holding yourself to be wrong.
Another tenant of coaching is that we (ALL of us – no matter what we say or do) are creative, resourceful and whole (also known as CRW). We are creative enough to divine our own answers, we are resourceful enough to find what we need when we need it and we are not broken, wrong or in need of being fixed. Instead, we are whole and complete just as we are.
On that note, the words of Marianne Williamson come to mind. She has a beautiful quote that says, “Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us”. This quote exactly identifies what’s at the heart of believing PEOPLE can be WRONG. It is a path to minimizing, shrinking, avoiding vulnerability and generally keeping ourselves small.
However, you were not meant to be small in this life. You were not meant to live in limitation. The stories of should, could, would, self-judgement and judgement of others, keep you small and don’t allow you to see the creative, resourceful and whole power just waiting inside to be unleashed.
This week I invite you to contemplate what life might be like if you stopped being wrong. If your thoughts, feelings and emotions simply became experiences for you to witness and receive. In this way, you give yourself the opportunity to simply notice if something fills your needs or fits your wants. With this recognition you can choose to accept it or not, without any story, justification or need for proof.
Because the proof is in you. You are not wrong. You are valuable. Your needs are valuable and when you honor this in yourself, you make it possible for others to do the same.
May you go through the rest of this week with permission to be as you are, know that you have what you need and strive to accept yourself as whole instead of being right in some ways and wrong in others.
With love & gratitude for you,
Coach Jen
