A Coaching Power Tool By Andreea Nedelcu, Life Coach, SPAIN
The Imposing vs. Inspiring Power Tool
This power tool emerged during one of my peer sessions with me playing the client role.
As a coaching client, I often bring parenting topics for exploration and deeper introspection, as I feel there are many aspects of my relationship with my twins where I want to do and be my best.
The topic for this session focused on my need to better manage my expectations with my kids.
During this particular session, the outcome really took me by surprise and represented a breakthrough in my role as a mom that I’d like to present below.
Imposing vs. Inspiring Perspective
Fixed Perspective
My understanding of the parent role has been pretty much around the idea that one of our responsibilities is to educate, guide, and support our children in their own life journey, helping them get the knowledge, experiences, and resources needed for them to thrive and succeed.
It sounded like a very clear and respectful way of engaging with my kids and being there for them. I read about this concept of unconditional love described by various authors in their writings and could not agree more.
Till the practice knocked at my door..and my old wiring and thought patterns reminded me of how I was parented and brought up as a child. So I started to put in practice the familiar ways of telling the kids what to do, showing them where they did something wrong with the intention of correcting those aspects “to their own good” (to be read as criticizing them), controlling more and more their actions and choices, as I was in a better place to know the right from wrong..or at least these were the compensating thoughts I was considering to confirm to myself that I was doing the right things. This became my way of showing them that I cared and loved them, that I was there for them to “guide” them so that they would make their best choices, ensuring a happy and fulfilled life.
But something was not in alignment here..their response was highly emotionally charged, they did not feel understood or accepted, their self-esteem was starting to shake, their level of resistance and opposing feelings was having a skyrocketed trajectory and I was struggling to hold the reins tight.
That ideal and initial understanding of what it takes to build and maintain a healthy relationship with my kids was dismantling itself day by day.
This is when I realized that imposing my expectations on them, forcing them to live my way, taking away from them the chance to make choices and learn from consequences, and showing them conditional love cannot be the way forward for us. I wanted and needed to shift.
Growth Perspective
The shift came during the below dialogue:
Coach: “When do YOU feel confident, accepted and loved, positive in what’s going to happen, free to make choices?”
Me: “When I feel INSPIRED!”
Right then I knew I didn’t want to Impose, but to INSPIRE. And it felt as if I was growing wings, I felt so empowered and liberated, much more enthusiastic about my role as a mom, more confident in my own capabilities, knowing I was on the right track. My tension dissipated, and all of a sudden the guiding light shone so bright and I regained my faith that it is me who can give any form and shape to my life and my future.
This realization came with a bouquet of deep insights I’d like to list below under the 2 perspectives:
| Imposing | Inspiring |
| Controlling | Guiding light |
| Forcing expectations | Space for CHOICE |
| My way or the highway | Acceptance and support |
| Conditional love | Unconditional love |
| Disrespectful | Respect for individuality |
| Resistance | Freedom |
| Limitation | Creativity |
| Frustration | Trust |
| Autopilot | Impact |
| Fear, shame | Admiration |
| Dis-empowering | Confidence |
My expectations are called mine, not because I am the one to scatter them out there in the world on different people and situations. They are MY expectations, as I am the one to own and manage them, to meet and fulfill them, or to assess if it’s time for them to be re-calibrated or adjusted.
My expectations represent my internal digestive juice and when I feel bloated or disturbed, I know that the root cause is somewhere in there, among them.
I am not anymore led by the fear that I might fail in my role as a parent unless I constantly hear myself preaching the good and right to my kids. I am now embracing the guiding light I hope to represent for them in their own development and success as a whole, capable and wonderful human beings.
There is such PEACE in my soul at this point, and it’s the best moment to commit myself to my
Daily Intention – Be the Inspiration and Guiding Light for My Children!
Applicability
My new understanding of the parent role shifted with my change in perspective.
The most liberating and empowering thought is that there is no standard recipe for how to inspire, hence the solution is so simple and handy. I will allow myself to be ME, so an Inside-Out inspiration wave might be sensed and internalized by my kids, based on the elements that best resonate and vibrate with each of them.
I cannot give them everything they need in this world, but what better gift I can make sure to wrap for them than the BEST inside ME?
Final Note…
As I was reading again the above, I realized that Imposing vs. Inspiring also represents one main guiding principle of pure coaching, where we, as coaches hold off from offering advice or any recommendation to our clients; our role is to shine the light on them so that they can tap into their own power, wholeness, and accountability.