← Jung On Purpose Podcast by CreativeMind
Jung On Purpose Podcast by CreativeMind
How to Be Effective as an Emotionally-Sensitive Coach
00:21:25
Loading summary
Transcript40 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Creative Mind Soul Sessions with Deborah Burndt Maldonado and Dr. Rob Maldonado, founders of Creative Mind. Explore personal growth with us through Jungian psychology, Eastern spirituality and social neuroscience in a deep but practical way. Let's begin.
- [00:22]
B
Hello. Welcome to another episode of Soul Sessions with Creative Mind. I'm Deborah Maldonada.
- [00:27]
C
I'm Dr. Rob.
- [00:28]
B
And we are finalizing our series on personality and the Persona, talking about the big five personality types and traits. And today we're talking about neuroticism. We have to end with something powerful and how to be a self aware coach. But before we begin, I do want to remind you if you're listening to us on itunes or Spotify, please make sure you subscribe to our podcast. If you're listening to us on YouTube on our YouTube channel, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. And we'll see you every week on Soul Sessions. So this is the final one. We talked about openness, we talked about conscientiousness, we talked about agreeableness and extroversion. And now we're getting to the nitty gritty neuroticism. So let's define neuroticism.
- [01:21]
C
Yeah, I think the simplest because it sounds very bad. It does, but it's not really bad. It's, it simply means emotional sensitivity. That's what it really, it's measuring. What do we mean by emotional sensitivity? Emotional awareness. Right. How aware are you of your own emotions? Resilience. How resilient are you in dealing with stressful situations, difficult situations in your life. And in Jungian terms, shadow integration. How much of your shadow have you integrated? In other words, how much have you become conscious of and you're, you're, you've come to terms with and you're okay with. And how much is still kind of in your unconscious that you're projecting out there and then you're reacting to it as if it's coming from the outside.
- [02:14]
B
That's, you know, so many times I have to re educate people because this idea of being like emotionally sensitive or highly sensitive or you know, too emotional or an empath, it's almost used as an excuse to not be around difficult emotions and to be like protective instead of being powerful. And I find that if you are emotionally sensitive and you can really pick up this, the emotions of other people, like kind of get a sense of what other people are feeling and also be in touch with your own emotions, I think it's a very powerful thing. So we want to take the stigma away from being emotional. Is weak or being emotional is chaotic and, and how do we bring in that resilience and to be able to ride the emotions of life, not shut down and also and be open to the emotions of others and not take them on ourselves.
- [03:11]
C
Yeah, often we've been misled as to the nature of emotions. Really the best way to think of them, given all the information that we have now about the brain and how emotions work, is that they're the meaning making function of our mind. It's how we make meaning of life. If we didn't have emotions, we wouldn't have that sense of what things mean to us.
- [03:39]
B
Like joy and sorrow would not mean anything, everything.
- [03:42]
C
And so in even anger, even shame, even guilt, all those things that people think those are toxic emotions, I need to run away from them or push them away. They're useful to us if we understand what they are and how to process them, how to work with them.
- [04:00]
B
And so I've always felt very empathetic and I don't see that as a weakness at all. I see it as I can really read people and then also as a coach, I think that's why I was drawn to coaching because I wanted felt people's pain but not in a like taking it on, but was sensitive to it. We're like understanding, like compassionate. Because I remember how I would feel in that situation and it helped me have more compassion for people. Right. And even difficult people when they're angry or oh yeah, like seeing them and not get your ego out of the way. Get. Not taking it personal but understanding like yeah, being a human being is a tough. It's tough. We have tough emotions to deal with and we don't want to run away from them. We don't want to feel that we have to put a barricade around our heart in order to survive in the world.
- [04:57]
C
That's right. So understanding the nature of emotions, that one of the things that it allows us to do is to accept all the emotions without being afraid of them or without labeling, labeling them as toxic.
- [05:12]
B
Or negative, lower vibration.
- [05:15]
C
They're all simply there to serve us.
- [05:19]
B
And they're really kind of like energy the body uses and motivates us. And very ancient system, right. Of emotional system and really based on pleasant and unpleasant, we feel good, we repeat that pattern, unpleasant, we pull away and we are in a conditioning pattern of our life. And this is why we stay stuck. So if we feed into that idea that I don't want to feel bad or this motion is too difficult, I need to avoid that person or Avoid these situations or avoid, like in a coach, avoid those type of topics with my client because I can't handle it. It's too much. We end up being very limited in our effectiveness as a coach, but also in life because we don't want to run away from grief or the sadness. I remember when my father passed away, this is almost 12 years ago. I remember feeling really horrible grief, and I just couldn't, like, get over it. I'm like, I'm never going to be happy again. It's just so sad. And then I had this realization that how beautiful this grief was because it really is an act of love. If you don't feel grief, that means you didn't care about the person. So it's like every emotion, even if it feels heavy and dark, it has a beautiful light in it. Right. Anger is that power that we want to express ourselves. And saying, this isn't right. I'm angry. We want to honor those feelings versus put them in categories and look at some feelings as being so scary. I also think, too, and maybe we could talk about this. Rob, is this feeling of getting stuck in a feeling like if I open up the can of worms, like I'm going to be stuck in that feeling?
- [07:05]
C
Yeah, that's a big thing.
- [07:06]
B
A lot of coaches are. I don't want to, like, wake the bear, poke the bear afraid.
- [07:12]
C
And rightly so. If we don't understand what emotions are, we are afraid of them. We fear the unknown. But the more we. We study them and we understand their nature, then the more we can go there. So one of the first steps, things to understand is that all emotions are subjective. Now, what that tells us is that they're not giving us a true picture of reality. It's a. It's a. An interpretation that each individual is making about their human experience. Very personal. It's not a picture of reality. It's essentially your own experience and every individual's interpretation of the meaning of their human experiences. Now, what that means is that they can change. We can. We can help the client change what meaning they've ascribed to those situations, those experiences.
- [08:14]
B
Well, it's almost like in a Jungian sense, symbolic. The emotions are symbolic, and we decide what. What symbol it means. We do have techniques that we train in our coach training to help people connect the emotion to symbols and help them see it beyond just the feeling that they feel and the narrative that they feel. But more of a creative aspect of working with an emotion.
- [08:38]
C
Exactly. Because if we're interpreting something that's subjective as Reality. In other words, we're saying, the way I experience it emotionally is the way it is. We're, we're condemning ourselves to being stuck in that situation for a long time. When we understand, oh, it's a subjective interpretation that my mind is making about an experience, I'm completely free to work with it and change it.
- [09:11]
B
Well, here's a great example of that in we talked about last time, last episode, about setting a boundary or having a difficult conversation and then feeling the guilt about it. And so normally when you'd feel the guilt and you're not self aware, you'd be like, I did something wrong. That feeling of guilt is immediately, the narrative is, I did something wrong, don't do that again. But we can actually be self aware. And when we have the guilt and we knew we did something difficult or went outside of our comfort zone, we can look at the guilt and say, oh, that's our old self, you know, trying to pull us back. And you're not buying into it. So the guilt, you can be guilty, feel guilty a little bit because you're still never going to get rid of your ego. But then you bring in this higher aspect of yourself, which is your true self, to be the witness and say, oh yeah, that's, this is why this guilt is showing up. Not that you did something wrong, but that you actually stepped out of your comfort zone and so you're understanding the emotion is now something different than just this, I did something wrong. The automatic narrative that comes with every emotion.
- [10:18]
C
Yeah, that's the other piece too, right? That there's a witness that is observing the emotion. In other words, there's something behind the experience of the emotion that is untouched by the emotion. That's the witness mind. This, what we call consciousness. This consciousness is able to observe and work with any emotion, regardless of how difficult, and not be caught up in it. Once people understand that principle, they're free from the conditioning effect of the interpretations that their mind has made about their past experiences.
- [11:03]
B
A great metaphor for this is imagine you're standing on the bank of a river and there's a rush of water. The stream is going by with the rocks. And that rush of water and stream is your thoughts and emotions that are just, you know, conditioning. They're taking you floating, taking you away. You know, when you have this obsessive thinking, you just kind of, you're jumping on the river, taking you down the river and, and you always have the chance to step on, go on the bank again and just watch it in non attachment and that's why we incorporate Eastern philosophy in the work that we do. Because I think it's really important when we look at psychology and look at our emotions and understanding behavior and human, our human nature, it's always important also to know what our spiritual nature is. And if we don't have the spiritual nature, we're basically just doing therapy on ourselves and trying to make our ego a little better. But the spiritual aspect of the Jungian work in Eastern philosophy helps us transcend that human experience and have more resources and wisdom to navigate the difficulties of life. Otherwise we're just coping, we're coping with whatever shows up. How do I manage these emotions? How do I regulate them and you know, just get through them where this is really transcending them and actually using them in a creative way. How can a coach use emotions in a creative way with a client?
- [12:28]
C
Absolutely. I mean, our idea is simply that everyone has a psyche and the psyche belongs to all of us. And the more we understand and know about the psyche, the more empowered we are in our lives. So who does that belong to? Not only psychologists, not only coaches, not only therapists. It belongs to everyone. And the more you're willing and able to look at your own mind, the freer, the more empowered you become and you're able to live a much happier, fulfilled life. So who deserves that? Everyone needs this and, and, and deserves to know about their psyche. It's an empowerment model that everyone should have and, and then the unconscious mind. A lot of people think the unconscious mind is taboo, that you shouldn't touch it. It's almost like the emotions, right? They're bad or don't open them up, they're going to be very difficult. That's not a proper way to understand the mind. The mind has these emotions and, and what we call the unconscious mind because it serves us well. The more we understand the nature of our mind, the more we're able to work with our life in a powerful way. It's more detrimental to ignore the unconscious than it is to open it up and examine it.
- [13:55]
A
Are you looking for a satisfying career as a life coach? If you are seeking a deeper path of training and growth, Creative Mind University offers an ICF accredited life coach training program that goes beyond surface positive thinking and into a path powerful process of real transformation. You can start your new career as a certified life coach trained in a unique methodology based on Jungian theory, Eastern spirituality and social neuroscience. Get the tools to become your true self. Change your life and the lives of others. Visit creativemindlife.com. click on Apply and speak with one of our team members members today to discuss your future and possibilities of becoming a certified Life coach. That's creativemindlife.com.
- [14:50]
B
And so when a coach doesn't examine their emotions and they there. So the analogy again of that metaphor of the river, you will go down the river. What you're calling. It's like saving a drowning person. They said if you face them, they'll pull you down. And then if you go behind them, you, you'll save them because the, they'll, they'll pull you with you. And that's exactly what coaching we want to avoid. And the coaching is to. You get sucked in because your stuff, the counter transference gets enmeshed with their clients and then you're kind of both in this state again. Like an example I said in the previous episodes of your client's upset you, you get upset from them being upset because you feel like you should fix them. And then you're kind of caught up in. You're both running down the river and there's no adult in the room. You're both like two children reacting to life. And so the more the coach can develop their own emotional intelligence, their emotional wisdom, the better coach they're going to be. So the client, they could stand on the bank and throw the floaty to the client who's you know, going hey, the water's drowning me. You could be like that person that's solid and helping them instead of being with them in the, in the drama and, and really help them learn how to get to that side of the bank. You have to be that model for them.
- [16:19]
C
The, the, the key to neuroticism is self awareness for both the coach and the client, right. So the more self aware the, the coach is, the better coach they will be to their client and serving them and helping them become more self aware.
- [16:39]
B
Which is again why coaches need to have coach. Because if you're, you're dealing with the psyches of other people, right? You're, you're, you're constantly like seeing yourself reflected in your client, your own stuff, right? It's, it's never, the work is never done of. And it's not like working on your past but really keep the evolution of yourself. And if you don't have someone to kind of get you out of extract you out of that situation as well and continue your growth, you'll get lost again. It's almost like you can fall back into the old patterns. If you don't have someone that you can be Accountable for.
- [17:18]
C
Yeah. So we've come to the, the fifth factor in the big five, personality.
- [17:29]
B
And so if someone took the test, what would they, how can they look at it? And, and look at, go back and listen to these.
- [17:37]
C
Yeah. If you take the test online and it's free on some sites, maybe we can post.
- [17:43]
B
Yeah, I can put it in the. Definitely in the thing.
- [17:45]
C
What it will give you is a scale on each one of these, meaning that you're low, middle or high on the scale of this, these particular personality traits. It helps you understand kind of what your challenges are in life. Right. How, how do you become more conscious of these aspects of your personality? Now the key from the Jungian model is to understand that these are not fixed traits. You can change a personality because again, it's simply a mask or a role that we're playing in society. Are they difficult or challenging to change? Yes, very difficult. Because they're conditioned into us from the time we were kids all the way to today. Right. Conditioning continues and it's a pressure put on us by society, by our family, by our peers. And so it's very powerful. It's a powerful pervasive power that's in our life. Self actualization, self examination, self inquiry begins to undo the binding of this conditioning so that we start to make real choices for ourselves. That's the individuation process.
- [19:13]
B
Yes. And so whether you are a coach now or want to be a coach and are looking at coach training, these are things to keep in mind as you go through your journey. And as you know, we have our own young and life coach training training program that we have a cohort coming up very soon. If you're interested, there are links in the show notes to find out more about our 12 month Jungian life coach training. We talk about all these topics, but of course in much more detail. And really, you know, we're dedicated to making more coaches self aware. I think that's really the main thing is some people, you know, do a coach training and it's, it's sort of like you learn tools to work with clients but you don't go through your own transformation. And we one really believe that a coach needs to go through their own transformation but not to be the wise, you know, know it all, that they have all the answers but to be able to facilitate change for their clients because they've facilitated it for themselves, they've been through the process, they understand themselves beyond the ego so they can truly be in a wise guide for them as they go through their own process.
- [20:25]
C
Absolutely.
- [20:26]
B
So thank you for joining us today. We'll be back with another series next week, but I hope you enjoyed the Personality Big five analysis of all the personalities and the shadow around it and how to individuate from our condition patterns and become truly, truly individuated and empowered in your life as a coach and in all areas of life.
- [20:50]
C
We appreciate it and we'll see you next time.
- [20:52]
B
Take care. And before you go, click the subscribe button and make sure you come back next week.
- [20:58]
A
Take care.
- [20:59]
C
See you soon.
- [21:01]
A
Thank you for joining us. And don't forget to subscribe to Creative Mind Soul Sessions and join us next week as we explore another deep topic where you can consciously create your life with Creative Mind Soul Sessions. See you next time.