Do you love your clients?
I know this might seem a ‘out there’ question. In my coach training I was taught to respect clients, to hold them in positive regard, and to create a non-judgmental coaching space. But loving my clients, no, that wasn’t in the curriculum.
I’m sure there are clients you have come to love over the course of your coaching relationship. I know I have. Other clients you may respect but not feel such fond affection for, given that they can be very different people than ourselves. Loving clients is a hit and miss affair, and quite the lofty ask of a coach.
That is, at least when we are using one particular image of love: love as a feeling of deep affection and care.
Love Is a State of Being
What if we shift that image? What if love is not a feeling so much as an energetic field of consciousness. Think love as a state of being.
As a coach, are you the embodiment of love as a state of consciousness, as a way of being? Are you a loving presence?
This way of loving is not person specific, it is overarching, and has immense value in the coaching context (and, truly, in every other). It’s not something you feel for another person so much as who you are being in relation to that person.
For me, being a loving presence is a core Deep Coaching competency.
Coaching with Love Empowers
Love is the great agent of connectivity, unity, harmony and healing. When you are being a loving presence it doesn’t matter whether what the other person says, does or values is something you would say, do or value. It is all held and accepted as it is, without judgment or resistance.
There is tremendous allowance and freedom in the presence of love, because love of this caliber cannot be impacted. It is a steady, permanent field of intelligence and creativity, one that catalyzes higher levels of self-awareness and propels people to reveal much more of what has long been hidden, denied or repressed. Love is an exemplary state of being for anyone who desires to uplift and empower others into new paradigms of possibility.
If you are thinking that the kind of work you do or the kind of people you work with does not require you to be a loving presence, I invite you to think again.
Coaching with Love Transfigures
When you stand as a loving presence, others will sense it. They will then feel safer with you. They will be more vulnerable with you. They will be more authentic with you…and thus with themselves.
They will begin, ever so slowly, to love themselves, and the sharper edges of their ego will soften, opening the door to a way of living that is driven less by the need to impress or be validated, and more by the desire to be courageous and honest.
When you stand as love in the world, it dissolves the world’s shadows. It’s simply what love does. It is the great illuminator, the light that dissolves all shadows and reveals essential truths.
It’s not easy to be this consistently, I know. It takes resolve, commitment and daily practice. But truly, why else do we do transformational work if not to transform our own inner being so that we can stand as a loving presence, so that we can uplift each person through the light of our nature and have each person know that they have been seen and valued for no other reason than because they are perfectly, beautifully human.