I never paid close attention to this client, as she was fairly non-communicative. But one day she spoke to me, and she spoke clearly to me. I was getting off the bench to leave her presence and she said, "Don't you know it's rude to get up and leave without excusing yourself?" I looked at her dumbfounded. She continued in her eloquence by adding, "People don't think I need attention, but I do need attention." Well, then and there, she had caught mine And a tale of a sisterhood, and later as I befriended men, a brotherhood, formed among us.
Getting involved in the lives of others brought further healing to my own. Dominika's friendship and desire to succeed warmed my heart like nothing I had ever experienced as an adult, except the unconditional love of a child. After I left the mental health program where we met, I visited Dominika and she asked me if I was still a teacher. I replied that what I did for her for free, I now did for money. She astutely got me to see myself as she saw me; she answered by saying, "Oh, so you are a Tutor." And I guess that is what I was as a Life Coach--a tutor.
Without being pompous, I was a "miracle worker" of sorts. Ernest, a 52 year-old man with a flat affect and without so much as a hint of a smile in his tired, worn-out face, was my first client as a paid "tutor." One day I asked him what he was doing sitting on a chair in the Deli day after day, and he bluntly told me he was "growing old." Working with him, that Deli chair became much emptier than before, and when I left him at 53, Ernest was active, content with his life, and felt "like a new man," And having purchased dentures for his toothless mouth, his face constantly brimmed with a broad, toothy smile.
How did I make a difference in the lives of these individuals, I really couldn't figure out. What was it that I did to bring out the best in them? I really didn't know. This maybe I did know, I believed wholeheartedly in them. I believed in their ability to change. I believed in their ability to be accountable. And, I believed in their ability to start feeling again. Particularly for them to experience tenuous bonds of trust, and to see themselves as I saw them--as human-beings worthy of being treated with dignity and respect. And beyond that, to experience the unconditional love and compassion that welled up in me from my own struggle with a bitter symptoms of an illness that could so arbitrarily and randomly robe me of my sanity, and that was truly an insane experience,
I was one of them, but I don't think they perceived that very often. To them, I was their Life Coach and friend. I cannot think that I could work so deeply within the core of an individual to discount the bond I was forming with my clients, who let's never forget are people, would not be lifelong. Yet, this longitude, I would find out, as my life moved away from theirs would only be made of memories. Yet, while Life Coaching, I became entrenched in a quandary. The quandary was this--how much miracle can a miracle worker work?
Another paid client was David. David had struggled with Schizophrenia for 29 years. When I first met him, he was extremely agitated, short-tempered, demonized with voices which he himself called "demons," and he had a slight air of entitlement. (I imagine that if I had also gone to Harvard like he had don, I might think of myself as somewhat entitled, too). It proved to be important to our bonding to acknowledge his accomplishment and to give him the credit he was due, as very few high-school graduates make it into Harvard.
But, herein lied my dilemma where David was concerned. I questioned to what extent he was capable. And I questioned the morality of how far I could push him to find out. Oh, to have had a reference point, to have had some textbook set of rules to figure this one out. But clinical case studies do not always prove fruitful in working with a complexly unique individual, and a person with great mental capacity. Scary though it was, it seemed the best interventions came instinctively, transported from the beginning of time through the collective wisdom of the Spirit to the spirit in each one of us. How far I could push, I realized, was in how far David would let me push him.
David was eager to please me, I learned in my discussions with him. Yet, getting him to better himself was not for my pleasure but for his, and this was a lesson I somehow needed to impart to him. When I finished working with David, he was different. He was not so demonized by his voices, he worked part-time, he smiled, he was calmer, and he even had a sense of humility. But if this was all done to please me, I failed as his Life Coach. I was indeed perplexed. I needed coaching in the art of coaching, so I put my dilemma out into the Universe, as I needed to heed wise Counsel.
I learned that the mind needs to rest, to settle, to still itself into silence, so it can heed the input of others. My life as a Life Coach was a very rewarding experience. My job was to work my way out of a job, and to instill in my clients confidence and independence. I saw fear on their faces when I said I had to leave. My hope for them, as I moved on with life's callings, was that they would soar on wings like eagles My role simply was to carry them when their wings forgot how to fly, and to safely and securely get them to remember.
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