Satisfaction, pride, but also sadness – these are the mixed feelings that I experienced, following the recent end of a coaching journey. The client decided to end the coaching earlier than agreed, simply because she had reached already her objectives.
In her feedback she mentioned about finding hope as a result of the coaching, and ultimately independence. She mentioned that prior to coaching she was living her life looking down and now she was looking forward. And that with the help of coaching she became aware of feelings that she could not express initially in words.
And speaking of feelings, whilst reading her feedback, I noticed various mixed feelings that were emerging within myself.
On one side there was satisfaction for contributing for the better to someone’s life by bringing support, patience, empathy, unjudgemental listening, deep questioning and awareness. There was also pride ( I am really proud of her) to see the steps that the she took, in spite of adversity and tough life challenges, all in her time and pace, according to what was fair for her.
On the other side, I experienced also sadness, trigerred by the end of the coaching relationship and the end of a collaboration. In any human relationship, attachement is formed one way or another, and ending that relationship brings some degree of sadness.
Nevertheless, I know that as a coach, that’s the way it should be. As a coach, my role, amongst others, is to support change and autonomy in the client’s life.
As for the mixed feelings, this shows simply that I am a mere human.
Gabriela D. Spencer 