Nishi loves running. When she learnt that I have experience running marathons, she asked if I could help train her for the same. I agreed, with the caveat that she be honest and disciplined in her effort. In a month, I realised that she was very serious about her goal. She did not miss a single training session, be it in the gym or outdoors. She had a full-time job and a family, but she started her day early to put in the time she needed for training.

One day, when she showed up despite being sick, I told her to go home. To my surprise, she burst into tears, and insisted she was fine to complete her training. I asked her what the matter was. She felt she was making an excuse by saying she was unwell- she did not know when to stop. As a life coach in my other avatar, I realised this pointed to something deeper. I asked her if she would like to do a session where we could unlock the source of this feeling.

This is what we discovered. Nishi had felt unwanted and unloved as a child. She was never allowed to voice her feelings; she was never allowed to not finish a task; she was silenced when faced with abuse. Her worst experience was when she was forced to stop playing her favourite sport because she was not winning. These childhood experiences resulted in a people-pleasing personality, to a point of self-loathing. She admitted that as long as she agreed with everyone around her, she felt safe and certain, even if it was someone not in her close circle of family or friends.

To help her understand the cause for many similar life experiences, we used the coaching tool detailed below, and it helped Nishi understand some harsh truths.

Quite often, our life events follow a pattern. This is usually not very obvious to the person living through it. However, if one understands the “method in the randomness”, it leads to a profound message that may have a significant impact on the rest of our lives.

If you have gone through experiences that had you asking “why me” repeatedly, then this tool will help you understand the deeper undercurrents of what life (Universe) is trying to tell you. I have used variations of this successfully with many clients. Ideally, one would do this as a part of a coaching session, guided by a coach. However, I am sharing this online for the benefit of a wider audience.

Coaching Tool: Learning from Life Events

Objective: Understanding what the Universe is saying to you through life events

Pre-requisites: A note pad and pen, a silent space, a calm mind. Some people prefer writing on their i-pads/mobiles. If you can use them without getting distracted, they too work!

Step 1

• Calming exercise: Bring your focus to your breath and experience the same for about a minute. Alternatively, you could choose to listen to soothing music of your choice, which helps to bring calmness.  
• Look back at your life thus far and remember key events / experiences, both good and bad. Note them down. Quite often, we get swayed by recent events, and forget earlier events. Try and balance this bias from a life impact perspective.
• Spend time to pick the top 5 events or experiences, both positive and negative. This may require some back and forth. Examples of positive events could be finding the ideal life partner, the birth of a child, landing your dream job, finding a spiritual path that changed the course of your life, etc. Examples of negative events could be the loss of someone very close to you, a period of illness or disability, abuse, or any other experience that had a deep negative impact.

Step 2

• Work with the negative list first, one by one. Write down:
  • What you felt then (whatever of it you recall)
  • What you think you learnt from the incident
  • What you feel now, in hindsight
• Once you have completed the exercise with the negative list, read through all that you have written again, first reading all feelings (a responses), then all the learnings (b responses), and finally the current feelings (c responses). See if you can find a common thread across your responses.
• Re-read the note and see if you find any common message that these events are trying to communicate to you. Write whatever you feel in this regard. For example, you might find that you are being called to voice your feelings without fear.

Step 3

• Do the same exercise with the positives, and answer the same set of questions.
• Notice the common thread and write it down.
• Re-read the note and see if you find any common message that these events are trying to communicate to you. Write whatever you feel in this regard.

Step 4

• Reflect on all this again when you are in a peaceful frame of mind. Go back to the notes the next day and see if you are able to figure out your life lessons.

Step 5

• Whatever message you may have received, see how it can be converted into actions that lead to habit/behaviour change. The coaching key words here are awareness, acceptance and action. This tool leads you to better awareness about life patterns. If you accept them and convert the learnings into actions, this could be a game changer going forward. For example, if the message is that you have been generally anxious, but things have worked out well, one can use the list of all such past instances to comfort oneself and gain strength, and focus on doing rather than worrying. Also, one may use appropriate affirmations to strengthen the resolve to break away from negative patterns.

Additional Notes

• This exercise is best done in parts (taking breaks). Also, it will help to revisit what you write to sharpen or articulate clearly.
• Writing detailed notes at each step will add to the impact of this exercise.

Realisations of people who did this exercise and takeaways include:

• The need to be proactive in solving problems rather than ignoring or avoiding them. This changed the person’s outlook especially towards health, where the focus shifted to taking preventive actions such as regular tests and check-ups.
• The need to speak up for oneself, and how it could have helped avoid many problems. The person started making it a practice to express his feelings, especially displeasures and discomfort, and was surprised that people started responding better.
• While there were many challenges, somehow things got managed, and this made the person more confident and positive.
• That God had been kind in terms of talents and opportunities but the person had not made full use of them! This realisation was pivotal in helping the person grow meaningfully in both personal and professional spheres.
• That most personal problems the person faced came from lack of self-love and acceptance. This realisation helped the person move forward meaningfully on this journey.

If doing this exercise led to a moment of discovery or realisation (“aha!” moment in coaching terminology), do share it or about it as a comment. Also, please feel free to pass it on to anyone you think will gain from it.

If you think a guided coaching session will help you navigate this exercise, feel free to reach out.

Note: Coaching tools work differently with different people, but with some effort, there are high chances that you will find that using this tool will add to your insight, and result in a very different perspective.