I Was An Emotional Wreck

Before coaching, I was an emotional wreck. I was having a seismic crisis of identity and confidence, feeling like a complete failure across work and family roles and unable to see a way out of a very dark place.

I felt like a shadow of my true self (I’m a horribly harsh self-critic) and was blaming myself for everything - spitting toxic blame and resentment onto my husband and sending unhealthy messages about self-respect to my young daughters.

But, whilst I just couldn’t see it for myself, somewhere underneath I was still convinced that I had the potential to be and do great things, which is why I reached out for coaching.

(Despite the big and difficult first hurdle of admitting that I needed help when I felt that I ‘should’ have been able to fix it myself!)

By the end of our discovery session I was already convinced that Lavinia was the right coach for me.I knew that she would ask the right and most difficult questions and that she would challenge me and not let me hide behind old patterns and excuses. And that she would do all of that with heart and compassion.

Prior to starting the series, I had tricky expectations both of myself and about the process and felt nervous with high expectations as well as feeling fear that I would not meet them. I was scared that I would ‘fail again’, stressed and guilty about spending money on myself whilst not earning but also determined for some major blocks to shift so that I could get out of my own way. I was scared but felt more ready to dedicate the time and energy to myself.

Once we’d started however, both my husband and best friend noticed that I was communicating much more openly and honestly with them about how I was feeling and what I needed. They both noticed that I was putting much clearer boundaries in place to enable my own self-care and have appreciated the change.

My mum also said that “I was back” having gone through a very tricky period last year where I shut her out and felt very cold towards her. We now have a much more open dialogue which is wonderful.

From my side, I have noticed that I’m no longer the frightened people-pleaser that I was last year. I have come to value myself and what I have to offer both personally and professionally.

I am much kinder to myself and this is playing out in my choice of self-care. I am calmer and much more aware of my inner world, so that when the storms inevitably rage, they pass much more quickly and with much less collateral damage!

Where I surprised myself the most was in my ability to explore and heal the many layers of unmet trauma from childhood and from my twenties which I was still carrying. I thought I had tackled these already, but clearly never so deeply or from the right angle.

My biggest learning however was around menstrual cycle awareness and tracking - it has been simply transformational - permission to be a different version of myself with different needs through my seasons.

Acceptance, finally, after nearly 40 years, that it’s ok to ebb and flow with the full and rich orchestra of life and that not only is this emotional journey not shameful, it’s bloody marvellous and makes me a fully functioning and alive human!

The COVID bomb dropped half way through our time together, which felt like a massive curveball at the time and made me panic about not being able to show up properly for the process (I felt I had much less time to spend on journalling and other self-care practices which had been such a major part of our first few sessions together) but looking back, the timing was perfect.

If we had done our full series together ‘as normal’ and then faced COVID afterwards, I might have felt less able to cope. It also brought up key challenges around giving up when things get tough which has deep roots in my childhood. But having Lavinia there to guide me through the first few weeks of lockdown and everything that it threw up, was sanity saving.

The 24/7 access to her in between sessions was so supportive. Essential! So much happened in those in between times and knowing that she was there, fully welcoming of the whole messy jumble and with zero judgement, to hear me out the whole way, was just so reassuring.

If I had to describe my coaching experience in 3 words they would be: empowering, enlightening, freeing! You rock!

~ Jayne Sawston, life coach & mother, UK