Pearl’s Blog

Exposing Weakness

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Hello all my beloved friends,

One of the most difficult things about coaching is pointing out your clients’ weaknesses, it’s also probably the most valuable. And when you see and work with other people’s weaknesses, it can’t help but show up your own, which is one of the most precious, sacred and downright painful parts of the process, whether it’s professional coaching or simple interactions with others.

When I first started doing Zumba I put my back out. When I saw my physio I was so worried he was going to say “You can’t do it any more,” but he told me instead “When you strengthen your core muscles you can do anything you want, but if you try to do all this without that core strength and without engaging those core muscles, you are going to keep injuring yourself over and over again - in short you won’t be able to do anything.” It was a very painful rehab, although honestly a lot more predictable than my ankle, which is strained again. (Luckily I have the basic exercises that my physio prescribed for my ankle, so I’m going to start rehabbing it again, but doing the basic exercises every day, first).

In life, as we move forward, so often we find ourselves making the same mistakes again, injuring ourselves in the same way, learning the same lessons, and so often life seems to have us repeat our mistakes until we can finally grow out of them. But in the meantime it can be so difficult to keep coming around to the same pain points, to keep feeling that there is something wrong with us, but perhaps this is so that we can finally learn our answers, our solutions, our own ways to make sure that we become stronger, and even help others to deal with these challenges.

Sometimes it is the need to speak out about problems that seems like a weakness, “Why can’t you just be quiet?”

Of course there is a time for silence, and for letting people make their own mistakes without pointing them out or calling them out. There is a time for peace, and a time for looking out and enjoying how beautiful life is and all the good things we have to enjoy in our lives.

But there are also things we must say, things we must share, things we feel passionately we need to warn others about. And perhaps part of our challenge as coaches and just human beings is knowing when is the right time (timing is everything).

Can we explain compassionately what is wrong, rather than being caught in a culture of complaining?

Can we smile and laugh with someone when they make a mistake and realise it for themselves?

Can we sit in silence and wait to be asked for our advice, to be given permission to teach, rather than assuming people “need” our opinions?

Can we stand up and speak for others when they do not have that power themselves - even if it makes us unpopular, and makes our lives harder?

The good news is, that as we learn those lessons and become experts, more and more people will ask for our opinions, will value our ability to hone in on the one or two details that hold them back, that ability to look at a situation and see the easy win, as well as the hard but necessary shifts we need to make progress.

Once we are seen as the expert or the executive, we get paid the big bucks to point out areas for improvement and what’s holding things up, instead of, as one friend was told when working at an entry level job, “You’re not paid to think.” We get respect and gratitude when we can give someone the simple exercises to get their core strong (whether that’s a theoretical or practical core) and finally move out of pain or suffering (physical, emotional or mental).

But the most important aspect of all this work is that we can apply it to ourselves, we can see our own weaknesses, or finally realise that what we have been taught is a weakness is, when used properly, in the right situation, a strength or a super power, and as called to do, we can, as the physician was told, “heal thyself”.

In the words of one of my greatest teachers, you can finally “teach what you need”.

If you’d like to come along to my talk at Rume2 in Chichester Wednesday 14th August 1-2pm on “The Power of Self-Publishing” just email hello@rume2.co.uk to book your free ticket.

Lots of love, Pearl x

Pearl Howie is the writer of “free Feeling Real Emotions Everyday”, now available as a photographic paperback and eBook, a text only book and as an audiobook. The 8 other titles in this series, are already available as paperbacks and eBooks and are coming soon as audiobooks (Japan and the first part of Camino are now available).

https://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Howie/e/B007HJFBH4

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