In Buddhism the Hungry Ghosts are
depicted as teardrop shaped, with bloated stomachs and necks
too thin to pass food – representing our futile attempts to
feed ego patterns. We can never find satisfaction. It is
like drinking salt water to quench our thirst.
We all learned early in life to avoid pain by
developing strategies that served us, to a point. But from those
strategies we formed a false identity and buried our true
selves. If we understand how we’ve done this, we can be free.
The question of “how” is elemental in out-of-the-box coaching.
The “why” can be interesting, especially as you and your clients
try to understand the early precursors of their
personality patterns.
But noticing how they enact their patterns today will
lead to interventions that promote transformational change.
This level of observation is similar to the
Buddhist practice of mindfulness. Your fundamental task is to
help clients hold full awareness in the present, notice their
flow of thoughts, and accept their experiences without judgment,
without attempts to control. Instead of theorizing about or
labeling their behavior, coach them to identify, embrace, and
learn from their patterns. If you don’t intervene at that
fundamental level, they’ll continue to feed their hungry ghosts
and nothing significant will change. Hold your clients
accountable for what they do, not what they say they’re going to
do.
This suggests careful consideration of two
items in the final section of the
International Coach Federation (ICF) Professional Coaching
Competencies: Section 11: Managing Progress and
Accountability:
-
Clearly requests actions that will move
client toward stated goals,
-
demonstrates follow through by asking
clients about actions committed to during previous session(s),
-
acknowledges clients for what they’ve
done, not done, learned or become aware of since previous
coaching session.
-
effectively prepares, organizes and
reviews with client information obtained during sessions,
-
keeps client on track between sessions by
holding attention on the coaching plan and outcomes,
agreed-upon courses of action, and topics for future
sessions,
-
focuses on coaching plan but also open to
adjusting behaviors and actions based on coaching process
and shifts in direction during sessions,
-
able to move back and forth between big
picture of where client is heading, setting a context for
what is being discussed and where client wishes to go,
-
promotes
client’s self-discipline and holds client accountable for
what they say they are going to do, for the results of an
intended action, or for a specific plan with related time
frames,
-
develops the client’s ability to make
decisions, address key concerns, and develop self to get
feedback, to determine priorities and set the pace of
learning, to reflect on and learn from experiences,
-
positively
confronts the client with the fact that he/she did not take
agreed-upon actions.
With great respect for the ICF, I suggest
that coaches who adhere strictly to the premises in
green may
unwittingly reinforce first-order change and miss opportunities
for clients to learn about patterns that block them from doing
what they said they’d do. If there's one golden rule in
transformational coaching, it’s to use everything clients
bring into your coaching sessions.
Other coaches may act as enforcers at the
client’s request. Don’t let that be you. Personality patterns are
deeply embedded and very tricky. One of the best ways to ferret
them out is to catch them in action and create new rules for
their old games. If clients show the same “bad” behavior they’ve
wanted to stop, give a big cheer. That behavior is now in the
room with you, ready to be explored.
Here’s an example, the second session with a
client whose personality style hadn’t been determined:
Client: “I thought about what to talk
about today, remembering what I said I’d do. I haven’t done
as much I’d like to. And I’ve been beating myself up about
that.”
Coach: “You wanted to do more. How did
you beat yourself up? What did that look like?”
Client: “Feeling uncomfortable, anxious,
telling myself I’m lazy, I should have done more; feeling
disappointed in myself. Also some victimizing: ‘Why isn’t
all this networking I’m doing coming to fruition?’”
Coach: “So that’s been a pattern –
creating an intention, not doing it as much as you’d like,
then beating yourself up. Anything else?”
Client: “I feel lost in a way, like
there’s no structure, no clear path for me to follow. I’ve
always felt a little uneasy when I’ve only had myself to
rely on.”
Are you beginning to identify the hungry
ghosts this client’s been trying to feed? And notice the lack of
judgment in the coach’s responses, quietly modeling for the
client that whatever comes up is a useful source of learning.
Exploring what your clients do, not what they don’t do, will
encourage them to unveil more, bring the past into the present,
and release attachments to outmoded, unnecessary patterns.
Tormented
by unfulfilled cravings and insatiably demanding of
impossible satisfactions, the Hungry Ghosts are searching
for gratification for old unfulfilled needs whose time has
passed. They are beings who have uncovered a terrible
emptiness within themselves, who cannot see the
impossibility of correcting something that has already
happened. Their ghostlike state represents their attachment
to the past. Mark Epstein, Thoughts Without a Thinker.
