ACCEPTANCE

Acceptance: the act of accepting something or someone

February 2022. I was standing outside the main door of Signpost with my wife, Alison. Signpost is a counselling and coaching service predominantly for young people. We were going to Signpost as parents of a 17 year old teenager, Alex, who suffers with depression and anxiety for some parent coaching.

Alex had been receiving counselling for a few years up to this point and in all that time both Alison and I had moaned about the fact that there was no support for us, the parents. We were just expected to deal with the situation and understand. Kids don't come with an instruction manual when they are born! We did not come with an instruction manual either. How were we supposed to react to one of our children, who we so desperately love going through this situation? How are we meant to “cope”? Why is this happening in our family? What are we supposed to think? How should we react, behave, live? The situation was dividing our family. We all felt hurt, angry, misunderstood and above all, helpless.

Signpost was recommended to Alison by Alex’s counsellor. There was help and support for parents! All you had to do was book an appointment and show up. So here we were, waiting at the door of signpost for our first coaching session with Sarika.

In the days and weeks leading up to our first session with Sarika I did not really think about it. As far as I was concerned I did not need it. I had a lifetime of skill and knowledge from the world on raising two kids. Nobody would understand my kids better than my wife and me. For 25 years I had worked for one of the biggest Investment Banks in the world, running operations all over the globe, managing teams of people and nurturing them to be the best they could be. I had written a book during the pandemic aimed at young people about how they could be the best versions of themselves! I had even been told by friends and colleagues that I should be offering my services to help people and on the back of that I signed myself up to a diploma course in Life Coaching. I was the coach, not the client!

I decided that agreeing to go to the 4 scheduled coaching sessions with Sarika would however give me some added benefit. It would allow me to observe a Life Coach in action. After all, this is what I was aiming to become. I would use the 4 sessions to observe the structure Sarika used in her coaching, whilst experiencing what it was like to be the client. This would be of great benefit to me as I would be able to understand what it felt like to be a client to a certain extent.

Session one went exactly as I expected, straight out of the coaching manual so to speak. Sarika got to know us, worked out if we were compatible with her. Sarika built a relationship with us in a relaxed, friendly, non-judgemental way. As I walked out of our first session I said to Alison “that was text book coaching, I knew exactly what was going to happen in that session” and felt rather proud of myself.

Sessions two and three dug deeper in to how we were feeling with the main contributors to the conversation being Alison and myself. Again, model coaching I thought…”let the client talk and you just listen”

At the end of session three Sarika asked us if we thought we needed to have the last session the following week. Sarika told us that she thought we were quite open and embracing parents. Parents that were understanding, thoughtful, supportive and seemed to have ourselves in a good place. She wasn’t sure we particularly needed session four. We had our issues and thoughts out in the open and we had plans in place that would help us as a family. Alison agreed with Sarika but I suggested we keep session four scheduled. I wanted to experience the "sign off" session. I had actually started to enjoy our weekly chats with Sarika and I wanted to see how she was going to wrap up our coaching relationship.

At session four, the conversation moved along on the positive steps we were making and how if we ever need support in the future, well, we knew where to find Sarika.

The final five minutes of our last session with Sarika will stay with me forever. Up to that point we had been talking about how we needed to listen more as a family, to actually listen to each other, rather than interrupting. We are all guilty of it, me more than most. We interrupt each other with our opinions, thoughts, arguments. We finish off each other’s sentence’s with our own words and in doing so, we never really understand the other person and what they are trying to say, what they are feeling or who they are. We all agreed that listening to each other would help us accept more about each other.

The last thing I remember Sarika saying was “Alex just want’s your acceptance”

That was the lightbulb moment for me. I started to cry. Life is all about acceptance. Acceptance of others, acceptance of our situation and acceptance of ourselves in the present. I had to accept who Alex was, how Alex thought and the only way I could do this was to accept myself and my situation in the present.

Acceptance is not a negative. Acceptance is not giving in. Acceptance is not accepting that something will stay the same forever. I don’t have to like a situation to accept it. I don’t have to agree with a situation to accept it. Acceptance lets me stop resisting something I cannot control. Resisting things I cannot control will not change the situation. Things happen in life. Challenges come and go. With unconditional acceptance of the present I can change the things I can control and embrace the things I can’t control.

In the days following that last session I have been happier and more at peace. I have accepted the situation as it is, right now, in the present. I have also accepted other situations that have happened and I was still fighting. My good friend and colleague Richard died of a brain tumour back in 2016. I was still carrying around “Why?”. Nobody knows why him. Nobody knows why he got a brain tumour that would take away a great man in the prime of his life but it did and I can’t change it. I can’t fight it and turn the clock back. I have accepted it. That moment of clarity highlighted by Sarika gave me two choices. I could fight the situation and be miserable or I could accept it, see the positive influence Richard had on my life and be at peace. I have now chosen the latter.

Four hours of coaching that I really did not see a need for led me to a life changing moment in the last few minutes. Bloody hell that was worth it!