Try-Day Friday: I Saw a Life Coach

— -- “Just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s true.”

This, more than anything else my life coach Melanie Rudnick told me, is what I took away from my experiencing trying out a life coach.

If you asked me just a few weeks ago what I thought of life coaches, the first thing would be “self-indulgent.” The second would be, "who has time for these things?"

Turns out the people who think they have no time for “these things” (me) are very likely the same people who should make the time.

I knew Melanie from a previous article I wrote on her conscious parenting coaching. So when the opportunity came up to talk to a life coach and write an article about the experience, I naturally thought of her.

We dove right in our first session. The very first question she asked me was “so what’s been going on?” I launched into a minutes-long tangent about how I was simultaneously overwhelmed by doing too much and crippled with anxiety at the thought of not doing enough.

Talking to Melanie -- four times in total for the purposes of this article -- was very much like speaking to a friend who had very thought-provoking nuggets of feedback and exercises to work on between sessions.

Anxiety became a central theme of our conversations. Not the panic-attack inducing kind, but rather the kind of anxiety when your thoughts start spiraling and that feeling in your gut gets worse and worse and then all of a sudden you realize you’ve wasted an hour thinking about something that may or may not even happen.

I told Melanie that with a family, career, two children -- one with special needs -- training for a marathon, fundraising for causes I’m passionate about, writing a book and all the while trying to be an attentive wife/daughter/sister/friend, it often felt like things were just too much.

“The stakes are so high,” I told her. “There’s no room for error.”

Melanie and I talked at length about a situation recently when I was trying to find a 2s program for my son to attend in the fall. I was filled with worry about this prospect, sending out emails, setting up tours and meetings, hoping it would somehow work out. I lost sleep, checked my email inbox obsessively for emails from program directors and was sick at the thought he would somehow be left out.

And then each of the three programs we looked into said they would be thrilled to have him, and it became up to us to decide.

“You took so much time and energy worrying. ... Did you ever stop to wonder if the opposite might also be true?” she asked me. In other words, did I ever stop to think that every program would welcome him with open arms? No I had not.

And that was my other major takeaway from this exercise: “Write your worries down and with each one ask if the opposite outcome could also possibly be true and if it is, time to let it go.”

Melanie said that thoughts are a cycle. You have thoughts that make you feel crappy. Because you feel crappy, you are not your best self (in my case, that means not doing all the things I want to do). Which in turn, leads to the thoughts that I’m not doing enough, which makes me feel crappy. And around and around we go.

And those words again: “Just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s true.”

One of our conversations took place after I had been traveling for a conference and had more time than usual to myself. And though I had planned on using some of that alone time to rest and recharge, it was actually quite an anxious time for me. Turns out the more time I have to think, the more I worry. And then I’m angry at myself for worrying.

It’s that last feeling you need to start with, she said. “Once you let go of the feeling bad about feeling bad, you actually start letting go of anxiety altogether.”

We discovered that one of the reasons I keep myself so busy is so I don’t have to deal with my thoughts, which are often anxiety producing. It was a revelation for me, and has actually made me feel a lot better about the frenetic schedule I keep. And while Melanie pointed out this coping behavior was OK for me, it would cease to be if I was dropping the ball in areas of my life (I’m not, unless you count pushing a few deadlines to their last possible minutes).

Now, when people ask me why I keep piling things on my plate, I have an answer: because I’m good at it. Melanie helped me see that my ability to handle a lot is actually probably one of my most admirable personality traits. Talk about a life lesson.

Melanie Rudnick is a life coach in New York City. She’s compiled her best tips for free Happiness Cheat Sheets: 18 Simple Suggestions and Lessons on How to Love Your Life Today.