The Biggest Lie I Ever Believed About Coaching...
Read now (4 mins) | ...That you may still believe
September 1, 2023
“A therapist is someone who supports you to heal your past. A coach helps you create your future.”
Heard it on day one. Heard it over and over. I believed it with all my heart. I never questioned it. It was logical and as a bonus there was parallel structure to it which satisfied my literary soul. It made intuitive sense.
I argued the point on the silver screen in a film where I was cast opposite a therapist who challenged me on this and I just thought he was mad we were coming for his job. I think the filmmaker let me win the argument, but that guy fought the good fight and he got in my ear.
Over the years since filming that scene, I have come to see there is no way to separate your past from your future as a human. That kind of bifurcation doesn’t exist.
Quick case in point:
I was diagnosed Autistic in 2012 at the tail end of my own coach training.
I was encouraged by my coach—and coaching in general—to focus on my future. That with the right mindset and thought I could have, do, and be anything I wanted. (I had lots of advantages so this seemed largely true for me).
Autism was never something I lied about or even thought about that much in coaching scenarios—it just was not relevant to creating my future.
Because I was focused on my future, and because of the interoception and alexathymia of Autism, it was easy to tell my doctor and therapist that I had no symptoms of my autism that I needed help managing. Year after year.
Coaches didn’t know how autism works—they figured my doctors and specialists would handle that.
As I created my future with my coaches, I got better and better at bypassing things from my past (and sensory sensitivities in my present) that didn’t seem to matter to manifesting my goals. This bypassing was actually causing unaddressed daily emotional dysregulation which would come to create a massive Autistic Burnout. (Toxic positivity).
The cure for my Burnout according to my coaches was to focus on manifesting a future without Autistic Burnout symptoms (like suicidal ideation). This “suggested cure” exacerbated the burnout. I no longer had the ability to “change my thoughts” or “do the work” which I took to be a personal failing. I didn’t want it badly enough. I wasn’t committed to my future.
My past and present could not be separated from my future. They are intertwined. It’s not a movie.
Mental health isn’t just about healing the past. Some parts of mental health have to do with brain differences, biological difference, sensory sensitivities, family systems, economic disparities, institutional biases, generational trauma and many, many other factors beyond mindset, grit, and alignment.
Don’t get me wrong mindset, grit, and alignment are great. I’m fans of all. It’s just more complicated than that.
Outside of coaching people think Life Coaches are 20-somethings who tell people how to live their life. That is completely wrong. I don’t know a single coach—even the least well-trained—who does that.
Inside of Life Coaching, coaches are taught their job is to help you create your future no matter what factors you face personally or, if you want to be woo, ‘manifest your dreams.’
Neither of these definitions are correct and the worst part is: the people who believe them don’t question them.
I stood up for this definition, and I apologize for my ignorance. I truly believed it at the time. It was page one, day one of my coach training and I didn’t question it—even when questioned about it.
But humans and humanity doesn’t work that way and pretending it does hurts a lot of people.
If you have a coach or are a coach and are struggle to manifest something—money, a relationship, clients, whatever—and you are working the model, doing turn arounds, taking full responsibility and just feeling like no matter what you do it isn’t working and there must be something wrong with you, please reach out for help outside of coaching.
This system creates a trap that blames and shames victims.
Sometimes it’s your mindset, sure. Sometimes you can up your vibe and make some magic happen, sure. But it isn’t the only way to change your future.
You can change your future by healing your past, by differently identifying and managing symptoms in your present, by taking medication or treatment, moving to places were laws and social safety nets are different, and many, many other ways. Coaching is one tool that works for some people, some of the time, but not everyone all the time, and that lie—that coaching always works if you work it or want it badly enough—leads to gaslighting, depression, addiction, and self-harm.
How has toxic positivity affected you? Tell me about it in the comments!
*Background note: Most people only have a vague (often, highly stereotyped) version of autism in their minds and believe that autistic children need (traumatic) ABA therapy to "overcome" their disability and appear "normal." After receiving an autism diagnosis in her thirties, Dr. Angela Lauria realized that she too had been mostly unaware of what it means to be Autistic. Like so many people, she started her journey by first gathering information and resources from the omnipresent (and problematic) Autism Speaks, but eventually moved away from the 'autism community' in favor of the 'Autistic community,' where she found kinship with other Autistic individuals and learned to let go of pathologizing language like 'autism spectrum disorder' and 'Asperger's Syndrome.' This autism blog (and her autism podcast, "The Autistic Culture Podcast") is meant to share her lived-experience insights to support others on a similar journey of diagnosis, understanding, and community. Embrace Autism--differences are not deficits.