Time and again when I am coaching someone, or during one of our Emotional Fitness training sessions, I hear the same pattern coming up; the same theme song of that particular individual. And, as the coaching or training continues, that person will say “enough; I have had enough of doing the same things that don’t work for me, and feeling the same way when I don’t need to.”

That’s when the real voice comes through. And the real voice is the voice of the child within us, the one who tells us, should we wish to hear it, that recreating the same scenarios from childhood is no longer necessary and please stop it.

The difficulty is that it is seldom obvious that we are recreating our childhood and we might be highly embarrassed to realize or admit to doing that. For example, one successful business leader I knew told me of the problems he faced in taking risks, which, while it engendered a feeling of security, also inhibited creativity and new ideas within his company. “I dread it when someone approaches me with a suggestion to change something,” he told me, “because I have this image that things will come crashing down. If I don’t stop that, I’ll soon be losing the best staff I have.”

Through his coaching, he connected his feeling of dread with his being inhibited as a child from taking risks because he had been severely punished after “remodeling” his father’s bicycle. Once he realized that the child in him was fighting to keep his own creative ideas in check for fear of being hurt in some way, he knew that it was the child who also wanted him to stop. “Let me out,” the boy was screaming, “and let me play. And don’t stop others who want to play too.”

Corporate leaders don’t usually see that they act like fearful children in the Boardroom, but when they do, they can change their habits for the better.

In peace

Warren Redman
www.EFitInstitute.com
1-866-310-3348(EFit)

Author's Bio: 

Warren Redman trained in the UK as a psychotherapist, facilitator and coach and has developed his own unique style of Emotional Fitness Coaching. He is president of the Emotional Fitness Institute (formally the Centre for Inner Balancing), writing about, teaching and coaching people in Emotional Fitness. He is the author of fifteen books, including the Award-winning The 9 steps to Emotional Fitness, Achieving Personal Success and Recipes for Inner Peace.

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