Looking the Demon in the Eye

How do you help your clients face their demons, challenges, life hurdles, limitations of self?

This morning, during “think time,” an acquaintance came to mind who reflects some of the themes in previous posts - he thinks life dealt him a bad hand of cards and therefore he is entitled to take advantage of others. He has a strong need to be right and others wrong. He is also one of those people who takes little responsibility and will quickly blame those around him for his mistakes.

Not too long ago, he opened a conversation with me by loudly and aggressively complaining about his co-workers and their failure to do something or another. After he wound down a bit, I asked him, “What are you so angry about?” He responded, as most would, by rehashing what I had just heard. Once he wound down again, I said, “Jon, you aren’t angry about those things at all - irritated maybe but not angry. What are you really angry about?”

The non-verbal reaction was beyond the deer in the headlights look - more a look we might see if I had whacked him upside the head with a 2X4. In that moment, I realized that he was looking one of his demons right in the eye. I have no idea what cognitive processing was going on in that moment but it was pretty clear, since it also appeared that he was beginning to tear up, that there was some rapid and intense internal dialogue at play.

We talk about wounds, hurts, pains, and demons as being obstacles to happiness and growth. Even more, they are obstacles to self-awareness. It’s as if the fear of facing those demons prevents us from challenging ourselves in other ways. The demons have us stuck.

It would seem that the only way to move past these “stuck” positions is to look the demon in the eye. By that, I mean acknowledge the truth and reality whatever it may be. Only then can we begin to address the conflict, the history, the belief or belief system that is the demon, the stuck point, the roadblock to moving forward, growing and becoming more.

Taking from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, demons keep us stuck at Safety - protecting ourselves from our own wounds and realities. If we accept Maslow’s theory as accurate, we will stay at Safety which means we cannot love, we cannot feel good about ourselves, and we certainly can’t self-actualize, know what and who we are at our deepest yet highest state of being. We cannot, following Plato’s sage wisdom, know ourselves.

First, let me ask you as a coach, counselor, or therapist, “What do you do when you recognize that your client is stuck to help her get unstuck? What do you do to help clients recognize and stare down their demons?”

Second, what I do is not terribly scientific but it is something I learned during an internship on a crisis hotline and have kept with me ever since. It is a single question that is so incredibly open-ended, as opposed to closed, that it allows a client to go wherever she wants. It’s a simple question with the potential for anything but a simple response. The question is, “What’s going on?” It’s the question I asked my acquaintance when I observed his non-verbal response, “Jon, what’s going on?” He then told me that he’s angry because his life isn’t going the way he wanted it to, and that life isn’t fair, and and and. And, perhaps he actually took his first step toward staring that demon down.

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Driven to Excellence

My mentor, my greatest teacher, was my mother - a very gifted, a very caring teacher, psychologist, counselor, and therapist. I think about her many lessons often.

I am also reminded of a good friend and colleague who said there exists the 5/10/85 rule which I have modified to a 5/10/15/70 rule. In any line of work, or all lines of work, 5% of the practitioners will be truly excellent. 10% will be good to very good. 15% will be fair, and 70% will be mediocre at best.

What makes the difference because those in the 70% group and those in the 5% group? I look to my mother who was, in my not at all objective opinion, in the excellent group and would call it drive. Certainly, she was intelligent, and had a big heart and soul when it came to her students and clients. But she was driven to be one of the best. Second best was not in her nature. She instilled this same drive in her children.

At the same time, there was a dark side to her drive and, I believe, one of her reasons for being a teaching and counseling psychologist. She sought out the helping professions in order to heal her own wounds: her brother’s death at the age of 5 from polio, her father’s suicide, and her mother’s suicide. As I considered this some years ago, and took an honest look in my own mirror, I realized that she became a counseling psychologist to attempt to heal herself. As well, she was driven to excellence in an attempt to heal herself.

Why did I study counseling psych? Healing myself was certainly one of the motivations. It doesn’t work. We cannot heal our own wounds, our own darkness, by healing others. We can only heal ourselves by seeking the help of another. I know many other coaches who have gone into the profession seeking to resolve their life inconsistencies. As I said, it doesn’t work.

It can, however, create drive and determination. Why? Because what we seek will forever elude us. In my opinion, and this is all opinion, it is drive that leads people to the top 5% of any profession. By that, I don’t mean monetary earnings as much as an attitude toward continuing growth, development, excellence, and perhaps perfection in a sense. My mother’s desire for healing prompted the drive but did not create the drive.

Certainly, intelligence, practical knowledge, and an ability to empathize are important for coaches and counselors. However, much can be accomplished when there is a drive for realizing excellence in what we do.

There is a second key component as well, or so I believe. That second component is truly loving what we do. In the process, we become invested in that area of ourselves, and then end up investing, to a great degree, in ourselves. This past weekend, a friend asked me what I love about teaching - and that is what I see as my chief role, being a teacher - whether through writing, one-on-one coaching, seminars or webcast programs. My answer was, “I love seeing the light bulb go on.” This has been true since I was presenting seminars on communication skills back in the 1980s. I love seeing the light bulb begin to glow. As I say early on in any presentation, “I don’t care if you get the right answers; I care that you think.” Do I truly love watching people get it? Do I ever! That is the most fulfilling part of my work.

As I think back to my mother and her career, I see that was a huge part of her as well. It would seem I have learned much from her.

What are your opinions with regard to my opinion that people enter the healing professions seeking to heal themselves and that this inspires drive? What are your huge payoffs from the work you do? It seems there is so much that we can learn from each other and that helps all of us find that next step, that next rainbow, that next horizon.

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