Coach as Instrument: Feeling as a Path to Meaning
Jul 25, 2023
”As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.” – Carl Jung
Beneath the motivations, our clients have for getting coaching are their desires to live a meaningful life. As coaches, part of our implicit (if not explicit role) is supporting our clients in being aware of the meaning they are making and to make conscious of the discernment of what “a meaningful life” is for them.
Feelings are how we make meaning. Feelings are what give our lives meaning.
Yet, as essential as feelings are to our human experience, we aren’t taught about them as children, adults, or (for most of us) even as coaches.
Data gathered by Learning in Action over the past 20 years on over 25,000 coaches and their clients indicates that, under stress, roughly 40% of this population focuses more outside themselves than inside themselves, thus leaving emotions out of view. And close to 95% of this population relies less on their feelings than on any other dimension of their internal experience.
As a result, feelings can remain a mystery to clients and coaches alike, making the quest for a “meaningful life” elusive.
The Anatomy of Emotions
While there are a myriad of ways of defining emotions, most emotion researchers agree that an emotion is a biologically-based psychological state with an evolutionary purpose. To break that down into the anatomy of an emotion, it means that an emotion is made up of three parts:
- a physiological response (e.g., a bodily reaction or sensation)
- a subjective experience (e.g., an interpretation of the situation producing the emotion or a story we make up about the situation)
- a behavioral response (e.g., an impulse to do or not do something).
To the extent that we pay attention to our emotions, most of us focus more on their impulse (or on what they motivate us to do or not do) than on the bodily reaction they produce or the story we’ve made up about them.
To take this out of the theoretical and into the practical, let’s examine the emotion of anger.
The Anatomy of Anger
Physiological Response/Bodily Reaction -
- Our body becomes activated and gets bigger
- Our body/face/fists tense
- Our focus narrows and turns outward
”As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.” – Carl Jung
Beneath the motivations, our clients have for getting coaching are their desires to live a meaningful life. As coaches, part of our implicit (if not explicit role) is supporting our clients in being aware of the meaning they are making and to make conscious of the discernment of what “a meaningful life” is for them.
Feelings are how we make meaning. Feelings are what give our lives meaning.
Yet, as essential as feelings are to our human experience, we aren’t taught about them as children, adults, or (for most of us) even as coaches.
Data gathered by Learning in Action over the past 20 years on over 25,000 coaches and their clients indicates that, under stress, roughly 40% of this population focuses more outside themselves than inside themselves, thus leaving emotions out of view. And close to 95% of this population relies less on their feelings than on any other dimension of their internal experience.
As a result, feelings can remain a mystery to clients and coaches alike, making the quest for a “meaningful life” elusive.
The Anatomy of Emotions
While there are a myriad of ways of defining emotions, most emotion researchers agree that an emotion is a biologically-based psychological state with an evolutionary purpose. To break that down into the anatomy of an emotion, it means that an emotion is made up of three parts:
- a physiological response (e.g., a bodily reaction or sensation)
- a subjective experience (e.g., an interpretation of the situation producing the emotion or a story we make up about the situation)
- a behavioral response (e.g., an impulse to do or not do something).
To the extent that we pay attention to our emotions, most of us focus more on their impulse (or on what they motivate us to do or not do) than on the bodily reaction they produce or the story we’ve made up about them.
To take this out of the theoretical and into the practical, let’s examine the emotion of anger.
The Anatomy of Anger
Physiological Response/Bodily Reaction -
- Our body becomes activated and gets bigger
- Our body/face/fists tense
- Our focus narrows and turns outward
Subjective experience/Interpretation -
- A line has been crossed
- A value has been violated
- Something is unexpected, not “right.”
Behavioral response/Impulse -
- To stop or change what’s happening
- As if to say - “No!” or “Stop”
What’s important about emotions?
“Emotions…are at the root of everything we do, the unquenchable origin of every act more complicated than a reflex. ….In all cases, emotions are humanity’s motivator and its omnipresent guide”. — The General Theory of Love
Emotions have information for us that no other dimension of our experience provides. Emotions allow us to communicate, connect, decide, and survive and motivate us to act. And each emotion contains a gift, when accessed, and points to something important to us.
For the last 20 years, Learning in Action has been training coaches about emotions and the information and gifts they have for us. And even after we provide ample information on the topic, we frequently get the question: “Why would I want to be angry?”.
You can hear in the question a common conflation people make. They equate “feeling” anger with “acting” angry. And as Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl famously said:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”
Meaning we can “feel” anger and not “act” angry. In fact, we want to feel anger when a line has been crossed or a value has been violated. For instance:
The Information in the emotion of anger:
- A value has been violated
- A line has been crossed
- An expectation has not been met
The Gift of accessing anger:
- Boundary-setting (i.e., We can make clear what’s ok and what’s not ok.)
- Motivation to act (i.e., Perhaps stop or change what’s happening.)
- Direction (i.e., Clarity about what needs to be done.)
And when we don’t access an emotion, such as the emotion of anger, we do so at our own cost. For instance, when we don’t access the emotion of anger, we lose both the information and the gift of it. And the cost to us is that we will tend to be taken advantage of by others because of our own lack of boundary setting. We’ll tend to tolerate situations (and people) to the point of our own overwhelm and/or burnout.
For more information on the role of emotions and the cost of not accessing them, see our role of emotions guide HERE.
Why might we not access certain emotions?
To the extent we “learn” about emotions, our learning is implicit and “taught” to us (most often indirectly) by our parents, caregivers, teachers, and sports coaches. And to survive both physically and psychologically, we learned which emotions were ok, allowed, tolerated, and which weren’t, and which emotions, when expressed, would be rewarded and/or get our needs met and which would be disregarded and/or punished in some way and/or not get our needs met.
We take our implicit understanding of emotions into adulthood, and (particularly under stress) we’ll tend to under-access certain emotions and over-access others. Further, we’ll tend to be unaware that we are over or under-accessing one or more emotions. And to the extent we are aware we are accessing an emotion, we’ll tend to feel we’re “right” about what emotions we access and to what degree we access them.
How do we know if we are over or under-accessing an emotion?
Without an extraordinary amount of introspection, reflection, and feedback, or an instrument like Learning in Action’s WE-Q Profile, we don’t know if we are over or under-accessing an emotion. Our own experience is all we know and it’s been developed in response to our life and relational events throughout our lives.
It’s why the WE-Q Profile was created. So that coaches and their clients could see what emotions they access and to what degree. (The WE-Q Profile also measures and reveals a myriad of other dimensions of internal experiences, such as empathy accuracy, compassion, and internal versus external orientation.)
What’s the difference between feelings and emotions?
While there is not a high level of agreement on this, and most people (me included) tend to use the words interchangeably, I like how the difference between the two is described in the field of Non-violent Communication (NVC). In that field, feelings are considered to be the subset of emotions experienced by the body that we have access to. To the extent that we can access an emotion, it’s a feeling. The sensations that are experienced by the body but not yet by the mind are emotions.
Continuing with what NVC tells us about feelings, each feeling relates to a universal need that is either met or unmet. Pleasant feelings relate to met needs, and distressing feelings relate to unmet needs. Needs are both universal (meaning everyone has needs of some kind) and unique to us (meaning our needs are unique to us).
How do we help our clients find the meaning their emotions have for them?
“Emotions are the means through which we can discern the parts of (the) self that the soul seeks to heal, and through which we come to see the action of the soul in physical matter.” – Gary Zukav – Seat of the Soul
As I’ve been training coaches in the field of emotions for the past 10 years, I’ve learned that many coaches are quite tentative about exploring emotions with their clients. And for some good reasons.
First, many of our clients are clearly emotional about the experiences they share in coaching sessions, but don’t use “feeling words” to describe them. Second, some clients may push back on the exploration of emotions because they “aren’t looking for therapy” (thereby conflating the exploration of emotions with therapy), or they want to keep the conversation at a more tangible and/or surface level. And that’s ok.
A primary dictum in coaching is “meet the client where they are.” Meaning if the client is pushing back on the exploration of emotions, it means they aren’t ready to turn inward to reflect on their own experience in that way. And, I believe that it’s OK, at the right time, to begin to educate our clients on the anatomy of emotions and unique information and gifts they have for us. And to discuss how exploring emotions can give them more agency over their experience.
Unless and until the client pushes back, anything that is happening in the coaching session is content for the coaching. Meaning if the client says they are “frustrated” about something. Then “frustrated” is worth exploring.
We could explore “frustrated” with questions like:
- Will you tell me more about your frustration?
- What’s it like for you to feel frustrated?
- How do you experience frustration?
- Where in your body do you feel frustration? *
- What might your frustration be telling you?
In this way, we are supporting the client in exploring how they are relating to whatever is generating frustration. Because in the end, the only thing the client can control for sure is how they are relating to their situation. And shining a light on that relationship (in this case, a relationship of frustration) can connect the client with the information their mind and body have for them and can begin to open and shift their experience.
* Locating emotions in the body may be foreign to you and/or your client, and helping them be aware of where frustration is in their body can help them create more awareness and, therefore, agency over their experience. And if you or your client is uncomfortable with this, you can leave it out.
As mentioned before, our emotions are unique to us and the meaning we are making. Ten people can experience the same exact situation and come away with ten completely different emotional experiences. So helping our clients connect with the meaning they are making of their experience can be incredibly valuable for them.
We can connect our clients with the meaning and information their feelings have for them by asking questions like:
- What interpretation has you feeling the way you do? (i.e., What’s the story you are making up about this?)
- How familiar is that story to you? What are you noticing about it?
- What’s the unmet need beneath frustration?
- What might this emotion be pointing to?
By exploring our client’s emotions in this way, we are keeping the conversation about the meaning the client is making about the situation. Further, we are keeping the focus on what information their experience has for them.
With these questions, we aren’t trying to get our clients somewhere or get them to see something or solve a problem for them. We are simply returning the client to themselves to support them in accessing the wisdom their minds and bodies have for them.
How do we help our clients find solid ground in their emotional experience?
"So often, when we feel lost, adrift in our lives, our first instinct is to look out into the distance to find the nearest shore. But that shore, that solid ground, is within us. The anchor we are searching for is connection, and it is internal. To form meaningful connections with others, we must first connect with ourselves, but to do either, we must first establish a common understanding of the language of emotion and human experience.“ — Brené Brown from Atlas of the Heart
The best thing we can do to help our clients find solid ground in times of emotional turmoil and chaos is to support them in exploring their emotional experience. We can turn our clients' focus, not toward the distant shore, but inward to find solid ground within themselves.
We can do this by using the exploration questions mentioned above and/or the WE-Q Profile to help them connect with and understand their unique emotional experience.
When we can connect our clients with the meaning their emotions have for them, we support them in discovering and living a meaningful life.
Are you ready to enhance your coaching practice and profoundly impact your clients' journey toward a meaningful life? As a coach, you play a crucial role in helping your clients connect with the information and gifts their emotions hold.
Become a Certified WE-Q Practitioner and begin a path that empowers your clients to take charge of their experiences. Discover techniques to facilitate the WE-Q Profile, a unique simulation-based instrument, and witness the incredible difference it makes in your clients' lives.
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