What do you love about yourself?
Twice yesterday I was reminded of a story of working with a client a few years ago. Also a coach, she was reflecting on the testimonial she had received from one of her client, and a general feeling of disappointment with it.
That, I explained, had been my experience with every testimonial I had ever received.
The client and I reflected on our perfectionism, the high standards that had driven us to success; the unwillingness to see the praise for what it is, to allow that unwillingness to drive us on to even more. And that, certainly, was part of the reason that we two found ourselves dissatisfied with our testimonials.
Reflecting yesterday, though, on the Better Bolder Braver podcast, I shared another viewpoint: I think that, if you have a good grasp of the power of the coaching you have done with someone, a testimonial will almost always feel slightly empty. The truth is that almost no two or three paragraphs of writing, no matter how articulate and enthusiastic, can truly compare to the magic of what coaching can create. Written almost always from the rational, a testimonial can't hold all of what has transformed for someone, especially over months or years.
So which is it? My and my client's unwillingness to absorb praise, or the false comparison of a few sentences of writing with hours of transformational conversations? Well, as Jennifer Garvey Berger effectively said when I spoke to her for The Coach's Journey Podcast, the answer is almost always both.
But the story of my client and me didn't quite end there. In our next coaching session, she came back and said something like: 'Robbie, I went and looked at your testimonials after our last conversation... and I think you need to think more about that. They're amazing.'
And here's what's interesting. When I went back to my testimonials after hearing her say that, I could see that they were - indeed - amazing. These incredible people I'd worked with, who I admired and cared for and respected, had written truly remarkable things about the work we'd done together. When she pointed that out to me, I could see it better.
This reminded me of Robert Holden's profound book, Loveability. One of my favourite stories in the book is of a boy at Holden's school, Adam Kent. As I remember it (in my probably embellished version of the story), Kent was a greasy-haired, oddly dressed character who, despite outward appearances, somehow managed to get all the girls. Confused and frustrated by this, Holden once asked Kent, 'Adam, what's your secret, how do you get all these girls to go out with you?'
'Well, that's easy, Robert. I love myself.'
For those who grew up, like me, in England, 'loving yourself' is never a good thing, and only a sign of arrogance and too much pride. Preening, prima-donnas love themselves. No good human would.
And yet Adam Kent, who it seems truly was able to love himself exactly as he was, shows us just one part of the possibility of what can happen if we truly, deeply love ourselves.
Reading Loveability two years ago, struck by that story and many others, I struggled to come to terms with the fact that on most levels I could think about it... I didn't love myself. Certainly it didn't come naturally. And Holden's argument is incredibly convincing: all the things we want, but particularly the love of others, has to start with the love of self.
Around that time I remember vividly standing after getting out of the shower, thinking about this. Looking for something, anything, that I could say that I actually, really, fully loved. Despite the embarrassment of sharing this, it's important to say I did find something: I found that I really did, slowing down, love the hair on my chest. I can't really tell you why (although I could speculate it's because of an admiration for David Duchovny/Fox Mulder), but that was the truth. And that's where my journey of self-love took a new turn.
Reflecting on this story with a different client last year, as she shared her struggles with self-love and the incredible value of her partner's love for her, we speculated: maybe that's part of what the people who love us are here to do. Show us what to love about ourselves, show us how to love ourselves, and give us permission to do that loving.
That, perhaps, is part of why love is such a transformational practice: it helps us see as we really are - an undoubtedly loveable being, wrestling with this thing called life.
That, in a smaller way, is what the client helped me do with my testimonials (and she, by the way, has fantastic testimonials too). In fact, that's what each testimonial, in some small way, has the potential to do for me.
And more importantly, that is what my parents, then my friends, then my wife have done for me throughout my life.
But the truth is, the most important moment of self-love that I can remember is to find a part of myself, physically or psychologically, that I could truly say that I loved. That's where the shift felt like it started for me.
What do you love about yourself?
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
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