Reflective entry week 9 (Agata S.)

This week assignment was an opportunity for me to make introspection about who I become during all those years of living and to whom I need to be thankful for the person I am now, and what do I need to do to continue this way or even get better. This introspection was common to the 3 of us, because we truly realized that we are lucky people and that we should be grateful for that every single day. Nevertheless we forget about that in our daily life and we tend to emphasize the negative parts of our lives because it’s easier to feel miserable after something that didn’t go the way we wanted it to go, than taking a minute to reflect about what just happened and the reasons why in order to make it better. We had to put words on the feelings of gratefulness we had inside to really realize them. This grateful journal assignment is a new challenge for the three of us, as we decided that we will keep it in order to write from time to time what we are grateful for, because it helped us.

Being the observer was very interesting as we shared our deepest feelings and I figured out that we had much more in common than we thought. Indeed, I had to hear the words said by my teammates so that it makes a “click” in my brain and that I can really realized it. As the coachee I felt really connected with my coach, I wasn’t ashamed of what I was feeling and it’s a big step for me as I am a person that doesn’t like to express her inner feelings because it makes me feel vulnerable, and being vulnerable expose me to pain. And as every human being I don’t like pain! The role of the coach was for me a bigger challenge this week than it was before. Indeed, I had to focus even more on the listening part in order to better understand my coachee and helped her efficiently. I have read her gratitude journal before the meeting and I found some similarities with mine, and I didn’t wanted to influence her through my own experience, but really focus on her.

After the three of us played all roles, we had a moment of exchanges where we asked questions to each other from a non coaching perspective but much more to share experiences. It comes out of nowhere but it felt so natural and the conversation was so smooth that we didn’t even think of leaving or interrupting the other person. In my opinion this coaching assignment was a turning point in our group. We realized that we can really share personal things to each other without being ashamed and that we have a lot in common. An atmosphere of trust and support of one another had been created, and it’s nice to know that we can really count on each other. Being honest, if you would have told me that such a relation will be created at the beginning of the semester, I will be very skeptical about it… and now I can only advise and wish to the other groups to have such a spirit as he have.