True Life Coaching Success Story

“Hey Man who are you!”I was sitting on a wall next to the Armory Park outside the Peabody Essex in historic Salem when this “Goth Chick”. Not exactly Goth, well you do not expect many of them to have a southern accent. It was more than her dress that made her seem out of place, or the accent. For this is Salem, and Salem loves Vampires and things of Halloween, but Red (for that is what I will call her in this article.) seemed a long way from home. Not the one in Tenenesee, but the one in her heart. And she was running out of time to get there. For she was pregnant and if she could not find her way home, her child would not stand a chance.

The night before I had seen an equally strange guy the night before outside a bar trying to sell prescription pharmaceuticals of Red's. Tall lanky sort of fellow. Looked like what Howdy Doody would look like if he grew up in Compton. I was polite and got to know him as well over the next months.

See the two of them rode up from Tennessee on mountain Bikes hoping from shelter to shelter. Nothing new in Salem. See Salem is the Mecca for misfit toys from the country. See paddling your feet down the cobble stones of this mystical city and glancing “Oh My God stares!” at laurie Cabot, One of our local witches, will take away all the pain and injury you suffered from your parents and home towns injustices and discrimination of who you really are. Well it did not work for those young youth heading to the Holy Land during Crusades, and it still does not now. For their idol is still trying to work through the same issues that the lost flock to her to answer.

So we have two more in Salem.

So Red, upon our first meeting jokes for awhile and goes into her life. The Soap Opera of it all, that she loves! Well she is eighteen and pregnant soon to teach her child all of her successes and failures. I have known her all my life, her face shows up in so many in this country. The most recent and closest avatar of her I know is almost sixty now and has suffered her self and her children through what this young girl is about to do. So I snatch the elders ruby slippers from her and try to give her another pair to get her home.“Red, Stop! Now the next time I see you, tell me something good! A good Story!”Too often people go about and never have conversations with people but tell their story. They identify with the role and not the actor. Being typecast in the same roles, never branching out into other areas. The Histrionic behavior is an attempt to get the self soothing and comfort they can not access on their own. Their parents never gave them the security of the nest so they may learn to know that home is in the heart and it never leaves you. Like the nestling soon learns as he is drop kicked from the bough, you always can return home. Now the older of the two has never found that home yet, but I would like to see if Red could.

“A Good Story, what do you mean?”Well I explain a scenario that she wakes up from a good night’s sleep, the sun is bright on her face as she leaves her tent. She is excited because she is suppose to meet Jon at four and have a pint under the apple trees next to the Custom House. They have some good laughs and walk up the pier to the Friendship Tall Ship in the Harbor. Jon trips after Red pushes him and he falls in off the dock. She laughs her pants off watching Jon hoist his feet out of the mud flats for the tide is going out.

You start from where they are. But no tradegy of drama! Was the prescription. It took some time, but eventually she proceed from “You know what he just ...., I know good story!” to “ I went to the doctor and he said the baby is healthy and all the WIC paper work is completed and I have not done any of my man’s stuff this week.”. She was learning.

Then came the day she learned that Jonson and Jonson pill pusher not only cheated on her, but with another guy. Well with my support she contacted her Uncle, since it was her parents who twisted her head on backwards, a good man that always was from another tree than her mother. A good apple. She followed my care and suggestion and got him to drive two thousand miles and haul herself back south.

Well, Howdy doody from Compton with his accent and all. He listens well, but is not ready to give up the thrill of tradegy of drama yet. Pills and deals, dealing with missing a child not born yet and a sexuality not blossomed a tulip or rose. He tries but finds failure too much fun.

Everyone in their own time.

Yes as Life Coaches we deal with Business Executives, and Start up Entrepreneurs, but we should and can not let the others fall through the cracks. When your left brain has a full belly and cushion in the bank, let your right brain give a little compassion and tenderness.

Rome made this mistake and death and poverty in the end will strike beggar and king alike. Just because some shoes will just give you blisters.