'Finding your K ..no.. w'

This is a case study which highlights an area of work that I am increasingly interested in and has become increasingly prevalent since lockdown 2020.

Part 1.

A young school leaver came to see me overwhelmed with fear and anxiety within her world, experiencing frequent panic attacks and fearful of crowds and strangers. She described a solid brick wall that surrounded her, reaching as far as her eyes could see, and as high as her sight would let her imagine, whilst also living in a bubble of familiarity. Comforting because it was a known, and yet stifling her ability to move confidently around her inner and outer world.  A sense of inertia, fatigue, hopelessness and unreality imploding its relative safety.

We began our work together, Evie described her feelings, filing the room with a silent swirling cloud of disparate words and deeds from fear to angst and from overwhelm to paralysing terror… her inner world felt small and self- limiting and at the same time too big and too scary to grab hold of … she told me of how she couldn’t sit in a cinema long enough to watch a film, she couldn’t manage crowded streets, or the mass of people moving around an open day at university.  Whilst conceding to the limitations of her bubble she also felt too frightened to move out of it.

She set her coaching goal. She wanted to feel ‘normal’ but couldn’t tell me what that was anymore, she wanted to feel confident enough to go to university, but she doubted when it came to it that she would go, she wanted to expand her thinking, she wanted to learn more but all of this felt too hard, her anchor of anxiety too heavy to lift.

The presence of social media platforms had given rise to an existential crisis -an enlarged sense of self that left her feeling judged, observed, watching herself being watched … was she pretty enough? was she thin enough? was she clever enough? would she fail? How far? How deep? 

Academically she was soaring, and yet the results were never good enough, fixated by excellence 99% was not a 100%, the pressure came from within, a gnawing voice inside bringing her down, critically assaulting her, admonishing her with put-me-downs, insisting on more study at the kitchen table minutes after she had got home from college on a Friday evening. 

  We journeyed through the myriads of anxiety and panic, of breaking anxiety into manageable chunks. The 0-100 of fear, fight and flight became a spectrum of the different levels of anxiety. Once named, the dial allowed for specifity and clarification and this enabled a more balanced perspective on the relativity of any one state.

We questioned her previous habits of thinking, how were they serving her ? where had they come from ? what was the block/assumption that stood in her way? What colour was it? what was it made of? What were the facts and what were the perceptions that countered them? 

We looked at her habitual behaviours through the lens of TA Drivers (Harris, Berne, Hay) – the Perfectionist, the positives and the negatives of setting high expectations and the concept of failure as a learning tool, where we grow, where we truly are our best most authentic selves.

We talked at length about Knowing when and how to say ‘No’. The use of this small word to set boundaries for herself and occasionally others was a new skill for her, particularly difficult to imagine using under pressure from peers or elders, or even her friends.  

Over the next few months Evie began to experience a more grounded sense of herself, She developed her own Mantra that supported her , a small practice of breathing that her took  her through her day, she became more aware of her own personal responsibility and where it sat  - what was hers and what was everyone else’s .

She worked hard on the negative aspects of her perfectionism and practiced ‘letting go’ of some unrealistic levels of behaviour. She learnt about flexibility and how trees are strong because they can flex. She learnt to say ‘No’.

We talked further about the balance of power in groups, what the essence of good friendship looked like, what she needed from them.  The comfort of receiving no judgement, no instruction, to know when empathy went a long way and solutions were not always required.

Gradually, she re- emerged into her family and social life, found her sense of humour, her voice and a newly acquired confidence. The Panic Attacks reduced, the intensity of her experienced gauged on a scale of 0-10 rather than 100 brought perspective to her emotional life.

In our sessions, she began to visualise windows in her brick wall and slowly the holes became big enough for her to crawl through. Then the walls crumbled, a ladder appeared, fear lessened, and excitement and possibility took its place.

Her perfectionism driver remains but increased self-awareness and understanding has brought greater flexibility, she began to see humour in her previous obsessions and laugh gently at the absurdity of some of her own high standards. 

Our conversations ebbed and flowed, until she launched herself into her life and when September came Evie found herself in halls with a new best friend and a social life, living the life that she had always strived for but had had no idea how to reach.

Part 11

My practice as a Personal and Business Coach in the last few years has slowly filled with young people confused by feelings of anxiety and fear, who are in a place that they assign as ‘stuck’, ‘confused’ or ‘boxed in’.  Life too big to grasp and their part in it too small. 

If only they could turn the telescope around. 

At times their words spill over in confused angst – at other times they struggle to explain anything at all. Expressions like I am overwhelmed; I have no control; I have no power; I can’t move; I can’t think; I feel anxious; what is wrong with me? what is normal? Will I ever be free? 

The paradox of external forces (climate change, pandemics, the world view) and internal voices (including the virtual world) crashing through their minds, catastrophising their every thought. 

There are many articles in the past few years (The Guardian 2019, Child Mind institute 2021) which have sited Social Media Platforms including Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram as invoking anxiety, depression, and sleep deprivation. Snapchat was cited in particular for making young people feel negative, creating feelings of worry over feeling left out.

There seems to be both a need for projection and an introspection to fill the space between the vastness of the crumbling crust of the wider world and the minutiae of where they exist ..In recent times through lockdown, their real world  became increasingly small, whilst their virtual world became increasingly infinite. The space in between where perspective could/should be levelling the playing field, seems to have become a void of fear, an empty space devoid of meaning and proportion.  

What is in this void? Where and what is life when it doesn’t appear on a screen 6cm x13 cm?

The Coach and Nurturing Parent in me remains concerned.  I am anxious for them to free themselves of the bonds that seem to have tied them in knots around waist and wrists and middle toes.

Out there in the real world which was once full of work, lectures, assignments, learning, and 

play? Where is the identity of the individual? Where is the integrity?  In the need for perfection, the perfect response, the perfect relationship, the perfect body, wit, charm, intelligence and mind? Who has that? 

“We're always looking to the Other because we're storied beings – because we make sense of our lives in relation to others,”  Brunel University London senior lecturer Anne Chappell.

Part III

Coaching spaces are safe spaces for young adults to explore – to swap the wrong end of the telescope for the right end of a periscope.

I am particularly aware of how often young adults find themselves in a situation where it is difficult to say No. But through their coaching journey, understanding how to, and when to say No, and to find their boundaries for themselves and others, leads them to experience that sense of control and self- discipline which will inevitably lead them to greater self -awareness. A deepening in their understanding of themselves and those around them. This is the ‘Know’ that I refer to in my title.

In my coaching space I offer an opportunity to explore their own perspective and realities against a tested ground of well researched life tools – that they can pack up in their rucksacks and embed as their own for life and living their best selves. 

Sources for Coaching Tools :

Rational Emotive Behaviour Theory REBT(C)pioneered by Dr. Albert Ellis 

TA drivers and I m OK- You’re OK Harris, Berne, Hay