Reflection: Opening our hearts to hear each other

For the past week, I have recovering from a cold and feeling rather miserable about it.  Particularly as I had to cancel two clients on Friday who I was really looking forward to coaching.

And then, yesterday out of the blue, came an email from a client I had worked with a year ago that really shifted me out of my funk!  It was from a woman who came to me feeling like she was in an impossible place.  Her husband really wanted a child but she was very unsure.   While the coaching primarily focused on her,  I also gave her some exercises to work on with her husband.  Often, when people come to me and the crux of the dilemma is very connected to their partner or husband, I have found it is crucial to facilitate my client to find ways to communicate more effectively with their partner.  When we find ways to connect and speak from our heart, then it can allow the other person to do the same, to open their heart and have a real, authentic conversation about their fears around having children or not having children.

What I have found over the years is clients who find themselves at odds with partners around the decision to have kids or not  is that they and their partners get into entrenched positions and it become very difficult to see a way forward.  Sometimes, it may be necessary to see a specialist couples therapist in order to resolve the issue.   In one of my most popular posts on this blog, you can see in the comments section, many women who are in a very painful situation with a partner who does not want children.  And as I pointed out before, loving someone who doesn't want kids (when you do) is a very painful place to be.  On the other side, it can also be very painful if you are the one who doesn't doesn't want children.

But I have found that just giving my clients simple questions to ask each other and giving ourselves the space to truly listen to the other, can make all the difference.  My client who emailed me put it beautifully, 'the questions you had us asked helped ups to open our hearts to hear each other'

What would it if we could open our hearts to hear each other just a little bit more? I wonder how many other problems would resolve themselves if we could do this?