It’s been about one week since you’ve run that load of laundry and it’s still sitting on the dining room table waiting to be folded. Does that sound familiar? Or maybe your associate called three days ago, and still you haven’t called back. How about that one? One last guess, you’ve been meaning to exercise more often – you even signed up for those classes at the yoga centre, but that attendance sheet has yet to receive more than a single tick.

We’ve all got a story, situations that we neglect, or don’t want to acknowledge. But you know what? That’s just surface stuff. What we really all have is a ‘deeper story’, and it’s often a story we don’t even want to tell ourselves. But today we’re going to hear from Lisa, you know Lisa – we’ve been learning alongside, and she’s going to share her ‘real story’ as an illustration that once you tackle the core problem, all that other stuff takes care of itself.

“When we first started coaching, it wasn’t long after my mom had passed away. There was so much stuff, so much stuff, and we moved it all to my house the weekend after she died. That was really painfully hard. The whole part of my dining room was full of boxes and stuff, not just my mom’s but also my dad’s stuff.”

Lisa has a strong link between disorder and emotional upheaval. While she realizes this connection now, looking back she can see how the emotional impact spread through her life. “It wasn’t the stuff . . . it was the emotions behind the stuff that made it impossible to put away. My office become out of order, everything became out of order.”

It was during coaching with Sister Leadership that Lisa finally began to tackle her deeper, more relevant story: “We got more into the deeper levels of what is the real story. It’s not about the stuff, so what am I having a hard time with? You know, we worked through that, and it was like plucking a thorn out of my side. In fact, I don’t even remember the points anymore, but once they were addressed, it heals up and it’s gone. Evaporated. I went home, and over the course of a weekend I just put it away.”

A task that had felt so momentous suddenly became manageable once the emotions were addressed.

Your take away: Start to dig. See where you feel you’re failing, and start asking why. Ask it over and over until the emotional guard drops and you begin to hit deeper issues.

A great technique for this is free writing: write down your problem, and then just let your mind go as your hand begins to explain the situation.

Another technique is to bring this to a coach who has the tools to not only revel your deeper story, but also give you a coping strategy and reveal how that emotional issue ripples through your entire life.

“What I find at work is that it’s often the same as home. If I clear up here, I will go home and clear up there.”

What about you – think of an issue that you can’t shake off, whether it seems big or small, and start working backwards.  We all have these deeper stories, and they impact the decisions made on a daily basis. The first step in regaining control is to ask why.

So go ahead right now. Ask yourself: Why?

 

Camille Boivin is founder of Sister Leadership, bringing herknowledge of resilience, perseverance, and changing perception to others. She aspires to  help women explode their success. For more posts and experiences, join Camille at her Sister Leadership page, connect on Twitter, and follow on Facebook . Welcome to the Sister Leadership community!