ASKING THE EMOTION QUESTION

If you have taken your Meta-Coach training in the past year, then you know that if there’s any really dangerous question that we repeatedly warn about, it is “the emotion question.” Now we therapists are the worst with this one. Given our training in psychotherapy, all you have to do is show up and we automatically say, “And how do you feel about that?” It’s as if we are on automatic and the simplest of triggers will evoke this question.

Now, true enough, on the surface this question seems caring and compassion. Yet it can just as easily operate as a cruel invitation to needless pain. Unless properly used, it will undermine your coaching and shift you into the role of a therapist or mother (or father) and you might just find yourself caught up in a co-dependent relationship with your client. Generally speaking, you can count on this, that is, asking “How do you feel about that?” is as irrelevant as it leads in the wrong direction.