This is an archived blog post from Green Alder Coaching
I felt inclined to write this blog post after quite an extraordinary day…
It was midday and I stood in the middle of the pavement aghast at what I had just witnessed…I hesitated and thought to myself ‘No, I am not a stupid sl*t…I just happened to be walking on the pavement when a lady tried to cut across me.’ I then straightened up my posture, took a deep breath, and walked on my way…
During the morning I was planning to meet one of my final pro-bono clients at Angel Tube station for her second session. I was just about to leave to meet her when the phone rang….It was my client explaining that Angel was no longer convenient for her, and she wanted me to travel completely out of my way, at extra cost to me.
I politely declined and proceeded to explain why. I was then subjected to a barrage of insults with a final label ‘This is not good enough…you are ALWAYS shifting goal-posts!’…I pondered this as she hung up the phone on me. I was confused. Then I remembered we had both had some difficulty coordinating her second appointment due to conflicting schedules…
I promptly emailed and cancelled further free coaching sessions, due to a mutual breakdown of the coaching relationship. My first ever conflict noted and certainly a pause for reflection…
I could have so easily shamed myself into feeling I was bad in some way…but I was able to step back and broaden my perspective. In fact, she is not a client from my resonant niche or tribe anyway…
I still went out to shop.
I was walking along the pavement, laden with food shopping, and a woman went to quickly cut across me; but I kept going. It all happened so quickly. She was forced to stop to let me continue to pass, but she impatiently shouted in a snarling voice ‘You Stupid Sl*t!!’….
Golly, I thought, what on earth has got into people today?…
In the past, I would have taken it to heart, ruminating and internalising it….perhaps ruining my day. But not today…I put a smile on my face shifted my perspective and kept on walking.
We can be so quick to label people as, for example, bad, always, and stupid. It kind of slips so easily off the tongue, without hesitation, in the heat of the moment.
If we internalise and believe these labels, they can chip away at our self-worth: toxic words.
On the flip side, we much prefer words like, for example, great, fantastic, and good....but surely, these positive words are part of a double-edged sword of good and bad; you cannot have one without the other. If someone is bad then another is good. If someone is always then another is never and so on…
So perhaps, we would be better off hesitating for a moment before we label someone as always, good or bad, and think about labeling the behaviour instead and NOT the person..and choose to respond differently.
So, today, I have effectively re-framed my two verbal labeling collisions from I am always moving the goalposts to I am simply not agreeing to her last-minute demand for me to travel to her.
I am not a stupid sl*t. I simply chose to keep walking forward down the street when a lady tried to cut across me…She was forced to stop.
Label the behaviour and not the person…
Do you have any examples of labeling the person over the behaviour? I would love for you to comment below or share my blog post link.
Onwards and upwards!
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