A Coaching Session Is a Way for Your True Self to Contact You

A coaching session, as I understand it, is a space, an experience, a process where your true self can contact you.

Not because someone tells you who you are, or acts as an expert on you or your life.
Not because insight is delivered or conclusions are drawn.

But because the conditions finally exist for you to listen.
To listen to yourself.

Most of us spend large parts of our lives managing ourselves and others — monitoring what is appropriate, acceptable, reasonable, or expected. We speak from habit, from role, from adaptation. We stay functional, articulate, and composed — often at the cost of contact with ourselves.

As young children, we had to adapt. To parents. To family systems. To society. We learned, often very early, that we had to be something in order to belong.

Good.
Not too much.
Quiet.
Bright.
Beautiful.
Smart.
Successful.

We learned that love, worth, and connection were not always unconditional.

So we learned to hide parts of ourselves. The parts that were inconvenient. Too emotional. Too loud. Too slow. Too intense. Or simply not appreciated. We disconnected from them and created a version of ourselves that worked — a more acceptable, more polished, more shiny version.

And that fear — of not being loved, not being seen, of being judged — often stays with us into our grown-up lives.

As women, many of us try to arrive at a place where we are beyond reproach. Highly skilled. Educated. Attentive. Good. Smart. Successful. Following the rules. Doing it right.

Often at a cost.
At the cost of ourselves.
At the cost of not being whole.

Sometimes we don’t even know what this “authentic self” could look like anymore. The inner critic and the perfectionist voice are loud. They judge quickly. They keep us from even looking there.

In a well-held coaching space, these voices can soften.

When your nervous system no longer has to stay on guard, something else becomes possible. An internal conversation — usually interrupted by urgency, self-judgment, lack of self-compassion, or performance — can begin to unfold. Thoughts slow down. Sensations become noticeable. Contradictions are allowed to exist without being resolved too quickly.

This is not introspection in isolation.
It is self-contact in relationship.

The presence of another regulated human matters here. Not because the coach has answers, but because their steady, non-judgmental presence creates a space where vigilance is no longer required. In this space, you do not need to defend, impress, explain, or justify yourself. You do not need to arrive clear or ready. You can arrive exactly as you are.

What emerges in this space is often quiet at first. It does not shout. It does not optimize. It does not argue. It speaks in sensations, images, half-sentences, hesitations. This is why it so often goes unheard in everyday life.

A coaching session is not about extracting this voice or translating it into action too quickly. It is about allowing it to exist long enough to be felt.

The coach’s role here is not to lead the conversation, but to protect it. To lend compassion at times when you do not yet have self-compassion. To lend safety and trust when you do not feel safe with yourself yet.

Over time, the safety of this relationship can be internalized — not as dependency, but as earned trust in yourself.

A coaching session is not about becoming someone new.
It is about coming back into contact with who you already are.