One of the core challenges every coach eventually encounters is the tendency to project their own truth onto the client’s situation.
Let me explain…
Coaches are human. Through personal experience, reflection, and learning, we naturally arrive at certain conclusions about life, relationships, choices, and change.
And if we’re not deeply aware, those conclusions can quietly slip into our work with clients – often with the best intentions.
This is where the real challenge starts.
Each person is their own universe. What was true for us is not necessarily true for the client.
The essence of coaching is not helping a client follow our conclusions, but creating enough space for them to hear themselves clearly.
This doesn’t mean rejecting experience or knowledge. It means knowing when not to place them in front of the client’s inner process.
Let me give you an example.
A client talks about feeling stuck and dissatisfied at work and begins to consider a career change. The coach has gone through a similar phase in their own life and already carries a clear inner sense of what “makes sense” as the next step.
If the coach isn’t aware of that inner conclusion, it can easily leak into the session – (1) through leading questions, (2) subtle reactions, or (3) a shift in tone when the client explores a different direction.
When the coach stays present without needing to guide or know the answer, the focus naturally returns to what’s happening inside the client. Where their energy opens. Where it contracts. What they feel as they speak about different possibilities.
In that space, the client doesn’t receive someone else’s truth. They gain access to their own.
Another example.
A client is going through a crisis in a long-term relationship and is considering separation.
The coach has personally been through a divorce and has drawn strong conclusions about what feels healthy, necessary, or inevitable.
Without enough awareness, those conclusions may surface through (1) questions that subtly favor separation, through (2) emphasizing the relief that can follow divorce, or through (3) gently minimizing the client’s ambivalence.
When the coach remains with the client without the need to validate their own past path, the focus shifts from decision to process.
What comes into the center are the client’s conflicting feelings, fears, longings, and unspoken truths that surface as they consider staying or leaving.
In that space, decisions don’t arise because “this is what one should do,” but because the client has heard themselves clearly enough for what is true to become obvious.
This is why I often say that the basic techniques of coaching can be learned relatively quickly – within two to three years of consistent practice.
What comes after that has little to do with new tools. It’s about increasingly subtle differences in listening, responding, and knowing when not to intervene.
These refinements take time and can’t be rushed. They develop through experience, ongoing practice, and a willingness to continually observe our own tendencies.
The difference between a more experienced coach and someone at the beginning of the journey isn’t primarily about models or methods. It lives in those quiet refinements that are hard to explain, but easy to feel in the quality of the space the coach holds.
And often, it’s precisely those quiet refinements that make the real difference. A sensitivity that Light Body work naturally helps develop.