Ever Thought You Don't Belong? Well, Consider this...

As a professional business and personal coach, I believe that we, as human beings, are all connected. Whether it be the mailman, our neighbor, a high-flying corporate CEO or the local check-out girl, we all have one thing in common. We all share the same qualities and traits for the simple reason that we are all human and we are alive, and we are all experiencing life's challenges, and we all have dreams and goals. We all experience happiness and sadness, ups and downs. We all bruise if you hit us. And at the very basis of our connectedness, we are all beings of spirit, all made up of the same stuff, all traveling the same journey but by different paths and taking different detours, playing different 'games' in this experience we call life.

We may not see this connection, and sometimes, we may even wish we weren't connected, but it is an essential ingredient in the coaching process. I recognize this sense of connection, but I also recognize that we are each unique and have special gifts, talents, and offerings.

One of the challenges we all face, as connected human beings, is that of remaining non-judgmental. We tend to put labels on what we hear, such as right or wrong, good or bad, happy or sad, etc. Even young children hold judgment about what they see, hear, and experience. A four year old, for example, will be quick to pronounce judgment on another child who is somehow different to him or her self, like an obese child, a loner, or someone from another country, and may even call the other child unkind names to express this judgment. And how many of us are guilty of that most easiest of judgment traps - that of judging someone by their appearance, or by the type of work somebody does?

Somehow, society has trained us to judge others as good or bad and not to accept those who are different from us or what we consider the "norm". But shifting into coaching mode, we believe that no one is right or wrong, good or bad ... they just are, and we accept who or what they are, period.

So, next time you think you were born on the wrong planet, think again. You are a part of everything and everyone. You have equal rights to be here, to look the way you do, to be the way you are. You most definitely BELONG and don't let anybody tell you differently!

Until next time...

Terri Levine
http://www.coachinstitute.com
http://www.terrilevine.com