Do you have the Balls?

Mona Cooley

6 days ago

3 min read

At 13 years of age I was told by my adopted mom that I was adopted. How did I handle this? I stuffed my emotions that led me to expressing with anger, frustration, impatience, harsh words, to a point when playing basketball, I heaved a gal across the court when she got in my way. The referree told me in a firm voice, you do that again, you will be benched for the game. He set a boundary which had me not do it again.

Do you have the balls? Juggling stressful, shocking situations, and learning from experiences what works and doesn't work. When that referee set the boundary and was clear what the consequence would be, I didn't do it again.

Life is full of juggling the stresses of challenges that has us drop the ball of what works or not recognizing what is not working which can lead to more problems. I learned the hard way of how my reactions, frustrations and impatience affected my children.

What I learned with having to change how I approached situations was when my daughter,faced with bipolar disorder told me " Mom, you don't listen and by the way quit telling me what to do". The other children did express themselves in another way, they raced out of the house to escape my reactions to situations that were frustrating me.

Gradually through trial and error, I learned to be more patient by taking the time to listen and understand more of what is happening when others are frustrated. What helped me the most was reading books such as:

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway - Susan Jeffers - instead of stuffing my feelings, I had to express them such as sharing a traumatic situation with someone ( my husband Ted was my go to).

Coach Yourself to Success by Talane Miedaner that inpsired me register to attend CoachU for 5 years.

At CoachU, I learned tools of how to listen, be curious by asking questions, and then find people to practice the tools to see what worked and what didn't work. Plus, I had to do a session working through my own emotions. After completing this, I realized why my reactions were happening and how I could approach situations more affectively. Plus I learned and practiced the tools that I learned from the coaches.

The best part of this is that my children, which brings a tear to my eyes:

They had a graduation celebration of my journey of all the jobs I had in my life (15 jobs at least) and me finding what I love doing today - coaching families through a process of learning the tools and practicing them to have them aware of what works and what does not work to have them working as a team versus reacting to situations.

A note here - my kids and husband have been relieved to know I found what I love to do as they found it tiring watching me trying to figure out what I was going to do to grow up. They all had their lives figured out but I had to do it the hard way but I am grateful for the challenging experiences to have me settled in what I want to do not what I have to do. Raising me to be where I am today was not an easy process!

All of the challenges, experiences of life have shown I am innovative, creative, adaptable to situations, took risks, passionate by Leading with a Purpose, Communicating with Confidence.

This is what I have learned through lived experience of hard knocks and coaching families since 1998:

"When you feed a family information, helps them thrive for a day. When you teach them HOW TO apply the information, they thrive a lifetime!"

Life may have you drop the ball when stressed but reminding yourself of the tools you have learned will have you pick up the ball knowing HOW TO approach the situations.