This guy said I charge too much for coaching, then he showed up to my door
There are some people I’ve been coaching since they were in high school. Usually their parents pay for the first few sessions and then I get overinvested in the kid.
So I have to stop and ask myself: “Does this family have $30,000 for me to coach the kid for a year?”
Sometimes the answer is yes, and then my rent is on time for so many months in a row that the landlord stops by to see if I got married.
Most parents don’t have that much money and I end up coaching the kid for free. I used to think I could get extra value by having the kid come live with us and then our lives would be so interesting. The first person who did that was Melissa. She was actually the only time it worked, but I didn’t see that until one of my investments involved a girl who let Z dive in the shallow end and he chipped a tooth.
I didn’t notice the tooth until later when we were taking the picture up top. I said, “Oh my God, you could have died.”
He said, “Meh. Think of it as a reminder to not have people live with us.”
Kids don’t want interesting lives. They want parents who focus on them instead of the interestingness around them.
When I met Minami her mom had already died, thank goodness, because I definitely would not have been able to restrain myself from inviting her to live with us. But she was still young enough for me to get overinvested for free.
When Z noticed me vying to move in a new person, he said, “Mom you can’t get someone to save you by you saving other people. The world doesn’t work that way. Just save yourself.”
This is what it’s like living with kids who live with a career coach. He’s right. We all have to save ourselves.
That’s very sad for people who grew up without emotional security from their parents. Caring, individualized attention routinely directed at a child makes the child feel secure and the child grows up to feel confident doing the same for themselves.
Not that I would know. I read it in a book.
Minami has thanked me for giving her attention. When she does that it reminds me how important it is to give my kids the attention they ask for instead of the attention I want to give.
You know how you can only hate someone you know really well? I got to know Minami’s boyfriend really well in that way where I hated him.
They broke up. Then John, the boyfriend, sent a text to me that said, “I know you hate me but could you give me some advice anyway?”
I told him I only hated him because I thought he’d ruin Minami’s life. So now that he was out of Minami’s life I’d be happy to help him. I was curious.
He said he just landed in Boston. I told my kids don’t worry, I’ll meet him for coffee, he won’t come up to the apartment. When he knocked on the door, my kids scattered to their bedrooms.
I said, “You must be really hungry do you want to eat?”
He said, “Yes, are you making something? That would be great.”
If you want to know why autistic people only hang out with autistic people, it’s because of moments like this: A normal person would reply to him, let’s go out. But I said, “How about oatmeal?”
He played piano beautifully while I boiled water. And he played Z’s bass guitar while I was overzealous with the brown sugar. Then he talked and talked.
He talked so much about how he’s doing so much self-growth that I ate the equivalent of ten spoonfuls of brown sugar before I said, “You are not changing. You are just making the same decision over and over again.”
Hours of talking. I showed him how each big decision he made was actually his best decision, and since he could not have made a better decision there is no reason to change anything.
He told me about how I am not really seeing his situation. After another hour, he said, “You see everyone’s archetype and you know what they will do and why, but I want to be an exception to my archetype.”
He’s right. I do see archetypes. But just like it doesn’t help him to think he’s always an exception, it doesn’t help me to think I’m never an exception.
I see myself as the same archetype as Minami’s mom: single mother who takes her trauma and overwhelmed feelings out on her kids. Minami tells me I’m not like her mom, and then I see myself as the archetype of the autistic mom who lets other people’s reassurances make her believe she’s doing okay for her kids.
John made me realize that even though I help other people by showing them their archetype, I don’t help myself by doing that for me. Which, actually, is like the archetype of the shoemaker who has no shoes. Or the plumber with a leaky faucet. But if I were coaching the shoemaker or the plumber, and the problem was they couldn’t see past their archetype, I’d get them to see past it. And now I see that I need to do that for myself.
I feel a lightness, like there are more possibilities for me than I have ever seen. This is what it feels like to find out something big about ourselves — hard to hear at first, and then energizing. So I’m discounting my coaching sessions from $350 to $150. But only if you sign up in the next three days. Because I have to believe I’m not the archetype of someone who works really hard on their blog and never makes any money from it.
Penny,
All we can do is our best, and that has to be enough.
Peace,
D
Platinum rule better than the Golden rule…
ie “treat others how they wish to be treated”
vs “treat others how you wish for them to treat you”
Agree.It can be so hard to do.I feel we don’t always see our kids as individuals rather than extensions of ourselves.
God, I love you Penelope. For this exact reason. your unflinching analysis of yourself, articulated in a way, that anyone who has ever suffered themselves, will understand immediately, and for everyone else, it’s just a good read. Thank you. March on soldier…. you/we are really getting somewhere-
There’s so much to take in here. Your big heart. Your kid’s wisdom. I wish you had been my mom! I might have a chipped tooth but I wouldn’t be nearly as nuts!
I cracked up so much reading this. My favorite part: “When I met Minami her mom had already died, thank goodness.”
But I also smiled, because you’re always so kind to me. It truly means so much. And I didn’t know you were thinking about inviting me to live with you! I love that.
One of my favorite things about John was how he made me feel like I was good enough to do better, without making me feel bad about how I already was. One of the biggest reasons I pushed so hard on my art career was because of his encouragement. I doubt I’ll get back with him – I’ve decided I want my own family, and he already has one – but I hope you got to find out why I loved him so much, and for as long as I did. :)
Nice to hear you had a good experience. Some people live Penelope’s coaching others find it a bit confronting
Loved this.So tempted but need to get recordings from your last course first and finish this other course I’m doing.
Needless to say, therapy is not coaching, but as regards seeing a therapist, such as along with the person who lived with you in the first paragraph, here is my take:
Back in my day, a therapist who did stuff a ghost could do, such as talking, could go totally help. But for anything in the physical world, a therapist could only go half way.
For example, if you wanted a person with low energy to call a number from a resource book, a person with self esteem too low to take such action, then you could bring the book to the person, but the person would have to open the book and turn the pages on her own. (That’s a made up example)
I am supposed to be having a coaching session with you right now, 4 pm on 8/23. There has been no instructions, no feedback save a receipt, no indication of how or if I contact you or vice versa. I am not happy because I don’t know what is going on.
I think there’s some issue.I’m trying access recordings from a recent course. Had no issue previously
Ann, I saw your email address on your comment and looked for your request for recordings, but I can’t find it. Can you please resend?
As an aside, I did see that you’ve posted slews of comments in the past, so I’m taking this time to thank you. I love comments. And I’m sorry to disappoint you with my response time.
Penelope
Hi Penelope, don’t worry presumed it was a tech issue.I hope my comments are OK.As part of the course I’m doing they suggested getting more comfortable ‘breadcrumbing ‘ and being visible online.You had posted about liking when people comment so I did.
Interesting about breadcrumbing. I just read that people with autism get a huge amount from online-only relationships. I keep thinking about how much of a relationship it has to be. I mean, I can’t even tell when I’m friends with someone offline, so I really have no idea what counts as a friend online. But I do think that I feel not as alone because I have so many online-only relationships. I wonder if there is something that is breadcrumbing offline. I’d like to do that. Seems more manageable.
Penelope
Okay. I talked with Celestial for a long time yesterday, and we actually agreed to talk again. I really really want to just delete this comment because I know she is happy. But the truth is I did leave her hanging with no instructions. And it’s not the most rare thing in the world for me to miss a designated time for a coaching session. I wish I could say it never happens that I’m discombobulated. But instead I’ll say that it never happens that someone is unhappy I don’t care. I care a lot.
Penelope
Glad you got sorted with Celestial. I’m presuming real life breadcrumbing is joining groups ( as in physically going to a place to meet in person) .The group would have a niche and all the tangents off it.So then you have your topic to talk about and the tangents off it to recommend. Then people like like you and want to be around you based on that.Or if you can offer a service to this group as an expert.
I think – but I’ve only just learned about online breadcrumbing
I enjoy you and your blog. Thank you for continuing to write against many odds.
Thank you for knowing that it’s against all odds that I keep writing. I think about that all the time. You make me feel so understood.
Penelope
The “John said I’m not really seeing his situation” part is slightly out of sequence, as I started there, but you impacted my thinking with your argument about how I’ve made decisions that were in fact the best decisions I could come up with, embarrassed as I am by them.
Thank u for the oatmeal and the convo, arguing with you is like … the archetype of wrestling the Angel lol
Call Celestial you missed a coaching session
I love that you you commented.I like hearing from people who have had coaching from Penelope. It makes it seem more tangible as if it’s for anyone.Even people like me
i really enjoy your writing, but it teeter totters with being horrified for your kids at the same time
“my kids scattered to their bedrooms” – the plot B to the whole post in 6 words about them and insight of yourself as a parent
i hope more people pay you to edit their writing cuz that’s the energizing part of reading
I wish I could brush off this comment. But the commenter knows me and my kids very well. Sometimes I think that if each of you could all spend a week with me, each of you would decide that I’m a really bad parent.
Sometimes I come across a discussion online about if I’m a psychopath or not. Recently I read, “I love her writing but I stopped reading her blog because it felt like I was watching a car crash in slow motion.”
Now that I write that, I think, slow motion sort of comforts me. If I can just slow it down enough, I won’t crash until I’m in my 70s. That seems fine. On good days I think, “I need to stay stable so I don’t scare my kids away.” On bad days I think, “I need to stay stable so I don’t scare my readers away.”
Penelope
are you familiar with aella on twitter? The current discussion around her is very reminiscent of old discussions about you
Thanks for the tip. I’ll have to look.
In other twitter news, I have been locked out of my twitter account since Elon took over. It’s very frustrating because he also requires people to have an account in order to read anything on twitter. It was easy for me to say twitter is too noisy and useless when I could log in any time. Now that I have login issues I have to admit that twitter seems like a necessity.
Penelope
You’re not hearing your kids. They don’t want you to welcome people into *their* home and allow them to play *their* instruments. They don’t want you adopting strays who appeal to you for help because they don’t know any better. They don’t want a parent who allows them to be watched — around water! — by unqualified people who are then blamed when the child is injured.
They want you to take care of your own adult responsibilities, not bring in strangers to take them over for you. If you’re unable to parent, pay your bills, maintain shelter consistently or whatever, *that’s* where you need to put your energy and resources. Get a job to pay people to help you insist of pretending you’re helping people “for free” in order to have them meet your needs for company, childcare, and a feeling of importance.
Your kids are telling you what they want and also what they don’t want. You’re not listening.