💡 Coaching Insights: The Gift on the Other Side of Resistance

Have you ever wondered what might happen if you allowed yourself to truly look inward? What truths might you discover if you moved beyond surface-level engagement with yourself?

During a recent book club gathering for "The Places When There Are Spaces," something extraordinary happened. A participant—someone who confessed to rarely making time for reading and being uncomfortable talking about herself—shared a moment of transformation so genuine and moving that it deserved to be highlighted. This episode captures that powerful exchange.

Working 80-90 hours weekly, this participant had always struggled to find time for reading. Books would sit half-finished for months as life's demands took priority. Yet something compelled her to join this book club, her first ever. As she began engaging with the reflective questions in the book, she noticed herself answering only "surfacely," skimming along the top of her thoughts rather than diving deeper. 

The magic happened when she recognized this pattern and made a conscious choice: "I said well, this isn't going to work, so you better just open up." What followed was a journey into self-awareness that she wished had come earlier in life. She connected deeply with discussions about tolerating things that once brought joy and confronted her fear of not being good enough—universal struggles many of us share but rarely voice aloud.

Her story reminds us of the transformative power of pauses—those spaces between interactions where tremendous growth can happen if we're brave enough to listen to ourselves. If her journey resonates with you, perhaps it's time to create your own space for reflection. What might you discover about yourself in the silence?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Book Club Revelation Introduction
• 1:25 First-Time Book Club Experience
• 2:15 Learning Through Self-Reflection
• 3:12 Finding Joy in Pauses

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:23

Hey there, in this episode I'm sharing a moment from a recent book club gathering I held with my book the Places when there Are Spaces, and one of the participants, someone who shared that she rarely makes time to read and doesn't usually talk about herself. Well, she shared something else that was so generous, vulnerable and profoundly human that I thought I'd share it here. I was genuinely humbled to witness it. What she revealed may have been deeply personal to her, but I have a feeling it's something many of us will recognize in ourselves. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 2: 1:02

I decided for the first time in my life to join a book club. I have never had the time to do it. I've always worked like 80 to 90 hours a week. I would pick up a book, read a couple of chapters, then not pick up a book for maybe weeks, possibly months, and then have to reread the chapters over again. So it always seemed that it took me forever to finish a book.

Speaker 2: 1:28

So I decided that I was going to challenge myself, and as I started to read your book and I started to answer some of your questions, at first I was a bit uncomfortable. It might not seem right, but I do not like talking about myself and I do not necessarily like to go deep down inside of me. So I started to answer the questions just surfacely. Then I realized I was doing that and I said well, this isn't going to work, so you better just open up. So I started opening up and boy did I learn a lot about myself, and I should have realized a lot of these things at a very much younger age. So I'm hoping to get everything and anything out of it.

Speaker 3: 2:19

Well, thank you so much for sharing. That's profound what you shared, and it's profoundly moving and vulnerable and I just want to honor you for that, because it's profoundly moving and vulnerable. And I just want to honor you for that because it's and to be witness and even catalyst in this case if I own it, you know, with the book to be involved in that with you, to have shared that or opened that up for you, it really means a lot. So, thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 2:48

Yeah, the chapter that I really liked was about tolerating things that used to bring you joy.

Speaker 3: 2:55

I was like oh man, she must have seen me.

Speaker 2: 3:00

What you wrote in here is something that impacts me. It's the fear of not being good enough. I was receiving it for whatever moment you were in, and so then it hit me, so I loved it.

Speaker 1: 3:11

I just love the title of your book because that pause, that silence between interactions. So much is happening during that time.