Fiona, I hear you talking about Courage, Childhood Trauma and Relationships. What have they to do with each other and how can you make sense of this?

Well, actually the way I see it is they are inseparable. I’ll tell you why.

When someone comes to me for coaching they present with one issue, but there is much more they are not saying.

Let’s imagine that Jimmy is trying to decide whether to stay at his job or leave.

He really likes his colleagues, enjoys his work and he has put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the company.

But his boss, Sheila, has displayed some level of toxicity over the years. He can ignore it, but it is not helpful to him to be in that toxic atmosphere.

The problem is that he sees her being charming with clients, but she is a completely different person with the staff. He sees through her persona, and as a result she seems to reserve a special kind of subtle mistreatment for him.

We might start with talking on the surface level about the pros and cons of staying and the pros and cons of leaving.

But at a certain point in his coaching he might mention something that gives me an inkling into a deeper problem.

At that point I would ask his permission to explore beneath the surface.  If he doesn’t want to we stay on the surface level. If he is open to go diving down, more often than not, we will find some childhood trauma. This is usually from a parent or two parents who have been oppressive in some way. And this has affected all of Jimmy’s personal and work relationships.

So with the boss who is toxic, she may be detecting something in Jimmy that is an easy victim, or something that is triggering to her.

When I talk about triggering, I don’t just mean ‘annoying’ or ‘upsetting’, which is the popular way of using the word.

To be truly triggered is when you have some childhood trauma, and something happens which reminds you of that childhood trauma.  There is usually a pattern when the same thing happens again and again. This could be with romantic partners or bosses or other people. All of these experiences line up, so you feel the pain of all of them at the same time.

It takes courage to face up to all these experiences and to embark on a journey of healing. And it takes courage to work on your relationships. It takes a huge amount of courage to stand up for yourself and to go for what you want in life and work. That is the connection between Courage, Childhood Trauma and Relationships.