Meeting Ourselves Where We Are

October 16 - Written By Alexis Helfman

Being Sensitive

I’ve always been a very sensitive person. For a long time, I saw this not just as a weakness, but more specifically as “I am weak.”

It wasn’t until my late 20’s that I viewed my sensitivity - my ability to feel deeply - as a gift and as a strength. And not just that, but something I could even lean into professionally. 

Lots of things came apart and came together, and eventually, I became a coach. My role now is to hold space for other people as they work on their lives. It’s my job to listen to my clients, to acknowledge their experience, and to help them along their personal journey. Asking “What’s that like for you?” is one of my favorite questions to ask.

Many coaches go through a period of uncertainty or self-doubt, a sense of “Who do you think you are to be helping other people?” I was one of them. Remembering who you are is an integral part of being a coach and helping other people remember who they are. Here’s an email I sent my coach nearly 4 years ago, near the beginning of my training. Though “sensitive” isn’t listed, I see very clearly that it’s there. 

Being Connected

Since my coach training in 2019-2020, I’ve been feeling pretty good, even amidst the global pandemic.

It’s been a very good few years for me, taking good care of myself and being generally healthy, doing a job I love, having wonderful friends, being in love and getting married to my person, traveling, enjoying life. It’s been easy to be there for other people. I’m lucky and I’m grateful.

A few months ago at Third Nature Adult Summer Camp, which my husband runs, I overheard a conversation between a camper and a fellow friend of mine, who is also a coach.

“Don’t you have to always be “on” to coach?” the camper asked.

“No, you just have to be connected,” the coach replied.

My sensitive senses picked up on this exchange, and I’ve held onto it, in case I needed to hear it in the future.

Conversations at Third Nature Summer Camp

Being Jewish

This past week, I was neither “on” nor “connected.”

I was - and am - suffering.

Along with being physically sick last week, I was mourning and grieving what’s happened to Jews in Israel, to innocent Palestinian civilians…witnessing so much unspeakable sadness and darkness and hate on the news, on social media, nationwide, globally. 

I was busy being there for my cousins who are Israeli, for my best friend who was visiting Israel during Hamas’s attack. I was busy catching up on the complicated history of the conflict that I learned about during 9 years in Jewish Day School. Busy catching up on the news - the sheer horror that is unfolding. Talking to my parents. To my Jewish friends. To my non Jewish friends. Going to temple, to a birthday, to a wedding. It all feels very, very heavy.

I asked a friend of mine, a fellow Jew and a therapist - how does she do it? How do you show up for other people when you are just so unspeakably sad? She says she’s honest with herself about her own level of relatedness and energy and she acknowledges what’s going on. Names it. 

“Our clients are looking to us to be that model of strength and vulnerability. It helps me to know that while I’m hurting too, I can also be a leader and hold space,” she said. 

Being Strong

There are so many different ways of being there for other people. You don’t have to reach everybody. When becoming a coach, I remember saying if I could make a real difference for 1 person, that’s what I wanted to do. And it’s still true.

I went to temple last week as they held space: “Grieving Across Brooklyn: A Gathering to Process, Mourn, and Pray.”

They opened with a Hebrew prayer, a song…an affirmation I am taking with me this week:

The whole world
Is a very narrow bridge
and the main thing is to have no fear at all.

I am sensitive, and I am strong. I’m praying for peace and giving myself space to reconnect.

Me in Israel, summer 2015.