Do you know how to deal with conflicts between inner or outer roles?
A few days ago I stumbled upon a blog post I wrote about two years ago: Job search as a driving journey*.
Since in that coaching session I invited my client to give voice to two Inner Selves, I’m now wondering if “Inner Selves Dialogue” wouldn’t be a better, more attractive title. What do you think? 🙂
While that session was focused on job search, the Inner Selves dialogue is something that we could practice in many other situations … to help us better understand where we are and what else we can do.
Being trained as a Relationship System Coach (ORSC**), in that session I chose to rely on the concept that each person is, in fact, a relationship system! We have so many outer roles to deal with, in parallel, that sometimes we’re not even aware that the struggles we’re going through might come from outer or inner roles conflicts. For example: think of a woman who is a mother, and wife, and employee, and daughter (to her parents), and friend … each of these roles has its own, quite demanding, requests for her time, and her physical & emotional energy. Now imagine the conflicts that could come up between these roles. No wonder why her inner self “Me” (as a human being) doesn’t get too much attention or energy left after dealing with those conflicts.
To get a better picture of a relationship system of 2 (or more) people, imagine what each person brings to the “table” from “home”, on top of the issues that could arise within the interpersonal relationships with the other system members … plus the pressure of focusing on certain system’s objectives. That’s quite a lot, isn’t it?! Do you agree that school and society don’t prepare us enough for such situations?
Coming back to that blog post*: I could rename “Cheerleader” (instead of “Boss”), that inner self that we all have (the positive & optimist one), but most of us … ignore! The “Job Seeker”, the one who struggled, could have another name too since many of us are struggling quite often.
Did you ever find yourself (or become aware) that you’re playing the victim role in a relationship? In that example*, the “Job seeker” was stuck in the Victim’s role. And not much energy comes up when we get stuck in such a role … without even being aware!
Whether I coach one person or a system of 2 (or more) people who have something in common, my role as a System Coach is to reveal the system to itself. This helps the system’s members (inner selves or real people), to tap into their Relationship System Intelligence to find a way to move forward. Check out that blog post* to see how it worked out for my client.
And since I love to give myself challenges, once enrolled in the ORSC Certification program, I pushed myself to design a brochure** so people like you get a more visual perception about what System Coaching (ORSC) is about, and what could be its benefits. I put the link below. 🙂
Now your turn:
What conflicts are most challenging for you: those between different Inner Selves or different Outer roles? Which ones gives you more headaches? 🙂
Please leave your answer in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you!
Thanks,
Gabriela
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* Blog post “Job search as a driving journey”: https://www.gabrielacasineanu.com/job-search-as-a-driving-journey/ Give it a try if you didn’t read it before. 🙂
** My brochure for Organization & Relationship System Coaching (ORSC): https://gabrielacasineanu.com/Relationship_coaching.pdf