People talk to their hairdressers and bartenders about feelings – why shouldn’t they be able to share them with their coach? And, in turn, why a coach should look for other words to substitute the word “feel” with?

As I’m having many conversations with a variety of experienced coaches, even though all agree that developing awareness around one’s emotions is important, many insist on staying away from that word.  One of the main reasons that they offer is that it may remind our clients of therapy.

I don’t agree with that at all. Since when therapy has a copyright on that word? Of course, we don’t want to use any words that are jargon-like, industry-specific, and may not be understood or misunderstood by our clients.  However, that’s not the case here. We use the word “feel” every day in our lives and have used it before therapy as an industry even existed. It’s not a “therapy” word; it’s just a word.  Should we cut it out from our coaching vocabulary just because it is “popular” in therapy?  Also, I doubt that people who are in therapy are going to be attracted to coaching. And, once we clarify with our clients what coaching is and what it isn’t from the very beginning, there should be no misunderstanding or confusion about that.

To my delight, some top-notch executive coaches believe that it’s totally okay to use the word “feel”. They make a very good point that it’s not so much the word that we use that matters as the intention behind using it.  They say that the more up the leadership ladder you go, the more being able to access, recognize and manage your feelings becomes important. And as they work with CEO’s across the globe, interpersonal skills and EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotent) become the focus of their coaching conversations.

And, to prevent your clients from telling a long story about how they feel, one MCC coach suggest asking, “If you’d use 1-2 words to describe how you feel, what would they be?” I think it’s an excellent question. And, even if we do get their “external” feelings only – that would serve as a jumping board for a deeper coaching conversation and discovery for a client. Also, I think that the purpose of us asking that question is not only to deepen the discussion and to create more awareness, but also to be in curiosity to understand and to know how and what our client feels.

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