TCKs Aren’t Broken, They Usually Don’t Need Therapy
We TCKs have lots of things in common. There are good things we have in common and things which hold us back from reaching our potential. Many of these things are down to our nomadic childhoods and vast cultural experience and our lack of a single culture with which to identify.
One of my clients has been in therapy on and off for many years. She felt that something was missing from her life that she could find if she just looked hard enough into the past, to see where the missing piece could be found. By the time I started to work with her, she had seen multiple therapists, but had been unable to find the missing piece.
After just one session of coaching, she said that she felt like a weight had been lifted from her. That she stopped seeing herself as needing help because she was ‘unwell’ and started to realise that she simply needs support to move towards the life she craves.
Rummaging Through The Rubble
This client used a wonderful metaphor to describe the difference between therapy and coaching. Therapy is, she said, like rummaging through the rubble of the ruins of a childhood, searching for something indefinable. It’s looking back with a sense of panning for gold; gold that is notoriously difficult to find. Coaching is so different, she said. Coaching is accepting my childhood for what it was and lifting my eyes to the horizon to see where I want the rest of my life to go. It is refreshing to think of myself as whole and not broken after all.
As my client suggested, the biggest difference between coaching and therapy is that one looks forward and the other looks back. Looking back cannot change what has happened, looking forward can change what is going to happen. Looking forward, with support from a coach, gives TCKs a clear view of the future that they want, and a path to reach it.
The Seismic Shift
I am a TCK and I found coaching by accident when I was looking for some support with a career change. The difference that coaching made to me was literally life changing. So much so, that I trained to become a coach. I wanted to be able to offer others like me the seismic shift in focus that I had, that transformed the way I live my life and how I feel about settling down and putting down roots.
Our constant TCK feelings of restlessness and rootlessness may have their foundations in the past and the way to release them and to feel settled and at home, is often by looking to the future and not searching through the past.
I am not suggesting for a moment that there is no place for therapy. What I’m saying is that therapy isn’t the only way to change your life for the better. In fact, with its focus on the future, coaching is often a faster and more optimistic way to reach a place of peace.
