How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching | Page 291

Just knowing that the voices are real can be a total revelation. A woman
might say that she can't stand looking in the mirror in the morning. To
discover that she has a voice in her, the Inner Critic, that embodies all of
her self criticism can initiate a major shift in her life.
Secondly, the therapist helps to develop a new place between the
opposites, a place that can help the client hold the introversion with
one hand and the extraversion with the other. It is a new "center" of
personality that we call the Aware Ego. It is this Aware Ego Process
that can learn to embrace the vast system of opposites that live within
each of us.
The third advantage is that from this Aware Ego Process the client is in
a better position to make conscious choices. A conscious choice is one
that honors both sides of the conflict no matter which choice is actually
made.
In your opinion what makes Voice Dialogue a cool intervention?
First of all it is way of working that is fun and alive and brings in all
kinds of different thoughts, feelings and emotions. It is impossible as a
therapist to be bored or tired doing this work. It the therapist gets
tired or bored it is because he or she has fallen into a pattern of being
overly responsible or overly mental or some primary self that limits
possibilities of enjoying the work.
Secondly there is the constant excitement of new discovery.
Discovering and separating from a primary self is like waking up from
a dream and discovering whole new worlds of possibility.
Thirdly, what you judge in the world are generally expressions of selves
in you that have been shut down or rejected over time. What a ride it is
and how relationships do change as you begin to learn how to catch
hold of these judgments.
Fourthly, how different it is to learn how to allow your own
vulnerability to live in the world of relationship. So many people look
for more meaning in their lives. Learning how to use vulnerability in a

608