CHAPTER 10

CATCH AND RELEASE JUDGMENT

Coaching gives people a safe space to be themselves, with all their emotions and moods.

—MARCIA REYNOLDS

I WAS COACHING a man in China in front of a big audience. He wanted to explore if he should be a coach when he retired. I asked him what he loved about his job being the director of human resources for his company. He told me he loved developing people. He loved seeing the light in their eyes when they realized they could be so much more than they imagined. Most of all, he was proud he could instill the principles of Communism in them. I felt my entire body shudder. Not only did his political values conflict with mine, but the word Communism dredged up horror stories of nuclear attacks emblazoned in my brain as a child. But it wasn’t my place to judge or change him. I noticed my reaction, breathed out, and returned to being fully present with this wonderful man who loved seeing the light of possibility shine in people’s eyes.

The most common lie accomplished coaches tell themselves is “I am not judgmental.” We like to think we are inclusive and nonreactive. Although we may be able to notice when we get caught up in our thoughts and emotions and shift back to being present, we can’t help being biased and judgmental. One of the most detrimental yet overlooked emotions we experience is judgment.

Like fear and anger, judgment is an emotional reaction that taints our thoughts. When we hear words and see actions, our brains scan for threats, and then we react. Judgment is a reaction that occurs when the brain determines that what was said or done conflicts with our frames—who we think we are (identity) and how the world should work (reality). No matter how present we think we are being, our brains are still at work discerning contradictions to what we think is right, wrong, good, and bad. This makes us all judgmental by nature.

Our brains operate with a negativity bias that causes us to register even innocent expressions as negative more readily than neutral or positive.¹ We compare our beliefs against what we think other people believe and then exaggerate the variances out of self-protection. The words we then speak, including the questions we ask, are slanted by our negative interpretations.

Without consciousness, your gestures or words might indicate dissatisfaction. Vincent Van Gogh wrote, “Let’s not forget that small emotions are the great captains of our lives, and that these we obey without knowing it.” You might lift one eyebrow, scratch your scalp, or replay what clients said but end the sentence with an upward inflection so it sounds like a question instead of a statement. The intention of your follow-up question is to edit their words. Left unchecked, even slight judgmental reactions affect the power dynamic of the relationship, impairing the trust and safety vital to effectively coach the person in front of you. When your judgment seeps through, partnership is lost.

Mastery in coaching requires that you accept you are a judgy, biased person. To judge is human. You must recognize and release your judgmental reactions before they sabotage your coaching.

Some of your judgments are easy to catch. Others are unconscious, meaning you aren’t aware you reacted negatively to what you heard. These judgments are often referred to as unconscious biases.² You frequently judge social behavior, such as how people walk down aisles, what pets they choose, how they dress, and how they talk. You might not notice when you offend people, interrupt, or ignore them, even though you hate when people do this to you. You tell people you didn’t intend to offend them, but your intention doesn’t matter. They feel slighted anyway.

Unconscious biases are also called blind spots. If you would like to have more peace in your life and improve the quality of your relationships, including those with strangers standing in line with you, practice noticing your emotion of judgment to bring some of your unconscious biases to light.

Because unconscious biases are difficult to uncover, allowing someone else to help reveal them to you is helpful. You might have a friend you trust who can point out when one of your biases appears. I have a friend who lets me know when I make snarky remarks. As much as I don’t like my judgments pointed out, I am grateful for the awareness. You can also hire a coach to unearth what you blindly defend.

BEYOND FACE VALUE

The most common judgmental reactions happen in response to your clients’ emotional reactions. Even a small show of displeasure with their emotional state will affect the progress of the session. Without exploring their reaction, you can easily misjudge the meaning. The practice of catching and releasing your judgment about their emotions will help both you and your clients come to understand the significance of their expressions.

Reactions that are commonly misunderstood include the following:

1. Nervous laughter. Laughter is often seen as making light of a situation, yet some people laugh when they feel embarrassed or self-conscious. Yale psychologist Oriana Aragon says nervous laughter is a form of emotional balancing, like when we cry when we are happy.³ Instead of asking clients what they think is funny or assuming they are ready to move on, ask what their laughter means for them in this moment. You can say something like, “You’re laughing. What just came up for you?”
2. Change in eye contact. Looking away or holding a steely gaze doesn’t mean clients are resisting you. You may have touched on a truth that hasn’t been spoken. With acceptance and curiosity, ask clients if they are willing to share their thoughts.
3. Easy, quick agreement. You make a reflection and your client quickly replies, “You’re right” or “I see what you mean.” Be careful not to judge the response as definitive. Like nervous laughter, clients might be trying to escape an uncomfortable truth. Ask them what they think is right or what they now understand.
4. Tears. Crying doesn’t always mean someone feels hurt or sad. Tears could be a physiological result of stress or a buildup of disappointments. Allow clients to take a moment when tears come to their eyes. Calmly wait for them to signal they are ready to move on. Generally, if you calmly sit in silence, they will let you know when they’re ready to talk. If the crying is uncontrollable, offer to reschedule the session but only as a last resort. It is always better to give clients a moment to regain control than to make them feel weak for crying. Once their emotions even out, you might ask if they are comfortable talking about what triggered their tears.
5. Defensiveness. Defensiveness is a natural reaction to information clients didn’t want to hear. People don’t like to feel they did something wrong. They might reflexively defend themselves, get angry, or shut down. Ask what is difficult for them to hear or accept. If there is no risk of physical harm, let them vent to release the steam. Stay compassionately curious. Defensiveness usually subsides if you don’t fuel the fire.
6. Hesitation. Hesitation is often interpreted as a lack of commitment by clients. It could also be a result of fear of taking a risk, concern over how other people will judge them when they change, or the effect a change might have on their own identity (“Who will I be if I do this?”).⁴ Reflect the hesitation you notice and ask what is holding them back. They might reveal something that alters the course of the coaching.

RELEASING YOUR “I” FROM YOUR CONVERSATIONS

To be a nonreactive thinking partner, strive to remove I from your conversation. If you fully immerse yourself in the conversation and resist the need to tell your opinion or story, you can maintain a strong connection with your client.

Releasing your I is difficult because it is a part of the perspective that helps you navigate life, but if you allow your opinions and judgment to fade into the background, you can experience the flow state of coaching. You will still experience emotional reactions. You just won’t get caught up in the web of opinions and judgments your I wants to interject.

Try walking around for twenty minutes noticing your world without your I getting in the way. See if you can notice things, situations, and people as if you had never seen them before. What nuances do you notice? What observations trigger your curiosity? What details open your heart? We miss so much when our I leads us through life.

Even with practice, you will probably vacillate between thinking from your I state and releasing it as you develop presence and awareness. Releasing your I is an aspirational state. The more you coach from this position, the quicker and more profound the results.

WITNESSING YOUR JUDGMENT

Your judgment has many faces. In addition to reacting to clients’ emotions or beliefs, you are judging your clients as inadequate when you give them unsolicited advice. When they list multiple concerns, choosing the direction of the conversation for them is a judgment. If you want people to think more broadly for themselves, and you believe they can, you must catch the moments you fall out of being their thinking partner and slip into being the “holder of the truth” where you subtly become the expert wanting to direct the conversation.

The mental habit you want to cultivate is to catch your judgment as an emotional reaction. When you can catch the sensation of judgment as a physiological reaction, you can then breathe out, release the tension, and choose to return to being fully present. My pang of judgment hits my diaphragm at the center spot between my lowest ribs. Sometimes I can feel the tightness rise into my chest and throat, as if trying to escape out my mouth.

I don’t always catch my judgment before I speak. My words and reactions are tained by my biases. So I am practicing sensing when opinions seep into my words. Shifting back to partnership when I fall out is better than ignoring what I did. I quickly take back my words by saying, “Sorry, let me rephrase that.” Then I attempt to reflect what was said before my interruption. I allow them to correct me if I am wrong. I might then ask if they want to explore how their perspective is affecting their desired outcome, but I’m careful to do this out of curiosity, not the desire to influence.

Judgment is so common, we tend to miss the triggering moments. To help you discern where in your body you feel judgment, follow the steps outlined in the exercise at the end of this chapter. You can also intentionally trigger your judgment to recognize the sensation. Watch or read the news, read Facebook posts, or try to navigate crowded environments to willfully activate your judgment. Then practice releasing the tension to clear your mind.

KEY POINTS TO PRACTICE

Follow these tips to help you develop the mental habit of suspending judgment:

1. Stop and notice if you are feeling judgment. Work on discovering how the emotion of judgment shows up in your body so you can catch it before it infects your thoughts.
2. Don’t criticize yourself for judging. You will have instinctual reactions to people because of their looks, age, political or religious views, sexual preference, disabilities, rude behavior, and criticism of you. Judging is a human reaction. Don’t get angry with yourself or lose your confidence. What you courageously choose to do once you notice your judgment is more important than trying to be judgment-free.
3. Question your assumptions and opinions. What belief is driving your reactions? Don’t rationalize your reaction; just wonder where it came from.
4. Release your need to be right or have the last word. Remember, your clients need to feel heard and accepted. Unless their views will impact the outcome they want to create, breathe and release your reaction. If you think what they said will stand in the way of their outcome, ask them to restate what they want to achieve. Then, you can ask if what they shared is in alignment with their outcome or could be a barrier to achieving what they want.
5. Strive to be more curious about people every day. Enjoy looking beyond what you think so you can discover something new. Remember, people are acting out of their frames. You don’t have to agree with their points of view, but you can openly listen to understand their perspective. You will gain peace of mind and improve your interactions.

We are all big judging machines. And as humans, we can expand our points of view. I wish for a world full of people choosing to see beyond their biases. I hope you wish for that too.

In all situations, not just coaching, the more adept you are at discerning the emotions that are shaping your moods and affecting your thoughts, the greater your ability to shift to feeling something else more conducive to the moment. You can choose what you want to feel instead of reacting in the moment by cultivating the mental habit of emotional recognition.

Putting a name on what you’re feeling is often hard because you probably were never trained to do this. Also, you may be experiencing more than one emotion at a time. Not only do emotions overlap and blend, but you can attribute many words to the variations of your reactions, which makes emotional awareness a difficult skill to master. Although the skill is difficult, it is not impossible if you practice these two steps:

1. Stop and notice your emotional state.
2. Name what you are feeling.

The first step to increase your emotional recognition is to stop what you are doing and do a body check. Are you holding tension anywhere? Is your jaw clenched, are your shoulders tight, is your stomach churning, or is your breathing shallow? how are you holding your arms, hands, legs, and feet? Ask yourself what emotions could be causing the tension.

Even if you can’t name your sensations, the practice of discerning differences in your physical and mental states is a good start. Most people don’t recognize shifts in their emotions throughout the day. They just know they feel tired, frustrated, or content at the end of the day.

If you deliberately stop what you are doing at least three times a day and ask yourself, “What am I feeling?” you can begin to create a habit of emotional recognition. After at least three weeks of this practice, you will more naturally notice shifts in what you feel throughout your day.

As you continue your practice, you will improve your ability to notice your emotional reactions while coaching. Then you can align your brain using the Presencing Routine you learned in chapter 8: relax, detach, center, and focus on feeling curiosity and care to return to being present with your client.

For the next three weeks, set your phone or watch to alarm or vibrate four times throughout the day to check in on how you are feeling. It’s important to assess what you are feeling in the moment instead of relying on memory. Change the intervals each week so you aren’t checking at the same time each day. Track your emotions on paper or digitally so you can check if you notice any patterns to the emotions you feel.

Start with identifying some basic emotions. Determine if you are feeling angry, frustrated, impatient, judgy, irritated, anxious, disgusted, disappointed, sad, surprised, determined, happy, or content. You may be feeling more than one emotion at a time. See if you can identify the physical sensations of your emotions. If you isolate the feeling in your body, you can choose how to act even as you feel. The emotions will then subside, making it easier to shift your emotions by choice.

After a few weeks of stopping your activity and naming your emotions, try to discern variations in your emotions beyond the basics. Use the list in table 1 to help you expand your emotional vocabulary.

Remember, you are seeking to be more aware of all your feelings. They are not right or wrong. Therefore, honesty is important. After at least three weeks of practicing emotional recognition, you should be able to continue without an alarm.

The goal of the practice is to create the mental habit of catching your emotional reactions when they occur. This gives you the opportunity to then choose to feel something else if you want to. Choose to be the master of your mind, not the victim of your reactions.

Table 1. Feelings/Inventory