The Dream Sharing Sourcebook: A Practical Guide to Enhancing Your Personal Relationships (22 page)

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Authors: Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras

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BOOK: The Dream Sharing Sourcebook: A Practical Guide to Enhancing Your Personal Relationships
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turn around to see a ball flying at me. I put the glove on and catch it. I hear the girl behind me laughing and laughing.
When Marcus described the dream to Cam, he realized that the little girl was her. (He had been treating her like a child.) She was a lifesaver because she brought something he needed in order to play well. As they talked about the dream, Marcus was able to see that Cam could come to his workplace and bring lunch, help with the filing, or run errands. They could also see each other then and make plans for the rest of the day.
Getting coaching: Coaching is perhaps the most important concept in creating a team that can achieve your couple vision. Coaches are 100 percent committed to the success of those they coach. Sometimes this means they must ask people to do things they don't want to do or that they may not even understand. Coaching works only when the player agrees to be coached, however. In some relationships, certain people (your father-in-law or your sister, for example) want to coach you without your consent. These sorts of communications are doomed, because you are likely to have more desire to be "right" about what you think than to accept any real help.
The most common coaches that couples have are counselors or therapists, clergy, and very close friends. Sometimes the best coach to have may be each other. Coaching your partner can be difficult because the role of a coach may be very different from that of a spouse or lover. You may feel hesitant to tell your partner to do something he or she doesn't want to; you may be afraid that your partner will hear your coaching as criticism. Generally speaking, coaches with some emotional and physical distance from you provide the most objective and useful coaching. Although coaches do not necessarily have your personal dreams, they may help you understand the night
 
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dreams and daydreams you have, and they can be especially powerful in supporting you to create visions for the future of your couple.
This technique worked for one couple when the wife got coaching from her husband on a difficult issue raised in a dream. Kelly and her husband, Phil, were asked to take part in a wedding ceremony. Despite Phil's pushing to get there on time, they were late and missed their slot. That night Kelly had this dream:
Late
I go to meet Phil at the local college to see a choral concert that he got tickets for. It starts at 7:00 P.M. and I arrive fifteen minutes late. The concert has been moved to a nearby hotel where there is a wedding going on. I'm upset and confused. I can't find Phil . . . Later it turns out he has taken a friend and her daughter to the ER for a medical emergency. When I finally find him, he is angry at me for being late.
Kelly told her dream to Phil the next morning. When she described him as being angry with her in the dream, he agreed that he was often angry with her for being late. He was glad to hear that in the dream she was upset about it. He wondered if this was also true in her waking life. Kelly admitted that she didn't like to be late but was unsure how to change. Phil asked if he could be of any help and agreed to coach her. He asked her to keep track of how many times each day she was either late or on time. He helped her plan how to be on time each day. The coaching was effective, and Kelly felt exhilarated at being on time to everything for a few days in a row. Eventually she became more prompt. What made this coaching work for Kelly and Phil was following certain procedures and coaching principles.
 
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There are a number of effective coaching principles. First, there must be an agreement between you and your coach, whether that person is your partner or someone else. You must request to be coached on a particular issue. Your coach agrees to keep the goal in mind and be truthful, and you must agree to follow what the coach tells you to do without second-guessing him or her and without trying to understand the motive behind the suggestions. At the end of the coaching, if you do not like what has been accomplished, it is OK to talk about that or to seek another coach.
Second, a regular coaching schedule needs to be established. Like exercise, it is important that coaching occur at a given time to avoid the natural human tendency to procrastinate. Regularly scheduled sessions of a given length, and even checkup times in between, are required.
Third, you must establish a beginning and an end for the coaching so that you can determine what has been accomplished and decide if you want to do it again. Schedule a meeting on the final date, even if you have not been meeting or talking so that you can have closure to your agreement.
You might think that finding a good coach is difficult. In fact, it is usually easy. What's hard is that you may not be specific enough about what you want the coaching for (e.g., losing weight, having more sex, staying on an exercise program). Being truly willing to accept coaching is another obstacle. University of Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight once said, "Everyone wants to win a national championship, but nobody wants to come to practice." Making a commitment to be coached is a crucial step.
Whom you ask to be your coach may depend on availability or the expertise you need. Generally, the most important quality of the coach is his or her absolute dedication to getting
 
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the result you are trying to get. This was definitely the case for the coaching a young couple received in reaching their goals.
Henry and Sandra met while attending graduate school at a large university. They were serious, talented, and ambitious students in similar fields. They both wanted to have careers, but as their relationship became more intense, there seemed to be less time for writing their doctoral dissertations. They mar ried after a year or so and completed all their work at the university except their final papers. They knew that each of them needed to complete their degrees before they could get a good job. They attempted to support and coach each other, but with little success. While each wanted the other to finish, each also wanted to get their own work done. The result was that neither made much headway. Finally, they grew concerned that neither of them would graduate.
They decided to ask a friend of theirs if he would coach them weekly to complete their dissertations. He agreed. During these sessions, conducted mostly on the phone, the coach reviewed the writing goal they each had set for the previous week and set new goals for the next. He also coached their relationship to make sure they were actually able to support each other and cooperate. This coaching for achievement in their writing and cooperation in their couple proved to be very effective. Once a week, their friend coached them not just in what they were doing, but on "who they were being" about their work together as a couple. In other words, what they had actually done that week was not as important as being true to the proclamation they had made. They had proclaimed to their coach, "We are writers." Their friend wanted to know if they were acting like they were committed as a couple to getting their dissertations done. They learned to do exactly what the coach asked them to do, whether they understood it or not.
 
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The coach listened carefully to them as they described what they had done that week, but he also listened for how they were cooperating. He coached them to realize that each one's success was actually an achievement for both of them.
When Sandra and Henry graduated later that year, they decided to continue to be coached on their relationship. They renewed their agreement with their coach to work together once a week for another three months. By then, their coach had learned how each of them "operated" in the game of their relationship and how to make sure that they could work together.
Feedback: Coaching can take many forms. In Henry and Sandra's case, there was an independent coach with whom to work. He was able to keep his "players" on task and directed toward their stated vision by asking them specific questions and giving them feedback. Providing this objective feedback is essential to the success of players in any game. The coach may ask, "What was the goal you had for this week? Did you reach it?" Excuses or extenuating circumstances are not significant, only the result. That is not to say that Henry and Sandra kept their promises every week, but they tried to be aware of what stopped them from doing what they said they would do.
"What was in the way of your reaching your goal?" the coach can ask. "What is your goal for next week?" Many times there is a story as to why an objective is not met. Yet no matter how interesting or compelling, the excuse or explanation does not take away from the fact that the plan was not successful that particular week. The coach has his eye on the vision they had created, even though the players cannot always see it. They may be more concerned with the feeling of success along the way or too worried about their future to see what is happening in the present.

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