Meet Carolyn - here is her wonderful story of growth & development over the last year:
My story starts at the second half of my life, quite a way into it in fact. I was going through a very difficult time in my life caring for my mother who had dementia, which manifested itself in violent, abusive and unpredictable behaviour. This really escalated just before the start of Covid.
I first became acquainted with Charlie when my daughter, asked me if I would be interested in helping Charlie by having an enneagram typing interview to help complete her qualification. I was almost at the point of crisis.
I knew from that first meeting that the time would come when I would want to see Charlie professionally. The enneagram typing was a revelation, a path to self-understanding that I had been seeking for many years. It opened up an opportunity to go forward in a way that everything I had read and absorbed and tried over the years had not.
I had always known deep down that I had bent and twisted and changed myself to be the person I thought others wanted me to be from a very early age. I had completely lost sight of who I ever was. I had this constant internal dialogue telling me that I was not ok and I listened to plenty of external ones too. This caused me a great deal of emotional and physical pain over the years and I am acutely aware that this was probably the root cause of my fibromyalgia, which I have lived with for 35 years.
My mother passed a few months after my first contact with Charlie. I started my coaching course 3 months after that. I feel a great well of emotion as I recall that meeting with the continued kindness, compassion and understanding that Charlie had shown towards me from our very first contact. I felt empathy, understanding, compassion, kindness and so very safe with Charlie. She is a very special person with a great gift.
The enneagram typing was just the start, the foundation for me to uncover who I really am and to find my place in the world now. Charlie has been my guiding safe hand. I have learnt to move out of my head and to listen to my feelings. I have learnt how to change the way I view things and with that totally different mind-set a situation, an emotion, everyday life can look and feel totally different; make more sense. Ive learnt to push back on that inner critic and that I have wisdom and power to take the lead and produce a very different outcome to how things have manifested in the past. I have learn that I have spent so much time caring for others that I have left little to no time at all caring for myself and that has and could continue to affect my health and well-being. I am learning to set boundaries and reinforce them if they are crossed, not to avoid setting them or allow them to be ignored because of the fear of others reactions. In the past fear has paralysed me and I have learnt to feel that fear and recognise that it brings forth great courage. I have learnt that I have the capacity for great joy and that I can release myself from the seriousness and constraints Ive put on myself without falling apart or losing my stability.
I've learnt that I am human and it’s ok to make mistakes and be emotional and be vulnerable.
I have learnt so much about myself and what it is to be human. My list could go on and I have only just started to walk down the path of discovery and learning that Charlie has guided me towards. At times it’s a hard journey, putting the things I have learnt into action is challenging. Im totally up for it. Most of all Im looking forward to finding my inner child whose true essence became lost as Ive lived my life. I intend to find the joy and grow old disgracefully, taking those who I love and cherish along with me and anyone else who wants to come along for the ride. I know I would never have been writing this if I hadn’t worked with Charlie with whom I finally found the knowledge and support to find the space to take that deep breath and walk towards a totally different way of being.
