How to deal with overwhelm and vulnerability: Observations of Manchester Life Coach Tony Healer
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Growth and learning from vulnerability Inspired by Coaching
Emergency services deal with overwhelming crisis situations every day, but they are not always comfortable learning lessons from their own vulnerabilities.
Talking of overwhelming crisis situations:
“The only thing to fear is fear itself” - Franklyn D Roosevelt 1933 inaugural address following the great stock market crash leading to the great depression
Remember that.
This article, inspired by the observations of Manchester life coach and personal breakthrough specialist Tony Healer defines the potential to shift from overwhelm and vulnerability to a space of personal transformation and growth.
A risk of overwhelming defencelessness
A person becomes vulnerable when they suffer a sense of defencelessness either physically, mentally or emotionally. The word itself derives from the latin word “vulnus” which translates to “wound.” Anyone who is exposed to an overwhelming risk, or wound, can be considered vulnerable. Wounds can be aging, illness, financial collapse, relationship breakdown, being subject of a violent crime, or other emotional crisis and they can put you firmly in that category. Emergency responders understand risk and constantly assess the level of intervention that a situation needs. Importantly, that includes personal safety.
There are procedures, steps and structure when you are taking care of another as a professional responder. But how effective are we at acknowledging and learning from our own vulnerability? We can be guilty of having expectations of our selves that are so high, that we fail to recognise when we become vulnerable, or at risk of becoming overwhelmed.
Self worth before net-worth
Dealing with risk and vulnerability is one of the key topics of conversation that clients bring to the life coaching session. Overwhelming wounds often lead to a lack of self-worth through an inability to deal with the stressful situation, or event. It can create a loss of identity and triggers anxiety or even depression.
People will express their self worth in negative terms. They feel like a failure, a fraud, an idiot. Worse still, it becomes like a spiral. The “event” itself becomes less important than the feelings that collapse in upon themselves, like a sink hole. Gaps in self worth can create unconscious craters that if left unattended, will bring all traffic to a grinding halt.
“The only thing to fear is fear itself”
Mindfully exploring our inner world in a deeply respectful manner identifies the dark gaps in our thinking. This paves the way for expanded awareness and personal breakthrough. From where I sit, self worth comes way before net-worth in peoples values systems. I would never call myself a “net worth coach”, but Personal Breakthrough Coaching is all about rediscovering self worth.
What are the benefits of vulnerability?
Let me share my own journey into overwhelm and vulnerability. I have experienced many changes and challenges throughout my life. Some by my own proactive decision such as getting divorced and leaving Manchester for a position in London. Or resigning from one career to start over fresh, and being out of work for several months. Or reuniting with my childhood sweetheart, and relocating from London, back to Manchester, amongst many other life changing events in my life. Any one of these changes could have the potential to leave me feeling vulnerable, or overwhelmed.
For a while I was all over the place emotionally, trying to make things work with my own kids, building new relationships with step daughters and in-laws all whilst trying to promote a life coaching business and establish a source of income to replace the one I walked away from. Yes at times I would say it was chaotic and left me doubting my own self worth.
But all that was nothing. It was merely a warm up for what was to come. What really bowled me over was when my wife was diagnosed with cancer after just three short years of marriage together. I almost toook a ten count.
Breaking news that leaves you vulnerable
I believed in something bigger, brighter, better. I had an exciting vision and was taking big steps towards achieving the goal. I knew I had so much more to offer, and believed that some day I was going to figure out how to get it out into the world. And then boom.
I'm telling you, breaking news like that can leave you feeling incredibly helpless. I was sticking my neck way out, every which way and my legs were swept from beneath me. I was in a heap, not knowing which way is up or which way is down.
My focus shifted, rapidly. My ability to think about business goals was gone. I was face to face with all my own limitations. My inability to save my wife. My inability to finance private health care. My inability to focus the time and energy in my own goals and dreams.
One limiting thinking loop dominated. Even if I was successful, would my wife be with me to share it?
Yesterdays skills versus tomorrows problems
Your ability to think, to concentrate and to produce anything at your usual standard becomes thwarted. But in the meantime, there's a painfully large distance growing between what you had seen in your mind, and the overwhelming fear you're faced with. You feel completely incompetent, and lost.
I think some people hate feeling incompetent so much so that, once they've become competent in anything, they make a subconscious vow never to subject themselves to feeling incompetent ever again. The result, of course, is inevitable; stagnation. You reach a plateau that becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. The skills you had yesterday don’t solve todays problems, let alone what is coming tomorrow.
Life changing results follow life changing decisions
Im here to tell you that you still can. You either pick yourself up, or stay down. Thats your first decision to make. Being knocked down is not the same as being knocked out.
Being willing to grow can mean becoming temporarily incompetent again. You go through that growing pains period. Life coaching is where you discover more about yourself, and your potential. Step by step you create the opportunity for progress, for moving forward. And you keep taking steps.
In the beginning, you might fail more time than you get it right, but remember this: That's all part of the process. An important part. Each failure teaches you something more valuable than success. There is no magic spell for personal transformation, just work at it.
Turning overwhelm and vulnerability into a pathway to success
There is no such thing as an overnight success. Songwriters say you have to write a hundred bad songs before you write good songs. Million dollar baseball players might only have a 3 in 10 batting average so get those misses out of the way and hit a home run. Most of use would crumble if we got it wrong 100 times before we got it right. In fact, most would feel pretty useless with a 3 in 10 ratio.
I love this quote from Icile a Dutch DnB music producer:
Some people ask me "how do you do this? How do you do that? What's the secret?" There are almost no shortcuts left, just fucking grafting until you've got it! Don't let it intimidate you — just keep working at it, and you'll get anywhere you want to go.”
I couldn't agree more. That has been my experience in many areas in life. And I couldn't be more grateful for the challenges I have overcome and grown from.
That is why I am here for you, I hope that you're in place where you feel like it's sometimes hard. That means you are about to grow. Take comfort in this. You're not alone. You'll get there. Yes, it's scary, and that's perfectly okay.
If any of this resonates or sounds familiar, drop me a comment below — like, and share on social media.
Tony Healer
Manchester Life Coach and
Personal Breakthrough Specialist
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