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Life coaching and personal growth
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Throughout my life, I have always worried a lot about everything and everyone. I have always “liked” over-thinking every single thing until I reached the perfect solution. That's right... until recently I vehemently believed that "perfect solutions" actually existed. I could spend entire days racking my brain over a math problem, or (as a teen) regretting things I had said or done, and trying to find the reasons for a failed relationship. Looking back, I'm sure at some point steam was coming out of my ears. Literally.
In many of those frustrating moments, my father would come and force me to go out for a walk. Whether it rained or snowed, he forced me to stop whatever it was that I was doing and go outside to get some fresh air. I would go out, and complain endlessly, and tell him that he didn't understand what was happening to me...
Although his techniques were not exactly those of a coach, and his advice was not always the most accurate, since each one speaks from their own life experiences, he always managed to downplay the seriousness of the "problem" that besieged me. He used to do this in various ways: highlighting my own virtues and strengths that have always been hard for me to see; making me understand that doing the best you can is the most important thing; and my favorite, he made me see that whatever it was that was tormenting me now, I wasn't going to solve it that day, or probably the next day, or the next, or the next... And even if my problem remained unsolved, the world was going to keep turning, time was going to keep passing, and tomorrow I'd have another chance to do better or discover The Solution. And so, after each and every one of his particular life coaching sessions, he said goodbye and added:
A story of changes...
Mr. Fernando and Melquiades
The man in the photo is my dad, Fernando. I am not exaggerating when I say that a few months ago, Fernando was a man who HATED cats. Yes, just like that, in bold and underlined. Not only did he hate them with passion, they disgusted him. Basically, when a cat entered his 1-meter security radio, Fernando would start to get nervous, ready to kick the animal (literally, I've seen it).
Two years ago I arrived home with Melquiades (she is a female, although her name is boy name, but that is a whole other story). Due to life circumstances, I had to travel and had no one to leave her with. The people who had promised to take care of her changed their minds at the last moment. I was desperate and suddenly one day my father told me: "I'll take care of her."
His conditions were clear, though. He was going to feed her and clean her sandbox, but he was not going to touch her or give her love. A few months later, this was my father with Melquiades.
It was not an easy process. First of all there were his feelings of wanting to help me in a moment of despair. Later, he went from looking at Melquiades suspiciously, and running away every time she came near him, to caressing her with gardener's gloves (yes, you read correctly). Please, remember that cats disgusted him. Until one day by accident he touched her without gloves, and then he fell in love with her.
I don't think my father will ever be a cat lover, but his adaptability and his wanting to try something new (out of necessity) made him experience something that had never crossed his mind before. Judging by the photo, and how I see them together now, I don't think he regrets it.
Who is your Melquiades?
