Category: Couples Coaching with Sydney
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The Invitation and the Ask
Why giving feels safe, receiving feels like debt, and how to offer your work without shame “I hate asking people for money,” she said through clenched teeth. “In fact, I hate money altogether. Why can’t we just have a society that operates without money?” This was a real conversation I had recently. She’s brilliant at…
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You Don’t Have One Problem, You Have FIVE
What looks like one problem is often hiding something deeper. Six weeks into his promotion, his boss scheduled a one-on-one. He walked in expecting to talk strategy. He walked out with a very different message. His team had been talking. They said he’d changed since the promotion. They didn’t trust his leadership. Some were questioning…
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Sydney! I can only change myself. How is this going to change my life??
How changing your life changes everyone else around you too “I can only change me.” I hear it almost every week. Sometimes it is accompanied by a shrug, other times it is said with a sigh of relief. Sometimes, I suspect it is said as a quiet reason not to begin. “Better known as resistance,”…
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The Losses Nobody Brings Casseroles For
On grief, change, and the difference between feeling it and falling back When someone dies, people know what to do. They bring casseroles. They send cards. They show up in dark clothes and hold your hand and say they’re so sorry. Nobody brings a casserole when the diagnosis comes back. Or when your youngest loads…
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The Spirituality of Not Knowing
On suffering, certainty, and the things I no longer need to explain There is an enormous amount of spirituality organized around the following clichés: Everything happens for a reason. Trust the universe. What’s meant for you won’t miss you. Your thoughts create your reality. There are no accidents. You chose this before you arrived. Those…
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You Don’t Have to Choose Change
The strange freedom in knowing that change is coming anyway I had two conversations this week that were remarkably similar. One was with a physician. The other was with a founder whose company was in crisis. Different lives, different circumstances, but the same problem. Both felt trapped. They knew something needed to change, but every…
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Work Self vs. Caregiver Self
The disorienting shift from professional mastery to caring for an aging parent You can run a casualty drill at the hospital, restructure a division, create a performance improvement plan, or sit across from a board and defend a number down to the decimal. You can walk into a crisis meeting and be the calmest person…
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When the Truth Becomes Too Expensive
The hidden cost of maintaining a reality that is no longer true What happens to us when the truth, the unvarnished truth, becomes socially, professionally, relationally, or psychologically too expensive to tell? Justin was out on the golf course with some friends as one of his buddies shared the latest and greatest achievement his wife…
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Nobody’s Marriage Begins With Divorce
Every Life Cycle Has a Beginning Leah contacted me because she was concerned about her marriage. She couldn’t easily pinpoint what had happened, but she was filled with resentment, and she didn’t like the feeling. There was no explosive argument, no affair, no single moment she could point to and say, “This is where it went…
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The Dog Days of Disappointment
What my dogs taught me about resentment I’m a dog person and have been all my life. One of the things my dogs have taught me is that they carry expectations just like we do. Grab a leash or mention a walk and my dogs will jump, wag, yip in the happy expectation that we…