How to NOT gaslight your clients
Gaslighting: a subtle form of manipulation and emotional abuse that makes you question your beliefs and very perception of reality, leading to an erosion of self-trust and self-regard, leaving you dependent on the person gaslighting you. (source)
Most of the time gaslighting happens in a coaching relationship, it is unintentional, and unconscious.
I don't think any coach gets up in the morning and thinks, "hey, I'm going to make myself some coffee and then gaslight some clients today!"
Coaches are, by and large, decent and caring people who just want to help.
AND that doesn't mean we're perfect, free from ego, scarcity, trauma responses or codependency patterns that can bleed into our coaching work. These are usually the factors that breed an environment of gaslighting.
Here's the good news: you do NOT have to be perfectly healed, enlightened and inscrutable in all these areas in order to be a great coach.
(I can tell you right now, I'm not.)
However, you DO have responsibility toward your clients to learn what you can, when you can, and apply it to the best of your ability.
That means developing the awareness and skills to:
(1) recognizing how gaslighting happens specifically in coaching relationships,
(2) understanding the legacy of oppression and supremacy systems that instill these tendencies even among people with beautiful intentions,
(3) take practical steps in your coaching practice so that every client who works with you walks away from the experience feeling expanded, empowered AND deeply affirmed of their own inner authority and sovereignty.
We're NOT taught about this in coaching school... yet.
And I'm going to change that by packing everything I have learned about this into ONE masterclass.
Here's the good stuff that happens when you learn how to NOT gaslight your clients (aside from sleeping better at night):
You AND your client experiences more mutual trust, satisfaction, and breakthrough in every session
You know exactly how to work with clients who are "resistant" or "difficult" to help them to open up and transform, without ever forcing your views or tools on them
Because there is more trust and safety to explore deeply, your clients get WAY better results
in the longer run, you develop a reputation for integrity, efficacy and ethical business practice, which means more profitable and sustainable business for you...
... and ultimately, a way better reputation for our own industry which means greater numbers of people have access to higher quality help.
This is one of the most profound and ethically pressing things you can learn as a coach.
And the time to learn is now.
What Students Are Saying:
“Thank you so much for this program.
“I'm trying to learn to be authentic, helpful, and liberating as a coach – yet most of my coaching approach, marketing, and frameworks have been in the voice of, "Me expert… you not… do what I tell you."
“I can feel myself slowly learning to look at this and see a scared, scarred human being who's trying to prove something and be successful, instead of someone truly invested in others. I'm learning to see that as the core DNA of supremacy culture. And as a white, cis male (tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed no less), I’ve realized how much I've relied on that easy, but flawed, approach to many of my relationships and pursuits.
“Thanks for helping me open my eyes a little.”
– Scott
“Thank you so much—once again, a brilliant & valuable class.
“After listening, I revamped my client onboarding process & edited my coaching services agreement to start fostering my clients’ safety to disagree, change course and challenge anything I say/do when it feels misaligned with their experience or their desires. So grateful for the reminder to explicitly support them to develop those skills.
“For me, one of the more challenging things to learn as a coach has been to let the client find their own answers, instead of trying to “craft” their experience and their aha! moments. Understanding how the (human) urge to want to "help" by "telling what's best" or directing someone based on any kind of agenda is actually rooted in supremacist culture makes it SO MUCH CLEARER to me why it's important to be unattached. I can let the client's journey unfold how it does without my judgment—which in turn makes it easier to BE unattached.”
– Jill
“Simone - thank you!! You provided invaluable information that will always be important. This is going to help me so much in reminding my clients of their power. And it has been so helpful in NOT gaslighting myself too!!
“I had a session with one of my clients this week and she kept apologizing that the session was all about grieving her dog. Since I’d watched How Not To Gaslight Your Clients, I was very aware of the natural order of power and gently reminded her that these sessions are for her, not for me. This workshop made it very obvious how important it is to educate our clients and remind them of their power.
“My job is not to be attached to the outcome. When I am attached to it, that is when I gaslight! Of course, I want to help clients reach goals – but I must remember it is within them to choose. My clients have the best answers, not me.
“Thank you for always talking about the hard stuff! I'm grateful for coaches in the arena talking about it and not pretending it doesn't happen.
“Thank you so much for the webinar!!”
– Lindsay
“SO many things about this workshop have stuck with me.
“‘Are my clients safe to NOT make progress?’ I'm realizing that the answer was often no, but now I'm incorporating this even more into my program, including talking to my clients about if they're safe with themselves when they don't make progress.
“A client from my group program reached out to me right after our class about her experience, and I realized that I didn't go into defensiveness AT ALL. I was completely willing to hear everything about her experience. That was WILD to me, and so freeing.
“I also wrote this down as a thought, based on what you said: ‘It's safe to rupture AND repair relationships.’ A reminder to myself that we're going to fuck up, and avoiding conflict isn't always the goal.
“THANK YOU!”
– Cristina
“The biggest thing I took away is that gaslighting can only happen when one person is available for it. I want to teach my clients not to be available for it. It took me a loooong time to learn this, but I get it now. Greatest gift ever.”
– Natalie
“I feel like I can see so clearly the times when I was gaslighted unintentionally by my own well-meaning coaches. Now I know what it feels like, from the inside-out, to arm my clients to be un-gaslightable instead of just hoping I’m not doing it ‘to’ them. I know how to set my clients up from the get-go with avenues to question me when that inevitably happens, and advocate for what does and doesn’t feel good.
“I also can’t believe how much explicitly spelling out the decolonization dynamic contributes to clarity, so we can know what we should expect to encounter - the doubts, shame, and guilt about ‘otherness’ emplaced by the overculture and not to personalize it. Priceless ”
– Rebecca
“This workshop made me realize how much I've experienced gaslighting from my parents and those closest to me. It made me more conscious to not play that out with my clients. Thank you so much!”
– Heesun
