In this post I reveal a strong distaste for jargon and what I fool I’ve been for not eating more of my new fave fruit.
For a while I’ve been struggling with some of the buzzwords of the life coaching profession, terms like “being present”, “authentic self”, “being in integrity”. Ugh. Ew. Sputter. I get what they mean and the value of what they represent, but these days every encounter with them makes me shrink into myself, as if these terms are close-talkers jamming their face into my personal space. I’m pretty jargon intolerant, especially if it’s woo-woo jargon, anyway. So, what to do?
For two seconds I thought about campaigning to rid the collective consciousness of these vocabulary pests. But that would entail some serious effort and maybe crossing swords with the barons and baronesses of self-help that popularized said terms in the first place.
Being an independent minded person who doesn’t need more conflict in her life, I’ve opted for Plan B, which is to assemble some synonyms for the worst of the offenders. This will help me sleep at night, and it will be a saving grace to client conversations. I know clients can’t actually see me cringe every time these terms come up during a coaching call, but I swear they can sense the shudders. And that can lead to all sorts of misunderstandings of the was-it-something-I-said kind. Not ideal.
That said, it’s surprisingly difficult to swap new vocab for old vocab and still get your point across with relative ease. Slowly slowly, though, I’m getting the hang of it, and helping clients do the same. Here are a few examples of what I have so far:
Out: being present
In: here and now. As in living in the here and now. Uses more words to say the same thing, but they all roll nicely off the tongue.
Out: authentic self
In: real you. Or, your real ramona as a backup. The origins of the latter are fantastic (scroll down to the Cultural Impact section to get to the gist of how the phrase came into being), but it’s not a universally recognized phrase. Bummer.
Out: being in integrity
In: honorableness. Who knew that was an actual word?! It’s a mouthful, but I love it anyway. Plus, it’s memorable.
Out: values
In: fundamentals. Actually, the verdict on this one is still up in the air, because my take on our essential fundamentals is that they encompass more than just values. (Which aren’t morals but a kind of baseline to how we express who we are .) Our fundamentals include the golden rules we live by, the dreams and ambitions that define us – a whole bunch of other stuff that when stirred together create what’s unique to us as individuals. The thing to know about values/fundamentals is that when you’re not living attuned to them, there’s an ongoing sense of clashing. That’s your main cue something’s out of whack in that area.
One last thing I’ll add for posterity about my vocab reassembly before moving on to raving about kiwis, their greenness, their sweetness, the miracle that is their quirky halo of bitty black seeds, how easy they’re peeled because the hairy skin means you don’t lose your grip and gouge a chunk out of your finger, etc…
People often speak with sorrow of how they can’t find their voice. They can’t find it on the page or in their head and a tailspin or a crisis ensues. One way to begin climbing out of that predicament is to listen for your isms, the words and expressions you use a lot, if not all the time, in your every day speech and your every day internal chatter. Listen for and list your isms. That’s your voice in action. And it’s not lost. It’s always been there. You just haven’t been in the habit of recognizing it.
As for kiwis, I’m don’t have much more to wax about without repeating the obvious stuff that even all moderate fruit-lovers knew, except to rinse and repeat about the utter idiot I’ve been for not recognizing kiwi wonderfulness and loveliness my whole life through. (Mangos, there’s now a serious chance we will befriend – someday.) With kiwis, I’m now in serious adoration. Can’t say I love them as much as salty roasted peanuts. But in the healthful eats category, kiwis rule.
