Morris Kaufman, MA, BCC, is a personal coach who specializes in helping individuals with the growth and transformation they seek. He understands the role familial relationships play in one’s life. “Family is the people that we’re with for a good part of our life,” says Kaufman. “We interact with our families at an early age and we judge this and that… It’s not what happens in life, it’s how you react to what happens.”
When we think about holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, many of us go through a mental checklist of how many guests we’re expecting, what to prepare, and, of course, what gifts we should present to our loved ones. However, the holidays aren’t easy for those of us who don’t have family to spend it with or want to spend it with.
Kaufman explains that one’s view on their own family can determine how they feel about themselves as well as their outlook on life. If one feels wronged or slighted by someone in their own family, resentment takes center stage. If one hasn’t properly grieved the loss of a loved one, it can show up in anger or a prolonged sadness.
When we think about our internal dialogue, Kaufman says that it’s not with ourselves but with constructs we created at a very young age to make sense of the world; we have a predominant voice that he calls “The Judge”.
“We judge other people, we judge situations, and ultimately we're only judging ourselves and projecting onto them because everyone else is an extra in our movie,” Kaufman explains. “When other people do something or say something that gets us annoyed in some way, it's a trigger because there's something related to that— it might not be that exact thing, but something related to it that we haven't worked through yet or that is coming up for us in different situations.”
We are reacting to the world the way we have habituated ourselves to react; that starts at quite a young age.
Kaufman goes on to say that we don’t usually think of The Judge as an outside influence and instead, think it’s us. “And if we are annoyed by it, the more annoyed, the more it's something that's inside us that we haven’t done yet.”
It's almost like listening to your inner child. Kaufman says you can be any age you have been, but you can’t be any age you haven’t been. “That’s why we have a lot of two-year-olds in Congress,” he quips.
Instead of reacting to what we deem as an attack or a slight, Kaufman shares several tips that are small, but impactful. “I think the one single, simple thing people could do is name their judge something really silly.” Whenever one finds themselves sitting and judging someone, they can give themselves grace by offloading those thoughts to The Judge in their mind. It makes it something you can deal with rather than a concrete conclusion. “He did this to me—no, my Judge feels he did. It makes it silly—takes the magnitude out of it.”
Kaufman’s coaching is about optimization. One of his first clients was a hockey player from Canada who was performing at a high level. Another client Kaufman coached was in San Francisco; he made the decision to accept an offer as a CEO of a tech start up.
“It's not necessarily people that are doing really poorly, they might need therapy. It’s the people that are doing okay or really well,” he says. “How do they optimize what they’re doing? Because we all have habits of functioning—habits of the way we are in the world. Some of those habits are wonderful and good. We need habits so we can function every day.”
It only takes one day at a time, and even though good habits might be challenging to build, they’re harder to do away with once they stick. If you’re wanting to transform yourself from within, Kaufman offers mental fitness coaching and helps people to overcome their inner negativity. No one should go through the holidays saddened and lonely.
The Coaching Alliance | morriskaufman.com