My first thought with this word has to do with that sinking feeling when something goes wrong with my car or my computer. There’s a breakdown of some sort that makes me furious because I’m completely out of my element with it---don’t have a clue what to do—-but I’m up a creek without both of these things----so I feel helpless and completely at the mercy of someone else. And I really hate that feeling! Now it’s obvious that after I fume a bit, I’ll do the only thing I can do---call an expert. I’ll call AAA for the car (presuming my cell phone has service wherever I am when this delightful event occurs), or I’ll call my trusty computer guy. Whatever is wrong with either my car or my computer will eventually be fixed---for a price, naturally; but I’ll be out of commission for a while. I won’t have the car while it’s in the shop---same with the computer. So, I’ll need to figure something to do for a backup during my breakdown. No matter how helpful my friends and/or family are in this situation, it’s an inconvenience for me and them---and that drives me nuts! While I never mind helping other people out when they’re in a jam, I really don’t want to depend on others when the tables are turned. But I’ll accept the help gracefully, and be very thankful for it---and just hope the breakdown doesn’t mean I need to buy a new car or new computer---THAT would really be a pain!
But, now that I think about it---and am getting over my initial reaction about cars and computers going kaput unexpectedly, another connotation for ‘breakdown’ comes to mind. And that’s what the mechanic and computer guy will be doing to figure out what’s wrong with my car or computer. They will be taking things apart—actually doing that or analyzing how the parts are working together (which is a form of taking things apart), to perform their assessment.
That gets me closer to the world I live in---thinking about doing analyzing, evaluating, assessing, figuring things out, using intuition (which I hope my car or computer guys are not doing!). But perhaps there will be some of that intuition at play for them too---they’ll be using all their senses to figure out what’s wrong---listening, seeing, feeling, using past experience to bring to my particular problem.
When I’m coaching, what I do most of all is listen. And I help people listen to themselves so they can break down for themselves the things that are causing them stress, are barriers to their moving forward, are the challenges that feel insurmountable. Sometimes, when my computer decides to do something funky and I call my computer guy, he can tell by my description of what’s happened that there’s a simple solution so I just push this button and change that setting and—bingo—all fixed.
Our challenges aren’t usually so easy, but there’s still a similarity. I have talents in many areas, but fixing computers that are on the fritz is definitely not one of them. When I’ve reached a place in my life where I’ve felt like I was moving in circles, telling myself negative stories, feeling overwhelmed by circumstances and unable to see a way out---I’ve needed to find someone who could help me break down the challenges into smaller pieces to see where there’s space for change, a different perspective, a new outlook. We can all learn to break down the insurmountable so we can build up a better plan to reach our desired goal.