Page 83 of The Snag List
‘Look,’ Lindy said, ‘let’s see what our confidence coach, Amanda, advises. Wanna come, Ailbhe? We’re on the countdown to our last few hours together … We can get pizza after.’
Ailbhe faked a sob. ‘What am I going to do without you two? Who will make my own life seem like less of a shitemare over in California? They won’t even know what a shitemare is.’ She stopped and grinned. ‘Yes, I’ll come. Maybe I can ask Amanda for pointers about recruiting friends who have their shit together.’
‘You’d hate that.’ Roe gave a grim little laugh, putting on a gemstudded velvet headband. ‘I cannot believe this West End meeting is really happening. It is happening, yes? I’m not in a fugue state right now? Or eaten some bad cheese or something?’
‘It’s happening. And –’ Lindy checked her phone ‘– it is happening in ninety minutes so we need to go. You ready, Ailbhe? We have our consultation with Amanda, and then you’ll do the meeting, Roe, and we will sit cheering you on in the corner in complete silence! Sound good?’
At the Work Hub, the early afternoon bustle was in full swing. Lindy led Ailbhe and Roe through the verdant reception area and up to her office – the Snag List headquarters as she had been calling it.Ugh. The logo above her desk stirred the sickening humiliation in her chest.How did I think this would work?
‘So this is where you’ve been working! It is so slick.’ Ailbhe looked out the windows overlooking the atrium.
‘Yeah, this is where I’ve been playing make-believe business lady,’ Lindy said in a bitter sing-song. ‘Here’s where I vommed when I saw Adam and Rachel doing a Kim K and Ray J.’ She indicated the carpet by the desk. ‘And here’s the logo I paid eight hundred fucking euros for.’ She swept her arm across to the opposite wall. ‘What a waste.’
‘Ah, Lindy, it’s not a waste. Not at all.’ Ailbhe looked distraught and Lindy could see she was about to say something else when Amanda of Calibrating Confidence knocked on the open door.
‘Hellooo! Lindy?’
‘Hi, Amanda.’ Lindy rushed forward to shake Amanda’s hand, and she was comforted by how unpolished Amanda seemed. She’d been afraid a confidence coach would be some kind of perfection Terminator, a white suit with silk shirt or something equally foreboding, but, no, here she was looking reassuringly normal in a denim jumpsuit and scuffed trainers with her thick shoulder-length dark hair held back by an orange knotted scarf.
‘So! This is Roe, my client. Or your client. Whatever!’ Lindy stumbled over her words, feeling suddenly embarrassed in front of a bona fide coach. ‘When we started this work, I thought we’d just be asking you for pointers on Roe performing in a local musical, but things have really progressed and now Roe is meeting with the producers of a West End show who are really interested in her.’ Lindy had no idea how much else she should tell this woman. Did Amanda need to know how ballsed up The Snag List was at this point?
‘Congratulations, Roe! That’s great news.’ Amanda smiled broadly. ‘Though, don’t forget, external validation is just one piece of the puzzle – confidence is very much an inside job … Not to get all newagey on you just yet.’ She grinned, her hazel eyes gleaming.
‘This,’ Lindy carried on, ‘is Ailbhe. Probably the most confident person I’ve ever met. I would say she is confident to a reckless degree, frankly.’ Lindy winked, ignoring Ailbhe giving her major evils. ‘I hope you don’t mind us sitting in. Ailbhe is leaving for America tomorrow and this is our last day together,’ Lindy explained.
‘Of course, I don’t mind at all!’ Amanda unshouldered a large teal gym bag and settled herself on the white armchair. ‘I think the bigger the group, the better this process works, to be honest! It’s very powerful sharing our stories.’
‘Oh, I don’t have to share anything,’ Ailbhe cut in. ‘Like Lindy said, I am obnoxiously confident. I don’t need aaany coaching.’
‘Really.’ Amanda tilted her head curiously at Ailbhe. ‘I’m always interested in people who are insistent that they would havenothingto gain from chatting to me. They always end up being the ones most riddled with insecurities!’
Ailbhe looked outraged and Lindy fought back a laugh. She loved Amanda’s delivery: she said everything in the most gentle, casual way but her words were fierce.
‘I do not have any insecurities, thank you. I’m forty-two, I have a successful business, a lovely baby and a mansion, and I am hitting my zenith of hotness,’ Ailbhe pouted triumphantly.
‘You are very attractive,’ Amanda said conversationally. ‘But insecurities are not only connected to our looks. They can be about our abilities, our relationships, our fears for the future. The way I diagnose insecurities or, ya know, a lack of confidence is by asking clients if they are currently lying to anyone.’
Ailbhe’s look of blazing conviction abruptly clouded with dismay. ‘What?’ She looked deeply disturbed. ‘Lying? What would that prove?’
‘C’mon, sit down, sit down. I’ll kick off, shall I?’ Amanda pulled over her sports bag and unzipped it to reveal a host of random craft kits, colouring books and pencils. ‘Right, first, everyone pick a “buffer activity”. These are to give us something to focus on if the discourse is making us uncomfortable. You can do a jigsaw or make a beaded necklace while we sit here and do the work. I’ve found it helps people to stay present even if the explorations start to get tough. Sorry if my woo-woo speak is a bit much. When I started out in life coaching, it used to make me squirmy too, but then I realised I was just obsessing over the lingo as a way to not hear the messages.’ She twinkled a little smile around at them and then announced that she would be making a pasta-shell necklace.
She unbuttoned the collar of her jumpsuit to display many such necklaces with a rueful look. ‘As you can see, all the work I do with clients I’ve done on myself already and continue to do because being confident is not, unfortunately, a static state. It’s one we have to accept will ebb and flow. I think it’s interesting where our two disciplines intersect, Lindy, because The Snag List asks what’s missing from our lives, and Calibrating Confidence looks at what’s missing in ourselves. And one is certainly connected to the other. We can’tacquireconfidence because any acquired confidence will always be contingent on who bestowed it. We must find confidence in ourselves andbuildon it. So, Roe …’ Roe had rooted out a colouring book of mermaids and, at the sound of her name, feverishly began to fill a seashell bra cup in a pretty lilac colour. Amanda didn’t ask her to stop, just carried on in her gentle, melodic voice. ‘From your files, I know a bit about your mother, and there’s stuff to look at there for sure, but that’s for your therapist. As your coach, I deal only in the now and the future. And I believe you’ve had a bit of a breakthrough in the last few days? You were lying to your husband about trying for a baby to protect your role in the show and to protect your relationship?’
‘Yes,’ Roe muttered, scribbling furiously.
‘And how does it feel to have told the truth at last.’
Roe still didn’t look up at Amanda but she paused in her colouring. ‘It’s shit and it’s a relief. I feel like I’ve taken a claw-hammer to my relationship. And I know I’m really exposing how much I want this career in theatre and I feel very vulnerable. I’m so scared I’m not going to get anywhere.’
‘Oh.’ Amanda’s tone sharpened. ‘Hold that fear for a moment. What does that fear tell you?’
‘That …’ Roe was still, and as she thought about it, Lindy turned inward and applied the scenario to her own life. How did it feel to have the truth out at last between her and Adam? As Roe said: both shit and a relief. And Lindy also felt potent fear any time her thoughts drifted too far into the future. But what did that fear tell her?
Roe looked up at Amanda. ‘I think the fear tells me I care. That I want this. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be scared.’
Amanda nodded. ‘The fear is a very important emotion. It can be motivating. The fear is telling you this is a high-stakes moment, and fear will also be the thing that helps you rise to it. Let’s all try to work with our fear from now on. Buddy up with it, realise that fear is not something to be avoided at all costs, it is productive. Let’s harness it! And let’s be spurred on by it. Remember, nothing changes if nothing changes.’
Oh, she is good, Lindy thought with reverence. Walking away from a marriage was as high-stakes a moment as they come, but if nothing changed, nothing changed, and she would stay miserable and fearful.
