Coaching or Caring?

Why can't it be both? While coaching in the Learn to Skate program at my ice rink, I encounter all sorts of people. In this particular class, there were quite a few children making it quite chaotic. At some point one of the little girls was crying. As an empath, I reach to hurt so I did my best to make her feel safe and heard. When she got comfort from her parents she returned to the ice and kept coming over to me and giving me hugs. I found this in sharp contrast to another coach who didn't ask her student if she was ok, told her she was ok.

So often I describe myself as not being a people person because I don't operate within social norms and it makes people uncomfortable, but in that moment, I understood that social norms are not what matter most. People matter most, so in that way, I think I have been misrepresenting myself because, I believe that makes me a better people person than I once believed.

Along those same lines, I bought some new little animals to help keep the little ones attention in class and also some new ice markers so of course I needed a little bag to keep it all contained. The little bag is the perfect size, but it's black. I'm a colorful sort of person, so I dug around in my sewing supplies and found some ice skate and heart patches to sew on but it still needed a little something and I wanted to label it with my name so I found some groovy letters to iron on the back and this is the result.