My client was telling me about developmentally disabled woman she used to work with. One time she was angry but couldn’t articulate why. My client figured out the woman was angry at her!

She told her client, “You have the right to be angry with me.”

Immediately her anger subsided, she just needed to be heard and validated.

I said, “That took a lot of awareness to figure out she was mad at you, and a huge amount of self-awareness to tell her that was OK. I used to work with people who couldn’t have done that.”

“Thank you,” she said, “Only someone who has worked with that population could have understood that story. And I think I need to give myself the same grace I gave her.”

It was a beautiful moment of clarity for my client.

Thinking about it later, I realized that I barely talk about my previous career working with developmentally disabled adults. It was about 15 years ago, but it feels like another lifetime ago, yet it was transformative in how I see humanity.

For confidentiality reasons, I can’t post any photos of my former clients, but I can post photos that I took with my clients, such as this photo of the hot air balloon. I worked in a group home in the Napa Valley, which was near a park where hot air balloons frequently landed, and my clients and I would go chase them down.

The client with whom I took this photo couldn’t speak, could only use about two dozen signs, and couldn’t use a communication board. She communicated through facial expressions and body language, and I became really good at reading them.

One of the first things I learned when I started work with developmentally disabled people is that nobody gets angry for no reason. They might not be able to tell you why they’re angry, and you may have difficulty figuring it out, but they understand why and it makes perfect sense to them—and THAT is what’s important.

My experience with developmentally disabled adults taught me to see through others' eyes, deepening my empathy. Developing a strong 'theory of mind' and the ability to read others' emotions has profoundly enhanced my coaching practice.

Relationships and Leadership are two of my 7 Keys for Living an Enhanced Life