Counseling and coaching are two different methods that a counselor used to guide a client toward increased self-awareness. The counselor listens and gradually directs the conversation toward new understanding. A coach offers open questions meant to prompt self-discovery by consideration of the answers.
Returning from India to live in America in May 2021, I found it to be a foreign culture for which I needed to make strong adjustments. I became both my counselor and my coach, as I was certified in each discipline.
National Public Radio (NPR) had been an important part of my earlier life, and now back in America, when in the kitchen I returned to listening. As I washed the dishes one morning, I also casually listened to an interview of a musician, finding it mildly interesting. I noted that he was about to play a song on the piano—serendipity, for Dave Frishberg,* the well-known American jazz pianist, composer, and lyricist, was about to capture my heart. His lyrics told a story, and within seconds, almost in disbelief, I said aloud, "I could memorize his songs." On the following day my daughter put his Classics album on my iPhone. Wearing headphones, I sing "Dodger Blue," naming all the baseball players. But my favorite is the romantic lyrical counseling of "Our Love Rolls On!*
Our Love Rolls On
The skies grow dark and the winds do blow
and counting on tomorrow is at best touch and go
but our love rolls on, our love rolls on.
You and I have a reason to try, we'll make it over the hill.
We survive and our love is alive cause our love grows
stronger still, and it always will.
So, it's rain or shine, as the Fates decide, even though
some trouble comes along for the ride, still our love rolls
on.
We can rise above it cause our love rolls on, and on, and
on.*
Another of his songs caught my fancy for its very difference. Across more than one generation, I was drawn to the assured voice of the extroverted young man in "I'm Hip." As he tells us about his life, I imagine his words as answers to a coach's open questions. In some way, those answers had reached Dave Frishberg, who shared them as a lyrical best-seller.
I'm Hip
See, I'm hip. I'm no square.
I'm alert, I'm awake, I'm aware.
I am always on the scene.
Makin' the rounds, diggin' the sounds.
Every Saturday night
With my suit buttoned tight and my suedes on
I'm gettin' my kicks
diggin' arty French flicks with my shades on.
I'm too much. I'm a gas.
I am anything but middle class.
Like, dig! I'm in step.
When it was hip to be hep ...*
My realization is, "Counseling by lyrics may comfort us, while lyrics drawn from coaching let us into another's life. Both may invite an exploration of ourselves."
* “Long known as one of the outstanding jazz pianists, Dave Frishberg has, since the early 1980s, established himself as an internationally recognized composer and lyricist as well as a solo performer with a loyal following in both jazz and cabaret circles. Four of his albums have won Grammy nominations for best jazz vocal.” https://www.davefrishberg.net/long_bio.php
* Classics by Dave Frishberg: https://sonichits.com/video/Rebecca_Kilgore_&_Dave_Frishberg/Our_Love_Rolls_On?track=1. https://lyricspond.com/artist-dave-frishberg/lyrics-im-hip.