Our environments have become increasingly and worryingly noisier. We talk and text constantly on mobile phones. It’s the norm to see couples and friends out eating and drinking, and everyone will have their heads down texting or tweeting, even whilst in conversation. So it’s not surprising that as our digital talk increases we’ve steadily become poorer listeners, not better ones. So how does one become a better listener and can you learn to listen well?
“Even after its death, an ancient tree continues to provide habitats for wildlife, for decades more”
- Ancient Trees: Trees That Live To A Thousand Years
Many of my coaching clients know how much I love trees. I regularly use trees as examples and metaphors when I’m coaching. When I get time to head out into nature I turn to trees to re-energise and replenish myself when I feel stressed or overwhelmed.
Recently one of my former coaching clients, Fiona Parashar (Leadership Coaching) sent me a picture of a tree she’d captured on camera whilst out having what she described as a Restorative day. “The trees in Bath are wild today,” she wrote. I wrote back and asked why this particular tree resonated with her? Her reply, “Its full bloom spoke to me.” I smiled when I read her words.
In a recent post on the Coaching Supervision Academy blog executive coach and coach supervisor Elaine Patterson reframed the word resilience to resourcing. She described resourcing as, “creating a bigger energy within ourselves . . . . .” You can continue reading her blog post here
The word re-Sourcing, which Elaine Patterson writes about is a good word to use when I think about what my client and I both gain from our connection and love of trees.
Last week my partner’s cousin came to stay overnight. Whilst all three of us caught up on our week in the kitchen preparing dinner she shared how she gone with her mother and sister to an arboretum where they planted a tree for her sister who had sadly passed away the previous year.
The idea for planting a tree had come about because her sister had been cremated and their mum was finding it hard having nowhere significant to go and visit her on a regular basis. So not only had they purchased a tree and planted her, they also planted a time capsule with some of her favourite objects and possessions, which they buried under the young tree.
Rituals are important practices to bring back into the routine of our daily lives. They provide meaning. They offer us moments to touch the sacred, to breath into what is important and allow the rhythm of the ritual to bring us back into true connection. I’ve watched as rituals have helped coaching clients reconnect to the present, to their lives and most importantly to themselves.
In the past trees held very symbolic places in our communities and in our cultures. In many agricultural communities trees provided valuable food and shelter.
Ancient trees were often a prominent meeting point in many communities. If we consider the importance and focus of the altar in a religious building then many trees were considered places of reverence and worship in nature.
In my role as an interfaith minister I’ve officiated a wedding blessing under the watching eyes of a huge evergreen oak in a South London Park. And once when I had hit a very dark place in my life several of my friends entering from the four directions joined me early one morning in a healing ritual under the watchful guidance and presence of that same tree.
I really do love trees and I miss the time I would spend really connecting with their presence. I wonder if you feel the same way too? If the weather’s as nice over the weekend as it was today then see if you can find a moment to mindfully focus on a tree in your surroundings or neighbourhood.
Why not capture on camera a tree that catches your eye. In the meantime I’ll leave you with some questions to reflect on over the weekend.
How have you engaged trees in rituals as part of family events, services and celebrations?
How might you involve the presence of a tree in a future event?
What do trees mean to you?
How have you engaged with trees in a meaningful or sacred way?
I was seventeen and at my best friends house for her seventeenth birthday party. Despite being really good friends I couldn’t bring myself to share with her what had happened to me when I was aged seven, such was the shame and guilt I had wrongly heaped upon myself.
But my friend, her name was Jennifer was not only very smart, she was also very intuitive and in the middle of her birthday celebrations she handed me a book and said to me with compassion and conviction, “I think this book will help you.”
The book my friend gave me that day was I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelo. By the time I woke up the next day and opened to the title page and read her inscription:
This book
is dedicated to:
MY SON, GUY JOHNSON
AND ALL THE STRONG BLACK BIRDS
OF PROMISE
who defy the odds and gods
and sing their songs.
I was hooked. Do you know that feeling you get in your tummy when you know you’re onto something but you don’t know exactly what? When turning the page of the book feels exciting, an adventure in print, filled with anticipation and not knowing all wrapped into one. That’s what it was like as I began reading.
Up until that point in my life I had never read a book by a black author, someone who had the same skin colour as me. The fact that Maya was a black woman was in my mind revolutionary, a revelation and at the same time deeply affirming.
In a moment my perception of what was possible for me to achieve and become in my lifetime, changed fundamentally. If Maya was similar to me and could write and be published then maybe so could I. Maya planted the seed.
Reading on I discovered from those very first pages how much we shared in common. Even though we lived thousand of miles apart in different countries and in geographically very different landscapes.
I lived on the edge of London in what my friends at the time called the suburbs and Maya had grown up in the rural South. We shared the experiences of racism also Maya was at the deeper end of living in the segregated South.
Where our lives joined was that we both grew up in the arms of the black church, hers rural, mine in the inner city. Where our lives deeply connected and became the medicine because Maya told the story I so needed to hear was our shared early childhood trauma experiences of sexual abuse and rape.
Reading Maya’s story was medicine for me. Here was a woman, not so different from myself having the courage to tell her story despite her rapist being found dead after she revealed his name and her not speaking for five years because she believed her voice had the power to kill.
There it was in print for the world to see. She had thrown light on her story, taken it out of the dark and made it visible. There it was in black and white print. Her story could not be erased. It was a powerful early lesson demonstrating how writing about our wounds heals.
By sharing the story of being raped Maya bought my story out of hiding. For so long I had imagined that I was a freak, that I was alone in my suffering and that I could never recover from what had happened to me. Maya’s story offered me the possibility of a new and different ending.
By the time I had gotten to the end of the book I knew I wanted to write. I wanted to write and share my story in the hope that my words would touch the souls and spirits of other young women like myself who were living in a prison of shame, guilt and feelings of worthlessness.
Such was the impact of Maya Angelou’s story and the subsequent volumes of her autobiography and poetry that when my daughter was born in 1988 I named her Aida Maya after my sheroe.
Twenty years later after first reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings I wrote my first book Soul Purpose, which was also autobiographical. On page one I dared to write about what had happened to me even though at the time I wasn’t willing or should I say ready to go into the fuller details.
But there’s no doubt in my mind that reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings was the catalyst for writing my first book and for me having the courage to reveal what had happened to me. Maya had planted the seed. She awakened the thirst in me. She made me hungry to get to know myself by writing and claim a life as a writer and a story teller.
Years later thanks to the generosity and friendship of Tony Fairweather from the Write Thing literacy agency I got to meet Maya several times when she performed in a regular show she did when in the UK at Lewisham theatre in the heart of South London.
Over the years I’ve met many writers and authors that I’ve admired and have been as equally disappointed by some of the behaviour and attitudes displayed off stage.
But not Maya. She was exactly as she was on stage as she was off. She was open, warm and welcoming. She would not favour one person over another. When she spoke to you she gave you and only you her undivided attention and presence. She would call us by our names in the deep velvet, honey voice that was loved and admired.
At the after show receptions held for her she stayed until the last hand was shaken and the last person spoken with. Such was her presence, her grace and her generosity of spirit.
When she spoke with you it was that same dialect, the same tone and pitch that would have you rocking in your seat as she recited the words of one of her poems,
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still like dust I rise.
I cannot tell you how many boardrooms and corridors of power where the words of that poem vibrated in my head causing me to anchor my feet to the floor and stand my ground and find my voice. It was Maya coming to my rescue, helping a sister out, her voice singing in my ears.
So Maya is no longer with us but she has left behind a rich legacy in her stories, her writing, her poems and the multitude of speeches and talks she gave in her lifetime.
I am deeply thankful for her life and the impact her story had on me as that young seventeen year old. I am thankful to my dear friend Jennifer who had the foresight to reach out to me through Maya’s book.
This life is but a feather in the wind. At some point we all cease being in this form, in this body. But whilst we are here with breath still in our bodies, still able to move our hands and our finger lets remind ourselves how much our lives matter, our stories matter. Writing and telling our stories matters.
When we write the truth on the page it will be medicine for someone, not everyone, but someone somewhere, will be touched. So we have to write. We must write. We must share and tell our stories.
Writing changes lives and lives are changed by writing is my strap line, and Maya Angelou is a testimony to this.
This is quite a long blog post, which had not been my intention but I think if you stay with it you will find it really helpful in getting clarity on what it takes to turn pro (thanks to Steven Pressfield).
The Back Story
Last week I was doing research for a tele-class I was co-presenting on.
I had finally gotten myself to my desk to do the serious work of putting my ideas together. I always convince myself I have not really done the work if my ideas come to me when I am washing the dishes, driving in the car or just pottering around the house.
So there I was facing the computer screen about to press the magic button to dive into the bottomless pit of information Google, the digital world’s modern day oracle.
So I’m sitting in front of the screen. I type in the words of my subject, which was around ideas for ‘creative endings in coaching relationships’.
I type in the words, and within seconds Google pops up its result. I can feel the stress easing away as I convince myself the digital oracle of Google will now point me to that killer material that will take the material I’ve already gathered from good to great.
The Big Forget
I turn to the screen for closer inspection and there in the number three position on Google is a blog post with my name on it. I do a double take. Really? It’s there in black and white and I’m stunned.
I can honestly say that in that moment any memory of writing that post, gathering all the juicy information I then found I had written about once I had gotten over the shock, had totally escaped the vast memory banks of my mind.
I was gob smacked. One because I clearly wasn’t remembering and keeping track of the material I was putting out there in the world but most importantly I realized that whether I had done it consciously or not I had arrived at that place Steven Pressfield writes about in his book, Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life’s Work of Turning Pro!
On Turning Pro from Steven Himself
In Turning Pro Steven Pressfield writes,
“ Resistance hates two qualities above all others: concentration and depth. Why? Because when we work with focus and we work deep, we succeed.”
“ When we turn pro everything becomes simple. Our aim centers on the ordering of our days in such a way that we overcome the fears that have paralyzed us in the past.”
We now structure our hours not to flee from fear, but to confront it and overcome it. We plan our activities in order to accomplish an aim. And we bring our will to bear so we stick to this resolution.”
“ The Professional ……… he knows that when the Muse see’s his butt in the chair, she will deliver.”
What I Now Know For Sure
For the last two years I’ve noticed a shift in me when it comes to my work as a writer. No matter what is going on in my life the one thing that remains constant is writing.
In the space of two years I’ve completed four e-books, one published print book, near completion of two digital online courses and filled the pages of ten or more journals and business journals and that’s for starters.
I write whether there is a financial compensation or not and more often than not there’s no payment in sight.
One hundred percent of my writing content on social media and the e-books I have published are free material and I pay to get all my e-books professionally edited and designed. I’m willing to write no matter what.
I’ve arrived at a place where the process of turning pro has generated a solid body of work. There are some interesting benefits to be had when this happens. Here’s what I’ve noticed and now know for sure:
You get to a place where you can start to creatively re-position material. Material from an e-book can be easily repositioned as content for a paid online e-course. Material from a print book can be creatively extended and expanded on for a magazine or online article or feature.
You realize that you can develop ideas and not everything is about starting from scratch with completely novel and original ideas.
You start to value your material and how you have put things together. Having this body of work and turning pro means that I’ve become more organized so I can find content, link material and get stuff out to people quickly because what I need I’ve already created in that body of work.
You realize that you take to the page with very little resistance 9even when you don’t feel like it and there isn’t enough time). I’m noticing how often I arrive at the page or computer screen with a skip in my step.
In my case I‘ve noticed that even though there’s a few things in my life right now that could be better writing makes me happy, so happy I could sometimes cry from the level of real joy and satisfaction I get from having a career that leaves me feeling so fulfilled and satisfied.
The more I write and share the clearer I get on what 20% of my actions bring about 80% of my results (Pareto Principle).
I don’t take failure personal. If a piece of writing or work is not accepted I get right back out there and cast the net and explore to see who else might be interested. The territory of the pro means being open to rejection, to not being part of the in crowd and sometimes having to go it alone.
My commitment to the regular practice of writing now means I can write articles, features, blog posts and just about anything in less and less time using the principle of (Parkinson’s Law). The idea being that we complete an action based on the amount of time available. If you have 5 days you will use 5 days to ruminate, think over and take the time to get the task done. If you have 5 hours to get the same task completed then you’ll adapt and get the task completed within the 5 hours you have.
I’ve given myself permissions to do things imperfectly. I recently recorded a series of video interviews for my on line journaling writing programme. I record the interviews on my MacBook Pro in people’s home and I don’t edit. This means when we press the stop button at the end the video is complete and I know I can add this to my body of work. However the more interviews I do the better I will get as a pro, the more I’ll learn and over time the quality of my videos will change. But for now what I do is good enough.
My One Disagreement With Mr Pressfield
There’s only one point in Turning Pro where I disagree with Pressfield where he writes, “ The amateur tweets. The professional works.”
I think we can do both. I spend less than an hour on Twitter every three to fours days but what works and makes giving over this time worthwhile is being focused on sharing your body of work with others, commenting on the things that interest you and make connections with others who you would not normally come into contact with who are aligned with your body of work. Tweeting is an effective way of finding your tribe but it’s not a replacement for the work.
I’m now at a point where when someone asks me to write an article I smile. I’m a pro. I turn up and do the work. It’s hard work but I love it.
Turning Pro. What Will It Take?
What action would take you from amateur to pro?
I recommend reading Steven Pressfield’s books Turning Pro, Do The Work or The War Of Art Click HERE to visit Amazon
Fed up of touting the same old CV? Do you have that nagging feeling that your CV doesn’t really stand out from the crowd?
Would you like to communicate on paper who you are both on the page and off the page?
I know I do. Recently I went through an arduous application process followed by a rigorous assessment process for coaches required for a top level-coaching list.
The profiles of all the successful coaches were then collated into a booklet from which leaders could then select coaches of their choice.
When I began leafing through the booklet it soon became apparent how skilled and qualified all of us were. Each profile contained impressive lists of qualifications and training along with lists of companies and organizations we had all worked for. It was a polished list of what we had done but nowhere did we communicate who we are and what stands out about us behind all of the accomplishments and achievements. To be honest if photographs were removed from each page we would all read like carbon copies of each other or perhaps it the words are best captured by the poet Hafiz, “The idiot’s warehouse is full of merchandise.”
Take my own profile. Missing was any real evidence of my life lessons earned through a number of life challenges including overcoming childhood sexual abuse which held real evidence of my early demonstration of resilience and compassionate leadership.
Missing were real life examples of how and where I have led both in the workplace and in my personal life.
Missing were the three years of dedicated long distance running that held off a major descent into depression.
Missing were the daily acts of everyday courage and bravery that filled up an ordinary life.
These major omissions got me thinking. I went into my archives and pulled out two paper documents where I have made steps to communicate more of the real me on paper.
The first document is what I refer to, as my Unconventional CV. You’ll find a copy tucked away on the About Jackee page on my website click here to download a copy of my Unconventional CV
An Unconventional CV is created by using all the letters of the alphabet to summarize an overview of your personal passions and interests, the things that make your heart sing, the activities that signal when you’re in a flow, the things you’re good or have gotten better at.
An Unconventional CV is juicy. It speaks to the important lessons you’ve learned about life and living, it names some of the subtle and significance differences you’ve made over the years to others. Your job is to find the precise words that give examples of any of the above and then place them in order based on the letter of the alphabet they begin with from A right down to Z.
Much of the information contained in my Unconventional CV is scattered throughout the pages of my journals but much of what I have documented in those notebooks has very much remained hidden from public view. My Unconventional CV has been hidden on my website for the last year but whenever I’ve shared it people have loved the idea of what it speaks to.
By the way I was inspired to create this kind of CV from an article I read in Liat (a Caribbean airline) magazine on a flight to Barbados about three years ago, a reminder to be open to ideas from a range of unexpected sources.
Click here to view a copy of my Unconventional CV and use as a guide to create your own.
The second CV I’d like to introduce you to is a Courage CV. This CV has a more specific remit. The Courage CV creatively communicates evidence of your own bravery, courage and moments of vulnerability (I believe episodes of vulnerability are gateways to evidence of hidden and overlooked strengths), evidence of risk taking, breaking the rules, going out on a limb or making a stand for what you believe in. Your Courage CV should show the real road you have travelled and what kind of journey you’ve had that includes the messes.
In what might sometimes look like a mess is actually a message waiting to be conveyed that has a punch, that feels alive because it’s without the mask, the polish and the neat around the edges self we present to the world that result in safe and sterile messages about who we are.
My courage CV tells the story of my love of trees, the wild and my hunger for nature. It speaks of my courage to speak my truth as a child and a teenager, which has served me well in many instances in my adult life. It speaks of my love of books and reading which has fed a creative and imaginative mind that has a knack for creating courses and workshop with depth, feeling and passion behind what goes into them.
What would your Courage CV include? Why not use the above criteria and create your own Courage CV? I like to use large sheets of paper and plot examples of courage, bravery and vulnerability moments in my life in the form of timelines. Use markers and coloured pens to bring the whole process to life. What would your Unconventional or Courage CV look like as a collage, a series of photographs or even a piece of artwork?
Even if you don’t send out paper versions in the first round of job applications these are great documents to create for your own personal use. You’ll be more connected to an interview panel when you speak through the voice of your Unconventional or Courage CV. The panel won’t even need to see either in it’s paper form (but of course they can) but they’ll need to feel it in the words and stories you share to illustrate the above.
In her book Fierce Leadership click here to order a copy of Fierce Leadership author Susan Scott suggests that to conduct a smart heart interview, begin with a general question. “Tell us about yourself. What would you like us to know about who you are, where you’ve been, where you are now and where you’re headed?” Having a Unconventional or Courage CV will ensure you’re well prepared to answer these kinds of questions at interviews which more and more companies are interested in asking and finding out about you at the hiring stage.
Sometimes your own personal shift will come about from actually seeing the content you’ve generated in black and white or colour print on the page, all in one place. But there’s also more to take in here. Both CV’s capture evidence of your emotional intelligence. Scott quotes Daniel Goleman in Fierce Leadership and saying that, “ As a leader moves up an organization, up to 90 percent of their success lie in emotional intelligence.” In other words nine out of ten executives who derail do so because they lack emotional competencies! There’s no wastage in you producing CV’s of this kind.
Place your CV’s in a visible spot as a constant reminder so you don’t forget the positive qualities and strengths that make you uniquely who you are.
Or how about turning them into manifestos or ways of introducing yourself online, in person or to new partners and collaborators as well as new audiences. More on this go to Alexandra Franzen’s website who has a great list of templates for manifestos and writing about yourself in a more wholehearted, right brained way click: http://www.alexandrafranzen.com/2013/02/11/5-ways-to-write-a-blow-your-mind-manifesto/
Remember both CV’s are intended to communicate the authentic and real you on paper.
We’d love to publish examples of your Unconventional and Courage CV ‘s on the blog as inspiration for others to do the same.
Please send your text as pdf files with a photo to info@jackeeholder.com and we promise to publish your examples on our blog and tweet to our Twitter and LinkedIn followers.
A week or so ago I was down in Devon on a week’s writing retreat when I decided to do an impromptu interview with Sharon Jennings.
Sharon is a lecturer in Social Work at Goldsmith University and our conversation covered some excellent ground around the value and benefits of reflective practice across a range of professions not just coaching or therapy.
We found we had a lot in common although working in different professions (me in coaching and supervision and Sharon in social work and health care) there was such an overlap between the benefits engaging in reflective practice offered our work and our practice. This was also extended to the benefits managers and leaders would gain from across industries and professions.
We talked about:
Why reflective practice makes a difference to our productivity and standards in our professions?
Tips on how to engage with making the best use of a reflective learning journal
How to use a reflective learning journal to track progress and development
How to harness the information contained in your reflective notes
why looking back on what you’ve written is important
I’m a real advocate of reflective practice and I think this quote from Kim Stafford from her book, The Pen and the Bell, really captures in one the value that embedding a reflective practice brings to our work as coaches, supervisors and writers and just about every profession there is, ” a violin played everyday will keep the vibrations of the music in it’s body, even while lying still and silent. If it is not played everyday, the vibrations dissipate and the wood grows lifeless.”
If you can get past the bed in the background which I forget to fade out and the bad hair day I was having I think there is some really useful stuff here.
Today was a beautiful sunny day in London town so I decided to treat myself to a restorative day.
I took myself across to West London to the nature sanctuary of Kew Gardens one of London’s most cherished nature spots. Seems I wasn’t alone judging by the long queues to get in.
But once inside I knew I had made the right choice. I decided to join a one hour guided tour of some of Kew’s plant and tree life. This was a good start giving me information about Kew and it’s plant life. Our guide Angela shared lots of interesting and fascinating facts about plant life including:
When it comes to trees and plant life gardeners hate grass why because it gets the food first – Interesting fact I thought.
Arborists leave trees alone instead of trying to treat them trees. Why? Because trees have an inbuilt healing system and when left alone heal by themselves.
What is going on in a tree’s root system is reflected in the health of the tree above ground.
Once the tour ended I wandered through Kew at a slow pace and every few steps captured on camera some of the many delights of the garden on this gorgeous spring day.
See what I mean with some of the images below.
This was just what I needed. After delivering two workshops yesterday in Birmingham I was in need of some restorative time. Restorative days are days where you schedule in a solo adventure intended to recharge your battery. This is not a night out with the girls or a new romantic partner; this is strictly time with you and you alone.
But even I have to admit this is not always an easy thing to give ourselves but I’m always reminded of how important it is once I do it.
Restorative days are intended to energise and uplift. Just wandering in nature recharged my battery. With lives and schedules that have us constantly on alert it was good to wander without a destination or an agenda. In our over stimulated lives wandering can be a very liberating thing to do.
Of course in my bag I did have books to read (two in fact plus a magazine) but I followed my gut simply guided me to walk, stop to eat, write this blog post at a leisurely pace and then just be. To end my time in the garden I sat on a bench stared into the space, read and allowed the sun’s rays to stroke my cheeks.
Doing less empowers us to do more. Tomorrow I’ll be fired up to dive onto the page first thing with enough energy to get on with the weeks tasks in hand knowing that my reserves have been topped up and I’ve been refueled.
The busier your life is the more restorative days you’ll need to build in. Your restorative activity feeds you creatively, emotionally, physically and sometimes even spiritually. So visits to the salon to get your nails done don’t count.
So when will you book yourself in for a restorative day in March?
Have you promised yourself to make time in 2014 to write that coaching or supervision article, start gathering ideas and themes for that book you always wanted to write or some other writing projects? Making these promises can be easy to make but harder to put into action.
One way to get around this is to book yourself onto a writing retreat. It’s a great way of giving yourself uninterrupted and concentrated time and space to write and create. There’s the added bonus of choosing a retreat with a programme of workshops or master classes led by an experienced writer or facilitator where you’ll gain writing tips and techniques that will support you in creating a body of work and developing a routine around your writing practice.
I’ve found it enormously helpful to my coaching/supervision and writing practice along with my emotional and mental well-being to have retreat time away from my daily work where I am free to immerse myself in writing away from the addictive distractions of daily life.
I find writing retreats to be both creative and spiritually replenishing. Retreats provide me with precious time and space to reconnect with myself both on and off the page.
Often on retreat the very nature of the physical landscape is energising. That in itself can be a creative tonic. I once travelled to Taos in New Mexico to join a silent writers retreat with writer Natalie Goldberg.
The backdrop of sage bush and plains was a landscape I was unfamiliar with and this provoked unexpected material in my writing I hadn’t expected. Ernest Hemingway captured this when he wrote, “Often the opposite of where we find ourselves is what we write.”
Eight pay offs of going on a writing retreat:
Dedicated time and space to focus solely on your writing and creative process away from the distractions of daily life.
Giving yourself permission to take your writing self on a learning journey. You’ll learn new skills, tips and techniques, learn and participate in a range of writing prompts and writing exercises.
You’ll learn from an experienced writer as well as receive rich feedback, ideas and insight from strangers who often see and comment on aspects of your writing you don’t see.
You’ll be surrounded by like-minded people who are what you would describe as part of your writing tribe.
Writing retreats give you an opportunity to stay in beautiful places, visit new cities, towns, villages and locations.
Retreats offer the intimacy and safety of small groups and spaces to deepen into your writing.
Retreats offer breathing space, time to unwind, catch your breath and put something back into you.
Most retreats ensure that the day-to-day activities like cooking, clearing up are taken care of so you can get on with the business of writing and creating.
At the end of June (27th June to the 4th July 2014) I will be running a one week writers retreat Word by Word, Line by Line, Page by Page Inside Out Writers Retreat in Skiathos in Greece. Click here for full details: http://www.kalikalos.com/workshops/creative-writing-workshop.shtml
You’ll be joining a community of other kindred spirits as we dive into a week of writing, walking and in the daily atmosphere and surroundings of the sun, sand and Greek sea air. There will be plenty of time in the afternoons to take yourself down to the beach and stay there till dinnertime back at the centre.
Maybe this is just the ticket you need to launch your writing platform whether personally or professionally motivated in 2014.
Sometimes we can use a retreat to simply rest and catch our breath. Before you know it in between the breaths you’ve imagined a story or an article into being. There’s still time to join us, just click the link above for more information and booking details.
I’ve just started working with a new coach and was reminded of just how refreshing it is to work in partnership to co-create your life and career with the right coach.
I have never met my coach in person. He works for a coaching company I respect. He has done loads of training and continues to do so. But the thing that impresses me most is his humanness and the genuine compassion I feel from him in every conversation we have. All the qualifications in the world can’t cover over a lack of compassion or empathy. At the end of the day I always trust my heart and every time I spoke to this coach my heart said Yes! Funnily enough I did not fist contact him to be my coach but once it headed in that direction I just knew it was right.
We carried out three initial conversations on the phone where we explored what I was looking for from a coach, then we talked about who we are and what we bring including what makes us tick and our styles of working. I brought to a conversation topics that coaches sometimes shy away from and he walked with me in the conversation and made comments that made me think.
On our third conversation once we agreed that we wanted to work together we had a contracting conversation where we talked through any ethical and boundary issues about the coaching and further teased out what my focus would be for the six sessions of us working together. By the end of these conversations I felt I knew a lot more about my coach, felt excited about working with him and about the possibilities I could create from our work together.
Our one-hour sessions together so far have proved to be very productive. I have benefitted hugely from the quality and depth of our conversations. On our first call he did a mindfulness practice before we started. It was a few minutes of mindful arriving. In that moment it felt to me like an oasis had been created and a clear intention set. His modeling reminded me of some of the good stuff I used to bring to my coaching. Reminding me of how valuable these practices are and nudging me to do more of it.
Our sessions so far have helped me get clearer about those places in my work I thought I was clear about. It has been energising and hugely reassuring and supportive knowing I have the space fortnightly to talk through things I maybe struggling with and to know that the person I am talking with is not trying to fix me but holds a space which activates my ability to connect with my own inner knowing and resourcefulness.
The coaching space is both reflective and reflexive giving me precious time and space out of my schedule to take stock. Because of the reflexivity involved I am noticing where the coaching could stretch me. This is not a bad thing. A healthy coaching relationship is one where you can offer the coach feedback and tweak the coaching so you can make sure your needs are getting met in many ways and on different levels. This way the coaching is dynamic rather than passive. I worked out that what I need to integrate into our work together was a lot more accountability in between sessions. Life and stuff does get in the way and agreeing to concrete actions that are followed up by us both no matter how small can be really helpful.
For me it’s more about calling myself to account and getting into that rhythm and routine of working with myself in the way I would with my own coaching clients and supervises who required this kind of approach.
It dawned on me that I like the idea of completing a written form in-between the sessions and to complete a form before our next sessions. Although this is not ideal for every coaching client is suits my style. Writing and recording my reflections between sessions and before my next session helps me to stay focused and bring things together. This is something I would find very helpful and will be suggesting that this is put in place for my remaining sessions.
I believe you should leave a coaching session feeling better resourced than when you first went in even if difficult and challenging material is explored. So far my coaching has achieved this. In the middle of our last coaching session my coach reflected back something to me that reached deep into my core. Because we were coaching on the telephone he could not see the tear that rolled down my cheek. But because of my own willingness to be authentic I shared with him the impact of what he had observed.
In a few minutes we had gone somewhere deep. We crossed over into territory that often is skirted around in coaching conversations. Even though our backgrounds are different we found a common ground from which we could navigate the content of the conversation. This in my experience is what makes coaching often a magical process. When I say magical what I mean is we don’t always know where our conversations will lead but you can bet they lead somewhere where you need to go.
I am noticing that even more is gained when I reflect back on our conversations and make reflective notes after each session. In the same way there is real benefit in going back over your recordings in a journal or notebook, your reflective notes can be mined in the same way.
I hope you find these tips helpful when working with or searching for a coach.
I’d love to hear the things you value from working with a coach.
Do post your thoughts and experiences in the comments section.
This morning I happened across one of the Sunday sermons by the School Of Life http://www.theschooloflife.com which by the way I would highly recommend.
The sermon was given by Dan Pearson, garden and landscape designer, writer and broadcaster http://www.theschooloflife.com/library/videos/2013/dan-pearson-on-commitment/ whom I had heard about in the past but not really ever listened or read up on. I do have a vague memory in the back of my mind of a beautiful gardening book I once came across which I believe he had contributed to.
Sitting and listening I was moved to write down the following extract of his talk where he defines process in much the same way psychologist Mikay Csikszentmihalyi describes as ‘flow’ and his story about the process of planting the young tree and not being around to see it in it’s maturity. Have a read and contemplate on his words for a few seconds and see what thoughts and connections it triggers for you.
“A process is something in which we can lose ourselves as we would when we were a child. It’s the kind of pleasure we get when we are completely absorbed. ”
“ …….. A friend of mine who is a geneticist, Katherine couldn’t believe how I was able to out a tiny sapling in the ground and be quite happy to imagine that I had to wait, 5, 10, 15 possibly 50 years before that tree ever became something with any gravity. But for me it’s the process that’s the interesting thing.
It’s not about the pleasure of the tree when it’s a hundred years old necessarily. It’s about getting it through those early stages, when it needs to get its roots in contact with the soil getting it to the point where it’s not going to be overwhelmed by the grass and the weeds around it because it has the upper hand.
Getting it to the point where I can stand in the first little pool of shade that it casts when it’s old enough and getting it to the point where it can bear its own fruit so it can then reproduce itself.
The process for me of planting that little tree is something that makes the whole thing worth it.”
Dan really spoke to the reality that he may never see that tree in it’s full grown state and in knowing this he is able to then let go and enjoy the present moment of the process. How often in our current lives are we driven to achieve the end result? How often do we drive ourselves to the finishing line (I know it is a good thing to get things done) but often at the expense of missing out on the wonders of the process?
Yesterday I sat hunched over my computer with the shutters in the room I was working closed as the sun shone brilliantly outside. I told myself I was too busy to open the shutters, too busy to clear the table that walkers by would have a full view of so I missed out on the process of the day.
It was only when I dashed out the house to put petrol in my car that I realized the wonder in the day I had let pass me be as the evening began creeping in.
I see it a lot in the training of new coaches. They want the tool kit, the models, and the killer coaching questions. They don’t always place the value on understanding and being present to the process of their own unfolding, their own learning, their own growth and development.
Don’t get me wrong I find much of what I am talking about here hard from time to time. Yesterday on the phone I was chatting to a coach whom I had met on a coaching course. She asked me how things were with me. I told her about how my days were no longer packed full with training, coaching and marking assignments. I followed this with how I felt I was lagging behind compared to many of my peers and colleagues who seem to be speaking, coaching and training every minute of their day.
She wisely pointed out in a gentle way how ugly comparison is as both a word and as a feeling causing me to pause and take a breath.
The pause and the subsequent breath helped me access a new thought. Why had I neglected to share how much I was writing in these days where I was no longer under pressure to be somewhere or having to facilitate one coaching session after the other? How I really loved creating a new series of programmes and deepening into my body of work where I am experiencing being absorbed and lost in time.
So much that sometimes I forget to eat not because of stress but because I am not hungry. Why? The work feeds me and when I am fed in this way my appetite changes.
Would I dare to say I have valued the time to think and the space to meditate in the middle of my day? Could I talk enthusiastically and wholeheartedly about how much I enjoyed the long stretches I have some days to write and carry out research and of how I am connecting across different schools of thought and linking it to material I am working on now.
Each of us is like that tree that Dan refers to. If we’re not careful we may well miss the richness the process offers us in each moment.
Process is the place of mindfulness and mindfulness is the art of arriving and being in the present and the present is an aware appreciation of what and who you are being in the here and now.
Jon Kabat-Zinn captures this in the following quote, ‘When you are taking a shower, check and see if you are in the shower. You may already be in a meeting at work. Maybe the whole meeting is in the shower with you.’ The product is good but without the real lived appreciation and acknowledgement of the process it probably is worth very little at all.
