Endings and Listening

 

 

 

Recently I completed coaching with a client whom I have worked with for over three years. Our journey together has been a rich and deep inquiry into his leadership and personal strengths. We covered much ground and I watched as he inhabited more of his ground to stand on, spoke in his own voice and became confident and sure about sharing his own thoughts. I noticed the joy and energy I always felt when I knew it was time to get ready for a coaching session with this client and reflected frequently in my notes how our journeys mirrored each other and how sometimes I would go away with an inquiry of my own. Coaching is a two way process. Both coach and coachee should be in a learning environment.

Our ending took place over three or more sessions as we began the process of wrapping up our work together. This felt right, to consciously declare the learning and growth that had taken place over the course of the three years and not bottle it up in one single session. We gave time to honour the width and breath of the journey acknowledging the skills that had become a part of their personality, recognising the challenges that had been overcome. I found with this particular client that my skills as a listener always formed an important part of our work together. In fact when I reflected on each of our sessions this is what I appeared to do well, really well and was a quality my client always fed back to me.

There were times when I questioned the value of my listening. Was this really enough in my work as a coach and mentor. Was my presence, my ability to be there, fully present and open, not trying to fix, was that enough? Of course the question was more for me than for my client. For underneath the question was the fundamental search many coaches ask of themselves – “Am I enough?” It is a question that never leaves me. It is what keeps me alive in the coaching relationship which for me is as much about my evolution and growth as it is about the other. One of my wise Supervision tutors, Miriam Orriss on my Supervision training programme would say, “Who you are is how you coach.” Funny that because as my personal tutor during my time on the programme I felt enormously seen and held by her in a way that was not motherly, in fact many times challenging but with great humility and compassion. I still feel some of the actual sensations in my bones from some of the shifts I made in my work with her. But at the centre, at the core of our supervision was the fact that I felt a deep compassion and respect coming from her that grounded our work profoundly.

So I guess what I am finding is that listening is more than sitting there, ears twitching, listening out for the music behind the words. It has layers and layers of qualities that we bring that allow our clients to be held and seen. Every time I work with an individual we have an opportunity to share these great gifts with each other.

I maybe rambling a bit now, a signal that it is time to wrap up this post. What I thought I was going to write about, endings in this post was not really where I ended up. A pattern often reflected in many of the coaching conversations I have during my week. I often remind coaches in training that the presenting issue is not always the main issue. I am learning that this is also true for the writing process as well.  A reminder that the writing when we relax and trust will take you were it is meant to go to the heart of what matters, what is meaningful to you.