My March Insights for Impact are loosely themed around the organic and unfolding nature of our human experience of relationships, growth and perspective. Best enjoyed on a sunny day, sat outside in the mild air by a tree of some kind. Failing that (because it has been damp, hasn't it!) - try reading and reflecting one morning whilst still cosy, before you launch into activity. Enjoy!
Insight 1: “Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.” - Maya Angelou
Courage comes in as many forms as the challenges humans are presented with daily, and so many acts of courage fly under our radar. For some of us, courage is leaving our bed. For others it is an interview, and for others sharing a feeling. For some of us it is creating art, and for all of us it is allowing ourselves to connect with other people. We risk ourselves daily. My work requires as much courage from me as it does from the people I am coaching, yet it is all too easy in this "age of the expert" to see ourselves and others as more or less, above or below. The truth is, we are all walking each other home, hurting, learning, striving. For better, for each other, and ourselves. Being human, navigating this life, and remaining in our humanity while we do it, is a deeply courageous act.
Insight 2: Healing and growth come in many more forms than we are led to believe by our societal conditioning. - Freya Blom
There are no linear, mechanistic processes for us, because humans are not, at their core (and despite what they are often socialised to believe) simply the fleshy cogs of industry. We are animals, organisms. We come from nature, and our journey is uniquely organic. As Buckminster Fuller says: “I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process - an integral function of the universe.”
Insight 3: "When someone falls in love with your flowers & not your roots, they don't know what to do once fall & winter come." - Jade Jackson
This is relevant for all types of relationship. The person we meet at interview is not always the same person we hire. When we attempt to "sell" ourselves, we enter into the hiring process, but that is a very different process than the daily fulfilment of the role, with all its myriad challenges, nuances and relationships. An interview is a snapshot of some aspects of a person on a given day. How many snapshots would we need to make a truly informed decision? How can we ever know someones roots until their petals drop? It is in the face of commitment to doing the hard relational work that many people back away. Sometimes this is exactly the right thing to do. Then other times there has not been a deep enough excavation, we have not gone down to the roots enough, to find what treasure is buried there. How do relationships get to thrive in a world where baring our roots is seen as either too great an emotional risk, or as an act of manipulation? A world where our petals are sent into the ether to be shared and judged by strangers? How do we put our best foot forward if we are counting on other people to be the judge of which foot is best?
P.S...Here are three more ways you can experience my work...
1 - Tailored Resources - simply let me know via email what you are working through and I will send you some helpful pointers and materials
2 - Half day Deep dive - four hours of deeply focused time working through whatever it is you want to bring
3 - Full day immersion - this is a sacred time for magical unfolding, where we get to explore whatever emerges with no limit on where the time takes us
I love to connect - please do leave a comment or share with someone you think this might benefit.
