Wise Wednesdays

We expect too much and too little from our relationships.   One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that: relationships don’t make you happy, they make you conscious. That is the highest purpose of a relationship – at least in the high-trauma, low-trust economies that our organisations and relationships are embedded in. Paradoxically, this has made my relationships happier. It’s much easier to resolve a holiday argument if you’re not trying to get a happy feeling from it.   Last week, at the Boundaries Clinic, we dove into why boundaries don’t really work. The metaphor of ‘boundaries’ is an invention based on military, neoliberal thinking rooted in individualism and private property.   Until we can rewire this and restore the interdependent flow of life between us, our relationships can only be a mirror of how we are expecting too little or too much. Where do you start?   Boundaries as a fence vs trees:   By tuning into your feelings and needs as well ...

[A young doctor reached out this week asking what to do about his career. He’s torn between medicine and his artistic gifts. Medicine is secure but art is where he comes to life. He’s trying to combine the two but it all falls flat.   I was about to respond when I came across a 2018 Wise Wednesdays. While the specifics of his situation require a specific approach, the general response hasn't changed. Here it is updated.]   It was about 10 years ago when I declared my self-diagnosis: I don’t know how to relax. Of course, it wasn’t strictly true. I went on holiday, enjoyed good times with friends and family and loved reading interesting books by the sea. But I’d been on a treadmill of achievement and was starting to see the limitations. It was endless. A key moment came towards the end of my specialist training when I was invited to step into the next part of my career. I had a viscerally, felt realisation that while this was the expected path, I was also being invited...

  Asking for feedback can feel like self-flagellation. But it can change your life by giving you a powerful reframe.   I’ve been asking some of my clients what they value in coaching with me.   One dear client whose husband and daughter have also worked with me 1:1 or in the Leaders Circle simply replied: ‘we love your approach!’ Others gave more detail.   And it reminded me of the importance of being weird.   The gold is in the weird.   When I started out as an independent coach, my learning was focused on coaching and business basics.    But as you progress in a line of work, your deeper interests – that some might consider weird or nerdy - start to come in and create your unique, authentic style and substance.    The trainings I’ve been choosing these past 2 or 3 years have started to reflect my deeper interests which can come across as weird or nerdy…   Gratefully, my clients’ feedback reminded me that even though my interests m...

I see trees of green, red roses too I see them bloom for me and you And I think to myself…What a wonderful world! I love this song by Louis Armstrong released in 1967 as a protest against the Vietnam war. I even sang it live at a jazz night once at Goodenough College when I was part of a student band. But the world doesn’t feel like that sometimes, or even a lot of the time, especially if you’re being bombed daily. So how do you centre and do what you can in a world of brutality? This was the challenge we took on at The Leaders Circle last week - Purpose in Times of Global War. I was inspired by Miki Kashtan’s article on The power of the soft qualities to transform the patriarchy and transformational experiences from a course on soulmaking dharma. Leaders showed up from across four continents including countries Oman, Kenya, Mozambique the US and UK, bringing together doctors, ecologists, academics, coaches and changemakers from across the world. Together we created: > an island o...

  This week, during a coaching conversation with a wonderful client who noticed what seemed like miraculous results in terms of influence on her team, we explored how she was able to create these results. We had worked on shifting a set of beliefs using the HAPI process and it resulted in her rapidly recruiting a fantastic new team member to support research on a national research initiative, with little organisational opposition which was unusual. She asked me how shifting her thinking had enabled this, so I thought I’d take time to share a response in Wise Wednesdays. On one level it’s intuitive: think positive thoughts, create positive results. On another level, it can feel like woo woo. But as a coach, I still use the medical principle of Ockham’s razor: the simplest explanation is the truth. Here are a few rational reasons positive thinking creates exciting results: 1) Positive thoughts create positive feelings : This is the basic mechanics of the mind-body connection. P...