Post Conference Traces

On the PKP 9.00 am from Warsaw to Krakow.

Two days after the 4th International Coaching Conference.

While travelling on the train this morning from Warsaw to Krakow, between emails and spinning plates, I had time---to ponder and dwell on things. As I looked out of the window, the train, with me in it, hurtling towards Krakow, traces of the conference like perfume, lingered. I was caught by the sight of a single tree- black and resolute- against the still white ground of frozen earth. I was struck by the shape of the tree- like a paper cut-out. I suddenly realised I was able to see more- able to see through them- further---into the distance- through other tree structures---further still into the distance. And so, I was at once stunned and grateful for their graceful nakedness, slipping glimpses of so much more because they were stripped down to their bare structures.

 

Somehow, I made a connection with the conference and found myself mulling over the question that was posed by Laura at the beginning of her session about tools---in my wandering of wonderings, these transparent trees represented the creative tension between coaching tools and our being as coaches. For only four months in the year, we are afforded a depth of view we wouldn’t otherwise have. Isn’t it incredible? Only four months! Maybe, just like nature, we can relax our grip on tools and techniques and bare ourselves to our clients so that they see more and see further through us.

Light Chasing the Image

I feel fried today- yesterday and today, I was in the presence of Stephen Jenkinson. His teachings helped me face some of the most enduring knots in my life. In preparation for examining these stones of my life, I started to look through some of the things I wrote in the last few years and found this.

 

 

Sunday, 14^th June 2009 through to Monday 15^th June 2009

Edited 13^th September 2010

 ‘Light chasing the image’

Somehow, it was the words ‘light chasing the image’ that made a deep impression on me and triggered a connection in my mind with ‘leadership’. I sat with this unknown connection for a number of days.

This afternoon, on the 18:37 train from London to Alton, while reading through draft version four, the significance of ‘light chasing the image’ became clearer to me. Since then, the significance has further unfolded.

The phrase ‘light chasing the image’, as I am discovering now, acts as a multi-layered metaphor. When I was writing about leadership and organisational life, it occurred to me that despite our best efforts, emotion is still chasing rationality. Years back, I had the experience of being told by the Operations Director at a manufacturing firm that ‘only scientific management has withstood the test of time’. I realised that the closest emotions get to corporate life is under the veil of rationality- ‘Emotional Intelligence’, ‘Open Space Technology’, ‘The Fifth Discipline’, ‘Theory U’. It is a truly sad state of affairs. In this ‘race’, we do not realise that there are no winners. For as long as we deny an essential aspect of ourselves and, for as long as we fail to understand that emotion, cognition and action function as an interdependent whole, we exist merely as an image of who we are.

What then is our light? To me, it is our full range of feelings- some articulable, some inarticulable. Are they sensations? Are they chemicals? Are they real? Do we even know? So ‘light chasing the image’ is also our struggle to fully express the vastness and infinite variations on a theme we call ‘feelings’- words such as love, fear, hate, compassion are mere images of our experiencing- ‘light’ or perhaps our ‘moment of lighting up?’ So there is a sense that feelings and the articulation of feelings could be close yet will always remain slightly apart. Our recognition of vastness and complexity and our own uniqueness and therefore, separateness are such fundamental aspects of being human. It is both our joy and our pain. Perhaps it is because our light seems so elusive and ethereal that it is just easier to deal with the practical, the measurable and the concrete. But in saying this, I am neglecting the value of the practical and the concrete. This is because when I think a little deeper, it is the existence of the practical and concrete other that helps us learn, identify, develop and continue to differentiate and refine our awareness and articulation of our feelings. In our attempt to share these feelings with others, in our attempt to bridge our separateness, our formless eternal light can become an unending source of inspiration and creativity- giving rise to art, poetry and music- ‘light chasing the image’.

As an existential metaphor, life itself can be ‘light chasing the image’. How many of us are conditioned to live a life as our own image of what or who we should be? How many of us have been conditioned to live life according to the expectations laid down by our institutions- family, school, college, workplaces, society. How many of us project an image of success and okness when really, inside, we feel empty and lost? What does it take to be the light and to understand that it is not our image that feeds us, it is our light? What does it take for us to feel that if we are only our light, we will be not be found wanting- that we are ‘enough’ as we are? What does it take for us to feel that if others are only their light, we would not find them lacking- that they are ‘enough’ as they are? When will we learn that when we are only our light that is when we are not only just living but we are most alive to our liveliness?

What I learnt from our group session this weekend, through a true meeting with someone from my group is this:

Our pain and our vulnerability are also our light. When we have the right support, perhaps we can risk abandoning our image and reveal more of our light. Perhaps this act will move and touch others to do the same. And when we do that, when we both allow each other’s light to shine freely, in that moment, with grace, the chasing stops.

Love and Loss

Today is the 6th anniversary of my mother's passing. I still struggle with the word 'death' in relation to my mum. Because the truth is, she is not dead but still very much alive in my world. With the passing of time, the trauma of what happened on this day, 6 years ago are not as present- though if I allow myself to connect with it, the experience is still vivid. With the passing of time, the emotions surface- catching me unaware- disconnected with the events- abstract- unpredictable- a burst. I was sitting in a taxi this morning, en-route to a meeting- looking out of the window of the taxi, snow outside, grey morning- FLASHBACK- funeral, sitting in front of the hearst, my mum in a coffin behind the glass window- the glass that divided the living from the dead; me from her; my life as it was to the life it was unfolding- in her present absence- one *&$king piece of glass- a lifetime. In that moment in the taxi, I was awash with grief- once more. 6 years later. Still.

From that date, a lot has changed inside of me. I could say that I hold onto things more lightly- I could also say that I care less. Things oscillate between mattering and not mattering; important and not important- I care much and I care less. My thoughts drift to how I feel about me- mattering and not mattering. Just before writing this, I read Paul Barber's newsletter about Love- I assume it is in relation to Valentine's Day. It occurred to me while I was in the hospital- my mother in a coma-- making the final decision to disconnect the life-support machines...that if I were to make the decision to bring an end to her on the 14th, Valentine's Day would never be the same again. I was thinking of celebrating- not being able to enjoy the 14th again. But now, I with Paul's quotes fresh in my head, I am connecting with loss and love- grieving because of love. Feeling deep sense of loss for the space that is now empty. I thought writing about this would make me feel 'better'- it doesn't.

Ever since the Singapore coaching conference when I had to borrow someone's room for an afternoon- and saw, what I assumed was like her 'travelling shrine', I had taken to carrying around with me, a bit of 'home' to hotel rooms. There is a small, round photoframe with a photo taken with my mum and dad when I was about 28 years old. This photoframe sat on the glass shelf in our home in Toronto. The home was sold 6 months after my mum died. As I looked into our faces in this small photo, I could see how young we all looked. Then I realised that I am now only about 12 or so years away from the same age my parents were when that photo was taken. I was struck by how quickly time passes. It seems so futile that we spend so much time running around---that I spend so much time---thinking that things matter---when, before I know it, my time is up. I struggle to connect with what really matters and who are the people who really matter to me- including me. Then the thought- how am I spending my time? Does it matter?