You are reading ‘Like person, like coach’: explorations at the intersection of personal narrative and coaching practice:
‘Watching, the moon
at dawn
solitary, mid-sky
I know myself completely,
no part left out.’
- Izumi Shikibu
It’s been difficult since I last posted about gender. A lot is landing, settling - I’ve been describing this process as the silence after an explosion. A sort of disorientating sensation, when you know little about where you are, what is going on and what will happen next. And yet, some sparks of clarity, joy and reassurance have been present all throughout. I am feeling more and more hopeful and I am learning again and again more about myself, all the parts of myself that I’ve been trying so hard to hide.
’Master Kano, the founder of modern judo, after a lifetime of practice, and in his eighties, in the weeks before he died, called his senior students around him. His main instruction for them after his passing was that he would be buried with his white belt, the symbol of someone just beginning their study in the martial arts.’
- Peter Hawkins, in this book
This paragraph brought me to tears. That readiness, once more, and in this case, the last once more, to choose to say ‘I don’t know’; not from a place of meekness, but an utter awe and reverance towards the world and each other. It’s with the same awe, and a bucketfull of sorrow, that I continue to choose therapy.
I’ve been talking to a few people recently about this newsletter, about writing and for months and years have been telling myself I want to write a book. In these conversations I realised I don’t yet know what this book will be. I do know I need to keep writing. I also know that this title: ‘Like person, like coach’ goes to the core of my inquiry: what is the work we need to do on ourselves to contribute to the world?
My Year Compass of a few years ago, under the question: ‘What is the title of your year if it was a book?’ read: ‘Unselfing through going into the self.’ I still resonate with this phrase because I find that, paradoxically, when I spend time understanding my emotions, my past, my limitations, they lose their grip on me, and I feel freed to look elsewhere.
The tendency now is to throne collective work as the solution to our societal issues, and although I agree, I find that we underestimate the individual work needed for collective work to be effective. When I look at my own resistance to healing and growth, I see an ocean, I see a life time of work. I see the last decade and how entrenched my patterns are. It’s perhaps the first time I can see their contours, and how they connect together. And yet, I’m probably seeing only one galaxy.
So, I’m in awe at the amount of time it takes to heal, to liberate oneself from the past, and free one’s energies and capabilities towards the world. But perhaps, they will never be entirely free. That’s why maybe we pay the work forward to the next generation. And hopefully by the time we do, we will have gone as far and as deep we could into ourselves, to discover the ‘I’ that is ‘We’.
CALL OUTS:
🔥 Please help me spread the word about OrgBuilders, now open for applications! It’s a year-long programme of coaching, practical support and guidance, and structured peer support. It is designed for social justice organisations at early and growth stages or those in a period of transformation who are looking to make changes and improvements to their ways of working.
Key Outcomes:
To develop foundational knowledge of values-based, anti-oppressive approaches to strategic and organisational development.
To build confidence in leading on strategic and organisational development within your organisation.
To identify your organisational development goals, and have a safe and supportive base for experimentation and growth to achieve these goals and put anti-oppressive approaches into practice.
Find out more and apply here by the 17th of March. Or share with an organisation who you think might benefit from it.
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If you enjoy reading Like Person, Like Coach recommend it to others. Get in touch at iacobrbacian@gmail.com or find me elsewhere online.
Beautiful letter, Iacob - thank you! Intrigued to hear more about your book ideas at some point.