Weeknotes #36: To know through the heart
Reflections on bringing humility to the heart of change-work in the world.
You are reading ‘Like person, like coach’: explorations at the intersection of personal narrative and coaching practice:
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‘The attitude which it involves is an attitude of complete humility and of receptiveness; without criticism, without clever analysis of the things seen. When you look thus, you surrender your I-hood; see things at last as the artist does, for their sake, not for your own.’
Practical Mysticism,
Evelyn Underhill
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Often, when I sit down to write these notes, I start with an empty page and a couple of quotes I’ve collected throughout the week. Most times, I don’t know what I’ll write about and so I leave the title to the last. I gather my quotes and try to listen to what’s going on with me at this time.
I’ve been thinking about the heart. How unsavoury it is to talk about it in the world of work, ‘adults’, ‘impact and evaluation’, ‘social change’ - it can all be very serious, and all at the same time, leaving all the work to the mind has landed for me as simply not the whole story.
I’ve also been thinking about humility - how rarely I find it in myself or the world. And because of that, how transformative it is. I sometimes find it someone’s demeanour, a kind message, an unusual openness to the present as it is - and every time, without fail, it melts something in me.
It’s rare to find places and people in the world that welcome us as we are. The sort of house, community, person you enter and you feel completely attended to; not an engineered welcome but a genuine one, filled with curiosity, openness, desire to know you; there is attention, presence, simplicity.
I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity - being present enough with our own selves to see what is going on for us, and what it might mean about the kind of action we need to take next. I’ve had an experience over the last months that has brought to life for me how easy it is to practice, coaching or otherwise, from principles versus presence; from uninquired aspects of ourselves instead of an honest relationship to our own reality.
I’m finding perhaps that age, certificates, principles are mostly mirage, and that in the end what might make for true, faithful coaching (or other discipline) aren’t external markers of legitimacy, but a deep desire to impact the world positively and, vitally, the humility to let other people wake you up to all that needs to grow within you still.
The best people I know, don’t know most things most of the time. Like someone dear to me said: It doesn’t mean they stop learning, actually the opposite, the more they learn the more they realise how much they don’t know. And they’re unphased by not knowing, they delight in it, they are humbled by it, it actually brings them joy, to realise their own ‘smallness’ and how the beauty of the world can open their heart.
Thich Nhat Hanh talks about practicing to make one’s heart grow into immensity like a big river - when you throw a handfull of sand in it, it’s not disturbed because it’s so vast. Similarly, in Lunana (the Buthanese movie) there is a song that speaks to the same sentiment, the strength of our hearts and their ability to transform the world:
‘Like milk in a porcelain cup
The heart is pure
So pure that even if the cup breaks
The milk remains milk.’
Links for you this week:
1. Book an intro call here (for coaching or networking)
2. Share the website with a friend/colleague
3. Read from the Coaching Weeknotes Archive
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