Coaching Renewal: Quotes & Questions
In the short, cold, snowy days of early March in Ohio, my squirrley self retrieved a few choice nuts buried long ago, from the earliest days of my coaching journey. This passage, from my Hudson Institute of Coaching training manual, birthed my passion for coaching Cocooners in the confusion of transition:
"'Doing' and achieving cannot endure without powerful renewal of the inner "being". This is the primary work of a life transition. Cocooners want to master the skill of spiritual discovery-finding meaning and purpose and sense of self in a larger, deeper context. Disengaging from the external life chapter, often withdrawing from normal social engagements to seek quieter, more peaceful activities, allows for the turn inward to heal. Healing not only binds the wounds of loss (real or perceived), it opens new doors and windows within a person. They gain access to more of their personal abilities. They find strength they didn't know they possessed. They discover that by letting go of unworkable parts of their external life, they are holding on to profound continuities deep within."
Coaches make great companions for the trek though transition. To wonder and wander with a cocooning coachee is to validate them and honor and share in their experience of the mysterious, miraculous phenomenon of renewal. Encouraging introspection, reflection, and the emergence of new identity through a coaching approach can be deeply spiritual work for both parties.
I offer below five quotes my Cocooner coachees connect with, and the coaching question that each one inspires:
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The purpose of a transition is to learn a story about your life that you don't yet know, so that you can stop living merely to repeat the stories that you already do know.
Frederic Hudson
What is the old story your Self has outgrown-the story which satisfies your ego but doesn't square with your soul?
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We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
What practices can help you embrace being in the "nowhere between two somewheres"-relaxing your grip on the previous plan without yet knowing your 'next'?
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The world of the soul follows things rejected and almost forgotten.
Rumi
What needs to be reclaimed, remembered, rewoven into the tapestry of your life?
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There is no coming to consciousness without pain. The experience of the Self is always a defeat for the ego.
C. G. Jung
How have you betrayed yourself, your purpose, or your values-inadvertently or intentionally?
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Until we see what we are, we cannot take the steps to become what we shall be.
Charlotte Gilman
How have you squelched your inner GPS voice?
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I invite you to sit with these questions yourself, and use them to be with others as their inner winter gives way to spring.
As my beloved Greek mother-in-law Fifi says,
Christos Anesti!
Lynn
