Here is the next instalment about her journey from student of coaching to professional coach from a soon to be Wise Goose graduate Helen Tyrrell (just waiting for her portfolio to be signed off by our external verifier.) We’ve had some great feedback about this series and hope you enjoy reading.
Major milestone 1: I submitted my coaching portfolio two weeks ago! Major milestone 2: my creative living pilot programme, Play Ethic: A Creative Way, has run with 5 wonderful participants and a fab co-host and guest speaker, ready for Hawkwood College in June.
For the first time I am beginning to appreciate just how far I have come since late 2018, when I lost both my father and my job at exactly the same moment. The truth is that the job and I had outgrown each other, and my father, a Jungian Psychoanalyst, and a person dear to very many hearts including mine (working right up to the day he died aged 89) was unwell and not getting any better. I’d have clung to both.
It may have been a bumpy ride, but at last I find myself at a vantage point from which I can fully appreciate the scale of what has been going on for the past few years.
I am launching as a coach, having found work and a lifestyle that deeply fulfils me, with its own unique rules of play. That feels big!
I’m not exactly like every other coach. The rich seams of Processwork weave their way in, as clients show up wanting to explore their dreams and symptoms. Creativity, too, has taken on a mantle of manifest relevance beyond my own practices (which remain very important and alive) and the other rich areas I am immersed in through my own research clamour for attention, signalling their relevance to my new found work and play. I may not be quite there yet, but let’s pause for a moment to take in the view, looking, as does Hecate, the ancient goddess of boundaries, crossroads and hidden things, behind, now and ahead.
Behind I can see my journey to this place and feel gratitude for all its challenges and twists and turns. In the now I see a different me, changed by that path behind, at last ready to look ahead unencumbered by fear. It’s time to ‘hitch my wagon to a star’ and to trust in that destination whatever the journey brings.
For me, that star or destination involves helping people access their own deep resources and move closer towards their authentic selves, bringing their unique gifts to the world. It means holding space too, for grief, pain and difficulty and encouraging the deep meaning behind these to emerge, blinking, into the light. It means reaching out through creative programmes such as at Hawkwood and through one to ones.
As I think about positioning I find that my own experience of midlife shocks and changes means I’m drawn to help others unravel the meaning and message in the bumps in their own roads. For example, redundancy and loss may be indicators of unknown gifts and talents waiting to be brought to the world, while the experience of not fitting in may indicate a need for new ways of being, relevant not just for the individual, but contributing to the evolutionary leap we, as a species, are trying to make, towards more creative, sustainable living: showing others the way. A star waiting to be noticed!
So, what is going on for you? What is really going on? Have you experienced any bumps in the road lately? How might you respond to those creatively? To explore that further, join us for the Hawkwood course in June, or give me a call and let’s see if we can unravel some of the meaning in that bumpy ride and- even – find a surprising and fulfilling, creative way forward.