I was talking with a coach today as their supervisor. They were speaking about procrastination – about something they wanted to get done but recognised they were avoiding.

As they spoke about moving forward, their hand made a shoving motion from in front of their face to their right. I was curious. They then spoke about avoiding this thing because they didn’t like advertising themselves and their talents. With this explanation they made a ‘jazz hands’ gesture with hands framing their face.

I stopped them talking and asked them to notice what just happened. They smiled and reflected back these movements that accompanied their words. They had noticed that their own gestures said as much or more about their stuckness as the story does. Our conversation took a new direction.

Sometimes I wonder just how helpful to our condition of ‘being’ if might be, if we were able to watch ourselves as actors on our own stage?