self

the transition to Autumn

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

autumn season
I like this time of year.

The light is different. The colours somehow deeper. The air somehow crisper.

Change is coming, as evidenced in the leaves and the trees, yet there is something peaceful about the shades of Autumn. A calm, crisp beauty and a rich palette of colour in nature.

I notice how the properties of Autumn align for me with things that matter to me. Light, depth, peace, beauty and a uniqueness of difference in colour reflecting human diversity…

Maybe your favourite season is Autumn too, but it says something different to you?

Maybe your season is Spring? New shoots, new life, bracing breezes, changeable weather, possibilities?

Maybe Summer? Maybe Winter?

Which season is your favourite and what does it say about you?

the emergence of the selfie

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

looking at self
What gets a lexicographer up in the morning? Where does the energy come from?

Maybe the advent of new words? Maybe the evolution of old ones?

Selfie is a new word. This sudden penchant for capturing ourselves against our current environment. Looking at ourselves in our context. Getting an arms length perspective. Using a selfie stick to get even greater perspective. To see from further out. To fit more of our situation in.

Our desire to share these 2D representations of self in these static snapshots of life, is curious. We seem strangely reluctant to show ourselves in living 3D, in reality, as we exist in the world with other human beings. Alive. Both beautiful and beautifully flawed.

Of course we have always had the ability to look at ourselves from the outside. Inside our head. Long before technology gave us the ability to record an image, many of us did that in our mind’s eye. Imagined it. We see ourselves in that awkward conversation. See ourselves in that meeting where we were criticised. See ourselves in that beautiful moment of joy, of fun, of love.

Our mind’s eye has an important advantage over the selfie. We are not limited to the current moment. Not limited to a selfie snap and a hard drive of past experiences captured in still reflection. Inside, we can do this imaging, this ‘selfie’, for our future too. Imagine our own future. Our upcoming holiday. Our new home to be. We can manipulate the image – past or present. Make it brighter, more colourful, turn it around, zoom in or out. Take parts out, add parts in.

Take a mental selfie now of where you will be next week, next month, next year.

Perspective and context are crucial to our humanity. They allow us to see possibility, to reflect, to dream, to make sense, to know we’re ok.

Click.

Remember too though that living, sharing, enjoying reality in the moment are more deeply human. Share the gift of you, now, in glorious living technicolour. Not just in smiling, staged, two dimension tomorrow.

Don’t just take a selfie. Be one.

Lexicographers – let’s add ‘be a selfie’

how does your inner self see you?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

self image
I’ve just followed a chap wearing a trilby and a waistcoat.

In my head, that would be me.

I’m not a sweater man.

I would have a funky moustache with those little waxed twirled ends. A cool haircut, as befits the younger me (I’m not sure I know what a cool haircut is, but I’d have one). Maybe some sunglasses, but only in the summer.

My clothes would be strong colours. No patterns. Just blocks of orange, yellow, green, cyan etc. No red, it’s not me.

Stylish shoes. Expensive. Well made.

I’m an individual.

I have a few of these things in my current ‘me’, but I wonder why not more? Why is my inner sense of me and my image different from that I show outwardly? I suspect it’s about judgement. Judgement of myself.

I wonder what it would be like to lose that judgement and to let the real me out?

What does your inner sense of you look like?

What would it be like to let it free?

our stories of self

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

once upon a time
We have a story for ourselves.  Sometimes more than one. Sometimes the story we tell, is not the story we live in.

This was beautifully expressed to me recently when a coach colleague shared this experience

A coach I met recently shared a fascinating story with me about a client they were working with and some profound learning they had experienced.

By their third session, the coach noticed how hard they were finding it to connect with the client and find the truth in the stories the client was sharing. They had a growing sense that the client was not being authentic. The coach noticed how this was affecting their own flow in the sessions.

After this third session, the coach spent much time reflecting on why they felt so uneasy about the situation and admitted to themselves that something just wasn’t right.  Maybe they just weren’t good enough as a coach to support this client?

The coach decided to share their unease with their client at the next session. Whilst waiting for the client to arrive, the coach convinced themselves that the client might be better off with a more experienced coach as the coach clearly had now developed some bias that would get in the way.

The coach gently approached the subject with the client and said “I’m truly sorry, but I have to admit I am struggling to connect with you and more importantly I find myself doubting whether you bring real events in your stories or ones you imagine yourself having”……this last part changed everything !

The client shared how they had imagined when they were younger, that their life would be so very different from what it was now. It transpired the client was mourning the life they had hoped they would have and the person they believed they would become. Their unconscious grief for this representation of self, resulted in the invention of a new reality in which the client remained the same age, the same values and the same personal goals they had had 25 years ago.

This realisation had a profound affect on the coach and resulted in transformation for the client.

This story is both a brilliant reminder of what we do as coaches and at the same time a sobering reminder of the complexity of our humanity.

As coaches our gift to our clients is to support them navigating their personal truth in search of something more whole, more true, more fulfilling – the story is heartwarming in that regard.

Yet the story also serves to show how ‘wierdly’ our very humanness can work for us.

Our brains and bodies can take us on strange journeys, through thought and feeling patterns, to strange places. In this case, for this client, from clarity of vision for self, to grief for an unfulfilled, imagined self, to the creation of a false self, with all its stories, false realities and ties that bind that client to a life less than their potential.

It shows also the power of our stories of self.  The story we imagine for ourselves, the story we exist in, and the story of what we might be.

Stop being who you were or who you could have been… instead, be kind to yourself and be who you are.

Our monochrome contradictions

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

contradictions
Foreign policy is a balancing act. Lines are never clear. Neatly drawn. It’s a grey world rather than a monochrome extreme one.

Reading recently about the struggles in the Middle East highlights this clearly. Alliances between unlikely bedfellows; either battling against IS, resisting Iran’s regional dominance, seeking to create new states, or to destroy existing ones. Lines drawn between old enemies, new enemies, enemies for a reason, enemies for a season, enemies for a lifetime. Nation states trying to balance their contradictions. Not able to totally support one cause, because of complex overlapping interests in other causes.

It reminds me of our own human struggles. Our internal contradictions of self. That sense that a part of us wants something whilst another part wants something else, something contrary. That experience of being a certain way at times, then being a very different way, in a different place or time.

We have contradictions.

We are muted monochrome shade, rarely black, rarely white.

In my coaching work I sometimes encourage clients to explore their contradictions. The edges of themselves. I, for example, would describe myself as an “extrovert loner”. Sometimes gregarious, social, with a view to express. Sometimes seeking to be alone, silent. I need both parts. My ‘foreign policy’ needs to play both hands.

Naming these seemingly opposite, contrary, elements of self allows us to honour them, respect them, work with them all. I encourage an “I am… ” construct. I often find the choice of sequence my clients make is revealing. Usually the first part of the contradiction describes how they are, the second, who they are. Here are some examples…

I am an open secret
I am a tidy mess
I am hopelessly hopeful
I am an enthusiastic couch potato
I am an away from futurist
I am a responsible rebel
I am a leading follower
I am an unplanned achiever
I am an independent team player
I am deliberately informal
I am a selfish altruist

Foreign policy is laced with politics and self interest. But perhaps so are our parts?  Just like the politicians we are trying to balance multiple interests. Just like the politicians we don’t reveal our full hand, even to ourselves. Just like the politicians, that ‘mishonesty’ can bite us.

The question is, do we need to go to war? Does that serve us?

Be curious about your contradictions. Explore what each part seeks and offers you. Recognise their intent for you. Embrace them all.

 

change is the one ever present truth

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

change
Change is ever present in our human lives.

The world around us changes constantly. Not just with the seasons, the passing years, but the tools of living, the way of living, the world in which we live. And we change too…

From birth we change, learning to communicate, to walk, to make friends, to become part of the family, to find our place. We learn to learn, we go to nursery, to school, to university, at each stage taking more responsibility for ourselves. Our family may move house, add family members, lose them too. Our friends may change. Our location. Our journeys. At work, our job roles change. Our bosses. Our colleagues. Our employers. We change our house, our car, our hairstyle, our look. Our hopes, ambitions, desires change. We meet new people, new friends, new loves. We start a family. We nurture them, they grow, they leave. Later, illness may strike and our lives change again. Relationships falter and new ones are born. We leave the world of work. We become grandparents, great grandparents. Challenges and opportunities emerge constantly in our human lives and we respond, changing to adapt, to thrive, to grow. We choose to change, incessantly.

Much of this change has a connection to learning and growth. The opportunity to become more. Positive outcomes. Yet often we are worried by change. Anxious about what it will mean. Will we cope, will it be good, will we be good enough, are we doing the right thing? It can become a psychological and emotional wave machine. Hard to keep your head up. Hard to put your feet down. Hard to breathe.

I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity of a six month career break. An incredible opportunity to take time out, travel, try something new, recharge. Yet I’m worried. It will be a change. Not the routine I have become used to. Will I be prepared enough, planned enough to reap the rewards? How will things have moved on whilst I’m away? Will I want to return? Will I be able to do the things I want? How will relationships change? How will I change?

I notice that all the uncertainty, all the doubt, is in my head. Imagined. Foretold. I have become an anxious soothsayer.

We do this at times of change, particularly in work, in organisations – catastrophising, worrying about the impact, the implications, the problems. Yet when we look back, after the change, we seem able to find good. To find benefits, positives. A new lease of life. Fresh shoots. New learning. Even in the most extreme circumstance we are, as human beings, remarkably resilient and accommodating of change.

Yet still the worry persists.
Why is it there?
What’s its purpose?
How does it serve me?

our eyes face the wrong way…

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

eyes
Our eyes face the wrong way.

Oh sure, looking outwards has its uses – fewer lampposts walked into, glorious sunsets to admire, great novels to read, smiles to warm our hearts, choosing your next Krispy Kreme donut (that may just be me)

The problem is that so much of our truth, our success, our learning, our qualities, our gifts, our struggle, our reason for being, our beauty, our essence, our soul … lies inside us.

And we can’t see it.

Yet it drives our behaviour, our choices, our joy, our sadness, our fulfillment, our happiness.

The world outside can be beautiful, but take a moment to look inside.

That can be beautiful too.

the courage of truth…

~ steve.ridgley ~ 3 Comments

truth self be
I have just read an article in the paper.

The story is told by a grandmother and is of her five year old grandson, who wants to be a girl.

The author writes of the challenges the parents face, buoyed by a steely desire to support their son’s ‘wholeness’, but conscious of the white rapids of gender politics, judgement and bigotry society will toss them through.

The author also writes how her five year old grandson is teaching her. Teaching her about truth, mostly her own. Wrestling with her own inner dialogue daily – are we indulging him, what will people think of me? – she describes how she has had to turn to her own discomfort, own her own prejudice and confront the worst her imagination can conjure. She recognises the most unpalatable truth; that her own thoughts, words and actions questioning what she and the family are doing, have been about protecting herself.

What courage. What honesty. What love.

Would that we could all face our truth as this grandmother and her grandson are.