the coaching medium
If I had imagined six months ago, how embarking on a coaching journey would have impacted me, I never would have come up with these. It begun with a desire to learn a new skill, to be a student again, in search of a stimulus for new ways of thinking, conversing, operating – all in the name of wanting to be ‘better at my job’.
Early on along the way, I had realised that my inner compass led me to something more than that. As a social arts practitioner, coaching called out to me as a medium; one that will equip me with a new technical language, a tool that can grant me access to people and their stories. When considered as a medium, it put me in a state of curiosity and play - like an artist who discovered other liquids he or she can paint with.
I started out trying to discover how similar or different this medium was from the ones I was more familiar with – educating, facilitating, managing. I quickly learnt that what sets these mediums apart are subtle and nuanced, and if I intend to practice using this medium well, to be able to get creative, playful and effective with it, I will have to be delicate in my application. To a certain extent, it is like learning how to use Chinese ink, a painting medium that reacts so sensitively to water and paper, that a drop too much results in a big grey puddle of water. I was determined to know coaching well enough to flow into and out of it, softly yet effectively – like a single brushstroke painted with the perfect balance of water and ink.
At the beginning it was mostly fun. We had learned about the ‘dating’ phase that is mostly about getting to know a person, asking one curious question after another and the conversation can go on and on and on. I was in my comfort zone, exploring the unknown, experimenting (with various questions), making new discoveries and exposing new paths the conversation could take - all things that would make any artist excited. The more trying parts came after, where my own tendencies, occupation hazards and default habits and mechanisms were tested, for better and for worse.
“Truth, like love and sleep, resents
Approaches that are too intense.”
- W.H. Auden
This quote perfectly sums up what came the following months. With every new technique learnt, practiced, and applied, it was a multi-faceted journey of uncovering the truth, and I don’t just mean the coachee’s truth. In each hour of practice logged, we also held mirrors to ourselves, to our truths, revealing how the stories we hold seep into our identities and practice as coaches in-training. This, for me, is the most valuable takeaway.
What I was discovering about myself was how much more I was trained and used to guide and lead, but much less to partner and to accompany another. I recently came across this term ‘relational responsibility’, learning that it describes what we feel we are responsible for versus what we are actually responsible for, in the context of how we relate to others’ actions, choices and behaviours. Learning about this term and applying it to the context of coaching brought to the forefront that partnering is much more than just working together with the other person. What does it really mean to see the truth of someone and how does what we believe is true affect our ability to do so? How does each person’s truth affect the quality of the partnership and how does coaching teach us to be aware of these?
What has helped me in exploring these questions is to first realise and acknowledge the truths that I hold onto – everything from my beliefs about people, my own mindset towards growth, success, struggle and pain, to my thoughts and feelings about love and sorrow, life and death. It is not to say that to be a good coach I must change or abandon any of these, but it does require me to realise that these are only my truths and that others have their own. In the grand scheme of things, some may agree on the same truths but be motivated by it differently, and some may disagree on other truths but it might lead them down the same paths.
“If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old, story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much that you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes, from ‘Women who Run with the Wolves’, c.1002
Just like the quote above perfectly writes, the application of coaching as a medium is about the opening of doors, doors that will lead us to the truth. With this lens, I’ve come to discover that listening closely for doors is one of the key parts of the coaching process. The question I ask myself would be – which is the door that matters? Which is the door that will bring us closer to the truth? Training this muscle has not only allowed my coaching practice to evolve for the better but also changed the way I listen and respond to the people in my life. It is as if there is a new space that has opened for pausing and curiosity before reaction and response. I experience the way my body feels in this space, calm, stable, almost serene.
In how I used to operate, the pattern goes like this:
Opinion is presented > Mind forms assumptions and judgements towards the person > Responds and reacts based on assumptions and judgements > The other person responds and reacts > Self gets triggered when conversation goes the ‘wrong’ way.
Where the coaching muscle works its magic is right before the stage where my mind begins to form assumptions and judgments.
Opinion is presented > *Coaching muscle activated* > Mind forms assumptions and judgements towards the person > Responds and reacts based on assumptions and judgements > The other person responds and reacts > Self gets triggered when conversation goes the ‘wrong’ way.
When the coaching muscle gets activated, the space of calm and curiosity is opened. In a span of seconds, I give myself the time to differentiate my own truth from others and choose a different course of action. Usually when this happens, it is simply a matter of phrasing a response differently or asking a question instead of making a statement. In several instances, I have seen how the energy between me and the other person would shift and, in that moment, our usual pattern of communication gets broken, for the better. While I am not necessarily trying to coach during these interactions, a crucial part of honing this medium is to ask effective questions that opens the right doors.
Outside of a coaching engagement, opening the right doors has allowed me to know the people in my life in new ways, to understand them more deeply and to recognise their truths and see them for who they really are. Within the coaching engagement, it brings me closer to the other person’s truth, strengthening the foundation on which our partnership can be built.
While I’m only at the beginning, the journey so far has been rich and awakening. As I continue my work in the social arts space, I aim to continue putting this medium to practice, strengthening the listening muscle and honing the effectiveness of my questions to cultivate a space of curiosity and gentle uncovering of truths.
(This post was written as part of my self-work journal for final evaluation in lieu of completing the Professional Coach Development Course at the Collective Change Institute.)
