Shae Hadden

coach

The Edge

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Every vision we create has an edge—a boundary that defines what lies ‘in our sights’ and what lies outside our sights. When we call up a vision, we also call up what is not the vision. The edge between what is and is not what we’re committing to making real is where we can learn and grow.

My energy and attention have been primarily focused on making a book about being coached become ‘real’. What I haven’t seen (until now) is that, to bring it into existence, I also called forth things that resist this creative act. Things that, if I choose them, could pull me towards shape-shifting and altering my vision so that it conforms to what already exists, to what is normal, sane, reasonable.

So often we stop engaging with our vision when we get to this edge. We give up. Or we steamroller ahead and “stick to the original plan”. We disconnect from what’s wanting to emerge in us and through us.

In doing so, we miss the opportunity to look at and explore the places we couldn’t see or that we didn’t want to see before we declared our commitment to creating something that doesn’t exist yet. We miss the opportunity to look at what we most need to engage with to grow. This is where my coaches are invaluable. They help me see my learning edge.

“If you limit your choices to only what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.”
Robert Fritz

So now I’m looking at everything that’s showing up that is not related to my book. And pondering whether the possibilities I’m seeing need to be made real now…or later…or not at all.

I’m pushing at the edges of my vision, expanding it to include all of my life.

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What’s Emerging?

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Writing this book is an exercise in being with emergence. Patterns emerge out of the multiple conversations I’ve been having with coaches and coachees. Out of those patterns emerge multiple threads of ideas. And as I write those ideas down, a structure emerges from within the writing. It’s as if I could step aside and let the cosmos of the book grow into being.

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”
Carl Jung

I don’t have to make it be organized. I can be part of what’s emerging.

It’s like those instances where things just spontaneously organize themselves—where the meaningless chaos we fear arranges itself into something new. Like a traffic pattern. A market trend. A complex of buildings. A network of relationships.

What are you allowing to emerge in your life?

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Adventure

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“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the public.”
Sir Winston Churchill

I ran across this quote today. A dear friend sent it to me a few months ago when they heard I was starting to write my own book. Still somewhat in shock that I had actually listened to the still small voice inside that had been prompting me for years to become a published author, I had put the quote aside to see if things would play out as Churchill described.

I’m six months into the project now, and I have to agree with Winston. Writing a book is an adventure. I consider this to be my first big Helen Keller “life is a daring adventure…or nothing” risk. Not in an Indiana Jones daredevil world traveler kind of way. More like a “being pregnant for the first time” kind of adventure.

Like a baby, this book has a life of its own. It’s changing and forming itself inside me as I watch. It pulls my energy, my time and my focus. I have to feed myself with ideas and experiences and conversations that nourish its growth. I’m reorganizing my life to support my health and well-being as it develops. This ‘baby’ is transforming me. This book is  literally changing my life.

So far, nothing about it has been a ‘toy’ or an ‘amusement’. It is my child … and it is my ‘mistress’.

This past week, I began writing again. I’ve been preoccupied with health issues and work for the past month, so it’s wonderful to come back to my notes  and really start to dig into what I like doing best: integrating ideas and communicating a succinct message in prose. I’m falling in love with my book. Each moment I spend with the manuscript is like a private bit of bliss. I entwine myself in each story. I feel my way into each sentence, caressing the words gently. I close my eyes, focusing for a final kiss, as I sense the ripeness of each chapter and deftly retrieve a title from the air.

I know many more experiences of being coached and many more coaching conversations await me. I welcome them with gratitude and an open mind.

But what I’m looking forward to most this summer, what turns me on each morning, is the thought that every day I’ll be expressing my love—of coaching, of people, of life—through my words.

I wonder whether Churchill was right about the rest of the adventure…?

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Really Helpful

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“When things in the world go well for us, we become confident that we can manage by ourselves and feel we do not need friends, but as our status and health decline, we quickly realize how wrong we were. That is the moment when we learn who is really helpful and who is completely useless. So to prepare for that moment, to make genuine friends who will help us when the need arises, we ourselves must cultivate altruism!”
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
Compassion and the Individual

Saw John Madden’s new film “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” this week. Each of the seven English seniors who travel to this dilapidated ‘resort’ destination undergoes a transformation of some nature in their relationships. Beautiful story that exquisitely captures the essence of life in India and the possibilities in growing older in a culture that perhaps values age and wisdom to a greater extent than we do.

I was particularly inspired by the transformational journey of Muriel (played by Maggie Smith), a racist curmudgeon who comes to India to have hip replacement surgery. As time passes, Muriel gradually and grudgingly starts to appreciate the people around her—including her Indian doctor and the ‘untouchable’ woman who cleans the hotel and prepares her meals.

The ‘untouchable’ acts almost like a silent coach to Muriel. Since they cannot speak each other’s language and must communicate through an interpreter, much of what they share is expressed through their actions and their expressions. Kindness needs no words. The cleaner, profoundly moved by Muriel’s acknowledgement of her, boldly steps outside of her culture’s norms and shares her profound gratitude by inviting Muriel to her home.

Muriel starts to see the world through the hotel cleaner’s eyes. This uptight British matron breaks through her self-imposed barriers and starts to relate to others around her with kindness. We see her reconnect to a long-lost purpose: to be of service to others. We watch her quietly begin to work behind the scenes from her wheelchair to help the young manager secure the funds he needs to keep the hotel open. No longer ‘useless’, Muriel even creates a new purpose for herself—to live in and manage the business side of the very hotel she originally detested.

We all have the potential to be helpful.

We often long to be useful.

To be really helpful, we need relationships with people who are open to receiving our gifts. And we need to know what is needed in the world, where we can be useful.

Life moves towards a homeostatic balance in everything. Receiving balances giving. Giving balances receiving.

Like Muriel, I am learning how to open up to other people helping me, to receiving their gifts in a non-attached, non-dependent way, so that I can be useful and helpful in my own way. My coaches in this are many and varied. Not only do these professional coaches, family members and colleagues help me see where I can be useful, these trusted friends also help me see more clearly and completely what beliefs or habits I have that stand in the way of fully expressing and sharing my gifts.

Perhaps that’s why I caught myself saying “I’ll always welcome a new friend into my life” last week….

 

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Nothing to Fix

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“People don’t need to be fixed. The job of coaching is showing people they have a choice and helping them see they can bring forth different futures, different realities into existence.”
Jim Selman

I’m surrounded by books about coaching and leadership from the library again…looking at my calendar and wondering why I do this to myself every so often. It’s as if I believe I need to know as much as possible about a subject before having an opinion of my own. Yet when it comes down to it, books never serve me when it comes to saying something in a conversation that makes a difference in someone’s life.

Case in point.

This week  a friend was telling me about what’s happening in their life. The conversation quickly turned into a downward spiral of blaming others for what wasn’t working. After a while, the monologue came to a dead stop.

I invited them to engage in a coaching conversation, but they declined. Later that night, I realized they were probably thinking my offer implied there was something ‘wrong’ with them, that I wanted to ‘fix’ them or their life. From their perspective, people are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and the future is going to be pretty much the same as the past. From my perspective, people are neither ‘right’ nor ‘wrong’. And the future each person is living into is their choice.

I feel like there was a mistake made here. I wish I could replay our conversation and tell them a bit more about coaching and who they are for me before I made the offer. Because I actually think this person is a wonderful human being—gifted, talented, kind and generous. I accept them and their life as it is. My offer came from my commitment to them being fulfilled and happy.

My big ‘aha’ in this is that it’s all a matter of choice.

I can let this all go: there really is nothing to fix in them or in me. And when an opportunity to share this with them shows up, I will.

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Grace & Mother

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“What a mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin.”
Henry Ward Beecher

My mother was my first coach.

She always thought twice, once for her three daughters and once for herself.

Her belief in us was unshakable. Her gentle patience, remarkable. Her compassion, a source of strength. Her love, limitless and unconditional.

She was always there for us—forgiving, encouraging, guiding, coaching—no matter what.

When she died suddenly several years ago, I felt guilty for not being there for her, for not fully acknowledging her for teaching me about life and love, for not knowing who she was separate from being my mother. I wore my guilt like a warrior’s shield, trying to protect myself from losses and grief after her death. Eventually, I believed she was truly no longer here.

I was wrong.

Today, I know my mother never left. She is with me still.

The lessons of life and love continue in my many conversations with coaches and coachees.

Her words show up in other people’s mouths. A coach’s presence reminds me of her in some way: her intuitiveness, her stillness, her strength. The way someone describes their relationship with their coach echoes the kind of trust I felt she gave me—a trust that included accepting my choices even when my choices led to unhappiness and failure.

I am proud to be my mother’s daughter.

It is a privilege to become more like her as I grow older.

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