I’ve always been willing to say the things to people that on one else is willing to say. The thing that helps people see what they cannot see. The thing that, in a job or on a team, could get me fired or viewed as a trouble maker. The thing that, in coaching, could help my clients see their world in a whole new way; when someone sees their world differently, their world changes.
As a coach, if there isn’t radical change - even as a result of a seemingly miniature shift - then I’m simply not doing my job.
Honestly it’s harder for me to have a sugar coated conversation than a compassionate and honest one. I cringe at the thought of softening my words in order to protect someone from whatever they might feel from receiving the truth. We’ve gotten so far as a society from letting ourselves feel. And yet, feelings are information. It is not my job to protect you from that information. It’s my job to bring it to light.
Telling the truth is a practice. It is a muscle built over time. The nuance around it abounds and honestly it’s more of a stumbling in the beginning, like a fawn trying to walk a mere few hours after birth.
In a moment of my own truth and revelation, lately I myself have felt more and more like the spotted fawn.
Last month a woman in the women’s group that I facilitate shared that she appreciates me as a facilitator because I know how to compassionately make the unconscious conscious, and with an impeccably kismet timing.
She said that I know how to listen, what to listen for, and I know how to ask the right questions that allows people to see their own life and self through a brand new lense.
This concept reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, spoken by James Baldwin.
“If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things that you do not see.”
It’s often reflected to me by others how this uncovering seems to come with such ease for me. And while it does come easily, it’s easier to do it in service of others where I have little stake in the outcome.
Granted, I always feel like I have some stake in the lives of everyone I work with. I actually deeply care for how our work together impacts the rest of their lives. I think about our work together when I’m driving, when I’m doing laundry, when I’m in between appointments or coffee meetings, when I’m in conversations with people and I notice the threads that exist between all of our life experiences.
There is often work happening between our sessions, even if not directly with the client.
At the end of the day, however, it is my own life I am thinking about as my head hits the pillow at night. When the lights go out and I close my eyes, it is my own lenses that come into focus and whether I am choosing the ones that best serve me.
Seeing my self does not come with as much ease as does seeing others. Often what I see in my self requires me to make decisions, commit to those decisions, and ultimately follow a chain of events and change that are uncomfortable. For as much as I love change, I really don’t like change. Thus continues the ever-evolving practice of holding multiple truths at once. I have small hands; sometimes it feels hard to hold.
Building a relationship with the unknown has been my life’s spiritual work. Seemingly infinite invitations to let go, let go, let go, let go. Over and over and over again. When I think I’ve released my grasp, I’m asked to free fall. When I’m falling, I’m asked not to brace for landing but to allow myself to be caught. It sounds so sweet and gentle to not hold on so tightly, to just…fly. To let god catch me. And yet, I resist.
There is a scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest and Jenny are about to get married and Lieutenant Dan appears at their wedding not only with his own bride, but also with new a pair of legs.
Forrest walks toward him in astonishment saying, “Lieutenant Dan…you got new legs.” Lieutenant Dan goes on to explain how his legs are made out of titanium, or “what they use for the space ships”. In further astonishment, Forrest says, “magic legs.”
It’s quite an endearing interaction, especially witnessing Forrest’s child-like awe and wonder. And truly, I resonate both with both perspectives of Forrest and Leiutenant Dan.
As I build said relationship with and connection to god, a trust that I will be caught, I feel like I have grown brand new legs. It all truly began when I committed to coaching again. As my reality and energy shifts as a result of my desire, I have felt like I am literally learning how to walk again. Leg and hip pain that I’ve been experiencing the last month has been rich and saturated with messaging after messaging that “it’s ok to let go” and “trust the process as it trusts you” and “be where your feet are” and “walk like your feet are kissing the Earth”. Resting into presence. Resting.
And a remembering, that everything - everything - is a cocreation; I do not have to do anything alone. In fact, I truly never have. When I forget that, or choose thoughts and beliefs that don’t align with that, I get in my own way.
That’s something my new legs have helped me with, too: to get the hell out of the way. Literally GET OUT OF THE WAY.
This path I walk as I perceive it feels like I’m moving in the wrong direction. When I remove that lense and choose a different one, I see that the movements I make could actually be bringing me closer toward the directon that I want to go if I let go of the ‘how’. What feels like a tower moment, a moment of reality deconstruction, a moment of allowing the life and reality I thought was supposed to take me there to be obselete, it’s actually a moment of creating space for a more true way of being to come in. I haven’t seen that quite yet, though I’ve seen evidence that it’s on its way.
Until then, it is hope, faith, and trust that I make my companions. I allow as much as I can to move through me rather than grasping and holding on to the edges and ledges and whatever it is I think makes me safe.
I’ve never been a religious person. A person of faith, yes. But not of religion. As I open myself more and more, I feel an astounding and palpable connection to literally everything. And yet, sometimes a loneliness washes over me and I grapple with the confusion of feeling so connected to my world and also so far from it. God is everything and nothing and as I root myself here on Earth more and more, I am enamoured.
Ah, all the damn truths. Here we go again.
Good thing I’ve got these magic legs.
Tallyho,
Jenny