Human-ity

I had a beautiful enquiry about coaching today - one that I hope will come to something. But I couldn’t help laughing throughout our discovery session because the writing issues raised were so familiar. An harsh inner critic, developed from years of working at a fast pace, now slumping and turgid in the face of more time and opportunity to write. A complex relationship with the push and pull factors that have been successful drivers in the past. A deep desire to return to the joy of writing experienced earlier in life. These challenges are my bread and butter, deeply interesting as always, especially when the person behind them is so lovely. But I always have the little thought that I am a hypocrite, because I struggle with all these things too.

I am not really a hypocrite, of course, because I am not setting myself up as an expert. No promise is made to ‘fix’ or ‘solve’ someone else’s challenges in coaching (and if it is, walk away quickly). I am offering the space and the professional tools that might help a bit. And I tend to acknowledge, quite openly, if I resonate with a client’s story, and to share parts of my own.

The fear remains, though - and I think it is so for all of us. Not quite imposter syndrome, but perhaps a precursor to it. The little question of, should I be doing this, when I don’t have it all together? Who has it all together? No human I have ever met. Even my dog has neurocies (he doesn’t like spaniels, we can’t work out why). But we build our sense of confidence around having something to give, a unique contribution to the world (or research, or our field). Again, if we were honest we would more fully acknowledge that nothing we offer is truly unique except ourselves - we build all our writing, our therapeutic techniques, our yoga sequences, whatever it is, on the ideas of others’ we have read or been taught. The uniqueness comes in how we deliver it - our personality and presence, our perspective built from a network of neurons only we possess.

Humility is an overlooked virtue, because it has been used against us so much I think. It feels synonymous with bonnets and puritanism and power imbalance - with abuse. But humility in therapy is about the coach/counsellor/therapist coming into the space with the client saying, I am human too, I know as much or perhaps less than you, let’s work this out together. I love the dynamic that happens in coaching because it is two people mentalising together - that is, learning to understand a little more about the world and their reactions to it. It is expansive - and only possible if both parties put fixed ideas of how the conversation ‘should’ go to one side. Surely the best writing is the same - showing up with humility simply means coming to the page excited to try, to learn, to make a mess, to discover.

I was excited to learn recently that there is evidence that reflective function (our ability to think about our own thoughts and those of others in a nuanced way) can be improved by engaging with the arts - specifically, complex literature, drama, music, and visual art all help us to develop mentalisation skills, because they assist us in seeing the world through the eyes of others. At last, I can legitimately big up the Wheel of Time series - no joke, one of the things I enjoy so much about Robert Jordan’s epic is the way he reveals the inner lives of the characters and the deep deep misunderstandings they experience. We learn what the characters think, and how they misinterpret others, and from these interactions come the crises that drive the narrative. So much more interesting, human and relatable than stories of one-dimensional characters who never learn, grow, or self-reflect.

I recently started crediting parts of my yoga sequences to the teacher I learned them from, and it feels so good to acknowledge their contribution and to situate myself within a lineage of practice. I put everything together in different ways, perhaps, for the clients in front of me now. But I am not alone, not out on some distant spur without a safety net trying to keep anyone from seeing me fall. I am just a human, learning these things too day by day, and sharing them with you.