The other day, I found myself explaining to an acquaintance just what it is that I do. I thought it was a legitimate question. After all, I'm not a doctor or a lawyer or a fire chief. Most people would not have heard of what I do, and even if they had, they still might not be sure what it is.
I've heard the question quite a few times lately and so I imagine that trotting out my stock answer isn't what the Universe has in mind for me. I find that we're not usually asked to repeat something if we don't need to go over it again and catch something we've missed. Therefore, I answered this woman's question very carefully.
Many of you have worked with me in the past and so you may know one or several aspects of what I do. I have explained each aspect before and I think I have the descriptions pretty tight by now. I am, variously and in combination, a therapist, coach, management and communication skills trainer, psychic, healer, medium and writer. And while I am all of these, they don't really define the essence of what I do.
I suspect that it isn't so much what I do that needs capturing so much as it is who I am. When I graduated from school with a management degree under my belt, I looked for a vocation that would allow me to use who I was, with only limited matches. At twenty-two years old, I was still trying to think conventionally and I didn't fully understand who I was.
Now, at closer to fifty than forty-five, I am much clearer about who I am, and therefore what I do. Firstly, I think I'm a diagnostician. Here's what I said to that acquaintance I was telling you about... No matter where you put me, I soak up the environment and try to make sense of it.
I use every tool at my disposal. I call it my kit-bag. Think of me as an intelligent sponge. I soak up the environment and process it. In the best-case-scenario I can discern a pattern that means something to someone around me. In a family setting, an office, an organization, a relationship, a classroom or across the world, that could mean that what I pick up provides a different perspective, an insight, a challenge, some recognition or in some cases, just a starting place for figuring things out.
In my kit bag is who I am; all the skills I've acquired and practiced, all the experiences I've had, all the experiences I've listened to, all the books I've read and all my talents. We all have them - talents, I mean. I believe we are meant to use them. They are our 'unfair advantage' and we're meant to share them in whatever way we can.
The really minimalist thing about what I do is that I don't need any supplies or infrastructure. All I need is me and my senses. And the person or group with whom I'm working. That's why I can work in a coffee shop, a park, a plane or an office. Information is information. It doesn't matter if it comes in the form of words/sounds, body language, energy, prayers or pictures. Ultimately, everything has a feeling to it.
That brings me to the second part of what I do ... I talk, or write, and watch for feedback. Sometimes it feels a bit like translation because not all of what I 'pick up' when I'm in 'sponge mode' translates easily into language, but I do my best. I'm clear that I don't have all the answers. My job is to assist. Synergy and synchronicity are key ingredients. I never know what I'm going to be assisting with, from day to day. That's what makes my life so exciting, and interesting.
Back in the days when I didn't really understand what I was doing, when I thought I was a management trainer in the hospitality industry, I was asked by my then out-going boss to give her some feedback on what she was like as a boss, and what I thought she could improve upon. I took this request very seriously and went away overnight to consider carefully just what I should say to her that would be useful in her new job.
We had lunch the next day and I gave her my feedback. Now, given what I have been doing for the last twenty-five years, I realize that what I did for her was a psychic reading combined with observation. The poor woman probably didn't know what hit her. Don't get me wrong; it was professional, respectful constructive and thoughtful. But it was also very accurate and somewhat disconcerting. I honestly didn't know what I was giving her.
Nowadays I work with more awareness stemming from having lived for another twenty-five years. I've learned to expand the parameters of what I call 'work'. The woman who asked the question of me the other day was explaining about a team-building intervention in which she had participated at work a short while ago. I've conducted those in my time but I'm clear that while I'm a good trainer, it's not the best use of my skills.
This is what I do where I have an advantage:
1. soak up 'vibes' and make observations
2. find a way to communicate them
3. listen to the feedback and refine the observations
4. help the person or group to make a plan, if needed, and assess their progress
Once a person or group has figured out what they're working on and why, the REAL issues, that's half the battle won. The rest can be accomplished with skill and logistics. I'm not afraid to work 'outside the box' and my ego doesn't require that anyone even need to know I've been there. I read a web site the other day where the author referred to this as a secret adviser. I call it Private Counsel but that doesn't really do it justice. It's just a tag.
Do you think this answers the question?
Friday, 28 September 2007
Sunday, 23 September 2007
A blue line
I'm late posting this week because I was involved in a memorial celebration for a friend of mine who died this past July. About two hundred and fifty people gathered for a few hours this sunny September afternoon, at a stately old house on the grounds of the University of British Columbia.
Friends, family and colleagues came from far and wide to participate. It was like a gathering of the clans. Some people were of the same family, or branches of the same family, but the rest of us were members of the human family.
Over the last ten-plus-years I have come to know my friend Geoff, his wife Fleur and his son Aidan. They own the house in which I live on the garden level. Many of the people who were at the celebration today have come and gone over the years I've lived here and I have met and come to know them. Geoff was diagnosed with cancer about a year and a half before he died and many of those people, and more, came by the house to see Geoff and to support his wife and son. They were almost all there today.
The ones whom I had not already met I had heard stories about. The afternoon was not long enough for me to be able to put names to faces and talk to all of the people whom I felt I already knew. I will have to trust that there will be time in the future, although, if there is one thing that Geoff's illness reinforced for me, it was that we should not put off until tomorrow what is important to do today. Carpe Diem.
Geoff's mother's partner and a friend of Geoff's with whom he used to play hockey worked on different stages of a computerized slide show of photographs of every stage of Geoff's life. Many things were left out because forty-seven years are hard to compress into a short presentation but there was enough there for most people who knew him to be able to smile through the tears in recognition.
I was one of the people who spoke and I went up last to read something that Geoff had written last winter and had asked me to read. Coming on the heels as it did, of his brother and sister's comments and those of a University friend, I could see so clearly how this last piece was one strand of the tapestry of his life. In fact, I was acutely aware that this is so for all of us, no matter at what age we depart.
Ultimately our life is summarized by all the people who share our life's experience, who inspire us, who warn us by word or deed not to proceed in a particular direction, who challenge us as well as those who come together to mourn our passing. Even those who couldn't make it today share in this tapestry.
As I listened to those who spoke, and many others whose comments I heard or overhead as we circulated afterwards, I heard so many different perceptions of Geoff. Each individual held select pieces of the many facets of the person he was; early in life, in his married years, as a hockey player, as an architect, as a journalist, a photographer and as a friend. The more I heard, the better I felt I knew him, even after his death. Not only did we all come together to celebrate a life lived, to mourn a man lost, but we form a living web that will continue to add depth and breadth to the man who lives on in all the people who knew him.
I would have called this the 'ripples in the pond of life' but his son put it so much better. I wish I had the actual words in front of me but my memory will have to suffice for now. Aidan is nine and his contribution today was to say, among other things, that he thinks that we are all connected to one another by a blue line. It's the colour of the sky so you can't always see it, but it connects all of us to one another. Essentially we're all one.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Somewhere out there Geoff is still connected to us all through love and a blue line. Gone in some ways but not gone in all ways. I believe we are all connected by participating in one another's lives and by witnessing one another's joys and sorrows. We create one another, even after death.
Friends, family and colleagues came from far and wide to participate. It was like a gathering of the clans. Some people were of the same family, or branches of the same family, but the rest of us were members of the human family.
Over the last ten-plus-years I have come to know my friend Geoff, his wife Fleur and his son Aidan. They own the house in which I live on the garden level. Many of the people who were at the celebration today have come and gone over the years I've lived here and I have met and come to know them. Geoff was diagnosed with cancer about a year and a half before he died and many of those people, and more, came by the house to see Geoff and to support his wife and son. They were almost all there today.
The ones whom I had not already met I had heard stories about. The afternoon was not long enough for me to be able to put names to faces and talk to all of the people whom I felt I already knew. I will have to trust that there will be time in the future, although, if there is one thing that Geoff's illness reinforced for me, it was that we should not put off until tomorrow what is important to do today. Carpe Diem.
Geoff's mother's partner and a friend of Geoff's with whom he used to play hockey worked on different stages of a computerized slide show of photographs of every stage of Geoff's life. Many things were left out because forty-seven years are hard to compress into a short presentation but there was enough there for most people who knew him to be able to smile through the tears in recognition.
I was one of the people who spoke and I went up last to read something that Geoff had written last winter and had asked me to read. Coming on the heels as it did, of his brother and sister's comments and those of a University friend, I could see so clearly how this last piece was one strand of the tapestry of his life. In fact, I was acutely aware that this is so for all of us, no matter at what age we depart.
Ultimately our life is summarized by all the people who share our life's experience, who inspire us, who warn us by word or deed not to proceed in a particular direction, who challenge us as well as those who come together to mourn our passing. Even those who couldn't make it today share in this tapestry.
As I listened to those who spoke, and many others whose comments I heard or overhead as we circulated afterwards, I heard so many different perceptions of Geoff. Each individual held select pieces of the many facets of the person he was; early in life, in his married years, as a hockey player, as an architect, as a journalist, a photographer and as a friend. The more I heard, the better I felt I knew him, even after his death. Not only did we all come together to celebrate a life lived, to mourn a man lost, but we form a living web that will continue to add depth and breadth to the man who lives on in all the people who knew him.
I would have called this the 'ripples in the pond of life' but his son put it so much better. I wish I had the actual words in front of me but my memory will have to suffice for now. Aidan is nine and his contribution today was to say, among other things, that he thinks that we are all connected to one another by a blue line. It's the colour of the sky so you can't always see it, but it connects all of us to one another. Essentially we're all one.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Somewhere out there Geoff is still connected to us all through love and a blue line. Gone in some ways but not gone in all ways. I believe we are all connected by participating in one another's lives and by witnessing one another's joys and sorrows. We create one another, even after death.
Friday, 14 September 2007
Purpose string
I tuned in to a young woman's energy the other day. She has been feeling exhausted and unwell. The doctors haven't been able to find the cause and she and her family are feeling worried and frustrated. Without looking for any information, I suddenly picked up one line and it was:
"She has lost her connection to her purpose string."
My sense was that she experienced some sort of trauma and her connection to her purpose string was wrenched. Sometimes I receive information that contains a concept which I haven't heard of before and this was one of those times. As a term "purpose string" is so clear and quite delightful. So much so that it made me smile in recognition. Even though I've never heard of it, I feel I know exactly what a purpose string is.
I imagine it going all the way up my spine and into the sky and the Universe, and that if I tug on it, something on the other end will tug back. It feels reassuring, as if I might need a reminder about why I'm here and it is always there - like spell-check.
If I didn't have a purpose string, then I imagine I might not be very well grounded. I might lose sight of who I am and how to navigate through my life. How would I know what is right for me? I began to think about all the times when we make pivotal decisions in life and what we need as a reference point in order to make those choices. What do I study? Who do I want as a friend? What city should I live in? Who should I marry?
One thought leads to another in my thinking processes and as soon as I began to think of pivotal decisions, I corrected myself and considered that big choices are based on thousands of daily choices. Surely a purpose string would influence many of those as well. I pick up a book to read based on my interests, which are connected to my purpose in life. Friends and potential mates could be drawn to me based on who I am, my interests, my values and my choices.
I wondered if a computer without an operating systems might make a good metaphor for life without a purpose string but I had second thoughts about that. An operating system isn't a blueprint for what to do with the computer. It just gives you a tool to access data. The 'data', or the purpose, comes from a part of ourselves that has access to the bigger picture of our lives whereas the day-to-day part of ourselves can sometimes get lost in minutiae.
I don't know if what I sensed about the young woman was correct. Time will tell but she has led me to think about my purpose string and what it means in my life. It provides a touchstone that informs my choices and gives me comfort when I'm not sure where the turns in the road in front of me will lead. If I lost it, I would feel as though I had been cast adrift in a boat without a rudder, not knowing where I was going or how to get there. I might be tempted to navigate with an external compass instead of my internal one.
I suspect we all have a purpose string but I need to talk to some more people about it to find out more about their experience.
"She has lost her connection to her purpose string."
My sense was that she experienced some sort of trauma and her connection to her purpose string was wrenched. Sometimes I receive information that contains a concept which I haven't heard of before and this was one of those times. As a term "purpose string" is so clear and quite delightful. So much so that it made me smile in recognition. Even though I've never heard of it, I feel I know exactly what a purpose string is.
I imagine it going all the way up my spine and into the sky and the Universe, and that if I tug on it, something on the other end will tug back. It feels reassuring, as if I might need a reminder about why I'm here and it is always there - like spell-check.
If I didn't have a purpose string, then I imagine I might not be very well grounded. I might lose sight of who I am and how to navigate through my life. How would I know what is right for me? I began to think about all the times when we make pivotal decisions in life and what we need as a reference point in order to make those choices. What do I study? Who do I want as a friend? What city should I live in? Who should I marry?
One thought leads to another in my thinking processes and as soon as I began to think of pivotal decisions, I corrected myself and considered that big choices are based on thousands of daily choices. Surely a purpose string would influence many of those as well. I pick up a book to read based on my interests, which are connected to my purpose in life. Friends and potential mates could be drawn to me based on who I am, my interests, my values and my choices.
I wondered if a computer without an operating systems might make a good metaphor for life without a purpose string but I had second thoughts about that. An operating system isn't a blueprint for what to do with the computer. It just gives you a tool to access data. The 'data', or the purpose, comes from a part of ourselves that has access to the bigger picture of our lives whereas the day-to-day part of ourselves can sometimes get lost in minutiae.
I don't know if what I sensed about the young woman was correct. Time will tell but she has led me to think about my purpose string and what it means in my life. It provides a touchstone that informs my choices and gives me comfort when I'm not sure where the turns in the road in front of me will lead. If I lost it, I would feel as though I had been cast adrift in a boat without a rudder, not knowing where I was going or how to get there. I might be tempted to navigate with an external compass instead of my internal one.
I suspect we all have a purpose string but I need to talk to some more people about it to find out more about their experience.
Sunday, 9 September 2007
Edgewalking
An Edgewalker, according to a book by that name just written by Judi Neale, is defined this way:
I see them as the people who walk the edge between the known and the unknown in any community. You could be one in your profession, in your community, your family - in any group really, where the known is trying to grow into the unknown. A friend of mine has always been great at trying out new things that are available on the market. I admire that trait in her and sometimes wish I had it. It see it as an adventurous quality in her whereas I tend to wait until something has been around for a while, until I get used to seeing it around and someone else has tried it, and then I decide that maybe I'd like to have one.
I think I walk the edge in other spheres though. My sphere is the spiritual/emotional side of life. Sometimes I feel that I'm so avant-guard that what I'm looking at doesn't even have words to describe it yet. I like being in that weird territory, even though it isn't always comfortable. I'm willing to risk people not understanding me, or even ostracizing me in some situations because somehow it's worth it. It's where I live. It's home in some strange way.
I don't imagine that true Edgewalkers try to be what they are. It just happens because of the way they look at the world. I don't even imagine that you could recruit people to be a part of that group. You either came wired that way at birth or you didn't.
Judi says on her web site that she thought there were very few Edgewalkers in the workforce and that they need to be more appreciated but she got a flood of feedback from people at her talks saying that they felt that she was being biased towards the role and neglecting others. To her surprise more people than she expected thought they were Edgewalkers, many of them just in some areas and not others.
In the course of my research, I came across a group in the US called BlogHer. These are women bloggers, blogging about everything under the sun. I found one a few days ago and I'll link you to it here. This BlogHer was talking about what she refers to as the 'S-word' in business. 'S' being spirituality. She carefully defines it as 'not religion' and says that businesses would do well to acknowledge that it is important to a number of employees, and even customers. I'm paraphrasing but my take on it is that businesses will ignore it at their peril.
When I was in the business world in the 80s, and even in the 90s, if you mentioned anything spiritual, you immediately and automatically lost credibility. Many of the issues I work with are related to what we see as spirituality, although I don't think they are truly limited to that area. It's just a catch-all label for a bunch of things we're not yet comfortable talking about in the world of work. Business ethics and personal integrity, values, fears about illness and incapacitation, death, birth, marriage, friendship, self worth and meaning; I think all of these are very much related to our spiritual outlook in life. They may also relate to our religious beliefs and practices but not only to those.
This 'S' area, for lack of a better term, is what interests me. How does it affect how we work and what we work on, with whom and how well? I don't think human beings work optimally without meaning, and meaning is derived from many things. Just wanting more money in order to buy more security and more material things seems a mean and limiting expectation of what motivates us.
I'm hoping that we're going to get fed up with being on the often fear-ridden, material treadmill and seek something with richer meaning. I hope that we demand more of our jobs and our relationships at work. Given how much time we spend there and how influential our work environments are on our lives, I hope that we can do better than we have been doing. I suspect that there are a growing number of people who are getting fed up, or we wouldn't have so many home-based businesses, children being home-schooled, or even people retiring early in order to do something that holds more meaning for them.
I celebrate walking on the edge, in whatever capacity we do it. I found a post card years ago that read:
They're the first people to volunteer to head up a new business unit, lead a cross-company initiative, or take on an overseas assignment. They're the glass half-full folks, who are constantly thinking "out of the box," forging alliances with colleagues in other departments, seeking out new solutions to old problems, and anticipating challenges on the horizon. And in today's increasingly diverse workplaces, they are often people who have pursued unusual educational and career paths, traveled widely, and speak more than one language. Judi Neal has a term for these people: Edgewalkers. Literally, an Edgewalker is someone who walks between two worlds.I haven't read the book yet but it seems to me from her web site that the author is focused on several different roles in the workforce. I find I'm more interested in how Edgewalkers might behave in society in general. My term for them has been 'deviant bees'. I feel that I am one; either a deviant bee or an Edgewalker. I really like the term Edgewalker though. (Find out if you are an Edgewalker by completing Judi's questionnaire)
I see them as the people who walk the edge between the known and the unknown in any community. You could be one in your profession, in your community, your family - in any group really, where the known is trying to grow into the unknown. A friend of mine has always been great at trying out new things that are available on the market. I admire that trait in her and sometimes wish I had it. It see it as an adventurous quality in her whereas I tend to wait until something has been around for a while, until I get used to seeing it around and someone else has tried it, and then I decide that maybe I'd like to have one.
I think I walk the edge in other spheres though. My sphere is the spiritual/emotional side of life. Sometimes I feel that I'm so avant-guard that what I'm looking at doesn't even have words to describe it yet. I like being in that weird territory, even though it isn't always comfortable. I'm willing to risk people not understanding me, or even ostracizing me in some situations because somehow it's worth it. It's where I live. It's home in some strange way.
I don't imagine that true Edgewalkers try to be what they are. It just happens because of the way they look at the world. I don't even imagine that you could recruit people to be a part of that group. You either came wired that way at birth or you didn't.
Judi says on her web site that she thought there were very few Edgewalkers in the workforce and that they need to be more appreciated but she got a flood of feedback from people at her talks saying that they felt that she was being biased towards the role and neglecting others. To her surprise more people than she expected thought they were Edgewalkers, many of them just in some areas and not others.
In the course of my research, I came across a group in the US called BlogHer. These are women bloggers, blogging about everything under the sun. I found one a few days ago and I'll link you to it here. This BlogHer was talking about what she refers to as the 'S-word' in business. 'S' being spirituality. She carefully defines it as 'not religion' and says that businesses would do well to acknowledge that it is important to a number of employees, and even customers. I'm paraphrasing but my take on it is that businesses will ignore it at their peril.
When I was in the business world in the 80s, and even in the 90s, if you mentioned anything spiritual, you immediately and automatically lost credibility. Many of the issues I work with are related to what we see as spirituality, although I don't think they are truly limited to that area. It's just a catch-all label for a bunch of things we're not yet comfortable talking about in the world of work. Business ethics and personal integrity, values, fears about illness and incapacitation, death, birth, marriage, friendship, self worth and meaning; I think all of these are very much related to our spiritual outlook in life. They may also relate to our religious beliefs and practices but not only to those.
This 'S' area, for lack of a better term, is what interests me. How does it affect how we work and what we work on, with whom and how well? I don't think human beings work optimally without meaning, and meaning is derived from many things. Just wanting more money in order to buy more security and more material things seems a mean and limiting expectation of what motivates us.
I'm hoping that we're going to get fed up with being on the often fear-ridden, material treadmill and seek something with richer meaning. I hope that we demand more of our jobs and our relationships at work. Given how much time we spend there and how influential our work environments are on our lives, I hope that we can do better than we have been doing. I suspect that there are a growing number of people who are getting fed up, or we wouldn't have so many home-based businesses, children being home-schooled, or even people retiring early in order to do something that holds more meaning for them.
I celebrate walking on the edge, in whatever capacity we do it. I found a post card years ago that read:
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
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