Trust
I have always been slightly envious of those who can keep orchids flowering and have asked for hints and tips over the years, but have rarely been successful.
However, before I left my last post I enjoyed the benefits of a large south facing office in a converted Victorian infant school. The ceiling was high, the bricks were old and porous, the windows let in a lot of light making it hot in the summer and cold in the winter.
I was given an orchid as a thank you gift and managed to keep it flowering for 8 months, more by luck than design. I was devastated when we returned from a half term break to find the petals had started to fall.
I took some advice from our janitor and decided that I would trust that the blooms would return, if I kept it watered and fed. After months of waiting, I was rewarded with the beginnings of dark purple buds and enjoyed watching them grow and burst open offering a further 8 months of flowering.
I took this photograph recently from another orchid which was also given as a present after it burst into flower 3 weeks ago, having lain dormant over the winter. Interestingly it came back to life in a south facing loft conversion with tall ceilings which gets very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter.
There is a consistent pattern here. There is a process and the environment is crucial.
So it is with coaching. When you trust the process you will achieve results. The conditions have to be right, so too the environment. And I can provide that. Whether online, in my home environment, outside for a walk or somewhere of your choosing when it is safe to do so. I am that safe space. I will engender trust and confidentiality so that you can trust the process.
I will listen with intention, I will not interrupt. I will ask questions designed to encourage you to think your thoughts and achieve your goals through your thought processes.
Consider again all the areas of your life: coaching wheel
and plot where your strengths are and where there are areas for development.
I was recently introduced to Nancy Kline’s new book: The Promise that Changes Everything: I Won’t Interrupt You’ and joined an online book group yesterday to discuss it. We all agreed that, as teachers, and most of us parents, we are often the self-professed ‘sage on the stage’ always ready with ‘the answer’.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. If we trust ourselves enough to listen without interruption, to put our phones away when in the company of others, to find peace and solitude within ourselves and in our environment then we can become braver, more accepting of difference and find inner peace.
As schools return we have a collective responsibility to support the young people who have learned so many things though this pandemic: positive and negative and it is our duty to listen. Really, whole-heartedly listen. Suspend assumptions and hear what they have to say. By listening we might avoid another catastrophic pandemic.
Have a safe and peaceful week.
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