Recently I read an article where the writer challenged Oprah and her band of feel gooder for giving false hope to the masses. As with most information that I read, I try to show up in a state of curiosity that I might learn something from a different perspective then my own. This was such a time.
The writer challenged the profession of coaches and spiritual teachers as creating this learning for people that makes them go inward and become self centered and passive. Instead the reader felt that when times get tough people need to double down and learn to be more resilient, go out and challenge the powers that be, get more political and vocal about what we need to do to change the world.
It was an interesting opinion and one that I thought about for a few days before sitting down to put my thoughts to paper.
I jokingly call myself an old hippie. I came out of the late 60’s and 70’s when we protested and marched, and called for change. And change we got. But we also got exhausted and frustrated and realized that one can only hold that embodiment of will for so long. We did not have the words or the knowledge then to know how to create a platform for sustainable change. For the last 40 years we have tried in various ways to find that platform.
All I can speak to is my own experience. I became a corporate coach in ‘2000. I was trained to help the people I coached show up as their best selves. I gave them new tools and a common language that allowed them to form teams. Those teams took pride and ownership of what they produced each month. As they learned to look at their part of the whole, they took on a new embodiment of who they were in the world. A world that by themselves they did not know how to influence, but as a whole they could make a huge difference. I often got feedback that what they learned in the corporate setting transferred in to other arenas of their lives.
As a coach I find out what brings each person passion to get up everyday. By giving them the tools to go inward so they may find a new energy and love of life, allowed them to be more effective in all areas of their lives. It allowed them to be who they wanted to be.
I understand the need for us as a society to begin to have deeper conversations about the world in which we live. I would challenge the writer to understand that we need both. For it is when we have a solid and authentic foundation of who we are as human beings, that we will then be able to have the tougher conversations as to how we all live together in harmony. It is not an either or it is both.