[UNKNOWN]: music playing [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the Coaches Rising podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: Today I'm joined by Andy Carhill and he is the host of the podcast The Wonder Dome. [SPEAKER_00]: He is also a transformational coach working with purpose-driven leaders and entrepreneurs.
[SPEAKER_00]: He earned his master's degree in leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he focused his studies on adaptive leadership and is the author of the critically acclaimed science fiction novel Gradient. [SPEAKER_00]: And today we're going to be discussing the path to coaching mastery. [SPEAKER_00]: In particular, we explore it from the lens of archetypes.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are the archetypes that we've each in our own personal journeys connected to that have transformed the work we do? [SPEAKER_00]: How do they do that? [SPEAKER_00]: And how did we connect to those archetypes?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll also explore this question of what is a coach for [SPEAKER_00]: in our times when it feels like we're in a time between worlds and we've inherited a bunch of ideas about what it means to be human and what success is and then therefore what is a coach for?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you enjoy this podcast and invite you to subscribe and if you want to know more about coaches rising and are acclaimed online coach trainings you can head to coaches rising.com and you'll find more information there. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's dive in here's the podcast with Andy Kyle. [SPEAKER_00]: So, Andy, we were just tuning into our conversation and you actually said, you know, you've been thinking about what is a coach for in our times and I was like, why don't we start there?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, why have you been thinking about that question? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the greatest tragedy of so-called modern life and this [SPEAKER_01]: This feels intense to say and confrontational to say, but also really obviously true to say is that so many like the livelihood that you and I get to participate in and that many of us get to participate in has been built upon violence and displacement and subjugation and neglect of many people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's like that's the great tragedy of our of our so-called modern life. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the second greatest tragedy or an extension of that tragedy is that those of us who get to reap the benefits of so-called modern life.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can turn in so many directions and see depressions, see loneliness, we can see a kind of [SPEAKER_01]: a sort of more subtle subjugation in pursuit of money to sustain our livelihoods and a... and a sort of winnowing down in a kind of cutting off from the fullness and richness of what a human is for, actually. [SPEAKER_01]: So underneath the question of what is a coach for is really the question of what is a human for?
[SPEAKER_01]: And like if just sort of look at the patterns of modern life, the answer often seems to be, a human is for making stuff and buying stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe even there are some categories. [SPEAKER_01]: Some humans get to participate in the making and stuff and the buying of stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: And other humans only get to participate in the making of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a real sort of [SPEAKER_01]: cutting off from the natural vitality and life force and diversity that if we went far enough back in time and we don't actually have to go that far back five thousand years, ten thousand years, fifty thousand years. [SPEAKER_01]: It was a completely different reality for a human. [SPEAKER_01]: And then the word coach wouldn't even have existed, but we might have asked what is a healer for, what is a [SPEAKER_01]: What is a cultivator for?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is a forger for? [SPEAKER_01]: What is a hunter for? [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think this question of what is a coach for feels really important because if the answer is to keep the system as it currently is going, then I find that to be a very unsatisfying answer. [SPEAKER_00]: I, I, great. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I wasn't expecting you'd say that because we didn't even, you know, we didn't even check in why you've been thinking about that question.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let me, let me bring up what it, what comes up for me, which is, you know, we've been exploring on the podcast coaching and [SPEAKER_00]: how it's baked into the deep imaginary or deep beliefs of modernity and society and that assumes
[SPEAKER_00]: something about what a human being is and it assumes something about, you know, what is the overarching aim of coaching, which I think, you know, if I was to vastly simplify it, it might be something around it to help people become more successful. [SPEAKER_00]: Now I know a lot of people would, you know, take issue with that, but, and that says something about society itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like a lot of resonance with what you share is like there's obviously chat many challenges we're facing and coaching is rooted within that. [SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like I also want to, how do I say this? [SPEAKER_00]: And you said it very eloquently, but if I feel this perspective that it's only rooted in our lineage that subjugated people [SPEAKER_00]: There's something about that that feels kind of limiting to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like that, you know, it's a lineage that subjugates people or colonize his lands or, you know, is in a very detrimental relationship with nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think those things are all true and it feels like the other side of it is, I feel like coaching is [SPEAKER_00]: an expression of a, and I think you're alluding to this already as well and what you shared, like it's, it's some part of a lineage which goes back thousands of years and, you know, hasn't its heart, it's about guiding others, you know, or maybe simply accompanying other companies. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, accompanying others.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, you know, there's more to modern life than the subjugation of other people. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think you're tuning right into sort of what my aspiration is as a practicing coach. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like what am I, what, like in a way the question what is a coach for is really a very personal questions. [SPEAKER_01]: What am I doing? [SPEAKER_01]: You know, is this of any value?
[SPEAKER_01]: And even the word value is a modern word, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, so connected to commodification and money and worth, and are you worthy enough to have a place in this, uh, in this sensorium as biocomolafet calls it? [SPEAKER_01]: I was in San Diego a few years ago, [SPEAKER_01]: about to lead a workshop on this wonderful framework for leadership called Adaptive Leadership that you and I have talked about.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you've never been to San Diego, I remember what tell you. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, like, San Diego, the weather's the best. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, gotta get to San Diego. [SPEAKER_01]: So good. [SPEAKER_01]: You can be outside all year round. [SPEAKER_01]: And I had never been to San Diego. [SPEAKER_01]: So I get there. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, may or June, [SPEAKER_01]: And it's just clouds. [SPEAKER_01]: So clad.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then at some point, I like pressure tested that with it local. [SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, oh, well, yeah, I mean, me and June, that's like, they have a name for it. [SPEAKER_01]: That's like, this is like the gray months or something. [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, well, no one told me, but come on, what the heck? [SPEAKER_01]: I thought I was going to get sunshine and beach weather. [SPEAKER_01]: So that was a sort of, you know, could laugh about it, disappointment.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the other thing that not a single person said to me, and this is not just a problem in San Diego, it's problem in cities around the States and maybe even around the world is how many displaced unhoused people there were. [SPEAKER_01]: How many people were right on the brink of life and death, right on the streets of San Diego?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it made me feel so sad and angry to be walking around the city [SPEAKER_01]: The headline is the most beautiful city in the world, and it's felt like it's so sad. [SPEAKER_01]: And I can't do, like, I felt helpless. [SPEAKER_01]: So I was sort of walking through the streets and just seeing so many people suffering and feeling like, and I'm about to go lead a workshop on leadership. [SPEAKER_01]: Way to go, Andy. [SPEAKER_01]: I really had parts of me that were up around this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I made it to this cafe and just sat down and like, just kind of noticed like, oh, I'm really sad, okay? [SPEAKER_01]: What do, what do, I don't know what to do about the situation, but maybe I can do something for my sadness. [SPEAKER_01]: And I happen to be near the museum of Fine Art and San Diego.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, you know what, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna go in and find one piece of art [SPEAKER_01]: that I can just sit with because there's something I need or my soul needs or these sad parts of me need. [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know, do that. [SPEAKER_01]: And I see if I can listen to that rather than just kind of marinate any anger and the sadness, which is a perfectly possible choice.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went in and was navigating, you know, paid the like twenty five bucks for the entry fee and went in was navigating and [SPEAKER_01]: found myself to the permanent installation of their East Asian, like the wing of East Asian art. [SPEAKER_01]: I was like kind of felt pulled in there and beautiful sculptures and wall hangings and tapestries and pottery and just off. [SPEAKER_01]: I know, but that's not it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I turned this corner and there was a larger than my statue. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if this person had been standing, they would have been eight or nine or ten feet tall of this woman. [SPEAKER_01]: seated with like one arm up on her knee, eyes kind of partly lit it where they open or closed, unclear, mouth kind of, it was at a smile or not, unclear. [SPEAKER_01]: It's very ambiguous, but nevertheless inviting presence, and there was a bench right in front of this statue.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went and read the plaque and it was a carving of Guan Yin. [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, who, which was the Chinese name for the, one of the five avatars and Buddhism, the Bodhisattvas, the five great Bodhisattvas and Buddhism after the Buddha. [SPEAKER_01]: And she's the one who hears the sounds of the universe. [SPEAKER_01]: She's the embodiment of compassion. [SPEAKER_01]: So it was like, ah, bench, compassion, sadness. [SPEAKER_01]: Let me sit here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I sat there and instantly, this was carved by somebody or maybe multiple people, thousands, three thousand plus years ago before the birth of Jesus Christ, like participating in something with real people, made with human hands, what is a human for? [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe one answer is to make something this beautiful and potent to sit in front of that. [SPEAKER_01]: And immediately heard this voice in my head that might have been my own voice, but it was so clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, you're sad. [SPEAKER_01]: Just sit. [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, you can't do anything. [SPEAKER_01]: In the ways that you want to in this moment, just sit. [SPEAKER_01]: So I did. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sitting there feeling a little self-conscious, kind of, let and settling eyes close. [SPEAKER_01]: And I hear this gaggle of high school students.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, like there's also just stories about teenagers and how [SPEAKER_01]: whatever they are of noxious or, you know, like, uncaring or disrespect. [SPEAKER_01]: All these adults have stories about teenagers, but I could hear them coming and now I feel like self-conscious again. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, okay, but just, of course, you feel self-conscious, just sit. [SPEAKER_01]: And then the only way through the room was to go between me and the statue of Gwanyan.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the teenagers I can hear them talking, and then they arrive to the threshold of the room and [SPEAKER_01]: total science. [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel each one of them just pass between me and the statue. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it doesn't have them. [SPEAKER_01]: And now they go the other side and a single sound. [SPEAKER_01]: And suddenly my sadness started to lift or to dissipate. [SPEAKER_01]: And I felt a sense of, well, what can I do with what I am? [SPEAKER_01]: I can show up.
[SPEAKER_01]: with respect and with kindness and with a willingness to be present to the people I'm about to go facilitate with, is that enough for the pain on the streets, not enough, of course, is enough. [SPEAKER_01]: But that ten minutes, including that encounter with those teenagers, completely opened up my life force in a way that I didn't quite know I needed. [SPEAKER_01]: I knew I needed something, but I didn't know what.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I saw the teenager later in the museum and they were all like waving to me like, there's the guy who was sitting at, you know, they're just so sweet. [SPEAKER_01]: So disruptive of whatever story I might have had in my head about what was going to happen. [SPEAKER_01]: And that was the energy that I said, okay, this is the energy to bring into the facilitation because whatever else is true, I'm here now with this group of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they might need something that they don't know what it is either, but if I can bring that as an invitation, then that's what this is for. [SPEAKER_01]: That's what this is for. [SPEAKER_01]: So I think the, the answers, I tell that story because in a way, it answers the question, this is not a transaction. [SPEAKER_01]: This is also not a solution, but it's an invitation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's this [SPEAKER_01]: This invitation towards the life energy that includes all of our sadness and our upset, but also includes our compassion and our joy and our contentment. [SPEAKER_01]: The invitation towards that life energy to come in. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that's like, that's when I ask, what is the coach for? [SPEAKER_01]: That's what a coach is for.
[SPEAKER_01]: to accompany someone in relationship to what's up for them and see if they might find the deeper life energy that's flowing underneath their primary experience. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad you shared that because you talked the words right out of my mouth because [SPEAKER_00]: When you first started speaking, you know, about the kind of worldview we find ourselves in, you know, the danger is we can start to feel oppressed by that and then victimized by that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we set up a polarization, you know, like this is wrong, we shouldn't be happening. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, there's a lot of polarization taking place in the world right now. [SPEAKER_01]: So you're returning it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so intense, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is interesting for me about the role of a coach because on the one hand, you've named very articulately that we're in this world which has issues with it and I think it's a very obvious to people or in a transition and certain things aren't working out and we need different ways of living together and collaborating and I think for me, [SPEAKER_00]: What is a coach right now?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is someone that can be part of helping people meet themselves and the world as we're going through this transition.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the way you just described so beautifully, it's like not to try and fix things, not to try and fix the world, but to help people meet themselves to hold space for the grief, the sense of loss, but also the sense of [SPEAKER_00]: something new coming in the sense of evolution, repotential, that opens up and comes through as we go through any transition. [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's a kind of place where the individual and the collective meet in that endeavor.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I was going to say that and then you spoke it out very clearly. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's a it's a beautiful moment of Kwonien [SPEAKER_00]: and what she represents and that being an offer to you as kind of transmission that invited you into a potent shift, which also speaks to me of what coaching can be.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the, I do sometimes is to, and I want to hear what's coming up for you, but it just feels like a moment to share from that, one of the prayers that I, that I train practice. [SPEAKER_01]: to varying degrees of success, and then it put that in air quotes, because we used the word successful earlier. [SPEAKER_01]: And so question I ask a lot, what a success look like as a coach.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the prayers is after that encounter with Guanyan is simply, when I'm feeling some flavor of those feelings or feeling some sense of, I mean, okay, for some reason, I'm the one who's been invited into this room. [SPEAKER_01]: And I could make that all sorts of stories about that, but okay, I've been invited into this room where into this one-on-one conversation. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's just a simple kind of picturing that statue that I encountered.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just maybe you see through my eyes, maybe you move through my body, and you work through my hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that feels really important as a way to like, call in something that feels [SPEAKER_01]: wider and deeper than Andy the dad of three who's feeling irritated or is distracted by the news headline or is feeling some feeling that isn't in service to the question of like why am I the one who's here right now what what what can I offer it now how can I be a service right now yeah because we wanted to talk about our journey with coaching and
[SPEAKER_00]: this idea of mastering the art of coaching, you know, as an ongoing never-ending journey perhaps. [SPEAKER_00]: But one of what I hear inside of that is that there's a certain prayer which opens up a certain experience for you which then allows you to hold space or to meet people in a way that's kind of more profound, whatever word we want to use than [SPEAKER_00]: and if you were just inside of, you know, you're kind of in every day, you know, in quotes every day persona.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you could say a little bit about, you know, what's being key for you, and this is probably one of the practices, like if I, you know, if we were to muse a little bit on this journey of towards mastery, one of the things that really stand out for you as being significant [SPEAKER_00]: happenings or things that you do in that journey. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is I think the story in that prayer is is a way of of kind of circling that and working with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'll start with what I know doesn't work, but I mean there are maybe you can relate this.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are absolutely parts of me that just [SPEAKER_01]: want to be loved and like oh like wow Andy what great coaching you know or like that was that changed my life and it's like so some parts of me are hungry for that there's a kind of hunger that I'm aware of and I we could unpack that where does that hunger come from why is that so important my headline is that's maybe another kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: not gone effect of this modern life of isolation and commodification and performance and value is like we're all like hungry for a place where we feel like we belong or we feel like we're seen. [SPEAKER_01]: So it certainly doesn't work as well if I'm trying to get those needs met from my clients, for myself. [SPEAKER_01]: Or at least that's the primary driver.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that prayer is an example of just like, it's not that I'm not here, it's not like the prayer is may I disappear from view, although perhaps that would be a really powerful prayer, someone else might use that. [SPEAKER_01]: But the prayer rather may I be some kind of vessel for something that's more spacious, more understanding, more compassionate, more creative, more open than the hungry is might otherwise let me be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you think about again, what is a human? [SPEAKER_01]: What is a human for? [SPEAKER_01]: One way into that question is what?
[SPEAKER_01]: what sets us apart or what makes us distinct, what gives us the precise, what is the precise recipe of qualities that no other creature on this planet has that we have in that precise way, like certainly there are creatures that can stand upright and certainly there are creatures that have opposable thumbs and certainly there are creatures that have two eyes on the front of their head that's like all of that but to put those physical qualities together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even for those of us who don't have full use of our legs, like there's still an uprightness that we're seek with assistance. [SPEAKER_01]: So there's something about our ability to kind of track and see things along a spectrum of distance that's a really potent human ability. [SPEAKER_01]: And then to move towards those things on our two feet and to work with them with our hands, that's really potent human ability that cuts across culture and cuts across history.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the other piece of that that's hidden or invisible to our physical side is like, I don't know if these are our opposable thumbs, like this is our opposable mind, our ability to imagine into different perspectives. [SPEAKER_01]: If I wanted to, or you wanted to, we could start to be like, what does it like to be Joel right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you could ask what's it like to the Andy or [SPEAKER_01]: And we wouldn't get all the data, but we get a simulation that feels it's very alive and real. [SPEAKER_01]: And we can start to hold competing thoughts in our mind. [SPEAKER_01]: And we notice a part of us is upset about the unhoused issue. [SPEAKER_01]: And no part of us says, well, there's nothing we can do about it. [SPEAKER_01]: So just ignore it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can notice the ways in which the debate and the question comes alive in our mind. [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say the thing that's been most powerful for me as a coach is to tap into that imaginal power, which is probably the thing that makes us most distinct from all the other creatures on the planet, is the depth of our imagination.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I can, you know, I don't know if one in was real, I don't know the sculptors who carve that statue of her, but I do know that if I can imagine the archetype of compassion, [SPEAKER_01]: if I can tap into that. [SPEAKER_01]: And also imagine that that archetype could just as easily live, and you, Joel, as it lives in me, that's practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a, there's an energy, there's something that happens physiologically, probably if you're a measure like my blood pressure in my, [SPEAKER_01]: and the flow of serotonin versus cortisol.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you measure neuronal activity, probably something like, there's all of these shifts that can take place through the imagination, through the imaginal body that I think is bigger than wider than deeper than just our primary experience in the modern world, which feels very reductive and constrained.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think one of the practices as a coach is to find [SPEAKER_01]: with your imagination, a place to work and a place to stand and a place to move from, that is, has a profound and immediate and real impact on your presence in that moment. [SPEAKER_00]: Beautiful. [SPEAKER_00]: Let me riff on this a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I felt that, in a sense, like I hear the topic of insolment and archetypes, and that if we're coaching from an inherited identity, [SPEAKER_00]: with all its conditioning, which was maybe necessary and helped us remain in a sense of belonging and connection with our primary family and caregivers and community. [SPEAKER_00]: But if that's where we're coaching from still, it kind of limits our capacity to access the territory you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: in a sense there's this journey, this initiation that we can go through as a coach, which I think that in itself is a kind of archetypal journey that not all coaches hold, but I've certainly found to be psychoactive and so it's [SPEAKER_00]: You know, this felt imaginary territory where the world becomes reenchanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, as you said in the modern material world, it feels like we kind of just degraded that capacity in ourselves in Western culture, in not all places but many. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, [SPEAKER_00]: that does this felt experience of the imaginal that we can actually attune to or open into that has a certain intelligence and way of seeing in it. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think this is a very worthy journey to partaking. [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to ask you about that in a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just share with you a couple of my experiences with that. [SPEAKER_00]: you know, through doing my own kind of instrument work and soul quest and, you know, opening into this whole territory. [SPEAKER_00]: What dropped for me and had this, I had this reflected by a wise soul to me was a kind of, and it sounds very simple. [SPEAKER_00]: The archetype of being a container.
[SPEAKER_00]: something just like it was like a kind of tuning fork like when they offered that to me and there's a kind of yes in my being and and and it was a felt experience and a sense of potential and capacity which then started to show up in my coaching with people as a felt experience you know and it and it has a kind of psychoactive flavour to it so that was one [SPEAKER_00]: remarkable moment, and it's continued to unfold and kind of become more nuanced and enriched.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other psychoactive kind of ingredient was this mythopoetic identity that I tuned to. [SPEAKER_00]: one day and it's so funny because a dear friend of mine separately reflected this back to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it kind of reinforced it, but there was a sense of like one day where I'm heading to is like being this elder in the forest who has moved through life and lived fully and had his heart broken open by life, being tenderized by life and his eyes are shining with [SPEAKER_00]: the divine with contact with God, God is in His heart. [SPEAKER_00]: And He's just sat in the forest and He has a hut and the animals gather.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes people wander into the forest and they're these spontaneous interactions. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's such an enriching, beautiful metaphor or archetype for me. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's had such an impact on who I perceive myself to be in the journey of coaching mastery. [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, I'd wanted to share those, and those images came to me, not just through God, you know, I'm just going to make this up, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where I want to kind of segue back to you now, but it came through my heart, you know? [SPEAKER_00]: This is not a mental intellectual endeavor, but it's a journey of the heart and one of [SPEAKER_00]: in a sense, attuning to what life wants with me through this atonement. [SPEAKER_00]: And I could talk more about that in detail. [SPEAKER_00]: We might get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to kind of volley it back to you and just see for you, to talk about your archetypes and yes, imaginal experience and how you access it. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I'm ready to receive the volume. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you share video I forget but I'm just like, we got the video going, but yeah, smiling so much as you share both of those. [SPEAKER_01]: And there's something for me about the more abstract to be a container.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we could even just stay with that for a moment and actually notice that like a hug is a kind of containment sort of [SPEAKER_01]: confidence is a kind of containment like there's all these ways in which just by showing up with that that wise invitation towards being a container that that already has what you call the psychoactive effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then the next layer, the next cut, this elder Joel, who [SPEAKER_01]: we could get into a really nerdy debate about how time works.
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't do that, but there is, like the sort of to just accept and allow for the possibility that that is an actual place and state and future, and that the possibility for Joel the elder who has a home in the forest [SPEAKER_01]: That could just be a fun fantasy, but when you really feel it in your heart, like you described, that comes to life in a way that our nervous system doesn't really make a distinction between, oh, that's fantasy and that's reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, no, there is actually a future where that that exists, that possibility is possible. [SPEAKER_01]: And we can, we can kind of, you've called that into you. [SPEAKER_01]: or you've traveled there to it and brought something back from it that now I'm feeling and smiling as you just share the story. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I really want to celebrate what you're talking about. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a fantasy. [SPEAKER_01]: Fantasy can be fun, you know we can.
[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine, I mean, sometimes people say they're not creative and it's like, well, if you ever rehearsed a fight that you want to have with your boss because they were a jerk to you. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you never have the fight, but you've imagined it in your head a lot of my punch like, yeah, I'm like, well, that's creativity. [SPEAKER_01]: And beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: What a wonderful skill to fantasize and create and imagine possibilities, but that's not what I hear you talking about. [SPEAKER_01]: You're talking about something that your whole body minds can relate to and inhabit. [SPEAKER_01]: And I wonder if you could, if you're willing to keep kind of stay with it, you set a couple times that it's psychoactive, that it's a felt sense, that you could like, when you received it, you kind of, it was like a full yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that feels like important, it's hard to put words to those physical experiences, but [SPEAKER_01]: We're definitely talking about that. [SPEAKER_01]: That's some kind of life force that's flowing through you. [SPEAKER_01]: That's vital in alive and in liveening you. [SPEAKER_01]: How did it feel? [SPEAKER_01]: Or how does it feel? [SPEAKER_01]: How might you describe what it feels like to be the elder to let the elders show up with us right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that like for you? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it is very felt. [SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, this elder is, I don't know if you know the series Vikings, there's this guy that plays Ragnar Lothbrook. [SPEAKER_00]: And he has this very wild, bold, luck in his face. [SPEAKER_00]: And later on in the season, season three or four, it's like he's met a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he's kind of, you know, almost like in a kind of trans [SPEAKER_00]: a paradigmatic kind of religious exploration and you know he's been in a lot of battles and he's got this big beard and tattoos on his face but his eyes are like just [SPEAKER_00]: looking shining. [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's like he's elder, he's becoming older, but it's not like old and diminished.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, so, you know, as I relate to that image even right now in this moment, I can feel the sense of enlightenment that it brings me. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a kind of, it's a process of staying with that image. [SPEAKER_00]: It's very meaningful and moving and sometimes makes me weak. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yeah, it's just, [SPEAKER_00]: attuning to it and it reveals more of itself. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's not about kind of making it into something fixed necessarily.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's attuning and filling it washed through you and as I say the image will deepen and expand and it's almost like a lifelong co-an in a sense. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what comes to me. [SPEAKER_00]: And as I noticed that we're talking about it, it's like I feel more vivacious.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other thing is this, I think it brings me into a sense of kind of wildness in my coaching, which might sound [SPEAKER_00]: a little strange, because it's not like I want to bring an agenda to my clients, but it does put me at my developmental edge more, you know, that enlightenment, that installment, is like a more risky place to be, but it's where I do my best coaching. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, it's a wilder place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: So one thing I want to underline is that, like, how do you know what you're for? [SPEAKER_01]: Like one way you know is when you are just in that place of weeping or laughing or some combination of the two, like that's a really potent, yes, it's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: So just thank you for sharing that that image can bring you to a place of weeping at that to me is as good an answer as I've ever seen to like what is someone's essence or soul or purpose or whatever the word is and a big part of the answer to that is like what brings you to that that state of emotion and attention. [SPEAKER_01]: and the wildness piece that didn't, it doesn't sound like an agenda. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's almost like the opposite of an agenda.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like being willing to risk, to truly risk that you might say or do something with this person that will surprise them, that will get them to stand up straighter, because wild energy is not always safe energy. [SPEAKER_01]: But it is the energy from which we all evolved, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like we did not evolve in highly contained square houses with white walls or blue walls. [SPEAKER_01]: We evolved in a context and there's some great research around this.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a book called Extended Mind that I'm really [SPEAKER_01]: getting excited about that a colleague just referred me to. [SPEAKER_01]: That, like, essentially our body mind, our nervous system, our brain, our body, evolve in a context of incredible complexity of this kind of fractal reality where at the macro and the micro, there are all these patterns that our nervous system has a relationship to.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can, as an example, a concrete example, a tree, [SPEAKER_01]: You can zoom in on the leaf all the way to the edge of the leaf where you can zoom out and see its whole canopy. [SPEAKER_01]: And there's this kind of sort of some, it's not, it's not perfectly symmetrical. [SPEAKER_01]: But it has a kind of repetition and symmetry that is so much more wild than the straight lines and the squares and the simple geometry of modern life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for you to be in your wildness, it is edgy. [SPEAKER_01]: I sense it is, and it's invitational. [SPEAKER_01]: Because in a way, just by being your wild self, maybe some of whatever they're wild self, that actually no amount of modernity can completely erase that somewhere in all of us is this wildness that goes down deep, really deep, and really far back in linear time. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, really far back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do want to come to you in a moment in terms of what archetypes have resonated with you. [SPEAKER_00]: And it also feels like this is where we access our genius coaching or more of my genius coaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think [SPEAKER_00]: There's a sense where, you know, as a coach, if we think about mastery, we do our training and then we inherit the training and modality and the paradigm of our school trade coaching school, which is good, you know, because we don't know about coaching and if hopefully it's a good school and then [SPEAKER_00]: we're gaining knowledge and experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then if that's where we stop, then we're only we're kind of like all the other coaches from that training school. [SPEAKER_00]: So we're kind of like an inverted commas and average coach. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that journey into mastery really does also involve like breaking through into that and sold kind of sense of [SPEAKER_00]: What am I here to bring? [SPEAKER_00]: What am I here to create? [SPEAKER_00]: In a sense, I'm creating my own coaching paradigm, so to speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a fusion of the things that matter most to me. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a fusion. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not like it's just a kind of water down mix of everything. [SPEAKER_00]: It's no, it's something that's distilled out of my own unique self. [SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to belonging, [SPEAKER_00]: Like you said earlier, we can get caught in a kind of belonging which is around safety and remaining kind of entrenched.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's also this sense of belonging where we've now landed in our own kind of music that we're here to play. [SPEAKER_00]: So what about you? [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, what about you with your journey around this and your archetypes? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, love what you said there. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for that. [SPEAKER_01]: Someone pointed out to me at some point and it just stuck that the word belong is literally be long.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so actually let ourselves extend into and outwards and downwards and upwards that it's this expansive quality. [SPEAKER_01]: And we need safety. [SPEAKER_01]: Safety, I don't want to diminish safety is important. [SPEAKER_01]: But actually, you can only get so much. [SPEAKER_01]: You can only be so safe. [SPEAKER_01]: And there's also like a willingness to be long with the truth that we don't know how much time we have.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we don't know when the moment is going to come that this body is going to be killed or degraded or decayed. [SPEAKER_01]: But we know it's going to come. [SPEAKER_01]: So how do we belong in the way that is not a retreat, purely into safety also, sometimes to retreat is essential, sanctuaries, essential, but also to go out and adventure. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the archetype for me that feels the most potent is the adventurer or the explorer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time I get to a horizon and I can see a vantage [SPEAKER_01]: And this is actually the, again, the book, the extended mind is very present with me because I just landed in my hands like this past week through a colleague. [SPEAKER_01]: But one of the things the author points out is that based on her research around neurobiology and human species and our history, we essentially need to all of us need some amount of two things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is exactly what we're talking about. [SPEAKER_01]: We need some amount of refuge, safety. [SPEAKER_01]: We feel really good when we have a refuge at home. [SPEAKER_01]: a safe harbor sanctuary and we need someone on a vantage ability to see into the distance. [SPEAKER_01]: The thing that's missing from that articulation for me is that also there are some of us at least who feel really called to leave refuge because of whatever promise exists out in that horizon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, I feel that in me, like every time I come to a, can see a horizon from the top of the hill, doesn't have to be some big intense mountain. [SPEAKER_01]: There's some like unfolding in me. [SPEAKER_01]: There's some like, something kind of comes up from my, like, caught my root chakra or my belly and kind of opens up into my heart and I just like, I'm like, oh, there. [SPEAKER_01]: And that is a deeply, that's a deeply human architect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every, [SPEAKER_01]: Everything we have now for good and for ill includes is a result and an extension of and probably there we could get into an interesting debate about this but I really believe this it's a result and an extension of our nomadic ancestors and not all of our ancestors were super nomadic some were very nomadic others were very settled somewhere in between but the the explorers were the ones who wherever the refuge was
[SPEAKER_01]: They were looking for the vantage, the horizon, and moving towards it. [SPEAKER_01]: And I can really feel a sense that that's in my genetic, that's part of my genetic inheritance. [SPEAKER_01]: And again, we could again debate, is that my imagination at work may be, but when I really call that in or let that come into me, I feel my version of that kind of a liveness that like, [SPEAKER_01]: I could almost just a week, but I feel so relaxed and open and like I laugh.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to laugh with it and cry with it at the same time. [SPEAKER_01]: I feel so good. [SPEAKER_01]: And to bring that energy into a coaching conversation. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, this is amazing by listening to what you're saying, that exploring me can start to notice where the advantage is. [SPEAKER_01]: and the refuge inside this person. [SPEAKER_01]: Where do they feel safe and also where do they feel open?
[SPEAKER_01]: And how can I accompany them on that adventure of knowing their interiority with more richness and more fidelity, like with more clarity? [SPEAKER_01]: And every single one of us is like a universe unto ourselves. [SPEAKER_01]: So every coaching conversation for me becomes this micro adventure.
[SPEAKER_01]: where the explorer and me who can just set out with a small pack on and a good pair of boots, and the most essential items for survival and go, okay, let's go find out what's over there. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a relief in my editing and energizing archetype for me. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it's like I'm hearing that it's a kind of a tunement to a particular experience within a coaching conversation. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm curious.
[SPEAKER_00]: What if you could say a little bit more about what that explorer feels like and the kinds of [SPEAKER_00]: What is it? [SPEAKER_00]: What is it attuning to? [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, you are speaking to that already, but you could flesh that out. [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of attuning to something, isn't it? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Let me just sit with that for a moment or walk with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even even the edit that edit, I just made to my language. [SPEAKER_01]: Let me sit with that for a moment. [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no. [SPEAKER_01]: Let me walk with it. [SPEAKER_01]: That's part of the attunement. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, where is there the possibility for motion?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I'm working with someone who feels really overwhelmed or stuck or closed in, you know, or like there's something weighing on them or there's something at their back, notice how these are all metaphors. [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, already our imagination, like if we can help our clients tune into what it feels like to be in the situation as they understand it.
[SPEAKER_01]: then often we'll get answers that have this varied embodied quality even if they haven't yet felt the full embodiment of it. [SPEAKER_01]: So they feel pursued or hunted or overwhelmed or pressured or stuck or closed in or all of these, you know, can really feel the physicality of that. [SPEAKER_01]: And so my explorers kind of like in me is just getting close to that in a really gentle way. [SPEAKER_01]: Like in this, because this is new territory. [SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if I'm just like, marching on it, oh, okay. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you feel really honkered down. [SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you try taking some deep breaths and relaxing your nervous system? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't understand yet. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm entering this nutrient act to go really gently. [SPEAKER_01]: And just listen and listen some more and notice how it feels in me to be this close to to them as they describe their overwhelm.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then as a tune in, it's just like, [SPEAKER_01]: through the process of the coaching conversation. [SPEAKER_01]: There's a chance to help them come towards me and towards a place where they can start to be an explorer of their own reality and start tuning to why a part of them feel stuck and where might the horizon be? [SPEAKER_01]: Where might they get some vantage on their stuckness? [SPEAKER_01]: And what might they see once they're out there?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has a quality of traversing a landscape or a terrain [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just I'm tuning for that. [SPEAKER_01]: How can I move into the reality as much as I'm able and help them move through and beyond the precise moment that they're in so that they can see the bigger reality that's like in every direction there's possibility from anywhere. [SPEAKER_01]: So how can I kind of help them start to attain that ability from movement?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it feels like in my body, it feels like a kind of [SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever come upon the edge of a river or come to the top of the hill, it feels like a kind of quality of a rival. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm really here. [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, look at where I am. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, this is nice. [SPEAKER_01]: What can I see? [SPEAKER_01]: Where does the river flow? [SPEAKER_01]: Or where is, how far can I see over the horizon?
[SPEAKER_01]: It has this quality of a rival, but also this quality of potential.
[SPEAKER_01]: that okay now we can keep going because there's a clear path now that we can see that before it was just all wilderness and trees and you know the emotional and intellectual equivalent of wilderness and trees like it just feels tight and then something opens and then it's like go slow pay attention put a finger to the wind notice if there's smoke on the horizon notice where the threats might be and then help the client say okay where to next
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the way the explorer architect just feels so fun and joyful and useful. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that is really useful. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, kind of thinking also that it's a vocative of a sense of like being on the path, you know, like being on the trail, so to speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there's a feeling of like knowing when one is on the trail, even if that means acknowledging that there's kind of fear here, a sense of stuckness, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, well, that's like what's actually, that's where I am in the exploration. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's what I'm appreciating about this archetype.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, interestingly, you know, from attachment theory perspective, it's like that dynamic of [SPEAKER_00]: you know, being able to come back to a trusted other where one can find a sense of safety and regulation and but then that allows for one to then go out and explore, you know, so that's like the common for it. [SPEAKER_00]: So then you and that's and then in the exploration, that's where one finds the meaning.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in attachment theory, that's one of the basic ideas. [SPEAKER_00]: So I find that very kind of analogous to coaching, you know? [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's really hard to find that. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what is a coach for? [SPEAKER_01]: Or what is a practitioner for? [SPEAKER_01]: What is a therapist for? [SPEAKER_01]: Like the flavor that we're talking about has this deep, well of imagination and kind of archetypal history.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really hard to find that attachment in like, [SPEAKER_01]: most modern settings. [SPEAKER_01]: Like what is a corporation for? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the answer legally is to essentially make as much profit as possible. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're part of a corporation, you might get benefits and pay vacation and all that stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately, that corporation will not be loyal to you as a human-made entity, as a human-made system.
[SPEAKER_01]: It won't be loyal to you if its ultimate aims are not being served with profit. [SPEAKER_01]: And so many people make the mistake, and I've made this mistake, and it feels awful to overattach to this human-made system that's not actually able to meet that need for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then they get laid off, or they get start to feel the emptiness, the repetition of the role, and then like, wouldn't be great if we didn't live in a context where [SPEAKER_01]: okay here comes like a paid practitioner okay we can talk about the commodification of coaching and all the pressures on the coach to produce outcomes because the coach is being paid better all that but ideally the coach
[SPEAKER_01]: drops in with that person and creates, helps them create that kind of container that you describe that's highly imaginative and highly rich and draws in their, their aliveness and their essence and their vital life force and they can start to form ultimately a strong self-attachment. [SPEAKER_01]: I think you and I as we talk about these archetypes like these are put in the attachment theory language.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just forming really strong attachments to ourselves so that we feel really safe [SPEAKER_01]: and trusting of our own inner wildness to go be with another wild creature actually because every one of us is a wild creature and we can like bring that self attachment in and they can start to connect with us and open up and start to ultimately over time feel that self trust that they can navigate the wilds.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a really important service that a transformational coach at least can provide in these moments. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, beautiful. [SPEAKER_00]: I want to, if I'm thinking of the listener, I want to see if we could articulate how we could play round with archetypes in our workers' coaches. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, how did you discover that archetype of the explorer was it? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: A big part of it, I'll tell another story if that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, [SPEAKER_01]: the flavor of it and the precision of it came through an experience I had as a father. [SPEAKER_01]: So maybe also before I tell the story, I'll say that like, you know, you can go take like any agram assessment and get a typology or you can go tape tape.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are archetypal assessments out there or you can play with taro cards or like there are many, many, many where you can read Carly Young's work or just go into Youngian [SPEAKER_01]: You know, into the world of young and psychoanalysts and it's just like rich. [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a rich lineage of thought and practice and assessment around the potency of archetype archetypes.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I want to be really clear like what I'm what I kind of mean when I say archetype is something that [SPEAKER_01]: I might describe as things that people will do naturally in a context that is supportive enough and autonomous enough that they can just follow their own curiosity. [SPEAKER_01]: They can follow their notes. [SPEAKER_01]: They can follow the poll. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's actually a quite a rare context because of all the things we talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when someone is just kind of in a safe enough context, [SPEAKER_01]: in a place where they can know who they are but also be with others. [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to find their way into a role a place of service in that community and it might be a they might be tending the earth and cultivating food they might be [SPEAKER_01]: Um, creating a container of space for listening and their cabin in the woods. [SPEAKER_01]: They might be going, come on, let's go for a hike.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go see what's up on that mountain. [SPEAKER_01]: They might be tinkering and working with tools, whether they're stone or metal, you know, or now these days with digital tools. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, so we have all these things that people just do. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't need any bosses to come and tell them to it. [SPEAKER_01]: Like actually, if just left to our own devices, we get up to so much interesting flavors of humanity.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think if we start to see those as directional signs, we could follow each one of those rules down into a core archetype. [SPEAKER_01]: And so for mine, it's that explorer for you right now. [SPEAKER_01]: It's that kind of like elder who's creating a safe container in his house in the woods.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what's important is that there's no right archetype for a coach or for a person, but rather to see that they have some natural essence, some natural gifts and skills that if left to their own devices without pressure or expectation from modern society, they would find their way to. [SPEAKER_01]: I really believe that as just kind of invested in what we did. [SPEAKER_01]: So can we help you find that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's another way to put all of this in less fanciful terms. [SPEAKER_01]: But sometimes those less fanciful terms are not adequate enough. [SPEAKER_01]: They're too stale, they're too abstract, they're too general. [SPEAKER_01]: So then the work is kind of what you and I have been talking about, which is to bring it to life more in a specific way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, that came to life as a dad, like this archetype, [SPEAKER_01]: In a way, it's kind of an adjacent archetype, but I think this connects. [SPEAKER_01]: My son now is five, my middle son, he'll be five next month. [SPEAKER_01]: When he was a baby, he had a really hard time sleeping. [SPEAKER_01]: and anyone who's ever not gotten sleep knows that that, like, really sucks.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're, if you, whether it's with a child or, you know, you're taking care of someone or you have insomnia or whatever is not sleeping, really takes a toll on our physiology. [SPEAKER_01]: So, like, torture. [SPEAKER_01]: It's actually used as torture. [SPEAKER_01]: It's really awful. [SPEAKER_01]: But we're just trying, my wife was taking a turn to see them, okay, it's my turn.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm staying there inside our house and I'm looking up because I can see this ceiling. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's maybe two or three feet away for me. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, I'm in this dark room. [SPEAKER_01]: There's a little nightlight on. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not slept. [SPEAKER_01]: My baby's squawling. [SPEAKER_01]: And my wife is trying to sleep.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's not sleeping, of course, because this poor little dude is, is yelling in the middle of the night at three in the morning. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think just by virtue of the fact that I wasn't really in my quote unquote right mind, I was in a bit of an altered state. [SPEAKER_01]: I had kind of a waking dream. [SPEAKER_01]: And I suddenly like looked up at the ceiling. [SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't there anymore. [SPEAKER_01]: And I could see the stars.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the stars were, you know, the stars that our ancestors would have seen before the sky was filled with ambient light of cities that actually hides a lot of the starlight now. [SPEAKER_01]: And it was just like, here I was standing on a hilltop in the night sky and camped with my family standing watch. [SPEAKER_01]: taking a turn to keep the family safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this archetype of like, the guardian, this really came to life to me that actually at some point in my and such, like, not in a, I don't know all the details, but I know this is true that not in a generic way, but in a very specific way, one of my ancestors once stood on a hilltop, keeping his family safe. [SPEAKER_01]: and that archetype of like the explorer who's also has to sometimes set up camp and stand guard.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like meeting, I met that in the middle of the night and it sort of came towards me and I felt, and suddenly it wasn't like, why won't you sleep? [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, this is just like, oh, yeah, what's coming up for you is I shared that? [SPEAKER_00]: Whoa. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm noticing that the guardian has a certain capacity or quality to it. [SPEAKER_00]: So again, it's like something comes online as you tap into that.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, in the moment, very moment when you're feeling maybe like pretty wrecked and lacking capacity, it broke through. [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's the other thing I want to name, which is that for me, these archetypes, [SPEAKER_00]: They often come through when not in a kind of rational state. [SPEAKER_00]: So for me it's been like when I've been fasting or immersed in nature and kind of chanting and entering altered states basically.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was, I mean, I've been there with lack of sleep from kids. [SPEAKER_00]: That is an altered state. [SPEAKER_00]: It's an altered state. [SPEAKER_00]: It's an altered state. [SPEAKER_00]: It's an altered state. [SPEAKER_00]: It's an altered state.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it strikes me as being that, you know, for coaches, people listening that if you feel inspired by this, this is one of the ways in there are many resources out there, but it's like, yeah, it's not something you kind of just sit down. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, some kind of deductive [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you can kind of use your mind a little bit to go like, what are the common threads in my life that I've noticed?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's like, that's a kind of setting up this, you know, if you can then move into a space where it's kind of, there's a word I'm looking for like, [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's received, you know, it's not, you're just not like, I didn't go like this sucks. [SPEAKER_01]: Let me think of something that will help make this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just literally I was in that altered state had this kind of waking dream felt this ancestral presence come towards me that said you're doing what your ancestors did for many, many generations. [SPEAKER_01]: This is important and noble work. [SPEAKER_01]: You're just where you need to be right now. [SPEAKER_01]: And I wish I could say, and then my son fell asleep, and it was like, no, he was still screening for the rest of the night.
[SPEAKER_01]: But suddenly all this resource was there that I was literally re-sourced. [SPEAKER_01]: I was sourcing into something much bigger than the modern story, which is the story of a beleaguered father who's underselect and under pressure and feeling frustrated and tired. [SPEAKER_01]: That was also true. [SPEAKER_01]: I was that person, I am that person sometimes still.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was also true that I am part of, and you are part, and we are part of an incredibly rich human story that includes many, many, many examples of people accessing what you're calling an altered state through many different ways. [SPEAKER_01]: But the cool thing I think is, as you name that and underline that, I'm really glad that you are. [SPEAKER_01]: That even that word alter state has become to be included with some kind of like transaction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me get this plant medicine or this drug or this thing and alter my state so that XYZ can happen. [SPEAKER_01]: But actually, no, it's sort of, it's a relational. [SPEAKER_01]: It's pre-transaction.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a way in which we as coaches [SPEAKER_01]: Even if it's really subtle, if we're showing up attuned as the explorer, or as the guardian, or as the caretaker, or as the elder, or as a vessel for Guanyan's compassion and energy, if we're showing up with that, allowing that to come into us, then something will come into our clients' reality too.
[SPEAKER_01]: and their state might ever so subtly, it doesn't have to be dramatic and psychedelic, but ever so subtly, their state starts to alter because we're in this relationship. [SPEAKER_01]: And then in that altered state, new possibilities can come in. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't need to be manufactured. [SPEAKER_01]: They can just come in because the vessel has changed in some way. [SPEAKER_01]: The vessel is ready to receive them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the vessel, literally, our bodies are like, they're in a change state. [SPEAKER_01]: So something else can come in. [SPEAKER_00]: And in a sense, you know, with that, you just said, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we want to vote, be aware of things become transactional.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you pointing to, you know, what I would call more of a poetic attunement or an unfolding attunement where, you know, in a sense, we're not [SPEAKER_00]: We're dropping our agenda of getting somewhere and inverted comments and more entering into a kind of space of letting things be of attuning to what's here, allowing this archetype or kind of frequency of the explorer to permeate the experience. [SPEAKER_00]: And then it's like you don't know what's going to come out of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's the point is, but it allows for something to emerge [SPEAKER_01]: that wasn't there before is that kind of did I pick that up right or yeah that feels that feels it and as you say that it sort of strikes me that that even
[SPEAKER_01]: like there's just a there isn't it there's a lightness here to hold all of this lightly and including a tuning like to the archetype of the explorer it's I know when I'm tuned in when I feel like I'm on an adventure if I don't feel like I'm on an adventure and I start to think I need to feel like I'm on an adventure for this coaching session to be good and I've
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've suddenly fallen back into the transactional trap of that they're supposed to be a certain thing happening, and if it's not, there's a problem. [SPEAKER_01]: But that poetic attunement [SPEAKER_01]: which is still kind of an abstraction. [SPEAKER_01]: It's still a big, wide umbrella word. [SPEAKER_01]: We might start to notice it's more specific in the moment flavor if we allow, if we allow for these archetypes to come to us because they are our inheritance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, we're talking about what is a human for, really, and a human is for [SPEAKER_01]: Exploration. [SPEAKER_01]: A human is for caretaking. [SPEAKER_01]: A human is for cultivation. [SPEAKER_01]: A human is for creativity. [SPEAKER_01]: A human is for tinkering and experimenting. [SPEAKER_01]: A human is for building. [SPEAKER_01]: A human can be for destroying. [SPEAKER_01]: We're a potent force that we think about ourselves as a species.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do we just make the space to allow for whatever [SPEAKER_01]: energy, what did you call it? [SPEAKER_01]: Frequency, like, if there's a frequency coming in, any frequency, then there's possibility. [SPEAKER_01]: And that feels like that kind of stance that's the most generative as a coach.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we come towards the end of our conversation, I just want to bring in a couple more things like about the role of joy here, because if I think about my own life, [SPEAKER_00]: and being a container. [SPEAKER_00]: If I think back, and I've told this story a lot on the podcast now, so forgive me if you've heard this before, but it's like, I look, when I had my Star Wars figures, the way I would play with them would be I would kind of create this scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, you know, I would, a container. [SPEAKER_00]: Like I wouldn't be like, blah, blah, blah, you know, like bashing them together. [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be like, I'd create this kind of scene, and then I'd kind of be done. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, when I went to art school, [SPEAKER_00]: I love the feeling of being with a painting or a piece of art I was making and as a tuning and then something would emerge.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the container had an intelligence of a tuning to what wanted to emerge. [SPEAKER_00]: When I was DJing in nightclubs, you know, to pretty good crowds, it's like that's what I was [SPEAKER_00]: That's what I was attuning to the crowd and the felt sense of emergence and evolution and energy and errors. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's what I do with my coaching clients. [SPEAKER_00]: And I enjoy it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like what you said.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I don't, it's not like I sat down and really kind of, you know, as a child, like thought about that. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I just like doing it. [SPEAKER_00]: And I enjoyed it, basically. [SPEAKER_00]: It was enjoyable. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think the knock-on effect of this kind of work is often incredibly joyful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've worked with many clients who are in states of intense, what my described as intense and unpleasant emotional states or thought patterned states. [SPEAKER_01]: And I've been in those, like I just got back from a big trip and I had jet lag and I was like, my patience was like paper thin and it's like all of it. [SPEAKER_01]: So there's no judgment on any of these states if we can kind of extract the moral value from being a person.
[SPEAKER_01]: sometimes what is a person for a person is for being sad or upset. [SPEAKER_01]: And in those and ten of some pleasant states, if we can start to bring our essence and invite our clients to notice and track for [SPEAKER_01]: In my case, again, like an explorer, like their essence to start to find the little threads, just like you have found yours in all of these different ways. [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, I love the Star Wars story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel pretty lucky that I get to be a guest on the show and here you tell it to me directly, so thank you for that. [SPEAKER_01]: But like if we just help them find those threads, even in the midst of really difficult challenge or uncertainty or loss, this surprising [SPEAKER_01]: well, joy and laughter can arrive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe it only lasts a moment or lasts for a few minutes in the coaching conversation, but just the fact that it can arrive even in the midst of really real difficulty. [SPEAKER_01]: That's another sign that you're on the right path, you're following the right thread. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it should, you can have fun. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a good thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it's I can't remember who said it and drew something and he's a mystical kind of teacher poet but joys are moral imperative in our times and yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, make sure it makes it pretty serious, doesn't it? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it is, it is serious. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but somehow that's the paradox. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, that makes me think of Joanna Macy's quote, which is something like, I don't know if we're going to make it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if we're going to make it. [SPEAKER_01]: We might not make it, but even if we're not going to make it, I'd rather go down, looking each other in the eye. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was in a small group with her once when she said that to us. [SPEAKER_00]: And there was about six or seven or eight of us on the call. [SPEAKER_00]: And man, she's like, I don't know, she must be, she's like, oh, I don't know, in our nineties, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, talk about that image I shared earlier, her eyes were blazing. [SPEAKER_00]: And she said something similar. [SPEAKER_00]: She was like, you know, if we're going down, I'm going to go down. [SPEAKER_00]: you know, partying and loving. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, she didn't mean partying and a hedonistic sense, but like celebrating. [SPEAKER_00]: And it was a massive transmission for me of, you know, a way we can be with what's unfolding.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, Andy, this has been a great conversation. [SPEAKER_00]: And where can we find out more about what you're doing? [SPEAKER_00]: Are you got a call podcast and [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just a kind of multidisciplinary kind of creative being. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, definitely want people to check out the Wonder Dome, which you have been a guest on twice now, once just one, one, and also another time with Ishita, the beautiful Ishita Sharma.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we should share the links to that for folks, but the podcast is called Wonder Dome. [SPEAKER_01]: It's on Substack. [SPEAKER_01]: My dear colleague Gabriel Wilson, who you've also interviewed, I don't know if he's been on the podcast, but you've had him and one or more of your summits. [SPEAKER_01]: We, in January, we're putting together two programs under the Simbrella of something called Recalling the Wisdom Gym.
[SPEAKER_01]: and one is for people in leadership roles and one is for coaches and practitioners facilitators who might want to play with some of the stuff you and I talked about today and also some other from some other lineages like Zen Wisdom and [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's called the Wisdom Gym. [SPEAKER_01]: And the best place to learn more about that right now is actually just to connect with me on LinkedIn or connect with Gabe on LinkedIn.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are probably the two best places for folks who might be listening to this to go learn some more. [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Andy. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Joel. [SPEAKER_01]: I feel... [SPEAKER_01]: I had a lot of fun. [SPEAKER_01]: If we're tracking for joy, I feel really honored by your generous attention, by the work that you've been doing, to make a bid for the importance of transformational coaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: We could have just said, what's the coach for? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: Ask Joel. [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, he's the... [SPEAKER_01]: His answer is we need, you know, this participation and transformation. [SPEAKER_01]: We've got to be here for it. [SPEAKER_01]: So I've learned so much from you directly, but I'm so much from all of the experiences that you've curated as the delight. [SPEAKER_01]: It's really been a delight to have this time with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope that I hope we get some more and whatever shape or form it takes down the road. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thanks, Andy. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm touched by that. [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, to be continued. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Jill. [SPEAKER_01]: They love [SPEAKER_00]: Here we are. [SPEAKER_00]: We're at the end of the podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: Just do a heads up again.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not on our mailing list and you want to stay in the loop about other things we create, then head to coaches rising.com. [SPEAKER_00]: Put your name in the sign up box there. [SPEAKER_00]: You'll also find some of our other offerings online trainings for coaches there. [SPEAKER_00]: And just want to end by wishing you well and I'll see you again next time.