You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Hello, this is Claire. I'm here to open the door to the coaching in this morning to Latin Becky Hall, who's here with the next book group. Enjoy. Hi there, and thank you for joining me again to listen to the Q &A session of the Art of Enough book group.
And I hope that these recordings are proving useful to you as you read the book or as... reflections as you reflect on the art of anaf. This morning I am recording this from a seat by a lake in North Norfolk in a place called West Lexham which is an extremely beautiful retreat centre running on environmentally sustainable principles and facilitating really beautiful beautiful ways of living and staying and connection with nature.
I'm teaching on a coaching constellations program and it feels completely appropriate that I'm recording this Q &A session from somewhere like this. So you may hear lots of birds, there's a pheasant and I have just seen a kingfisher which makes my heart sing. And I tell you that because I think that it is so connected with this chapter, which is in some ways a credicore of how we can learn to live as part of and alongside our beautiful planet so that we don't overextend and cause harm.
So... This chapter six is the one we've just read which is all about enough growth and how we can reframe our approach to growth so that we believe and understand and live in a way that means that we have enough. We don't need to have more. It's a reframing of the movement of striving towards more, better, wanting, craving to satisfaction and ease and contentment.
And of course it's the part of the book which moves us slightly beyond an individual look of how we live and moves us towards some of the bigger systems, the economy, the planet, the climate. And it's because we have got so wonky in our approach to growth, I believe, that we are in a climate emergency at all. It's because we have fooled ourselves collectively into believing that we not only need more, desire more, that more is the thing that will give us happiness, that we are where we are now.
that one of you asked me and thank you again for the question is this I'll read it and then I'll respond I like the way you talk about limits being a good thing my question is how do we discover our limits in a positive way and get the balance between being enough whilst also not being complacent and continuing to grow and flourish as humans What a great question, and thank you. And I think that that is, of course, the challenge.
Because when we think of limits as restrictive, or the things that kind of stop us or disenable us from developing or doing what we want to do as restrictions on our freedom, then of course we don't like the idea of them. I absolutely don't like the idea of being restricted. So the way I think of limits though is as containers and enablers that somehow by having a containment and an enabling of our lives, it facilitates a concentration on depth.
So when we are contained, It enables us to focus on what is the most important thing for us. It allows us to really look inward and connect with each other about what is the most important thing for us to be able to thrive and flourish each of us individually. And when we do that, we can do it in good balance with the earth and with ourselves.
And when you think of the regenerative economy or the circular economy, it's held in balance with itself, like the very ecosystems we live alongside and as part of ourselves. Limits as ways to facilitate us living the lives we want to lead is the frame I would give that. And so what is it that I need to enable in myself so that I can focus on the depth and the value and the quality of my flourishing as opposed to wanting more, striving, craving. and leaning forward, if you like.
So it's a state change from craving and wanting more and feeling dissatisfied, which of course, as we know, comes from scarcity, to leaning back and inhabiting with ease an understanding that limits, contain and enable us to flourish. And from that place, of course, we can grow in depth and we can really explore the most profound changes that we might want to make to our lives that might lead to something really extraordinary or just living with peace, ease and happiness.
And I like the inherent challenge in the question too which is that the other end of that spectrum is becoming complacent of course. that we just go, forget it, I'm not going to strive anymore because I can just be, I'll just sit back and not do anything. And of course that isn't healthy for us either because we need to be living in a way where we have movement and that of course is possible when we live within limits. But we're focusing on what matters most.
And we're not anxious in this state of focusing on what matters most and being in a state of enough and not constantly driven by craving and what we lack, that we're able to really look at how we can be content. So the practices of gratitude, the practices of presence, the practices of living with healthy boundaries and being well resourced lead us, of course, to a place. where we live our lives individually and collectively in exploration of what it really takes to make us flourish as humans.
And that's where we can get into exciting spaces of exploring consciousness and the sort of more self-actualized, to use Maslov's terminology, more self-actualized states of being in the world. and extraordinary things can happen, I truly believe, when we allow ourselves to focus on living richly and deeply and with ease, which is of course the opposite of complacency, or not the opposite, but it's a very, very different thing. So we keep focused and awake and alert and engaged and contained.
I hope that that has been a useful... contribution to your morning or your day wherever you are. I hope you've enjoyed listening to the birds that are around me and I really look forward to hearing your questions for chapter 7 which is all about connection with our deepest selves, with each other and of course with the natural world of which we are a part. Take care and have a good week.
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