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, it's Claire here with this week's Book Group Special where we're thinking with Becky Hall about chapter two of her book, The Art of Enough. Over to you, Becky. Hi there, and welcome to the third of these podcasts which are exploring together the art of enough.
And today I'm going to be responding to questions and comments about chapter two, which was all about enough permission. And I've had two really thought provoking comments, stroke questions that have really set me thinking, which is a wonderful thing and Again, I'm so grateful to you for engaging with the book and having a good conversation about it because I think as we talk about these things we can deepen our understanding and knowledge.
So, I'm going to read them out one at a time and respond to them at the time. So, you'll hear me read the first one, then I'll talk about it, and then the second one. So the first comment stroke question, I'll read it all even though it's got a compliment in it which makes my notice makes me feel simultaneously pleased and a little bit shy. So thank you for the comment and I'm going to read it out anyway because it's lovely. I really loved the chapter on enough permission.
I loved the personal story shared at the start of the chapter and the sense that this really is lifelong process and practice. Very often, we're carrying limiting beliefs about ourselves that come from our early years. Acknowledging where these beliefs have come from and giving ourselves permission to let go of these is immensely powerful. How would you articulate the difference between a belief and a value? As I think we can often use these terms interchangeably. Thanks.
Well, first of all, thank you for your comments about the personal story. I am deniered so hard about whether to include it in the book. And in the end, I came, obviously came down on the side of including it. And the reason for it is that I think that it's been so, this work has been so defining in my life and so useful in my life. And also, but given that we were talking about permission.
There's something very permissive about sharing something personal and profound about ourselves with others. It sort of is invitational to join me in the work, if you like. Often with these styles of books, there can be a sort of defensiveness from the author, that there's a sort of tell and... instructiveness and I didn't want that. I wanted something that felt like I was walking alongside because none of us has got the answers.
We're all traveling together so I wanted it to feel like we're walking alongside. So I'm glad that that had resonance and I agree actually that the giving ourselves permission to let go of our limiting beliefs that we have held from our early years is immensely powerful. It's my work with clients and it's my work with myself. So yes, thank you for appreciating that and sharing that view.
Your question about beliefs and values has really got me thinking and I agree that we often use these terms interchangeably and if I'm honest, I notice that I do. So I've really thought hard about what the difference is. And I think I've come down to this, which is that values are things that we believe, they're things that we hold. very dear.
They're often articulated in just one word or short phrase and they are, if you like, the beliefs that shape our frame of reference for our life and they're the things that we hold very personally, beliefs that we hold very personally true. But when I was noticing, really reflecting on this, what I noticed about the values that I talk about in the book and indeed my values and when I'm working with clients, the values that I encourage them to find. They're all positive and they're all frames.
So my values, love, connection, loyalty, family, kindness, they're simultaneously things I believe in and they're sort of aspirations, they're marks in the sand, they're things that I think are really important and they guide my life and behaviour. But they have that flavour, they're sort of way markers, if you like.
A belief in the way that I'm talking about them in chapter two and especially when we start to talk about limiting beliefs are things that we believe to be true consciously or unconsciously that guide our behaviour, that instruct our behaviour and they're not always positive and they're not always aspirational.
They can be things like, I can't... speak in public or I can't put myself out there or the examples I use in the book in chapter one actually about mindset, know, I'm not clever enough for that or I'm useless at X. So they can be negative and limiting. And of course belief, I'm not even talking about faith. which again is another category of that actually, things that we hold to be true, which are bigger than us.
I'm not going to talk much about that, but I am just noticing that that's another very important, very defining frame for the world, for any of you who have faith and of whatever faith that is, of course. So I think... What this question has done is prompted me to get really clear about what I think the differences are and I think become conscious of when it's appropriate to use them interchangeably and when it's appropriate to actually be very clean and clear about separating them.
So thank you for that. That was really useful. The second comment-stripe question is this. After practice seven, you talk about self-actualisation. This seems to me like a real place of maturity, maturity even, that some cultures don't encourage. Any ideas how we increase the knowledge of self and ego in cultures where that might not be common assumed knowledge? Again, great question and thank you.
And again, like last time, chapter seven comes up in chapter two and I'm so delighted, genuinely delighted that that's happened because it reinforces my sense that it's cyclical, that this stuff is a sort of spiral. We go through the seven arts and then go back at them again and deepen each time. And I'm assuming that you are talking about organisational cultures here and I'm going to talk about it in that frame.
possibly family cultures, but systemic cultures rather than country cultures or the bigger systemic cultures. So I'm going to talk about them in terms of organisations or institutional cultures. And yes, isn't it interesting that in some cultures self-actualisation, as in becoming fully and wonderfully who you are, which means by necessity, we have to really explore our origins, where we come from, how we respond and relate to the world, and how we show up in the world.
It's really important, that work's really important. And yes, I think my ideas about how we can increase that, or increase the... engagement with it is again perhaps where we come back to permission and it's what we talk about and it's what is allowed to be spoken about without judgment. I think it's judgment that gets in the way of talking about self and ego, a sense that it's the wrong thing to be doing or that somehow that's selfish or even self-interested. potentially.
I'm currently recording this from where I'm part of facilitating a leadership residential, three day leadership residential.
We spent the whole of day one yesterday talking about enough and building an inner sense of being enough and we were exploring this stuff and it was interesting that that was received by these people on a leadership program, and this is an organization that's a sort of high-end, high-end fashion retail business, that they hadn't necessarily ever had some of these conversations with each other or thought that they were relevant to their leadership.
And yet when we began to dig into it, nearly everybody in the room chimed with the themes and recognized the concepts of limiting beliefs and... things that were holding them back in their careers. And it gave them the opportunity to talk about what was really important to them and some of the things that had really resourced them and also depleted them, held them back.
So I think in terms of how we increase the knowledge that self-belief and ego in cultures where that's not okay is to begin to talk about them as being resourcing as being a way of accessing depth and a way that allows us to connect to our innermost resource actually and also to notice the things that limit us along the way so that we can then connect with each other and then the wider world and that's where it circles back to chapter seven isn't it?
So self-actualization actually is a an invitation for every single human being on the planet. And of course the word comes from Maslow's hierarchy of needs. if we're unable to look after the needs at the lower part of his triangle, then it makes working on self-actualization harder. Because if we're worrying about our safety or our most important physical resources, food, welfare, water, all of those really important things, then it's really hard to do this work.
So that it does require, I think, an element of, you know, there is a hierarchy. You can't focus on self-actualization if you're fighting for your life. I'm thinking about the Ukraine as I say that. And yet, of course, all those people who are fighting for their lives in war zones or struggling to survive because of other existential fundamental things, of course they have egos and souls and a desire to become fully human and who they are. So it's not either raw and it's not sequential.
But back to organisational culture, I would say that one of the ways that we can increase knowledge and knowledge of self and ego in cultures is by leaders talking about them, because what leaders do role models permission for everything else, asking questions, if you are within an organisation like that, to role model it yourself, and to begin to demonstrate that this work is useful, and to invite a look at it without judgement.
I can't remember if I've mentioned this yet in any of my former podcasts, but one of my favourite definitions of love comes from the work of Bert Hellinger, who I quote in enough permission. He was the founding father of a lot of the systemic work that I've trained in and work with. And his definition of love is an equation, actually, and he talks about, he says, equals Seeing plus distance minus judgment.
And I love that because love is about seeing, really looking at everything in its entirety. distance at the right distance, so sometimes we're close, sometimes we're further away, and we find our relationship with that. But it's the minus judgement that is the absolute key to this. how can we look at this stuff with all its complexity from a distance that is appropriate for our engagement with it without judgement?
And if we can invite ourselves to do that, then I think we can look at anything and see the fruitfulness of it and see the limitation of it. But see all of it and see whether it strengthens us or whether it weakens us. So that's my musings on that question. And again, as you can hear, it was a very resourcing and deeply useful question, so I'm grateful for it. So thank you again for another couple of really profoundly engaging and provocative in a good way in that they provoked my thinking way.
And I hope that they've caused you some pause for thought and helped you to work out what you think in relation to all of this stuff. And if you disagree with me, please pop a question in next week's podcast because I'd love to discuss it more. As always, I'm hugely grateful to you for journeying with me with the art of enough over these weeks and months. It feels like such a generative journey for me and I hope it is for you too. Okay, thank you, bye bye and have a good day.
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