You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Welcome to this week's Coaching In. And if you were listening to the recording with Ruth Davy the other day, you'll know that I had a big insight that coaching is about feeling seen as well as about feeling heard. So I put something out and lots of people said, that's really interesting. Let's talk about it. So welcome to the Coaching In.
Tim Whitton, Nicola Pierce, Paula Smith. and Simon Foster. It is very lovely to have you here. Lovely to be here. Thank you. Thank you. you. you. So let's just have a line about everyone. What made you say yes to this? Who are you and what made you say yes to the podcast in any order? I'll go first. Carry on. Go on Nicola. Okay. So I'm Nicola. I am a cheerful and positive person, I think. I'm friendly and above all, I'm curious.
I said yes because a couple of years ago during the pandemic, I did an exercise and one of the things I realized I wanted to do was be open to whatever opportunities come my way. This is the second time I've been asked to appear on this podcast. The last time I said no, thank you. This time I thought, yes, please. Not quite yes, please, but yes, I will. Well, it's great to have you here, Nicola. Thank you. So far, so good. Good, good. Simon. I'm Simon, live in Litchfield.
I'm training to be a parish priest. I work for the church and I'm a bit of a 3D. junkie really, since I came on the Transforming Conversations course pre-COVID and it changed an awful lot of things about the way I thought and the way I interacted with people. So I wasn't going to say no when you asked me to join your podcast. And we love your 3D junkiness, Simon. When you comment on so many of our blog posts, it's great. Thank you. It just makes us come alive with happy dancing.
Hi, I'm Kim and I am a writer and a linguist as well as a coach and I am a lover of words. So this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. And I jumped at the opportunity to dive into seeing and heard and all of this. I'm looking forward to the conversation ahead. Thank you, Kim and Paula. So I'm a priest without a parish, companion, coach. I'm thinking about being mindful coach and trainer. And this came up in our last mentor group, 3D mentor group.
And I thought, yeah, I'm curious about that. That sounds like something that's been at the back of my mind for a while. So I'm really looking forward to the decision. Well, brilliant. So let's see where we go. Nicola, you really kindly reminded me that I had written something about feeling seen when I came back from the Camino, which I had completely forgotten about when I wrote that blog that said that on the Camino people used to say, hello, Pilgrim or Buen Camino Peregrino.
And that I met these people on a walk when I came back to Malvern and they just said hello. And I felt completely not seen at all. Having felt very seen when people indicated in some way that they knew what I was doing, which was very interesting. So there's that as a kind of feeling seen way in.
then Stuart Reed, who's a great friend of 3D, isn't able to be with us today, but he sent me an article on a blog post called Exploring Your Mind, where it says that the most common greeting in the Zulu tribe is sawabona, which literally means, I see you, you are important to me and I value you. Which I totally love. So am I bonkers or is there something in this? I would like to say about the Camino experience that you had.
We were in Portugal recently and we were walking on the Camino but not walking a Camino. And people were constantly saying exactly that. Hello pilgrim, Bon Camino, the Portuguese version. And it had the opposite effect on me because I felt very unseen because I wasn't carrying a shell. We were often coming away from Santiago and I was thinking, I'm not part of your group. Can you not see that? So interesting. I thought of you actually. Thank you. And I'm going there next year to do it.
Yeah. It's a great walk. That's so interesting, isn't it? How, how, what can make somebody feel so very seen, make somebody else feel so very unseen. Kim, you look like you're about to jump in. Please do. I've got a question for both of you in those experiences that you mentioned. How did you know that you didn't feel seen?
For me, I think it was because I had already heard what Claire had said and I was thinking, this was Claire's experience, but it's just annoying me because I'm not walking a Camino. I'm just having a walk that happens to be on that path. Yeah, interesting. So for me, it was, I can remember moving to Malvern two and a half years ago. and being shocked by how many people said hello in a really good and beautiful and wonderful way and feeling that that was lovely and connecting.
But actually nobody has a clue who you are or what you're doing. And so having had when Camino said to me when I had my shell and my backpack and everything, what it felt like people were saying was, I see that you're walking, I see that you're a pilgrim, I see what you're doing and that gives me a little bit of a seeing about who you are. So when these people just went, hello, they were ever so lovely, but I wanted to go, you don't know anything about me. So that was the difference for me.
I, and I, I can really hear what you're saying, Nicola, about, the other way round, because when we had days off, and we didn't have our backpacks and we didn't have our shells on, it didn't feel the same when we were in Spain. And we didn't think that pilgrims thought we were pilgrims because we were wearing flip-flops and... faffing about on days off sightseeing. interesting. So I'm curious what other people make of that.
Well, something there about the categories that people are seeing you in, isn't it? So they're happy to see what you represent. Whether you're a pilgrim or not, there's a degree to which, like your unique self is being seen. And perhaps if you're being assigned a category that you're excited about, that you're exploring, that you're enjoying, then having that recognised is pretty affirming.
don't know if Paula might... I don't know when Paula first put a dog collar on, but when I first put a dog collar on, wasn't that long ago, when I still to this day really noticed both people's reactions to me, but also a whole load of my expectations about their reactions to me. and my reactions to their reactions when I'm out and about, when I'm in the street, when I'm to or from church or wherever I'm going.
you know, there's a sense of which I think people who wear fluorescent jackets find the same thing. You disappear, you know, the you disappears and you become a role or something. And I wonder if that's what was happening. I guess that's the flip side, isn't it? When you feel that you're being seen in a role and not as a person. I remember being stopped in a busy thoroughfare and a young man said to me, can I ask you a question?
I thought it was going to be some deep theological things like wearing a clergy collar. And he said, what do I call you? Because women hadn't been ordained very long. So we had an interesting conversation. I think it was that was disturbing for him. And I was just quite interested. He couldn't place me. So sometimes people want to place us, but the being recognized as a pilgrim, that seemed a really positive thing as though people were willing you on.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm just looking at the thing where it says, see you means you are important to me and I value you. All my attention is with you. I see you and I allow myself to discover your needs, to see your fears, to identify your mistakes and accept them. I accept you for what you are and you are part of me. We are connected. So Kim, you've been doing some deep thinking, I know, because that's your nature. About the difference between I see you and I hear you. Yeah. So what are you noticing?
I started looking at this a bunch of different ways and there's this, you know, the kind of dictionary definition and but then there's the kind of what we mean, you know, what we really mean when we say things. And that's what I'm listening for. And what I'm hearing here, and I've asked other people about this as well, just to get some different perspectives of this difference, is that feeling seen and feeling heard seem to be two sides of the same coin.
they're about who you are, identity, what you say, your perspective, your role, all those things. but the feeling seen side is almost like the face of the coin, the head side, that's about your identity and getting that witnessed or acknowledged. And the feeling heard side, the tail side, where the writing is on the coin is about the message and having that be acknowledged.
And so in what you all were saying was these reflections on your role and feeling seen and having that acknowledged about your identity and focusing on that aspect of it. What are all of your thoughts about that? I want to just use another example because it just reminded me, I went to a party on Saturday and sat with someone who I didn't know, who told me their story and I told them mine and I felt very heard. Very heard. It was lovely. It was really, really lovely.
And it was kind of deep and it was great. And then someone else came over who I've met once and She said something to me and... I said, I'd love to have a cup of coffee with you. And she said, no, you're far too high powered for that. And I went, I'm not, I'm just a human being. And we talked for a little bit and she asked me a question which nobody has ever asked me before. And it made me, I think she thinks we're quite alike and I think she might be right.
And the question I think she asked me came from, wonder whether you're a little bit like I am. And at the end of that conversation, I completely felt seen, slightly uncomfortably in places, I have to say. But also I actually felt that she really had an insight, interesting, isn't it? Insight has got seen in it. I felt that she'd had an insight from a very short conversation into who I really am.
Whereas the other person, I felt that she listened deeply to my story, but I'm not sure she got a really deep insight into who I really am. That's interesting. I didn't know that. Thank you for the build, one of the things that makes, well, it one of the things that got me in touch on this subject is that kind of fine line between feeling seen and being seen. Because when somebody sees you, you don't have that much choice necessarily about that.
And if that other person sees you well, there's a lot of power in that. There's a lot of power in, that goes to them and that they can decide what to do with it. So, I mean, I remember on that opening session of the transforming conversations course that you led, Claire and indeed Paula co-led it that day, that you went round the room and you asked everybody a question.
I don't remember what the question was, but I do remember that when I finished answering it, you stood there in front of me and I kind of went, what's going on here? And you said, you're still thinking, aren't you? And you, you knew how to look at my eyes and where my eyes were, which was up and to the right. And you knew that I was still thinking, I didn't really know that I was still thinking until you pointed that out.
Now, nowadays, I know when my eyes are up and to the right, that I'm still thinking about something. But you use that power. for my benefit, really, rather than yours, but you could have used it for your benefit rather than mine. It was a very profound moment. And I think so at that point, I both was seen. And then because I was seen, I felt seen and that was OK. But at the same time, I was very aware that I could have gone off in a different direction.
I could have felt quite uncomfortable about that. interesting isn't it because that's what we do it's what we do off the next thing we do. So you said, I could have felt quite different. I could have felt quite uncomfortable because the next thing that I could have done might have been a kind of weird mind reading strange thing. Not that I'm a mind reader, but I'm just thinking actually about my experience at that party on Saturday.
The feeling scene was all about the next thing that she might have done that might have made me feel unseen. And certainly for me, the place where I most like to be seen and probably most like to see is in my most intimate relationships. That's where I hope to be seen every day and hope to see every day. And that's because I expect good things to come from that. There is that sense again, likely, coin of comfort, of being known, of being accepted for whoever we are, and the discomfort.
I mean, thinking about the Johari window, having presented to us or opened up to us that bit of ourselves that we hadn't fully recognised. And it's both wonderful and slightly, can be slightly terrifying. Yeah, and going back to what you said, Nicola. I wonder whether there was something there about you being identified for what you weren't. Because you weren't what everyone else was and that's quite a othering. know, there's lots being written, hasn't there, about othering people.
And although you weren't othered, you weren't treated equally with others because they were being treated differently and that will have made maybe perhaps a feeling of exclusion. Yes, and there was one man we saw every day for seven days and each time we saw him, he said, have a good walk, hello pilgrim. And I thought, we're still here. So either we're lost or we're not pilgrims. Yes, exactly.
But I've also been thinking that there are times which I think other people are trying to say as well when we actually don't want to be seen. And I was thinking about I'm going to contradict myself because I was thinking about the classic thing with teenagers when you want to talk to them and you do it when you're driving a car or you're going for a walk. But then I listened to the podcast about the lady who does the outdoor coaching.
And I thought, actually the woman who leapt in the air and told her, and I don't know if the others have heard that she was very much seen by class, so they can be seeing in that situation as well. Yeah, you've got a very good memory there, Nicola. I watched it today. was part of my preparation. OK, fair enough. And plus I'm an outdoor person, so I thought, this will be interesting. Yeah, yeah. But I definitely do. go on. I'm just still holding this feeling.
I think we're getting some more insights into feeling seen. And I'm still kind of holding the question about what's the difference between feeling seen and feeling heard. I was playing around with those ideas and how I felt about it. And I really liked that idea, both sides of the coin. And what came to me was often that sense of being heard is in the moment. This is my bit of the story now.
But the being seen, feeling seen for me is something about somebody recognising in me, who I am, which isn't necessarily just that moment. So it is more than the role, it is more than the visual. And so rare, actually. Can I suggest something off the back of that? That perhaps being seen is about someone else. recognising who I am, as you say, Paula, and perhaps being heard is the process of me recognising who I am.
And one of the things that I really know that seeing and being seen does is it holds silence. And that is often the space in which you get the time both to process and to be heard. And so just wonder if there's a kind of We keep coming back to that intimacy of being seen and being heard, being related to each other, and I wonder if that's one way in which they are. It reminds me of a colleague of mine, Jeremy, years ago, used to say, everyone needs a good listening to.
And actually part of the good listening to is about, yeah, I like that, the learning to hear myself. Kim, I can see it bubbling. What's bubbling? I think all of you have touched on various interesting threads that I want to pull. And I think there's definitely something to what you said, Paula, about the fleetingness or the specificity of feeling heard about it being a message. Whereas with feeling seen, it's about maybe the wholeness of a person.
But then also Simon, you touched upon the, that kind of, well, in two ways actually, the idea about the action required from the person, like who's doing, who has the power or who's doing the doing. So you can see somebody, you said this earlier, without them having done anything, right? they're not taking action, they're being seen. But then also you touched on it again with being heard, where maybe that's about myself and recognizing the message and having it maybe perhaps apply to me.
Like I see this message and I relate to it for myself. And so there's something that's coming up for me about partnership and work. Like how do we... think we need both, feeling seen and feeling heard in different ways and maybe for different reasons. So how do we maintain partnership and this balance of kind of back and forth when it's about me or when it's about you or, you know, all of this? So I love the way that your hands are doing a little dance there, Kim.
A little bit of an embodied cognition of kind of mimicking what I'm thinking as I'm thinking with my whole body. And I think feeling seen and feeling heard has an element of that, right? Because it's seeing and hearing, which are so closely related in our physical heads, but also in our perception of the world. But they have that slightly different angle difference, slightly different perception difference. And I think that makes a lot of difference.
And I think to understand a person properly and to have a good conversation with a person, do need. the seeing and the hearing and also the speaking. And I've been thinking about them as different dimensions of the person because I was also thinking what does the 3D and 3D coaching mean? And surely it's that seeing, hearing and speaking, but maybe it isn't. It can be now. I'd like to know what it really is.
Well, that's such a really interesting question, because actually, over the years, it's been all sorts of things. But I like that one for now. Thank you. Because I think that really represents where we are now in our thinking. So I will tell you the answer to some of the other bits. So for a season, it was looking from a different place. So the kind of three-dimensional thing. When I started the business 150 years ago, it was about who people are, what they do and why they do it.
Then for a season, it was something else. The thing that's remarkable about a business name is that you can suddenly decide. So I can decide today that I love what you've just said. And we can rebrand everything and not have to change the name of the business. I love that. And I think what I'm, thank you. What I'm loving is hearing you say, and for a season.
part of that thing of feeling seen for me is, yes, somebody might see me in a particular role or particular aspect of me, and that's not all of who I am. And I will not stay the same. We all know people where if we've known them for a really long time, and I've always used this phrase to describe this, they see us in old light. And so we may have moved on, but you know, we have a hard time convincing them of, you know, that maybe we've changed or we're no longer this way.
But this is very true for like families and, you know, longtime friends and that sort of thing. And, you know, you're always the person who, but yeah, this idea of like seeing an old I also noticed, Claire, with your first season, it was about looking, about seeing. Yeah. I mean, that's almost like Nicholas opening example, isn't it? That you're being seen as a family member there, but not the person you are. You're just fitting into that box that you've always, they've always perceived you in.
Yeah. Well, this lady on Saturday, I said to her, let's go for a walk. And she said, I can't possibly walk like you walk. Because the last time I saw her, I had a big pack on my back and I was doing 14 miles every day. I don't do three miles a day now. So she was seeing me as I was then, which isn't as I am now. So I think she had visions that I was going to tell her to put on a backpack and walk 14 miles, which I wasn't.
So people do see either the bit of us they remember, as you said, Kim, or the bit of us that they want to see or something else maybe. Or that they would like you to be. Yes, definitely. That's so important in the kind of coaching conversations that you have, isn't it? Those assumptions are set on one side, you're kind of entering into the space that belongs to the other person.
yeah, those, your picture of that person isn't really that important at all, you know, can serve to hold them back and mistrust the space that they suddenly find their own with you. I would like to ask Kim a question, might not be relevant. The linguist bit of you, does that mean you speak fluently more than one language? No, I'm fluent in English. That's all I got. Okay, because I speak French fluently. I grew up in a French speaking country.
And my husband has always said that I'm a different person when I'm speaking French. And I have also seen that I watched a woman in New York, she was an American woman. She moved like an American, she spoke like an American. And then I saw her speaking French and she was suddenly Parisian. And so I think language can also affect how you appear and therefore how people see you. Yes, there's been numerous studies on this.
yeah, it can influence how you show up and it's a medium through which you can express yourself. it doesn't determine who you are. Yeah, that's a very important distinction. And so and we play with all of this, we play with all of the different kind of resources in each language. So, you know, we when we speak French, there's a different kind of posture to your face and different ways that you gesture that you learn as you learn a language.
And this is all part of the settler stuff that native speakers pick up from a very young age and non-native speakers or people who are learning the language at a later age kind of struggle with but can get close to. But we can still, regardless, we can play with all of these different kind of resources of the language we're speaking, but also the human experience. So just the idea of language in general, there are some things that are more or less universal.
Yeah. So that's a bit off topic, but it's It's that people see me differently, I think, according to what language I'm speaking, or so it seems. And how you want to be seen, right?
So when I moved to the UK, one of the things I loved was how people saw me and how people perceived me and what it felt like to be here in this space, because the culture was slightly different and well, very different, but you know, there was some things that were the same, but you know, Yeah, just it's that idea of seeing and being seen and how you want to be perceived and seeing something you like and kind of finding your way to work within that and find your own space.
So yeah, I think that's a really relevant question. That's interesting. Yeah, thank you. I've got a thousand questions now running around in my head. Which isn't a bad thing, just saying. What are you thinking, Paula? I've had this phrase running through my mind since we last talked about this. So from a letter in the Bible that's about love. And now we see indistinctly, but then we'll, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully as I'm fully known.
And I think that's just a link for me is about being seen and being known. But be seen in a good way is about you see me and there is love there, there is acceptance even if I don't fit or the bits don't fit for me. So something about that. Being known and being seen and being loved. And that goes back to the Zulu, doesn't it? I accept you for what you are and you are part of me. We are connected. Yeah. And goes back to the whole thing that you've been opening up for us, humanity, vulnerability.
Yeah. Being ourselves. And I think being different parts of ourselves, I'm sat Nicola with your French persona and your English persona. Cause I know if you meet me at a party for work, I will be very extrovert talking to everybody. All of those things. But if you see me at a party where I'm not at work, like the one on Saturday, I will be hiding behind the potting shed talking to one person because that's all I can manage.
and then being dug out by the potting shed by this other lady who had a conversation with me, but I wasn't where the action was at all. So I think there's something about how much of ourselves we want to be seen. I think there's something about how much of ourselves other people are happy to see. Vulnerability. huge amounts of complexity that we bring as human people. And that's quite creative as well. That's the other thing.
It may be that we don't want to show them, but also that we can bring out those parts that might be most useful, if I can think in the coaching terms, or most useful. Yeah. Most appropriate. I think people want the power and choice as well to choose or have control over what is seen. Yeah. Yeah, which goes back to what you said.
But it goes back to what you said when I said to you, I wonder if you're still thinking where you went, I wonder what, where there was a, there was a little risk moment there. What's she doing that for? So there's something about assuming good intent and not being, maybe not being able to feel seen if we're not confident enough of good intent. So how do we build the trust? Yeah, from the start to and keep rebuilding it, keep reassuring it if needed.
Yeah. Well, we could carry on this conversation forever. And I wonder whether it might be useful for us to return to it in a future episode, because I think there's some deep stuff here. And I haven't, I mean, maybe I'm just not looking, but I've not seen much about it. So I guess my question to us all as we finish and Those of you who are happy to be contacted, I'll just put your stuff in the show notes so that people can contact you. What's the thing that you're taking away to Conda?
What are you thinking about as we finish? I'm curious about, and I think you brought this up Simon, like what it is that we need to put aside or the conditions that we need to set up in a coaching space to enable the seeing and hearing and the power balance and trust and all of those identity, all those aspects to be in good, safe care in this space. Thank you.
I'm pondering on the power of silence and space which enables someone to hear themselves and holding that in a way that's safe and enabling. Thank you. Nicola and Simon, what are you sat with? I'm thinking about all the further conversations I would like to have with each of you and all the things that I haven't really understood because I'm not a coach and there's been some coaching.
Maybe you haven't realized it, but to me there's been some coaching phraseology going on, which I haven't really understood. So when I listen again. There's a few things I'm going to be delving into for sure. There was one word I don't even remember what it was and I had never heard it and I have no idea what it meant. So you'll to listen to the show to find out in that case. I definitely will. Nicola is a super fan.
True. I'm thinking about that, the idea of, which came from your, was it a Maasai greeting? can't remember. Zulu. Zulu, I do beg your pardon, thank you. And the connection between seeing and greeting and welcoming. And, and, you know, one, as said earlier, one of the things that you just gave me with 3D was a sense of how important relationships were. of course, the relationship starts with a greeting, doesn't it?
So how do I communicate that sense of seeing somebody when I first meet them, when I first encountered them is the thing that I'm going away. And thank you for it. Well, thank you, because you've now set me off on another whole thing, which I will take away with me. Because when I lived in Kenya, some of the Kikuyu greetings were actually about I greet you and your family, not I just not hi. And I just need to sit with that and think about it a bit more. And thank you all so very much.
And it's just demonstrates that putting an idea out can really unlock a whole load of interesting stuff. So yeah, thank you all for everything that you've brought and thank you everybody at home for listening. We love these round table conversations. So they're going to become a more regular feature at the Coaching In and the next Tate Open Table is recording on the 11th of July at 5.15 UK time. So it's suitable for the States and Europe.
And we're going to be talking about what got you started in coaching and what keeps you here. So if you'd like to be part of the conversation, there's a sign up link on the show notes and yeah, just click through and sign up and see you at the recording. Thank you all for listening. Goodbye and enjoy the rest of your day. Bye bye. comment on social media. And if you'd like to become a regular at The Coaching In, you can subscribe on Podbean and all major podcast channels.
We look forward to welcoming you next time. You've been listening to The Coaching In, 3D Coaching's virtual pub. For more information, check out 3dcoaching.com.