In his blogpost titled 'Becoming Who We already Are', Omid Safi - the Iranian-American Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, delves into this idea from a spiritual, Sufi- Islamic track. Central to it is the theme that human kind is born blessed with an innate consciousness, a transformative potential and life's evolution is not in adding or learning anything new but by chipping off layers we gather blocking off this 'inner jewel'.
To me, Coaching as a vocation, which is still evolving, derives its mainstay from this growing awareness around the value of harnessing 'the dormant human potential'. Coaching premises on faith in the innate human capability that gets layered with the dust of conditioning, beliefs and the experiences of life & living.
This kind of admission of faith in the human being (a potential Client), the promise of growth by learning the truth about us, this kind of open relinquishing of any subject matter expertise (Coaching believes Client is his own subject matter expert), the promise of non-advocacy, a non-judgemental and purely reflective process is also the differentiator that sets Coaching aside from other practices like Therapy, Mentoring or Consulting. What is, however, common across all these practices is where we place the ownership of the goal. For all purposes, the Client is the seeker and is the one who has signed up to engage in a process of reflection, introspection and progress towards the goal.
This is also the common high-point between Spirituality and Coaching. Omid Safi's beautiful metaphor of the wood catching fire is evocative of this innate human potential, the 'Buddha' in us. :
"On a cool mountain night, I put on a few pieces of wood on the fire pit, and stood there watching them burn.
Bit by bit, they gave in to the flame, and caught on fire.
Bit by bit, they gave in to the flame, and caught on fire.
After a while it dawned on me: The fire is from the wood.
The flame is simply the release of the energy inside the dormant fire.
It dawned on me : we are like this too."
With years we move away from our true nature. This is what we call in Coaching - lack of alignment. And from this misalignment with our innateness arises the dissonant self. Dissonance spreads through life, work, relationships, self-care and potentially everywhere.
Coaching in it's purest form guides the process of re-alignment with our core values, and who we intrinsically are.
Enjoy the read.
What is one’s true nature? Does it vary from person to person? Is true nature dependent on one’s instinct or intelligence?
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading Aunty - from what I have come to make sense, our true nature is most manifest in us 'spontaneity' as a child, free of impressions & opinions, devoid of Trying and happy in Being, unmarred by conditionings of family, free from Shoulds/Musts, of society expectations, context, country, religion and anything that frames our self and world view, as we grow up.
DeleteThough not all that we acquire through understanding & wisdom of growing up and personal evolution is undesirable - it becomes almost an unsolvable jigsaw to make sense of what what all we stand for, our beliefs, our values -ONLY THOSE THAT WIL SERVE US. To that extent our true nature does perhaps vary from person to person! MY Life's purpose needs to be in alignment with my Values and that is the finite / unique synergy that I will hopefully seek to reach that state of 'ENGAGEMENT' with my own life. That's the alignment that will bring clarity, purpose, engagement.
Instinct will help us seek that state (when the time is ripe) and Intelligence will help us chip off the unwanted stuff and sculp out the True Nature.
Hope that made sense, would love to continue this discussion someday.
Much Much Love & regards.
and most of all, as Children when we chased & found happiness, the coming closer to our True Nature will assumably bring us back that 'Happiness', our intrinsic nature.
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