Sian

‘I have spent the last 30 years facilitating and coaching leadership teams and individuals.  Within that time, the last 11 years were spent shedding the heavy load of what I have come to see was a very socialised mindset that had engulfed me, shaping and dictating how I ought to be in all my roles, but especially as a coach!  Ian was a willing companion on that journey, which at times was emotional and frustrating but deeply developmental. 

These days I feel lighter, unburdened by that critical frame that accompanied me most of my life; I’m learning to give myself permission to go off piste, sit with uncertainty for myself, my coaching clients and life.

What changed? I was unable to pick up a pen, paralysed by the lack of words, education and letters after my name!  I could, however, pick up a brush, a sponge, even a scouring pad, dip it into paint and express something I wasn’t always able to name, a feeling, a sense.  At the same time, I began organic gardening, realising I could pop seeds into soil, nurture and attend to them till something edible and beautiful appeared weeks later.  In both instances, different but the same, the canvas speaks, especially when you step back from it; the garden does too.   And so, beyond words began.  A space where art and nature act as mirrors for the human soul.’

Ian

‘My journey began as a detached youth worker in a flashpoint area during the North of Ireland conflict. Whilst I was a bit all at sea for a while, this was where I first began to explore what it might mean to hold space and "bear witness" in highly volatile environments. From there, I stumbled into the financial sector, where I spent almost thirty years adapting to all the corporate stuff that life as a youth worker had left me unprepared to face.

Then in 2010, I trained as a coach and in 2014 as a coach supervisor. Around a year later, I began to confront the insecurity that made me put my credentials, and not my longing, on professional display, and I began a journey towards unlearning. That was when I also began working with Siân who, I suspect, helped me unlearn a lot of things.  Mind you,  she wasn’t wild about it when I experimented with coaching in a clown’s nose.

Now, years later, I have grown increasingly curious about what might emerge in a conversation between spirituality, leadership, and coaching. I’m curious about the field, whatever field it is, where souls lie down together in the grass, and the language of performance ceases to make sense.’