Thoughts
Here you will find articles on the five types of service I offer organisations and the people in them. These will hopefully give you a flavour of how I work and what inspires my approach. If you have any questions about these services please contact me.
Filters
- About Still Waters 7
- Accept Change 9
- Coach 7
- Consultant 4
- Dream Big 10
- Facilitator 6
- Help & Advice 5
- Make Small changes 10
- Mentor 3
- Mindset 9
- Personal Stories 11
- Principles 1
- Published Material 7
- Support Large Changes 7
- Teacher 3
- Tools 7
- climate crisis 1
- eco-coaching 1
- ramblings 16
- reflections 39
- resources 17
- reviews 29
- service 1
Project Drawdown
Project Drawdown brought me hope when I was facing the enormity of climate change implications. It also offered structure and credibility to something that seemed complex and hopeless. And so when it came to becoming an eco-citizen I decided I would use it as a template and framework for my focus on supporting large change in the world.
The Primal Wound
Pretty much everyone I have met has suggested that The Primal Wound by Nancy Newton Verrier is the definitive source of insight for adopted people who are trying to figure out why they feel something isn’t right with themselves. Having read it myself I have to agree.
Facing Your Fear
I’ve been facing my fear for about a few years now. Prior to that I had 50 years on the planet not even knowing I head this fear. How can that be possible? Well my coaching supervisor said I had ‘complex defensive structures’. When she said it I was rather pleased because it sounded cool. But then after going through some seriously painful learning it turns out it is not so cool after all.
Letting Go Of Outcomes
Whenever my children used to ask me what I would like for my birthday or Christmas I habitually reply “world peace”. This small exchange became something of a ritual in our household (oh the fun we had!!). I think I made this request for over ten years, and yet there were no signs of world peace on the horizon, or even a move in that general direction. It became clear to me that it may take a little more than a request to my children for this goal to be achieved…
Wholeheartedness
This happens too often:
I feel tentative, my stomach clenching as I contemplate it. My mind is going ten to the dozen with a toxic mixture of ideas of how to get out of it and images of the many ways it can go wrong and I can look bad. Dread washes over me and, instinctively, without even knowing it, I turn my attention away. To football, internet surfing, games, anything that can anaesthetize me to the prospect I am facing. I am a fraud.
Collecting Elastic Bands
A few months ago, just before Christmas, I had need of an elastic band. I realised we had none so added them to my shopping list (it’s a wild life I live!). On the way to the shop I found one on the pavement and so picked it up – problem solved, money saved, happy days.
Ending Extreme Poverty
I found out about the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and their Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) via this Ted Talk.
Say No To Plastic
I bought Say No to Plastic, 101 Easy Ways to Use Less Plastic by Harriet Dyer while queuing in Waterstones for my annual pilgrimage to the shopping extravaganza that is Christmas. It was one of the tempting little books that sits near the check-out begging for an impulsive purchase.
Rescuing Food Destined For Landfill
It’s always disheartening to read about how much food never makes it to our plates. There are a number of reasons for this and the one I want to focus on here is fruit and vegetables that end up being diverted to landfill because they are the wrong size, shape or colour, or because there is a surplus. Up until the lockdown I didn’t even realise this was a thing. I had heard stories about misshapen veg but had assumed (wrongly as it turn out) that these were used in some other way in the food system.
Being On Strike
She already had tears in her eyes as she rose to explain to us what was going to happen next. The day before we had walked out an hour early as a show of solidarity to fellow workers who had been suspended. So now we had to sign a form ensuring we would not do that again. It was Anne’s job to explain this and get us to sign. We already knew we would not sign and so did she. We already knew the consequences of not signing and so did she. And so the puppet show began…
Going Round In Circles
How often do you sit round in a circle at work, particularly without a desk or table in front of you? Has that ever happened? What did you notice?
Drama In Business: Playing With Purpose
Beautiful, creative chaos… 250 people from a consumer electronics company taking part in a radical alternative theatre workshop. I wish I remember it so well because of the impact it had on those who took part. Sadly the truth is that this event is etched in my memory because it of its rarity.
Using Honour To Maintain The Status Quo
Of all of the things we humans have constructed in order to try to control each other and the world in general, the concept of ‘honour’ seems to me to be one of the more bizarre. It’s a term that has often snagged me in the past and it did so again a few years ago with the reburial of King Richard III in Leicester.
Square Pegs And Sharks’ Teeth
Brian (not his real name) and I hit it off from our very first meeting. He was new into a very large, established organisation, having spent almost all his career in smaller, fast growing businesses and I was asked to help his transition with some coaching. Brian’s boss, who I knew well, was very happy that we built such strong rapport straight away. The HR business partner was delighted that our coaching contract was agreed so quickly. The budget was in place, the schedule and logistics were all sorted. The only tiny problem was that Brian should never have joined the organisation and none of us knew it.
One Thing Can Change Everything
One of the guiding principles in Still Waters is the idea that everything is connected, which comes from on a belief I’ve held for as long as I can remember. In the absence of traditional ‘proof’ for this belief, I’ve found solace in quantum theory and also the writing of Charles Eisenstein.
Singularity
I’ve got this underlying belief going in my work and life that is based partly on a primary school knowledge of quantum theory and, more importantly, an innate feeling that it is true. The belief is that we are all somehow totally connected to each other and everything. It might sound a bit ‘out there’, which is when I reach for the quantum theory language. Something like the universe being made of energy more than cells.
Waking Up With Hoffman (2016)
I signed up for something called the Hoffman process, having been recommended it by my coaching supervisor as a way of access my “complex defensive structures”. As part of the pre-work, my teacher asked to me hold a possibility gently and with curiosity. Based on her own life experience, as well as what she had learned from teaching the process over many years, my teacher offered me a hypothesis that my first two weeks on this planet were akin to a near-death experience.
The Fairweather Fairytale (1975)
Proud to be adopted!! That was my script growing up. I’d known I was adopted all my life. My parents, who loved me dearly, did a great job in getting me to understand how I had come to be theirs. Their chief weapon was a book, read to me on hard rotation (or so it seemed) throughout my early years.
Wounded At Birth (1964)
A few years ago a teacher told me that being adopted at birth was like a near death experience (link to article 2016). I wrote the following blog in response to that. If it is not completely factual, neither is it a work of fiction. If it was a film, the makers would put a caption up at the start saying “Based on a true story”.