What I have now, and what I continue to hold onto, is the profound knowledge and awareness that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in this moment in time. That all that needs to be done is to sit in these experiences, notice and learn. That good and all of the potential is in the moment, ready to unfold, develop, and grow.
I have an appreciation of uniqueness that I didn’t have before - that interaction between a unique person and a unique moment in time that will never be again. And that the intrinsic is wide, vast and unquantifiable. And that this is where best thinking and value and resources reside. And from these things that I know to be true stems the desire to seize the opportunity for continuous growing, flowing and expanding with no rush or compulsion to conclude.
All of this with the goal of moving towards clarity – which in and of itself continues to unfold as I continue to ask myself: what do I want right now in this unique moment? This perspective provides me with patience, compassion and acceptance with regards to myself and others. It provides me with “peace in the chaos.”
What I want is an understanding and a visceral awareness in all I have just described for individuals, families, friends, colleagues, communities, schools, businesses, leaders and governments. If this were the foundation of what they do, the focus would be on goals, not problems; clarity, not strategy; expanding our thinking, not rushing to narrow it.
They would look inside problems, complaints, obstacles, conflicts, emotions, unanswered questions, and moments of decision making for the wanting they would know is there. We would all have the opportunity to experience ourselves fully and give ourselves as developing, unfolding individuals. The pressures and expectations of S >E>I that diminish who we are and what we can contribute would be transformed to the freedom and continuously unfolding goodness of I>E>S.
We would be confident that we were not seen by others merely as an idea of who they think we are or should be. We would know that what we see is only what is merely apparent and we would consciously choose to work with the much more we know is there and we know is valuable, even though we will never see it all for ourselves. And in so doing, a wide and expansive space would be created for our thinking, effort and engagement as our contributions to our own outcomes are maximized.
If we all had this knowledge and these core capabilities, then as we all set out to do what we do as individuals and as parts of things greater than ourselves, imagine what could be in this world.
As a result of being in this ICDS II, three new insights emerged for me, which I found helped me most grow as an Intrinsic Coach®. First, is that the choice really is for me. It allows me to continuously shift into the intrinsic – to make room for more than what I would otherwise see by quite effectively disabling what would otherwise be the habitual dominance of my systemic thinking. I have a clear understanding of what it means, now, when we say that the choice is not a belief, but rather a skill. As I noted in my first reflection, I have been focusing on how this choice first serves me by enabling me to achieve the good that I want from my supportive interaction and any interaction with someone. I see how the choice, as a skill, is the true cornerstone of self-management. It’s the only way to get to what is intrinsic.
I see the next significant leap in my learning as stemming from this first one; and that is the fact that I must first engage my own intrinsic thinking before I am ever able to support someone else in finding theirs. This second insight is about the purpose of the pause for me. It’s about acknowledging my first thought, but making room for the second thought – and by doing so creating the opportunity for my intrinsic thinking to emerge. It’s about aligning my choices and actions as an Intrinsic Coach® with my better, more expansive second thought, which is the more valuable thinking that I want and now know how to achieve. It’s about first achieving and maintaining I>E>S for myself so I can then support other people in experiencing the rich and expansive thinking of the intrinsic, for themselves.
Finally, this ICDS II has also expanded my awareness around the significance and importance of the I>E>S hierarchy as it relates to people>methodology. The metaphor of the hammer and the nail resonated so clearly as I reflect on my angst about wording the question just right, making something happen in the conversation, and trying to get people to go somewhere. This was letting my S>E thinking get the best of questions, so that questions intended to be intrinsically focused were not.
I realized that it’s not about the right way of saying something, but rather it’s about the process of thinking that produces what I say and, in turn, the thinking that it produces in the other person. I understand that we don’t move someone forward; they move themselves forward and only when clarity emerges – the clarity that only they can see and will never be able to fully explain and that I would never have been able to help them achieve had I not first chosen the self-management that activates I>E>S in me.
Not only do we not move people forward, we don’t move the conversation forward, either. In fact, our job is to engage rich and new thinking – intrinsic thinking - by staying with the thinking a person is experiencing and expanding it, instead of taking that thinking somewhere else. My goal as an Intrinsic Coach® is to help a person unleash their valuable new thinking as a unique individual in a unique moment in time.
As I reflect on my experiences as a coachee in this ICDS II, the fundamental truth of these lessons is borne out. At the end of those ten minutes, I remember only the new thinking I experienced, the release from the S>E loop I had been in, and what was important to me. This is what I was taking with me from the conversation. I literally have no recollection of the questions my Intrinsic Coach® asked or whether or not I thought they were “good.”
So in this Session Nine, two things capture nicely what I want for myself as an Intrinsic Coach® as I move ahead from exactly where I am: Fear less and trust more; trust myself and trust the process. I am confident that as my intrinsic awareness and skills grow and deepen, I can do both, whenever I wish, with a simple decision – the decision to make the choice.
Randi Kant, MS, MPH, CHES, Certified Intrinsic Coach®
OMC 699 Intrinsic Coach® Development Series
Assignment # 6
4/26/11
