“Coaching Moments” takes a thoughtful look at how coaching can be interwoven into our daily lives.
One for the road
by Janice Hunter, IAC-CC
Holy listening – to “listen” another’s soul into life, into a condition of disclosure and discovery, may almost be the greatest service that any human being ever performs for another. ~ Douglas Steere
If someone gave you a voucher for a shop called Things Money Can’t Buy, what would you use it for? Would you buy world peace, radiant health, fame and recognition, job satisfaction, love, security, forgiveness, serenity….? Back in 2006 when Barbra Sundquist and I created this column, I was given a blank cheque, allowed to write about anything that might entertain, inspire, guide or resonate with coaches. It was my voucher to buy bliss.
Being given the chance to write for VOICE, to co-create experiences, evoke memories, share what I’ve learned and resonate with other souls is a blessing I’ve never taken for granted. Most of the coaches I know have a gift for listening with their instincts and appreciating heart-signs wherever they find them, but I’ve always felt an even deeper connection with VOICE readers. Here at the IAC, we actually have spiritual values enshrined in our Masteries, just as they were in Thomas Leonard’s Proficiencies. I can bare my soul in this column and know that my humanity will be relished, that you share my delight in the moments that illustrate life’s bigger lessons.
I’ve written my best work here, and I have you to thank for that. You’ve elicited and expanded the best in me and on my darkest days, I’ve known I could write my Coaching Moments pieces without fear of judgement or condemnation. Being here has bleached my soul as bare as a shell and every one of you is a wave in the ocean that has carried me safely home to a soft, sandy shore.
I’ve loved being able to share my journey with you, the details that make a life; family milestones and marital moments; music and memories; the birds and bees in my cherished garden; love letters and tears; summer dresses and Christmas tree lights. We’ve lived through recessions and elections, certification challenges and successes and many an IAC development.
Sometimes I feel like VOICE’s barista or janitor, always in the café, happy to be here, watching editors and presidents come and go, listening to a wealth of stories as folk reach out and share their lives with me and I listen. I feel like we’ve spent years chatting at the corner table, sharing each other’s stories, synchronicity and signposts. But it’s time now for me to smile as I gently push back my chair, hang up the towel, look around me at the ghosts and laughing memories and hand over care of the café to someone else.
My dad will be 86 in the autumn, and both my kids are at high school now. I don’t need to explain to you how quickly the years fly by or how turbulent life can be for teenagers as they set sail into the uncharted waters of adulthood. To create a safe harbour for them and for my husband, I need to be more present and to take better care of my own health.
For months now, I haven’t been able to guarantee quality pieces of work. At times, I’ve been struggling so hard to keep the balance between my ‘virtual’ life and my ‘real’ life, that I’ve failed to capture and filter those fleeting moments of inspiration that flit in and out of the daily details. It’s time to take a break, to let the jug fill to overflowing again and to breathe in the birdsong.
For that reason, I’ve decided to suspend the Coaching Moments column indefinitely.
Writing this column has been a dream come true and I hope that I can still pop back to visit from time to time, but till then, please believe me when I tell you you’ve been cherished. Thank you for blessing me with your time and a special thank you to every single one of you who has ever reached out to write a comment or send an email. I’ve treasured every word.
Sharing the Certification Journey; Six IAC Certified Coaches Talk About Their Journeys
To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’d like to leave you with gift to say thank you. My colleagues and I have decided to make our ebook, Sharing the Certification Journey: Six IAC Certified Coaches Talk About Their Journeys, a free member benefit for all IAC members, and to reduce it to $2 for all other VOICE readers. (This small amount will enable me to cover my admin and website costs.)
My IAC certification journey was a life-changing experience. I absorbed learning and skills that will last me a lifetime and I met some wonderful people who are still cherished friends today. If you want to become an IAC certified coach, downloading our ebook may well be the next step on your life-changing journey.
I compiled the book while the exam was still based on the CoachVille Proficiencies, but the insights, quotes, tips, coaching questions, audio snippets and resources we share in it are still valid and useful today. We donated all of the proceeds from last year’s sales to a Haiti fund and would love it if those of you who download the book could donate something to a Haiti charity of your choice.
IAC members can download it for free here.
VOICE readers can buy it here: http://sharingthejourney.co.uk/sharing-the-certification-journey-six-iac-certified-coaches-talk-about-their-journeys/
Wishing you everything you’d wish for yourself,
Janice
Janice Hunter is an IAC certified homelife coach who lives in Scotland with her husband and two children. She created and co-wrote Sharing the Certification Journey: Six IAC Coaches Talk About Their Journeys, and her blogsite, www.sharingthejourney.co.uk, provides soul food and support for coaches, writers, parents and home-based workers.
Janice has compiled all of her Coaching Moments pieces from the last two years into a free 46-page ebook, ‘Coaching Moments: A Collection of Articles about Coaching in Everyday Life’ which can be downloaded here or from her site.
Thank you, Connie, for this, and for all the years of support, friendship and unwavering belief in my writing. I’ve always been delighted by the way you can select snippets of my work and make the quotes look like they’ve been written by someone I’d want to read.
Thank you, too, for agreeing to making our ebook free (and almost free) so that VOICE readers and IAC members can benefit from what we learned on our certification journeys. I was distraught when I crashed the Sharing the Certification Journey website the night before this piece came out; I was very proud of the testimonials on it, especially the one from Shirley Anderson, but at least I managed to salvage some of the info from the home page in the link below and I’ll be able to salvage files and build another home page soon. A surprising amount of folk have downloaded it already.
I don’t know what I’ll be doing in the months to come, but I’m happy right now just to feel the jug refilling, waiting to overflow again, somewhere, sometime.
First, thank you for conceiving, compiling and now freeing “Sharing the Certification Journey,” dear Janice!
I want to use your words (below), as one way to declare that I will MISS your column. All these years of authentic, truthful Coaching Moments, have encouraged, challenged, and delighted me!
Ditto to what you wrote about shining recently:
“We owe it to ourselves and to the world to align ourselves with our unique gifts so we can do what we were born to do.”
Now, to await the sprouts from your fertile, full, fallow fields of writing life. Many await the fruits.
With gratitude,
Connie