My practice
This will feel very
different to regular coaching.
Built on ten years of accredited coaching, I work with Beholding - a relational zen that goes deep, fast and reveals new truths of your situation. Design Thinking turns what surfaces into real change: small experiments, run in your actual life, that build on each other until the change holds.
Whilst the process can feel therapeutic, it's not therapy. This is forward focused creative change in your life.
STEP 01
Behold yourself
Turn inward. Become panoramic.
To behold everything that is happening within yourself. This means becoming aware of sensations, thoughts, emotions and feelings, beholding those in a way that is beyond seeing - more accepting, non-judgemental. We can achieve this, initially, through meditation practices, dropping in koans: prompts or questions at key moments. In doing this we are preparing ourselves to share our experience with another from the deepest available level of truth.
- →What is happening in your body right now?
- →What are you aware of that you would normally edit out?
- →Where is your attention actually going?
- →What is here, before you explain it to yourself?
Why this works
Most conversation happens in the story. Beholding happens in what is actually here - which is why it moves so fast.
NON-JUDGEMENTAL
Nothing you notice is wrong. Acceptance is the condition that lets you stop performing and start seeing.
PRESENT TENSE
We stay with immediate experience rather than the retelling. The story is where insight goes to hide.
DISCERNING
You choose what to share, always. Depth without exposure is what makes this safe to do at work.
TRANSFERABLE
These are relational skills. They benefit every relationship you have, not only the coaching hour.
Where it comes from
Beholding draws on authentic relating, Zen Buddhism and Internal Family Systems, distilled into something plain enough to use in a board meeting or at a kitchen table. It has been taught to teams in organisations from Google to universities, and it sits at the heart of the one-to-one work here.
In coaching, Beholding is what makes the rest possible. It gets us to the real material quickly, so that the Design Thinking has something true to work with. Beholding ensures the work is real. Design Thinking ensures it is effective.
The only way to understand it is to experience it.
The first session is on me. No pitch, no obligation - just a real conversation, practised this way, so you can feel the difference.