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Hello Friends I’ve been pondering anew about what it takes to live and work with ease and engagement – versus falling into the endless efforting I was schooled in for so much of my life. Lizzie, Sue, Justin, Amanda, Andy and I - plus 18 wonderful participants – have just completed our year-long professional coach certification programme. It’s been a big year for everyone: filled with experimentation, loving service and fresh ways of knowing ourselves, others and the world. The final four days - which we completed on Sunday – form our ceremonial certification process. They are intense, long days which call on a lot from everyone involved. I might rightly expect to feel exhausted from so much intensity. But this time I notice something quite different. Yes, I’m tired but I’m far from exhausted. Instead, I feel the vibrant kind of tiredness and aliveness you get when you’ve hiked or biked, or been swimming somewhere beautiful. I wonder about this feeling of ease because it is fresh for me. My hunch is it’s something to do with surrendering to a renewed call to do just what feels life-giving instead of habitually efforting (while proudly wearing my martyr’s badge of honour!) This then begs the question, What particular calling, or quality of experience, has something be life-giving for each of us? What waits within us to be liberated into flow and action: the kind of action that calls on our engagement, while freeing us from our efforting? Of course, it would be easy to start efforting for an answer so maybe we could accept the poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s invitation to simply ‘love… and live in the questions themselves…’ Maybe that way, we open space for what wants to emerge – on this brink of time. Justin and Lizzie’s most recent podcast is also inspired by Rilke’s wisdom and explores many of these threads. It was dedicated to our most recent class and speaks to the kind of work they - and we - wish to bring to the world. Huge congratulations to all our recent graduates who dedicated themselves so wholeheartedly to learning, stretching and life-giving service this year. And if you are at all interested in finding out more about our work, we have two offerings on the horizon – our two-day Foundations of Coaching course and the next year-long Professional Coaching Course. Maybe we’ll see you there… Warm wishes
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