Go Deep

Each year, my nieces and nephew make a special request for their birthday – one-on-one time with Aunt Erika. We always enjoy a meal together and then the activity of their choice.

Of course, we have great fun together, and it means a lot to me to be requested, but I don’t think this tradition is really about me at all. It’s not the excitement of the DOING where these kids light up, it’s in the moments of BEING. They smile the most when they are receiving the gift of my focused attention, curiosity about who they are, and affirmations that celebrate their strengths, values and ideas.

As we’ve all become human-doings, fooled into believing that our worth is measured by our accomplishments and activities, we neglect our most essential need – connection.

I’m reminded of a song that I co-wrote with my husband and our dear friend, “Deep” which over decade ago predicted the crisis we’d now have in a world that almost exclusively “connects” virtually.

We must connect it’s time not virtually, no

Not just to cyberspace but face to face we grow

To the world of loving inner space

Go find a common place in the deep

As coaches (and humans), we are responsible for the space we hold. May we bring our whole, undistracted selves to our interactions. May we delight in the being with, rather than striving only toward the next goal, outcome or insight.

Coaching inquires: How can you adjust your energy and environment to be with the other? How will you know you are focused being rather than doing?