Coaching At Work Annual Conference 2016, 6 July, Holiday Inn Bloomsbury, London
“In order to blossom, we need the mud,” said Liz Hall, reminding delegates that crisis can enable people to grow, learn and transform.
It requires us to be brave and foster the resources we need for this. Being critical and judgemental undermines our abilities to do just that. However, in VUCA conditions, the tendency to be critical and judgemental, towards ourselves and others, often increases.
Hall led participants in several mindful self-compassion exercises which seek to acknowledge and calm this inclination, and can be used by us as coaches, or in work with clients.
She drew out the pro-social effects of compassion, saying that, in her view, compassion is a result of empathy alongside action. She also drew a distinction between self-esteem, which usually involves an element of comparison (and judgement) with others, and self-compassion, which engages our self-soothing system and ultimately allows us to turn towards difficulty rather than avoiding it.
As Hall concluded, “Compassion is not new, but it feels as if its time has come in coaching.”
By Sarah Dale