A client recently opened our discussion, by recounting what had happened during his week. Seven days were reduced down to a couple of minor episodes and one which was a little more significant. He sighed, and told me that apart from this the week had ‘raced by’. He struggled to say much more.

‘I wonder if you were actually there,’ I said.  He paused for a moment, then asked what I meant by this.  ‘If you’re not actually there at the time, it can be difficult to recall what happened.’ He smiled and nodded his head. ‘I’ve been so busy, so wrapped up in chasing my tail, no… I think I see what you mean, I haven’t really been there.’

What if consciousness isn’t an on and off button, either existing or absent. What if your awareness of yourself and what’s going on around you is somehow gradated? It is possible to be unconscious of what’s going on around you, blank, uninvolved, unfeeling, unthinking. It’s also possible to be only part conscious, or part aware. Not fully ‘there’ or not ‘there’ at all.

Those moments of deep clarity, when you are fully aware of yourself and fully aware of what’s going on around you can be all too rare. It’s possible to lead an entire existence without any, to sleep walk through life without ever really living it.

Try this. Switch off the external distractions – the radio, TV, whatever crutch you might use to escape from yourself. Concentrate on experiencing this present moment. Use all your senses. Become aware of yourself – your breathing, how you feel, what you can smell and hear. Watch your thoughts but don’t let them carry you away. Experience this moment.

And now think that this is how you should experience every moment.

Wake up! This is it.

Jeremy Rix  Unitive™ coaching team

As part of my corporate work, I recently ran a project which involved coaching clients in listening skills.  It was all about whether they really hear what their customers tell them.  We used a simple exercise which you can try. In this case, we recruited some customers to interview. You may have to do things slightly differently.

Find a friend who’s prepared to give you an hour of their time, and agree to talk to them about something you know little about – an aspect of their life that you’re unaware of.  Take a digital recorder with you. Spend your hour listening to them – make sure you allow them to do as much of the talking as possible, let them tell you what they want to. Once you’re done, sit down with a piece of paper and jot down what you heard. Now listen back to the recording and hear how much you missed.

One of my clients was astonished by what he’d missed from his customer conversation – ‘I don’t even remember that part of the discussion!’ he said – and amazed at the richness of the dialogue when he listened back to the recording.

In business, socially, at home – too often people are so distracted by their own internal monologue, preparing what they are going to say, concentrating on their own agenda, that they forget to listen.

The Unitive™ coaching approach stresses the importance of listening properly. Meditating with absolute clarity on what the other is saying, and how they are saying it.

If you don’t listen, how are you supposed to know what’s going on around you? How are you supposed to feel connected?

And how are you supposed to know what you’re missing?

Jeremy Rix  Unitive™ coaching team,

.I am more than thrilled with my new life coach. It has been an amazing journey and learning experience so far. She magically pulls the right triggers. Somehow she seems to knock down my defensive shields I have built over so many years. How does she do that? That’s difficult to say. I can’t recognize a clear strategy. What seems to be key is that she is brutally honest.  That’s not always easy but I know I can count on it. The other thing I really enjoy is that she is the most patient listener I have ever met. I can just talk and she will listen patiently and attentively.  I honestly feel that I can trust her. Whatever we discuss stays absolutely between us.  She simply is what she is, nothing more nothing less. Through her I have a taste of what it means to access one’s potential, which I heard so many times before.

If there is one thing I can complain about, it is that she is not always very professional. She never seems to stick to the agreed hours.  She can even be a little inhumane sometimes when she decides to coach me in the middle of the night at 4am in the morning. She doesn’t seem to care much about my comfort needs.  But hey, you can’t get it all. Overall, it is more than worth it. I have learnt more in the last few weeks than in the last couple of years. I have the strange feeling that our daughter Alisa Melis, born on the 16^th October of this year, will challenge me in many more ways!  She shows me how to just to be me and access sides of me I didn’t know exist.

How is this relevant to you?

Firstly, life seems to give us amazing opportunities to learn and grow, if we are open to it. I guess most people would agree that becoming a parent is a very powerful way of growing.

Secondly, childlike honesty, openness, authenticity and being true to yourself seem to be powerful tools for personal growth and success. Well, coincidentally this is what Unitive™  coaching is basically about.

Consequently, if you value your personal growth, would like to realize more of your potential and like to be on the fast track you could:

1)    Consider becoming a parent, if you are not already one. A small warning here, at a daily rate of 12-14 nappies this can be a costly experience (if you are a parent you know what I am talking about) or maybe

2)    Test a coaching journey with one of our Unitive™ coaches.

Yücel Yilmaz  Unitive coaching team

 There are two basic ways in which you can live your life.  You can say, these are my aims, these are my goals and I’m going to go hell-for-leather to achieve them. This is the unexamined life.   But, you know, there is an alternative approach.  You can say instead, let’s have a look at where these aims have come from – how they originated – because they’ve taken me to a place in the here-and-now where I really don’t want to be.  Once you stop aiming for will-o’-the-wisp goals in life, you can take a fresh and perceptive look at how you’ve arrived at where you are right now.  You’re then free to see where your authentic nature will take you.  Life then becomes a joyful journey, rather than a desperate dash up the fast lane of an endless motorway heading straight for la-la land.

      The majority of life coaching approaches encourage blinkered goal-orientation.   In other words, they say, you tell us whatever it is that you want and we’ll tell you how to get it.  But in the long run, because they push you even harder towards striving to achieve your ‘perfect’ goal, all they do is defer the final disillusionment – that point later on in your life’s journey at which you inevitably will arrive, when you realise the futility of having wasted your precious time aiming for something that in reality has never existed.

    Unitive™ coaching is different.   It takes you on a journey back to your true self; through a deeper understanding of your attitudes and patterns of behaviour that are fixed in the past; through seeing that you perceive the world as you are; through an acceptance of your mortality and the discovery of the joy of living in the moment; and by re-connecting yourself with your intuition, that deep wellspring of authentic impulses and creativity.

    Thanks for having read this.  Now, let’s hear back from you…

 Charles Bentley PhD