It seems to me that emotions, just like the rest of life, are there to be experienced, whether they are pleasant or not so pleasant.

The other day I was listening on the radio to a British officer, freshly returned from Afghanistan, talking about soldiers in combat accepting that casualties happen amongst their colleagues and yet still getting on with the job in hand. It is only when they get back to the UK that they are really able to reflect on and fully experience the emotion of the loss of a colleague.

Quite different from the denial of emotion, this is deferral. Ultimately though even tough soldiers seem to recognise the need to experience the emotion that’s there and do something with it. The deferral must come to an end.

Yet many of us have got so good at deferring the experiencing of our emotions, that it amounts to the denial of our emotions. Even during a coaching situation people can be very clever at talking about their emotions, analyzing them, describing them, intellectualising them, understanding them – but yet never experiencing them. Our capacity to avoid experiencing our own emotions is truly impressive!

Being yourself, it seems to me, means experiencing yourself.  Intending to reconnect with yourself whilst merely understanding yourself plays up to your intellect and plays down your emotion.

Being more yourself, rather than just understanding more of yourself must mean that you need to live life, by experiencing it – and not just understanding it.

The intellect is a wonderful thing but we can use it to disconnect from ourselves, to suppress parts of ourselves and contribute to our own alienation. Whilst connecting to ourselves – and others – perhaps with the facilitation of a life coach – helps us to marry up our valuable intellectual insights with our emotional experiences.

Ultimately with a little help we – and I – can learn to fully trust our hearts as well as our heads and through doing so experience life more fully.

Andy Turnbull

Just back from attending a weekend seminar on Unitive™ coaching with Charles and the gang and I’ve got to say it was a bit of an eye-opener.

I felt like a right muppet to begin with – everyone else there seemed to be peering down at me from somewhere at the top of the corporate ladder, while I’m still desperately scrabbling around for a handhold and wishing I’d worn my climbing shoes. I spent most of day one alternating between outright incomprehension (now, just let me get this straight – you’ve got a good job, a great salary, house, pension plan. . .what are you doing here?) and pure, unadulterated envy. I mean, I’m not even sure what a pension plan is.

After a while though, things began to settle down. As people opened up I realised that fundamentally we were all in the same boat . . . and if what we were all saying was true, it appeared to be sinking. Things began to look a little bleak on HMS Potential.

Not that Charles seemed unduly bothered. Beaming from his chair, now pushing, now prodding, but most of all just sitting quietly and listening, observing; by dint of his very presence he seemed to be willing us on: ‘Come on in! The water’s lovely! Don’t mind the sharks. There’s no need to worry.’

And do you know what: he was right. The moment I let go of the sodden barrel of doubts, fears and self-justifications I was so desperately clinging onto, I found myself bobbing along with the rest of the group as we began tentatively, each in his or her own unique way, to glide through the clear waters and undulating billows formed as a result of our ongoing interactions. And it became effortless.

Try it now: take off the water-wings of self-reproach and needless anxiety, sit back, breathe, and let yourself drift in the ebb and flow of the moment. Charles’ message, the Unitive™ approach, is that to surrender to the simple fact of being is to be provided with all the support we need. We don’t have to change. We don’t have to seek what is, after all, an unattainable perfection.  We’re quite all right just as we are.

Truly, a sea change, indeed.

Gareth John [g4reth.j@gmail.com]

Many people struggle for years trying to find their purpose in life. Others get in touch with their interests very early on in their working lives but then want a change as they get older. Life coaching is fast becoming a popular choice for those seeking some direction or guidance in life. It can help with a range of issues including health, career, relationships and spirituality.

Finding a suitable life coach can be difficult, as many people feel they need more information about life coaching before committing to seeing someone. This is where Life Coach Directory (http://www.lifecoach-directory.org.uk) can help.

The directory is a support network of UK based life coaches and has a wealth of information, including articles written by the life coaches. Every member on the site must submit a copy of their qualifications and insurance cover or must be registered with a recognised professional body. These members then have their own profile which lists information about their training, qualifications, approach, fees and location. To see an example of a what a professional  profile should look like  click on to Charles Bentley’s Unitive coaching entry at  http://www.lifecoach-directory.org.uk/member_2098.html

Emily Attewell

The way to start to see the jail you’re in is… simple reflection. Just that. Some time each day to look back on your thoughts, feelings and the ways in which you’ve behaved in the last 24 hours. Try it for a couple of weeks – half an hour every evening. Over time you’ll begin to recognise patterns. The patterns are the bars of the cell you’ve put yourself  in.

How to break free? Well to continue the analogy, you’ve got to dig. Dig deep — inside yourself — and understand when and how these patterns were set. Give yourself a chance to resolve the issues, break free from their hold over you and make your escape.

                                                                        Jeremy Rix  Unitive™ coaching team

Why do we so often try to be perfect? What feeds our drive to perfection? Do we think we can avoid criticism and hurt by being perfect? Isn’t there always some degree of fear behind perfectionism? We don’t live in a perfect world, so how can we be perfect?

Whilst aiming high is great, striving for perfection can be rather stressful. Perfect expectations are too hard to meet. And perfection is rarely necessary: if everybody always waited until things were perfect nothing would ever get done!  

Islam has a different appreciation of the fact that we humans make “errors”. Unlike machine-made rugs with perfect symmetry, handmade Arabian rugs have slight imperfections- so much so that a tiny “mistake” is purposely woven into each carpet!

To the Moslem weaver earthly perfection does not exist. Only Allah is perfect, so trying to achieve perfection is regarded as arrogant even. If a weaver working on a rug dyes wool as needed with the outcome being the colors do not match or age in an identical way, they do not regard this as an error. The rug is simply the way it is.

“In a handmade carpet, the kind you seek, there can be no design exactly the same. Even if you try, it’s impossible. The wool thread may be a different size and they could make only five knots when before it was six. Or the dye is a slightly different colour. Small things, but important. This is the beauty you must see. There is beauty in these inconsistencies. It is human. It is life.”

Dr Ann Katrin Schlag  Unitive™ coaching team 

At first glance, this statement certainly makes sense to most of us! However…why is it we need to DARE to be ourselves? Is being ourselves something so dangerous? Scary and frightening? Something one doesn’t usually do? Something that requires great courage? For most of us, it is probably at least some of those things.  But why should this be so? Whatever happened so that simply being ourselves is not the conventional way of being, even though in the end this is all we are and ever can be?

We live out our lives behind a mask, acting out a role we have been playing for so long that it becomes ingrained.  We hardly notice it anymore…yet this hiding from, our repression of,  our true natures is the root of many of our issues, insecurities and fears. We keep masking our selves according to society’s acceptable facets, because this seems a lot easier that daring to be our true selves, that which we simply are!  Yet it is only by being our authentic selves that we can connect truly with others, feel at one with the universe and reach our full potential. 

This process of being our selves may be lengthy, challenging and not always comfortable… but it is certainly worth the pain! I speak from personal experience.  After having been what can only be described as a particularly wayward teen, in my early 20s I decided that I would do everything perfectly from now on, that I would be the perfect daughter, granddaughter, sister, friend, student.  In short, I did not want to disappoint anyone ever again but rather aspired to meet everyone’s expectations of me – not an easy feat by anyone’s standards! However, it worked for a while – I studied hard and earned my doctorate at the world’s best universities, after which I moved into a great job.. this of course made everyone happy and so proud of me!

Although this was certainly quite pleasant, I realised that for me it was clearly not sufficient in the long term. So, with the help of Charles and his Unitive approach I have now moved back, at least a bit closer to my real self – that which I truly am.

After all, I’m miles better at being that than anyone else.

Dr Ann Katrin Schlag  Unitive™ coaching team 

The Unitive coaching and course team held one of our regular meetings last night. We were having a discussion about the new 2-day format for our Unitive accreditation workshops. Somebody asked a question. Lively debate ensued. The critical thing was understanding what lay behind the question. An anxiety, a concern? We’re better off dealing with honestly expressed issues, than trying to answer questions.

In coaching, we aim to turn our questions into statements that authentically represent how we feel. As soon as you ask a client a question, you’re in danger of masking an ego-agenda and confusing the reality of what’s going on in the room.

Try it. Each time you’re tempted to ask a question, take a moment to understand the underlying anxiety and concern you have, and make a statement. Instead of displacing the issue, express it as it feels to you.

So instead of asking ‘What’s in a question?’ try saying ‘I’m concerned that by asking questions you’re trying to avoid saying what you really feel.’

Not such a catchy title for a blog post, I’ll admit, but the truth all the same.

Jeremy Rix  Unitive™ coaching team

It’s a dank autumnal evening, and I’m walking home after a coaching session with Charles. “Everything is going to be alright” says the neon sign blinking through the mist which drifts over the Thames. These comforting words are incongruously affixed to the top of Tate Britain. But are they really comforting? And if they are, what does it say about us?

My point is that the words would be much more powerful if they said “everything IS alright.” We have this obsession about living in the future; we derive comfort from the fact that something will be better tomorrow, but yet tomorrow never comes.

If we live in expectation of tomorrow we will set up that pattern, that habit and so will be ever looking forward and never experience the moment. We will never actually live in the here and now – will never actually live in anything other than a fantasy of our perceptions and aspirations that never actually come true for us. For even if they do, because we are so future focussed we don’t even notce.

Now is alright. Now is always alright. The now is all there is – the now is absolute truth and the only real truth. The only reality.

Our ego, our make-believe neurotic self, will have us convinced that we are creating an eternal life, an everlasting life, by building for tomorrow. Yet looking underneath this, we find the reality: that all we really need, we already have

I have everything I need for now. A breath is freely available to me at any moment and it can be as deep as I am able to draw. There is no limit on the abundance of the air about me – I am overwhelmed by abundance in any moment; there is always more breath available than I will ever be able to draw. 

Everything IS alright now.

 Enjoy it.

Andy Turnbull

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,