On Coaching and Being Coached
Coaching is becoming a more popular and accepted way to improve our lives. In fact many if not most major companies are offering coaching to their senior executives as a regular part of their professional development.Though I have used the term for many years, I have and still do feel some resistance to using the term coaching in regards to what we do at The Garden Company. To me the term coaching is non-specific and can mean many different things to different people.Today I was filling out some forms for a doctor and under “profession” I put: Inquirist. “That is cool,” said the person taking my information.It is not just to be cool that I am calling what I teach “The Inquiry Method.” It has to do with a life practice of looking into everything, inquiring into everything. To me this is what gives life that sense of “wonder.”The most fascinating place to go with “wonder” is into our selves, into what it means to be human, to be us.There are two sides to inquiry, the inquirist and the inquiree. Two sides of the same coin actually.The inquirist is the one asking the questions, holding the sense of wonder, as in “I wonder?” and “how wonderful!” The inquirist, like the natural philosophers of the 18th century, are interested in everything and how things are; we are searching for truth, to get to the bottom of things, ultimately searching for simplicity and clarity.The inquiree on the other hand is the subject of the inquiry, the part being explored and in the process, discovering themselves.The Inquiry Process requires setting aside of ego, beliefs, expectations, judgments, etc., on both sides. The inquirist must be willing to lose themselves, to look into the truth, and the inquiree must open themselves, their mind, and judgments to be looked into.For six years I have been teaching and coaching Inquiry. It is a wonderful skill to learn. Amazingly, and for even longer without consciously knowing it, I was teaching how to be inquired upon, to be coached, to have breakthroughs, but I never articulated it quite that way.Now I realize that learning to be open to inquiry, to be able to be coached, may be the most important thing we can learn. That opening to ourselves, allowing someone else in, or even allowing ourselves in, is truly the doorway to wonder.