Coaching and the mystery of existence

Marc Le Menestrel — 2014-10-27T13:35:47Z

Who are we? Are we these physical bodies incarnated while writing or reading this text? Are we these complex selves that psychology researchers study? Are we metaphysical souls lying somewhere in some spiritual world?

Are we the expectation of our father, of our mother, of our ancestors or our peers? Are we the memory that our children will keep of us, or the children of our children?

Are we also the person we talk to, the ones we live with or those with whom we work? Are we a cultural entity, a tiny bit of humanity?

Are we the butterfly that I saw this morning? Or the flower that was feeding it? Are we the trees and the forest, the sea and the sky, the earth as a planet? Are we all the planets of this solar system, and also other stars? Are we the universe itself?

Could we be everything like the Poet David Whyte invites us to be in his beautiful poem “Everything is waiting for you”?

If we can give so many answers to these questions, it is because we are profoundly and inherently free to answer the question “who are we?”
We are ever free to dream who we are and who we would like to become.

Whoever we think we are will not give justice to the mystery of ourselves. Each answer to this beautiful question is merely a frontier between who we think we are and who we think we are not. Exploring this frontier is like inviting the mystery of existence to a conversation with who we think we are.

In my coaching, I like to work with people at the frontier of themselves, inviting them to discover their selves beyond the frontier of their own thoughts, beyond the constraint of their own beliefs. This process is both a cognitive and an emotional process. It is also a mysterious one because it creates a surprising experience from which the participant can learn about his or her own mystery.

This learning is not meant to be therapeutic in the sense of liberating someone from some suffering. Although this may happen, the intention is rather to work in a genuinely integrative manner so as to unleash the full potential of the participant. In this manner, it shall be seen as an integrative approach towards improving decision-making and peak performance. I personally like this concrete outcome of the sessions, which enhance the meaning of the effort of the participant and of the coach in the context of a professional coaching.

This activity has become one more way for me to integrate what I have learned in my own life so as to bring the mental, the heart and the soul at the service of a fully lived existence.

More on my Brief, Integrative, Inspiring coaching sessions.

A Journey Through the Forest

Marc Le Menestrel — 2011-07-19T12:27:38Z

In these last years, I have been dreaming of accompanying executives in Nature, to share my teaching in this only place where I truly feel at home. I could see the day where I could teach from my true self, as much as a rock-climber or an academic.

Thanks to the vision of Jens Meyer at CEDEP and of his client, this became reality in June 2011 with a 2-day program in the Fontainebleau forest, followed by a 1/2-day debriefing to facilitate integration and re-entry.

I may have spent in this place most of my week-end before 20, discovering this magical forest in the typical tribal way of my rock-climbing friends and with unbounded passion. This journey was like coming home: a deep feeling of belonging.

Here is how the program was presented to a set of 40 Human Resources participants of a large multinational:

The purpose is to prepare you to guide the leaders of your company in their own journey. We will take the time for you to go deep in who you are and who you want to become: we want your own journey to become the primary source of your excellence towards others'.

We will dream, reflect, share ideas and visions to be ourselves, for us and for others: to work better together.

Day 1: Anchoring in the past, dreaming the future: being with integrity.

Day 2: Giving to others, protecting ourselves and trusting the unknown: becoming together.

½ Day 3: Integration towards my role as HR leader

Experiences in nature combined with cutting edge leadership development approaches and discussion are an effective way to help us realize how much we are part of nature. We also experience that our own accomplishment depends on looking after each other and the environment. Our nature can be a surprising and distinctive teacher…

Download the flyer (pdf) for more information.