Recently I have been working with a number of very different organisations and an emotive theme has emerged for me – the pain and beauty of service.
I do the training I do in organisations to serve – not in some glib “customer service and shareholder value” BS way, but from the heart. I have chosen to do what I do as it is the best way I know to support my own development, the world I want to bring into being and the spirit permeating it all. I don’t want this to sound grand as to me this is a necessity and no more noble than eating when I am hungry or sleeping when I am tired. I don’t think I could go back to a “normal” job without this now to be honest…I ‘m utterly ruined.
I jest, I am fortunate to be able to live this way, and grateful for an opportunity not afforded to thousands of generations before. I am frequently astounded by the beauty of midwifing learning and individual’s development. When the inner-light-bulbs go off that it is possible to be a human being at work in stress, leadership or emotional intelligence trainings for example, it is hard for me not to burst with emotion like an overripe tomato in a goddess’ lips. For me it is beautiful and it is not a metaphor when I say I regularly fall in love with groups of delegates.
Note that I don’t say my job is to please*. Many days I do not please myself and sometimes I do not please my clients…but I serve them. For me there is a great pain in service, and a loneliness of working within organisations that can exhibit painfully low levels of development (e.g. emotionally) and therefore need support. To be another Einstein appropriator- a problem cannot be solved from the level of thinking that created it – so effective consultants and coaches will always be isolated no matter how empathic. It is literally psychically painful for me to work in some of the organisations that need what I do the most, and at the end of a day of dancing in and out of resonance (as it serves) I have to be held in the arms of my woman for a long time to feel again.
Happily I have been a part of building a mutually supportive community in the last few years (Integration Training) and have been welcomed into others such as Newfield that help ease this strain and loneliness. For me this is no small thing and again it is no exaggeration to say that I love them. Without this small evolving way-faring sangha I would not be able to bear it. Thank we, thank we, thank we.
I’d also like to note a couple of traps for me around these themes that I regularly jump into – playing the martyr and arrogance. An overemphasis on serving others (as opposed to self AND other) can lead me to some “woe is me, bearing the cross” BS at times, this is not beautiful or what this piece is about. Another danger is the “consultant/magician/ parent knows best” superiority complex. It is a delicate balancing of having another perspective that can be of use with accepting the basic equality of all people. I also reject that false humility and non developmentally informed new-age crap prevalent in the coaching and counselling world that believes (and it is a belief) that people are beautiful unique snow-flakes who can solve all their own problems. If you disagree come round and ask me to put you in an aikido hold and see if you can figure out the counter – without adequate training you will not.
How then do I proceed and hold both a profound belief in acceptance and equality with a desire to lead and support growth? How also to lick the plates of pain and beauty equally? Like many things these days I suspect an answer would remove the point. It is in staying with the beauty and pain of the contradiction and question that is worthwhile. The meta-joke is of course that this is itself is “taking sides” so I’ll also be acting with full conviction one way or another in the meantime…The pain is frankly hilarious and beauty is full of bloody awe.
*thank you Aboodi Shabi for the distinction