Category: Poems

Relax

The most important thing

is to relax.

Everything else is a distraction.

–

I write these words as a reminder to myself.

I had forgotten recently. Caught up in a whirl of ‘what ifs’. What if my contract at work is extended? Should I stay? Should I leave? How / when do I build up a coaching practice if I’m still working? But what if my contract is not extended? I’ll be out of work…blah…blah…blah. Well, I won’t bore you with all the details but I’m sure you know the kind of thing I mean! Repetitive circular thinking, as if running through the various options again and again is going to make a decision easier.

I’ve not written much here recently as I’ve been busy with work (we’ve just published formal proposals for a section of the England Coast Path and are publishing another section in March), and also coach training. My coaching course assessment is getting closer (also March).

This week, in an observed coaching class, I was nervous. I didn’t perform well. I am usually fairly relaxed when I’m working with clients one on one, but when I’m being observed it makes me self conscious and tense. I started to wonder if I’m actually ready for the final assessment.

Nerves and coaching don’t go together. Coaching reminds me so much of my tai chi partnerwork practice. To do both well you must be completely relaxed, completely connected to your partner / the client. Which is impossible to do if you are tense or nervous.

After a few days of thinking about it, I decided that my focus for the observed coaching sessions should be to relax and connect. To let the coaching competencies that I am supposed to be demonstrating sit lightly in the back of my mind. To give up the trying. To give up the idea that I should be doing it perfectly. To give up the habits of a lifetime. Well….I didn’t say it would be easy!

And then, as I did my evening tai chi practice the words came to me.

‘The most important thing is to relax. Everything else is a distraction.’

Thi is true for everything. The work stuff, the coaching, the future, everything.

Everything is easier if I relax. Life flows, unfolds. I follow. I know this. And I so easily forget.

Wishing you all the best for the new decade!

A glimpse of the wild

A snipe walks

between

sleeping ducks,

visible against the water,

a master of camouflage

against the reeds.

The winter sun

breaks through and

lights this perfect moment.

The pintail and teal sleep on,

turning slowly with the breeze

as we watch,

fill ourselves with

their colour and movement,

and take away our own small glimpse

of the wild.

–

Its been a bit grey, wet and windy here recently. Today was sunnier so I visited the local nature reserve. Sunday afternoon and it was busy. I started wondering if the birds have a sense of being watched by so many people. Probably not. But I love how we all have our own experience of the birds, of the low winter sun lighting up the reeds, glinting off the water, the fresh air in our lungs. How we take the memories, the images of the birds in the sunshine, and how we carry that light within us through the dark wet grey January days. We return to our indoor weekday lives accompanied by a glimpse of the wild.

Message from a fieldfare

The clocks have changed.
Office hours equal daylight hours,
pretty much.
Work finishes and it is dark.
–
Why did we create
work rhythms
that lock us away
from the light?
–
To make sure I observe
this day,

I leave my desk in the afternoon,
head out through autumn colours,
the smell of wet leaves,
face misted by rain,
lungs full of fresh air.
–
My thoughts settle
to the rhythm
of my walking.
–
Words of a future blog post
roll through my mind.
–
A pleasant state,
half here,
half elsewhere,
until the scolding of
a fieldfare brings me back,
as if to say
‘I have travelled over seas to get here,
And you will notice me.’
–
I look up, into a tree full of birds.
–
Chastened, I remain present,
as a treecreeper darts
silently
up the trunk
probing for insects.
–
The blog post I was composing
will have to wait for another day.
The fieldfare sent this, instead.

Listen to a fieldfare here.