we do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals

that deep inside us something is valuable,

worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch;

once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder,

spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

-e.e. cummings

These lines always stay with me when I’m coaching. So many times, people are struggling with a problem of whatever size, and they are searching for the blocker, the obstacle standing between themselves and a solution. But the solution isn’t in the blocker. If you’re cruising down the road and the cars ahead of you suddenly stop, you don’t keep going forward; you look for an alternate route.

During a coaching session, we identify what’s valuable, and seek out alternate routes. A recent coaching client called it “turning over the rocks” to see what’s underneath. The coach identifies where to look for the rocks; the client gets to pick them up and turn them over to find out what’s there.

The coach can’t unveil the valuable. As clear as it is, as visible, as obvious as it might be to someone else… only you can reveal to yourself what’s worth listening to, what’s worthy, what’s sacred. And once you’ve discovered that, seen that in yourself, that’s when WOW comes alive. Seriously. Curiosity, wonder, delight… the human spirit is all in. The day we started talking about rocks, that coachee was surprised by the strength she was able to identify within herself, based on her experience and what she knew intrinsically about who she is in the world. Once that was sorted, she was able to move forward, clearly identifying a solution that she had never considered before - an alternate route.

Just for today, forget about finding the obstacle, the troublemaker, the instigator. Look for the value and the power within yourself to take the wheel. You are valuable, worthy and sacred. Let curiosity, wonder and delight lead the way.