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Leadership
Developer • Coach & Facilitator • Writer
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Welcome to the November 2024 Newsletter
After a spacious summer, a big spike in my
workload has meant barely any time outdoors, and I'm sorely
missing that. That said, I've just pulled out of one piece
of work and am starting to hand over a second one. I
have to mean business now, I think. Take action and not rely on
magical thinking, to protect what matters more and more - space
to breath. To think. To be.
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I'm writing this
before the results of the US election. It's looking
like things might go the right way. But the alternative
fills me with dread. And with so many other parts of the work
ripping themselves to shreds, I can only come back to
the question: the
world is on fire; what's mine to do? I can only
work that out with space. Just being
with the world, just as it is, and as I am, will be a
start.
And I know that love is the only sane response. To pretty
much all things. And so I offer several love-based things
for you this month:
- a new
podcast from me exploring love as expansion
- also one from Amy
Fox, the most non corporate exploration of love from someone
in a corporate context I've heard - and it's all the more
wonderful for that.
- a short piece on
an aspect of elderhood and the importance of 'divesting' as
we age, based on a wonderful conversation with a friend
in his 70's
- wise words on the
danger of loving our work
- plus poems and
books, of course.
Aiming for a world in which it is more possible to
love, I'm wishing you a good journey through November.
With love
Helena x
(pic: Beth Whittaker)
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THE LOVE LAB
DETAILS AND BOOKING HERE
22 Nov, in London, in person.
Final call for this workshop exploring:
- how we create
loving connections between people who don't know each
other
- the
difference dialling up love makes and what might be
possible in our organisations and society if there was more
love
- how we
create space and legitimacy for acts of love in the world.
Many
people suggest that love for our children, parents etc isn't
really love - it's the love we hold for people we don't know
or even especially like, that's what we're aiming for. And
in a big part, that's what this workshop is about.
ACTS OF LOVE FOR TOUGH TIMES (online)
BOOK HERE for Weds 11 Dec between 8-10am
GMT
What sustains us in tough times? How do we honour
the pain of the world? How do we stay connected to love when
things around us can feel unloving?
That's pretty much what we explore together in these (always
free) monthly online sessions. We begin with a connection to
what we're finding difficult. Because in the wise
words of James Baldwin, not
everything that we face can be changed - but nothing can be
changed until it is faced.
And then in each session we take a couple of different things
each time and ask 'how might this be a form of necessary love for
these tough times we find ourselves in?'. In November,
we explored activism (love activism, in fact). For December, I'm
thinking about appreciation and
expansion as
likely themes.
(pic: Pat Foreman)
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I spent
time with the wonderful Simon Villette recently. Some of you will
know him from coming along to Acts of Love for Tough Times
workshops. I wanted to talk to him about ageing, wisdom and
elderhood. We roamed widely but one of the things that
really stuck with me from our conversations is how it matters
that we actively divest ourselves of things - all sorts of
things, for all sorts of reasons - as we age.
We challenged a few ideas too. Like, we weren't so sure
about the trope of elderhood that it's about being in service to
others. What if elderhood is my time? And we also
wondered about whether cultivating
wisdom was really what elderhood was all about, as is
often written.
Writing this also reminded me of a poem, from Martha
Postlethwaite, and some scraps of poems, from David Whyte.
You can read that here.
(art:
jewels in Horsham park)
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There
are a few people who talk about love in a corporate setting, and
even fewer who do so as non-corporately as Amy Elizabeth Fox, the
CEO of leadership consultancy Mobius Leadership.
Take a listen to this episode, Love as a Transformational Tool,
she did with Coaches Rising to see what I
mean. I especially liked the bit where she says we need to
find a way to not get distracted by someone's difficult
behaviour, but instead learn to see the behaviour as simply
trauma responses from way back. We need to understand that
this is the only way they know to try and create connection with
you - so we need to find a way to connect with or speak to the
part of them that is isn't hurt or wounded or covered over by
scar tissue.
(pic: a
breezy day in Goring, my local swim spot)
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'There are
many way to live inside a tragedy'
From film
The
Room Next Door
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It's
ok to not love your job
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When I
say to my husband that I'm starving, he almost always says:
'you're not though, are you - you're just a bit hungry'.
Annoying as it might be, he's right. A smaller word is much
more accurate (and honouring of those who actually are starving,
obviously)
Although I talk about love, I've never gone down the route of
exploring the love we say we have for our jobs. Similar to the
above, I increasingly say I really enjoy what I do rather than I
love what I do. I think too, it's because sometimes 'but I love my job!'
is the way we justify over working, allowing ourselves to be
exploited or adopting working patterns that are not very
human.
So here's a an article from The Guardian on
similar themes. What do you make of it?
(art: Colleen
Parker)
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New
podcast episode - love as expansion
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Guesting
on a podcast the other week, for the Association for Coaching, in
a wonderful conversation with Dina Sabry Fivaz, I was
exploring the idea of love as expansion. Usually reluctant
to talk about love under just one heading, I really loved
exploring some of the ways that taking an expanded perspective on
something - whether in life, our work or coaching specifically -
was a form of love.
And so I took the opportunity to talk to myself some more about
this, and recorded it as a Leading from Love episode. You
can take a listen HERE.
And I'll include the AoC podcast with Dina as soon as it's ready
- hopefully next month. But go take a listen to some of the other podcasts they have
- some excellent ones in there.
(art: Sandro
di Massimo)
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Lost
Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not
lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you
must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask
permission to know it and be known.
The
forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have
made this place around you.
If you
leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two
trees are the same to Raven.
No two
branches are the same to Wren.
If what a
tree or bush does is lost on you,
You are
surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you
are. You must let it find you.
David
Wagoner
(art:
Poppy-jo Allwright
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I
persevered with Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful despite
finding it a tad dull, while also a bit lovely. So was
thrilled when my next read, Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds was
gripping and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. Wrong Place, Wrong Time,
from Gillian McAllister, was a crime thriller with a time
travelling theme chosen by someone in my book group - and a good
example of enjoying something I never would have picked up
myself. And have started Manda Scott's latest, Any Human Power, and liking
it.
Industry
Season 3 continued to be a fab way to be entertained. Nobody
Wants This too, obviously. And The Outrun, in cinemas, was
a lovely way to spend one afternoon - highly recommended.
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Heaps of
project management work - emails and meetings - to set up a big
new piece of work with a new client. Plus getting a suite
of workshops in place with another client - with many last minute
wobbles and problems. And diary planning - the next 6 weeks
or so have me working away from home for 2-3 nights every
week. The work will be good - but I really don't love being
away so much - can't move my body as I like to, and there's never
never enough vegetables!
(pic:
Jackie Morris)
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Do get in touch and let me know how you're finding
these Newsletters, or if you'd like to see more info or
anything I could include. I love hearing from
you. You know where I am on LinkedIn, or connect via Email. Or call me of course,
whichever suits.
Helena x
helena@helenaclayton.co.uk
07771 358
881
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