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Leadership Developer • Coach & Facilitator • Writer

Welcome to the March 2026 Newsletter

Spring sprung in Sussex on Weds 25 Feb. Then headed off again. But it was long enough for me to have a gorgeous 2 hour walk on the Downs (the skylarks!!) and fish and chips on the beach with a friend.  And even though it was gone too soon, it kissed me - so despite my best intentions, I'm also slowly coming out of wintering too and getting a bit more active. Maybe that also has to do with me coming to end of Ted Lasso!
 

This month, there's a way to:

• explore with others how to get past an impasse, to create some movement where there might be stuckness
• give some more thought to how you approach, respond to and manage endings, in your organisational work and beyond
• continue the theme of exploring love in coaching, with a new series of blogs
• walk alongside people (literally) who have a dramatically different life experience to most of us reading this and get a glimpse into some of their stories

The world has got a few degrees more chaotic even since the start of the year.  Please find some solid things to hold on to, or to hold you. And remember that while the metaphorical ground beneath your feet might feel unsafe, the actual ground will hold you.  Please find a way to let it. 

And thank you so much for being here.  It means a lot. 

With love, until April
Helena x


(pic: Makiko Makamura)

After a wonderful online pilot workshop in February, on 18 September, I'm running a full-fat-in-person version of the Exploring Endings & Beginnings workshop.  From the Feb workshop, people said: 
 

Combining individual reflection with paired and small group discussions, the workshop led me back to myself in a tangible way, with immediate relevance to my work with clients and insights into myself. I continue to unfurl. It's a workshop with a very long tail.

I absolutely loved it. It was such a rich, full, and expansive session, woven together beautifully - without being heavy, which was really refreshing.

So, we'll be exploring the world of organisational endings through some very non organisational lenses.  What does the role of an end of life doula and palliative care teach us about doing endings well in our work? How do endings happen in our gardens (or on our window sills) and in nature in a way that sets us up for good beginnings? What role does ritual play in helping us end well - and set us up to begin well?

It seems like the time is right to pay better attention to endings, don't you think?  I think we're needing to get more comfortable with them. 

Do take a look - details again here.  



(pic: Laina Geetah)

Many of you will know of the good work done by Refugee Tales.  And each year, they organise a week-long walk that you can do all of, or just a day of. A walk in solidarity for (and with) immigrants who have been detained.  I've been looking at it for years and have never been able to make the dates.  This year, I can and so have booked to walk a 2 day section of it.   

And if anyone fancies walking those 2 days with me, I'm doing 9 and 10 July - which is from Arundel to Chichester, with an overnight in Bognor. All of those places have train stations. Would be lovely to see you there. 

Here are the details of the full walk, 8-12 July. 

 

I barely recognise myself.  Having never had any form of creative or artistic expression in my life (visual, I mean, or anything practical -  I've been playing with poetry for a while) it seems to have appeared in my life like some form of ancient corm that's been waiting for just the right conditions to emerge. 

A few weeks ago, I started zentangling, working my way through this book to help me learn the basic strokes.  I did a charcoal drawing workshop the other day.  And am booked onto a watercolour workshop in April sploshing my way through an intro book in the meantime. I'm also making a second mask, after loving the process of making one at the hospice art group - scroll down for the pic of that one.

I think it's a form of opposite world. It's also linked to having a bit more space with work being quieter. But it also feels part of the 'rest is resistance' movement - doing something that makes no contribution to anything productive - instead doing something for the sheer pleasure of doing it regardless of whether I am any good at it.  The countercultural gasp of breath that comes from doing something wonderfully pointless and where I'm not really trying to get a great deal of skill under my belt either. 

 

Divisive dialogue where entrenched positions prevent movement.
 

Rigid adherence to a particular process or way of doing things, where any alternative becomes the ‘wrong’ way.
 

Fear of change pushing people to cling onto a position or narrative that maintains the status quo.
 

Stringent advocacy where there is no possibility of taking alternatives into account.
 

Do any of these things resonate for you in the work you're doing? Do you see any of these in yourself or in the people or systems that you're needing to work in partnership with?  Even if only some of them do, or somewhat, you might like the look of Beyond Polarisation, a 6 week online course with the wonderful Jenny Andersson exploring ways to counterbalance and work with these things (ways of being, energies ...?) to ease them off a bit. To find movement and possibility where things feel blocked. 

Full disclosure - I'm delighted to be running a short session on one of the modules.  I'm being very selective this year about the work I'm doing - and I said an immediate yes when Jenny asked me if I might be involved in this much needed work. 

 (pic: Nick Fedaeff)

You'll have heard me talk with Clare Norman as part of the Love in Coaching podcast series I did for the Association for Coaching back in the autumn.

Clare's in the process of writing a book about love in coaching, called Love as a Revolutionary Coaching Practice (I've been lucky enough to have read an advance copy and will share it here as soon as I can ...) so as part of that exploration she'd invited a series of people to write guest blogs for her. They're great. 

You can find the whole series here, as well as her summary of the posts. 


(Pic: Bailey Schmidt)

THE LOVE LAB

When things feel stuck, intractable and difficult we need something to create flow, movement, ease and possibility in our systems and in ourselves.  

  The Love Lab offers us exactly that - a chance to experience what happens when we experiment with deeper connection - and is running on 24 April in London.  A rare chance to experience some deeply meaningful and powerful work in person with practical application to take back into the workplace, community and other relationships. 

 

ENDINGS & BEGINNINGS

As above - and I know September feels like ages away but do hold the date if you think you might like the look of it.  Full details again here. 

ACTS OF LOVE FOR TOUGH TIMES

In the Feb Acts of Love for Tough Times we looked at how grief is a form of love that's essential for these times we're in.  The dates coming up are 18 March. and the theme is how letting go is a form of love.  This is a new theme for this series and I'm enjoying curating it. You can also book onto 16 April here. We might look at self compassion for that one.  

(Pic: Seth Fitts)
 

Leaf

For woods are forms of grief
grown from the earth. For they creak
 
with the weight of it.
For each tree is an altar to time.
 
For the oak, whose every knot
guards a hushed cymbal of water.
 
For how the silver water holds
the heavens in its eye.
 
For the axletree of heaven
and the sleeping coil of wind
 
and the moon keeping watch.
For how each leaf traps light as it falls.
 
For even in the nighttime of life
it is worth living, just to hold it.


Sean Hewitt

(pic: Sarah Kiser) 

Not the most flowing of months for me book-wise.

Started and abandoned and have now come back to Olga Tocarczuk's House of Day, House of Night.  It's really pretty special but it took me while it get into it. Also, got half way through and have put on pause Ian Leslie's John & Paul - it's great but it's getting very detailed and I'm not the level of fan it was written for.  I'll keep going though, but more slowly. And it's a been a while (decades) since I read a play, but Tom Stoppard's Jumpers was the Book Group choice and so I did.  It was hard work.  Definitely confirmed to me that plays are meant to be watched and not read.  We met to discuss it on Sunday just gone - it got a score of 2.8 out of 5 but did generate a heap of great conversation. 


Podcasts were The Hunger Game on the development of weight loss drugs, and the death episode of The Emerald. And not a podcast but the deepest enjoyment was listening to Tom Hirons tell the story of The Sun Princess and the Fortieth Door. An old recording but with a wonderful accordion accompaniment.  I do love a bit of storytelling and must try and find some more to listen to (without having to spend 5 days on Dartmoor with Martin Shaw!)

 

A quiet month for work, highlights being:

The closing session of a management development programme with a London charity.  Yes, there was plenty people took away from, for example, frameworks for having straight-talking conversations.  But the gold was in the ways that they built relationships and a deeper sense of connection simply by being together, and especially in breakout rooms.  Oh, and building into the programme dedicated time for them to have meaningful conversations with their CEO. 

Action learning sets on a women's leadership programme that went deep - the depth initiated by open and vulnerable check-ins where people took risks to speak truthfully ('how are you really ...?)  and it paid off.  As ever the value of peer support and the simple act of creating a space where people can be unedited.  Or at least, a little less edited. 


(pic: a mask I made at the hospice art group)
 

If you enjoy this Newsletter, please do consider spreading the word and sharing it with others who might appreciate it.  And do let me have any feedback or reactions -  I love hearing from you.  You know where I am on LinkedIn, or connect via Email. Or call me of course. 

Helena x

helena@helenaclayton.co.uk
07771 358 881

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