What do coaching and the taste of chocolate have in common?

This blog aims to explore a statement I often find myself making: ‘I am interested in the overlaps between coaching and consciousness.’

You might be thinking, ‘well we are all conscious and we can all be coached there doesn't seem to be an overlap? These are 2 unrelated fields?’

Well, it depends on how you define consciousness and how you define Coaching. 

I propose consciousness is something that is created within and between relationships. These can be relationships on a human scale, a small biological scale or a huge cosmic, or even fundamental scale, but the underlying principle is that consciousness is created between all of these different relationships taking place. They become so networked and coherent that we become aware of them, as that awareness and network turns inward.

To give an example, the taste of chocolate isn't created by the chocolate or by the taster.  It is created in the relationship between the two. 

Taste does not exist inside the chocolate. It only exists relationally between the chemical composition of the chocolate and the receptors and neurons in the taster.  

Chocolate doesn't taste of anything without a taster.  You could leave it in an empty room and there would never be taste. 

Taste is an emergent property of the relationship between the chocolate’s chemistry and a taster's taste buds.

Consciousness relates to coaching because coaching is also something that is created between a coach and a coachee. This relationship is instrumental to coaching and individual’s success. It is a space for people to think really, really deeply. To be more aware than they might be in their busy everyday lives, and therefore to be more conscious. As a coach, it is our role to facilitate these higher levels of awareness and consciousness, to elevate people's ability to truly realise themselves.

On a deeper, wider scale, consciousness is a property of the relationships between everything we sense and the sources of that sense. 

Between light being created, bouncing off an object and entering our eye, to create a sight.  Sight needs the light, the object and the eye to exist. Without any one element sight does not exist as a process or experienced as qualia.  

‘If a tree falls in a wood and no one hears it, it doesn't make a sound!’

The sound is created in consciousness between tree falling and the sound/ pressure waves vibrating in our ear and being connected with our neurons.  Without the listener hearing it, the sound will never exist.  The tree will fall, yes, the airwaves will vibrate but it will go undetected and unexperienced. 

‘If no one sees it, it also doesn't make a sight’ The sound and the sight are experienced as qualia, the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions arising from these relationships.

This relates to the hard problem of consciousness too.. materialist science can measure the chemistry of chocolate in the same way it can measure the neurons of the taster’s brain, but it cannot measure qualia and consciousness because experience is not a physical object; it is a relational resonance. Consciousness isn't something you can isolate; it is the space between things.

In the same way coaching requires the coach and coachee and is found between the two, and between many other relationships within the experience.  

Continuing the chocolate metaphor, The chocolate might represent the room or environment where coaching occurs, the structure of the coaching, or the questions that are asked by the coach.  

They all have potential but require a coachee for coaching to emerge. A coachee with biology, with a state of mind and the receptors to hear the questions and sense the coach and then express their views and thoughts. 

So what emerges between the two?  

Not just coaching but Consciousness itself!  Awareness of oneself, observation and awareness of the thinker (of you!).  

You can experience a higher level of consciousness by interacting with a coach who creates the thinking time, space and structure for awareness and transformation to emerge.  

This is where clarity can emerge from coaching. The making sense of ambiguity, the ‘Aha!’ moments where a coachee realises what they need to do. They can feel more coherent, more confident to make decisions and more aware of others to lead effectively.  

So what makes it more or less effective?  Coaching often focuses on rearranging the furniture (goals, habits and routines) in the room (your life), which can be very effective. Coherence Coaching builds on this to expand the room itself, opening the doors to let more in and options to a more holistic and deeper transformational change can take place. 

Consciousness isn't just a mystical concept but an actual, physical state of awareness and perception that can be elevated and tuned during coaching.

Interested?   

The Dreaming Newborn: Are We Born Remembering?

​I am writing this with a brand new life resting on my chest.

​He is 3 weeks old. As I sit here having a skin-to-skin cuddle, feeling the rhythm of his breathing against my own, it has been really interesting just observing him.

​Watching these incredible brand new babies and how they interact with the world, they seem far, far more aware and conscious than we take for granted or we assume.

​The first thing I noticed particularly was the dreaming.

He was dreaming vividly. It was like he was experiencing something real, not just from his world of the last 3 weeks, but something far deeper. He was responding and reacting to things more when he was asleep than when he was awake.

​It begs the question: Where is that coming from?

​Babies dream! But about what? Their eyes move, their breathing changes, they make noises. If he has no experience of this world yet, no memories of traffic or trees or faces, what raw material is he thinking about / experiencing?

He sometimes laughs, something he hasn't done whilst awake yet.  How can this be?  Are his noises and movements the first steps towards adult verbal speech and mobility? Have you ever heard someone making noises in their sleep or experienced them yourself?  I have woken up shouting as I was dreaming but as I woke realised my shouts in the dream were grunts or mumbles in the ‘real’ world. 

​Curious, I asked his brother, my three year old what he dreams about. He looked at me and simply said: "The sun!"

​It struck me how elemental that is. He isn't dreaming of cartoons or toys; he is dreaming of the source of life itself. And it made me look back at my baby. From a consciousness perspective, he is experiencing a dream in the same way we do, but based on no memory.

• ​Ask yourself: If you stripped away all the noise of your daily life, would your consciousness be as clear and elemental as something like "the sun"?  

​The Old Soul

This boy seems like an old soul. He seems to have a depth, a kind of wisdom and understanding to him.

​I don't know if it’s just me, but he just seems to have that sense that he knows more than he’s letting on.

​When he looks at me, he doesn't look at a stranger. He looks at me like he is remembering who I am. And strangely, I feel like I am remembering him, too. It feels like a reunion.

People talk of remembering, when they are being creative and also speak of receiving ‘downloads’ when they realise something or bring something new or creative, that really works or makes a difference.  

​Shaped by the Environment

Kids are an amazing reminder. You can watch them experience their environment and be shaped by their environment, constantly blossoming and growing as part of the experiences they have day in, day out.

​It really is telling that they are more shaped by the environment than you think. And in turn, you are more shaped by your surroundings and your interactions than you think.

​You are a product of all of that happening.

• ​If your environment is chaotic, your internal world becomes chaotic.

• ​If your environment is coherent, you blossom.

​The Flow of Feelings (Qualia)

Watching him has made me realise that consciousness is a product of that environment, too. All those connections and interactions taking place insight and outside your body create awareness.  But does it start with thinking or does it start with feeling?

​It is about the flow of the feelings. The qualia.

​Feelings are unique to you. They have a quality that is yours alone and no one will ever know your experience or how you feel. Right now, hormones are flooding my baby’s tiny system, oxytocin, warmth, safety influencing his feelings.

​Does it all start there?

Consciousness isn't a logic engine and we are not machines. Your sense of self, your ‘I’ is created by the levels of coherence in and around you on many many levels.

​It is the putting together of all of those connections into one. That is what creates consciousness; that is what creates awareness. It is that highly aware state, that high level of coherence between all of the experiences that are happening for you that makes consciousness appear.

​It’s almost as if it appears as a result in between all of those connections happening. The environment moves you, the biology responds, and the feeling emerges.

He is absorbing everything. He is connecting on many, many different levels. And perhaps that is what he is dreaming about not images, but the pure, unique flow of feelings.

​Welcome to the world, my boy. Thank you for the reminder.

The dreaming newborn, asleep on his Dad’s chest.