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?