There is so much more to mind than the ways it is used in most coaching conversations, so much untapped potential.
Here is an amazing thing your mind can do: it can connect with all other minds.
Now that is amazing! In the coaching context, we could say it’s two minds joining as one mind in service of both lives.
What does this mean in practice?
Most coaching conversations consist of two people looking at an issue from two different perspectives or positions. The one is the perspective of the mind experiencing that issue (the coachee). The other is that of the person who stands outside the issue but who can, through inquiry, grasp the issue and join in dialogue with the other mind to enhance clarity or insight (yes, the coach).
This is the typical coaching approach, and it works very well, but it is not the potential of those two minds.
Our mind has the capacity to unite with other minds, to ‘merge’ so-to-speak into a unified state of oneness. Most coaches are unaware of this state of being, yet in truth you will have had moments where you have experienced it, however briefly.
Those are the times when your session feels like it has taken on a loftier dimension, where something mystical seems to be happening between the you and your client, a transcendental experience that affects both deeply.
Here is the reality: it does not need to be a ‘once in a while experience’. It can be a frequently experienced state of connection and awareness.
What does it take for that to happen?
For two minds to become as one mind, they must both be willing to abandon positionality. In other words, both you and your client are willing to let go of any perspectives you bring to the table, regardless of what that perspective is. No, this is not easy by any means, yet abandonment of positionality is crucial, for it empties the mind, freeing it from thought, and at the same time opens the door to an altered state of mutual discovery.
As the coach, this means you are also willing to abandon your coaching position, the perspective that as a coach you have a certain role to play in engaging your client. If the coach holds to the perspective that his role is to “ask questions that invite discovery” then that position actually inhibits the unity process. How can two minds join as one mind when one of those minds is holding onto a position?
It cannot happen. It must all be relinquished.
To reach that level of connectedness, both you and your client must be willing to abandon positionality of all sorts, and when this has happened your minds are free to move into unity, as they are no longer held in position. Now perspectives open and expand. Now new ways of perceiving become visible. Now loftier perspectives and advanced wisdom can enter in.
How can this be? Because two minds entering into unity are not exclusive to themselves. It’s not just two minds unifying—it’s two minds unifying with Mind. And in the space that has been created, Mind is now able to seed in so much more of what is true and real. More truth, beauty, and goodness can permeate the mind field. Now both begin to see anew, and both become privy to insights and knowledge that may not have been perceivable before. It will flow into the unified field.
This is the potential of mind that you can achieve, if you desire it.
Optimally, there is a willingness on the part of both coach and coachee to create that unified whole, but to achieve that you may need to guide the person to let go of their positionality in order to transcend whatever they are currently perceiving or holding to be true. And this can be difficult for people, as they are vested in their positions.
Yet for those who are ready, you are enabling more than expanded awareness, but a transcended state of being where mind enjoins with Mind to reveal our greatest truths and potentials.