It’s now some time since International Women’s Day, which is certainly not the only day for raising awareness and recognising that there is much still to be done to address the 3 E’s I will talk about in this post:
Equality – being equal in status, rights, or opportunities
Equity – allocating the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome
Enterprise – a project or undertaking, in this case starting or growing businesses which has significant economic potential if equality and equity are addressed effectively.
You may be wondering why I’m writing about this in my blog which usually covers topics such as coaching, development, and mindfulness. Well, read on…
These compelling (and some shocking) statistics help to demonstrate how important and urgent this is:
It will now be 132 years until gender equality will be achieved – up from 99.5 years in 2021 (World Economic Forum)
Only 23% of Scotland’s employer-businesses are women owned (Small Business Scotland Survey 2021)
Up to £250 billion of new value could be added to the UK economy if women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as UK men (Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship 2019)
I am encouraged to some degree by the current drive for action and change, as well as feeling frustrated, especially as things slipped back in many areas due to the pandemic.
Being part of it
Women’s Enterprise Scotland (WES) has been at the forefront of the drive to close the gender gap in enterprise participation for 11 years. Their mission is to unlock the missing billions of economic potential caused by systemic barriers to entrepreneurship experienced by women. WES provides gender-informed research, a platform for political advocacy and policy engagement, as well as practical support to empower women to pursue entrepreneurship. There is significant potential to provide (for example) access to funding, and to address equity – allocating the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.
I am proud to be a WES Ambassador – a role model for women and girls to encourage and inspire them to start and grow their businesses. So far this year I have had opportunities including speaking to Business Studies students at Heriot Watt, training days with WES, and going through media training as part of STV’s Expert Voices. As Ambassadors we proactively seek out opportunities to raise awareness, and are also regularly invited to take part in and take part in research and panels with a variety of organisations, sessions with the Scottish Government, as well as developing our own knowledge in areas like diversity and inclusion, gender bias, and commercial awareness. As a long-term carer, I also see benefit in spreading the message that ‘if I can grow a successful business, you can too’.
Who inspires me?
I’m a mum to two grown-up kids, and they are my greatest inspiration for being a WES Ambassador. I want to see more significant change in their lifetime. I believe the next generation is living in a unique time where there are many ways to pursue what they love and are most passionate about, with greater opportunities to build their own business or create a portfolio of work (for example a part-time job and a part-time business), as well as social enterprises to directly address many of the challenges we see in the world today. With this, I believe, will come significant opportunities for enterprise participation.
I believe we owe it to them to up-the-ante on creating a more equal and equitable world, and to encourage them to reach their economic potential.
My commitment in my work
As a coach, author, speaker, and trainer, I am passionate about supporting people to dig deep and find clarity, confidence, and unlock their full potential. Most of my clients are women, and it’s incredible to see them light up when they realise what freedom and choice they actually have, and that it’s possible to make changes to live a life which is aligned with who they are and how they want to be in the world. My heart beats a little bit faster every time when they emerge with confidence, conviction, and self-leadership. And they usually have a big beaming smile on their face too!
A lot of my clients are leaders, entrepreneurs, coaches, and therapists – or aspiring to be – and I am committed to continue supporting them so that the ripple effect of their work directly contributes to the critical positive change which I have described here. I’m also excited to be working with several women who are embarking on a later stage of their career, doing it their way and bringing their valuable experience and passion to create a world which I would be proud to hand over to the next generation. And it counts just as much today – these changes are long overdue.
What is your commitment? How are you contributing to a more equal and equitable world?
I began this year with great gusto, buzzing with a sense of adventure and with all sorts of things planned.
January lived up to all my expectations with an uplifting workshop on ‘Planting Seeds’ with a group of wonderful women who I’m also fortunate to call friends. We talked about setting intentions, set them down on paper in a variety of creative ways, and coached and encouraged each other to bring it to life.
I like to join in with these things too, when we are working in a small group, so I drew a big globe and plotted on the map where I was planning to go this year, with playful illustrations of what I would do when I got there. First up was India at the end of January, which was a fantastic experience once again and I wrote about it in my blog about Feeling at home wherever you are.
And then I caught another virus straight after I got home and was stopped in my tracks again. Little did I know that I would still have chronic fatigue months later. I haven’t even been able to write, as I can’t seem to find the words.
It can be hard to stay connected and motivated when my mind and body is running on empty, and I have often felt frustrated at ‘sitting around doing nothing’.
And yet, that’s not really true. It’s a story I’ve been telling myself at times, being naturally fed up as it’s been 3 years now, on and off, since I first became ill. When I read this quote from Mozart recently, I felt a warmth spreading from my core…
“The music is not in the notes, but the silence in between.” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Inwardly I said a big “YES” and breathed a sigh of relief.
In the time that it has been necessary to rest and apparently ‘do very little’ I have also been doing profound inner work, as I feel a deeper layer of myself has begun to emerge. Despite not being at my best at times (nowhere near it!), I hold a solid belief that this is part of my path which will fundamentally influence the way I live and the type of work I do in future. And that is important to take my time over.
Here are some examples of what’s been happening in the ‘silence in between’…
Personal Reflection
I have taken time to notice how I think, and what patterns and words I use relating to my health, becoming aware of what helps and what holds me back, consciously accepting and letting go of how I wish things were. For example I have been very aware of my tendency to focus on others over my self, and my habit of finding a silver lining in everything, which I now understand can be detrimental over the long term. I have invested in coaching and holistic therapies which have been a lifeline when I have felt adrift at times. I have had lots of lovely messages and offers of support from friends too, but I have just not been well enough to make plans, far less meeting up.
Learning how the mind, body, and nervous system works
Studying the science has greatly helped me to understand why I have been so unwell and not hold blame or shame, or feeling I ‘should’ be better by now. I have also read incredibly insightful books including ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Bessel Van der Kolk and ‘No Bad Parts’ by Richard Schwartz on the fascinating topic of Internal Family Systems (IFS). I have done some deep work to embrace difficult emotions and welcomed aspects of myself which have long been buried or ‘exiled’ as Schwartz calls it.
Modelling how other people have recovered
There are accounts of people who have recovered fully from chronic fatigue and post-viral symptoms, highlighting how they think, and what they do to make progress. I am taking small steps forward from what I have learned, and although it will take time, I am feeling a renewed sense of hope.
Seeing clients again
I have loved opening up my diary to see clients, just a few at a time and I am very careful about giving the experience and quality of attention they have come to expect, as well as managing my health and energy levels.
Opportunities for learning
As well as being one of the most challenging periods in my life, this has been (and still is) an opportunity to re-evaluate and open up to a new level of awareness. I have enjoyed getting to know myself in my 50th year, and although it has not been at all what I expected it has been so enriching and enlightening.
So, there you go… I seem to have gone from being stuck for words to pouring out several hundred of them in one go! It feels good to connect in this way again, although now I am ready for a long rest!
I will be opening up for another couple of one-to-one clients in August, either for Executive Coaching or Personal Development coaching, so please feel free to book a discovery call if you think you’d like to snap up one of the slots.
In the meantime, I am wondering what this blog has opened up for you? Are you curious about your own development and the ‘silence in between’?
Au revoir for now, and I hope it won’t be too long til I am back posting again!
I stopped in my tracks as I reached the top step of the open-air restaurant.
I was captivated by the view of the warm terracotta roof tiles and palm trees framing the pale blue sky and the vast Arabian Sea, where fishermen worked for hours every day to bring in their catch.
We had just finished yoga on the beach at sunrise (Cherai Beach in Kerala, India), and I was feeling invigorated by the grace and flow from moving my body , the sounds within and around me as we chanted, and how present I felt in my body and mind. My heart was also pumping from the ride home on the bikes which Carolyn and I hired to get us back and forth from yoga.
A-ha moments
This was how we started each day on the 8-day NLP Intensive run by Sue Knight and Ramesh Prasad, and I found that I had many a-ha moments outside the training room as well as within it.
I’ve found it fascinating how moving, stretching, and focusing on my body in this way reinforced and enhanced the changes in my mind, and how at home I felt from the moment I arrived.
There was a moment last time when I squeezed a juicy piece of lemon into my tea, and I later anchored* that moment. Right then, I realised that I can feel at home wherever I am. And I smiled and re-connected with that when I had my first cup of tea this time in the garden at Blue Waters hotel, where we had the course.
If you’ve ever read The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho, you’ll be familiar with the concept of seeking and travelling a long way to then discover that what you were looking for was right under your nose! It was a bit like that, AND I was glad I had such an adventure far away from home to discover it (and re-discover it this time).
Stretching my comfort zone
‘Comfort’ was a theme that came up quite a bit before and during this programme, in how I acted and how I spoke about my learning outcomes. Sue challenged me on it – and I’m glad she did – because it had become a blind spot for me in various aspects of life. Perhaps (at least partly) because of living in limbo with the pandemic, and especially having long-covid on-and-off for over two years, I found ways to just accept things as they were at the time (settle, maybe?).
It feels important to challenge and update my beliefs around my health, as well as what I’m capable of as a professional. I have become a little too comfortable with my natural style which is soft and gentle. It does work well and my clients find they can go deep with exploring and understanding themselves… However, I can flex my coaching muscles and benefit clients by being more provocative and challenging, at times!
I believe that where there is discomfort, there is learning, and I have felt the benefit through this training programme, once again.
“I am STRONG”
One of the a-ha moments was when I noticed a tangible, visceral shift from believing “I am resilient” to “I am STRONG”. This feels so different for me, because resilience implies that there are things to be resilient against. Being strong is about a way of being in the world, from the inside-out, and is not dependent on a set of external conditions. It’s about getting myself – and any stories I might be telling myself – out of the way.
This has been a revelation for me, and I am now exploring what that means in my life as it is now. And the more I pay attention to it and say it to myself, the stronger I feel.
That’s the beauty of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming): it’s about studying subjective experience, learning and doing ‘what works’… and sustaining it, too. Through almost 100 days of training (so far!) I have gained a treasure trove of skills and techniques.
And, most of all, I have found a way home to myself.
“Wherever you go, there you are.” Jon Kabat-Zinn
*Anchoring is a technique where we can bring about a desired state (or way of being) by choice, for example calmness, playfulness, or confidence, by choosing and activating a signal to ‘switch it on’. It really works!
Our regular driver Baiju who patiently drove us all over the place
Working with metaphors has been life-changing for me, and for many people I have worked with.
A metaphor is a way of expressing something that conveys a variety of meaningful attributes, in the form of something else.
You might hear people say things like…
“It’s as if I’m on a treadmill and I can’t keep up”
“I went for a walk to blow away the cobwebs”
“You’re a star”
None of these are literal statements – not usually anyway! – but they mean something beyond the surface structure of the words to the person who’s saying them. In other words, what we mean goes deeper than what we say, and a metaphor is a sign that there is more to discover in the unconscious aspects of our experience.
Where it gets really interesting, I find, is when the person is having some kind of embodied experience in the form of a metaphor, for example…
“I can see red mist, I’m so angry”
“There’s a tightness in my throat when I talk about it”
“I just know. I can feel it in my gut… heavy like a stone”
“I can feel a buzz of positive energy”
Or it could be pointing emphatically to a particular point in the space around them, a or sound (like ‘whoosh’ or ‘bang’).
Again, none of these are literal but there is clearly some deeper meaning, and other insights to be found if we have a chance to explore.
Understanding your metaphors can create profound shifts, often bringing about new metaphors which change the whole outlook.
In the photo on this post, I show an example of a metaphor I held at the start of my transformational journey with #NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) – a scraggy old onion with lots of layers to peel back and discover. Through NLP tools and techniques, this then transformed into a beautiful lotus flower, with the petals gracefully unfolding with ease, representing the thinking and beliefs I now hold about how I learn and develop at my best.
And once you begin to understand metaphors you begin to develop a landscape of understanding, how things connect and relate to each other, and find solutions and choices you never even knew existed!
You can probably tell I’m passionate about this… I could go on for hours, but I won’t!
As I sit looking out over the silvery shimmer of the Arabian sea, I feel the warm, golden sun on my face. It turns to a deep, rich red as it slowly sinks into the tropical haze on the horizon.
It’s been a day of discovery and learning, feeling unsettled with new realisations coming to the surface and also knowing and trusting that this is right for me at this exact moment. I sense that it’s time to let go of limiting beliefs and embrace all the possibilities of new beginnings.
Sitting here bathed in sunlight, I become aware of the ebb and flow of the waves, noticing they’re louder than before, hypnotic in their rhythm. With each new wave washing in, the one before it fades away and disappears, and yet the wisdom remains.
With each wave I feel lighter, as if the things I’ve been unconsciously carrying are sinking into the ocean and fresh moments are arriving, making perfect sense yet I’m not ‘thinking’ about anything, just being present with what is happening right now.
Hypnotised by the steady rhythm, as each wave bubbles up onto the shore I hear the words ‘begin again’, over and over. There’s a comfort in knowing that I can always start from the present moment in anything I want to achieve and that I have everything I need to be successful.
As the sun disappears completely I come back into awareness, feeling the sand between my toes and taking a cool drink of water. As I set it down I have a strong sense of purpose building within me, feeling ready to take the next steps forward into my full potential, to live my life’s purpose like never before.
I am filled with gratitude for the warm welcome to this beautiful place, for new friendships, love and laughter, learning and experiences that will stay with me forever.
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