Being the Bamboo – A Story from the 2010 ICF Conference
I am in the Bamboo in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, December 2010
Hi, this is a longer post than usual. If you like, you can just skip to the bottom line, below. However, I did try to make it fun, interesting and worth the read!
As I mentioned in two posts ago, I was in Texas in October for an amazing experience at the International Coach Federation annual conference. Here is another story out of that experience.
Just after the conference ended, I had a conversation with a very forthright and engaging coach, Tsufit, whom I had just met. We discovered we were both from Toronto and both formerly lawyers downtown. She asked me: “Where have you been? How come I haven’t met you?” I was at a loss for words when she asked these questions. My answer looked a bit like this: "Um... I have been raising my children; I have been studying; I have been coaching my clients; I’ve been in the playing in the park around the corner from my house…" After some reflection later, my answer is that, up until recently, I have been “underground” insofar as the wider world is concerned. Please let me explain.
Rewind to the second day of the conference. I attended a session called the Magic of Metaphor, lead by Cynthia Loy Darst, who is a very well-known instructor from Coaches Training Institute (CTI). (When referring to metaphors in coaching, we are ungrammatically accurate and include similes, analogies, comparisons and metaphors). I have been really interested in metaphors for the last few years. (This was prompted by some feedback I received in my coach training: “Be more playful, Milisa”. How could I be more playful? Having trained as a lawyer, I was used to taking myself “quite seriously”. Metaphor is one way that I have found to be playful. Playing with metaphors together is a way to help clients really paint a picture for themselves… as you can see from what I just wrote, we often use metaphors to make a point and they are powerful tools. And fun too.) So, I was at this workshop on metaphors and at one point, Cynthia asked us to write a metaphor that was meaningful to us on a piece of paper and leave it on our chair. We all then went shopping around for metaphors and trying them on for size (yes, another metaphor!). During my shopping expedition, I came upon the word “bamboo”.[1] I stopped and looked more closely. The paper explained that bamboo grows for several years underground before it finally breaks through the ground in large clumps.[2] I thought to myself: “That’s me! I have been growing slowly and steadily underground and I am just about to break through the ground into the light and air above and grow bigger!” Hence my website/blog that sprouted last month. So, clearly, that was an important moment for me.
Two days later as the conference wrapped up at its closing session, I had a further insight about this metaphor. To explain, we must rewind a year to 2009. At the 2009 ICF Conference in Orlando Peter Block[3] was a keynote speaker. He encouraged us to really step up to the plate as coaches and make our best contributions to the world. He said coaching is like scaffolding. As coaches we support our clients as they grow and evolve make change. Such growth and the resulting adventure of the change can create anxiety for people. Coaches help their clients live with the anxiety and move through it to change and growth. (I will blog more about this in the future.)
Now, let’s go back to the ICF conference 2010. As I was sitting there in October, I suddenly remembered what I saw so much of in Hong Kong when I worked there briefly as a lawyer years ago: bamboo. Bamboo was everywhere. It was scaffolding for all the buildings I saw being constructed. It is such a strong and versatile material. Bamboo is touted as a sustainable material, a material for the future (as well as being a material of the past). I experienced a very memorable “aha” moment when I made this connection between me, bamboo and scaffolding and coaching. I want to be the scaffolding for my clients, as they make their new “rooms” and “buildings” for themselves, as they make more room for what is it meaningful to them in their lives.
Here’s the last piece of this story. Another piece of feedback I received in my coach training was to be more courageous. Shortly after I had the insights about the bamboo and scaffolding, at the closing of the 2010 Conference, participants were invited to share an important insight gleaned from the conference in front of everyone else. I thought to myself: “I will regret it if I don’t get up in front of all these people and talk about the bamboo.” So I did. I felt courageous. I felt the fear and did it anyway.[4] And boy, I felt good! I told the story I have just told you and then suggested that I thought others in the audience might want to be bamboo with me! I could feel how that resonated strongly with people.
The bottom line is: I can testify to the power and magic of metaphor because I am living it. Reminding myself about the bamboo on a regular basis gives me energy and direction. I think: “I am like bamboo. I have been making my root system for years and years and now I am coming through the ground. I am strong and very versatile. Thus, I can be strong scaffolding for my clients to help them grow in the ways that they want and need to grow.
“How do metaphors influence you? How could you use metaphors to give you energy and direction, especially when you need energy and direction the most?
Who else wants to be bamboo with me? Who knows what we could scaffold together!
[1] Thank you to Barbara Richards for her bamboo metaphor !
[2] I have tried to verify this assertion, but to no avail so far. At this point, I already love bamboo and the metaphor, so it’s academic. However, if anyone is a bamboo expert, I’d love to hear from you about it.
[3] Peter has very interesting ideas: www.peterblock.com and see for his latest book: http://www.designedlearning.com/books/the-abundant-community.php
[4] Thank you Susan Jeffers, author of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway! http://www.susanjeffers.com/home/bio.cfm
