Just had an amazing conversation with a lady that has shown amazing courage in very difficult circumstances. The thing that most surprised me was that despite her acts of courage, resilience, and bravery she still failed to recognise these qualities in herself. And this is not just an isolated case, I see it time and time again. So why are we such strangers to ourselves? Asking this question reminded me of a lovely Sioux Indian Creation Myth.
The Creator gathered all of Creation and said, “I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realisation that they create their own reality.”
The eagle said, “Give it to me, I will take it to the moon.” The Creator said, “No. One day they will go there and find it.”
The salmon said, “I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean.” “No. They will go there too.”
The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.” The Creator said, “They will cut into the skin of the Earth and find it even there.”
Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said, “Put it inside of them,” And the Creator said, “It is done.”
This Sioux Indian Creation Myth so resonates with me because it is what I see all too often in my coaching practice. So how can we lift the veil from our eyes to our own strengths and resources? In the tradition of solution-focused (SF) coaching, ‘questions are the answer’. The question-centric nature of SF forces you to mine deep within yourself to find the answers that you, as a unique being, have successfully used in navigating your life up until now.
Early on within an SF session one of the areas that we as SF coaches do is to help the client recognise their own resources and their ‘hero moments. These ‘hero moments’ are important because they are rich with solutions and can form a guide for the clients in how they can best move towards a preferred future. It must also be said that those ‘hero moments’ can also be easily missed because they can at first appear to be small and insignificant. But what might at first appear small and insignificant when explored in detail can provide the client significant insight. We must always be mindful that ‘small things can lead to big changes’.
So what have been your ‘hero moments’? Some of the questions I often ask when exploring a client’s resources include;
What are your superpowers?
What are your strengths?
What would friends and family say are your best qualities?
What moments of your past are you most proud about? And what does that say about you?
I hope you have fun with these questions and keep peeling the onion of the self.