Final Coaching Reflection

Final Coaching Reflection

In this final coaching call with Andrew we talked mostly about his culminating project and how it fits in to his overall work.   While Andrew felt that some of the vocabulary would be lost to him overtime, the ideas would stay.  When I asked Andrew about the workshop he conducted, he explained to me that it went very well.  Though it had it’s limitations, mainly since it was only a 2 hour session, he found ways to navigate through it.  Instead of explaining every little detail to his group, he acquainted them with key elements that they could understand, such as conversation flow.  I thought this was very smart move on Andrew’s part, it ensured that he did not lose his audience.  Surely he couldn’t expect them to understand weeks worth of theory in a short 2 hour workshop.

Moving forward Andrew seemed to have a good perspective on how this theory would fit into his life. From what he told me I could tell that he would carry a sense of enlightened awareness as a result of the class.  However he also expressed to me how the theory could be limiting of one chose to treat it as gospel.  This is an important point.  I explained to Andrew, just like a philosopher, teacher or musician, one must take elements of many styles and integrate them into a style that is their own.  This is how we establish a true sense of self.  

Final Coachee Reflection

Final Coachee Reflection

The mood in this week’s coaching call with Amy was a bit somber for the fact that we would not be meeting any longer.  We both agreed that the coaching portion of the class, where we got converse and discuss our ideas, was one of the strongest parts of class.  Through coaching calls with Amy over the semester I really got to know her and trust her advice on whatever it may be that I was sharing with her.

I expressed to Amy that one way that I felt that the class has changed me, is in how I have become more aware of my thoughts and from where they originate.  I am not sure that I have become “better” at conversing, but I am certainly much more apt to understand where things went wrong in a scenario where a communication breakdown occurred.  I am better able to follow the path that led to the breakdown and recognize, more often than not, that the problem was due to a lack of understanding at the onset of the relationship or discussion.  

  I also explained to Amy how I was able to synthesis a lot of the information we have learned in class when writing the paper.  First there is accumulating the knowledge, and then there is processing it in your mind.  The final stage is actualizing the information which I believe was done in our culminating paper.  A key point that I was able to derive from writing my paper, is that Sharmer’s theory of fields of dialogue is the same concept as a lot of philosophy that deals with cycles such as seasons.  It is an interesting idea that we must go through stages where our actions are incorrect in order to come to the correct way of being.  Amy commented how this is often called building a foundation and I knew exactly what she meant.   What this class has allowed us to do is not recognize the goal of dialogue, for this we had already known, but understand how we can arrive there.  I know for me this path was unknown and somewhat mystical.