There is much darkness and fear in the world today with recent events in Paris and Syria. This weekend, I’ve been returning to one of my old favourite authors – Quaker writer and educator Parker Palmer for solace. In particularly, his writings and talks on the subject of Broken Heartedness and Wholeness.   In this work,  describes something he calls ‘The Tragic Gap’ which is the gap  many of us find ourselves in now, between our vision of how we want the world to be or what we know is possible in the world VS the reality of what is.

The tragic gap is the uncomfortable and painful place.  Our tendency is to want to escape from the gap, to flip out of it into either cynicism or hopeless idealism.   Yet being in this gap leads to broken-heartedness which can lead to the heart being broken open (instead of into pieces) and vulnerable – open to receive and to integrate the tension – allowing us eventually able to move forward with more strength and wholeness. We are able to  build our ability to being able to ‘be with’ heartbreak (instead of building walls against it) and we can continue working towards change,towards a vision of what we know the world can be.  As Palmer says, we can stay in the gap  ‘faithfully holding the tension between reality and possibility of being opened to a third way.’  What I hope for clients is that coaching can provide a space to begin to be able to do this.

He explains this more in the video that can be found here: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/07/how-to-deal-with-broken-heartedness/ – it’s a wonderful and hope – filled interview.

LEADERSHIP EMBODIMENT WORKSHOP – I am offering my next leadership embodiment workshop in the spring – with Day One on Friday 26th February, 10 – 5pm.  Participants then have the option of attending Day two either on Friday March 18th or on Friday 1st April.   As many of my clients know, Leadership Embodiment is a powerful approach to building confidence, presence and the ability to get your intention out into the world.  If you’d like to read more and book your place please go here: https://lelondon2016.eventbrite.co.uk

If are asking your organisation to pay for your place through your training budget, I am happy to prepare invoices for employers and other workshop participants have had their places paid by employers.

INDIVIDUAL LIFE AND CAREER COACHING – As many of you know, I coach internationally and I’m loving the range of clients I have from all over the world that I coach through Skype as well as my clients I see two London practice rooms (one near Bank and one in East Dulwich).   Although my main niche is coaching around the ‘baby decision’, I have a growing number of clients seeking coaching on work/life balance and career coaching.  And, since I’ve been coaching for just over eight years, I have a number of clients who are coming back to coaching a second time, sometimes after a period of years when they find themselves facing another challenge in their life.  If you are a former client who would like coaching again, feel free to get in touch!

INTERVIEW ON BBC RADIO TEES – I was interviewed on the radio this week discussing the issue of choice women make to not have children.  If you’d like to know more, I’ve written a little bit about it on my Children or Not blog which also has a link to the morning show interview/panel discussion which will be available till next week.  You can find it here: http://www.childrenornot.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/discussion-on decision-not-to-have.html