Pain and Purpose of the Agile Coach

Last week I signed up to AWA’s 100 Thought Leaders  programme.  The programme starts with some powerful questions to help hone down who we are and what our purpose might be.

One of the questions to explore is ‘what problems we are drawn to solving’.  But how this question is phrased stopped me in my tracks.

What pain have you felt?  

What a question!  Not, what problems have you faced…. But what pain have you felt?  So, why do I feel like this is such a powerful question? 

My life story means that from a young age I was problem solving, I was problem solving the complex world of an alcoholic parent.  I can’t go into this history in too much detail with you, out of respect for my family's privacy - but as many of you probably already know - it was hard.  What it meant for me was:

I was problem solving in a dysfunctional space to be accepted, loved and to survive.

Now I am an Agile Coach.  And I am problem solving. I used to be problem solving in the teams and culture space to be accepted, loved and to survive.  

To use a model from Elkhart Tolle, I carried that pain from childhood in me, unresolved as a ‘pain body’.  But what a burden that carries.   And what a disaster if my problem solving is not accepted or wanted!  On the plus side, it meant so much to me and I was so skilled at reading people and situations that it actually meant I was very good at it!

Much like we pick our relationships in life, I believe that some of us are ‘called’ to particular types of work, to repeat old patterns of behaviour that we learned in childhood. We unconsciously do this in an attempt to replay our historical hurt to the point where we can ‘heal’ our younger selves in the present.

This is known as the trope of the ‘Wounded Healer’.  And it’s often spoken about in a negative light.  There is a suggestion that the revelation of one’s brokenness reveals a fundamental inadequacy to be a healer.

However, I’d like to offer forward a reframing of this perspective from Gabor Maté, physician and writer / speaker on trauma and it’s effects on the body (including illness, addictions, ADD/ ADHD):

“There is nothing wrong with being a wounded healer.  All healers are wounded, whether they know it or not.  That’s why they go into the healing professions.  Not only is there nothing wrong with recognising one’s woundedness, it’s actually essential to do so if you are going to help yourself and if you are going to help others.”

The last 8 years for me have been transformational.  Around 8 years ago I started psychotherapy, then yoga.  

Then I started to add in art to work gently into the wounds I carry, I’ve begun to heal myself.  As I’ve done so, I’ve developed more vulnerability and compassion, and  I can tell much better what is mine, what is past, what is present,  and what belongs to someone else.

Without having given it too much thought, or ever really communicating why I was doing it, I had began to run really intimate gentle art enquiry spaces for coaches to tap into their feelings, and to understand a little more about how those feelings might have got there, a small course called ‘Doodling for Feelings’.

I used my love of spirituality, doodling, self-development and creativity to create a powerfully connecting and connected experience that was there to help coaches to meet themselves exactly where they are.  

So there it was.  I was already finding my purpose, by having felt and tended to my own pain.  

My purpose is to find new ways of helping coaches and scrum masters like me meet themselves in ways that are safe, intimate and connected.