Possibilities Newsletter | April 2025

"Let's face the music and dance" -Irving Berlin

When Derek carried the reconditioned cast iron Victorian bath upstairs that Tuesday morning in May of ‘91, he did it alone and whistling. He didn't carry the bath so much as wear it. Watching him hoist it onto his shoulders was like witnessing the birth of a Middle Aged Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Derek was my plumber. Over tea (2 sugars) and sometimes lunch (cheese, pickle and Hovis sandwiches, always), he’d tell me the latest from his tap dancing class and about the West End shows he and Debbie, his wife, were planning to see together.

As a kid, Derek had been too embarrassed to try dancing, as much as he’d wanted to. After divorce from his first wife, he’d plucked up the courage to ‘have a go’: and met Debbie at a dance class. He told me, smiling, that the years since had been ‘the happiest years of my life’.

Years later, when I saw “Billy Elliot”, I thought of Derek. Who'd have thought a plumber would've found his joy in tap-dancing (boom-boom)?

What does it take to be that contented with life?

And if you think it's a strange time to be writing about joy and contentment, hear me out. Finding ways to be joyful and fulfilled are more important than ever when things are as uncertain as they are right now. The saying "hurt people hurt people" describes how unhealed victims become perpetrators. It underlines the importance of finding ways to fulfilment, joy and healing when we've been shaken up and broken down by Life- like Derek was through his divorce-rather than becoming prisoners of our circumstances and taking our resentment out on the world. And if we're already trying to 'be part of the solution', we may need to 'plug ourselves into the grid' of enjoyment to re-energise and avoid burnout.

Experts define true 'happiness' not as a fleeting emotion but as living in a state of contentment. Professor, writer and social scientist Arthur Brooks summarises the art and science of happiness as focus on the Four F’s: faith, family, friends and fulfilling work. Gretchen Rubin, famed for her books on happiness and the Happier podcast, agrees that relationships are where we’re most likely to find happiness in the external world but her work focuses more on the inner conditions that lead to happiness: opportunities to feel positive emotions, eliminating sources of negative emotions, aligning our life with what we think is ‘right’ according to our values; and finding experiences of growth, learning, and teaching.

Both Brooks and Rubin, agree that self-knowledge is necessary but not sufficient: we need to ACT upon what we discover.

In coaching we find a big barrier to making progress on a meaningful project is our perception of current "success"" we fear rocking the boat. But when the boat is rocked for us and we can't continue with Business As Usual, we're more open to the still small voice within and reorienting ourselves towards the more fulfilling life that is waiting for us.

"If it makes you happy... then why the hell are you so sad?" - Sheryl Crow

The inner voice we're most used to listening to is the voice of fear. Fear seems to stir our psychic dust into the shape of a personal security manager, directing our every move to keep us 'safe'. Getting past that big guy can be tough: it's hard to give fear the slip. The best strategy is to face it and negotiate for what we want: but for that, we need to know what's really important to us. We need to be listening to the quieter, inner voice beckoning us from the other side of fear. That voice is something we're not so used to listening for.

A client once turned down a great job offer because "it's not what my soul wants". In 19 years of executive coaching, the times ‘soul’ has been mentioned so directly could be counted on one hand. We speak of making up our 'minds'. Occasionally about following our 'hearts' or our 'gut'. Yet in a time when many are feeling uncertain, fearful and disempowered: what might it mean to rediscover our 'souls'?

In modern multi-cultural societies we often avoid words with religious connotations, maybe for fear of giving offence. Or sounding too New Age-y and 'woo woo'.

But what if we imagine the 'soul' as our capacity to orient towards what is most alive and life-giving for us? We don't need to get metaphysical about it: - we can just imagine 'soul' as the tendency within us towards wanting a life 'well-lived'.

If we think of a soul as that part of us which understands innately what happiness experts, positive psychologists, philosophers and wisdom traditions have long told us about how to live fulfilling lives, would we be inclined to do more 'soul-searching'?

What if we knew that moving forward with confidence and purpose was less about desperately looking for maps at every crossroad, and more about tuning in to and following our own GPS?

"What's it all about, Alfie, Is it just for the moment we live?" - Burt Bacharach

generated by midjourney

Sometimes the consequence of not listening to our deeper self is made obvious in a dramatic way. That modern-day sprite, the YouTube algorithm, stole my attention the other day and went bounding off with it into a channel that was all about the ultimate 'wake up call', the Near Death Experience, or NDE.

If you’ve not been pulled down this rabbit hole, I learnt that people who’ve had them frequently report similar things: out-of-body experiences, a tunnel of light, encounters with loving beings or loved ones, feelings of peace and transcendence: so far, so good.

But the one that got me is what's known as the Life Review. A lady called Debbie recounted how, during a brief period of being clinically dead on the operating table after a terrible bike accident, she dreamt/ hallucinated/ had a number of experiences that were typical of an NDE. In her 'Life Review', she was taken back to experiences where she'd hurt people- and in the reliving, she got to feel exactly what the people she'd hurt had felt at the time.

Whoa.

The ex-TV producer in me immediately thought what a great Black Mirror/Twilight Zone/Tales of the Unexpected twist that is. If you were God trying to design Hell, without all the fire and brimstone, wouldn't that be a great way to do it? Hell is: experiencing for yourself the hurts that you've caused to others. Every. Last. One.

The coach in me thought about the power of the "oh sh*t moment".

Some coaches chase the “aha moment”, those moments of pleasurable insight client's have that illuminate possibilities. Yet I've long been a fan of the darker sister of the "aha moment", the "oh sh*t moment". The awful moment of meeting painful reality just as it is. For those of us oriented towards supporting our client's growth, these are deep turning points that can be the dark before the dawn.

It feels like we are having a collective "oh sh*t moment" right now. And all around I see signs of people examining their own beliefs, digging deeper to make sense and find meaning, and then slowly turning towards life in a process that finds themselves newly determined to play their part.

Yes there is the destruction, chaos and cruelty of winter, but in this season of renewal celebrated across many cultures and traditions, we can also celebrate the cycle of Life beginning again. How energy and spirits rise from the ground upwards, the light grows stronger and we all find each other again and move forward to meet the moment. Wishing you all the blessings of Spring.

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou