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A weekly interview podcast hosted by Melissa Hague features Courageous Coaches who explore the grit and bones of what it takes to be truly courageous. Whether you're a coach, consultant, or a leader, join us each week to explore what it really takes to be transformational in your coaching practice, your business, and your life.
So welcome, welcome everybody to the Courageous Coach podcast.
um And I'm delighted to welcome back my regular guest and dear friend, Donna Ward-Higgs to
join me today.
It's so lovely to um be with you again and to know that we're gonna have another
conversation that we happen to be recording.
So um just for the benefit of the audience, Donna and I were just talking about this
session and kind of
what we want it to be.
And we kind of came out with, well, let's just wing it, which is always a bit of a risk.
But the reason for that is I am about 48 hours post uh returning from a week with Susan
David doing my emotional agility certification.
And there were lots of learnings, lots of events, lots of emotional agility happening in
amongst that learning.
um And I thought it would be really interesting to maybe just have a bit of a reflective
conversation with Donna around emotional agility, the program, what I learned, what came
up for me, how I used my grounded confidence and all of those things.
um And kind of sharing a bit of that with Donna and therefore all of you people who,
lovely people who are listening.
So yeah, there's a health warning attached here, which is that we are completely going to
wing it and see what comes out.
And who knows?
There may be some, I suspect there'll be some surprises for me too in what comes out in my
reflections with alongside Donna.
So yeah, all right.
So that's the plan.
That's our very loose plan.
Yeah, that's the half formed plan.
We're going to kid ourselves we've got a plan.
Okay, all right.
So.
Where I'm going to start then is a of a question for you, Donna, and see where this first
question takes us.
So when you kind of hear that phrase, emotional agility, what does it mean for you in the
context of being a coach?
lovely opening question.
Thank you for having me back again.
Emotional agility.
I love that phrase.
It's a recognition that emotion is energy in motion.
Right?
I saw that in a post a little while back and it really resonated with me.
And so this idea of having to keep up with
those emotions, being able to honor their arrival, recognize their impact, work with their
intention in terms of how we operate out in the world, primarily for ourselves, because
that's the only person that we have any control over.
But also noticing that emotions can be generated in
those moments of connection and interaction and staying alongside yourself.
Whatever shows up.
in terms of those emotions, that data.
How does that land in terms of your understanding?
Because you've gone and done the program.
Yeah.
So yeah, so I think I mean, there's some really lovely things in there.
You reminded me of a one of Susan's many fabulous quotes, you know, that the emotions are
data, not directives.
And I think that that is such a important thing when we're when we're talking about
emotional agility, because we don't have to pay attention and follow and do every emotion
and thought that comes into our heads, right?
And so what I find really fascinating is the idea that they are just data.
And when I see them like that, I kind of think, well, that's interesting because that
immediately piques my curiosity.
Well, okay, so what's this data about then?
What's it telling me?
What's it showing me?
And what choices do I want to make?
um in this moment as I experience this emotion.
And I think for me, that's the where the kind of the word agility comes from.
And so we talked a lot in the program about the difference between emotional rigidity and
emotional agility.
And I think the rigidity, there's lots to that.
But for me, that's often about holding really tightly.
to the emotion that I feel, right?
And seeing that as truth, it's absolute truth.
So it's a directive, essentially.
And then also, I think there's something around when we're rigid with our emotions, we
tend to see them as all of us rather than part of us.
And so this idea of, you know, it's patterns, not people, it's part of us, not all of us,
allows us to release our grip on our emotions and therefore become more agile with them,
right?
And so that's kind of, I mean, that's not the definition of emotional agility, but that's
how I kind of am making sense of it in my head, I guess.
What I'm noticing as you're talking is that the thing that strikes me most, yes, all of
those things that we've talked about in terms of using that data, working with it, not
against it, not holding it too tightly.
I think one of the most important things in having this language to be able to articulate
how our emotions impact us and impact the way that we show up in the world.
is that first disruption, that first recognition, that first separation from this
emotional event has happened, but there are choices within that.
I can definitely relate to those times where emotions are like a tidal wave and the
emotion surges up and all of a sudden that is the only thing coloring my perspective.
And so all the good stuff comes half after, but if you can't have that first disruption,
that first notice moment.
actually none of the other stuff can follow.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So we talked about the first piece of the puzzle, suppose, or the first, no, not piece of
the puzzle, the first chain in the chain reaction, if you like, is being hooked.
And I really love that idea because it ties so closely with the courage building work
because it's all about making up story, telling ourselves stories.
And those stories are
learned and ingrained and, you know, have been built often on years and years of
experience.
And it's the recognition that we are hooked.
And then making a choice about how do I want to write the rest of this story?
Because I have that choice, rather than I'm hooked.
And now I'm just going to play out the same old story that I play out every time this
happens to me, right.
And you're right, because if you can't recognize when you're hooked, everything that you
do after that with emotional agility, it doesn't matter, right?
It can't be done almost because you're hooked, right?
We see this in the coaching space, right?
How often have you had a client sat in front of you that believes black and white, all or
nothing, it just is the way it is.
They feel the way they do and there is nothing to be done about it.
Hmm, yeah, absolutely.
So how do you work in the magic of that space and what's changed since spending time with
Susan?
So I think one of the things that really struck me about last week, because it was such an
interesting experience because um I mean, you've been on certification programs as well.
you know, kind of know what you rock up.
They kind of give you the syllabus or the curriculum.
You you go through it step by step.
And ultimately, your view is that you will um
deliver that thing, whatever it is, to your clients or to other people in some way, right
through your work.
And almost immediately, on day one, I kind of realized, so this, I'm not going to be sat
in a room, just receiving the curriculum, um and to make sure that I'm good enough to
deliver it to other people, I'm going to sit in the room and do the work.
And she talked a lot.
There's a beautiful workbook, you know, that came with the program.
We all got very excited about the workbook.
And she was very clear, you know, that's the workbook is not the work.
It looks glorious and it's got loads of stuff in it.
And to my theorist brain, I'm happy days where I've got a great workbook, but that's not
the work.
And so last week was really about doing the work.
And
And we always say, don't mean to do the work with others, you have to do the work
yourself.
It's exactly that kind of principle.
And so last week really was an exercise in recognizing when I was being hooked so that I
could make different choices.
And it was really hard because, I mean, I would like to say that I'm pretty good now.
I'm fairly self-aware.
I know what my stories are.
I'm pretty good at recognizing when I'm hooked.
But this was a week of being completely in the unknown for me, complete lack of certainty.
There was a loose agenda.
We didn't talk about objectives.
So some structure, of course there was structure, but not regimented structure.
In a place that I'd never been to before,
in a country, not in the UK where I live, so I'd had to travel a long distance to get
there.
In a group of around 50 learners with a support team, if you like, of maybe around 10.
So you can imagine a lot of people.
And uh my story is that I'm not good in big groups.
Yeah.
It's a story I've carried forever, really, for as long as I can remember.
And so I knew that was gonna be a challenge, right?
And also, we're going to be in the work of looking inward, looking at yourself.
So you put all of those things into the mix.
And whilst I am self-aware, I know my stories, I know when I'm hooked,
You're also human.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm human and everything was magnified, right?
Everything becomes magnified.
And so there was something for me last week about recognizing when I was hooked um and
making choices about what I needed.
And that's the kind of self compassionate piece really, which is a big part of the courage
building, right, but also a big part of emotional agility is being compassionate.
to others and to yourself.
And so I recognized on the second to the first day, oh God, Donna, it was really hard
work.
It was really hard work.
I had jet lag.
I hadn't found my place yet, if you know what I mean.
All felt new and unusual and a bit unsettling, of course.
Yeah.
small.
absolutely.
And you know, there's all these people and they were all and of course his now I want to
say right up front before I say the next bit, this is story.
This is not truth.
This is story.
They're all much louder than I am.
They're much more confident than I am.
They know more about this than I do.
um You know, they've got more experience, they're this, they're that, all of that's going
on, right.
And so what my patterned response
to that emotion.
the emotion coming up, well, lots of emotions coming up for me, anxiety, vulnerability,
fear was probably a bit of fear in there as well.
And there was a little, there's some bit, some shame in there, some not enough messaging,
right?
And so my patterned response to that is hide and run away.
I mean, literally, like, don't go to that session.
You can skip that session, just hang out in your room for a bit.
right?
Or find someone in the room who you think looks friendly and just stick to them like glue.
Don't talk to anyone else all week, right?
All of this stuff.
Anyway, so day two, I went to bed on day one and thought, this is, I just want to go home.
This is all, this is awful.
I can't, I don't know why I came really, you know, all of that.
whilst alongside that, and this is the bothness that we talk about in emotional agility,
where we can hold what seemed to be two competing things at the same time, right?
So whilst also thinking this is amazing, I'm in this beautiful place, I'm with these, you
know, amazing people that I can learn from, and Susan David's here, and she's awesome,
right?
So lots of that going on too, right?
I wasn't in the depths of despair.
And so what
I was then in recognizing I was hooked and I was much slower to recognize I was hooked
than I would normally be.
And I put that down to jet lag and various other bits and pieces too, right?
So on day two, before they had kind of like yoga movement sessions every morning.
And I was like, no, not doing that.
I'm in the middle of uh New Mexico in what essentially like a desert to me on a ranch.
There are walking trails all over, marked walking trails, so can't get lost.
So on the second day, I got up, had an early breakfast and just went out and walked.
Just me, quiet, because that's the other thing.
Gosh, 50 people are noisy, really noisy.
Oh God.
And so went out, I walked, I was quiet.
I met a dog, which...
Donna will know and for those of you listening, like dogs are my absolute joy.
So to be able to meet a dog and pet them and talk to them and hear their story from their
human is my idea of heaven.
And yeah, I just walked and breathed and felt my feet on the ground.
And I didn't think, I wasn't talking to myself going, come on, you can do this, you've got
this.
I just walked, that's all.
And that's a very grounding experience for me.
And then I walked into day two, a different person than I'd left day one.
And by a different person, I mean, I knew how I wanted to show up.
I knew how I wanted to be.
I knew what was possible for me and what wasn't.
So I was never gonna be the loudest voice in the room.
I was never gonna be the person with the hand up first.
And that's okay.
I don't need to perform.
I don't need to be anything other than me in this space.
And so I think I can't even remember your question now because I've completely waffled on
off a point really.
where we're going with this.
Finish what you were gonna say and then I'll chime in.
this thing about being hooked, right, and recognizing your story is that if we'd been
talking about this, let's say a month ago, I'd have probably been very confidently talking
about recognizing when you're hooked and what's your story and then making a choice doing
something differently.
But the in sharing that story, I think what's really important to recognize is that
sometimes the hooked you are less in control of the hook.
because of the context and the situation that you are in, right?
And it feels hard, you have to, for me, it felt harder for me to get control of my hooked
and to make choices, right?
Choices from awareness rather than from fear, which is kind of where I was on day one.
So, you know, it's not about kind of, yeah, I know my story, so okay, I can make a
different choice.
there was that I had to create the space and this is the famous quote, right between
stimulus and response.
I had to physically in my case physically create the space for myself to be able to
create.
Yeah, okay, now I can think now I can feel what I'm feeling.
And now I can make choices about how I want to show up in this space, right.
And so yeah, it's not easy.
And it's not something that you learn.
that you get trained and, oh, brilliant, I'm done, right?
It's a constant part of being human to do this work.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
that stuck out for me when you were talking, Melissa, um that thing of the how hard, how
intense the hooks can be when context and environment and surroundings all pile on.
As you were talking, you said, eh you said, just walked.
just breathe.
There was no inner monologue.
There was no come on you can do this and I can really relate to that.
I can really relate to those times where I've talked myself through the emotion of the
situation.
What I realize as I'm listening to you
and in conjunction with my own recent life experience, is that actually those early ways
of doing were actually heaping more emotion into the situation, more judgment, more guilt,
more fear.
Come on, pep yourself up.
You have to overcome this.
You can do this.
All of that, that very active go-get-em energy is another...
emotional em layer of getting us through.
And if you bear with me for a moment where I'm bringing this in with so this year has been
really, really different for me and there have been some quite significant events.
My grandma passing away being the biggest.
And in those moments what I noticed
that I did differently was instead of trying to G myself up or force myself through a
particular course of action, a particular way of showing up, a particular expectation for
my experience, actually what I needed to give myself was just space.
just room to breathe, a chance to move without it needing to have a destination in mind, a
chance to let the thoughts meander in the way that they wanted to in order for that
processing to happen without any forced input from me.
And I guess that's the developing of that grounded confidence, right?
Yeah, 100 % 100 % because grounded confidence is not about arrogance or posturing or being
perfect, right, which I think is sometimes what we see when people are labeled as
confident.
And grounded confidence is about being messy and learning and unlearning and getting it
wrong and making mistakes and getting back up again, you know that these are all parts of
grounded confidence.
So
I think it's not, and we talk about perfectionism a lot, right?
And I don't think that's what I'm meaning here, but I do think that there's an element of
us having story or rules about how we should and shouldn't be in certain contexts.
This is how I should be on a training program.
This is how I should be in my grief, right?
And it's like, that's just story, right?
And I think that there's something here that's so important.
which is, and is such a big part of emotional agility and kind of what makes it slightly
different from often other ways of looking at emotions is that there are no positive and
negative emotions.
There are no bad emotions, right?
They are just data, right?
And they are all information, all data, all information.
And so the thing that I think happens when, or happens for me when I see
emotions in that positive or negative way, is that that then gets me to that I shouldn't
be feeling this, right?
Or I should say what I was saying last week was you should know better by now, for
goodness sake, you know, you should know better than this, you know, you're not good in
groups, you should just get over it for goodness sake, right?
Which is not compassionate at all.
But that's because I was viewing the emotions that I was experiencing as negative.
And they're not.
they're just information.
They're just, know, Susan David uses the term, you know, what's the funk?
What's the function?
What's this emotion about, right?
What's it telling you?
And so I think that part of our almost, or certainly for me, my automatic response to
certain emotions is, shouldn't be feeling this.
Why not?
Right?
You are feeling it.
Now,
I think what's also important is that it doesn't give me permission to take action on
every emotion that I feel, right?
Because it's just an emotion and I should just, I should pay attention to them all.
What it means is again, it opens up the space for me to be able to go, that's curious.
What is that telling me?
And what's the choice I want to make now, right?
to myself over uh a contradiction I've noticed in this element of choice.
We don't have a choice about experience emotions.
They're going to come regardless and hardest, heaviest when you least want them, right?
So you don't have a choice about them showing up.
The choice exists when you acknowledge that they do and without choice about what you do
with them.
they're either going to like they're going to drive here.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
going to sit in moments of, I wish I hadn't said that.
I wish I hadn't done that.
Absolutely.
And I think the other thing as well is that what we want to be doing when we make a
choice.
So one of the steps in emotional agility is about walking your why, which is really all
about your values, essentially.
And so it's also about what's the choice that I want to make that is most in line with the
way that I want to show up in the world, right, according to my my values and where I'm
going with my life, right.
And then also, one of the other things that I think was really interesting is, we talked a
lot about something called workability.
there's something about, okay, so this is the choice I want to make in, you know, in how I
want to respond today, in this moment.
But workability is almost like saying, and I haven't quite got my head around this concept
yet.
But the idea is that, and if I was to repeat this 100 times,
it would move me closer to where I'm going, it would move me closer to my why.
So is it also workable?
Is it repeatable?
Right?
Because there's something also I think around recognizing that.
So, okay, so I don't want to rock up now every large group exercise that I ever do in my
life and feel like I felt last week, right?
I want to learn from that again.
And, and adapt.
my choices because on that first day I wasn't showing up in line with my why with my
values right by day two I was so and so there's something about okay so what was what was
repeatable what was workable about what I experienced on day two that I can take forward
into my next and you know and I can repeat it again right
You've almost given me this image of our emotions being like a stadium full of spectators
and our values are like the stewards.
The more we ignore those internal things that matter most, the more disruptive the
audience gets, the more hard work the stewards need to do to kind of shepherd us back in
line.
It's almost like a feedback system within ourselves, isn't it?
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And of course, it's also what allows us to create.
And like, meaningful long term change.
So so that's the other thing as well is that this is this is because what I'm very
conscious of for me is that I kind of I want to try and avoid the trap of, okay, this is
the emotion I'm feeling, what's its function?
Okay, right.
That means I'm going to do x or y today.
Brilliant.
But I want that awareness and that learning to create long longer term change for me.
Right.
And I think that's such an important part of emotional agility, because it is about
creating long term change.
And I think this, you know, I get into that kind of, well, why haven't I learned this yet?
Right.
goodness sake, this I've known this story was has been here for 20 years or whatever I've
known about it.
Why hasn't it changed yet?
And I think it's because I'm making the adaptation in the moment, but then not taking that
and extending it into so okay, so what does that mean in terms of the future in line with
what are my values and and you know, I'm walking your why as is the language that we used.
So
There's a few things in there that I'm really curious about, Melissa, because emotional
agility will always be a practice, right?
We talk about wanting it to better us for the future, but often in human terms, that's
about automation and making it simpler because it just happens.
We don't ever want to be on autopilot with our emotions because that's when the challenges
are going to arise.
Yes.
And then there's the thing of those lessons that keep repeating.
And we have this narrative around why having a learning issue, why is this coming around
again?
It has to come around again, because we're not the same person that we were the last time
it came around.
So the learning goes in a spiral, wherever evolving and those things that are a part of
our makeup show up again and again in our experience as we work through that.
Yes, but we do have a choice about the emotion.
And I think this may be where we might differ in opinion.
I'm not sure.
Let me share and let me see what how this lands for you.
Because I think that it's not so much that you can, as you said, you're stopping yourself
feeling something, right?
The emotion is going to show up.
The difference is, is that you don't have that that emotion is not truth.
right?
That emotion, there is still choice around that emotion, whether, know, how deeply you
feel it, how it might impact or affect you, or indeed, whether you might say, do you know
what?
I can just let that emotion pass through me because I know that it's actually not part of
the, it's not part of the story here.
So, so I imagine
and this isn't imagining, because clearly it hasn't happened yet.
But whereas last week, uh it took me kind of like a 12 hour, like overnight and a walk and
everything in the morning to be able to say to myself, okay, some of these emotions that
I'm feeling, I can just let them go.
I can let them pass through me because they're just part of an old story that I'm hooked
in, right?
m
and just let them pass away.
I don't need to keep holding them.
And now, what I'm really interested in now is whether with more being more in tune, and
probably without jet lag and high altitude and all of the other things that were playing a
role in this for me, is that more in the moment of Oh, hello.
Here comes my anxiety, my fear, my shame that I don't know enough.
I'm not the cleverest person in the room.
Ah, hello again, old friends.
You always show up when I'm in this kind of context.
And I can take a breath.
or a walk or whatever your mechanism is for grounding yourself and just let you pass
through me.
Because you're part of an old story and I choose in this moment, in this program, in this
situation to write a different story.
And so I think that's the learning piece for me.
that is creating that longer term change.
So doesn't mean that the emotions don't show up.
But when they do, you kind of go, hello.
Right.
been the gardener, right?
It's cultivating the soil, it's creating the conditions that when that seedling pops its
head up, we don't jump to action.
We can take a moment to just survive and choose.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
And I think there's a question that's floating around in my head as well because, so one
of the things that I'm aware of really is that on day two, we opened with a small group
exercise.
was really about maybe six or seven of us in the small group, which I loved because it's a
small group.
Happy days, right?
And I was able to operate from a much more courageous place in that small group than I.
was in the larger group.
And so I think what would be really tempting at this point is to look at future learning
experiences and go, m big group.
Don't think I'll do that one, because there's going to be too many people.
And I don't learn well in big groups.
I can't show up at my best in big groups.
So I should probably not go on that event.
Or maybe even it might be about me emailing the organizer and saying, will there be small
group activities?
And will I have the opportunity for reflective dialogue?
And will I be able to ask questions not in the main group, you know, and start to manage
that whole experience for me?
And whilst that feels safe, and like I'm doing a good thing for my learning,
I also know that that's hiding.
And that's curious, isn't it?
Because I think we might, so this is the difference, maybe this is the difference between
being able, and I don't know if this is the right language, but being able to regulate in
the moment and then, or versus kind of over curating, over managing yourself so that you
don't feel certain things.
Well, as you talked about what that might mean for your CPD in the future, the story came
back up.
The story came back up and sat on its stool as narrator and went, I'm in control here.
And so I'm wondering in that moment, did the emotional agility dip?
Did the old story become stronger?
Will the true test of emotional agility be sitting in that set up and noticing those
narratives and being able to
Just quietly acknowledge and release them in that moment.
Yeah, rather than avoiding in the first place.
Right?
Absolutely.
do big group learning, says who?
Yeah, yeah, totally.
And we hear it.
And I know you and I have talked about this as coaches and I hear it in other coaches all
the time, right?
I don't work with senior executives.
Or I don't work in large corporate organizations.
Or I don't work outside of the HR arena, right?
And these are just stories that we tell ourselves to keep ourselves safe and so that we
don't ever go in
and feel those emotions that are kind of hard for us, right?
And getting hooked in our story rather than emotional agility, of course, which is the
kind of, okay, I recognize I've been hooked.
Now, you know, there's, there's a process, if you like, which is about activating our
compassion, activating our curiosity, and then activating our courage, and then moving
forward.
you know, making long lasting change.
And we're doing all of that in the moment.
Or we could be doing all of that in the moment.
Right.
So I think this whole thing is really where we started right with the hooked piece.
That's where the I think for me, that's where the work is for us.
If we're you know, if we're wanting to be courageous coaches, we're wanting to step into
our courage more.
The work is around the story, the hook.
the become getting, recognising it, and then having a, yeah, I'm going to call it a
process, a process that we can activate that enables us to move through and choose a
different ending, right, or write our own story.
That's really the work of emotional agility, I think, as I understand it today.
Yeah, and I'm just thinking how, what does it mean I'm formulating as my understanding?
Interesting, so that word emotion appearing in the name, emotional agility, I think is
potentially misleading, right?
The emotion's gonna show up.
What emotional agility is doing is working with the feelings we have about the feelings
that have shown up.
Right.
The practice of emotional agility is developing our resourcefulness in discomfort.
In those established narratives that have become the rules by which we operate.
Which means when anything comes in that's outside of those norms that we've decided are
our parameters.
There's going to be some discomfort.
The emotional crowd is going to show up to let us know that discomfort's there.
The stewards kick in in that process of going, you knew this was going to happen.
You knew you were going to feel something.
Let's just get curious about that thing we're feeling.
Let's get curious about what we want to do with it.
Absolutely.
100 % and I think this is this is the work for me this is the work right because it you
know in the kind of the the work that we do with others with clients you know in coaching.
This is this is going to show up for us all of the time in the moment because we're human
and of course it's also happening to the client as well.
So the client is also hooked.
The client is also in story.
And during the program, we were asked this just magical question around how often do we
buy into our client's story without question, without questioning it, right?
Without even being, and by questioning it, I don't mean judging it.
I mean, you know, challenging it, being curious about it.
Whereas actually what we often do is what our client tells us, particularly about their
inner landscape, we've take us truth, because it's there in a landscape, right?
But of course it's not, it's just their story too.
So this is happening in all of our relationships, right?
All of our human relationships all of the time.
And so again, I have to come back to the whole thing of we have to be able to do it for
ourselves in order to be able to.
support others to do it, to do it to be emotionally agile, right.
And, and I think the other thing and I know I've said this at the beginning, I think, I
think we have to, I have to say this again, out loud, because I think it's super
important.
So one of the things that I now have a flag, like a red flag in my head, is this idea of
it's part of me, not all of me, right.
because you'll notice in my story, I say, I am not good in big groups.
Like I am, anything that begins with I am, right?
I am sad.
Those kind of statements are all of me, not part of me.
So this is the, for me at the moment, this is my personal work is trying to recognize when
I go, I am not good in.
or I am not good at, or I am sad, or I am anxious, or whatever.
And there's a lovely quote that Susan uses, which we repeated back to her several times
during the programme, which is, are not the clouds, you are the sky.
And it actually became by the end of the week, you are not the clouds, you are the whole
goddamn sky.
And that for me is this idea of this one emotion or this thing, whatever, maybe a number
of emotions.
That's not all of you, right?
And so I think that is probably, and I'm not sure I've tested this yet, we'll see, but I
think for me probably that is my first red light, my first warning indicator of, hmm,
hooked, getting into hooked.
for the next big group CPD?
What's the new wording going to be?
Yeah, so I think there's several things that because the story, the telling myself the
story started way before I got on the plane, right, and traveled.
I'd already been making that story up.
And prior to arriving, I had replaced that story with, I'm going to be in a room of people
who care about this work as much as I do.
And that is a gift.
Right?
So I'd kind of already started that reframe process.
Then I got in the room.
Then I got into the reality of the room, right?
And I was like, oh, okay, this is not good.
This is a disaster.
I should never have come, know, et cetera, et cetera.
And I know that years ago in that scenario, I would have hidden either literally or in the
room hidden.
So hence, I recognize and I can do something about that.
And I made a different choice for day two, right?
I knew how to take care of myself.
So I think for me, there's something about allowing the release of...
So the walk where I didn't think and I didn't overanalyze and I just walked and breathed
and felt the earth and looked at the birds and thought how beautiful the...
desert was in New Mexico and all of that kind of stuff.
That was me re-grounding myself.
And then that first small group exercise that we did on day two in that morning was my
opportunity to step into my courage, be vulnerable, wisely vulnerable, and share what was
going on for me.
So an important part of my grounded confidence is dialogue.
answer to your kind of reframe question, I think actually, there's something for me
around, what do I need to do to take care of myself, because this will be difficult for
you.
Right?
Or actually, my self compassionate response was would be this is tough right now.
And that's okay.
What do you need?
Okay, I'm going to go for a walk, I'm going to find someone or a group of people or
to in order to have my dialogue, because I need that dialogue.
And that might have been someone in the room, it might have been a phone call home, who
knows, right?
But I need to have that reflective dialogue to get it out of my head.
And then I also think there's something for me about
So I think I probably in the big group, I think I spoke up once in the whole of the
programme.
Now in the small group and at dinner and my, couldn't shut me up.
Couldn't shut me up, right?
But in the main room within the main group, I think I spoke up once.
And in the moment I had to remember to breathe because I got the first bit out.
and then thought, okay, do you want to just breathe for a minute and then say what you
need to say?
And so I think
It's okay to begin to fall, to notice, and then to bring yourself back.
And for me, that's breath.
It's always breath.
It'll be different for other people, maybe.
But it's okay to...
This is hard right now.
It's okay to fall, but bring yourself back, right?
So yeah, self-compassion.
This is hard right now.
It's okay, what do you need?
Rather than lying to myself, which would be, no, I'm very good in groups, I'm very good in
big groups, I don't have a problem here at all, I can just bravado this out, which is not
grounded confidence.
No, and it's just going to make the emotion shout louder.
That's always the way, right?
When we deny what's there, what you resist persists.
Absolutely, All right, so, okay, so we've had a proper, well, thank you.
That's a lovely reflective dialogue for me, very helpful.
Listeners, if you're still with us, I'm delighted you are.
um But, so, okay, so I'm curious then to kind of close this session because I'm thinking
about, I'm thinking about what I would tell.
me, like a newer version of me, where as a coach, when I started out as coach, what would
I say to myself?
What would I want myself to know about emotions and courage that I know now that I wish
I'd known then?
So maybe let me ask you that question and then maybe I'll answer as well.
So what is the newer version of Donna as a coach?
What would you want her to know about emotions and courage?
I would want her to know.
And this goes further than permission, right?
This is wholehearted encouragement.
um
what you feel matters and it's okay to slow down enough to check in with that.
In fact, it's not only okay, it's essential.
Yeah, it's not quite the tight little sound bit, but the thing that really resonates for
me, the thing I know now that would have made some situations far less painful.
would have been.
that it's okay to just pause and make sense of where I'm at in a situation before feeling
any obligation to act on anything.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah, I love that.
Our rush, instant, our need for instant gratification, instant response.
Expect.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
what good looks like.
If you're professional, if you're an expert, if you're successful, you're there and you're
on it and in the moment.
And actually, when you ask that question in sessions, like think of somebody you admire,
think of somebody influential, think of somebody emotionally intelligent.
It's the pauses.
It's the...
moment to think, the response, not the react.
So yeah, I'm feeling embraced by all of that from our conversation.
Yeah, yeah, lovely.
Lovely.
Yeah, I think I have to repeat something I've already shared, which is that, you know,
this, I would really want to tell my younger self, my newer self as a coach that it's not,
it's not all of you, it's part of you, right.
And, and I think that, not just when I became a coach, but I think in my probably my
younger decades, you know,
I found emotions quite all consuming.
defined, I felt like they defined, they sort of defined who I was and how I showed up.
And now I'm kind of like, they're just part of me.
They're not all of me.
And I think that's particularly important, not just in my coaching work, but in my stage
of life, right?
Where some of my emotions are a lot, I feel less in control of some of my emotions, right?
Because of hormonal changes and all of those kinds of things.
And I think,
just that message of that's part of you.
It's not all of you is so reassuring and important, right?
And I think it's part of that life journey.
So while there are things at this stage in life that are super unpredictable, I feel more
grounded in myself and I feel that strengthening day by day.
And so actually what I took from your last comment and felt so excited to share was, I
think all of this is about the fact that we are not taught how to live.
alongside our emotional responses.
And so it takes us all these decades of learning through experience, learning through
mistakes to reach a place where that grounded confidence exists to say, I know me, I know
myself, and I'm going to prioritize that in my interactions with the world.
totally.
And I think that's probably the bit that I'd close on is that idea that you, like I knew I
had to walk, I had to breathe fresh air, I had to see a landscape of some description.
And if I could find a dog, then so much the better, right?
And you know, and I say that with jest, but it's totally true.
It's totally true.
So
So I knew that that's how I access my ground.
And I know that because I've done the work.
And so I think that's the message as well that I maybe for my newer self, maybe for the
audience is find out what's your ground, what grounds you, what brings you back to
yourself so that you can access all of this wisdom and all of these things that we've been
talking about.
Really important.
Donna, thank you.
As always, for being my guest, but also for winging it with me today, having a bit of a
reflective conversation.
And you know, yeah, absolutely.
ah I know, I know.
And the reflections keep coming, right?
I'm very, I've deliberately very slowly processing right now.
But yeah, there's lots, there's lots.
And emotional agility is at the heart of courage.
So we're going to be talking about it a lot more, right?
Definitely.
Definitely.
Thank you, Donna.
Take good care, my darling.