This piece from Perry Timms prompted me to share my own world of upstream and what that means to me. Thank you Perry.
“#Upstream is a place where we can go before we think about the transformation we are being invited to consider.” This quote from Perry’s piece really strikes a chord with me. In three client sessions yesterday when we went upstream, each client came back to the downstream challenges they walked in with and saw a simple and clear way forward and, in some instances, the challenge had all but disappeared into the ether.
When I started my business five years ago (it was its 5th birthday this week!) I called it Wild Fig Solutions. This was in part thanks to Perry himself who coached me to recognise my strength of curiosity and getting to the root cause, which then led to musings of a business name that connected to that — and one which could include trees which I love! Hence the Wild Fig — the tree with the deepest roots in the world.
Deep roots to me is another way of saying upstream. It’s the thing before. The thing from which life springs. The source.
Until last year, I believed my coaching was taking people to the very top of the stream — or deep into their roots. Identifying the thinking that was holding them back, uncovering limiting beliefs to be re-framed or removed, seeing the life event(s) which had implanted those beliefs.
Iceberg model of self
All of which seemed to be helpful to clients, and had seemed to be helpful to me on the receiving end of coaching.
Until I noticed some anomalies.
There were a couple of people where looking at these things didn’t seem to be shifting anything. In fact it seemed to make things worse.
Fortunately alongside these clients I’d been exploring Buddhism and considering how to bring the essence of that mindset into work. It was like emotional intelligence — and then some. Or “beyond emotional intelligence” as we might say these days. (By the way, where will be go next if we’re currently going “beyond” so many things…?)
Anyway, what I discovered on my exploration was a whole bunch of folk talking and learning and exploring this same essential mindset from a variety of concepts and perspectives. The common theme was they were all going further upstream. As Perry said “going to the very start of where a challenge originated from”. In our case, the start is not that thinking at the bottom of the iceberg.
Through beginning my learning with Piers Thurston on this, combined with a whole bunch of reading, watching and listening, I experienced a number of sudden and gradual realisations about who we really are.
The iceberg thoughts which seem so loud, true and definite. They are the ones creating a dam across the river of experience. A river that we are, and within which we are designed to flow.
Upstream from there is what’s invisible to us. What’s behind the scenes and powerful. What’s always been running the show but we didn’t know it. Or we did, but we forgot, amidst the turbulent downstream noise of the waves.
#Upstream. That’s where we find who we really are.
Start to look there and the definiteness weakens, gaps in the dam open up, and fluidity returns, allowing the river to flow once more.
From there, in the flow, the downstream challenges? They become obvious to solve. Welcomed, no matter what their content. A place of ease.
So yes, upstream. Look #upstream.
I work with people who want a quieter mind and a more fulfilling life. They’re smart, passionate people who are curious about there being a better way. They’ve worked hard to get to here and yet something’s still missing: ‘is this it?’. In our work we explore and reconnect you to innate brilliance so you rediscover the real happiness, real security and real balance that you are. Find out more here.