The blog brings out the nuances of the meaning of the relationship, and how Coaching could be helpful.
An effective relationship is a prerequisite for success– at home, in the office, or the Society. The word effectiveness has a relatedness to the people around you. It is a perspective of how people perceive and feel you.
Short-term associations cannot be termed as relationships, though we loosely term them like that. A relationship, if decided, should be sustained to be considered value-adding and successful. To maintain a relationship, it must have a purpose, meaning, and inclusivity.
In our day-to-day routines, we seldom care about building relationships and regret it later.
Like a traffic signal, you need to stop, pause, and restart your life engine. This process of stopping, pausing, and restarting with exploring the meanings of many things around us is ‘deep reflection’. The mere thinking process is not a deep reflection.
It is our way of looking at our life, not allowing us to be joyful and fulfilling. We can look at life through three specific lenses:
A Kaleidoscopic view (producing ranges of colours and patterns and creating fascinating repeating patterns)
A Binocular view (an upright view that allows the use of both eyes in a natural way, provides depth in perception, and allows two sets of data to process and combine)
A Magnifying glass view (producing a magnified image of an object – i.e., a larger picture of an object to identify minute details of the object).
It is contextual to decide which one to choose, and each has its purpose, meaning, and relatedness. The importance here is where to use what and how to use it, not the possession of the tool.
The relationship’s foundation is our need for affiliation. A sense of “I am needed”. While talking to many people during the coaching process or otherwise, I could feel loneliness among most. While reflecting, I found that there are moments of loneliness, which puts us in a sense of helplessness and moodiness. However, mostly, we would pretend otherwise and carry on with life with stress and unhappiness.
Looking around us, we can see many glimpses that have profound meaning. Let me explain the same with a few examples:
I had a sparrow as a pet, but it flew away one day. Then I had a squirrel, but it ran away too. Then, I planted a tree, and they both came back. (empathy)
Jennifer had a tough time with Ahmed, who is her living-in partner. Jennifer knows that Ahmed lost his job and is drinking heavily. She wants to support him, but Ahmed does not need her support and is avoiding her. The more Ahmed avoids her, the more pitiful Jennifer feels. (self-pity)
One of my friends shared an exciting event that recently happened during COVID-19 times. She was visiting her best friend in a nearby hospital. Her friend was in a critical situation. The friend’s husband, two grown-up children, three brothers, and two sisters stood around her. Children were holding their mother’s hands, and others were squatting in a melancholy mood around the room. My friend told me that she – smiling radiantly - had told everybody in the room, “I feel so loved right now. We should have gotten together like this more often”. (a sense of togetherness).
You, too, can enumerate many such stories. Besides having a central theme, these stories also have many nuances, which will create a purpose for building the relationship.
This simple understanding could itself shift our paradigm in relationship building.
You could use these two resources for anchoring this process:
Book: The Pondering Leaf: A Journey of a Surfer.
Assessment tool: Surfer assessment (www.soulsearchhr.com/asssessments)
Happy reflection
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