“Can you write an article about spirituality based on your work practice?” The answer was a resounding “yes”. In our work as coaches and mediators, we deal with people who are stuck on something every day.
Although verbal communication is the tool we work with, it is just the tip of the iceberg. Under the water lurks the world of spirituality, which is non-verbal. That is our area of work.
When someone asks for help, they usually present themselves with a rehearsed story. This story, the narrative, was created to convince oneself and others. Each time it is told, the narrator reinforces the story for themselves. The story unfolds like a real movie. A set of beliefs creates a reality in which the main character gets trapped because they believe it to be the only truth. However, if we listen closely, we can hear that the film has several layers, carefully stacked and contextualized to paint a picture that the main character has an interest in. What this interest is, however, mostly remains implicit and unspoken. If we look beyond the explicit narrative at the way in which the words and sentences are constructed, all sorts of doors to deeper layers appear. Behind one of those doors lies the unspoken narrative – the story that does not get told, but is pulling all the strings. In coaching and mediation, this is the only story that matters.
Objective, factual realities on the one hand, and subjective realities on the other, can be seen as constituting a dance performance. Spirituality deals with the connection between these two realities. The facts are the dancers; subjective reality creates the choreography. The dancers in themselves are not that interesting but when they start to move, meaning, symbolism, connections, a story emerges – and that story comes to life.
When a client tells us their story, one might say that spirituality creates the movement that hides behind the words. It is elusive yet decisive for the impact the words can have on the listener. It is important to notice the choreography a person selects for their story. What words were chosen and why?
Spoken language is actually an encoding, a coding of time, space, energy, and matter, intended to unravel universal processes. For example, a simple word like “mother” harbors a wealth of information. It encompasses knowledge about motherhood as well as the full range of femininity. This one word provides access to the perceived reality of the person using it. There is a lot of hidden information in language, of which people are little aware.
People constantly explain the world to themselves in a ‘language’ of their own choosing. This is not just a way to understand the world: it also helps them understand themselves in relation to that world, as well as in relation to their inner worlds, their subjective reality. Once a person becomes aware of these worlds and the respective parts they play, spirituality, like a substratum, connects them into a harmonious whole. Developing this awareness requires effort and a commitment to self-development: the way you explain the world to yourself determines how you experience that world, and that is usually where the problem lies. You can only perceive the world through the knowledge and experience you gathered up to that point, which is necessarily limited. This is what makes us incredibly susceptible to being influenced: what we believe to be true, becomes true for us. When I tell myself every day that I don’t matter, I become worth-less. Not because I am, but because I always see confirmation of this in the information surrounding me.
Most people have a tendency to explain the Self, the ‘substratum’, through the various supporting parts they play in the lives of others. The language they use, as a puppet of the system, brands them as victims. This, however, is a chosen role based on a fictional reality, framed by language appropriate to this role. This means that language sometimes literally turns against us, for when someone is convinced that something is the truth, they become blind to anything that contradicts it. This leads to all kinds of mental and physical complaints.
In the world of business, physical and mental problems due to stress are on the rise. This can largely be traced to the narrative about ‘happiness’ that prevails in society: people who have a successful career are expected to also automatically experience some degree of happiness. Striving to conform to
the picture painted, they tend to overexert in many ways. Their body then tells a very different story: one of exhaustion and chronic stress. When they finally realize that achieving happiness through material success is an illusion, they are left to face the dire consequences of chronic overexertion.
Beyond the facts, spirituality tells the real story, as it reveals whether the movement behind the story leads to space and growth, or powerlessness and destruction. Powerlessness is maintained when someone gets stuck in their narrative. If this is to be transformed into a story of growth, the person must detach themselves from this created reality and become aware that the substratum, the deeper Self and movement behind the story, is not leading to the desired outcome.. This is hard, because the person subconsciously derives benefit from believing that their story is true.
What we do then, is we take the person back to the place where their story was created. We look at the building blocks they used to build their story and which core beliefs it reflects. Only when stepping into the space behind the story, we can see that it is perpetuated by no one but ourselves, clinging to the illusion of an old interest that has long since ceased to serve us. We call this the space of reflection and contemplation. The deeper this reflection, the more likely one is to get to a state of ‘no longer knowing’.
This state of ‘not knowing’ is the key to unlocking unlimited possibilities. When a person realizes that their narrative was based on untruthful constructs and they open up to the unlimited alternatives, they will be able to rebuild the narrative and create a new, more suitable one. This may seem like a daunting task, but often all it takes is merely reinterpreting the meaning of a single word. After all, just changing one small dance move can perfect a choreography.
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