Unbidden Desires

In the Western calendar, today is New Year's Day: a traditional time for looking back on the past year and looking forward to the New Year. Both activities have real value and it's a shame that the start of every quarter does not arrive with the same reflective energy. To ponder how the past year went and to set goals for the future are quintessentially human activities. So don't squander the day!

Many people come to coaching because they want assistance with these two reflective practices. In thinking about the past, we all have blind spots and critical voices. By offering honesty and empathy, coaches assist people to see and to value what is there. It is incredibly liberating to stop, or even just to pause, our avoiding, exaggerating, and berating tendencies. That's what a good coaching conversation can do for us, and I encourage you to contact LifeTrek Coaching for a complimentary session: Click Here.

The real genius of coaching, however, lies not in reflecting on the past but on the future. Coaches assist people to set and achieve goals. That may be the simplest of all definitions when it comes to the work of coaching. We don't set goals for people and we don't tell people what to do. We don't nag people or make people do what they are "supposed" to do. We rather invite people to set goals for themselves and assist them to navigate the journey.

That's where the name "LifeTrek Coaching" came from. It was my goal, all the way back in 1998, to help people with their goals in life and work. That trajectory represents the trek of coaching. It is a moving target and, at least this side of the grave, it never ends. Which is why some people always have a coach. There's always another aspiration to unleash and another possibility to consider.

Which brings me to the subject of today's poem. For many years, I have been in the habit of writing and sharing a poem with the readers of LifeTrek Provisions on the first Sunday of the New Year. Lately, I have been thinking about the relationship between bidden and unbidden things. The dictionary defines that relationship in terms of choice, intention, and will. Unbidden things are uninvited, not asked for, neither commanded, ordered, nor summoned.

"I bid you to come forward," on the other hand, is an obvious invitation and request. We often think of bidden things as desired things and of unbidden things as undesired. Health and family emergencies or natural disasters, for example, are unbidden. So, too, with things that disrupt or interfere with our plans. When a campaign or strategy goes awry, the military refers to that as being "Overtaken By Events. And being OBE is definitely not desired.

Yet coaches, who are in the business of that most bidden of enterprises, setting and reaching goals, have learned to be on the lookout for unbidden desires. All that is bidden is not good and all that is unbidden is not bad. There are things that well up inside us to guide us, and we would do well to acknowledge and appreciate those things as the source of ambition itself.

Where do goals come from? Why do we bother with them at all? It is from the deep reservoir and churning energy of unbidden things that the bidden arises. So before we run too far away, pause with me for a moment to consider the treasurers of the unbidden:

Unbidden
©2012 Bob Tschannen-Moran

Things happen
Overtaken by events
Emotions race
Unbidden

Blocks happen
Stifling creativity
Urgency impairs
Unbidden

Insights happen
Discerning truths
Clarity emerges
Unbidden

Feelings happen
Spilling over
Provoking thoughts
Unbidden

Heartaches happen
Gasping for air
Confusion reigns
Unbidden

Dreams happen
Revealing secrets
Hope arises
Unbidden

Breaches happen
Sudden terminations
Swelling grief
Unbidden

Connections happen
Awakening hearts
Restoring souls
Unbidden

Yearnings happen
Moving mountains
Cleansing spirits
Unbidden

Inklings happen
Subtle noticing
What must be
Unbidden

Shifts happen
So unsettling
The sun rises
Unbidden

Dreams happen
Unleashing aspirations
Possibilities emerge
Unbidden

May you find your own treasures in the unbidden things of 2012.

Coaching Inquiries: What things are unbidden in your life right now? What things are welling up inside you? What things are happening around you? How could you learn from them and collect the treasures these things have to offer? Who is your coach on the trek of life?

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