On Thursday, I ran a training session for a hearty group of 25 banking colleagues on the topic of Resilience.

As the session rolled on, the Buddhist idea of the Second Arrow of Suffering came up.

This is the notion that what REALLY causes us to suffer isn’t our anger, our anxiety or our stress, but our fretting about our anger, anxiety and stress. 

This prompted an eager participant to ask:

I can see this happening with me Tom. I know it’s the second arrow that’s tripping me up. Do you have any tips on how I can let this second arrow go?

I shared a couple of thoughts.

But what I realised later is that it didn’t really matter what I said. What mattered was this person could see how the Second Arrow was firing in their life.

And that’s enough. 

It really is.

This is an idea which has come up a lot in American “supercoach” Michael Neill’s 6 month mastermind Your Life, Your Way. 

At some point soon, I’m going to write an email series about my biggest insights from the mastermind (there's still a couple of sessions to go, but watch this space). 

So this email is a bit of a sneak preview.

One of those insights is how genuine change often begins the moment you simply notice what’s going on.

I like the way Michael talks about it when he says “noticing contains the seeds of its own self-destruction”. And it’s one hell of a plot twist to be told there’s nothing you need TO DO to fix whatever you’re trying to push away.

All you need to do is notice it.

This is why coaching can be so effective too.

Even if the ONLY thing a coach does is their best impression of a mirror (i.e. notice the person sitting opposite them, then play back that noticing), their client cannot help but notice blind spots they’ve never noticed before. And once the smallest glimmer sneaks in, what used to be dark will inevitably become lighter.

This is part of the joy of coaching and being coached.

If you’d like to start noticing a few of your own blind spots:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com