“As coaches, we naturally work in line with our client's mandate. And I think it's also our task when we are really present to perceive what resonates between the lines and if necessary, to mirror it back.”
What happens when what is resonating between the lines is the client’s view of ageing? Before we start exploring ageing with other people, we perhaps need to do some work of our own. What do you think about ageing? Is it just a series of biological faults which slowly takes various faculties away from us?
How influenced are you by the social context of ageing - how wider society portrays the ageing process?
If you were to personify ageing, what sort of person would it be? Would it be an enemy to be resisted, an annoying neighbour to be tolerated, or a friendship to be embraced and worked at?
In this episode Geoff speaks to Harriet Kretschmar, one of our longest standing Coaching York members. Harriet is based in Munich, and has many years of experience as an executive coach. Harriet reflects on what interests her in the subject of ageing in the context of coaching, how the subject shows up with clients, different ways to think about ageing, and how to work with challenging situations such as when a client is living with regrets about having an unfulfilled life.
In the second half of the show Geoff and Harriet model two coaching approaches. The first is based Jeanette Leardi’s personification of ageing, and the second on Georg Engelbertz’s Future Leap which he has developed along the traditions of Morenos psychodrama.
Join us as Harriet begins the podcast reading the poem “Youth” written by Samuel Ullman in 1918, and reflect with us on how we can help ourselves, our clients, and our friends, think about how we navigate the second half of life.
“Youth is not a time of life. It is a state of mind. It is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigour of the emotions. It is the freshness of the deep springs of life…..
Resources
How to Age Positively: A Handbook for Personal Change in Later Life : Guy Robertson 2014
Jeanette Leardi Our relationship to ageing
Werner Vogelauer, Methoden ABC im Coaching, 2011, page 365ff , available only in German
Michael Chechov, On the techniques of acting, 1991 - Embodiment
Richard C. Schwartz, Introduction to Internal Family Systems, 2023
Morenos psychodrama
