Resilience or Repression? with Janet Wilson

Hello, my name is Tracy Sinclair. Welcome to Coaching in Conversation. Coaching In Conversation is a chance to discuss and explore, not just how we can keep developing. And ensuring as coach practitioners, but also to consider how coaching is evolving and its future potential and place as a powerful vehicle or human development in today's and tomorrow's world. I'll be sharing some of my own thoughts on these topics. And we will also hear from some great guests from around the world who bring their unique experience and perspectives. And this time I am joined by Janet Wilson. Janet is a professional certified coach with the International Coaching Federation, and she has over 2,800 client hours working with leaders and executives and individuals and. Across the world actually, but she has a lot of experience as well, particularly in the Middle East and in Africa. Janet is also a relational team coach as well as a coaching supervisor. She has also spent a considerable amount of time volunteering for the ICF, and she was the president of the UK chapter of the ICF in 2004. And then working at a more global level. She has also been the vice chair of the ICF global Dispute Resolution panel. My conversation with Janet was particularly focused on a very specific topic, and this topic naturally emerged in a conversation that I was having with her recently, and we thought immediate. This could be good for an episode of the podcast. So I'm sharing that with you now and would be really interested to hear your thoughts, your perspectives, your feedback to engage in a conversation about this. I won't say any more about the topic other than to tell you the title, which is resilience or refreshment. I hope you enjoy. Well, Janet, thank you so much for joining me on this conversation today. It's lovely to, well, I guess carry on a conversation that we've actually already started and maybe to connect whoever is listening to this. With our conversation, we started to speak about resilience. Yes. And resilience as being something that is probably very needed. At the moment, particularly in many, in many aspects of day, day-to-day life but is also a term that is almost used as a throwaway term. And I'm conscious, that's my sense of it, that we're just talking about the need for resilience and being resilient. And yet, in actual fact, what I noticed in others and sometimes admittedly in myself, Is this question of am I really being resilient or am I repressing? Mm. And it evoked a really interesting dialogue between us, didn't it? Around are we, are we developing resilience as human beings truly, or are we simply repressing, denying, ignoring, burying our feelings? And there's a very important difference, isn't there though? That kind of, I think contextualizes our, our discussions, doesn't it? And I'd love to hear your initial thoughts on that. Yeah, I mean, I think Covid has been one of the things that has raised it to my mind and to my aware, I've been aware a bit for ages, but really being aware of it through Covid and the changes that we've all gone through, through Covid. And of course now in my work, I'm coming across. More and more people who are I think, able to make different choices. Tracy, and I know that that's a strange thing to say, but Covid having had such an incredible impact on us all and, and most of us are working life and how we, how we viewed ourselves and framed ourselves. And we are now in a position to go, okay, well what else is there? Or what else could there be? And yet, It's not easy, and I dunno whether you feel this, but Covid in some ways has made things that we took for granted a little bit more difficult. So we are having to find that muscle to accept it. And your your point about do I accept it and just swallow it and carry on, which in some instances, I must admit I'm doing. Or am I truly being able to bounce back and I'm doing the inverted commerce? Because you know, this idea that resilience is bounce back ability in this already is a non-English word, but you know what I mean. Are we bouncing back or are we just either disassociating from the, from the, the impact of it, or as you say, pushing it down quite hard and get gritting our teeth and getting on with it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's interesting as you use that term, bounce back, I'm reminded of a great book actually for anyone that wants to read about resilience by Carol, Dr. Carol Pemberton called Resilience and it's very much targeted at the coaching community. And she actually says that true resilience is not the ability to bounce back, but the ability to bounce forward. Yeah. Which is a really interesting distinction, isn't it? Because. In today's world, in many, many cases, there is no going back is there to exactly the way things were before certain aspects of life. Just homeworking, just to quote a very quick, simple example, things don't always go back to exactly the same shape and size and setting and context that they were before. And so that resilience perhaps also has something as you were highlighting there about acceptance of the change of the loss or of what's different, and then somehow an ability to not necessarily therefore want to hold onto that and go back to what was, but the capacity to then be creative and go forward to what's coming next. I love that. I love that. And, and I'm going to just offer something that was raised by what you shared there. I was in South Africa when Covid hit and we locked down. And in fact I got onto the last Virgin flight from Johannesburg to London and my husband had broken lockdown to come and fetch me cuz there was no way of me getting from London to Chester. So, you know, it was one of those sort of really strange situations and driving up the highway with almost no traffic. It was just, it was almost as if I'd gone to a different universe, but I recall very soon thereafter having, and if I can only describe it as a panic attack, and thinking to myself, a, I'm never going to get back to South Africa and see my family there, and b, I'm never gonna work again. Because up until that point, I'd been seeing all my clients face to. And all of a sudden I couldn't. And I can remember standing at my window going, so what does this mean? And really having a physical reaction to that and having no option but to acknowledge that I was terrified. I was really, really frightened. It took me a while just to catch my breath again. Calm myself down. But it didn't, I wasn't able to then go, oh, well it's going to be okay. Cause I didn't know it was gonna be okay. But I was able to acknowledge how frightened I was. I think that helped me to then go, okay, well if I end up having to go and work at the local supermarket, that's okay. And I kind of started opening up opportunities where I would be able to get on with life. And I think this is something that I've realized that Brazilians is, it is about moving forward. It is about looking at opportunities. Cuz there's something about when hardship hits us, it evokes that shock. I mean, mine was a physiological. And if we ignore it, that shock just goes down into repressed energy and actually it's quite hard to be able to use as a resource to move forward. Yeah. It makes sense to you, . Well, yes it does. And you know um, as you are talking, Dan, I'm thinking about how important some kind of acceptance or compassion or empathy. Is a really important part of the resilience building process because when you talked about that panic and that fear, I'm mindful of how many coaching conversations I recall having in the last two to three years with leaders. And I know from some of the supervision groups that I run, other coaches are having the same, where the leaders that they've been coaching through that pandemic, We're fearful. Yeah, we're panicking. Yeah. Because they didn't know any better than anybody else what to do, and yet they're being looked to, to lead. And, and so as we know that the pandemic challenged all sorts of definitions and paradigms of what leadership is and what a leader is, is supposed to bring. And I can remember many conversations with leaders saying, I, I, I feel just as frightened as everybody else. And yet I'm supposed to be the person in charge. I'm supposed to be the leader. And so even though we have a situation in organizations perhaps, where certain people are supposed to be the resilient ones, they're supposed to be the strong ones. If they don't actually recognize and accept some of their own panic or fear, it's been very hard to actually be resourceful again, isn't it? To actually find what could be the solution moving forwards. Yeah, and I mean, I'm echoing everything you say because I've had the same experience with leaders and I think there is something about acknowledgement. It's acknowledging that acknowledging our humanity, you know, that we don't have all the answers, but there is something quite powerful about being able to acknowledge openly your feelings too. And really, Brené Brown comes to mind, doesn't she? Here is. How, how was it to be able to say to people, I'm really frightened as well. I don't know what to do. Let's look at what our options are. Let's see how we now carry on doing what it is we were going to do in the world, but in a different way. And, and what is the impact of acknowledging that not only to yourself, but to others? On that relationship and then on our capacity to bounce forward our capacity to look at ways of reframing and repositioning ourselves for the, for what, what were we in? And Covid was like that. But we are still there. No, we're not still there. We are in a different place now. We're in a post covid place. What's coming into my mind as I'm saying this to you is what stops us from acknowledging firstly to ourselves, but then to others? Mm-hmm. what needs to be acknowledged so that we can move forward. What do you think that might be? Well, I mean, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? Because I do think something is stopping it in, in my own sort of anecdotal experience because. We're still seeing, or I'm still noticing quite systemically across many organizations, a really high incidence of burnout. Mm. A really a lot of very strained cultural patterns within organizations. A lot more people that are becoming unwell with almost mis, let's call them mysterious. Conditions, whether there is post covid or, you know, the long covid kind of, kind of condition, but also people who are just experiencing chronic fatigue, burnout, you know, all of those kinds of things. But even though the theory tells us that it is important to talk about these things, I do still get a sense that repression is what we are defaulting to. I think there's even a trend. You know, no noticeable within our coaching community that even coaches are becoming burnt out in some cases, which of course not that. I like to think of coaching as a helping profession as such because I, I don't see our roles as helpers as a more like enablers or facilitators of someone else's, of someone else's growth. But, you know, coaching could be clustered within that domain, couldn't it? Of the helping professions, and one of the things we know is there's often a high incidence of burnout in the helping professions because people are giving of their energy to others without necessarily taking care of their own. And so, and I know that I can be guilty of that too. You know, I know that I have, for anyone who's familiar with things like the ta, Drivers and working styles. I have a very strong be perfect driver. I also have quite a strong be strong driver . You know, so we, we've got these cultural patterns, haven't we? Across the world that says we must be strong. And it's almost as though to be strong doesn't then allow for those moments of what we might call weakness, but actually. Is that weakness or is that more meeting the, the pain meeting, the the loss, meeting, the fear, meeting the panic so that we can then work through it rather than just repress it, pretend it's not there, ignore it, deny it, whatever. It's smiling a lot because of course I'm relating very strongly to everything you say, , it's resonating. So yeah. And that, that thing about To be perfect and, and actually sort of moving away from the fear, the, the fury, the anger, the, whatever the, the an, the emotion is that's being pushed up in us. I think we miss an opportunity. I really do think we miss an opportunity because I think if we can acknowledge. I'm frightened, I'm terrified, and I, I still see myself standing at the window thinking I'm never gonna work again. With that terror, if I can acknowledge the terror and I can even spend a bit of time trying to understand the what's be beneath the terror, what is the positive intent beneath that terror, then I have the opportunity to go, okay, so if that's what's really making me frightened, if that's what really matters to me, What are the options? And I guess one of mine, just to go back to that incident, was, well, I want, I love people. I want to be able to work with people and coming to one of the very simplistic solutions, which was, okay, I'll just go and get a job at local supermarket because that would still engage me with people. But there's something about, we don't often take that time to say, I'm really frightened, or I'm really feeling lost, or I'm really feeling sad. Where, what's underneath that? What matters to me that that emotion is now so strong in me. What we tend to do is go, no, can't be. I haven't got time for that right now. I haven't got time for the anger, I haven't got time for that. I've got to get on. And I think that's where we possibly can slip into the repression. And just to say one other thing about that, the energy that we use to repress is actually quite a lot. And if we could just release that energy around opportunity, gosh, imagine what we could do. Yeah, it, yeah. I'm really thinking as we are talking that, that this barrier, this million dollar question of what stops us. Is something around our, our inability or our, or our not wanting to engage with the difficult emotions, perhaps because it reminds me of something I read in a, in a book that I've reread. I'm re rereading some old classics at the moment, so I was reading. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Yeah. And also the untethered soul. And there was something in the untethered soul that was really quite striking that was about in order, and it was talking about, you know, more elevated states of consciousness and joy and, and all of those wonderful things. And, and, and one of the things that became very clear in that is that ultimately, In order to achieve those highest states of consciousness and those more, you know, states of joy, we have to go through the pain of the human emotions that we, we can't, we can't ignore them because all the while we ignore them, we keep ourselves closed to what's possible emotionally. And so I do think there's something there about. You know, whether it's, you know, that feel the fear and do it anyway, kind of analogy. And actually somehow whether with, with whatever support or environment or circumstances we need to meet the pain, to meet, the fear, to meet the loss, whatever is the, you know, the panic as you were describing, whatever is the horrible emotion that we really, really don't want to feel. To actually meet it and have that, that, that level of recognition, that level of acceptance and compassion, so that then we can move through it rather than try to work around it as it was. And, and it's so interesting. So feel the fear and do it anyway. I wonder if we were to put that on a, on a, on a set of scales. What you are talking about is we need to do the feel, the fear. I think often when we talk about resilience, we are talking about do it anyway. And it's, it's a really interesting one and I couldn't agree with you more. There's something about acknowledging that and also acknowledging the, and I don't want to, it's not the lesson, but the message that those feelings, those memories, those thoughts have for us. And they do, they have a message and being able to acknowledge the message, but it's about really getting in touch with that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm very, by this balance and by the balance even in our conversation, which is resilience and repression and struck you by our. Journey as a hu as human beings. So we have this really interesting we have choices that we make throughout life, which are a balancing act. Here we go back to the scales between expectations, expectations of ourselves and others of us. And the other end is that real desire for self-actualization to be the very best version of ourselves and to be able to contribute to the world. And somehow we are doing that balancing act all the time. And I think when we don't, if we can just acknowledge that resilience can often be a should, which comes from expectations of others. And if we could check in with ourselves and go, okay, so am I, am I dealing with that this because I should be strong or I should be perfect, our drivers? Or am I doing this? Because actually, if I can get beyond this, I will be able to be a better version of myself or more act more self-actualized so that that. It opens the subject to a whole different energy, doesn't it? I don't think it's a subject that we can just go, well, it's one or the other. I think it's a combination of both, and if we can engage with it so that we are aware, I am actually having to deal with this memory thought, feeling in a way that isn't helping me right now. That's fine, because that's your choice and we can't do that. And sometimes we have to. Yeah. Yeah. And, and as, as you are talking, I was noticing what was coming up in my mind was all of the excuses that can come up. And I, you know, I know they can come up in my own around why I shouldn't engage with difficult feeling. And we've spoken about, haven't we, around this idea of a fear that if I engage with my difficult feelings, if I engage with my sense of loss, fear of panic, whatever it is, I might not be able to put myself back together again. You know, it feels like some vast, I think you described it as a big black hole, didn't you? Opening up in front of you, it feels so all consuming. We almost feel like we, we can't come back from that, that we, we won't be able to feel better again or feel or, or tap into our strength again. Which of course we know intellectually is, is not the case, but when those difficult feelings can come over us, they can be very seductive, can't they? To in terms of being, you know, almost the fear of them being a permanent state. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, The other thing that I, I also was coming into my mind was, was another fear of being judged. Yes. You know, of, of we're already dealing with something that's difficult and then layered onto that we have this fear that I won't be able to put myself back together again. But then the fear of, oh, and how, what will people think of me because I'm feeling vulnerable. And even though we know. All of these things are important. It's still so much easier said than done, isn't it? To, to, to really role model this. Yeah. You know, you talk about other people judging us and of course that that's a huge fear and, and that is part of the expectation. But often I think one of, certainly for me, I'm my own biggest critic. I'm my own, my own worst judge. So there is something about that voice inside of me which goes, Janet, pull yourself together, or Janet, get over it. And I think there's that judgment of self that I need to acknowledge as well and recognize that that stops me sometimes engaging more useful. And you know, Tracy, I don't think there's a right and wrong here. I really don't think there's a right and wrong. I think there's something about being. Open to just noticing when, when we are having to make a choice between resilience and repression and, and noticing why we are doing that. Noticing what's important, what matters. And for me that's the, that's the thing that's so wonderful about the work we do because we are having conversations with people about things that matter to them. And then personally, if we can do it around this, I think it would be a much more useful way of, of managing the difficult and, and yeah, the difficult times, the difficult emotions, the difficult memories. You know, you've shared. A little bit haven't you, about yourself that you, you know, you are not perfect either. You can, you can repress and deny and all of those things just like I can. What, what have you learned about yourself in that and how you can therefore tap into truer resilience rather than repression that, that maybe. Anyone listening to this could think, you know, well, that might be insightful for them. What, what is your own wisdom around this? Well, there's no wisdom here. This is a learning process. It really is a learning process. I've recently been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and it's something I live with all the time, but I think there is something about, you know, it, it's a lesson that's coming back to me. Because what I'm finding is I have a strong driver to get things done, so I tend to just push, push, push, push, and have recently moved home. So I'm gonna give a very practical example. Recently moved home, have a low tolerance of chaos. So I really want to get things sorted and I will spend hours and hours. Physically putting things in place, sorting out, organizing, and would, and I've done it for 10 days and then all of my, all of a sudden my body just goes, Uhuh, no, sorry, this is not happening. And I get an infection or I get something that just says, right, that's it. You can't get out of bed right now. You're going to have to just, just relax. So, and just, and just take care of. So when I, when you say wisdom, I'm get, I'm nowhere near there, but what I have got now is a very, maybe it's an excuse, Tracy, maybe this is what I'm saying is my body is giving me an excuse to have to think about my energy, how I use it, when I use it, and when I have to stop, and build it again. So I don't keep giving from feeling as if there's an endless supply, there isn't an endless supply anymore, and that's the reality. So that's from a physical point of view, but oh my goodness, the emotional side of it. Of as well, you know, there is something about I can't anymore. I need to now stop, regroup, find a way of replenishing so that I can continue. So, yeah, no wisdom here. Just a personal experience. Yeah, well, I mean I'm there with you too. You know, we are a work in progress, aren't we? And you know, one of the things I've learned about myself probably in the last couple of years is I realize I've been blessed with a very healthy body. If you like, I'm very, very lucky that I don't tend to get ill. You know, I've, I've never broken any bones, never had any major illnesses. I've been really, really fortunate. I also am fortunate in that I'm fit and strong and healthy and, and I'm quite active. I have quite high levels of energy and the thing I've learned that has at times led me, even though I'm almost hesitating and embarrassed to say this is, I can sort of think I'm invincible. You know, like I wouldn't say that necessarily to other people, and I've probably said it to lots of people now you said lot to me. Hopefully lots of people if they're listening to this, is I can get myself into that mindset of what I can do with anything and therefore take for granted what I have been gifted with because I will run it into the ground. You know, I have the capacity to work very long hours. I have the capacity to spin many, many plates. And because I've always been able to do that, and if, between you and I, I like the buzz of that. You know, there's a level of adrenaline and a level of of excitement and vibrancy that I enjoy from the variety and the buzz and the various projects that I'm working on that can delude me into thinking, well, I'm fine. I don't really need to pay too much more attention to looking myself. When of course, you know, how stupid is that? How ignorant and how naive could I be. And it's only as I now start to get older that the body is knocking on the door, you know, the body starts to knock on the door, doesn't it? And say, well actually, you know, I do need a little bit more sleep. Or I do want some rest. I do want to do more exercise. And, you know, maybe I'm describing myself as someone that's got a terrible diet and doesn't do any exercise at all. I do, I do. I have a very healthy lifestyle in that regard in terms of food and drink and exercise and all of those things. But within all of that, there is still this arrogant voice that I can engage with that says, don't worry. You know, and as I've got older, and I suppose it's almost that window of time. Where I start to think, well, have I really run myself like this indefinitely? And the body says, no, probably not. So, it is just a little, you know, that little nickling that comes into my ear. You know, I thankfully for myself, obviously haven't had the wake up call, if you like, that you experienced with your recent diagnosis, which of course is a way of pulling you off by the collar, isn't it? And saying, hang on a minute. But I'm, but I'm noticing that if I was to not change the way I operate, that that wake up call is waiting there, isn't it? And maybe not. Maybe you are just one of those lucky people who physically you can. I mean, I so relate to you because I love spinning plates. There's nothing that gives me more buzz than that kind of thing. And it may not be a physical thing, but there is something about would taking care of yourself just a little bit more, give you more energy? And how would that be? I don't know. I don't know. And I would never, I mean, I just hope you don't ever, think I'm ok. I'm alright. I hope you, your body does carry on and, and I took it first and I took my body for granted. Yes, I do like that little bit of a tug, but I see it as having a positive intent and as I get on older I just have to learn to look after myself. I just have needed to take that lesson a little earlier and I might not have got here Yeah, it's hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it? It's a wonderful thing. I'm conscious that we could keep talking about this topic for a long time, and we are probably coming close to the end of our, our time for now. What, what would you like to say about this topic? Janet, in summary, as we bring this conversation to a pause, we might have others, of course. I hope we do. But how might you conclude our conversation so far today? It really has me thinking, which is one of the things that I love about the work we do just love the, the new perspectives and thoughts and they, they bounce between us, don't they? But I think from, from the resilience versus depression point of view, I think what one of the things that's coming up very strongly in me is awake, awakening, self-awareness around it and recognizing. We are faced with difficulties. We are faced with things that don't, they don't lie well with us or you know, whatever. They have an impact on us and if we can intentionally engage with them differently, I think we might end up freeing our energy in a more useful way. So I'm talking as if that's for everybody, but that's what I'm thinking for me, And for me, I'm feeling a real desire to challenge some of these, you know, maybe these binary definitions of things like, and I'm not saying this is the case for other people, but I know that in the past I can see resilience equals strength. Weakness equals bad. You know, those binary kinds of ways that we engage with this. And yet is resilience just about being strong. And is strong, incomplete. Does, does being strong eradicate any form of vulnerability? Let's not call it weakness either, but any form of vulnerability. So, you know, maybe we are just, maybe we've just enormously underpinned Brown's, Renee Brown's work here today. As I can, you know, as I come to my own conclusion, For me, the key piece is, let's not mistake resilience for just putting on a brave face. You know, let's not think that resilience is me just having that typical stiff up a lip or being able to just pull myself together and keep going because that is not what it means, is it? And that's not sustainable, that somewhere within true resilience, Is a place where we do meet the, the darker side of some of those emotions and we work through them so that we really can bounce forward. Absolutely. Lovely. Well, thank you so much Janet. I've really enjoyed our conversation and who knows, maybe we'll pick up on this another time. It sounds like it's a, a much bigger subject than we've been able to deal with this time. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Tracy. You have been listening to Coaching in Conversation by Tracy Sinclair, a podcast aimed at exploring how coaching is a vehicle for human development in today's and tomorrow as well. You can learn more about coach training and development at tracysinclair.com and follow us on social media. 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