How do I get through the forest if I don’t know the way?
Or
Orientation in complex situations.

 Do you know this? You are in a hotel in a foreign city and go for a walk in the evening. And suddenly, you realise you’ve lost your bearings – you don’t know where you are. Your smartphone is in the hotel, and the streets are already empty. What do you do? 

You just keep walking until you feel: „I know that one! Then you follow this feeling and let it guide you until you realise: „Now I know my way around! 

Our system, body and brain have an unbeatable ability to extract and store patterns from complex situations. When one of these patterns reappears, we experience the feeling just described: „I know that one!“ As a result, we feel safe and oriented. They make it possible for us to move confidently through constantly changing complex social situations. 

We have acquired these patterns in the many large and small crises of our lives. Many of them we have long forgotten because we have found solutions. Others, when we remember them, still give us a feeling of unease of uncertainty. It is part of solid training for coaches and therapists that deal intensively with these crises, the „settled“ and especially the „unresolved“ ones. 

Self-experience, working on one’s own crises and problems with the support of colleagues and supervisors, creates a solid foundation for coaching competence. It is also never finished, as the patterns coaches work with should naturally correspond to the current life situation of their clients today. They have to be „up to date“. 

Because it is these patterns that our brain has stored that allow us to discover something like order in the chaos of our client’s experiences and to be able to recognise ways out of the thicket. Only when we coaches feel oriented in counselling can we give our clients the feeling that they can venture safely into uncertain terrain. 

In my training as a „Systemic Coach“, which will start in mid-November this year, self-awareness will play a significant role.