What is Essential

“Do I have to do this?” my client asked me with an expression of total terror on their face.

“Of course not” I said promptly. “You never have to do anything that you don’t want to do in this space.”

If I’ve learned anything at all from coaching and being coached, it’s really that: everything is optional, all of the time, and the only way anything ever works is if it’s freely chosen.

“But” I add “I can tell you this too: everything that you want will always sit on the other side of what you’re feeling right now. And that’s what we do here: I support you to bridge that gap between where you are and what you want. So you don’t have to do it now, but if you choose to, I think you’ll be very glad that you did.”

And that’s the bookend to that first learning: it must be freely chosen, but the work will always take us through our fear and discomfort to get what our soul desires.

In my experience I have some version of this conversation with *every single client* that I have and it’s always around our very first assignment…something that we call The Essence Conversation.

It’s an oddity in our practice: it’s the only scripted conversation that we use. And it’s also a powerful experience. I won’t give away the process, but the end result is that we give our clients five words. Those five words are meant to capture the essence of who they are…the human that they were born as, the dishes they automatically bring to the potluck, the self that they are before the self that is constantly calculating gets hold of the process.

I was musing out loud to Cindy about this and I said “Why do we do this exercise first?” and it wasn’t just a rhetorical question. I was really thinking about it.

We were trained to use Essence as a hiring conversation, but I’ve never used it once in that way. And yet I always bring it in early, usually within the first month of coaching. And it’s the first thing we do with our Phoenix flock. But why is that?

From here, let me take a rather odd historical detour, but I promise I will close the circle.

In the late 1600s, there was a man born in India who became a Sikh Guru that we now know as Guru Gobind Singh. You all know the Sikhs, even if you don’t realize it: they are the Indians who wear turbans over their long hair, which they never cut. They worship a single God, just as Christians do, and like Christians they believe in charity, service, and devotion to their God, whom they call Waheguru or “Wonderful God”. This particular man, Guru Gobind Singh, had four sons. The two oldest were killed on the same day, in the same battle, and the youngest two were captured by the enemy in that same battle, and bricked up alive inside of a wall.

“Yet despite losing his children, Guru Gobind Singh stayed surrendered to the Will of the Divine. He said that his children had come to him from the Creator. And that he understood it was time to send them back home. When a few of his Sikhs attempted to gather the bodies of his two eldest sons on the battlefield, Guru Gobind Singh asked them what they were doing. They replied that they wanted to give his sons a proper funeral. Guru Gobind Singh told them that they should then stop and pick up all of the bodies – for all of the boys and men lying dead on the battlefield were equally his sons.”*

By any measure, an extraordinary response in the midst of a crushing grief. So that’s the type of man we’re dealing with, and I think it’s important to give you that background before I share this hymn of praise that he authored.

I think it’s the most beautiful description of God that I’ve ever encountered.

Ajai Alai – Invincible, Indestructible.

Abhai Abai – Fearless, Unchanging.

Abhoo Ajoo – Unformed, Unborn.

Anaas Akaas – Imperishable, Etheric

Aganj Abhanj – Unbreakable, Impenetrable.

Alakkh Abhakkh – Unseen, Unaffected.

Akaal Dy-aal – Undying, Merciful

Alaykh Abhaykh – Indescribable, Uncostumed.

Anaam Akaam – Nameless, Desireless.

Agaah Adhaah – Unfathomable, Incorruptible.

Anaathay Pramaathay – Unmastered, Destroyer.

Ajonee Amonee – Beyond birth, Beyond silence.

Na Raagay Na Rangay – Beyond love, Beyond color.

Na Roopay Na Raykhay – Beyond form, Beyond shape.

Akarmang Abharmang – Beyond karma, Beyond doubt.

Aganjay Alaykhay – Unconquerable, Indescribable.

The Bible says that David danced before the Lord when he wrote his Psalms. Before I ever knew what the words above meant, I was dancing before the Divine. Once I read them I was less dancing than floored.

Because though I’m not a Sikh and I assume I never will be, it’s nonetheless how I want to relate to God. As the essence of all that is.

And more than just that, it’s how I want to relate to other people. To speak to the soul of them that holds that same kind of divinity, even when, especially when (!), it might be lost to them.

It’s the kind of mother I want to be, who parents her children beyond birth and beyond silence. It’s the kind of partner I want to be, who loves beyond karma and beyond doubt. It’s the kind of friend I want to be, whose companionship is undying and merciful. It’s the kind of “opp” (as my kids would say) that I want to be, one who is invincible and indestructible. It’s the kind of coach I want to be, who sees her clients as “indescribable, uncostumed”.

And…to close that circle here…it’s why we give our clients Essence words first. Because we are relating to their greatness at all times, even when they can’t see it. We don’t see our Phoenix flock as “people who need fixing”, or “people who can do better”. We see our job as creating a community that empowers individuals…in part because we all agree that everyone there IS their essence.

Some of the words we have given our Phoenixes?

Champion. Home. Love. Connection. Radiance. Haven. Magic. Moxie. Brilliance. Wit. Play.

Some of the essence words I’ve been given by my coaches?

Joy. Harmony. Creation. Wisdom.

I think about them all the time.

We have one spot left. Just one. And I’m already so excited for her to receive her words.