Gwen Adshead

Is this about what's happening now, or is it about what happened before? Is this relationship actually unsafe, or is something in me remembering another relationship? And importantly, how do I find out? That made me think about the importance of giving creative relationships time to develop trust and allowing ourselves to test relationships in smaller ways before assuming we have to leap immediately into the deepest water.

Gwen Adshead's session, which is Unspeakable: Trauma, Language, and Therapy, made me think about another aspect of my coaching practice, which is language.

Creatives constantly tell me stories about themselves.

"I'm terrible at selling." "I'm bad with money." "I'm an introvert, so I can't network." "I'm just not confident." "I don't understand the art world." And if you listen to the grammar, it isn't, "I find selling difficult." It's, "I'm bad at selling." Suddenly, a behavior or an experience has become an identity, and that's where language can become incredibly powerful in coaching because I can ask, "Is that actually true? Has it always been true? Where did you learn that? And can you remember an occasion when it wasn't true?" And perhaps most importantly, is that the only available story about you? We don't have to replace it with some relentlessly positive story that we don't believe.