As you read this I’ve just started another two-day retreat. A client and me. Offsite. No structure. No agenda. No phones. Just being with whatever arises.
I learn as much from these as my clients do.
Mostly I learn what I instinctively do to make myself more comfortable.
Speaking to fill the silence.
Teaching to justify the fee.
Believing my client’s story that there’s a right path and a wrong one.
I’m writing this the day before we start, as a reminder that I don’t have to do any of it. I can just be in the space and enjoy it — and notice what shows up when either of us falls out of it.
Trying to predict a future we obviously can’t predict.
Defending an identity that nobody else is attacking.
Feeling a weight that, when you actually look at it, turns out to be made of the same stuff as the identity it’s attached to.
What we walk out with isn’t a plan. It’s the felt sense that this whole thing gets lighter the moment we stop believing we can grind, work, and think our way to certainty before taking a single step.
How boring would that be?
I’ll be writing more about the actual retreat later this week on Substack—