For the past two days I have been learning the art of Action Learning Coaching. It has been an amazing experience that has lead me to consider the philosophical question - Who am I, What is the self?
The action learning involved a group of people questioning each other around a problem. This resulted in much time spent understanding the problem and understanding each others perception of it. What was fascinating was that people presenting rarely defined their actual problem. It was only through the questions of others that it was revealed to them. It was as though none of us really knew ourselves all that well - can that be possible?
There appears to be more than one self within us which is evident in the word ‘ourselves’. There is the acting self, the one who is out there in the world interacting aware only of the moment as it exists. There is also the observing self, the one who reflects upon behaviour and makes judgements about it. So far there appears to be two distinct selves, they are easily knowable and they enter into discourse regularly. So, what else is there that is unknown?
What was so fascinating in the Action Learning was that I found there was a third self present, not the acting, not the observer - there was also the unconscious self. This is the part of ourselves that is difficult to access, it pops up whenever it can and intrudes on our other selves. And we wonder, why did I do or say that? It can be hard to use our observable self to analyse our unconscious self, it can be like a room of mirrors with so many angles and distortion you start to loose track of the true image.
Action learning enabled people through the questions of others to examine the dynamics between the acting, observing and unconscious self – it provided the opportunity to see one selves as they truly are. In doing this real personal growth is within reach in an amazingly short amount of time. For participants this can be terrifying, enlightening and gratifying all at the same time.
Action learning could only provide the opportunity for insight, actual achievement of this depended somewhat upon the individual’s relationship with between their selves. We all know that relationships can take many forms and that they can impact on our lives both positively and negatively. The relationship with have between our selves is no different, do we love and nurture our self or do we abuse and degrade it. Unhealthy relationships between people can be extremely damaging, if you heard a parent speaking to a child, or a wife talking to a husband saying, ‘your not good enough’, 'you still can't get it right', 'you really suck at this', 'no one likes you', it would horrify you. How many of our observing selves make these comments to our acting self at least daily or weekly? What is the impact our relationships between ourselves is having on our ability to realise our identity completely? What would a healthy relationship with ourself look like and how would we know if we had or were moving toward a true realisation of our identity?
