Who am I really? Are we defined by labels?

As the new book shuffles towards publication and a soft launch, I am turning some of my attention to what comes next. “The Inner Fire” took a while to come to fruition and has brought together my thoughts on coaching, on alchemical psychology, my work as a poet and the work I have developed on archetypal perspectives to support personal development.

Whilst writing this book, I have been in the midst of this major shift from the Chief Executive of an organisation that I founded nearly a decade ago to a new role as Chief Explorer. That process, which I wrote about here as I developed the Bridge to the New change programme, has deepened my thinking about the labels we use to define ourselves.

It’s certainly the case that I often work with coaching clients to unpack some of the unhelpful labels that we give ourselves and help them to shift the energy that a negative label brings into something more positive that underpins us rather than undermining us.

Sometimes though, a label can come to define so much of what we are, how we see the world and how others see us. I hadn’t realised the extent to which the job title I had acquired was defining me. It wasn’t the only label I had – I’ve had a portfolio career for several decades so there were several labels that I would use. But this long journey from leading the organisation, to stepping back, finding a successor, and beginning to occupy a new set of labels, feels worth writing about. I’m just beginning to explore some of the ideas for what the format of the book might be.

My experience of writing books like “Values Count”, “Insight Coaching” and “The Inner Fire” is that the process of writing itself becomes a discovery and deepening of understanding itself. So, I really am looking forward to getting started on this next book.

Alongside this I continue to work on the next poetry collection which is called “alice reimagined” and is half-written. I am also working on a new edition of my 2015 poetry collection “It Begins Like This” which should be out very soon. More news on these in the coming weeks.

Also published on Medium.