#153 The Princess Practitioner and the Pea
I’m coming to a milestone in a huge project that has kept me absorbed for most of the year. I’m writing a book. It’s a book that sets out the NEEDS framework (a framework that helps coaching supervisors intentionally choose their interventions to meet their supervisees’ needs) that emerged over several years of research into coaching supervision. I have enlisted 17 coaching supervisors to write case studies that help bring the framework to life. It has been a mammoth task thus far in writing half the book and editing the contributions that make up the other half. I’m at the point where the manuscript is nearing readiness for submission to the publisher. Woohoo!
All this coincided with my teenage twins completing their A-Levels and heading off to university, two rather substantial CPD programmes in which I had chosen to participate (Transactional Analysis Foundation Year and a Neurodivergent-inclusive coach training programme), and a somewhat bursting roster of coaching and supervision clients. It’s good to be busy, but I’m reminded of the phrase, Be careful what you wish for!
Anyway, all this busyness has at times made me feel a little disconnected this year. Mentally, the book has definitely been in the driving seat, and I have worried about the impact of it taking full possession of my attention at times, away from my family, formal learning and clients. So, I took this concern to supervision.
My supervisor retold the fairy tale, The Princess and the Pea.
>>> Spoiler Alert!<<<
A prince seeks a bride, but cannot be sure potential partners are truly princesses and not impostors. A young, dishevelled woman arrives at the palace during a storm, claiming to be a princess. Doubting her, the queen has a bed made up with many layers of mattresses, and secretly places a hard, uncooked pea beneath them. In the morning, the young woman complains of having had a terrible night’s sleep in the lumpy bed, thus proving her entitlement: if she could notice the pea beneath all those mattresses, then she must be a princess who is used to extreme comfort. And they all lived happily, etc.
This tale appears to be about testing someone’s privilege to determine their identity. Another way of reading it is that it’s about someone so sensitive, so highly tuned, that they can notice the smallest irritation; that something is not quite right.
Yes, you could say my supervisor was calling me a princess, but that’s not my point!
He was suggesting that coaching practitioners who notice when something in themselves doesn’t feel right, and their presence when coaching might be suffering, are highly tuned professionals.
The result? I chose to give myself a break, rather than beating myself up about being stretched a little thinly this year.
The learning? Noticing is the start, taking it to supervision is the next step. Engaging in reframing and reflecting in supervision leads to acceptance and self-compassion.
With hindsight, all this is obvious, but there’s something about taking your niggles to supervision, where you can talk them out with a fellow practitioner, ie, externalise your reflections, that helps you internalise the learning and take it back into your practice.
