Depth Coaching: Discovering Archetypes For Empowerment, Growth, And Balance

by Patricia R. Adson

While living one's calling used to be required only for artists, religious leaders, and societal leaders, it is now important for the ordinary person.

The problems facing the world are so great that they cannot be addressed solely by a few special people. We all need to bring our best and wisest selves to our workplaces, families, and communities.

coaching is not just about performance but is also about meaning and purpose, vision, plans, taking action, and deepening learning.

THe rOLe OF THe COACH is to enable clients to set their own agendas and help them find the ways or the paths that are right for them.

Coaching as a discipline is a client-centered way of working with individuals to help them achieve their goals, balance their lives, and attain fulfillment.

In the myth, the hero prepares for the journey by learning to care for himself or herself, takes the journey by fighting dragons and discovering unique treasures, and then returns to share these treasures with the kingdom. It is the story of preparation, separation, and return, of dependence, independence, and interdependence-the natural cycles of

myths originated as a "shared cultural context for communication ... ways of teaching unobservable realities by way of observable symbols" (Hampden-Turner 1982, 198).

The task of the hero is to claim one's own life and place in the world instead of having one's life and place in ...

The archetypes are inner resources we can call on to make our ways through the terrain-to guide us on our journeys.

A guide doesn't guide by telling you about the journey. She helps you to explore your life and get the most out of it in your own way.

Human work, to those Greeks, the work of free men, involved courage: the risk of casting one's own being into the arena, in art, political contest, or any game of human skill in which you make your individual mark on your time. The concept of 'hero' comes from that definition of 'human work.'

Originally, it did not necessarily connote great physical bravery but simply the risk of freely chosen tasks or adventure in a community of equals, in which you dared to expose your true self' (Freidan 1993).

To prepare for the journey is to develop the ego strength that ultimately allows us to move from a state of dependency to a state of independence and to maintain that state as we travel