If you joined us last Thursday for our first community call, thank you.

Seeing all of your faces in gallery view — people joining from all around the world, taking one another in — and being taken in in return…

It was deeply touching.

As I write about it now, I feel such joy. I love the coaching community. There is such sincerity in the people who feel called into this work — not simply as a profession, but as a calling.

A way of serving life.

My intention for the call was very simple — to be in community with you. To feel the inherent goodness of human-to-human connection. 

It honestly feels like the most important thing we can do right now. 

I find myself so often feeling astonished about the world. The complexity almost doesn’t need naming anymore. Constant disruption and challenge is just what we’re living now.

And yet, something else is present too — a deep sense of evolutionary possibility. The seeds of a potential future beginning to blossom.

These feel like soul-making times.

More than ever, I feel the need not to get caught up in the speed of everything. To slow down amidst it all and ask:

What truly makes us human?

About halfway through the call, we paused together.

We slowed down, settled into the space, and listened to two questions — questions more for the heart than the mind:

What am I most deeply longing for?

What does life want to do or manifest through us?

We weren’t trying to solve anything, but rather to be with whatever emerged.

If you missed the call — or you’d like to revisit it — you can experience the contemplation, conversation, and field we created together in the full replay here.

 

What emerged was beautiful.

Adam shared that he felt held by the community. He pictured a net connecting all of us. When he listened for what life wanted to do through us, what came was:

He pictured a net connecting all of us. When he listened for what life wanted to do through us, what came was:

To heal and rest. To slow down. To relax. To be loved. To be accepted. And to love.

Just saying that now makes me want to pause and really take in those words. To breathe it all in again.

Our field is so often associated with achievement, success, and making things happen — and there is nothing wrong with that.

But I find myself questioning, on a deeper level, what it is that I really need. And what coaching is actually about.

Is it about helping people strive and work harder to achieve more? Maybe. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that.

But I also wonder if it’s about connecting to a different kind of core value — wisdom, rest, being loved, and loving.

Wendy spoke about peace.

She shared how difficult it has been to witness what is happening in her country, and how she has turned more deeply toward presence — staying grounded and offering people her full attention.

And then she said something both elegant and powerful:

I want peace. And if I’m at peace, maybe I spread peace.

I love this intention — to help peace move through the world through the quality of presence we bring to every interaction.

But I don’t want to run past the difficulty Wendy shared. I think a lot of us are feeling the impact of world events.

I know I’ve been feeling lost these days.

During the call, I reached for a few lines of poetry that I first heard through David Whyte. They come from a beautiful poem by David Wagoner called Lost:

Stand still.
The forest knows where you are.
You must let it find you.

There is such power in standing still. In pausing. Breathing. Letting go of whatever we’re searching for, so life can find us.

I find it deeply humbling — and sometimes difficult — to let go of what my mind has in mind for me, and become open to what life has in mind.

But one of the most beautiful things to emerge from this call is a reminder that we are not meant to find our way alone. 

Annemieke named our collective longing…

…and the beauty in coming together:

I want to be part of something bigger. I want to be seen, be heard, be welcomed — and I want that for everyone else too. I want us to remember that we’re more than just the crises we see around us.

Yes.

I feel like this is the invitation.

To acknowledge the truth of where we are — the complexity and disruption we’re living inside — without forgetting the beauty and possibility emerging at the same time.

For so long, we’ve been taught to think of ourselves as separate individuals, each responsible for optimizing, succeeding, and finding our own way.

But perhaps we’re beginning to remember something deeper:

We are being formed together, moment by moment.

Remembering this asks something of us: to feel more, open our hearts, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

And for an hour last Thursday, that is what we did.

We came together and formed a powerful field.

And it felt like home.

Peace. Love. Connection. Coming home. We connected to each of these powerful feelings. I want all of these — as I imagine we all do.

And sometimes the longing for them can feel almost like anguish — as though home is very far away, and I need to work hard to get there.

But as I sat with all of you, what I touched was much simpler.

Home is here.

It’s just here.

It doesn’t need to be something I chase or hold onto.

I don’t know where these times are taking us, but I do feel an extraordinary sense of possibility. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more inspired than I do right now.

The question I want to continue living into is:

Who are we being invited to be — and to become — both individually and collectively?

There is so much more to say, and so much more to explore together.

But for now, thank you for reminding me…

Home is here.

I love you all,
Joel