Nested dolls

During a recent session my client described her experience of coaching as opening up the Russian nesting dolls, known as Matryoshka. I don't know if she saw my dolls on the bookshelf behind me, but it was a timely and poignant comment for me.

My Matryoshka came from my mom as a souvenir from one of her trips to Russia. In addition to managing our city's Sister City program, she had founded an organization which worked to improve conditions for women around the world. She brought together a group of amazing women from near and far around this mission and hosted several global conferences, including several in Russia when I was a teenager. My mom had boundless energy and optimism, and she was passionate about doing everything she could to make a difference in this world. She believed much of that happened by stripping away labels, assumptions and pretenses we could better understand our humanity and work to find solutions for everyone.

Mom has been on my mind more often lately with the anniversary of her passing 26 years ago. I miss her dearly, and hope she would see her mission in the work I do in my coaching and volunteering.

My client's observation of the nesting dolls was such a beautiful description of the work in coaching to explore our layers. I love how the learning about ourselves never ends. The exploration of our assumptions and behaviors and characteristics reveals so many nested beliefs and layers, and uncovering them gives us endless power to change them. The work my client has done uncovering hers is so inspiring and has helped her make powerful changes in her leadership and life. I'm pretty sure my clients are brilliant super heroes to make these changes.

 As I do some end of year reflections/visioning, I keep finding my "dolls", each with familiar characteristics but unique in its particular issue or impact. The not-so-new layers that have come up lately suggest that some will be lifetime work for me. I am much better at recognizing and taming my tendencies to be a rule-based control freak, but they still challenge me especially in times of change and stress. (2020 anyone?) And the new layers as I grow are pretty exciting. All of my nested layers bring me great joy though - there is something wondrous about how these all fit together and support each of us.