In counseling, the mother of all interventions is meeting up. Getting together. Sitting down, face to face. By really arriving, here and now, willing to be near whatever is up, both the counselor and the coachee enable themselves to relate. To be present. Being seen, heard, acknowledged, especially regarding the stuff that is derailing, is vital if we want to grow. In life, however, …
Continue reading “To connect or disconnect”Quick question: have you ever felt ashamed of yourself after having presented a paper, sat in at a faculty meeting, after giving a lecture or following some other form of academic performance? Have you ever felt ashamed of who you are? Probably not something that you’d like to admit… But very useful to acknowledge nonetheless. There’s golden data in this, in terms of reaching your highest potential. Want to find out why?
Continue reading “Shame on you!”Authenticity is strongly connected to congruence. Congruence is all about saying yes when you feel yes, and saying no when you feel no. Let’s raise our awareness in this respect and see how it demands both a realistic, real and honest perspective on what is alive in us, right now.
Continue reading “Expired bus tickets…”
Have you ever physically, or verbally, or both physically and verbally pointed the finger at someone? Well, if you are a human being, you will probably have pointed many fingers at various Others during your life. I know I have.
Continue reading “Pointing the Finger”
Last week, working with such an inspiring bunch of PhD students, I found myself practicing ‘saying no’ with these wonderful scholars: “Let’s just practice saying ‘No’. One, two, three: ‘No.’ One, two, three: ‘No’. One more time, one, two…, three… ‘No!'” Their faces lit up. Saying ‘No!’, very obviously, was fun. We said it loud and proud and with such joy. And let’s face it. The importance of knowing how to say ‘no’ cannot be overstated in an academic career.
Continue reading “On Saying ‘No’: the Art and Magic of Declining”
Have you ever felt like you were ‘bracing before impact’ the moment you decided you should be opening your inbox? Maybe you were* dreading the people who expected to hear back from you. At other times, you may have felt nervous because you were expecting a peer review or a response to an application for research funding. If your experiences resemble mine then you know that the phrasing in those emails can affect your day (to put it mildly)…
Continue reading “Our inboxes: why academic ‘suffering’ needs accepting, not fixing…”
There we were.
In the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
For the ‘Night of History’, the ‘Nacht van de Geschiedenis‘.
If you stop and think about it for a moment, if you slow down to such an extent that you can catch up with yourself: do you feel you belong in the academy?
Continue reading “From feeling like an imposter… to…belonging…”
Working as an academic is such a privilege. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it actually felt like a privilege?
Ever had a really meaningful, open, vulnerable and ‘true’ discussion with your colleagues about how you grade your students’ work? Grading – let’s face it – is one of the most violent aspects of our academic work…