Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.....
Imagine yourself in a training group discussing patterns of behaviour, personalities, characteristics and family rituals. The discussion has been intense and challenging. The tutor closes the discussion with the following:
“Don’t think too hard about the answer here, just go with your instinct......what Fairy Tale do you most connect with?”
Well that made you sit up didn’t it?!
So what’s your answer? Goldilocks? Snow White? Rumpelstiltskin? Hansel and Gretel? Puss in Boots? Jack and the Beanstalk? Cinderella?
What is it about that story that you connect with? Can you see yourself in that picture, those events? Which character would you be? What does it feel like to imagine yourself as the other characters in the story?
Is it intriguing, exciting, revealing? Or is it alarming, painful, challenging?
Fairy Tales may carry a moral in the story, and they can also have dream-like qualities as well. And just like Disney films, there’s often a “baddie” as well as a “goodie”. What does your particular fairy tale say about the person you are? Do you like that person? What would happen if you felt your client is the wolf to your Red Riding Hood, or the Prince Charming to your Cinderella?
Understanding our own role within our personal relationships can open up a whole new understanding for our role in our professional relationships too.
The Karpman Drama Triangle (explored in the online Advanced Certificate in Life Coaching) is another way of looking at the roles that we take for ourselves and the resulting impact on our relationships. Are you usually “victim, rescuer or persecutor”? Or perhaps you think more in terms of “perfectionist, procrastinator, or busy-body”?
All these roles and aspects are seen in Fairy Tales. So – go and read your Fairy Tale again. Think it through! It’s a very different way of working – try it!
And I still remember the group, the tutor and the question and feel its impact on me some 20 years later. What’s my Fairy Tale? .....
To be continued....
