Claire writes: “For a few weeks, I’ve been sitting with an article by David Brooks in the New York Times. I thought the heart of it was about listening until I picked it up again this week:

“People only change after they’ve felt understood. The really good confidants — the people we go to for wisdom — are more like story editors than sages. They take in your story, accept it, but prod you to reconsider it so you can change your relationship to your past and future. They ask you to clarify what it is you really want, or what baggage you left out of your clean tale. They ask you to probe for the deep problem that underlies the convenient surface problem you’ve come to them with. It is this skillful, patient process of walking people to their own conclusions that feels like wisdom; maybe that’s why Aristotle called ethics a “social practice.” 

Which connects interestingly with some thinking I have been doing about wisdom.  In conversation with a number of wise women over the last few weeks, I am noticing that it’s who they are and have become through experiences and the many hats they have worn through their lives that underpins their embodied wisdom.  Not their knowledge. (Not averse to wise men – it’s just that these people all happened to be women!). It’s a great definition of coaching, too!”

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