Recently, amongst the people with whom I spent five days at Vicky Peirce’s Come to Life Barn, I enjoyed meeting David, a recent graduate embarking on his career at a time when the economy is rocky and jobs are scarce.  Returning from the Barn and pondering our current economic situation I found myself picking up a book which has been waiting to be read for some time, David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea:  Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity.

With his characteristic style David Whyte draws on his own experiences and on the writings of others to reveal and explore the depths that await us if we only dare to bring ourselves fully to the experience of our work.  Every page reveals a deep truth about our relationship with work and about the relationship with ourselves which is revealed through this relationship.  The theme of conversation is woven throughout the book and I am at risk (though only very slightly) of losing sight of the overall arc of the book as I read sentence after sentence that lends itself to being quoted elsewhere.

As I read I also reflect on the experiences of friends, colleagues and clients in our current climate.  It seems to me that we have moved beyond redundancy as something that is happening to a few other people towards redundancy as something that is only a step away from each and every one of us.  With this comes a challenge to those of us for whom work is our primary and underlying security – for when our chief underlying security is no longer secure, we are challenged to look elsewhere.

The possibility or experience of job loss has a significant impact on the conversations we hold – at times without awareness – with ourselves.  For some, this is a devastating experience, rocking our very sense of self as someone worthwhile and with something to contribute.  We can see this in individuals and also in whole communities affected by the loss of an industry with which generations of neighbours and family members have become deeply entwined.  For others, redundancy becomes an opportunity to engage with deeper questions of who we are, what we want and what we bring, opening up new possibilities and pathways towards work as an expression of our true selves.  It is to these people that Whyte’s book is calling and it is with these people that I love to work in coaching partnership.

The possibility or experience of job loss is also something that shapes the conversations we have with one another.  For as we become aware that keeping our heads down and doing a good job may not be enough to secure our position in the workplace we are invited to reach out in mutual understanding and support.  Amongst the outcomes that our current climate can bring this is one that I see as entirely positive.  This is a movement away from a brightly-surfaced, brittle isolation towards a greater depth and intimacy in our conversations.  And once the surface of our isolation is broken and trust is established our world has already expanded and has the potential to continue to expand. 

For this reason, speaking to a client about the situation he faces as possible redundancy ebbs and flows, I notice that I cannot put my hand on heart and say that I truly wish he does not have to face the loss of his current job.  For whatever lies ahead I know that he – along with others like him – has the resources he needs to experience such a loss as an opening, a blossoming, as an experience by which he learns more about himself and his possibilities.  Whilst I do not have any wish for him that he lose his job, I do come back to my faith in the richness of human experience and in our capacity to learn, grow and thrive.