Caring for one starfish
A few years ago, I watched the video of Joel Barker telling a story of a man on the beach who was saving starfish one at a time. When someone questioned about the impact of his actions, he picked up one and said “It makes a difference to this one.” Last week, I was once again reminded of this story by a remarkable facilitator, Bhavana Issar, who has turned her life challenges into a support system – Caregiver Saathi, for people facing similar struggles. We all go through pain, sorrow, and grief, yet we have the ability to use these experiences to create something meaningful to help others.
“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop were not there, I think the ocean would be less by that missing drop.” — Mother Teresa
Coach – Coachee relationship
I was reading an article about how the recent Olympian champion Manu Bhaker and her coach Jaspal Rana worked as a team. What stood out for me was how their relationship had gone through rough patches, stalled, and revived. Manu knew Rana was a tough man yet she knew that only he could demand the best out of her. A coach-coachee relationship is unique in every case. The chemistry only evolves between the coach and the coachee as they work together.
“Krishna tells Arjun focus on your work, don’t worry about the results tomorrow. So the same was going on in my mind.” – Manu Bhaker, First Indian women shooter to win Olympic medal
Acting into feeling
After returning from a week-long intense workshop, it was hard to get back into my routine. Although the long list of pending action items could have left me feeling numb, I’ve learned to overcome it by taking action. Often, we wait for a feeling to drive us to action, but it’s also true that taking action can lead to a certain feeling. We can act ourselves into feeling rather than think ourselves into action.
“It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling than to feel yourself into a new way of acting.” – Harry Stack Sullivan, American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst