By Javier Barbero

Versión en Español

I don’t have hair in my head, that’s why I didn’t turn into a porcupine. My organism reacted with a chill running down my spine when I “realized”. I swallowed.

Right in front of me, Michael Blumenstein was fitting his red glasses while staring at Katia Del Rivero with a grin on his lips that looked like a smile of complicity. That’s when I learned the concept of “form”.

I’ve assimilated the information and built my apprenticeship through many ways, although few times it’s been through a physical shake-up. It was not the theoretical concept itself that made me shook. It was realizing what I have been doing as a coach by not having such a clear distinction of “form and content” that shook me to the core.

Since that training, a time came where I became more aware of the implications of my speech and listening skills. I realized that usually I was inserting content when I asked something to my clients or the people in my environment, that generated a conditioning, a certain response from the listener.

A very simple example. Instead of asking “How are you feeling today?” I was perhaps asking “Are you feeling good today?”

Asking “How are you feeling today?” is a FORM question. It’s like an empty glass, a jug, a container that allows the listener to fill it in with its own CONTENT (“I feel good” “I feel uncomfortable” “I feel unsatisfied”).

Asking “Are you feeling good today?I’m including content (“good”) that inevitably causes a certain perception and response on the person that’s listening.

Learning how to work with FORMS as a coach (empty glasses) gave me the wonderful gift of creating a deep respect space for my clients. Offering FORMS –from my perspective- is making a contribution that helps to build and validate a space where any other human being can place its own “content” (whatever that is) in a session or coaching workshop. Offering FORMS it’s a FORM in itself that, professionally, allows me to enhance processes, and create conversations minimizing my own induction, interpretation, and projections from my Coach position.

Of course the “FORM” has helped me also in other social roles, it has allowed me to be more careful with the very subtle aspect of “tongue-guing” (as it said by Maturana) and that sometimes I’m capable of being aware of, and many others simply I justed don’t succeed because I flow with living and I don’t always look at myself while I am. For, example, I can say that sometimes I have offered empty “glasses” to my mother, my previous partner and my friends. I like to see how, when I was so sure Fernando would have “poured” wine, he allowed himself to “pour” his legitimate orange juice instead.

__________

Michael… teacher, thank you for your hundred FORMS that gave a place to my being and professional doing. I honor you every time I remember you… a word that comes from the Latin ricordis which means “passing through the heart again”.

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