The Dance of Knowing and Not Knowing

I find that we are usually pretty addicted to knowing things. Simply notice how many times a day you repeat to yourself or to others “I know”. It’s an unconscious habit of speech, an automatic response. I wonder where it comes from. Perhaps it’s tied to the historical importance given to knowledge in defining how smart we are. If “I know”, I’ve got something solid and valuable to be ME. Perhaps it’s a form of self-assurance that underlies our need for connection and for being seen, a form of acknowledgment that we’ve got something in common, something we agree on.

Being conscious of our relationship to what we know feels crucial to realizing the potential that “not knowing” holds. I am not talking about the absent-minded or sleepy teenager responding with a low, hollow voice, “I don’t know” to his parent asking how their room turned out to be such a mess. Nor am I referring to the times when our inner critic gets holds of us and has us feel inadequate for not knowing something, a voice we may hear saying: “You’re so useless”. Au contraire…the “I don’t know” I am talking about comes from the curious untethered part of our self, the part that is free enough of its historical containment to meet the moment with freshness and vulnerability.

Meeting this moment allows for creativity to flow and intuition to rise to the surface of consciousness. Perhaps you’ll remember these as “oh shit” moments, feeling momentarily lost or out of breath. In coaching, “I don’t know” is a golden opportunity for inquiry. We also call it an “opening” because it’s an interruption of our trance-like determination to manage our life. I recall what Leonard Cohen sang in his Anthem:

Meeting this moment allows for creativity to flow and intuition to rise to the surface of consciousness. Perhaps you’ll remember these as “oh shit” moments, feeling momentarily lost or out of breath. In coaching, “I don’t know” is a golden opportunity for inquiry. We also call it an “opening” because it’s an interruption of our trance-like determination to manage our life. I recall what Leonard Cohen sang in his Anthem:

“Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering,

There is a crack in everything, 

That’s how the light gets in”

We can easily miss this opening if we see it as a lack or if we’re too efficient at regaining our balance. Others easily miss it if they can’t stand being with the disturbance and the emotions that arise. In coaching circles, we cultivate an awareness of these openings and the courage to step into them because of the discoveries they bring forth. We help one another navigate these mysteries, trusting that all the intelligence needed is in the room to support the journey, not in some file folder on the cloud. 

If this intrigues you, consider taking our self-guided elearning course on Facilitating Coaching Circles. One of the 16 modules and capsules in the course is dedicated to exploring the role of “Openings and Threads” in the coaching circle process. Check it out on this website!