There is one additional micro-coaching process that might be engaged. This is the legendary reading of palms. Once again, without considering whether palm reading actually yields an accurate forecast of one’s future, we can use reflections regarding lines on our client’s hand as a rich source of micro-coaching insights. The ancients declared that our hand is somehow Enchanted (Bashford, 2025, p. 329). The gods have invested our hands with knowledge and wisdom. Holding this ancient, exoteric assumption to be true for a moment, we might ask what we can learn from this enchantment. What if one of the lines revealed a long life? What steps might our client take to ensure that they are prepared for a long life? Another analysis suggests that our youthful client will be joined in their life by many children; how might our young client generate some contingency plans for such an outcome? Or how might they set plans for NOT having many children if this “fortune” is threatening other life plans?
Perhaps we can temporarily declare other parts of our body or other elements of our personal world to be “enchanted.” This being the case, what can be learned from this enchantment? We transform random events into purposeful venues for reflection. As the Stoics suggested, we benefit from stepping outside and above ourselves and looking down upon the life we are living and the world in which we dwell. We find that rich learning is crying out to teach us about who we are and what we should choose to do and be during our lifetime. Micro-coaching can be engaged to open the door to this Stoic perspective.
Conclusions: Coaching in the Thin Place
An important outcome can be generated in a coaching session when providing a moment of micro-coaching in an Interlude that is secure and filled with insightful concepts and processes. The coaching outcome might be a small thing; however, it could reverberate and lead to a teachable moment where significant learning can take place. Many people involved in the provision of spiritual practices speak about the Thin Place that seems to be situated between two domains of existence. We don’t have to accept this assumption of two domains to appreciate the potential way in which an interlude of micro-coaching can pierce the thin membrane that exists between our current version of the life we are leading and the potential version of this life that would be more purposeful and gratifying.
At a more modest level, this could be the thin barrier existing between the inadequate solution to a pressing problem that is stuck (Einstellung) in our brain and heart, and the new solution that takes us to another level of thought and action. The main thing to keep in mind is that this membrane or barrier is Thin. It may take only a bit of micro-coaching to break through to a new solution to our pressing problem or to a new version of our life.
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References
Adams, James (2019) Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas, (5th Ed.) New York: Basic Books.
Argyris, Chris and Donald Schon (1974) Theory in Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bandler, Richard & Grinder, John (1979) Frogs into Princes. Moab, Utah: Real People Press.
Bandler, Richard and John Grinder, (1983) Reframing: Neurolinguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books.
Bashford, Alison (2025) Decoding the Hand. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bergquist, William (2021) Enriching the Dialogue: The MAPS of Coaching. Library of Professional Coaching. Link: Enriching the Dialogue: The MAPS of Coaching | Library of Professional Coaching
Bergquist, William (2023) Love Lingers Here: Stories of Enduring Intimate Relationships. Harpswell, Maine: Professional Psychology Press.
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