We live our lives in language. 

Another way to say this is that we live our lives in interpretation. Through interpretation, we say what the world is and what the world isn’t, and we also say who we are and who we are not. 

Watching the burial of Queen Elizabeth II in England, whoever you are, you have an interpretation about her reign. Some people are sad and crying. Some people are angry, saying that she was a colonizer.

I love London, it’s one of my favorite cities, and I don’t have the same interpretations and meanings as the people who were born and raised in London. I don’t see the world the way the English see the world, and they don’t see the world the way I see it. It can be a both/and world where we can more easily use language to build bridges for peace and trust.

What we are attempting here at Ideal Coaching Global is to have you listen in a way that more possibilities open up for all people. One way to understand language’s power to open possibilities is by studying speech acts. Speech acts consist of;  

• Assessment
• Requests 
• Declarations 
• Promises
• Offers 

I want you to begin to listen to how you are interpreting the world and how you can use speech acts to shift your interpretations. By becoming an observer of your worldviews, and accepting the perceptions and meanings of others, you become an opening for design. 

WHAT KIND OF OBSERVER ARE YOU?

This is where mindfulness becomes important. By being a mindful observer of your unexamined interpretations and actions you can gain access to an ecological worldview that is inclusive, caring and honoring of life, including your life.

It’s like the political, racial, and other deep divides here in the United States. The divide is real because we keep speaking it into existence. If we start to speak something else, the divide will go to the background and something else will come to the foreground. This can only happen through new speaking and new actions, because speaking and action are one and the same. 

Ontological coaching allows you to become a different participant in the ways you navigate life by changing how you think and act.  

We are not saying this is easy and we’re not saying it is hard. We do say, however, that you have more power than you can imagine to generate a well lived, abundant and purposeful life.  

Copyright 2022 Bettie J. Spruill & Ideal Coaching Global