What The Mountain Said

An unexpected pathway to finding answers and practicing self-care.

My client was an executive in a healthcare system in Colorado, he was responsible for strategy, operations, as well as policies and procedures across several hospitals in his regions. He carried big promises for his organization, and it was heartening to see how deeply he cared about his work and its mission. As a leader of a large, widespread and cross-function team, he saw his fair share of trust breakdowns, accountability issues and political game playing. This made it challenging for him to feel successful in getting the real work (providing excellent health care) done well but he was good-natured, optimistic, and quite capable of rolling with the punches he was dealt.

I remember one coaching session particularly well. We were scheduled to meet, and he was several minutes late calling in which was unusual for him. When the phone rang, I greeted him and as soon as I heard his voice on the other end, I sensed immediately that he was frustrated and not his usual relaxed, affable self.

Something was up.

I asked him how he was, and he launched into a technicolour play by play of an argument he’d had with a fellow executive team member, the posturing that ensued, the tension that erupted and the impasse that persisted. When I asked him about the impact it was having on him, his frustration melted into dejection and discouragement. He was demoralized and at the end of his rope. He didn’t know what to do.

I felt for him. And I felt the pressure of wanting our coaching session to give him exactly what he needed so he could move forward feeling empowered and successful. My intuition told me that I needed to work differently and that a creative approach to our session was warranted. As a coach, relying on and trusting my intuition is invaluable and, on this day, I really leaned into it.

I wanted to get him moving, to leave the confines of his office. I asked him if it was possible to exit the building and go outside. With skepticism he agreed and so, we continued to discuss his challenge while he walked through the corridors and out the front door. Soon, I could hear the noises of the outside world along with his deeper breathing as he carried on telling me about the details in tandem with his steps. As the clean crisp air of the great outdoors circulated through his lungs and flushed his cheeks, his energy shifted. It was palpable. Some of his natural optimism returned. In coaching, noticing those shifts in energy, language and emotion are important clues to notice. I felt as though my instincts were once again steering me in a direction that would lead to positive results. I kept listening. And then, after a few laps of the building, I asked him to settle into a spot where we could continue our call. He found a bench where he was alone and not in earshot of anyone else and I asked him to describe his surroundings to me. I wanted to know what he was looking at and what he could see.

He described the brick building and the parking lot and a tree that was part of the immediate landscape, and then he told me that he was looking at a great big mountain face that stood in from of him. “Perfect!”, I thought. I could tell he wanted to know why I was asking. Instead of telling him my reasons, I invited him to focus his gaze even more steadfastly on the mountain. He agreed. I invited him to be still and quiet. “Ok”, he said, with uncertainty. Then I encouraged him to ask the mountain for the way forward. Laughter erupted from him, a sure sign that I had made an uncomfortable proposition. “Ask a mountain?? How do you even do that? A mountain doesn’t have a mouth, a mountain doesn’t speak,” he rebuffed. I understood. Here I was suggesting to this highly-esteemed-designer-suit-wearing-MBA-touting-male-executive to talk to…a rock. I get it, he felt awkward and self-conscious. And that was ok. I stayed silent and held the space for him to feel uncomfortable and once again invited him to give it a try – after all, what did he have to lose?

He stayed quiet and after a few minutes he said it wasn’t working. Baby steps. After a few moments, I encouraged him to continue seeing the mountain and to describe in more detail what he could see. He was able to describe the rock, the cervices, the colours, the size and grandeur, the colour of the sky. He said when he really looked at it, it was breath-taking. I asked him what feelings arose as he continued to take in the wondrous majesty of the mountain. After a long pause he said he felt strong when he looked at it. He felt confident. He felt humbled. The tone of his voice signaled a shift from how he was when we started our call. Now, more at ease, I gently invited him once again to silently ask the mountain for guidance and help. He didn’t mock. He stayed quiet, and then with a newfound conviction, he came back and said that what mattered most was remembering the hospital’s mission and his own core values. That in doing so would lead him to a way forward with his colleague. He suddenly knew what conversation he needed to have next, and he knew what part he needed to play. The mountain had reminded him of the source of his own strength and power – a mission larger than himself and his own guiding principles. The mountain may not have spoken those words out loud to him, but it sure did communicate in an unmistakably visceral way. The solution appeared. My client’s energy and spirit were restored.

That mighty, beautiful mountain brought him back to himself. Dare I call this self-care? Self-care in its purest form is a return to ourselves, to what we know is true, and seeing the beauty around us, really taking it in, is one way to do that.

My client wasn’t the only one who took meaning from that unconventional approach to navigating his issue; I did, too. It showed me how, in the normal workings of day-to-day life, we forget, deny, or bypass the incredible wisdom that, in my opinion, beauty has to offer. Our cultural narrative tends not to credit or give attention to the bounty of what lies beyond, or to the richness and significance of the world in which we dwell. We disregard it and slough it off as though it has no bearing or no way to shape what is happening in our lives. We get so mired in the challenges and tribulations of daily life, looking only down and in at our problems that we forget to look up and out, to be guided and informed by the lustrous and abundant wisdom all around. In other words, to allow ourselves to be guided and informed by beauty. My client demonstrated that even in hard times, we can awaken to and discover beauty. We don’t have to wait. It doesn’t have to be postponed. It need not be experienced only when the circumstances are right.

That mountain held a message for my client that day. When he stopped long enough, let go of his ego mind, he heard it. When he set aside the voice of outside conditioning that told him it was ridiculous, he heard what he most needed to hear. The voice of the mountain connected to his heart, and it opened him to a different possibility for moving forward and addressing his problem. Beauty offers perspective shifts; beauty is an expression of what lies deep within us.

I think that one of the reasons that we tend to forget or disregard the potency of beauty on our practice of self-care is because we entangle beauty with (western) cultural ideals around glamour, vanity and/or sexiness. Confusing beauty with such superficialities decays an otherwise very nourishing pathway to true, genuine self-care.

Consider for a moment…beauty is lasting; not trendy. It’s enchanting, not fashionable. Beauty celebrates, refreshes and restores; it doesn’t bemoan, deplete or fatigue. Beauty is powerful, not dominant. It frees us; it doesn’t mortgage us. Beauty is benevolent, not cruel. Beauty has substance and soul; it’s not trivial or frivolous. Beauty is wise; not flighty. It adds; it doesn’t detract. Beauty is available to all; not exclusive to some. Beauty makes us whole; it does not tear us down. Beauty is a blessing, not a curse. Beauty enriches, it doesn’t impoverish. Beauty is beheld; not owned. Beauty is ours; not yours or mine. Beauty is everywhere; not somewhere.

Beauty, therefore, is an essential piece of the self-care puzzle, not a luxury to be earned or saved for a rainy day. A life of enrichment, celebration, enchantment, freedom and wisdom awaits, and beauty is the conduit through which those qualities and experiences can be realized.

Beauty is of the senses; it communes through taste, touch, sound, sight and smell. When we glimpse luminous moments in time, we are in communion with beauty. Someone’s spontaneous and unadulterated belly laugh and smiles from strangers, dogs playing, finger painted art, the feeling of soft fabric, tears of joy, tears of grief, sunshine peeking through dark clouds, hearing the calls of red robins in the early mornings, the taste of freshly picked strawberries on a summer day, the feeling of warm sand under your feet or the fragrance of English flower gardens in bloom. These moments serve as a renewal and a homecoming to what we know is true and good and right.

The invitation is to let beauty speak to you and through you, to give beauty center stage and to let it bring in more of what your heart is calling for. That is true self-care.