Marie Quigley: Hello, and welcome to Empower World, the Coaching and Leadership Podcast. As you know, listeners, my name is Marie Quigley, and today I have a very special, and for me, long-awaited guest that I'm looking forward to speaking with, Christy Byerly. Christy and I have been meaning to get together for probably at least 6 months, but the universe has transpired to put us together today, which is absolutely the right time for us to be together. So, Christy, welcome to the podcast.

Christi Byerly: Thank you, Marie. You're one of these people that I've been following for ages and have been really longing to spend some time with, so we don't know each other well yet, but I'm so glad that we got to be here now.

Marie Quigley: Yeah, and ditto, right back at you, as they say, Christy. I love what you share, I love the way you communicate, and it resonates deeply with me and my philosophy of coaching as well. And I noticed, as I was kind of preparing for this call and looking at you and your work, we have a lot of commonalities.

Christi Byerly: We really do. I think you and I are both trained with Brene Brown's organization. We've got some Dare to Lead background. We both have done NLP work. We both are within the ICF at the MCC level, which probably means different things to different people, but similar journeys, for sure.

Marie Quigley: Absolutely, and we both are coach educators as well, coach mentors as well, supporting people on that journey of credentialing, which obviously has been an important journey for us, because to embark on that journey of MCC is no easy matter. And we're coming together today to talk about love and powerful, brave love in our work. And hopefully, listeners, you're going to learn a lot from Christy's thoughts and reflections about what this means in your work, Christy.

Christi Byerly: Yeah, in fact, I'm really glad we're talking today. I woke up this morning, with a little ping from WhatsApp on my phone, and it was someone who lives halfway across the globe saying, Christy, I love you so much. And I was like, wow, thank you, what a wonderful way to wake up! And she said, sometimes I just get overwhelmed with this feeling, and I have to say it. I hope you're not, you know, it's not embarrassing for you, or whatever, and I'm like, we get one life. Why would we want to hold back on the most powerful force on Earth? Like, why not say, I love you regularly, and live it. It's such an active you know, love is a verb as well as a feeling.

And so, it's just it's really good to be surrounded by people like you, like Claire Norman, like other coaches who are wanting to bring more of that powerful kind of love into the space that we're privileged to be able to have some thought leadership in.

Marie Quigley: I appreciate the courage of that person as well, naming it, and being active, as you said, in it. And it is interesting to me that there still seems to be a lot of fear, even with coaches. And I know coaches are not superhuman, but that depth that we have to go through on our journey, there is still some fear about using language that is honest and truthful and brave around how do we have conversations about love? And part of me thinks, well, of course we should be having conversations about love. Why wouldn't we be? But there's still a lot of fear around it, so how has that journey been for you, kind of speaking about it, writing about it?

Christi Byerly: I it really starts so, personally, I think it's such an inner journey, and then from there, it's gotta start with the very closest ones in the home and on the closest teammates. Because it doesn't ring true if you're performing it, or if you're just, like, oh, we're all about love, and it doesn't mean anything, it has really got to be a lived daily experience that is not always easy. You just wrote a blog post about love and contracting, and just before we got on this conversation, I was saying, there's some adult children of mine living in the house, and we're sharing a bathroom together. Do I love them? Very much. And we need to figure out, how to make sure that I can get my lipstick out of the bathroom, and the other person can take their shower, and the whole contracting around bathroom use can be done in a really clear, kind, loving way.

Which is not how I grew up. I grew up with tons of boundary crossing and codependency and dysfunctional systems where love was meant to be, you know, warm and gooey, a bit. But it quickly could turn into anger, because there was so much boundary crossing and lack of knowledge about what's mine, what's yours. I once heard somebody say that boundaries are the distance at which I can love both you and me at the same time. Or Brene Brown's, you know, if you have trouble having generosity towards someone, believing that they're doing the best they can, check your boundaries. Because boundary setting and knowing what's mine and what's yours is really what makes full-throated love possible.

Marie Quigley: Yeah, I really appreciate that, because what we're talking about when we talk about love and coaching, we are not talking about romantic love. We are talking about agape, right? We're talking about that more than positive unconditional regard, of course, that Rogers talked about, but we are talking about things that are tough, that are challenging, and that require boundaries and contracting, so that we can have these brave, yet loving conversations.

I grew up with a great role model in my dad, who he was fiercely loving, but also, he was really direct, and used to challenge us regularly, but we knew in his challenge that he was holding his chalice for us to be all that we could be in it. And that's what I love about this concept of working with love in coaching, in that it is much more than that softness that you talked about when you started this conversation.

Christi Byerly: So much more, and as you're talking, it's reminding me about, you know, parenting is such an analogy to leadership, and the parenting that we've received and the parenting we've been able to offer is so similar to maybe the kind of leaders we've worked under, or the kind of leaders we've become.

And I remember when I was a very new parent, I was so confused. I just had no idea what good parenting could possibly be look like. And so I read an entire 1500-page, or I don't know, it was a brick. It was a huge book. It was the TheraPlay manual for counselors, and I was reading it for myself, because I wanted to get, like, what is good parenting about? And they had an image of a car with four wheels. And each of the wheels, they had to come in a specific order, but all four had to be connected to the car. And so it was attunement and challenge along with nurture, and structure.

And you needed to, one of my clients used to call it Connect and Lead. Connect and Lead, that was her kind of two-word, you know, executive coaching summary of, like, okay, I want to lead, and I want to give all the facts, but I need to connect. You know, how's your dad, who's been in the hospital? And then lead, and it's maybe one minute of connect, but you gotta make sure the connection's always there, and then the leadership happens. And so if you want to challenge someone, have you attuned to them first, and then challenged? If you want to structure something, have you nurtured the relationship and then provided the structure. And any of one of those four wheels comes off, your car is stalled out.

Marie Quigley: Yeah, that's a lovely metaphor. And I know when I'm contracting I don't particularly like the word contracting in coaching. It's kind of a little bit confusing sometimes. But when I'm curating or designing a partnership with somebody, I think the transparency is important. That you've talked about, about aligning that transparency of those four wheels, so that this partnership can move easily, and if it stalls, then what are we going to do about it? So, having transparent conversations about what we can and can't talk about, can we challenge ourselves in a loving, compassionate way? And also, can we challenge our thinking? If my clients are coming in frustrated or angry, looking at the perspective of love can be really useful for them, so can we challenge your perspective in a loving, compassionate way, but that is daring and brave at the same time?

Christi Byerly: And I think it feels daring, especially at the beginning, when you're not used to behaving that way, and the more you get used to clear, kind communication, the more it just feels solid. It doesn't even feel so courageous anymore. It's just, this is the way I do things. I can think of a couple of recent examples, so Awaken Coach Institute has one in-person, intensive course training every year, so we always go to this gorgeous location in Spain on the Camino de Santiago.

And our hosts, we go to the same retreat center because we have this beautiful love relationship. We say, I love you to each other regularly throughout the year. In fact, I really want I think I'm don't tell her, I'm gonna ask her if she wants to write the foreword to my potential book that I might be writing soon. And she is so clear on the contracting. I mean, every detail. When are the deposits due? What is the minimum number of participants? What happens if this happens, if that happens? Like, everything is laid out in a quite a lengthy document. And we get so relaxed with each other, because we know, yes, I will pay you. If somebody cancels on my end, I need to have my contracts with the people that are coming to the course between me and them, so that Awaken, and our host at the retreat center, things make sense. Because the last thing you want to do is to get into some dumb fight over money or expectations, or something, when you could have a really strong love relationship and hold presence for a dozen learners on a course, because the retreat host and the teaching host really appreciate each other, and it's because of the contracting.

And then the other example that came to mind just happened just the other day, so I was teaching in one of our online courses and we the first thing we do in week one is we set our standards of presence. And so it's really clear what's okay, what's not okay for the duration of the course. And one thing that is okay is dissent. In fact, we welcome dissent, and we hope that people will bring their, you know, not judgment and criticism, but that they will bring an alternate view. And so, I was teaching about the need to observe instead of interpret, you know? And so we had a case study, and there was an example of someone who had said, I'm really unsure if I should take this promotion, I would be ahead of my peers, and some of them have been there longer than me, and so the coach in training said, oh, I think this person is struggling with self-esteem. And so he said, okay, well, that's your interpretation. It's not an observation, she didn't say anything about her self-esteem. She said she's unsure, wondered if she should wait. Other people have more experience. I didn't hear self-esteem from her. You can be curious about it, but I wouldn't make that assumption.

So, one of our participants came back and said, well, I want to challenge that, because we're making judgments all the time. And so my first response was, yay! I love dissent, because then you have a better conversation, right? And so then we did, we talked about, well, what happens when you make a judgment. Sometimes it might be okay to come in assuming, like, I don't know, I'm probably wrong. This came up for me, you know, the word self-esteem came into my head for whatever reason, but what do you what do you think? And so, knowing you're having a judgment, owning it as your own, and then choosing judiciously, do you want to bring that in to the conversation? could work. So we had this really nice discussion around it because she was willing to dissent. And because we had contracted for, yes, please do bring your alternate opinions, we can all talk about nuance and doing even better work with our clients than, you know, if we had just said a black and white shut down every judgment you ever have about your client, which of course would be impossible. Never bring it into the room, or whatever, whatever rule somebody wanted to make about it. So, these agreements for how are we gonna be, and hopefully it's honest and open and forthright and transparent, are gonna make for more learning, better relationships, all kinds of good things.

Marie Quigley: I hear that, and I really appreciate it. It's a really good indicator of how welcoming those other voices are so important, but also welcoming the other voices in ourselves as human beings.

I'm thinking about I got a message the other day from someone I know and respect, and it just it felt very judgy and very, I felt hurt by some of their assumptions. And some people think coaches should be soft and fluffy and so not say anything, but actually it's really important for me to be able to come back with courage and love, and say, hmm, is everything alright? You know, that doesn't feel right to me in how you're communicating, and it certainly isn't my perception, so can we have a conversation about it? So, the types of things we step up to and the type of things we let go are also part of this need to be courageous, brave, but also true to ourselves. Because I think if we don't listen to some of the voices that pop up, or the emotions. My body speaks a million words before my mind does, so if I don't pay attention to my body and honor what it's showing me, then I'm doing a disservice to myself.

Christi Byerly: That is something I'm that's just at the edge of my learning these days, that my own body can be my number one friend, and source of wisdom, which, again, is not anything I learned in the first several decades of my life. It was quite the contrary. You had to look for, some you know, deity, or savior, or somebody out there who was going to have the right thing to do, and the last thing you were supposed to do was check in with yourself and trust your feelings and things.

Just this morning, I had posted something on social media, that was kind of vulnerable. It was talking about my own neurodivergence, and some in my family, and just kind of an open discussion starter, and I don't really check social media that often. I have kind of a timer set where I can go on a certain number of minutes a day, and then but thankfully, before I logged off, I saw this person was putting several really, difficult political comments on my post, and so I quickly deleted them all, but then I wrote to the person, I said, hey, just so you know, I've deleted your comments, I don't really allow for really kind of strident political discourse. You know, that's really not open to other views. The person just started, like really attacking me privately, and I thought, oh, this is really interesting, because it's someone who had asked me to have lunch a couple months ago, and I and I was like, I almost said yes, and then I was feeling like, I'm not sure I'm really want to have lunch, and so so I I didn't, but I think even a year or two ago, I would have just been like, sure, someone invited me to lunch, let me go for it, and now I'm like, hmm my barometer for whether I want to have lunch with someone or not can just be whether I want to or not. That's good enough. It doesn't have to be shoulds or, you know, am I being mean or not if I decline someone's invitation, it's just do I feel drawn to do this or not! And whichever way my body goes is a pretty good source of information.

Marie Quigley: Yeah. You remind me of, in one of our trainings, we had a fantastic let's say, local resident, and he was explaining we were talking about intuition, and how the body works, and how it's constantly giving us information, a bit like you're describing. And he said, you know, my tribe used to use never used to use GPS, we just used to work with our bodies and follow what was right. And he said, now everybody's using this external GPS to find their way home, but actually, the way home is always within us. And, you know, it was just such a profound statement that his answer and he said, I've forgotten to use my own GPS, because it's been trained out of me. But he promised that he would continue developing the skill that his ancestors have. And I talk to him regularly, he's an amazing leader and is regularly checking in with his own GPS.

And I think that helps us as coaches. Our GPS could give us information, like you said. Do we share it? Is it useful? Do we share it without attachment? Are we attached to being right in our judgment, or can we share it to support the other person to tap into their own GPS system, their own wisdom, their own loving connection to themselves to find out their own answers, and to me, that second way is absolutely the way forward.

Christi Byerly: I'm about to buy a plane ticket. I think I'm gonna fly to Kenya in just a few days out of the blue, just because I feel like it. I lived in Kenya for 11 years, and I think that's what I want to reconnect with. Not that I couldn't do it here, where I live in France, but there is something about being with people who are used to that way. It hasn't been unlearned, in certain ways. Being on the Indian Ocean with a dear friend who does live by her intuition, I think is fabulous. And just that ability to notice things. I remember when I first moved to Kenya, there was a woman who worked with me in the house doing dishes and things, and and I said, hey, I'm gonna go out and go see my friend Helen, and she said, Helen's not home. I said, how do you know? She said, well, you saw her this morning, too. She was carrying the bag that she only takes with her when she's going to Nairobi, which is a good hour on the bus from where we were living. She's like, you know she's not home for hours! I was like, okay, I did see Helen, but I didn't connect the bag she carried, like, I just would not have noticed that level of detail.

For one time, I was asking directions, and the person said, you gotta go and so I'm like, okay, so I'm gonna turn right. That was the only thing that made it into my head. So then I started going down the road with my husband, and I'm like, okay, we've got to turn right. And he's like, it's not going to be this right. And I said, well, how do you know it's not this right? He goes, because when he gave directions, he went like this, and he held it he held it for a long time before he pointed to the right, and this is too close. If he wanted us to turn here, he would have just said, yeah, it's that way. And it's like, oh, just all these nuances, the way the body is used, and subtle cues, yeah, we in the Western world don't always pick up on a whole lot of stuff that's getting said.

Marie Quigley: Yeah, and what you share then reminds me also that each person picks up on different things, so there isn't only one way. So, you know, sometimes I'm doing a coaching demonstration, and coaches I'll always say, this might be rubbish, this might I want you to challenge this, because my way is not your way. My intention is not to create coaches who are like me. I want people to be themselves in this work. And so what we notice is often unique to ourselves. We just need to hone our skills a little bit more, and of course we can learn from others to deepen our awareness. But what this person beside me notices might be so much more profound and important to the client than what I pick up. And as you said, that's why it's so important to offer, but not to think that we're right about what we're noticing.

Christi Byerly: Like, if there's a million points in reality, and I get these two, and you get these two, if we can cross, share our wisdom, we'll have at least extra points of light toward what might be possible, and if only one of us was looking, for sure.

Marie Quigley: So, you did briefly mention that you're embarking on a new chapter, say, in your life, of perhaps writing something, Christy. What's your thinking around what you want to share with the world at this stage of your life?

Christi Byerly: Yeah, there's been this book percolating for years and years and years, and I just asked my daughter to go into my folder where I it's a folder called Christie's Random Stories. And apparently, I've been writing a lot of them. I had no idea how much I had written, but I said, do you mind taking all these little 100-word snippets and three-page snippets and whatever's in that folder and just cut and paste them into a document so I have any idea? And she came back and said, it's 255 pages long. So I thought, oh my gosh, I guess I've been writing in my spare time quite a lot, and so I've just hired a writing coach to help me organize it, because my brain is very good at random smatterings of things.

But the narrative that's been kind of pulsing in my heart lately is coming to a sense of wholeness and home inside of me instead of this bifurcated. I think you and I have both done some NLP parts integration, IFS work, where you learn to love all of your parts, and I think there's a former self that I'm still noticing is popping up sometimes that wants to see things in black and white, that wants to see you're evil or you're good. There's reward or there's punishment. There's heaven and there's hell. Like, there's really very divided ways of looking at things, and I think what the world needs right now is this kind of open-hearted, civil, clear dialogue between polarized sections of society, and I think that starts at home, inside, that can I love all parts of myself?

So, I don't know if the book will come out with this title or not, but I've kinda got a working title called Love Rebel, which brings that sort of, I used to have a very strong, defiant side, and then also a very kind of soft, mushy side, and they seem to be at odds with each other. And over time, I'm finding more and more integration where it's strong love, it's powerful love, it's fierce self-compassion, as Kristin Neff would call it. It's a way of being that's very grounded, very brave, although I do think the bravery kind of isn't as needed the more you just regularly behave in alignment with who you are, your insides match your outsides more and more. You're not trying to have this idealized identity that you're presenting a slightly shinier version of yourself out there, and so what I'm journeying into in myself is really this integration of light and dark. It goes back to walking and building labyrinths along the Camino, and, you know, going into the center of a labyrinth is actually life and death together. You're meant to find the monster, the minotaur bones hiding in the center, and yet come out ready to rule your kingdom with new life. So it's that integration of strength and love, old and new, dusk and dawn, wholeness inside, loving all the parts. Those are kind of the major themes that are it seems important to me, and it seems important in leadership and in the world right now.

Marie Quigley: It sounds beautiful, and I think that the coaches, the leaders who are talking about this openly for me, are touching on something that really is important at this time on Earth. So, I am really looking forward to delving into what you're exploring with this, Christy.

Christi Byerly: I want to read your book, too, it sounds like the universe is inviting this kind of thinking right now.

Marie Quigley: Exactly. So, for both of us, let's watch this space. So knowing that we've got a mix of we've got coaches who coach, and also leaders who coach, if they want to bring more of this wholeness into their work, what would you say to them?

Christi Byerly: I think the hardest thing to do right now in this political climate in a lot of different countries is to learn to invite dissent. It's so difficult. But, you know, when you learn constellations work, for example, where maybe there's a whole bunch of voices clustered in one area, and then there's the lone wolf. Somebody is standing outside of the group, somebody's not quite comfortable. And as leader, I think it's important to use our bodies. To, you know, we tend we probably maybe are already aligned with the majority, who knows? But to use our body to go over and stand next to the loner, especially if they're representing an anxiety or another big emotion. Maybe they're speaking for more than one person, and so they seem to be the only angry critic in the room, or the only one who's just more strident than seems necessary. And to actually go over to that person and say, let me listen. What's needing to be said from this part of the room? And that's not easy, because you can it's not about agreeing or disagreeing. It's about what's the dissenting voice, or what is the strong emotion that's coming out, and how can that enrich the whole conversation?

And so that listening, which I think is where coaching and leadership have such a strong intersection of, I'm gonna be a strong enough bridge that I can invite every voice, and there's certainly techniques and skills to do that, but it's mainly getting courageous enough inside that you're not worried about inciting some kind of inflammatory argument, but you're honestly curious, and you believe that people are going to evolve toward wholeness when every part is heard.

Marie Quigley: Yeah. Very important to pay attention to in these times, and always, of course, and always. So thank you for sharing all this. I know we have a lot more to talk about, Christy, with other conversations that might come forward for both of us, but as our time is coming to an end today, how can people connect with you if they want to learn more about your work?

Christi Byerly: I think the easiest thing to do is to go to awakencoachinstitute.com, and on most of the pages that talk about our courses, there's a button that says Book a Q&A call. And that's a lovely first way to get in touch, because you can actually have a real personal conversation, find out more, you know, if you're on a journey to MCC or PCC, or there's something else that you want in the world of the ICF, to find out what might be the next step for you. I think I'll leave it at that. And then people who really want to know more about my email address will be able to find it if you're dedicated and really want to know. But I think AwakenCoachinstitute.com and book a Q&A call will be a great way for us to be able to have a conversation.

Marie Quigley: Thank you, that sounds wonderful. And if you'd like to have the last closing words before I say goodbye to our listeners, what would you like to say?

Christi Byerly: I just want to remind you, if you're listening, that you are made of love. You're meant for love. And that love is so powerful. And so, the more you can come home to yourself and connect with yourself, especially the parts that you find difficult to tolerate, if you can bring a little bit of curiosity and a little bit of acceptance. Even if you can't love yourself yet, or love your enemy yet, if you can bring a smidge of curiosity and listening, that's gonna go a lot farther than you know.

Marie Quigley: Thank you, Christy. It's been a real pleasure that we finally got together for this beautiful, enriching conversation. Listeners, of course, as always, thank you for listening. We couldn't do this work without you. Please like, share, get curious, leave comments, tell us what you want to hear more of, to hear less of. We're always open to feedback. Until the next time, listeners, wishing you lots of love.