Thinking, thoughts and exploring
I've been a listener for a year and a half now. And I'm in the midst of a self-care break as a I reflect on my roles here, and figure out what I want to be doing. It's so easy to immerse yourself in so many things here - support roles, being a listener, having different projects behind the scenes, supporting other listeners.... it can be easy to overdo and overcommit, and it's hard to identify these things in a professional way because of the anonymity here.
And trying to figure out what I can do with what I've learned here, and apply it more in my offline life.
I've been looking at this: https://www.integralcoachingcanada.com/programs
Do I want to get into being a life coach? Or a support like that? I can see how being a listener here, how the active listening skills can really help with this,
Questions, questions....
Has anyone else here faced this question or thought?
@Skyglider As far as I know, 7 Cups has never addressed the question of what committed listeners do after 7 Cups, and how to develop this volunteer role into a professional role. It's an interesting question.
If you take active listening as the starting point, then I suppose the professional role that leads directly from that is person-centered therapist. See, for example the: Center for Studies of the Person (I couldn't find anything similar in Canada.)
But listeners at 7 Cups adopt a variety of listening styles that go beyond or even replace active listening. Some listeners, for example, feel their most important contribution is in solving people's problems, and I suppose the professional role that leads most directly from that is solution focused therapist. But many other styles of therapy are quite similar, and being a listener here would be a good starting point for any of them.
7 Cups organizes our community mostly by medical diagnosis, and maybe some listeners would want to develop that medical approach into a professional role as a social worker, mental health nurse, psychologist, psychiatrist etc.
And some listeners focus on the management of the community, which could lead to professional roles in HR or general management.
Life coaching in general seems to be less well defined than traditional professions, and it draws inspiration from a wider variety of ideas. The company you mention, for example, says it includes ideas from Zen and martial arts. However, it doesn't reveal exactly what ideas they are. That whole website seems very confused to me.
If you'd ever like to chat about these things, feel free to message me.
Charlie