Poems contain stories, emotions, imaginary worlds, and metaphors that offer stimulation to the rational mind and nourishment to the soul. When they are read with intention, they can bring forth new ideas and solutions to your answers.
What poem best describes your life?
Poems can bring fresh insights in the coaching conversations too. This week, after guiding a vizualisation, I relied on my intuition and I reached for the poem that had a similar image what my client described. What is fascinating here is what the poem brings up for you. What is the actual meaning of it to you? How will it move the conversation (in your head) forward?
If you're in a coaching conversations, you can deep digger by asking the coachee:
Which poem best describes your life in the current instant?
What comes up as you read it aloud?
What does it tell you about your next step?
Get started with these inspirational poems
Here are four poems, three in English and one in Hungarian to stimulate your thinking:
Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Dorothy Hunt: Peace is This Moment Without Judgment
Do you think peace requires an end to war?
Or tigers eating only vegetables?
Does peace require an absence from
your boss, your spouse, yourself? …
Do you think peace will come some other place than here?
Some other time than Now?
In some other heart than yours?
Peace is this moment without judgment.
That is all. This moment in the Heart-space
where everything that is is welcome.
Peace is this moment without thinking
that it should be some other way,
that you should feel some other thing,
that your life should unfold according to your plans.
Peace is this moment without judgment,
this moment in the heart-space where
everything that is is welcome.
Nina Simone: I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free
I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All the chains holding me
I wish I could say
All the things that I should say
Say 'em loud, say 'em clear
For the whole round world to hear
I wish I could share
All the love that's in my heart
Remove all the bars
That keep us apart
I wish you could know
What it means to be me
Then you'd see and agree
That every man should be free
I wish I could give
All I'm longin' to give
I wish I could live
Like I'm longin' to live
I wish I could do
All the things that I can do
And though I'm way over due
I'd be starting anew
Szabó Lőrinc: Szél hozott, szél visz el
Köd előttem, köd mögöttem, Isten tudja, honnan jöttem. Szél hozott, szél visz el. Minek kérdjem, mért visz el?
Sose néztem, merre jártam. A felhőkkel kiabáltam. Erdő jött, jaj be szép! Megcibáltam üstökét.
Jött az erdő, nekivágtam. A bozótban őzet láttam. Kergettem, ottmaradt, Cirógattam, elszaladt.
Ha elszaladt, hadd szaladjon, Csak szeretőm megmaradjon. Szeretőm a titok, Ő se tudja, ki vagyok.
Isten tudja, honnan jöttem, Köd előttem, köd mögöttem. Szél hozott, szél visz el. Bolond kérdi, mért visz el.
What are some of your favourite poems?
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