Diagramming Sentences

August in five lines: 

• Thousand Islands, NY – WOW!
• Kids Home
• ICF Credential Exam (earned my ACC!)
• COVID – my first time
• Kids back to their lives

And now life begins to return to ‘normal’… do I even dare hope it? 

I am getting ready for three long and wonderful days in assisting a Co-Active Balance course this weekend. Volunteering with Co-Active is one of my favorite ways of giving back to the community while getting to review and learn alongside new Leaders and coaches. The material is absolutely consistent, and never the same. Or it could be that I’m never the same. 

I began my coaching journey in September 2021. By the end of my first course (Fundamentals), I knew that I would continue through the 104 hours of CTI training. Pretty early on I made a commitment to go through six additional months of Certification work with a goal to become a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach.  International Coaching Federation has been an intertwined priority during this whole journey. 

Now that my summer has concluded with both my CPCC and ACC (all the letters!), I’m standing at the edge of a horizon that sometimes feels wide open and sometimes feels like a very crowded forest. For all the times that I have invited clients to imagine what it will be like when X happens, I am still surprised to be here and unsure of what it all means. 

This morning, I was thinking about diagramming sentences. What I love about this grammar exercise is that it shows how all the pieces fit. It’s like a very specific mindmap. But you start with the basics – the subject and the predicate – a noun and a verb – and then you map in all the modifiers. 

I find myself gazing into the future listening for the noun and the verb. I coach. Emily leads. She listens. We hope. They play. It grows. Words build. Kittens cuddle. 

Sometimes life requires that we look at the simple elements without all the descriptors that make us fun, unique beings. We aren’t discarding them, we are just detangling the essence of us from our strengths and interests in a way that will let us move forward and with more clarity. Is there a spot in your life where there are lots of tangles? What do you find when you detangle your subject? What is most important verb? From this place, what is your next best move? 

I am proud to say that after a spring and summer of unexpected turns in the road, I am once again accepting new coaching clients. The way for someone to connect with me is to set up a 30 minute sample session at this link: https://scheduler.zoom.us/ejpitman/samplesession .  Feel free to use or share that link far and wide. 

Did you learn to diagram sentences in school? Love it or hate it? Tell me more. 

Cheers to September and to you!

Emily