Olivier Goetgeluck COACHING & WORKSHOPS Dear Reader, I notice that what I want to share doesn’t always want to be written. It wants to be spoken - raw, from the park bench, from a walk, overhearing a topic in the coffee bar, from the minutes after a session when something feels alive before I lose the impulse I’ve started a podcast. It will not polished. Not TikTok-edited to remove open spaces where I'm thinking. Not scheduled. Just honest audio reflections when they come. The first one is...
21 days ago • 1 min read
Olivier Goetgeluck COACHING & WORKSHOPS Dear Reader, When a person experiences a health issue or symptom, it is natural to look for causes in their lifestyle. To observe: What and how one eats What one does in the hours before sleep What one does first thing in the morning How active one is Which beverages one consumes What one's occupational situation is like What the childhood situation was like etc... A review of one's outer life can be mapped out and brought into focus this way. One can...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Olivier Goetgeluck COACHING & WORKSHOPS Dear Reader, Intensity is not the practice. Returning to the principles, daily, is. Finding joy in endless refinement is the thing, the reward, in itself. The fruits of it I cannot control directly. My investment in the material, I can. In-vestment also means to bring more and more of ‘me’ into the practices. Each feeling, sensation, thought, image has meaning I can look into. There’s an antidote found in all this to so many of our current obstacles....
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Olivier Goetgeluck COACHING & WORKSHOPS Dear Reader, Have you ever had a meal prepared for you in a, perhaps South-East Asian, restaurant where it’s not clear what the meat is in the dish? As you start to contemplate that it might not be chicken or beef, but could be dog, cat, or snake, suddenly the whole puke reflex kicks in. This is one simple example of how what we imagine affects our body, our expectations, our perception, our mood, and the possibilities we see. Actively interacting with...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Olivier Goetgeluck COACHING & WORKSHOPS Dear Reader, Yesterday, I was invited for a workshop-discussion at a local sport club called “Inner Power: What Pros Wish They Trained Earlier.” The main insight from leading this workshop was that, when I coach professional athletes (or any adult) - which I’ve done alongside working with 11-21 year olds for 15 years - certain skills only emerge as needs when trouble arrives. Those skills could be: Mentally dealing with pressure Physically dealing with...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Olivier Goetgeluck COACHING & WORKSHOPS Dear Reader, One of the side effects of practice is a subtle shift in our relation to the sleep and awake states. A third state gradually draws more attention: a liminal line, a track between waking and sleeping. In sleep, we are not fully awake: another part of our being steps forward. Upon waking, we may feel we’ve visited different places, embodied different characters. This same state can arise during practice - for ex. while standing for extended...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Olivier Goetgeluck COACHING & WORKSHOPS Dear Reader, What do you do when you seem to have failed? Seem to have. There is something you do to name this as failing. Before failing, there was an intent, an intended way of doing things, perhaps also an intended desired result of taking a step, an action. When this result is not met or when one has strayed from the intended way of doing things, there is often a gap. What shall I do? This gap is often filled, probably conditioned, by a moment of...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Olivier Goetgeluck COACHING & WORKSHOPS Dear Reader, The humble aim of practice is one. Through many forms, doors, paths, detours, illusions, and mirrors, one can be led there. The doors are not fixed authorities. Do not stop there. Go beyond admiring the frame, the keyhole, the material, its shine. Enter. Practice invites us to remember, to deepen, to trust that one sense left unmentioned on the list of five. Senses abound - I'm sure there's a reason we have more than five fingers to point...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Olivier Goetgeluck COACHING & WORKSHOPS Dear Reader, I have been fortunate to have had multiple teachers who taught without teaching. The teaching consisted of shared experience, followed by shared inquiry - questions such as: What did you experience? What came up during practice? Which images did you see in the visual exercise? There was an implicit approach to their facilitation. They pointed, yes - but they did not want me to describe their finger, nor bite it, nor worship it. ` There was...
3 months ago • 2 min read