We caught up with new author and life coach Adele Green to discuss her book Can You See Me Naked? She offers her insights below.
1. Adele, you work as a coach-kinesiologist. What does that entail?
My work as a kinesiologist-coach is for personal development in my private practice. Since 2007, I have been meeting individuals who want to achieve set goals in their lives, business and values. Because I work with professionals, my kinesiology is an alternative approach to coaching when analytical clients talk too much. I describe kinesiology as ‘thinking with your muscles’. People who live in their heads can speak in circles. I found that combining complementary energy medicine (kinesiology) with meta-coaching (known for its benchmarking tools) achieves results 3 times faster than coaching or kinesiology does alone. Applying this version of mind-body techniques, when people need it the most, changes habits very effectively.
Basically if a client likes to talk, I put them on the kinesiology bed. If they want me to perform kinesiology, I empower them with information about how their decisions impact on their situation. In both instances the heart and mind connect to bring focus, alignment and clarity about what that person needs. I have 12 coaching clients per annum on a two-month program. I work intensely and the tools they acquire about their thought patterns assists them for the rest of their lives.
2. Naked With Adele is about conscious relationships. Without giving too much away, could you explain what that means?
Naked With Adele is a concept about reflection where someone meets ‘me’ without his or her clothes on. Just kidding! I told my boy one day that it means ‘just me’ – no jewelry, no attitude, no make-up, no clothes: If someone meets me without my pain, the stories I tell and my expectations of them it becomes like naked honesty. Meeting someone, even for coaching is very personal and intimate; how much more with your life partner. There is no hiding behind or judgment, there is only the core being in their authentic packaging. The idea is to understand projection, reflection and the essence of beauty inside relationships as two people connect.
3. What was the hardest thing about writing this book?
The hardest thing about the book was working through all the stuff I had to heal in order to be honest about what I wrote; when all I wanted to do was pretended that it did not exist. I had to understand it enough to express it in a way that others can make sense of what were only feelings before. And of course I had to be honest. Imagine a world where we do not use words and just transfer feelings across. We cannot tell someone else how to think about what they now know about us. It left me having to deal with how I feel about being so vulnerable.
4. South Africa is a country with a very painful history of gendered violence, and in your book you speak of the differences between the sexes. How would you bring about change in this difficult landscape?
Yes, SA has a history of painful gender violence, but it also has a society that is more conscious than most countries I have travelled in. Bringing about a change in such a segregated landscape starts with a bridge that can overcome the segregation of gender. Women do not notice that there are many men who want to help them. Even when the assistance is there, they don’t participate because of previous pain. And men don’t understand female emotions. I know this from previous women’s workshops I offered and the programs for gender mainstreaming I designed and developed. This requires that the oppressed experience the type of compassion for the opposite sex that will open their hearts and minds. We achieve that by addressing the unspoken pain in the unconscious field between men and women. Women learn to express their emotions, as they feel them one at a time in a way that men can better become aware of them; and men need tools to help women feel safe again in order to share. Change will come when we open our hearts and work together where men respect women and women stop trying to prove something. Women will include men more in their endeavors and lead as vulnerable, beautiful and sensitive evolved species with inner strength. Men will include women when what seems irrational starts to make sense to them. As we evolve we engage not with women or men, but accept people for who they are without wanting to change them. We can only change when we choose it. I realised that even more than workshops and corporate structures, a book reaches into the bedroom where women are vulnerable. This is the one place where gender violence can be healed in the face of love.
5. You speak about the need for more female leaders, which is definitely true. What do you think holds women back from taking leadership roles?
Barriers to women leading and taking on leadership roles are their lack of belief in their own capacity to perform. Women need constant feedback. Women are firstly focused on family, and then focus outside of their family. Women are also social creatures and people pleasers. If a position will make them unpopular, they hold back. Some women will even wait for men to give them permission to take up a leading role, because they need the external belief to believe in themselves.
6. And now something a bit lighter! Which female leaders/writers/thinkers have inspired you on your journey?
The first five names that comes up as women that inspire me are: Oriah Mountain Dreamer author of The Invitation, Clarissa Estez who wrote Women Who Run With Wolves, Marian Woodman who did more than anyone else to explain love through projection, Mother Theresa, Lady Di and my grandmother. They are/were all women who were not scared to love.
I am a thinker and writing has enabled me to share my insights with so many. The bedroom is a sacred place for women who are vulnerable to their men. If I in turn can inspire only one person that would be enough, because the truth is we as women decide how we want to live our lives, to prove something to others or to live with our own consciousness as free spirits.
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