According to the Association of British Mentors, which I am a member of Mentoring is described as:

“Mentoring is a process where one person offers help, guidance and support, using empathy and practical experiences of their own, to facilitate the learning and development of another.” Simon Fordham

Mentoring for me is all of the over with an emphasis on listening, supporting and nurturing an individual or a group, so individually or collectively you can learn to see, acknowledge and accept the present situation. 

From the stability of acceptance, I am able to support you to see intuitively and creatively your next steps. To then be able to take grounded action to either shift your perspective on the issue or find a tangible creative strategy to move out of the current situation where you feel perhaps feel blocked or can’t see the wood for the trees. 

Problems, issues, or bad situations are often doorways or opportunities waiting to open. As a mentor, I listen to the grief we often create by our expectations, when things don’t turn out as planned. From sitting in this space ( and this is a process ) together and holding the pain of loss or change, be it in business, a career, or something more personal, we can deactivate the pain and allow it to breathe. It may sound a bit woo-woo, but it’s really nothing more than sitting together and understanding the situation without judgement. 

This process of problem, grief and pain acceptance and seeing it for what it is, without judgement takes the heat out of the situation. This allows the next steps to be taken from a more intuitive place. In the energy of calm as opposed to the reactive energy of fire fighting through, anxiety and panic. 

Mentoring is best used when you wish for a sounding board to help you discover your own creative solutions. Someone to help support you, in you finding the best solution for you. A coach or consultant works more off a more well-defined strategic path, where they would try to guarantee the end result. Often they will be pushing you in a specific direction or path to solve the problem you have turned up with. Often they will be leaning on strategies and ideas that have been done before.

Mentoring is less defined, less certain, and less rigid and thus by its very nature a more innovative approach that will lead you to a more creative solution. 

Coaching and consulting is the left-brained, strategic, step-by-step and typical way that we approach problems in business and in life. We have been trained to do this in western culture from school.  This is a very valid approach and it works. I use it, as I still offer business consulting, but it’s not always the best method for all situations and it can be a more limited method of dealing with life and business. Sometimes we need a perspective shift and space to find a new way and mentoring can offer this. 

If you wish to discover your own creativity and find your own solutions and then apply them using me or any other mentor as a supportive sounding board, then mentoring is for you.  

Mentoring helps us to shift out of copycat products or copycat business models and at a personal level being copycat people. To become the unique individual self we are here to be and create a unique life. To become and accept our unique selves, with unique ideas, we need to dive into our creative minds and find the best solution for us. Mentoring is the best model for this, as it allows you the mentee to feel supported and safe to be able to breathe life into your own ideas. Mentoring comes from a place of non-judgement, and non-fixing. It’s a place of listening. It is this feeling of being listened to, that opens up the gateway to innovation and creativity.

In mentoring, we define the goal or I would rather use the word intention at the start, and then the pathway to that goal will shift depending on what happens in the sessions. It’s a more fluid, flowing approach, not easily defined or strategised or even explained.

Mentoring is more of a process-orientated model, as opposed to consulting or coaching which I see as a more concrete goal-orientated model, where the results can be more predictable, and based on what we have seen before. 

A lot of what mentoring is about is helping and encouraging you to see and accept your talents, skills and abilities and work with them. A mentor doesn’t add anything to you the mentee. We help you to shift your perspective, so you can see what uniqueness you hold inside, and accept it. From this space, creativity arrives, your creativity, meant for you and your life. 

Before I share with you what the dictionary says acceptance means, or share my ideas with you,  I think it’s a useful exercise for you to consider what acceptance means to you. 

Exercise: Understanding your meaning of Acceptance

Take a little time to reflect mindfully on the meaning of acceptance in your life. You might be surprised by what you find. Here are some ideas to help you dive into or journal on the topic: 

• How do you feel, when you hear the word acceptance? 
• Does it feel positive or negative? 
• Can you feel anything in your body? 
• Do you feel any tightness or blocks? where? 
• Any tightness in your breath? 
• Any stories, or ideas linked to this word that you have heard in the past? 
• Do you have a fixed meaning for the word acceptance?  If yes what is it? 
• Does your meaning feel open or closed? 
• Are you willing to dive into another way of experiencing the concept of acceptance?

Thank you for taking the time to reflect on what acceptance means to you. I hope that it was a useful exercise. It may be the same or it may be very different from what you are about to read. I think it’s important when working with words, especially in this context that we are on the same page. That page for me is being open to the idea of exploring your perspective on this word.  

If your idea of what acceptance means is different to mine, that’s totally okay. Part of the mentoring process will be to work on exploring with curiosity the concept of the word itself.

The Dictionary Meaning of Acceptance

Cambridge

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, it refers to the fact of accepting that something is true or accepting a difficult situation. 

• Acceptance is used when you finally believe that something is true after a period of not believing it. Acceptance can also be used to show that you agree to stay in a difficult situation after trying to get out of that situation 
• Acknowledgement is used when you accept that something is true, especially publicly
• Recognition has a similar meaning. It is also used more in writing than in speech
• Resignation is the fact of accepting a difficult situation

Collins

According to the Collins Dictionary, they state: 

• Acceptance of an offer or a proposal is the act of saying yes to it or agreeing to it
• If there is acceptance of an idea, most people believe or agree that it is true

Rootcase

The root of the word Acceptance is Latin. Please see below for a definition of the origins of Rootcast.

• The Latin root word cept means “taken.” 
• This root word gives rise to many English vocabulary words, including deception, concept, and except.
  • accept: ‘taken’ towards
  • except: ‘taken’ from
  • exceptional: ‘taken’ from the normal
  • deception: ‘taken’ from the truth
  • perceptive: having thoroughly ‘taken’ in one’s surroundings
  • intercept: ‘taken’ between origin and target
  • concept: thoroughly ‘taken’ or seized in one’s brain
  • inception: ‘taken’ in at the beginning
  • receptive: ‘taken’ back to oneself
  • susceptible: able to be ‘taken’ under
  • receptacle: container which “takes” something back into it for safekeeping

Synonyms of Acceptance From Collins

Receiving, affirmation, approval, responsibility, taking, acquiring, taking on, welcoming, embracing, saying yes, integrating….

Acceptance in Psychology

“Acceptance in human psychology is a person’s assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it or protest it. The concept is close in meaning to acquiescence, derived from the Latin acquiēscere (to find rest in). ” From Wikipedia

The Tigers Journey Definition of Acceptance 

Is to see,  be aware, and acknowledge who you are, as an individual together with acceptance of what is happening in the current moment. Observing without judgment, neither defending nor fighting feelings, beliefs, emotions, responses, and actions toward ourselves, other people, places and things. 

Accepting what is and letting go of what, where and who we think we should be and what should be happening. 

True acceptance is a place of calm, a place of rest, not of struggle or hustle to be someone else or change what we are or experiencing now. To see the untainted facts. This is not done with the mind, as much as we think it might be. Acceptance is outside the mind. 

Getting to this place is a process. It’s the core of many spiritual practices, and at the basis of 12-step addiction programmes. Some may reach this space in a flash, but for most of us, it’s this lifetime and many more in preparation for this one. If we go a level deeper, then we find the experience of surrender. 

I personally don’t think it’s an easy process at all, but maybe you are the one, who will read this and get the flash of awareness and acceptance. I truly hope that you do. For the rest of us, please read on for more detail on acceptance and the acceptance mentoring programme.

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”― Lao Tzu

In order for you to receive the most from the mentoring sessions, it’s important that we have a mutual understanding of the importance of specific qualities and values. You do not have to have these qualities now, but your intention to look into these areas is the most important. 

Open-minded – The ability or intention to look outside ideas, concepts and methods of doing things the way you, your industry or the people around you have always done things 

Change – The ability or intention to accept change, a shift in perception or direction. 

Empathy – The ability or intention to understand empathy, not just as a mental concept, but as a whole-body experience. Putting yourself in the shoes of others. Likewise, if you have an overdose of empathy, the willingness to accept boundaries. See below. 

Boundaries – The ability or intention to accept that boundaries are necessary for certain situations. Time is a natural boundary, energy resources… and then the way we manage and discipline ourselves to achieve our goals and intentions are also boundaries. See also ethics below. 

Ethics – The ability or intention to consider and implement with integrity. The implication that this ethical mindset has on the work that we do and how we live our life.  Some ethical traits are;  honesty, fairness (avoiding bias ), respect (for people, animals, and resources), communicative, encouraging and so the list goes on. 

Curiosity – The ability of intention to look at the world through the eyes of a child. To see & observe the world as an explorer, an adventurer and a creator. The intention and open-mindedness to look into new ways of seeing the world and approaching life.

Quality – The ability or intention to create yourself, your skills and your business with a high standard. This would link to Boundaries, Ethics and discipline. 

Meaningful Work – The ability or intention to create something meaningful. This could be meaningful to you, or meaningful to others. Your service to yourself, your family and then the world will be impacted by the expression of meaning in what you do.

Each Acceptance mentoring programme is unique because it’s designed around you and your needs. You the mentee are the one driving the chariot / your life.  As the mentor, I am supporting you to first understand that you are driving the chariot, and then support you to find the best way for you to drive it linked to the objectives/intention that you wish to set. 

I have many methods, models, and tactics to help support you in doing this. Some of them may be a little unorthodox to you, or maybe you are doing them already. I use these methods on an opt-in basis. If you are not comfortable working with dreams or doing vision work, meditation or other creative work, there are other options. 

To shift stuck patterns or belief systems, which is often the blocking issue for not moving through our issues and accepting them, it’s often best to try a completely new approach, a new method. This shifts us much faster than repeating the same old ideas over and over. 

To create a new world and a new life, we have to become a learner, to learn how to learn every day from a place of peace, and acceptance. Letting go of the ego needs to be the best and the winner, and dive into moving forward from the energy of peace and harmony, which they say is true intelligence. 

 In India, they call this the Satwa energy, in tarot it’s the fool card. We could also call it, leaning into awe and wonder. Which some may say is the essence of creativity.

The Acceptance Mentoring programme has been set as a six-session tailor-made experience, so we can address one element of your life that your wish to dive deeper into and accept. It’s essential to have a container and a process. A beginning and an end, to allow the healing to take place. 

However, I also believe that acceptance is something that each of us will be doing our whole lives. Life throws us curveballs and unexpected joy and sadness all the time. Learning how to deal with change, hiccups and dilemmas without falling into denial, or cover-ups (overwork, addictions etc), is a fundamental part of living. 

So if after the 6-session starter programme, you wish to dive deeper into another element of yourself, then, of course, we can discuss the next layer of self-acceptance. There is no time limit to this, you can do the six weeks and then come back in 2 years, but of course, it’s always better to keep the practices that you learn and the momentum up so that you can build upon your insights and learning.

Learning acceptance is a gateway to new opportunities and possibilities. Being stuck in a place of non-acceptance, blame, denial, victimhood and all the other forms of suffering that can come up is exhausting and it can really affect our health. 

I recovered from an accident and brain injury over 2 years ago, I quit drinking and smoking, 5 years ago in May 2023, I had another near death in my 20s, have dealt with many deaths in the family and much more. I am not special in this, as we all have these curveballs. But over time I learned to shift from my go-to coping mechanisms of drinking, smoking, shopping and workaholism into a much calmer kingdom, where I could look my issues in the face and pick myself up again. 

With each experience, I learned a little more about myself, and how to heal from not accepting the parts of myself that I was trying to hide in the shadows.  The anger of how I wanted it to be, how life, locations, situations and others had failed me. Many expectations of how I thought life should be. 

Many of these missteps that either I created or that happened to me, I held on to for a long time, never really knowing how to process them. It’s taken me 46 years and many incidents to learn how to deal with life and process the emotional overload that came with these events. 

Today I can deal with adversity, things going wrong and not happening as per my agenda much much better. I have a plethora of healthy coping mechanisms. 

I did not get this mentoring training process from a book, although I have studied with and am a member of ABM. I  learned a lot from doing my Reiki Master many hundreds of hours of meditation, yoga and creative work, the many mystical teachers I met along the way and the more than 6 years I spent outside western culture.

Most of what I offer has come through my many mistakes and then learning from them. Especially learning how to deal with my emotions and reactions to other people’s emotions. Acceptance mentoring and my mentoring practice have come through my learning to accept my warts, imperfections, mistakes, failures, and stupidities. 

Since I live and work on my self-acceptance daily and have had this as an intention for most of my life, I have been able to support hundreds of people. Some for just a couple of hours, some for much longer periods. 

Learning these skills has allowed me to feel like I am allowed to live in my own body. Like I am supposed to be here, I have value even if I often stand outside the culture I grew up in. I have learned how to feel safe expressing different views and essentially being the unique and eccentric person I am. Acceptance is a deep learning curve, and it takes time.

I have been both a mentee and a mentor. The value that I got out of it, and what I have heard from others that I mentored was very similar.

The mentor’s role is to listen very deeply to what you say without judgment and prejudice. The process of the mentor listening deeply and reflecting back on what you express is a very effective method of helping you to see yourself, and then how you, can help yourself.

It’s often only in relationships with others that we can see ourselves. To listen effectively takes time, patience and a lot of training. It’s very hard to find another person that can deeply listen to us, especially now in the age of constant distractions and interruptions. Personally, I find it a very liberating experience.

The Cosmic Benefits 

On a cosmic scale, It’s essentially the same relationship between the sun and the moon. The client is the Sun, the cosmic self and the mentor is the moon, the reflector of the sun’s, or the mentee’s energy. 

It can be very hard to see ourselves, and the best way of doing it is by using others as a sounding board, or reflection. This is often difficult when you are in a work or relationship as each person has their own agenda, desires and attachment to you and you to them, so this clouds how you see yourself. Also, normal conversation doesn’t generally allow for deep listening.

Just like when the clouds pass over the sun. unless we have a very deep connection to our inner being, our inner sun,  the outer clouds constrict our view and we can’t see clearly. Sometimes we call this delusion, the Buddhists call this ignorance. 

The mentor, if they have done their deep inner work, will understand this concept of self and the inner sun and will be able to identify, which elements of yourself, or your sun need to be brought forward into the sunlight so to say, so you can see them. 

The more we can see our true selves, the more we live in our own reality and truth and the less we are impacted by what is going on in the world around us.

 

Being in business, whether you have your own business, work for a company or have the aspiration to run your own business, can be hard. There are a lot of situations,  circumstances and issues that we can find ourselves alone with. 

For those of us that carry this entrepreneurial energy, and its potent power of driving us to create and succeed, life can be a real gift, but it can also carry its downfalls. If we are not functioning correctly, and our life is not balanced it can feel very lonely. We may have a lot of drive, but so many obligations, that we don’t know where to turn or how to make the best decision. 

Unless you have very good relationships with your coworkers or have links with others where you can discuss difficulties you face in your business it can be very hard. Most roles carry responsibility for ourselves and others, and too much of this can tip the balance. This may leave us feeling angry, and resentful or even shift into something deeper. 

Carrying these sometimes heavy loads and burdens of responsibility, can weigh down on us and become so heavy that it’s often hard to make decisions or know where to turn. When we become overloaded and overwhelmed, this can lead to physical and mental health complications such as anxiety, stress and even depression on a mental level. Physically there can be a myriad of other difficulties as our immune system and nervous systems become can be depleted through stress. 

Mentoring is not a cure for illness, but having a mentor reflect back on what you are facing, what you need to really see clearly and what you need to do more or less to bring your life back into balance can feel liberating. I know, as I used mentors, as well as energy workers to help myself deal with the heavy loads that I was carrying, and this is how I know that it works. 

There are thousands of business mentors available and it’s really important that the mentor/mentee fit is the right one. This is why all reputable mentors offer a discovery session, so we can take you through how we operate, understand your objectives and if we can work through those as a team. Please contact me through the form on this website or Linkedin. 

Remember that a mentor doesn’t give advice. We listen, guide and if needs be, help you to shift your perspective on a situation. Having similar values is a very good start in knowing if the relationship will work. 

What is my specialist offering as a mentor? 

I am very focused on you as a mentee and on YOU discovering your own ideas, desires and wishes for your business.  And in helping YOU support your to find your own real-world solutions for your business issues. 

Often when we see others being successful we think they or the solution they are offering is the best fit for our business, but it may not be the best solution for us.  It’s very easy to be influenced by what’s happening in the business and the outside world. What others are doing and how they are being successful. 

The key to our life and our business is to be found within us, at a more subtle, intuitive level and for this we need to dive a little deeper into ourselves than talking at a mental level. After you have been able to see and accept what you need to do to shift forward, we can combine this with practical, rational and real-world actions. 

I do use visualisation, meditation and creative techniques to help you find what drives you, what you wish for and how you wish to make this business experience of yours much more fulfilling and nourishing experience. We’ll also dive into creativity and learning how to play if you don’t do it now. Plus much more. Each client is an individual, so there is no set programme, it will depend on what your needs are. 

The answer is yes, of course, we can work on mentoring from another angle, but I do see acceptance of what is, as a gateway to life progression. It is in fact a fundamental part of the mentoring process, as well as any strategic business process to achieve growth. 

Acceptance in business strategy is essentially situational analysis, which is the first step that we do in any kind of strategy work or consulting when we look to make a change. 

Trying to bypass this stage of looking at what is happening now, whether you are looking to change financial, communication, operational, marketing, legal or overall strategy, means you’ll just add a shiny new cover to deeper issues that are there. Whether you can see them or not. 

I don’t believe that we can begin to look at any kind of change, what’s new or possibilities and opportunities for right now and/or the future until we have fully accepted where we are now, and how we got to this place. Also, accepting what we needed to learn from what has happened or still happening is part of our life story, and each of us has learning to do in this lifetime. 

It’s almost impossible to create a house on sand. So by not looking at what has come before and accepting it in our body and mind through our heart, we won’t be able to create our house built on solid foundations. 

Not accepting the before is sometimes called dissociation and denial, others may call it bypassing or spiritual bypassing.  There are many names, many methods and many means to dealing with accepting with the heart what came before, but it must be done. Otherwise, we are just creating a self or a business based on illusion and delusion, which is liable to blow over at some point.

Mentoring is the polar opposite of advice-giving or consulting. Another name for a consultant is a problem solver or a fixer.  Companies or individuals come to me because an element of their business is not working as per their expectations. Or they want to create a new offering or launch a new product and they do not know how to do it. 

My job as a consultant is to solve these problems for them or find a new solution.  I investigate the market, the company, and their offerings and do a deep dive into what the issues could be, I see the market and the economy going, look at trends, speak to many people and then draw up a plan of action and give advice on what the strategy would be, to make the business a success. This is not a simple process,  takes time and a lot of resources, and of course, paying a consultant or a problem solver is very expensive. 

This is a very valid and useful process for a lot of companies and is a way of working that I thoroughly enjoy, as I get to use my creative and problem-solving brain. 

However, what I have found is that sometimes the mentoring process would be a better way of dealing with company issues. The simple reason is ownership. 

What I found often was that it was very difficult for the companies or individuals to execute these strategies because they didn’t believe in them. It’s not because they were bad ideas or would not work, but we humans like to have our own ideas, and then we like to act on our own ideas. When the idea comes to us, we feel a kind of ownership of it, there’s an energy behind it and often a drive to execute our own plan. So if an outsider, a consultant comes along with a strategy or idea, that is not created in-house, it can be hard for the management to get buy-in. There can be resistance to accepting these, as maybe the manager themselves does not fully buy in. 

Mentoring can help awaken the entrepreneurial spirit. Mentoring is able to help an individual or group find their entrepreneurial spirit or will to create. 

In consulting companies pay for my entrepreneurial spirit and energy, and in mentoring, you pay me to help activate yours. 

“Counselling and psychotherapy are used to treat emotional problems and mental health.
Counselling involves talking to a trained therapist, either one-to-one, in a group, or with your partner or family. It allows you to look deeper into your problems and worries, and deal with troublesome habits and a wide range of mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia”.  NHS, UK

Wellbeing Acceptance Mentoring is more closely linked to your day-to-day habits and beliefs around what has happened, is happening and what you believe will happen to you and the environment around you. 

It’s about addressing parts of yourself and your life that you have perhaps rejected or are in denial about, bringing them up to the surface to see them for what they are. As the mentee, it is your responsibility to find these hidden elements, look at their face and then decide how to deal with them. 

As a mentor, I am not judging, diagnosing or working with illness or trauma. I am looking at more practical ways to support you to shift your beliefs around what is happening or happened and then how to approach it now. So indeed mentoring is a type of talking process, but it’s not there to fix you or any illness you may have. 

If I would compare the two processes I would say counselling psychology focuses on addressing problems, while well-being acceptance mentoring is focused on creating acceptance and emotional resilience for you to be able to actively move forward with your life. 

• Please note that if I believe that you need a deeper level of help and support that I am able to give, then I will alert you to this fact. Firstly I will encourage you to find the appropriate level of support to deal with these deeper issues that I am not licensed for. If I believe that you really really need help or are in danger, then I will contact the local UK authority to let them know.

There are a number of steps that I follow with mentoring, to keep the relationship as professional as possible. 

Step 1:  You reach out to me* and state that you are interested in mentoring and if it’s business or personal.  Please feel free to ask any questions. We will set up a discovery call. 

Step 2: Discovery Call. This call is for you to explain what you would like to deal with, and I will explain how mentoring works and run you through the contract.  If we both think I can help you with your objective then I will send you the contract with the costs for the programme, based on what you need.  I don’t have a set pricing list. 

Step 3: You send the contract back to me, with a list of potential times. You will have the option of doing one session a week of 1.5 hours or every 2 weeks of 1.5 hours. These sessions will be online.  

Step 4: You pay for 3 sessions up front, and before the first session. For the next block of three sessions, you again pay before. Or you can pay for the full six sessions. Depending on how you pay I will set up the invoice appropriately. 

Step 4: Each session will have a set format, which I will explain to you when you have signed the contract. There will be actions and steps for you to undertake, but these will be tailormade to how much time you have. I will write up and send you an observation sheet after each session until we complete the 6 sessions. 

Step 5: After the end of the 6 sessions I will send you a feedback form for you to assess your progress and for us to keep if you wish to proceed with follow-up programmes. 

• Please note that I don’t pitch individuals or businesses for mentoring programmes. If someone pitches you, then it is not me. 

The answer is very simple. I am a product launcher, business consultant and marketer, and that’s been my business role for most of my life. I would not launch a product until I was ready to launch it. I also wanted to experiment with the concept of not marketing or selling at all. 

When I was testing the product I wanted to see who turned up to the sessions, who crossed my path and who needed my help. So I did not do any advertising or social media. I did not even share my name with people most of the time. And the crazy, true answer was that sometimes I was totally oversubscribed. It totally shocked me as someone who was so embedded in the marketing belief system. That I needed to hustle and hustle, but no, they just came. 

I wanted to work on the skill of mentoring and listening without the distraction of needing to sell myself on social media, which I found very tiring, so I didn’t. 

But now I am back in the western world, where the energy is a little different and the customers are not so attuned to their intuitive needs, so yes, now it’s time for me to start sharing a little more of what I do and openly communicate what I am offering.