About my practice
an ethos for generative work
On this page you will find a comprehensive statement of the ethos of my practice, including what moved me to do this work and why I do it in the ways I do it, for the people I do it for. I elaborate more on these themes in my writing and the work I create, and I live out the ethos in my coaching work with clients 1:1.
We live in anti-human times.
However, human ways of living and acting persist, especially when they are resourced.
This is what drives my life and work: a vision for existence itself, one that bends toward the human.
This vision is borne of complex systems lenses and sensory awe and all of what might be possible, once we really get into what might be possible.
In one sentence, which is really 20 volumes brought down to one sentence, here is my vision:
A human world that is, at its core and out to its teeny farthest reaches, at birds-eye-view and down in the trenches, humanistic.
It’s not really the stuff of words so much as it’s the stuff of bone deep, history-deep, longing.
I long for our most powerful and hegemonic systems to rest on priorities of humanistic care, humanistic need, humanistic capability.
In the relational world that bears out the larger vision, I long for our societal and relational norms to rest on these same priorities: humanistic care, humanistic need, humanistic capability.
And at the root of it all, as little individuals in a mind-boggling world, I long for our relationships with our deepest selves, with our own humanity, to prioritise, again, humanistic care, humanistic need, and humanistic capability.
Humanistic covers so many things, excludes so many things, overlaps with so many things that you can’t nail it down with a precise definition.
(Though, to be clear, “humanistic” to me naturally includes planetary and environmental care, since we are all as intertwined as anything could be.)
But, you understand what I mean when I say a humanistic world.
A world that rejects systemic harm at the human (and therefore planetary) level; one that makes possible, and even thrives on, our human qualities and realities; one that seeks to make systems and offerings effective for humans.
You know how different that is from much of our status quo, which roundly prioritises things other than our humanity, and operates in ways that harm or undermine our humanity.
It’s a big vision, spanning worlds and generations.
The present’s norms and status quo currently bend sharply away from it, though equally it is not new to any of us. I have seen versions of it play out at every scale from the micro of personal interactions in my life to the macro of our best shared history.
Importantly, it’s not a to do list, a singular all-or-nothing pursuit, or a vision that could be completed.
Rather, it is vision as direction to face, individually, and collectively.
This isn’t just about abstract theory for me.
I know first hand what it means to seek a humanistic life in a world that resists it, and to live and work within systems that undermine your humanity. I come to this vision through experience, both of what harms our anti-human norms can do, and what else is possible when you prioritise human needs, strengths, capabilities.
When I take in the scale and complexity of the systemic dynamics that produce a humanistic existence vs the alternatives, from the seemingly tiny scale of the individual through to the enormous scale of politics, government and corporations, and I start to feel faint with a disempowering paralysis, I give myself a wee shake and get curious instead:
Where are the leverage points?
Where do the systems bend toward humanistic care, humanistic need, humanistic capability?
And where could they bend even further?
Luckily, there are innumerable answers to this question, but my eye lands on one in particular:
It lands on the smart, sensitive adult, who cares deeply about the world and its people, who is dissatisfied (or outright enraged) with the status quo, and who seeks to live as an agent of change or humanism within their particular contexts.
These people? These people are my clients.
These people tend to be high achievers who seek to do good, no matter their context. They are funny, complex, dedicated, carve-their-own-path types, and they usually push themselves way too hard (their inner critics could destroy a city block).
Some of them are deep in a season of healing and recovery;
Some of them are at a crossroads or new chapter, waking up to a sense they must play bigger but not sure what that means;
Some of them have been through fire and are living their values in every domain of their life.
Some are all three at once.
All of them are more battered by the world’s norms than most, and all of them benefit more from exquisite human relating: being listened to, witnessed, lovingly challenged, and held to their deepest values and needs.
So when these people are resourced? When they are not burnt out, or ground down, or isolated, or paralysed? When they have this kind of relational environment in an ongoing way?
These people move the world.
When I let myself wonder what that world, in its biggest and smallest systems, would be, if all people, but especially these people, were properly resourced, when they could easily, lovingly, fluently live, lead, relate and act in humanistic, existentially useful ways?
It looks a hell of a lot like my vision.
Even now, or especially now, when so many norms are becoming even less human, we need the people who know what else is possible.
Who start from that place. Who live from that place, even as the norms around them would push them not to.
And if we need them to live authentically in these ways? If we need them to do the internal or external work and make the change we need them to make? We need those people to have what they need to bear out the larger vision, in all the different ways they see are necessary, in all the many contexts and seasons they exist in.
This is why I work in the relational and existential realm, a place where human needs go chronically unmet, and where there can be the greatest opportunity to experience change and impact.
Sometimes, what these people need is safety and support to explore and navigate what’s calling to them, whether that be some form of intentional systemic action, or a change to their methods or context, to how they seek to enact their own visions. (Resist the call of yet more efforting!)
Sometimes, what they need is a supported withdrawal inward in service of healing, justice, grieving the status quo, and internal system repair, so that they may return to (or experience for the first time) a relationship to themselves rippling with agency, love, and a selfhood un-trampled by norms.
Sometimes, what they need is whole new paradigms and ways of coming to the issues in front of them, since facing towards the vision means transforming the “how” of our processes as much as their outcomes.
Sometimes, what they need, having been facing this direction for a long time already, is the ongoing relational environment necessary to make engagement and re-engagement, leadership, and life itself joyful and sustainable in the long term.
No matter what season they find themselves in right now, no matter at what scale they seek to act, no matter what the specifics are of what they are seeking to do, or change, or heal, or make sense of, all of them need the highest quality of relational care: to be listened to, witnessed, and supported into deeper connection with self, life, community, and their humanistic aspirations.
(And they need pleasure, joy, EASE, oh man.)
In my practice I use writing, workshops, education and of course, coaching, to resource my clients in the humanistic ways I wish we all could experience as a matter of course.
In doing so I embody my vision, the longings it sprang from, and everything I have learned and gained during my own (ongoing) journey toward a systemically humanistic life.
In my vision all people have the resourcing they need to be fully human, and more besides.
But I start here, with the smart, sensitive ones, who share my longings, and want to face towards them too.
I start with you.
Katie Cowan, Coach, Writer, Educator
Resourcing you, so you can resource the world
Learn more about the coaching packages I offer, or book here to start working with me today:
And, coming later this year, two longer term packages aimed squarely at resourcing you in larger and more sustainable ways:
And what comes from all of that?
The resourcing of self.
The resourcing of the systems and environments of your life.
And, ultimately, the resourcing of the interdependent world beyond you.