A conversation with Marion Latour

“Somewhere it was already there, the feeling that there was all kinds of things going on under the waterline. Only I didn’t have the words for it. It doesn’t feel good, things aren’t going well, something else is going on – that feeling was there, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I inherited this sensitive side from home. My mother looked at things from a feeling. She took a holistic course and also paid a lot of attention to the energetic side.

My father was a computer programmer, back in the days when computers were as big as living rooms. He had a good brain and a strong talent for ones and zeros. I got my linear side from him.

In my 25 years in the fire and police service, I used both sides. On the one hand, I thought from A to B, in cause and effect. At the same time, I was always looking to connect with people and was interested in how people connect with each other now.

As I moved up in these organizations, in managerial positions as commander and divisional chief, I started taking more and more training courses. There I came into contact with the systemic perspective. That changed my outlook and the conversations I had.

Previously, for instance, I could find resistance simply something very difficult. At first, I couldn’t see past the resistance. That suddenly changed. I now asked myself: But why are you in that resistance? Are you being true to something or someone by doing this? That way of looking made me enormously curious and broadened my view.

The real feeling of coming home came when I took a course in Systemic Coaching with horses with Ruud Knaapen, surely the founder of systemic work with horses in the Netherlands. I had no idea what systemic coaching was exactly but my curiosity was piqued. And in my youth I loved horses, had ridden from age 9 to 18.

Even during that first day of training I thought: now I understand. In a different way than with my head. It resonated completely, my body reacted. And I realised again how pure horses are, also in their communication. They can touch you so deeply. I felt again that deep connection I had also felt in my childhood.

At the end of that day, I said to my husband [Jochen Beyer]: ‘I want a horse.’ Even crazier, he said: ‘That’s funny too, I’ve been thinking about a horse all day too.’ Not long after, we bought the first of our three Frisian horses.

Systemic work with horses is a very special experience. You don’t ride them, you don’t chase them, but they show you something unique. Just by being who they are. They flawlessly bring into focus what keeps you from being in the here and now.

The difference between humans and animals is that animals are naturally totally in the moment. We have kind of forgotten that. Animals have no agenda, are not preoccupied with the past, they react in the here and now. And they know what it takes to be complete.

When a horse touches a human, literally or figuratively, it is therefore from pure feeling. On top of that, we as humans know that there are no filters in animals, there are no other layers that come into play. That often makes it easier for people to trust. The reaction to horses is therefore also very pure.

After that training I was loose. I wanted to know everything. First I did some more team coaching with horses and then I took all the training I could at the Bert Hellinger Institute. Family constellations, organizational constellations, the master’s programme and systemic coaching – I wanted to experience everything. I didn’t so much have a goal with that, I just wanted more and preferably as soon as possible. I turned on a piece in me that had not been turned on before.

So for about four years I fed myself with all possible systemic knowledge and experience. Then Barbara [Hoogenboom] called asking if I wanted to become an affiliated trainer at the BHI. At the time, I was literally in my firefighter’s uniform and had no idea how I was going to do it, but my answer was immediately yes. This was an invitation from life and I accepted. Soon after, I also felt that I had reached my destination in the fire service.

For me, the course was very natural. And basically, I still feel the same in my approach. You watch and listen, walk along for a while and at a certain point you go more into the lead yourself because you can see something that the other person can’t yet see and then you leave all the space for someone to pick it up themselves in all their maturity. That was so in my leadership roles and it is also so now in my systemic coaching.

I also still work from both those sides in me. It’s not just heart and gut, it’s also head. If they work well together, you can do very beautiful things. So you also have to keep your feet on the ground. Zoom out, but make it smaller again to keep it manageable.

Broadening your view first is essential to progress. It reminds me of spinning, on one of those bikes with a flywheel. You have to push very hard on the pedals a few times to get moving. And then you can move on. That’s how I see my role. I help to get the flywheel moving and then I trust the other person in his maturity to decide for himself whether he will continue cycling hard, soft, heavy or light.

But ultimately, you can only set that movement in motion from a deep connection with yourself. Who are you, before you go out? From there, you connect with the client (or team) and the whole system and see what is a healthy movement and response.

That’s what I try to observe: Are you connected to yourself as a person, do you dare to meet yourself, are you in the here and now? How can you be even more in your power, what is a healthy response to a situation or (inner) conflict and how can I guide you in this?

In my coaching, I have perhaps become more and more like horses. They too don’t beat around the bush and don’t sugarcoat or soften anything. It is as it is. The correction of horses among themselves is simply clear. Very short, immediate and then done. And it is also very loving and inclusive for everything and everyone, because it is exactly what is needed to make a movement happen.’”