English course nature based coaching - Lesson 3
Session 1
Where do you stand now?
In this lesson we will teach you all you need to know about the 1st session of the coaching trajectory. We start with a written overview of all 9 steps you need to take and we will end this lesson with a video of the live movie recordings of this session. After studying all this material you can do your first live practise with your fellow student and/or your 1st session with your try-out client.
Starting off in nature
You have the option to do an intake by telephone, but it’s much nicer to start off with this in nature right away. The client can then experience directly how nature based coaching works and you as a coach can get a good impression of the problems in question. At the end of this session you can determine together whether you will be continuing for the entire trajectory. Consider this intake as a full coaching session.
Preparation
Before you start your first session, send your client an explanation of how you work, what the client can expect from you and what you expect from the client by mentioning:
- Together with you I will evaluate what issues are bothering you and your wishes within this.
- I do this by asking a lot of open questions and by mirroring what you are saying.
- I will not give you any answers, solutions, or advice, instead I will presume that the answers are hidden within yourself. Only you know deep inside what is best for you. Perhaps this knowledge lies deeply hidden, but I trust that it will reveal itself during the sessions. I will regularly work with images and symbols to awaken your subconscious.
- I promise you that I will be honest and respectful.
- In order for the coaching to succeed, I expect an open and honest attitude and the will to honestly look at yourself.
- In coaching we guide the client to stand in their own strength, which is why it’s essential that you take responsibility for your own process. You will do this for yourself, not for me.
Make sure the client understands this and can agree with it.
Symbolic work form:
- creating a still life
In this session we ask our client to create a still life that represents their current life situation. Through this still life we invite the client to look at their life from a whole new perspective.
Aim: to gain full insight into the client’s current situation and the issues at hand. This is in preparation of formulating the goal of the trajectory (which will take place in the next session). This session is also an opportunity to see if you as a coach are the right match for this client.
By working with visual elements, the unconscious is being triggered, making it easier to unveil that which is normally hidden within the deeper layers of our being.
In addition, the still life offers a wonderful source for you as a coach to ask your questions and will stimulate your own curiosity, which is beneficial for the grounded, open and curious state of being that we aspire to have as nature based coaches.
You never simply use a work form, just for the sake of it. It must always be used with a clear goal within the coaching process and is always linked to the coaching question. This means that wherever you are in the trajectory and whatever work form you are using at that moment, you, as a coach, always know exactly what it is that you want to clarify. You are always clear on the entire path that you are taking with your client (5 clear steps), and why the specific work form is important at that stage.
Starting your 1st session
Step 1: Walking meditation
Always start with a short walking meditation of approximately 10 - 15 minutes (Use this meditation as a reference. Skipp the last part about the connection between coaching and nature).
Step 2: What brings you here?
After this meditation you ask, while walking, what is currently going on in the client’s life, what is it that requires attention, clarification or change? What does the client want to look at during the process? Finally, invite the client to do this following exercise:
Step 3: Creating a still life
Invite the client to look for small symbols in nature (loose lying ones, we won’t pick or break anything from the surrounding nature) that represent aspects of their life. Invite them to do the following:
Focus on what is going on in your life right now and what requires attention. The reason why you have come to me. Then reconstruct the symbols into a still life.
Give the client as much time as they need.
Step 4: Discussing the still life
When discussing the still life we start with gathering facts and spend relatively much time becoming aware and simply being with what is.
First start with your opening questions like:
- How was it for you to make a still life?
- What did you encounter? How did it make you feel?
Then let the client explain what the different symbols represent.
Listen mindfully.
Then carefully observe the still life by asking open questions:
- Is there a reason for placing this here or in this particular way?
- I notice that… what does this say about your situation?
- Does ... also have a meaning?
- Do the surroundings play a role?
- What do you notice if you look at it from a different perspective? (closer or perhaps even further away)
Don't forget to specify the given answers.
If you work with symbols, chances are that you will receive abstract or vague answers to your questions. It’s very important that the answers are linked to the current situation. You are looking for very clear, specific examples.
You can get there by for example, asking the following questions:
- Can you give me an example?
- What would you be doing exactly?
- What does...mean to you?
- What makes it different then? What is there more or less of?
- How does that translate to your daily life?
Don’t forget to paraphrase
Don't forget to regularly give back in your own words what the client is telling you. This is called paraphrasing. Paraphrasing cannot be done often enough, and is important for 3 reasons:
- By returning what the client is telling you, it becomes more true.
- By hearing back their own story, it sticks better to the client’s mind.
- By returning the story in your own words, you can check whether you understood the client correctly.
Attention
At this stage we are merely observing and becoming aware of what is. You can also see it as gathering the facts and confirming these facts, by naming them out loud. This creates clarity, and by turning these facts into neutral truths, they become more bearable for the client.
In this phase we are not looking for a solution. The questions: What do you need to...or....what could you do different? are NOT yet relevant!!!
Step 5: Include the process of feeling
During the above steps you also regularly ask about the feeling that the answer evokes and where it manifests itself in the body. You do this after specifying. Only when it becomes clear what a symbol stands for in reality, is it possible to feel the effect it has on someone. Questions that help with this are:
- How does it make you feel, that… (repeat the previous answer)
- How is it for you, that… (repeat previous the answer)
- What emotion does… evoke?
- Where do you feel that feeling or emotion in your body? > potentially invite the client the place a hand on that spot.
- Can you share what kind of sensation you feel in your body? Is it a tightening? Or a heaviness? Or something else?
- When you are asking about the feeling, make sure the person stands firmly on the ground with both arms hanging alo
Attention
Avoid questions such as: Can you allow this feeling to be here? Or: Can you accept it? They are much harder to answer with a “yes”. It’s as if something or someone still has to give permission. Besides, the attention is then much more focussed on the resistance. By merely committing to naming what is there, you are guiding the client very easily to the simple truth of the moment and you automatically show that that truth is easy to bear. (You are not going to say that, but the client will simply experience it).
If there’s still resistance, then that feeling of resistance is the truth of that moment. You want to invite the client in that same manner to first say YES to that feeling. “So you feel resistance?” “Yes, I feel resistance”. Yes, I don't want to feel this feeling. Period.
The coach makes sure that all layers are really felt and expressed! There’s a difference between only saying yes from your mind or from an actual feeling from all layers of your being!
Step 7: Bring it back to the core
What is the most important detail in this still life?
Step 8: Summarise and explore longing
- What do you remember best from this exercise?
- What are your most important insights?
- What is, in this story, your greatest longing?
This longing will be the bridge to the next session
Optional step: Exploring a possible change
Only when enough time has been spent on the previous steps, you can look at what kind of change is wanted. This is just about exploring and making possibilities tangible. We are not yet looking at how we can actually get there. Questions that are suitable here are:
- Is the still life in balance?
- Should something be removed, or added?
- How would this action translate itself in reality?
- How does that make you feel?
Step 9: Finalising
While walking back, ask your client to summarise the most important insights of this session. You also determine whter a follow-up is desirable.
You can ask:
- How would it be for you if in two months you would be able to live out this longing?
- Or if you would have a clear step by step plan to achieve this?
And consequently, you decide
Are you the right coach?
This first session’s aim is to check whether you as a coach are suitable for this client and to see if there is a match. Ask if the client has previously done some form of therapy or coaching on this theme. If so: what was the outcome? Does the client take medication? Is there an addiction? Any youth trauma’s?
If you believe that the person would be better served by therapy, or that you are not suitable as a coach, you discuss this. Never continue coaching (in the sense of more sessions) if you are not the right person. Be honest about this! (Note: This can also reveal itself at a later stage in the process). Especially if people tend to put everything outside of themselves and feel more like the victim of a situation, therapy is a more appropriate solution.
Some final words about creating safety
As a coach you offer your client the safest feeling by being as neutral as possible. That means that you offer an open space in which everything can unfold, without affecting you as a coach. Whatever the client expresses, whichever way they respond to things, everything is received in openness. For you as a person, things need not be any different from what they are in that moment.
That means that they’re a couple of things you really shouldn’t do, no matter how loving they may seem:
- You are not going to comfort/soothe> this sends a message that sadness must be reduced
- You are not going to ‘save’ > this suggests that the client cannot stand on their own
- You are not going to become ‘friends’ > this will corrupt your neutral coaching
- You are not going to patronize and do not give advice: > this makes your opinion more important
