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Brain One Discussion (July 18 Intensive)
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29 Replies
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My most recent session with a practice client after our F2F was an intense one. My client is a therapist working with clients who are court-mandated and on parole. Our first session was great and allowed a full process which lead to solid integration. New connections were made, and we set up a solid action plan which she followed. Our second session – the most recent one – was challenging. She came to me having come out of a weekend or crises that caused relapse, edged her window of tolerance, and brought to light a lot of her deeply rooted habit patterns.
To begin the session, she jumped into a story about the weekend. She was seemingly operating mostly from her arousal system. Once she shared and I reflected back, I asked what she needed from the session, and we decided to work with helping her ground, see what it would be like to come out of the story and into the body, and try to release some tension that was there. We worked for a while with pendulation, coming to discover where she holds tension, sadness, and anger in her body.
About two thirds through the session she finally transitioned more to her quiescent system and we were able to refocus the session on how to incorporate resource, self-care, and boundaries into the work she is doing outside of sessions (all things that came up during the session). It was amazing to watch her seemingly looping in a low-road circuit at first, and then transitioning to more of a high-road circuit throughout the session.
Looking at the stages of change model that we learned, my client was in the action phase after our intake session until her challenging weekend when she had a relapse. Our session was spent circling back to contemplation and planning some with new realizations she had. She told me, however, that even during the weekend filled with crisis she was able to integrate a lot of what we worked on in the first session and that she had never before been so grounded and connected to herself during crisis. Sounds like the ritual we set up was able to strengthen some new neuropathways!
To be honest, because of what my client came in with this session was focused a lot more around trauma than change, so I have less to write about in regards to the brain and change. Moving forward in my coaching, I want to keep change theory in the forefront of my mind. I feel that the coaching format we work with integrates change theory easily without much conscious thought. However, I think my coaching can improve with more awareness toward the subtleties of where my clients are at in the stages of change. I can also see myself offering some sort of diagram of the stages of charge to introduce clients to another tool for creating awareness of where they’re at.
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Oh man this post has got me so stoked David! It sounds like you are really understanding how the Brain work portion integrates and shows up in a coaching session and that is so great to hear. To start off, I was glad to see that you were aware of the story your client was sharing, but that the deeper need was resourcing and grounding within herself when these situations arise. Which is both Brain and Trauma being used at the same time!
It sounds like you were also able to mix Brain and Trauma together by using the pendulating exercise that we learned in Trauma in order to raise your client from the low road circuitry to the high road circuitry. And through practicing that she is creating new channels and neural pathways that she can connect to and utilize when she experiences herself in that situation again. So awesome!
And lastly, becoming aware of where your client is currently in the 6 stages of change is huge! It really helps, like you said, to be aware of where your client is so that you know what the next step needed to be taken can be. And when it comes to Trauma-like scenarios with your client the looping from Contemplation to Planning to Action can happen several times as they refine how they want to show up and take action from that place. And when the client is able to create an action plan and practice it over and over then you are able to see the benefits and results in their personal and professional lives!
Keep up the good work and I look forward to hearing more about your insights and experiences!
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David, I love your idea of introducing these stages of change to your client. I think that could be really powerful. It has me curious, and I often think about this when integrating yoga and life coaching, about the fine line between when it’s time to guide and when it’s time to share a tool to support the client in a different way.
I have a client, different from the woman I posted about, who is very resistant to any introspection, so I usually mainly stay in the realm of offering tools and practices. Her daughter (she’s older) wanted her to come, so it’s not particularly her decision to be there. I know you want to work with adolescents who may be in a similar place or state of mind around coaching. I’m curious how to support individuals like this who are in pre-contemplation or even a resistance stage.
This stood out to me from what you shared about your client: “She told me, however, that even during the weekend filled with crisis she was able to integrate a lot of what we worked on in the first session and that she had never before been so grounded and connected to herself during crisis. Sounds like the ritual we set up was able to strengthen some new neuropathways!”
Amazing! I love how she can see changes within herself, even in crisis mode. It sounds like you were able to successfully guide her from low-road to high-road circuitry and really support her goal for change, even in the relapse stage.
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My client is a 20 year old female with OCD, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. She is a phlebotomist at a local hospital. She is on medication for her mental health and working with a counsellor. We recently had a 90-minute intake session where we honed in on her main goal, which was to stop her mind from racing so much and learn to relax.
Our session began with just a grounding, resourcing, and centering to help reduce some of the anxiety that she was experiencing. I allowed her to set up in the space that felt most comfortable for her and to place me somewhere that felt comfortable as well. We then discussed some of what was going on in her life and her prior experience with yoga, counseling, and coaching. We honed in on her struggles with racing thoughts, and talked about what has helped her find relief from this in the past. We discovered that feeling the body as a container with her hands felt like the best resource for her.
She shared that she has struggled with her racing thoughts for a long time, since her youth. It seems like her brains default state brings her into hyper-vigilance and the low-road circuit. In that regard, it felt like there is some trauma that may come up and be beneficial to address. As far as change theory, I can see her just entering contemplation, but wanting to move forward with planning.
We mainly stayed in severance for this session and took a long time to weed out the want. I often mirrored her verbally and physically, and made safety a priority.
The thing that felt challenging to me was how to balance the planning and action in the change model without fueling the obsessive compulsive symptoms she experiences. I felt like there was a fine balance between accountability and being gentle when it came to this particular issue. There are still some questions I have for her in what the best was to do this is. We didn’t get there in our first session.
Threshold flowed, as we did some more body-based resourcing. She seemed to really connect with the body as a tool to ground and center. We built off of this together by deciding that it would be a good resource to try out throughout the week, and come back next week to see how it felt.
I am still learning how to balance and integrate all of the different models we receive in EBI, along with the models I have from Yoga Therapy, to make a cohesive and flowing session.
For future sessions with this client, I need to hone in more on the deeper need and build a plan from that deeper place. This session revolved around resourcing and self-care.
Change theory and neuroscience principals enhance my coaching as they remind me that everything is brain: all that we perceive, feel, think, and how we act. And it’s empowering to know that the brain is pliable and can support meaningful change in myself and my client. I also often think of the high-road versus low-road circuitry and how to guide my client into a higher, more supportive circuit.
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Wow Kaity, sounds like you’re getting a lot of great experience and gaining great insight working with this client. How all these toolbox models fit in your unique style of coaching is part of the learning process and I’m glad that you were able to integrate grounding exercises and change theory within the session.
As far as working toward deeper need, sometimes the first deeper need can be very apparent. For example, with this client it sounds like she needs to be grounded and present. And in order to dive deeper she must really get inside that way of being on a daily and consistent basis for her to be able to move to the next step.
It’s kind of like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We have to get the foundational needs met before we can start diving into the juicier stuff. And with this client it may be working together around consistently staying in a place of calm, groundedness, being present before moving on.
I look forward to our next zoom meeting. It looks like we have some exciting things to talk about from what you have shared. Thanks so much for sharing this with all of us!
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Kaity,
Awesome to read how you are beginning to integrate what we are learning with EBI into what you have from Yoga Therapy. It is inspiring to read how they are coming together for you!
I appreciate what Daniel said about how sometimes the deeper need can be more apparent – i.e. needing to feel grounded and safe. In my coaching I feel like I am sometimes searching for a super deep and juicy need, when what my client needs in the moment is a sense of safety. So, that is helpful to relate to and have reflected by Daniel.
I also totally appreciate what you brought up in this part of your post: “The thing that felt challenging to me was how to balance the planning and action in the change model without fueling the obsessive compulsive symptoms she experiences. I felt like there was a fine balance between accountability and being gentle when it came to this particular issue.” I can totally relate to this as well and have a client who is very critical on herself. I am finding it a balancing act to move between planning and action and holding my client accountable when relapse happens without fueling the intense critic. I am noticing that with this client I am often also focusing on self-care and resourcing. Perhaps that is establishing the foundation and ground needed for future change to actually occur.
Thanks for sharing your insights and experience!
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Hi Kaity,
This was a cool session read about, as I particularly like how you’re always weaving in the body and yoga.
This particularly stuck out to me:
The thing that felt challenging to me was how to balance the planning and action in the change model without fueling the obsessive compulsive symptoms she experiences. I felt like there was a fine balance between accountability and being gentle when it came to this particular issue. There are still some questions I have for her in what the best was to do this is. We didn’t get there in our first session.And yet, you mentioned she has a lot of low road circuitry and possibly trauma, so it seems like you found exactly her deeper need – to be safe and resourced. whether or not you named it as the deeper need, that’s what her body and your tracking brought you toward. To me it seems to make perfect sense. So while you maybe didn’t get to a “different” deeper need, it seems to me that you got to the deeper need that must come first, and you’re working it together.
Congrats!
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Kaity,
Your post sparked a lot of reflection for me around getting to deeper need. I’ve noticed that I tend to hold myself to a standard of success that is defined by getting to deeper need in one session, and that my vocabulary for deeper need tends to be limited. I love what Daniel said about the levels of deeper need. Reading this was a good reminder that not everyone is ready to look at some of those deeper needs we access in our intensives, and that for a lot of people the deeper need is a step on their path, not a resolution of a core wound.
Something you wrote that stood out to me was, “I can see her just entering contemplation, but wanting to move forward with planning.” I see that a lot in myself and some clients I work with. From my own experience, planning and action tends to fail without proper contemplation.
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Sweet David! It is awesome to read your reflection on these two sessions! It is amazing how clear you are on the stages of change in your client and in the brain circuitry that is being activated. It is also illuminating for me that relapse is super real and is going to happen. Probably lots. And that that is not a failure of any one person, but that it is a natural stage in the change process and our work is always creatively meeting the client with where they are at in the moment.
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Initial Post:
My client is a 20 year old guy who I work with. He was among a group of coworkers who got an email from me offering practice coaching sessions, and he reached out. He has never had any kind of coaching or counseling, and taking a look inward is somewhat new for him. When we first met for a quick chat to talk about what he was looking to get out of coaching, he said he wasn’t really sure but that he just had been feeling a lack of energy, motivation, and enthusiasm for life and after receiving my email, he thought why not try to do something about it.
I include this background because I believe my client was in pre-contemplation for the most part when we first met. I actually believe that he began to make the move from pre-contemplation to contemplation when I asked him to complete my intake forms. I have several questions on there that required him to consider what specifically felt challenging in his life currently, and what his goals are with coaching. Having him complete these questions helped move him into the contemplation stage by our first full session, as his brain had an opportunity to identify a goal of having a sustainable state of emotional health and a feeling as though he is moving forward in his life. Even just answering this intake question laid a framework for his brain to identify different thoughts, patterns, and behaviors that are possible, laying down a brand new track in his brain for a different neuropathway, creating the potential for new circuitry.
We have now had the opportunity to have two sessions and I have been able to see that my client is moving back and forth from contemplation to pre-contemplation, with the majority of the time in contemplation. He has identified a Want to be moving forward, to not be stuck any longer, and to have a greater work/life balance — contemplation. However, he will move from moments of acknowledgment and clarity of what he wants to deflection and demoralization. “Precontemplators are often demoralized. They don’t want to think, talk, or read about their problem because they feel their situation is hopeless.” (Prochaska, Changing for Good, p.41) In our second session, my client was able to get to the Deeper Need. However, after just a few moments of touching it and experiencing the new state of being, something came in and dropped the energy that had been building. I asked him what he was noticing and he said “everything just felt so daunting”. It’s as if the natural cycle of change is pulling him into contemplation, but he still has a foot in precontemplation. I have a sense that this is a natural process that takes time and by raising awareness his system will naturally arrive completely in contemplation, wanting and ready for change.
In the first session, I brought awareness to different parts that I heard in his telling of his issue. We explored the parts which opened the door to increasing self awareness. We collaborated with the landscape to externalize his parts, which further helped him to see externally the dynamics and reactions happening automatically in his inner landscape. I have had a couple teaching opportunities to talk about what parts work is, how the brain is wired, and how change happens. I think for this client, increasing his awareness of himself through reflections, experientially with the land and parts, and through teaching moments is helping to create a pathway for him to land fully in contemplation and to begin the preparation phase. “Knowing about the brain empowers you to transform confusion into insight, self-blame into self-compassion. When we teach others and ourselves about the brain’s mechanisms of energy and information flow, the mind is strengthened as we move from blaming the self for automatic behaviors and instead transform our experience into self-understanding and self-responsibility”. (Siegel, Interpersonal Neurobiology, p.3-2)
To me it seems imperative to include some education around how the brain functions, how we are wired neurologically, and how change happens so that our clients can understand where they are in the process. This helps them understand why they are experiencing the behaviors they are and it helps to normalize their experience to date. I think it also helps each person to understand that they can have control over their lives, that change is possible, and that they are not beholden to their habitual ways of being — that even if they’re currently rafting down the Grand Canyon in their neuro-landscape, they can find an eddy, get out of the raft and choose to walk down a path less traveled towards a new way of being.
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Mandy, sounds like you’re having a great coaching and learning experience with this client! One thing I’ve learned in my experience is that, as coaches, we can wear many hats. We can be an investigator, a story teller, a holder of space, and we can also be a teacher. And as we learn how we as human beings work and function, then educating our clients can be an amazing benefit to them! It can promote awareness and self discovery very quickly!
And from what you shared it sounds like sharing that bit of wisdom with your client allowed him to really sit and stay in contemplation and preparation around his deeper need. I’m sure that having that knowledge and understanding about himself now will only strengthen his dedication to growth and change in his personal life.
Also using the partswork out on the land sounds like it was a huge benefit as well! Seeing how these practices can tie together to promote the clients understanding of themselves will only strengthen your impact as a nature connected coach.
My only constructive feedback in what I read is that you said “the Want to be moving forward, to not be stuck any longer…” and I would invite you to have your client change their wording around “not be stuck any longer”. Rather, what does it feel like to not be stuck? Is it freedom? Empowerment? Have them focus on where they want to go, not where they don’t want to go.
I like to use the analogy of skiing, or mountain biking, through the woods and directly in front of you is a tree. Rather than saying,”don’t hit the tree, don’t hit the tree…” change the wording to “focus on where I want to go”. Because if you focus on not hitting the tree then your focus is still on the tree, and you will probably hit it. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way in my early days of skiing and biking, so learn from my mistakes. And trees don’t usually budge when you slam into them…
Focus on where you want to go, not on where you DON’T want to go. It will make a huge change.
Great stuff you’re experiencing in your coaching. I look forward to hearing more about it!
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Mandy,
so cool to read! It sounds like you were tracking with him very well. I love how you could feel his rise and fall of energy and map it to the theory of change model so well.
This moment stuck out to me:
However, after just a few moments of touching it and experiencing the new state of being, something came in and dropped the energy that had been building. I asked him what he was noticing and he said “everything just felt so daunting”. It’s as if the natural cycle of change is pulling him into contemplation, but he still has a foot in precontemplation. I have a sense that this is a natural process that takes time and by raising awareness his system will naturally arrive completely in contemplation, wanting and ready for change.It’s almost as though his contemplation is itself his “action” in a way right now, and he’s relapsing. Or said another way, that maybe there’s a relapse option between each of the stages of change, and that oscillating or titrating from one to the next is the brain and body’s way of building safety in the new step, and strengthening the neuro-circuitry needed to maintain that stage for longer.
His ‘it feels so daunting’ comment also had me curious about a story or interject he might have about himself. I can feel that my style would be to take it to Gestalt in that moment – I’m curious what you chose and what happened!
Loving these examples, I learn every time I read one.
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Mandy,
Man, I so enjoyed reading this, and I totally echo Rachel’s admiration for how well you tracked your client through his oscillation between pre- and contemplation. I know in moments when I’ve experienced something similar with clients, I’ve found it to be really confusing – it’s like we’ve gotten somewhere new, and to take a step back can be jarring or unmooring as a coach (especially when we’re, too, still learning). Way to stay with him throughout that!
A section of your writing that really resonated with me was: “To me it seems imperative to include some education around how the brain functions, how we are wired neurologically, and how change happens so that our clients can understand where they are in the process. This helps them understand why they are experiencing the behaviors they are and it helps to normalize their experience to date”. I can’t agree with this more! Especially with clients who are new to the whole world of personal growth/development, or”rewiring your brain”, I’ve found it to be massively helpful to serve as an educator at times. In our practices which can sometimes feel subtle, new, or foreign, laying down some scientific evidence to validate what they’re going through can be really grounding for clients. Thanks for sharing this experience!
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Mandy, knowing you, and what it feels like to work with you, I imagine your client felt safe with you even though he was approaching hidden aspects of himself. It’s so great that even something as simple as a questionnaire can safely support a transition from per-contemplation to contemplation, not to mention how fast that can happen! However, you were also aware that your client was in a vulnerable state, moving into contemplation while keeping a foot in per-contemplation and that this felt daunting to him. Your keen awareness told you that he just needed supportive space, with some valuable things to consider, before he could move on. Your invitation for him to step into that space in the natural world is why we do what we do and is evident in this statement you made, “I think for this client, increasing his awareness of himself through reflections, experientially with the land and parts, and through teaching moments is helping to create a pathway for him to land fully in contemplation and to begin the preparation phase.”
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Initial post:
My practice client is a 24 year old male, very entrepreneurial, very interested in his personal, spiritual, and professional growth. He’s created a little team around him of myself, another coach, and a spiritual mentor, and he’s seeing us all regularly and integrating from each experience.
To be honest, because some of the work he is interested in exploring is his sexuality and relationships with women, and because going toward those energies somatically bring up what can feel like “attraction” energy for either of us, we spent our entire first session establishing the coaching relationship in a real way beyond just the standard coaching agreements of not therapy. Getting clear on how to do this, for myself, is one of the biggest challenges and growth edges I’m learning right now, so I’m so grateful for the parts of him that have worked WITH me to discover this.
It felt very empowering and created healthy boundaries to be clear that should attraction energy arise or be projected on me, that we will name and work with it just like any other somatic experience, rather than attempting to act on it or hide from it. Spending extra time normalizing what might arise as we discuss relationships helped our trust deepen, creating safety both in that whatever arises is still allowed, and, that it will not be jumped into in a way that would breach our coaching-client relationship.
This feels potent and important for me as over the past few months I have once again heard from my soul that it’s time to work with men to heal relational issues. I have been afraid of it for a long time, parts of me worried that if I went into those realms with men that I would be unsafe. However after deep diving with my own therapy and coaching, I feel really good right now to try this experiment WITH a super safe container both personally and professionally.
Anyways, he’s wanting right now to focus on what his central voice has to say, to make decisions from his center and not be so swayed by the many voices outside himself. He wants to strengthen his boundaries and he wants to know that it’s okay to be powerful and have a healthy ego, which for a long time he was attempting to get rid of, per many of today’s spiritual teachings.
His deeper need was to feel and know his own power. Somatically, he was able to tap quickly into a very present source of power, I would say soul. It flowed fairly quickly into him, eyes closed, saying how it was his job to channel all this power toward making the world better. I could hear “part” written all over this, so I asked him more about it and explained parts work. Soon after, more parts began to arise in response to what should be “done with” this power. So we spent our session beginning a parts work exploration of what are the interjects that show up AFTER he feels his power, since he actually is already in touch with it.
I explained the neuroscience of parts work to him at the end of the session to help contextualize the work we were doing physiologically as well as in the mind. Basically how each part, each voice, is its own neuro-network in the brain physically, and they are sending energetic triggers to each other. what we are doing is building new pathways that help contain each part by defining it and understanding its circuitry (in terms of its service to the whole system, needs, and relationships).
He was open and willing to do the parts work with me, to play out the voices, but I think he found it very useful and grounding to hear the explanation of WHY we were doing all that.
He had seen his other coach earlier that morning and spent a good deal of time sitting somatically with a painful experience that he’s trying to work through. He first wondered if that unfinished pain would get in the way of our moving toward his other goals and if we needed to go back to be with the painful experience more. I got to explain titration to him as a possibility, and he lit up to be able to make an empowered decision to base our session on feeling his power rather than his shame, which he had done that morning. It felt really cool to remember that all the principles we are practicing extend beyond any one session and into the larger rhythms of life too.
Anyways, we were planning to meet at a park, and on my way over, the sun was shining where I was, but he called me and told me “its pouring rain and hailing at the park!” So we met inside his cozy art studio, door open to the rain, but cozy and safe from it. This choice point felt so reflective of the choice point to move toward titration and gentleness rather than him attempting to grow by continually pushing himself into the discomfort. His words were “I don’t have to stay in the hail storm all the time to grow” and that felt like a powerful lesson as well. With that, I have begun to see EVERYTHING as a collaborator, like nature. The books in the room, the location we choose, inside or out. Everything can be and is a reflection if we choose to use it, and I’m loving the little ways those keep getting worked in.
I noticed I had more “teaching” or instructional moments than usual with this session. Between explaining parts work and its neurology. I’m curious to watch this expand, wondering if this is the natural way my coaching and teaching will inter fold, or if there was a part of ME that slipped a little into wanting to find answers for him. I’ll keep you posted! Otherwise, we both felt we learned A LOT and walked away with a solid action plan for him to first learn some specific things about 3 parts that arose, so that next week we can make the action plan out in the world for him bringing his power into external situations with a plan for how to work with these parts when they arise in opposition. Basically, we’re in the process of walking through the steps of change. Right now he’s in contemplation, and we’re going to take that increased awareness and apply it to action stages.
I think I’ll do a refresher of the theory of change and actively bring the framework to him in our next session. He’s someone who likes to act act act, and is wanting to slow down enough to ground himself and act from his center more. So I think a framework outlining that “pre-contemplation, contemplation, and planning” are all important steps will help him feel as though he IS taking the right step.
What I keep learning is how much I love coaching. I have so much fun, in the discomfort, in the unknown, in the listening, in the aha moments. I’m so meant for this work. Good to feel and remember again after a few months of not coaching anyone. Having more neuroscience background has helped me feel extremely more comfortable and confident going toward things like threshold and what I would have typically considered only “spiritual”. Because I have an understanding of what I’m doing that’s grounded in biology, I can explain WHY we’re doing these “strange things” in ways that make sense, increase buy in, and get results faster. YES!
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Thanks for sharing, Rachael! I’ll be excited to hear how this continues to unfold with this client, as it sounds like you’ve had a powerful foundation laid.
I totally agree with having the biology to back up what can seem spiritual about the power of ceremony. I personally live deeply in the spiritual realm and don’t feel like I need a scientific explanation, however my clients DO! It is so wonderful to have a variety of ways to explain what we are doing to clients to meet them where they are at and in a language they can buy into!
I also totally resonate with what you said here, and have been feeling into this in my life lately as well: “I have begun to see EVERYTHING as a collaborator, like nature. The books in the room, the location we choose, inside or out. Everything can be and is a reflection if we choose to use it, and I’m loving the little ways those keep getting worked in.”
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Sorry I misspelled your name! Rachel <3
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Rachel,
I really appreciate your ability to look at things head on, that might otherwise feel “taboo” or be completely avoided. It sounds like your ability to name and allow the attraction energy, as well as other somatic experiences, really contributed to your client’s ability to feel his own as well as your boundaries and enter the deeper need of feeling his power.
It sounds like the educational component here was important for his to feel contextualized, empowered, and tapped into a healthy ego.
I also love what you shared about understanding the spiritual process of threshold through a neurological and biological perspective. It sounds like you gracefully make these connections to allow your client and yourself to hold deeper understanding in the importance of this process.
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Rachel,
This coaching relationship strikes me as such a rich one, but for you and for him! What a great opportunity to be so open and vulnerable with each other, and thus, further establish that trust which is so imperative to doing really transformative work together. Piggybacking off of Mandy’s post, it sounds like you were really able to dip into educator mode for a bit, and it sounds like the wisdom you shared with him really gave him some solid tools, and even permission, to go deeper into the practice of partswork.
A section of your writing which really struck me was when you said, “He’s someone who likes to act act act, and is wanting to slow down enough to ground himself and act from his center more. So I think a framework outlining that “pre-contemplation, contemplation, and planning” are all important steps will help him feel as though he IS taking the right step”. I love that you’re working with the client where he’s at, and giving him the tools necessary to move away from conditioned tendencies toward a way of being which is closer in line with the life he’s envisioning. It sounds like giving him this framework as a jumping off point may allow him to see his patterns a bit more deeply. Thank you for sharing! I’m definitely interested in hearing what has progressed with this client since these sessions a while back.
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Rachel,
This coaching relationship strikes me as such a rich one, but for you and for him! What a great opportunity to be so open and vulnerable with each other, and thus, further establish that trust which is so imperative to doing really transformative work together. Piggybacking off of Mandy’s post, it sounds like you were really able to dip into educator mode for a bit, and it sounds like the wisdom you shared with him really gave him some solid tools, and even permission, to go deeper into the practice of partswork.
A section of your writing which really struck me was when you said, “He’s someone who likes to act act act, and is wanting to slow down enough to ground himself and act from his center more. So I think a framework outlining that “pre-contemplation, contemplation, and planning” are all important steps will help him feel as though he IS taking the right step”. I love that you’re working with the client where he’s at, and giving him the tools necessary to move away from conditioned tendencies toward a way of being which is closer in line with the life he’s envisioning. It sounds like giving him this framework as a jumping off point may allow him to see his patterns a bit more deeply. Thank you for sharing! I’m definitely interested in hearing what has progressed with this client since these sessions a while back.
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Rachel, I love how you naturally wove parts into your session and incorporated the neuroscience of parts-work. You painted a beautiful picture of your clients experience in his art studio and I felt a big smile come across my face when you said “I have begun to see EVERYTHING as a collaborator, like nature. The books in the room, the location we choose, inside or out. Everything can be and is a reflection if we choose to use it, and I’m loving the little ways those keep getting worked in.” What a powerful shift in your perception that is so valuable to the people you work with! Your experience with your client has reminded me that “flow” only happens when we chose to work WITH and not against what is available to us in the moment. I see that reflected in your boundary setting too; instead of denying the potential for attraction, you honored it and set a healthy boundary which you both understood and consented to. Really beautiful to see how you are growing into yourself as a coach 🙂
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Summary Post: Learning about the brain and the theory of change has been a very empowering experience, not only for me, but I believe it has been empowering for my clients as well. As we learn the biology of what is happening in our brains, how our nervous systems are wired, it gives context to WHY we are the way we are. And it informs us that we are not beholden to the ways we have reacted to situations in the past, but that our reactions are happening due to wiring within our brain/nervous system, and we all have the ability to re-wire, to make a different choice. I am leaving this module feeling inspired to keep learning about the brain and increase my ability to talk about it with clients, in a language they can relate to and buy into, so that they can be even more empowered to do the work to change their own neuropathways.
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Summary Post:
Understanding our own brains and physical wiring (increasing awareness) creates new possibilities. It’s one of the first steps needed to go from automatic to intentional, from pre-contemplation to contemplation, which is needed for any true action to occur.
To steal a quote from Seigel (and Mandy), “Knowing about the brain empowers you to transform confusion into insight, self-blame into self-compassion. When we teach others and ourselves about the brain’s mechanisms of energy and information flow, the mind is strengthened as we move from blaming the self for automatic behaviors and instead transform our experience into self-understanding and self-responsibility”. (Interpersonal Neurobiology, p.3-2)
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Summary post:
The brain and its’ neural connections change depending on the experiences we have. Beliefs, attitudes, perspectives, and behaviors all can change to support our wants and needs. The stages of change move us our of pre-contemplation, unawareness, to contemplation, awareness but confusion on what actions can be taken. Coaching helps us move into planning, then action, then maintenance to continue supporting high-road circuitry. This allows us to act with awareness, in alignment with our goals rather than react with unconsciousness in reaction to our conditioning and life trauma.
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Before this session began I notified my client about the education I received through EBI regarding the neuroscience of NCC and that I had intention to incorporate it into our session together. I made her aware that this session might present a little differently since I will be taking time to share neuroscience education with her in order to help her understand the HOWS? and WHYS? of how her brain works in relation to the topic(s) she desires coaching for. I asked for consent to present this information and let her know that if at anytime she was uncomfortable, or in disagreement, with the information I provide she has the choice to go back to a more traditional session. I emphasized that these are basic concepts and, by no means, am I acting in a role like a psychologist or psychiatrist. She agreed and was very curious and excited to learn more about her inner workings! She also expressed her gratitude for my thoughtfulness of asking her consent and stating my intentions clearly.
My client struggles with what she considers moderate anxiety that correlates with GI issues, though has expressed that because of our sessions and the emphasis on connecting more intentionally with nature, she has reduced episodes of inflammation. She has become a better observer of her reactions and now makes the choice to ground herself with nature’s support. The root of her anxiety has yet to be fully uncovered. She states that anxiety has only showed up in her life over the past few years and isn’t completely sure where it came from. I shared with her that anxiety doesn’t always have a traceable point, but can be built over time depending on various factors.
She has very much been in a contemplation stage regarding her anxiousness and is thoughtfully moving into a more indepth planning stage of tracking where anxiety began to show up in her life. As I stated before she has learned some action steps with support from our sessions and conscious nature connection to aide in resourcing when her body begins to express uneasy sensations. She values being able to resource and ground, but realizes that it is only temporary. She believes that since her body continues to tell her something is “off” then something must still be “off.” I shared with her that whatever her brain/body experienced has stored that information in her amygdala. Not the memory of the event(s) itself, but her bodies reaction to it. But since she is not cognizant of past events leading to anxiety, she has formulated a pattern of belief that her body has something wrong with it and that it could lead to serious illness or even death.
I went on to explain that whatever is triggering her anxiety is the outcome of a pattern she has unconsciously developed over time pertaining to the stimulus which her body is reacting to. And now she is reacting to her bodies signals with a thought that her life is threatened and she has no control. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor explains it this way in her book, My Stroke Of Insight, page 146; “Because our neural networks are made up of neurons communicating with other neurons in circuits, their behavior becomes quite predictable. The more conscious attention we pay to any particular circuit, or the more time we spend thinking specific thoughts, the more impetus those circuits or thought patterns have to run again with minimal external stimulation.”
At this point my client has stated that she wants to track the stimulus that has caused so much disruption in her body and mind. She is tired of feeling and thinking like she is out of control and wants to reclaim her wellbeing. She stated the need to daily ask her body, mind and soul for support to recount the story of what is impeding her from moving forward in the direction of a life of courage and confidence. I could see the energy shift in her as she spoke about how she saw herself living; not in fear, but in freedom. Lately there has been more of a frustration coming from her then a despair that she had when we first met. I honored her righteous anger and asked her how she wanted to focus it.
She expressed the desire to a short wander. Wandering was something she and I had talked about before, but has shown some trepidation about doing it. I celebrated the fact that she was mustering up the courage to do a wander on her own. I asked where she would like to complete her wander and she decided to visit a smaller wooded area on the fringes of a park near her home where she thinks she’ll feel safer. I asked her if it would be beneficial to carry a question with her on her wander and with that focus in mind perhaps she wouldn’t feel as vulnerable. She took a moment to consider it, but replied that she felt like she just needed to be out on her own even though she was scared. I asked her what that fear felt like in her body and she said “in my gut.” She said it was the same kind of sensation that she experiences when she feels anxious.
Her wander proved to be quite revealing. She said that came upon and big deadfall that sparked a memory from her childhood when she was out in the woods with her father and siblings.. They were going out to pick raspberries and apparently she was accidently left behind when she was playing on a deadfall and got her foot stuck. She cried out but no one came back to get her for what felt like a long time. She was so scared that she vomited. When her father finally found her he told her “I guess I can’t take you anywhere” and he proceeded to get her foot unstuck. She stated that as this memory flooded back she became nauseous. But instead of escaping the woods/wander, she utilized the resources she’s gained to ground herself and face her fear.
Once her mind and body were more relaxed, she made a huge connection as to why she thinks this anxiety has come into her life. She realized that she began having stomach issues when her husband took a new job that requires him to travel and is at home only a few days per week. He took the job without asking how she felt about it and it was a complete surprise to her. As she is sharing this with me I can see that she is uncomfortable; I reflected this to her and she said that her stomach was really feeling tight. I asked her to name what the tightness is and she replied “abandonment.” As soon as she said that her energy shifted and she felt a release in her stomach. She shed some tears and said that she couldn’t believe that one instance in her childhood could have shown up so significantly in her adulthood. But as she reflected some more she came to see that her father was not really around as often as she was aware. Or more that when he was, he always seemed to be focused on other things and not very present for her emotionally. He expressed his love for her by taking care of her affairs which she thinks has affected her ability to really be on her own. She also correlated the possible connection of her husband’s new job with the death of her father several months prior.
More happened during this session but to keep this post short and to keep focused on the topic of how the brain works in NCC, I will explain what I attempted to explain to my client; how her brain is operating in the limbic and autonomic nervous system in light of things revealed during this intense session. In a general way I explained how her thalamus initially collected basic sensory information during the time she got her foot stuck when she was a child and how once she felt in danger of being left alone, that information was carried to the amygdala as fear and engaged her sympathetic nervous system, and possibly enteric nervous system which may explain her associated stomach issues.
The anxiety she has felt since her husband got the new job she unciously linked to her fear of abandonment which slowly ignited her amygdala and created a new circuit of anxiety response and associated fear that something must be wrong in her body causing all the other symptoms she has described. Once she identified “abandonment” as a root cause to her anxiety, she has since reported that her regular symptoms of anxiety have decreased significantly. With that identification she was able to disrupt that other circuit.
I think my biggest challenge during this session was just making sure that my information about how the brain works is correct. It’s easy to get lost in all the information, but for the most part I felt like I was able to track the basic workings and explain it back to her in relation to her experiences. I tried not to overthink it all and just go with where she wanted to go. She has become more trusting of herself and the fact that it was her idea to do a wander and why her soul wanted her to go there was awesome to witness. All I had to do was support her choice and nature took over. Seeing the confidence in her of approaching her fear reminded me of the deep level of trust I have experienced in coaching thus far.
And it has been so interesting to refresh my knowledge of how the brain works through the readings and see my clients experience through that lens. I believe it has helped to anchor my trust even more because it really is a physiological/psychological experience that is also communicating with soul, which can sometimes seem less grounded because of its mysteriousness. I can see utilizing this information as a regular part of my coaching process because of that. I’m not sure what that will look like exactly, but I can already imagine that using strong visuals will become a part of the process.
Specifically in this session I could better see how certain experiences and traumas need to be fully processed/sequenced before someone can fully move forward. My client expressed a lot of positive change of her anxiety symptoms and how to manage them, but without identifying her deeply rooted fear of abandonment she wouldn’t have been able to fully release, and authentically move forward. I met her where she was at and trust that the NCC practices would guide her to what she needed to do, while tracking where she was moving along the way and reflecting that back to her. -
Summary Post: I believe adding in the neuroscience of NCC balances, layers, and deepens the ceremony of Severance/Threshold/Integration. I know for myself, in the past, it has been easy to ignore the more logical/reasoning side of human-ness when approaching matters I viewed as “spiritual.” I identified more with the spiritual and at one point wanted my ego to die. But I see now that that kind of mindset was not honoring my whole being. In ways I cannot explain, my soul and my brain/body work together to reach homeostasis. With greater understanding of my brain there is a greater understanding of myself. I better understand my own complexity of patters, beliefs, traumas, and genetics. With that understanding I am empowered to chose and know that I AM NOT MY THOUGHTS. I can sit back and observe my thoughts but be free of my reactions to them. I can see where they come from and how they have affected my well being so I can honor them and work with them…perhaps even release them when I’m ready. Having this knowledge empowers me and presents an authentic, empowered coach to my clients.
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Initial post:
The lessons from this intensive came at a perfect time for me in the trajectory of the program, because I had just started working with a client who was both of a rational and tactile mind (with a deep interest in neurobiology), and had been dealing with mental vacillation – or as I later became aware were shifts in the stages of change – on a few very important decisions in her life. This client was one whom I had had a friendship with years ago, and came back into my life with a lot of urgency and desperation when I offered to give her practice sessions.
What jumped out about our first few sessions after this intensive was was just how committed to her vision she was, but how she kept running into roadblocks around how to get clear and actually make steps in that direction. She didn’t want the painful and difficult relationship dynamics that she was experiencing with her partner and co-parent, yet she didn’t know how to make the correct changes. She wanted to be able to start her own healing practice (using reiki and massage), yet couldn’t seem to get through the cloud of intimidation to be able to start laying the groundwork for that. I could see after our intensive that she was stuck in a vicious cycle of vacillating between pre-contemplation, contemplation, and planning. She felt like there was very little opportunity for her to get to any kind of action step because she just kept falling back into doubt and apathy.
Something that we started working with that seemed to make the process a bit lighter and easier to navigate for her was simply changing the way we were framing the discussion with things from “but” to “and”. This seemed like a small and simple step, but reorienting her view of her progress in this more empathetic and inclusive way allowed her to take some of the pressure off, and see that her journey was bound to include steps backwards. However, ultimately, she could see that she was generally taking two steps forward, and one step back, and that allowed her to have some patience with herself and where she was at in her growth.
Another thing she found very helpful was simply talking about the neural aspects at work in her process. We talked about how the journey of rewiring the patterns and memories of ourselves living in the hippocampus take tons of repeated effort, and that it may not always be clear that change is happening right away (even though it often is if one is putting in the time). She was also to have an increased level of understanding for herself and her process when we discussed that the amygdala is the ultimate protector that is doing whatever it can to maintain the previous wiring (because what you already know and have already seen is safer than new, uncharted territory!). She was able to take a step outside of herself for a moment and simply observe the forces at work within her that were making it more difficult to just immediately enact change. She left this session with an intention to write down the story of her relationship with her partner, with change, and with vision as a jumping off point to intentional rewiring.
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Summary post:
An important theme I’m picking up in my own reflection and the posts of the cohort is that, through an understanding of our neurobiology, we can begin to distance ourselves from the unhealthy attachment to our own thoughts and patterns. It is such a freeing thing to be able to recognize that, though we may have thought patterns which have caused pain and suffering in the past, there are real, tangible practices that we can engage in to help shift the tide on how those patterns behave! I know for myself (and am seeing for my clients as well) that a basic knowledge of the stages of change does so much in the way of creating real empathy for how the change cycle can look and behave.
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Summary Post
The brain is so cool! I’ve really enjoyed exploring Daniel Siegel’s work and incorporate my knowledge of interpersonal neurobiology at work a lot. I guide clients through his Wheel of Awareness practice fairly often, and usually explain a bit about integration, differentiation, linkage, chaos, and rigidity. Clients can always resonate with the experience of a dysintegrated mind.
The stages of change is vocabulary that a lot of my co-workers use. It’s a lens I can certainly continue to develop and integrate. I’m amazed by how many stages people can be in at any given moment in regards to different issues, and how one big issue can have multiple subsets of contributing factors, each requiring their own process through the stages of change. An example is the clients I work with – addicts. Most of them have come out of pre-contemplation with their addiction as a whole, hence being in treatment. However, there are so many factors that play into their addiction: certain behaviors, relational styles, habit patters, etc. While they move through planning and action in their recovery process, there are still many aspects of their recovery that remain in the pre-contemplative or contemplative stages.
I have to remember that just because someone is in treatment, doesn’t mean that they’re out of pre-contemplation with everything that they do. My job has been described to me as moving energy. Certainly, I’m learning how to move energy from pre-contemplation into further stages. I think this will be helpful in my coaching so I’m more confident working with clients who need help moving energy towards contemplation and later stages.