-
Foundation 3 Cohort 21
-
21 Replies
-
I have 3 threshold experiences that I want to remember and keep, so I am going to put them here. The first would be one during our intensive after we were sent to ask our vision council a question. The word haven came to me, and I realized for the first time that my sit spot at home reminded me of an area at my grandparent’s house, that we visited during the summers while my dad was in the Air Force growing up. I brought this idea into my coaching session, and during the conversation we moved into the threshold, and I was asked what I like to do to meet the need of support. I remembered a pile of leaves outside, so I suggested just going out to them and when I did I decided to lay down and it was amazing. I literally felt the definition of support, and I remembered that my grandparents, who are deceased now, were a huge part of being a haven for me during my life. It was an amazing experience, and I grabbed a rock I saw and it now sits on my desk. The threshold experience still feels strong when I think about it, and I think a characteristic of a threshold experience is that it stays with you, the feeling stays with you even 3 months later now.
The next experience for me was really the last day of the intensive, and for me the fishbowl was the threshold experience for the entire intensive, even though I felt there were several throughout. Right after our intensive ended I felt so grateful and charged, but I also felt so tired and exhausted. I felt like I had just gone through something significant and looked for ways to integrate it and myself back into life. It felt a little out of body at the time, and I wanted to share some things I had learned with significant people but instead did more journaling. The feelings I had as I remember back now are similar to the way I felt shortly after a few significant people died in my life and either being in the room at their last breath or just being around them right before and visiting with their bodies and family after. The same feeling, but on the other side of life was spending the night with my sister and nephew (1 day old), staying awake all night to hold him and pass him back and forth, so he could eat and sleep, so my brother-in-law could go home and spend time with their daughters. Again the feeling remains years later, and I can remember the moments in detail.
The last experience was actually an EBI live I found called “Soul Routines” with Michael, which I highly recommend. During the program he introduced us to the seven stair exercise(each stair is a level of soul), where you vision yourself walking down 7 stairs with intention and the stairs can look like any that your imagination takes you. At the bottom of the stairs we were asked “What are my greatest strengths?” and then ”Why are these strengths important?” In my mind we haven’t clarified whether a threshold experience is actually a threshold experience only in the position of client and coach in a session. To me they occur outside of that and in this case I would consider Michael a coach and a facilitator and myself as a viewer and a client. It was a recording, so I don’t feel like I was participating in a group but rather participating as a client.
For those of you who have read or watched a movie called Neverending Story, which came out in 1985, I had a vision of the wolf called Gmork in a cave when I asked the question of “Why are these strengths important?” I found the exact scene that came to me and in this scene Gmork(a servant of the power behind the Nothing) is speaking to the hero Atreyu. Gmork has been hunting Atreyu through the movie but doesn’t realize the boy standing in front of him is the same person he has been hunting. They live in Fantasia and the world is in a state of destruction that seems to be from an outside force, so as things are crumbling around both of them they are meeting each other. Atreyu is asking Gmork why this is happening, and Gmork answers-”Fantasia is a piece of the dreams of mankind, therefore it has no boundaries and people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams, so the Nothing grows stronger. Nothing is the emptiness that is left; it’s like a despair destroying the world. People who have no hope are easy to control and whoever has the control has the Power.” I am still sitting with this, and I feel like I will be sitting with this the rest of my life. I know I felt the same heightened feeling as the other thresholds but not exhausted this time, just excited and a little scared of what it meant for me.
In all of these thresholds Nature participated, death and dying, birth, the natural world outside, and even being outside in my imagination and in connection with myself and a higher Self is all Nature to me. The most important way for Nature to participate is allowing and recognizing. There are feelings that happen during a dying experience sadness, anger etc. but there is also a gratitude to be part of the experience and witness it from a larger perspective, a Oneness that occurs and I think the same would be during a birth, though I didn’t witness it, I had a small human a day old being in the world for the first time. Nature is always there and always participating in everything, we just get caught up in dark emotions perhaps or busyness at times. We can force our own agenda on the day or our life rather than being in the Flow of nature and the peace our day/life can have. Our connection to Nature as guides and coaches is also necessary to facilitate the threshold experience. Some sessions might be building to one, so we have to be patient, but we are also learning tools that can be short and can give us something to ponder forever such as the seven stair exercise.
The most important ICF competency for me to be really good at is powerful questioning; I love discovering everything about a person, but my focus is on the questions that remind me of C and C Music Factory (musical group from the 90’s) lyric-”Things that make you go Mmmm.” Staying in the moment with the client and where they are at minute to minute and allowing them to lead rather than having your own agenda. Yes you have a structure but the questions are intuitive and help the client discover the answers for themselves. Reminding myself to take a pause and sit with myself to discover a good question that might not just pop out to me from one line to the next I will practice. This goes hand in hand with coaching presence and taking the time to connect with myself before I attempt to connect with my client. I cannot access deep listening to myself or my client without a connection. The best version of myself is in connection and that is what my client deserves.
A question I leave here is what is the definition of a threshold experience? Does it only occur between a client and coach/guide or can you facilitate one for yourself? I have experiences in my life that feel like threshold experiences and I became a different person, and they required integration…
-
Amanda, I deeply love your posts and the amount of passion and introspection that you put into them. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. I have been sitting with your question and I have been thinking about what threshold means.. I have always thought of it as a transition and I feel like they are happening all the time and we aren’t even aware of their power sometimes. I think about my life right now, leaving my job and moving out of my house and what a big transition, threshold that is. I want to do some ceremony around this to honor my time at these places as well as think about who I want to be moving forward into the unknown. I feel like I want to practice moving through the world with more intention, marking transitions such as these.
-
Hi Amanda! Better late than never!? 🙂 I love the personal nature of your posts. Thank you for sharing your three threshold experiences with us and capturing them so fully! I imagine you might answer your own question that you posed at the end of your post in a different way now that we’ve been through 2 intensives? I appreciate the question because it gives me the opportunity to ponder….Here’s my attempt to define a threshold experience based on my own experiences.
A threshold experience is one that has potential to facilitate great transformation. It offers the participant the opportunity to step into the unknown and experience a new way of being that their soul longs to be.
And, YES! I believe you can absolutely facilitate one for yourself.
-
I agree Cynthia, Amanda probably answered her own question? 🙂 Also I believe you can facilitate one yourself as along as you are vision focused and staying connected to Goals and are willing to jump into the unknown and not be scared.
-
-
Hi Amanda,
I’m belatedly going back and completing Foundation homework. Your post here was so rich and brought me right back into the fullness of this work (both personally and as a coach).I love the range of your experiences in the threshold: haven, the threshold of the whole intensive (that left you grateful and charged, yet tired and exhausted) that was like last breath and brand new life, and the impact of Soul Routines and the Neverending Story in exploring strengths, hope and power. Wow!
I too am sitting with your question about what threshold means. I think the core of threshold for me is an experience of deep contact with self, Soul, world, Spirit that leaves us transformed or invites us into new territory that we wouldn’t have found without crossing some boundary. I think at its best, threshold creates an “ah-ha!” moment or a new intimacy or even a new question or identity to wander with.
Threshold can absolutely be facilitated for yourself and / or by life itself! I even think some thresholds arise organically or biologically – birth, giving birth, death, puberty… and culturally – marriage, divorce, the rites of passage that still linger in certain religious traditions.
How are you continuing to engage with threshold at this point?
-
-
Everything that I have experienced as a client in the threshold within the EBI container of Coaching as well as a client in any of the previous experiences that I have brought along with me to this point in my journey have all GREATLY informed who I am , and who I am becoming as a Nature Connected Coach.
My experience prior to landing at EBI instilled a great Curiosity-and a desire to make it BETTER. A desire to create something different , a way of looking at things that maybe traditional modalities were not touching on… things that weren’t “working” for me.
While in the Threshold , experiencing that attunement with another human being who is so deeply listening to not only what words you are saying, but to your whole affect- noticing your body language, your tone, the shifts in baseline and having the awareness to look for these things and to listen without trying to jump in and fix, or to spit rote formulations and answers back at you is such an incredible gift.My experience of nature in the Threshold- especially considering that we were conducting all of our sessions online, included the practice of adaptability… because the accessibility to the land may have looked a little differently than we were originally expecting it to look. Which was ok, and valuable in its own presentation! But I’ll attempt to describe how I experienced nature through the threshold.
I think I experienced it mostly through the practices we were introduced to prior to entering into one on one sessions . I was able to benefit from the obvious effects that those practices had upon the guides with whom I was lucky enough to be paired with.
I got to experience the adaptability and the bend in the Trees, The gentle nudges and the whispers of the wind, the warmth of the sun, the soothing rhythm of the moving water… through my guides connections and resonances with these things. They embodied these elements in their very mannerisms.I was lucky enough to experience Rachel as a guide… and she brought the land to me! she actually held her session outdoors.. and blew me away with the wind whispers of my council… to “LOVE MYSELF”.
I got to experience the curiosity and wonder of Jackie as a guide…
With her openness and enthusiasm- her desire for understanding where a client is generating from…. Like the open skies .
Amanda’s absolute deep level of empathy and absolute “rootedness” ( is the word that is alive for me in describing nature through my experience of her presence)
Jen’s absolute encompassing expansiveness. Like the Earth Mother herself in her capacity to hold story
Cynthia’s embodiment of earth wisdom and ceremony and ability to sing the sacred questions. That is how I experienced the flow of Nature throughout the Threshold.
Taking all of the experiences and weaving their lessons and using the threads to fashion my own Cloak of Coaching and wear it proudly; held by the experience into my sessions with others.While I believe that all of the competencies to be important and that they have their place…
Demonstrating Ethical Practice and embodying a Coaching Mindset,
CULTIVATING TRUST AND SAFETY are all critical elements to any coaching relationship that I would want to enter into as a coach.Communicating effectively… considering the clients experience, from the perspective of where they HAVE BEEN, . Where they ARE and where they DESIRE TO BE. and ability to keep own emotions in check ( but feeling comfortable enough in expressing them when appropriate)
Celebrating the clients progress and successes is another area that I also feel is super important. Adding elements of Ceremony and an expectation within the client… that in these sessions, around this ceremonial fire, the client is in a place where they are honored and respected, given permission to be WHO they are, WHERE they are at any given moment, that they are SEEN , HEARD and HELD within the Sacred Space that we have created together.
-
I completely agree Sue, that the sometimes short exercises we did beforehand definitely added to our connection as coaches. It is a reminder that a wander or short exercise with a client prior to a session with a client or at the very beginning can really add to the conversation that eventually takes place between coach and client. They definitely made me feel balanced as a coach or open as a client. You mentioned Trust and Safety as important competencies, and I was curious if you had already started some practices of your own to bring to the session in order to create that for potential clients. I do believe that trust is earned for some while it is given at the outset for others depending on who they are and their experiences. For me in this cohort and experience it was given automatically, but that is not always the case in other situations, so it is interesting to figure out why the difference and if there is something we bring as coaches that helps people trust us.
-
Sue, thank you for sharing! I love hearing about the threshold experiences that you have had throughout your time in the program thus far. I love hearing your experience of what it means to be a client and how it greatly informs who you are.. I feel called to name that it wouldn’t have impacted you so greatly if you weren’t open to it, so thank you for saying yes to yourself and therefore saying yes to the clients that you will work with. I love this idea that we can only take clients as far into the unknown as we have gone ourselves. I am grateful to be walking this path with the co heart.
-
I’m struck by the observations you had about the obvious effects the nature connection practices had on each of us as we interacted with each other. Hearing this further drives the importance of these practices in my daily life as a tool to help me be the coach I want to be. Thank you for the reminder and the clarity that our clients will benefit from our own commitment to nature connected practice.
You also mentioned the whispers from your vision council to “Love Myself.” I’m finding that my deeper need often points to self love in some capacity. I’m wondering if you’ve had any successes you would want to share about how you have increased love for yourself? I’m actively searching for tools to help with this.
-
I love the inclusiveness of your exploration here – with your own experience, with how you are in threshold, with the way you reflect each of us with such clear seeing, with how nature came through even in this virtual context.
Your Cloak of Coaching! I want to know more – what color is it, what texture, what is in the inner pockets? How do you feel and what qualities do you embody when you wear it? How has it evolved over time?
You write: “In these sessions, around this ceremonial fire, the client is in a place where they are honored and respected, given permission to be WHO they are, WHERE they are at any given moment, that they are SEEN , HEARD and HELD within the Sacred Space that we have created together.” This same sort of intentionality to include the entirety of a person is in your Ecopsychology post too. This feels like the heart of how you create safety and bring your unique coaching presence, your unique presence overall, with such fierce heart! I love it!
-
-
There was a lot going in this module-money, questions, coaching vs. guiding, and personal experiences. The first thing I will mention is that two male cousins in my life came to me at different times struggling with their fathers and their emotional display or lack thereof. They were not coaching sessions, but I would say there was a deep need for connection for one and value for the other. I am interested to see how Gestalt would be helpful in both of these situations, because I immediately felt that it would.
I have also been in conversation with both my sister and sister-in-law describing what worked with their therapist or coach and what didn’t. I think ultimately when I consider a service and building a business the checks need to be easy to write for my clients. There is so much value that there isn’t even a question as to write it or not. Now that I am saying checks, I realize it is more likely to be venmo or square or cash, unless my clients are of an older population. The imagery of building a fire, the need for it, and doing ninety percent of the work beforehand all came together for me. I was on a family vacation and we all knew there was no coffee pods left for the morning, but we didn’t discuss who was going to get up early and get some, but three of us individually went out and purchased some; it wasn’t a deep need but it was a need and despite being early in the morning people were going to get their coffee. I have found people in crisis or transitions or in enough pain in a situation will then seek out help. I had a marriage and family therapy professor share that most clients arrive at what eventually becomes the end of their relationship, so more often than not he helped them ease into a breakup or divorce. They didn’t come in the beginning when help might have been more useful. Right now I want to know what do I have to put together in my life and in myself, so that 90 percent of my work is done before I light that fire? I want to be the guide that is similar to the coach and therapist my sister and sister-in-law found value in. I am me and different, but I think those that are good at what they do have some things in common. I will say for my sister-in-law the sessions were very client driven, she wanted to exercise more, so they agreed on the very small step of keeping a pair of tennis shoes in the car for when she had time. Her previous coach had a very structured agenda, which she needed to keep and stick to a daily calendar until she could progress to other steps. My sister had a therapist that listened to everything she said, but had no responses or questions but mmm or tell me more.
I see myself as a guide and powerful questions and presence as key attributes, but in order for me to be at my best I need to be in that alignment or connection that Sue mentioned in her post, which was a result of the exercises we did outside prior to our practice sessions. I definitely want to be guiding at a soul level, so building a service around that and learning and sharing the value of that will be crucial to building the fire.
Thankfully I enjoy money and appreciate it, though that was not always so. I do know that people value what they need to pay for, and I have read that we value purchases more when they relieve a pain. For instance I didn’t have a holder for my phone in the car, so I kept it in a cup holder, but looking at directions was a pain, so I found a holder that clips into the air vent and magically life became easier. We don’t always purchase the little things that could make life exponentially easier but may purchase items that we want at the moment because they feel good. My step-father owns a million dollar home and is fully retired and plays golf 3 times a week, but lights his stove top with a long lighter because the lighter on the stove top doesn’t work. I will say that my mom’s personal hobby is home decor, so he can’t just walk in and buy whatever stove top he wants and bring it back and put it in. It sounds funny, and makes me laugh every time I see him make an egg every morning lighting the stove top. It reminds me of human beings and the way we spend money and the perceived value. A need to someone is not necessarily a need to someone else. A potential client could have an area we see as painful, but they do not. It is a reminder to me that a person will easily pay for what they want and see value in; client-directed and what pain they want to remove or change or what they want to create. As I sit here to write this I know my step-dad has already made his egg using his long lighter and is on his way to easily pay for a round of golf. The last note I want to remember in building the fire around a business is the word-FUN. Golf is fun, stove top shopping and installing is not.
-
Oh, the threshold! The moment where we get to experiment with the experience of the deeper need, with the way we need to be. As I reflect on these moments as a coaching client and in my life, I recognize the self-realization and expansion that comes from these experiences. I recall one session during our Foundations intensive where I was working on voicing my truth. I co-created the threshold with my coach, and I got to experience how it felt to sing my soul into the world. I still recall the feeling of confidence and internal power that came through this experience. In some of the other threshold experiences I’ve had, I recall coming through the other side with a new and expanded sense of self, discovering something about myself that I previously did not know. Stepping into the unknown, and coming out the other side has left me with greater self-awareness, confidence, sense of purpose, and expansion. Through these experiences, I realize how important it is to identify the intention prior to going into the ‘threshold.’ Without intention that ties to the deeper need or to the want/goal, the threshold experience will not have the potency of understanding the new way of being. Knowing this personally, helps me realize the importance the severance process is for having a meaningful threshold experience, because without strong intention, the threshold may not hold as much value. This is deeply informing how I want to be as a coach.
During the Foundations intensive, the first time we were guided to go on a nature wonder, I had a profound ‘threshold’ experience that demonstrated the potency that nature can provide in these threshold experiences. We were asked to go outside with a question that was present for us, something that we needed help with. We were to begin by sitting for a few minutes and opening up our senses, and then go wondering, with no objective or destination, simply letting nature and instinct guide us. My question was about the guilt I felt surrounding the freedom I was experiencing from my Dad’s passing. As I opened my senses and let nature lead me, I was guided to three different piles of bones. In my belief system, bones symbolize ancestry and can invoke communication with ancestors. Next, I heard my Dad’s voice say, “it’s ok, I’m here, I support and love you.” This reminds me of the 50/50 principle presented in Coyote’s Guide. “Coyote offers a principle giving you permission to ‘go with the flow’ and adapt your plans as necessary. (P. 234). Letting nature participate in the threshold added so much depth and richness to my experiences, I know this is a mandatory part of supporting clients through their own transformation.
As a coach, I want to help people realize profound transformation in their lives. As I continue to experience ‘threshold’ moments, I am working on transforming my own life by experimenting with being and/or doing things I’ve never done before. This is how I can transform into someone I’ve never been before; to realize my vision. By knowing this experience personally, I hope to better guide my clients through it. This is one way the ‘threshold’ is informing my coaching. As I change and transform by having threshold experiences, I will better be able to guide clients through their own transformation. This makes me think of the different change processes that were discussed in the Coaching Skills book. On page 183, Rogers writes, “Ultimately, we are held back from change by fear. The fear is about loss of control of being unable to cope with the unknown.” The ‘threshold’ is the unknown, and the more I am comfortable in this space the better I can help guide clients through it. Having threshold experiences also informs my coaching because it’s helping me experiment with something new and different. Nature participating in these experiences is showing me the importance of collaborating with nature and surrendering to the unknown experiences that nature will provide. This informs my coaching by helping remind me to surrender to the unknown while in sessions with clients. It helps me put aside my ‘I know’ mind and surrender to the flow of what is happening in the moment.
For me to feel confident as a coach helping clients get clear on their intention and guiding them into a threshold experience requires a deep level of trust. This hits on one of the ICF core competencies; cultivates trust and safety. Guiding clients into the unknown, the threshold, could be scary for them. To do this effectively, I believe it’s vitally important to partner with the client to create a safe, supportive environment that allows the client to share freely. Another ICF core competency I believe is critically important for me to feel confident as a coach is facilitating client growth. While the whole coaching arc has the potential to do this, I believe the greatest growth can happen in the threshold. All aspects of this competency are important for me to feel confident as a coach, guiding clients through threshold experiences.
-
Thank you for sharing your individual experience of threshold in your life, and then you succinctly put into words exactly what I love about the guiding that we do with clients. Nature really is a co-coach, and I want to “**” this post to remind myself and my future clients why what we do is effective and unique. You wrote it so well that it gives me an even better explanation of why it really works, so thank you for sharing. No intention for the threshold just leaves it listless or feels forced up on the client at times, like going through the motion without Soul on board.
-
Cynthia, how beautifully put! I love the piece of the threshold and the unknown.. The quote you shared from the Coaching skills book sticks out to me. “Ultimately, we are held back from change by fear. The fear is about loss of control of being unable to cope with the unknown.” I think about this often, why is it so hard for people to change?! Yes the unknown is scary and it is hard when we are not able to have that sense of control. I can see why it is so valuable to be a coach, to walk with someone, and be by their side as they enter into that place. Cynthia, I also love that you added, “<font face=”inherit”>The ‘threshold’ is the unknown, and the more I am comfortable in this space the better I can help guide clients through it.” There is so much truth to that. We can only takes clients as far as we have gone ourselves. </font>This<font face=”inherit”> is something that I am appreciating about EBI thus far.. we are getting the opportunity to dive deep within ourselves and thus take clients to these </font>places.
-
-
I am beginning to see and understand more and more the power of the threshold! The second intensive we had provided more space and opportunity for me to play around in the threshold as a client. The first experience I can recall was a practice of embodiment. It seems like a big part of the threshold is creating a container for the client to practice stepping into the way they want to be through embodiment. As a client, my coach pointed out there was a lot of energy in my body that was not matching up with my tone of voice and words. I was given the invitation to move my body so I got down on my hands and knees and had a strong desire to roar like a lion. Though I struggled to break through an old pattern and allow myself to become fully vocal, It was powerful for me to have the experience of coming up to that threshold and to have a guide next to me guiding me to places I struggle to go to on my own. There was an exercise that we did at the second intensive where we were asked to sit with our parts and I really struggled with that. At that moment I felt like I needed a guide to help me through it and I see that there is such a power in being guided through soul work. I can think of another threshold where I was given the space and autonomy to go to a cliff edge and yell a positive affirmation at the top of my lungs. Nature has played a role in my threshold experiences because it has given me the spaciousness to expand and grow in a safe and non judgemental way.
Nature has provided me a container to hold any emotion or feelings that arises within me. Reflecting back to the first intensive, there was a threshold experience where I felt a strong urge to release anger and I went out on the land and began to smash down tree branches. There was a sense of safety and protection that allowed me to feel as though I could show up the way I was feeling. Nature does not criticize or expect us to be anything other than who we are. Thinking about my time in Colorado, nature played a role in allowing me to connect deeper to myself through my experience of talking to my different parts and using the earth as tools and resources to represent the different parts. Nature can do so much for us!!!! To me it feels like home. It feels resourceful, giving, safe, welcoming, non judgemental, inspiring, expansive, warm, curious, and a place of limitless possibilities.
Some core competencies that feel important to practice in the place of threshold with clients:
1. Acknowledges that clients are responsible for their own choices
5. Acknowledges and supports the client’s expression of feelings, perceptions, concerns, beliefs and suggestions
6. Demonstrates openness and transparency as a way to display vulnerability and build trust with the client
1. Remains focused, observant, empathetic and responsive to the client
2. Demonstrates curiosity during the coaching process
3. Manages one’s emotions to stay present with the client
4. Demonstrates confidence in working with strong client emotions during the coaching process
5. Is comfortable working in a space of not knowing – this feels like the most important when thinking about working towards a threshold and into the threshold experience with clients
6. Creates or allows space for silence, pause or reflection
1. Considers client experience when deciding what might be most useful
-
Thank you for sharing your threshold experiences, and now I know who was roaring and yelling during different exercises;). Threshold is really a gift and when it can be done outside in nature that is amazing, it takes beyond this physical reality for me and can be a little uncomfortable but also creative. I am curious what your guide did for you that helped you be more comfortable to scream or roar during your sessions, or if you had just come to the point on your own..
-
I like your association of the threshold with embodiment. Something occurred to me while reading your post about the gift that we can give to clients. If a client is typically shy about roaring like a lion, but feels called to do so, and can courageously step into that with the guides help, and obtain the release needed to be fully in her body, this is so empowering. Also, being witnessed by the guide in this empowerment can even further build confidence for the client to be able to do it again if/when needed. Thank you so much for sharing those experiences! I also really appreciate you naming trust as a critical competency for effective threshold experiences. In order for me to step into a new way of being, I have to have complete trust that the guide can hold me and that requires a lot of trust.
-
-
At this last intensive I got a deeper understanding of why the threshold experience is so valuable. There is a power in being a client and having a space provided for you to feel into the change that wants to take place and having the support and guidance there if needed. I think I am understanding more and more the power of being guided into the unknown vs walking into the darkness alone. I think I have spent a lot of my life in the shadow, searching and diving into the darkness looking for answers. I think the time of introspection was helpful and I also feel like with some guidance I don’t know that I would have stayed there as long as I did. I value the sessions that I have had and the threshold moments that I got to share with the person coaching me. I think something that I have been wondering is, what will coaching and the threshold experience look like with someone outside of this coaching program. I have only been practice coaching with people in this program and I am curious to how it will go with people in the world outside EBI. The deeper we dive into this program, the more I want to practice coaching and begin to take the idea of creating my own business seriously. I also struggle to understand how people have enough time in the day to get all the things they need to get done, done but that’s a whole different tangent.
I am taking away from this the power of trusting oneself and the unknown as well as trusting the tools that we have been given in the program. I am seeing that there is a balance in believing in myself as a coach as well as trusting in the material and tools that we have been learning. I feel inspired by the threshold experiences that I have been apart of as well as the ones that I have been able to guide others through. I look forward to continue learning and growing!
-
Sometimes I jump from threshold experience to threshold experience without fully incorporating them or integrating my learnings. I know this part of foundations is about the threshold and not incorporation, but I wanted to acknowledge this because it’s something I’m learning about myself through this program. I’m also seeing how much I enjoy the threshold, both having these experiences and helping others have them too. I associate the threshold with the unknown, and I’m fascinated by the unknown, by the mystery of possibility, and by curiosity and discovery. I’m interested in understanding why the threshold helps catapult people to change. Does it give our brains a new pathway, a glimpse at what’s possible? I’m also thinking about how to best guide clients into threshold experiences that can help them achieve lasting change in their lives. I want to remain aware that my desire and excitement for the threshold could prematurely guide clients to places they aren’t comfortable and that is the last thing I want to do. So, this awareness is good to have so that I be sure to build trust, be clear on the deeper need, and the intention before jumping into a threshold experience with clients. Or, maybe sometimes a threshold experience can reveal the deeper need and allow for expansion from this point. Either way, I’m very clear that a strong intention is necessary.
-
For my client and I to even get close to Threshold I must get the client to fully TRUST. By doing that I let my client talk about whatever is on their mind, by doing that I am more attune about where my client is at that moment (their baseline)
At this point I like to do the 7 breaths with my client to help get them grounded and in the moment or NOW? By this time, I can track their baseline and flow with it, this helps my client get Centered and help them find their Deeper need or drop into Soul.
Once we are at that point, I go straight to the sacred questions, and reflect to my client or mirror their actions. By doing this I am learning to deepen my listening and understanding of my client.
-
The core of threshold for me is experiential. It is the direct contact with what is and what might be. It is embodied, felt, congruent. It is contact with self, Soul, world, Spirit, that has the capacity to transform us, at least in the moment, or to invite us into new territory. In threshold, something becomes possible that might not have existed before or that we need to nurture and return to again and again to allow and create change.
I’m remembering the quote from Daniel: “To do what you’ve never done before, you have to be who you have never been before.” In threshold, we are exploring this self we have never been or rehearsing the new self we now have glimpses of from previous thresholds.
In coaching, the safe space to actually step into this unknown and emergent space is core to entering threshold. And there is an incredible power to being seen, witnessed, and received in this moment of becoming. So often, who we have been has been held in relationship to others. This new self also needs that feedback and context to see, explore, find, and step more into itself.
The most potent experiences of threshold I have had all revolve around deep contact with Soul and a sense of contact with my vision and with strong glimpses, felt-sense experiences, of who and how I am when I am aligned to Soul. And to do this while in contact with other beings (the world, a tree, the wind, a coyote, a coach…) helps me validate and welcome my emergent self in this exploration.
The way that I was, have been, in the past relegated Soul to something not to be named too directly, to be hidden. Soul and soul-centered living or being (a reverent and embodied is-ness in the world) was something only religious people do or new age folk who talk the talk without actually embodying the walk. Being soul-centered might mean I would be rejected. Others might demand I justify or defend or quantify what Soul is for it to have validity. It might not be safe, practical, allowed, seen, or otherwise permissible to come from a place of Soul. I might get hurt; my Soul might get hurt (or destroyed).
And yet, this deeper sense of me, of my purpose, vision, calling, longing, arises from this contact with Soul. Everything I most desire, the world I most want to inhabit, the need I most want to meet, arises from Soul connection. And Soul for me is about being actively embedded in and belonging to the living world. It’s about creating community, ways of being, ceremony, expression, that emerges from deep Soul-belonging in and to the world.
Throughout EBI and in other areas of my life in the last year or two, I have been following my longing to be Soul-directed, and to be this overtly and explicitly in the broader world, not just in my internal private spaces. I feel like I am in the process of “coming out” and it has been exhilarating and terrifying.
Some examples include:
- A session during Foundations with Amanda, where I got to take the first step of naming my intent to commit to devotion, reverence, gratitude, and communion, and speaking from the intensity of my love for the world.
- A session with Lilia in the Council Grove at the Starhouse, where I got to claim how deep-rooted, ongoing-over-time connection to place is essential, natural, and necessary for me, and how claiming a sense of the sacred, of an earthly, immanent, embodied expression and exploration of the holy is my spiritual territory. In contact with Lilia (and witnesses), with land I’ve loved and been welcomed by for 16+ years, I felt seen, received, open, while actively revealing and sharing this core aspect of who I am, of my Soul.
The relational nature of the exploration – the living world, the sacred land, the Soul centered sharing, the being seen, the invitation to reveal more – was essential. Something becomes possible through this immersion. My longing to be and feel ecstatic and embodied and the way that continues to emerge through practice in the threshold brings me back again to John Davis stating: “The natural world mirrors, evokes, and develops those inner qualities usually assigned to the realm of religion and spirituality – unconditional love, joy, power, peace, support, grace, and guidance.”
The power of my own experience of being and revealing myself in threshold totally informs my awareness of the power of this as a coach and guide. I’m aware from the larger cultural model of coaching how it’s easy to skip this sort of experiential depth in the more mainstream, transactional coaching module. Threshold offers the invitation to actually step into the deeper need, whatever that is. To be one who stands in Soul, to express what has never been safe or known previously, to find voice, or feel something new.
Threshold is the radical daydreaming that makes change possible, that inspires and informs who we want to become, especially when evoked from intention and awareness in severance, and supported with effective integration and incorporation.
And it depends on the coach using many of the core competencies: creating trust and safety; letting the client lead and determine direction; maintaining presence especially through capacity to be with the unknown; deep listening to effectively mirror the client’s experience; and facilitating client growth.
Threshold is one of the most potent tools in our toolbox and the experiential, embodied, in contact with the world quality of being in threshold is transformative for me and something I will tend with and for my clients.
