-
Foundations Four Cohort 22-Discussion Forum
-
7 Replies
-
When I first started I originally thought I was going to perhaps open my own private practice, however things have changed as I continued in the program. I realized my background and skillset would actually encourage me to work in a corporate or organization environment. I’ve already been asked by numerous companies to reach out to them once I finished my training. These are companies I have worked with in the past in different roles and have a good rapport with them. Plus, I enjoy working with individuals who are at the same level as I am in career and mentality. This will make my coaching easier I feel like because I can relate to there everyday problems perhaps. Also, with such a vast network of business professionals I possess it may be wise of me to utilize all my years of experience and networking to good use. I don’t plan on limiting my expertise in an particular area. But, I am would think that I’ll be good at solving work environment related issues. Perhaps I can take individuals or groups of people on nature trips, or perhaps I can work somewhere where teams can book meeting with me at the organization I’m working for. I have a couple things already working in the pipeline for ideas. Their are some resorts that offer wellness packages and this includes mental awareness training. I haven’t dug into which resort I may look into because I’m not sure if that’s what I wish. But the idea of working at a resort of some sort and perhaps offer a life coaching session might be useful. At the end of the day, I’m just speculating on what I could do with this newfound education. I have already been approached by a non profit who specializes in youth development and they would love to hire a NCC practitioner. Tech companies who love getting there employees outdoors and socializing have also approached me also. But again, I don’t even know what I want to do just yet. As of now I’m still learning what is ideal to me and how I want to apply this information. I’m in no rush to start and I may not even start practicing years from now when the time seems appropriate.
-
Hi Greg! Thank you for you post, it really brought to light how important it is that we honor our unique styles and personalities as coaches. I think its amazing how you outline working with businesses and corporations, while I am thinking the opposite for myself. But how cool! How crucial it is to bring the empowering and healing approach of nature connected coaching to people from all walks of life, and there is no way one person could do that authentically. I am excited to continue to hear about how your path unfolds!
-
-
Overall, I believe I am still learning and just graduating from the program does not mean it’s over. At first I had the intention to complete this program and ICF within a year. But now my goal is to make it a 2 year program to really learn as much as possible and keep up with updates. I have a vision on where I’m going with this and how this program will be utilized in my life. Speed in not an ally for me and I will take this slowly to get some real life lessons out of it. I am also realizing my schedule is quite busy with so many projects, and ideas I’m pursuing. So this will limit my abilities to focus on this program in a 12 month fashion and more of a 24 month goal. 🙂
-
It sounds like you are really listening to yourself on how to get the most out of your path with EBI. It can be a tough decision to make, but it sounds like it will afford you the time and space to do what you are doing now and continue learning at a pace that will maximize your experience. Do you think your idea of who you will work with will change over the course of it all? How are the other projects unfolding, do you think you will work with certain parts of the corporate world?
-
-
When I think about coaching/guiding, an individual who is gathering energy comes to mind. More specifically, they have a critical level of desire for change, open-mindedness about what that change might look like, and drive to engage with a new way of being. I have been in martial arts my whole life and have delved more into the softer martial arts as I have gotten older. Although the learning is life-long (i.e. I will be a student my whole life), I now teach Tai Chi and in these classes we often speak of substantial and insubstantial – coiling and uncoiling – gathering and releasing. And it is this framework that keeps coming to mind when I picture coaching. I picture an individual who is naturally gathering energy, and simply needs guidance on how they would like to release it. Moreover, I picture someone drawn to and/or appreciative of nature. From there I get into who I don’t picture. For example, I do not want to work with someone in the throws of trauma or mental instability, or who has chronic issues with anger, or has a personality disorder, or hatred toward a particular group of people. I struggle to reduce this further in the sense of pinpointing my clients to be a certain sex, gender, age, race, financial bracket, because I know when I have been at the pinnacle of change in the past I have defied all of these. But I will continue to work on this aspect of focusing my approach.
As I consider all I have learned up to this point, I find myself gravitating towards solution focused coaching. Asking questions that focus on empowering clients to design their own solutions resonates with me. I can see working with clients in a solution-oriented fashion that keeps in mind connection to the authentic self (i.e. the soul, self behind the self), and thereby rooting that connection as the foundation from which life is lived. Overall, I see myself coaching from a solution-based orientation that anchors those solutions in soul. Nature as a support in this approach is crucial at all levels, as I believe nature is the direct link to the authentic self and teaches the deep listening required to revitalize that link. This could be done in any number of different exercises, incorporation of nature into the home, awareness practices and so on. I feel nature as a co-guide will happen without effort, but I will be conscious of its active participation which can increase the power of its influence.
After searching the web there are a ton of different organizations and coaches and healers that seek to work with those who are gathering energy. Many are education based, drawing on the approach of imparting a new way of thinking or a new perspective in order to encourage change. Others are focused on archetypal work that draw on the collective subconscious to illicit understanding into the why we do what we do. Not to mention those organizations that incorporate alternative medicines to encourage healing that will result in alternative thinking/perspective.
I believe there is a place for all of these. The human condition is too dynamic not to find soul food in any number of them…I think it would just depend on the individual client and their needs. However, what I enjoy most about the nature connected coaching approach is the empowerment and client driven paradigm. In other words, that the client is not searching for the treasure of the truth/solution externally in a scientific study, philosophy, or oil from a frog’s backside, but rather is the treasure of the truth themselves.
-
I struggled a little bit with this exercise because I am still not sure who would want to use my services, and what exactly my niche is. I think this links to a greater struggle to identify where I belong here and who resonates with me. I had to think about the people I have “coached” unofficially in the past who are drawn to me and me to them. These are mostly women (but also some men), who have had an experience in life of not completely belonging somewhere, to their family to society, and whose personal healing is somehow linked to their professional life, or to the healing of the community. Usually, it is deeply introspective people who are drawn to expansion and growth, self-awareness and self-discovery. Often times it is people who have had some sort of traumatic experience (divorce, death, other trauma) which caused them to question their beliefs and the concepts they have inherited from their family or society about how to live their life. Perhaps it is people who already have had some therapy under their belt and are looking to go beyond healing, to alignment with soul purpose. It’s people who are trying to offer or express something to the world, artists, poets, educators, parents, visionary people, who keep pushing the boundaries of what is known/knowable/experienceable/possible.
I find that they are not limited by age, but education and income might have something to do with it, as it is people who are privileged enough to have these sort of professions and indulge in these deeper existential questions. Geographical location also plays a role, as my city does not have a very large artist scene or massively attract visionary people (i.e. people who go beyond the bounds of what society prescribes) – but I might need to do more research on this and remain open to possibilities. Perhaps their deeper need is related to this question: “How can I be true to myself and also live in this society/world and support myself?” “How can I live authentically, with meaning, joy, confidence and the power to pursue my dreams?” “How can I have a deeper relationship to myself and to the world around me?”
Common goals along these lines would include “more awareness of who I am and what I value/believe/love doing”, “how to have the confidence to use my voice/be myself”, “establishing boundaries”, “how to create more time in life to pursue my dreams”, “developing self-compassion and acceptance of self”.
I envision using nature connection to develop deeper awareness of self, by practicing presence, embodiment and developing the senses. Also by allowing the mind and emotions that are repressed to come to surface gently through interacting with nature and the metaphors/ mirroring it provides. I would like to employ methods from environmental education as well as the arts to tap into this greater awareness and enable expression. Also visualization and mindfulness for grounding.
https://www.ericwindhorst.ca/about-eric-windhorst/ – He seems to be a counsellor, coach and psychotherapist all in one, and I am assuming he picks which hat to wear according to each individual client and their needs. He believes that the main reason people get “psychologically stuck” is because they lose touch with their inner nature. He describes on his website that he uses ecopsychological and transpersonal approaches as well as more traditional psychotherapeutic approaches to bring people to an understanding and acceptance of who they are. He specifically works with gifted, highly sensitive adults. This all seems very close to Nature-Connected Coaching, but he doesn’t mention a ceremony framework or explicitly describe collaboration with nature, and so I am unsure as to how he relates inner nature to outer nature.
https://mermaid-forest.com/work-with-me/ – Her approach seems connected to NCC, though there is no explicit mention of working outdoors, but mostly with dreams, the body, synchronicities (also nature). She explicitly focuses on giftedness as a trait, with assessments etc, but I think NCC considers everyone who is on Earth to have a gift, the only thing is to draw it out and honor/hone it.
https://www.naturalchange.co.uk/about-us/our-story/ – Project Natural Change is what inspired me to study Outdoor Education. They call what they do ‘Sustainability Leadership”, which I now find a bit vague and funny, as both those terms are highly contested and also, in a way, antithetical (that’s a whole other philosophical conversation however). Research done on their project suggest that people who participate in it shift from an ego identity to a transpersonal one, and in essence they help people go back to their professions with a different set of values. Their approach seems very similar to NCC but their niche is very specific, focusing on groups of people who are in positions of leadership.
I think overall, I would like to be coaching primarily women who are disillusioned with and constrained by the stories given to them about how they need to live life, and who have some budding creativity that wants to come out and be expressed in the world, but who are unsure what it is and how it can be part of a way of being, not just a way of doing. I still feel like I need to flesh out the details of this and how to phrase it better.
-
I’ve come back to writing this post so many times since April – and never actually managed to finish it. As usual, I’ve written way too much here, but not playing with fire by trying to cut it down – I tried again with a new perspective thanks to Daniel’s input from the StoryBrand Script group mentoring session and it stuck so I’m counting it as a win 🙂
My ideal client is looking for meaning in their life. They crave purpose and direction, but not just any direction — they want to have some kind of positive impact in the world. They are looking for depth, for connection, for a sense of being able to create a future not just for themselves, but one that also has ripples into their community and beyond. For themselves, they wish they could feel more joy, more of a sense of fulfillment. Sometimes they have fleeting moments of feeling that sense – when they are in the mountains, or have a particularly good moment of connection with friends, for example – but it passes, and they find themselves wondering ‘is that it? Should I stop chasing that feeling and just accept that life is duller than I always expected it to be?’
This ideal client has some deep interests, maybe even a sense of what they would do if they could do anything they wanted — maybe they are an artist or have a creative practice, or they dream of fostering communities, or love to be outdoors, or grow vegetables. Maybe there’s a part of their identity, like being queer or being Jewish, that is deeply important to them. But these parts of them, interests and aspects of themselves that are so important, aren’t centered in their lives in a way that gives them a sense of meaning.
So for example, maybe they are already a practicing artist, but they worry that they’ll never ‘make it’, and they compare themselves to others and feel torn between a love of making art and a sense that they have to be successful for it to mean anything.
Or another example might be that when they were a kid, they loved being in the woods, and when they visit home they deeply love the feeling of returning to the same landscape and places — but now they live in a city and work in an office, and though they know they “should” get outside more often, it’s hard to fit into their schedule.
Interwoven with the yearning for a sense of purpose is a desire to have a clear and stable way to make money. These goals tend to be pretty tangled for my ideal client; any thinking about their interests and how to center them in their life means also thinking about how to monetize them. This ideal client knows that it’s possible to make money from those interests, but might say something like “first of all, there are other people who are way better at it than me, and second of all, I don’t know how I could make that work, and third of all, I’m not even sure I’d want to do that for a living!”
That is all to say, my ideal client doesn’t know many alternative framings for the things that light them up, except in terms of their financial/commercial value.
Some common goals ideal clients might work towards with me could be: to develop clarity of purpose and direction; to deepen their sense of self and self-worth; to find meaning, depth, and joyful challenge in life; to feel they are creating good in the world; to feel good in their body; to feel hope, excitement, and energy; to know how to make decisions and feel they are on a good path; to feel confident in who they are and what they have to offer; to deepen their relationships and sense of community.
Some common challenges that my ideal clients might be faced with could be: self-doubt; financial pressure; social expectations and learned patterns of belief; going into freeze; dwelling on details and possible consequences of decisions to a point of anxiety; shame; comparing themselves to others; trauma responses; waiting for someone else to give them the answers; overwhelm; fear of the unknown.
All of this is, I have to say, fairly vague. Almost any business focused on wellness might list the same or similar outcomes and challenges for their clients, and yet, I don’t see my clients as people who tend to go for wellness-type services and products.
If I actually close my eyes and imagine a client who I absolutely adore working with, a lot of times the person who comes to mind is male. He’s between 25 and 35, perhaps without a lot of experience with (or patience for) “self-work” or “spiritual crap”. He’s fairly logically-minded, perhaps in a relationship, doing fine. But in the back of his mind he’s wondering what it’s all for. He’s not always the best at communicating his feelings or his needs to others, and has a hard time feeling vulnerable, though he knows as well that he’s not a “macho” guy, that he’s what people call “sensitive”. He doesn’t have an interest in the dude-bro aesthetic, but he also doesn’t really have a definition of – or a role model for – other kinds, healthy kinds, of masculinity. He’s just kind of coasting, dabbling in creative projects perhaps, reading or talking about issues in the world that interest him, but wishing for a deeper sense of meaning and connection, though he sometimes believes that’s a fairy-tale world that doesn’t really exist.
But my images of an ideal client aren’t all male. Some are femme or female; perhaps more are enby or genderqueer. Often the person in my imagination is Jewish. I’m not sure yet how these pieces fit together and what they boil down to.
How I plan to work with clients is kind of a twofold process of first of all introducing them from day 1 to the feeling of being home in their body and in the world through nature-connection and somatic practices, and second of all taking them on a path of compassionate self-discovery to uncover their true and unique gifts.
I return again and again to the image of a covered lantern. So many of us have learned from such an early age how to cover up the light of the lanterns that are our real selves. But when we re-learn how to uncover them and let our own light shine, not only do we light the way for one another across all realms of human experience, it can also be seen by others when our candles need to be replaced and our flame nurtured.
Today I found this image posted by the Loveland Foundation on their Instagram, which sums this up well (https://www.instagram.com/p/CWEjSf3hwv1/)
This also reminds me of a quote from Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer:
“The most important thing each of us can know is our unique gift and how to use it in the world. Individuality is cherished and nurtured, because, in order for the whole to flourish, each of us has to be strong in who we are and carry our gifts with conviction, so they can be shared with others… In reciprocity, we fill our spirits as well as our bellies.” (p. 134)
My ideal client, at the root of it, is searching for how to flourish themself while at the same time helping the whole to flourish. As Kimmerer points out, achieving that goal is contingent on each of us getting to know ourselves intimately and deeply.
Collaborating with both external and internal nature, then, is a process of widening awareness, coming into the present, and discovering ways to see what’s actually in front of you instead of the past and/or future. It’s also a way of connecting with pleasure and intrinsic meaning in the moment. This in itself is healing, but beyond that, I want to interweave courageous exploration of the self into that, so that my clients can discover who they are and how their unique light shines, with that same kind of compassionate, open awareness.
As for the part about individuals and organizations who work with similar populations…! My research here has not really turned up many people or organizations doing exactly what I’m interested in doing. Everyone I’ve found seems to be people or organizations I could imagine working in tandem or partnership with.
The first person who comes to mind is a bodyworker called Prairie, of Somatic Connections: https://www.somaticconnections.org/. Prairie works specifically with the body, especially with the pelvis, to help people feel in alignment with themselves. The front page of her website asks “Ready to uncover and claim your inherent joy and pleasure, to feel secure and grounded in your root, and to walk easefully in your own skin?” – this is what shows me that she works with clients with similar goals. However, her approach is completely different – and it seems that the presenting issues people seek her out with are also very different (pain, birth trauma processing, sexual expression, etc). Yet still, she works very much with regulating the nervous system and addressing trauma towards claiming ease, joy, and pleasure in oneself.
Embodied Jewish Learning is another organization that I’ve found. Their website states: “Embodied Jewish Learning offers all people the chance to experience Jewish wisdom through movement practices that nourish their minds, bodies, hearts and souls and empowers them to fully embody and express their unique role in creating positive change for our world.” (https://embodiedjewishlearning.org/mission) I interpret EJL as oriented especially towards people looking for a sense of meaning in their everyday lives. For EJL, the target group already has a source of meaning, i.e. Jewish wisdom and teachings. So EJL focuses on combining this with embodiment as the way to align mind, body, heart & soul. The parallel here for me is of course nature connection, which carries its own inherent wisdom and meaning and can be accessed in tandem with embodiment/somatics practices in order to bring alignment to my clients.
The Fired Up Collective in Berlin (https://www.thefiredupcollective.com/) matches people registered as unemployed with coaches (for which the job center then pays). As a collective, their coaches are themselves diverse, but all seem to target an eclectic, young, alternative subsection of Berlin’s unemployed people who are looking for new direction and purpose — both expats and Germans who are typical to Berlin’s scene; that is, creative, diverse, political, critical of existing systems, and a bit lost. Their coaches employ many different approaches, but since all are accepted by the state job center’s coaching scheme, I believe that means all have completed a German-recognized career coaching training, and can then weave their own approaches into this. I believe this would be an incredible way for me to attract the kind of clients I am most interested in, as they are often financially challenged due to being between jobs.
And finally, I am already working in tandem with Nature Meet (https://www.nature-meet.com/) to deliver nature-based workshops and tours. Nature Meet’s mission is to connect people within and around nature, and organizes trips and tours around Berlin run by community guides. The tours’ participants mostly come from a fairly traditional career and interest background – i.e. have a steady job, etc, but crave both community and time in nature (in other words, more meaning!). The idea here is simply that by going on hikes, foraging trips, etc alongside others, people both get the benefits of nature and community in a spontaneous way. I’m still trying to figure out how to turn this into a client stream as well, but the potential is definitely there.
