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Foundations Three Discussion- Cohort 22
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17 Replies
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Threshold in this sense is a very new idea for me. It seems simultaneously exciting, while uncomfortable and a bit nerve wracking. In my personal experience as client it has been a positive and exciting place to be, the unknown in many ways is a comfortable spot for me that signals adventure and opportunity. Nevertheless, I have had the flipside instances as well, where threshold has been uncomfortable and nerve wracking. In these cases, my discomfort has centered more around not having the answers for my coach. I found myself worrying I was holding things up or just not getting it.
Nature participated in my process when I did not force a metaphor for nature or a specific nature based activity, but rather when I breathed into the moment. It was then that I acknowledged myself as a part of nature keying into my mind the idea of cycle…a time for all things, the ebb and the flow, the yin and yang. It was in these instances that I relaxed into the none-answer moments and stayed tuned. It was also during these times that I let go of upholding some expectation for myself, my coach, the session and let be.
This helps me reflect in my own coaching about framework. The importance of setting the stage for discovery, and journeying that is not ladened with expectation, even goal oriented expectation of coaching. But rather to emphasize the journey, and that we are on a client led journey. While this is noted time and time again in the ICF Core Competencies the breakdown in Section 2 Embodies a Coaching Mindset and Section 4 Cultivates Trust and Safety, most pointedly remind me of how important these guidelines are…especially in the personal instances I note above. For example, that “open, curious, flexible, and client-centered” approach would help create a session less burdened by the worrying that derailed my process. Moreover, “respect…showing support, empathy and concern…and acknowledging the client’s expression of feeling,” would also foster an environment where I could relax and concern myself with the process and the session instead of the coach and the outcome.
Moving forward as a coach, not only would I benefit from keeping these ICF Core Competencies as a framework, but also employing them in a more expansive way. In other words, creating this environment for my clients would be mutually beneficial, as well as maintaining that environment with other aspects of the coaching mindset. For example, “acknowledging that clients are responsible for their own choices” (i.e. leaving room for them to not move into threshold – or any part of the process unless they are ready), “regulating my own emotions and being mentally and emotionally prepared” (i.e. maintaining awareness of myself as a coach and what vibes/expectations I am bringing to the session), and “demonstrating openness and transparency” (i.e. if things aren’t moving along talking about it and checking in with my client). Specific practices that may help me build these muscles could be a matra before each session, dialing me into where I need to be in the session as the coach, developing comfort in gentle/intelligent silence, and learning to cultivate constructive ways to communicate through the unknown
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Hi Julie, I really enjoyed how you started off mentioning its exciting and yet nerve wracking hitting threshold. I myself have always been the mentor and never really experienced a threshold myself in a sense. So when I start feeling this threshold experience it can be exhilarating and yet uncomfortable. This unknown territory however is important for me to understand this experience and feeling. This will allow me to help others experience this feeling. I look forward in learning more about coaching and how deep the rabbit hole goes! Great response.
Greg
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Threshold is a concept and experience that I am definitely in an ongoing and active learning process with. I struggle with segueing into threshold, as the planning sometimes feels forced and unnatural. However, the actually experience of it when it does occur can be very profound. I look forward to learning more about this process and how I can facilitate it better as a coach. Moreover, each part of ceremony impresses upon the importance of how I am, in what way am I being as a coach, rather than having the right answers or path. This is paradoxical as I am actively trying to become a NCCoach, but liberating as well.
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Hi Julie, I enjoyed reading your thoughts here. It sounds like you are transforming through this experience overall, which is both exciting and uncomfortable at the same time. I like how you identified the coaching experience as a paradox, since we are supposed to guide clients, but we don’t actually have the answers or path! I also loved the part about the importance of how one is being, and the emphasis placed on that in the ICF competencies. I think it’s interesting that you have felt the need to perform for the coach during your sessions – being with the unknown is against so much of the left-brained cultural conditioning which requires of us certainty and answers. I also don’t experience thresholds as easy or comfortable, and think they are meant to not be so…I think of that every time I see an empty butterfly cocoon, cicada shell or snake skin….ouch!
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In order to be an effective coach, one must have some sense of what a threshold feeling feels like, sounds like, and looks like. It can be a very recognizable thing to notice someone stepping into threshold. When I personally start stepping into threshold, I know I’m getting somewhere. I then take notice how I feel what my body is doin and saying. What worked for me was imagining I was in Yosemite national park again. Hopping on boulders and chasing waterfalls. I could literally feel and taste the mist in the air. My hair starting to get wet and my clothes were getting cooler.
I recall such vivid details of my hike and this is what helped remind me of the calmness feeling I had at the time. It was this visual journey in nature that allowed me to remember what a certain feeling felt like. Once I recalled that feeling my body started giving off cues like smiling and looking up. If this is something I can experience, so can others on their own journeys. Feelings are expressed physically all the time by people. In there faces or body language. It is important to reads someones body language to be a good coach!
As I continue this journey in life coaching, I’m learning so much in just every day life I pay attention to peoples feelings and body gestures more. I try to bring more cheer to people and see how they react. The ICF core competencies are very detailed in what they expect. I really like the maintains presence section. I feel this overlaps with other sections, but it is such an important competency. The client will look right through you if your not fully engaged. They can tell if your bored as you can tell they are bored. That look and feeling will develop and this is how you recognize where to go next. Listening actively is also another important one. When you finally respond to a client, you need to hear what they said. If you respond to the client and it has nothing to do what they just said, they will feel your not listening and lose interest in the session real fast. Overall, all the competencies from EBI and ICF are very good to be aware of.
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I really appreciate the vivid way you describe your own experience with threshold Greg. It is so vivid and full of feeling, not only physically but emotionally as well. It really calls me to remember this process is very much about feeling. Also, I liked how you touched on the ICF Core Competencies being detailed expectations. At first they seemed redundant and then the more I reread them the more I appreciate the individual context of them within each category, as well as how their intention is to cover the bases of intention and relations.
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That’s wonderful that threshold has been such a positive experience for you Greg, I relate to that feeling of hiking and feeling “connected”. That’s awesome that you know that the calm contented feeling is how you want to show up as a coach, and I love the “Maintaining presence” section of the ICF competencies too. From that place of groundedness in self, one can allow the client to be wholly themselves, whether calm, uncomfortable, joyful or tearful, and the client will lead the way. This is their journey, and it’s an honor to be able to walk alongside them.
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I love how you describe creating awareness for yourself around other people’s body language and emotions on an everyday basis to be able to use that skill in coaching. I feel like that is such an important thing for me, BEING everyday and choosing to channel that into coaching. All of those little moments are like little thresholds that lead up to that big climax of effective coaching!
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Overall, I am still learning threshold and the severance process. I don’t feel this is something I will totally get in a short time or even a long time. But this entire process is a learning process and I look forward in learning more! ITs really nice how I’ve been applying these techniques in daily situations and not just client situations.
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As a client in the “threshold”, the most powerful experiences have been ones where Nature participated the most in the process. Usually, it acts as a regulating presence, helping me ground my nervous system and broaden my awareness. This, I have found, is relatively possible on Zoom within a limited timeframe, but I have experienced powerful thresholds by myself out in Nature, where the presence of the natural world was especially participating in my moment to moment experience, and providing me deeper self-awareness through mirroring, metaphors and examples of resilience, rebirth and hope (new growth, flowers, birds, predators, etc), as well as relating and attunement, even curiosity and being seen (birds/animals and some plants will respond to a human presence, first with apprehension and fear, then with curiosity, and finally with just being themselves or even playfully engaging with humans in some cases). In terms of coaching others, this tells me that one of the most important skills is a solid presence which allows the client to co-regulate and relax, as well as creating the right conditions for increased consciousness/self-awareness, whether by asking the right questions, reflecting in powerful ways, and picking up on the language and metaphors used and foregrounding them/ inviting an exploration of them.
There are several ICF competencies that I think are essential to build on in order to achieve the above as a coach.
A. Foundation> 2. Embodies a Coaching Mindset>4. Remains aware of and open to the influence of context and culture on self and others: to be sensitive to a client’s context is to be a step closer to seeing the world through their eyes, therefore being able to pick up on what’s important, which values they hold important, which metaphors might be powerful for them, what experience during the session might be most impactful.
A. Foundation>2. Embodies a Coaching Mindset>6. Develops and maintains the ability to regulate one’s emotions and 7. Mentally and emotionally prepares for sessions: The ability to regulate one’s emotions and embody one’s chosen coaching qualities (e.g. for me integrity, confidence, compassion) allows the coach to create a safe and strong container for transformation, much like Nature is. The more grounded nervous system regulates the others, therefore the coach wants to ensure their emotions are not haywire wrecking the session, but in control.
B. Co-creating the Relationship >4. Cultivates Trust and Safety: Again, this allows for a solid container and also the most meaning to take place, much as nature would mirror the inner world of the client because the client would selectively become aware of certain things in nature based on their own perception, in this case the coach is sensitive to the perception and worldview of the client and attunes oneself to it. Also, nature is open to everything that takes place without judgement and with vulnerability even. This makes me personally feel closer to nature, particularly in landscapes which are inviting, transparent of their “secrets” or wonders and trusting with my presence (one can experience this with finding a nest of baby birds or a litter of kittens, a patch of blooming wildflowers or even insects mating on a leaf, eben with the darker side of death, the bloody fur of roadkill by the side of the road, the dead fledgling recycled by ants in the garden – one feels touched by the openness and vulnerability of the moment). When I experience this vulnerability of nature, I develop a trust in the processes of nature because I can relate to the joy and suffering of birth and death experienced in life. A coach can develop this openness, transparency and vulnerability with the client (6) to build trust in the coaching relationship and process. “We will go up and down together, cry and laugh but it’s OK”.
B. Co-creating the Relationship> 5. Maintains Presence: is related to all the above in similar ways, especially managing one’s emotions to stay present with client and being able to work with strong client emotions (3, 4) feeling comfortable with the unknown of the threshold (5) and allowing space for silence where inner processing takes place (6). Curiosity, responsiveness, empathy and focus (1) create a safe container and build trust also, letting the client know they are being heard, seen and responded to.
C. Communicating Effectively> 6. Listens Actively and 7. Evokes Awareness: these are linked to points discussed above. Nature is very responsive and allowing, and provides ample opportunities for insight and awareness. The coach can deliberately work on these skills to draw awareness to patterns and beliefs and evoke those insights, by being responsive to the client, noticing words, voice, body language, energy, emotions, and non-verbal cues(4, 5), using silence, powerful questions, invitations, support and reflecting/ sharing observations etc.
All competencies are obviously very important, and I have left out integration (D>8), but with respect to threshold, the above competencies are very rich and particularly important to me. I want to grow as a coach by practicing them consciously in every session. Because threshold is stepping into the unknown, it is important for a guide to feel confident in guiding, and a client to feel trust in the coaching relationship, even if strong emotions come up and uncertain situations are encountered – knowing they are supported through it I believe can help transformation happen.
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Lilia when you brought to light that the most powerful threshold experiences you have had were those where Nature participated, it really resonated with me. I, myself have had threshold experiences where nature has been a participant in varying degrees, but you are so right it has been the most transformative ones where Nature is intensely present. Then when you went on to explain in detail those instances, I thought, “she is so right, Nature is such a great coach.”
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Yes Julie, Nature is a great coach I believe because it is inherently relational, not a mute “other”, neither a machine nor inert matter, but alive and responsive. In many ways I see my own coaching process as a process of “becoming more alive”, which is reflected in that rise in energy that happens in a good threshold. Both coach and client can feel it, and it is beyond just technique and how-to’s (though it includes them); it is transrational. I have experienced coaching as a paying client before – even during the difficult times I experienced deep connection with my coach, and sometimes it felt like a flow experience, much like I get from a wonderful hike in the mountains! I was afterwards inspired and energized.
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Hi Lilia,
I really like the comparison to zoom and in person. It has taken be awhile to really accept you can have nature connection through zoom. However, I still much prefer in person. I believe zoom is a great tool in todays world, but human connection in real life is almost biologically integrated in our system. The ICF competencies you highlighted are all great. ITs amazing to see how much these lessons really help us grow. Even though everyone may choose different compentiecies to relate with, they are all pretty important.
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I really hear in your words the intuitive awareness of how important setting up the container for the threshold is for the client to step into. Safety is such an important thing to me personally to be able to step into threshold and I very much resonate with this.
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Thanks again for seeing me Erin, I do feel like our approach has many similarities, and I always appreciate your feedback and presence.
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As a client going into Threshold, I have had a very marked experience of the raise in energy and also an experience of strong need to do the thing that comes to mind, even if I don’t express it strongly. There’s often a growing hint throughout Severance of what I want to do in Threshold in the form of a longing or pulling or embodied wish, even before the coach starts to transition the session. It’s this kind of knowing that what I need in that moment is to try out satisfying the need that has come up. I then often express it more shyly than how I experience it – for example, saying “well, I suppose I could go outside and take some breaths in my sit spot” when my desire to do it is really pressing.
What’s interesting about this to me is that this is a similar experience to what happens internally around my needs outside of a coaching session. I might know that it would be really good for me to, say, go for a walk with a certain awareness, but that part of me that knows is quite shy around the part of myself that actually makes the decisions about what to do. In a coaching session going into Threshold, then, that knowing part of me gets to experiment with saying what it wants. I think this knowing part of me is the aware, connected, grounded, embodied, intuitive part: in short, the nature-connected part or what I’m starting to recognize as the soma.
I think all the above applies when I have got to a defined deeper need. When things are still murky around what I need or even what I want, going into Threshold can feel like a blank; it’s not easy to think about what I can do to experiment because I don’t yet know what I’m experimenting with. I’ve had the experience of resisting that and not wanting to go into Threshold, I think because in these cases the unknown feels much bigger and therefore more edgy. In these moments I feel very disconnected from my body, often feeling a swirling in my head and heart and very little awareness of my lower body. In these moments, natural beings feel more like objects to me than presences to connect with.
I think what all of this tells me as a coach is that deep listening (ICF competencies C. Communicating Effectively 6. Listens Actively > especially 4 & 5) is really key to leading into Threshold effectively. I recognize that I am still learning to balance facilitating the ceremony of the session (i.e. getting through all the stages) with being really present and attuned to exactly where the client is. Listening not just to the client’s words, but also to their nonverbal cues, to know where they are and what they’re ready for, is something I want to practice actively.
Looking at my own experience, it seems that when you’ve hit the deeper need together, the client may already know exactly what they need to do to experiment with it in Threshold. But when the need isn’t yet clear, it can feel confusing and scary from the client perspective (and perhaps the coach perspective too) to go into a conscious experimentation. This is where I think it’s really helpful to go back to the beginning of the conversation if you opened with a question like “what would you like to get out of this session today?” This very crucially brings together the Core Competencies B.3 Establishes and Maintains Agreements > 6. and 7. (“Partners with the client to identify or reconfirm what they want to accomplish in the session” and “Partners with the client to define what the client believes they need to address or resolve to achieve what they want to accomplish in the session”) and C.7 Evokes Awareness > 8. and 9. (“Helps the client identify factors that influence current and future patterns of behavior, thinking or emotion” and “Invites the client to generate ideas about how they can move forward and what they are willing or able to do”). Threshold can then become a way of circling in towards the deeper need, but framed in terms of what they want to achieve in the session and empowering them to generate their own ideas about how to move closer to that goal.
To guide through all of this, it requires me as a coach to continue working on A. 2 Embodies a Coaching Mindset, especially 1., 6. and 7. (“Acknowledges that clients are responsible for their own choices”; “Develops and maintains the ability to regulate one’s emotions”; “Mentally and emotionally prepares for sessions”). Essentially, to be able to bring presence and openness and deep listening, I need to work on letting go of my worries about “being a good coach” through my own practices in mindfulness and nature connection.
Finally, with regards to how nature takes part in Threshold for me, I have to say I have not experienced many Thresholds as a client that are an active engagement with external nature. Rather, nature has been a kind, brave container for me to experiment with my comfort zones. To the extent that nature has actively come in, it has been in the form of active engagement with my body. That said, I think I’m quite used to engaging with nature in this way as a space, rather than as an active partner because I have a strong block against anthropomorphization. However, when we’ve done various exercises in Foundations like the activity exploring the boundary of a nonhuman being, I gained powerful insight. I wonder if I in some way block engaging fully and directly with nature in Threshold, for myself and probably as a result for my clients too, and if exploring my relationship with anthropomorphization would be a way into this.
What I’m taking away overall from this reflection is that asking a powerful opening question is key, but also that I would like to develop a practice to do before a session that helps me let go, tap into my intuition and individual needs, and center in the moment with playful openness to whatever comes through the session.
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When I think of the word “threshold”, what comes to mind is entrance to another space, another room or to an outside environment. I think of the hundreds of times I cross thresholds everyday, and usually that crossing is precedented by a conscious decision to take action in someway, unless I am mindlessly, aimlessly wandering my house. When I go to the kitchen it is with a specific task in mind, when I go to my basement it is because there is something there to do (usually laundry). Even at work, crossing the threshold to the breakroom is symbolic of a very different task than entering the showroom or my office. I notice that each action holds a certain mindset and emotions that go with it. I feel different in the space and action of doing laundry than in the space and action of baking cookies.
When it comes to the sub-conscious and guiding, the existing internal is explored, uncovered, exposed and inventoried. What am I happy with, what is not aligned with who I am and where I am going? This is severance. Taking out the trash, re-ordering the treasures, dusting the beloved forgotten and sweeping out the dust bunnies, exploration of what IS, and if done with gentleness and curiosity and intention, a healing occurs, a blank slate appears.
Energy is constantly in motion. It must come to balance. Energy is freed up in severance. What is done with that energy is up to personal will and intention. If that energy is not directed and formed into something new, new thoughts, new patterns, new habits, new beliefs, then the old is recreated making change a difficult thing indeed. When the soul is stirred and given a new way of being through intention and careful imagining of new ways of being, the clutter clears and gives way to room for things of value. At this point, a new room is being created and envisioned and sometimes it is a remake of what is and sometimes it might be a whole new addition being built, but either way creation and building is happening.
Once the mental and emotional energies are in place and patterns created, then another type of energy comes, Soul energy, consciousness coming to play and live out life in the new room. This is threshold. A climax! A celebration! The great “AHA!”. A realization of a dream on an internal level. A chance to BE in the new way. Once this moment of realization occurs, the human has changed and knows what it is that is on a Soul level that is needed to be in this new way. There is no going back, but if one tries to go back then the Soul level of living turns into an internal “should”. Again energy seeks to be in balance, and without the physical manifestation and action steps, the environment becomes cluttered with missed “aha” moments and should have’s. Which brings me to integration!
Integration is the everyday living, it is the planning and the cleaning schedule. It is the showing up and living out the “AHA!” everyday. It is keeping one’s self accountable for the way one wills to be. This is the direction of Soul energy to live out a well lived life, the key of which is the in the building and manifesting in the prior stages of creation.
So, I think threshold experience is, or can be if given the proper guidance and opportunity, a Soul experience that can lead to change.
