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Initial Post – Foundation Three Discussion Cohort 20
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14 Replies
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Threshold, I have struggled a little in getting my head around threshold, it has required some reframing for it to click and to go “ahh” yes I know that space well. For me when I am in threshold I can only describe it as discombobulating, I feel on the edge of a precipice like something within me is about to shift in some way, I know there will be an insight and a shift, but knowing that doesn’t always make it easy to sit in that space, the earth feels like a water bed. I have to lean into the discomfort and trust the process. Some days I’m all for it, “F@#! Yeah give me your best” and other days it is really hard to sit in that place.
For me, as the coachee, in threshold the best thing the coach did was hold the space, allow me the time to process, sit with me through my discomfort.
Now as a coach, I hold space well, it is one of my strengths, I believe it has been well honed through nursing and looking after people at the most vulnerable. For people first experiencing threshold in a coaching setting, I normalise it for them and support them in this space, I encourage them to trust the process.
Nature as a guide in threshold is powerful, I find it to be calming, teaching me and nurturing while at the same time challenging old beliefs/patterns and empowering the change from within. Since starting this course I’ve been practicing deep listening in nature and with the sacred questions am in awe of how much I can learn from the different birds around me. I notice the bird song now wherever I am, it is no longer a background noise I have to focus on but wherever I am the bird song always seems to be the first I hear.
In terms of ICF competencies, I feel the two I would like to focus on is coaching presence and awareness. While I do believe holding space is a strength, I need to further build my muscles to engage in that level of presence and awareness for multiple periods of time. I need to work on building the rituals that allow me to reenergise so I can serve multiple clients in a day and week.
I also think this is essential when presenting and facilitating group sessions, maintaining that presence and awareness in order to engage the participants.
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I enjoyed being a client as it helped me understand that I have my own things to work on, but that by me being present with my own issues and life struggles can and will help me be a better coach/guide. I cried during some sessions which made me feel better for the rest of the day as the energy just needed to flow through me. I didn’t realize enjoy being in the threshold, I like the action part, coming up with a plan and a goal to get me where I need to be.
For my session, I took time to repot a very neglected philodendron. I got the plant from a person who I thought I could count on, so I figured tending to the plant would help me tend to myself as well. It worked, and I felt stable and calm with the soil under my nails as I trimmed away the death and rot and cut apart stems to spread the growth. Having my hands in a pot of rich, dark and cool soil helped me discover what aspects of Nature I want to incorporate in my guidance work.
I have done a lot of reading on the ICF core competencies and tried to find better ways to say things that I have in the past that would fit into the C.Cs, and I believe what I should work on more is “Evoking Awareness,” or my phrasing of what I want to say. I am very much an advice giver, so trying to hold my tongue while I ask clients insightful questions gets difficult, but when they achieve their awareness it’s so much sweeter than had I suggested something that possibly wouldn’t have even worked. Since I have yet to find a client that I can improve with, I also have trouble keeping the session headed in one way, as I’m interested in all directions that the client has told me. I think if I could lead 3 hour sessions I’d have it nailed!
I’m looking forward to being able to strengthen my abilities and techniques and approach guide work from many angles.
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@sophieturner
I think you do a very good job of making your clients feel heard and staying actively engaged throughout the session. I also notice the bird song wherever I go, I have used my 360 listening and wide angle vision to find dogs that I’m trying to track down!
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Learning about deep levels of listening and the listening practices we explored reinforced what I do practice and know but added to that as well. I enjoyed and felt challenged when learning about threshold. Being a guide through threshold was uncertain for me. I understand it is experiential it is almost spiritual like a journey or trance kind of experience. It is also a way to tap deeper into gathering momentum for action toward goals. I notice myself and most others close their eyes when in threshold and the energy shifts baseline changes. I wonder a whole lot more about what is arising in that sacred space being held. These experiences bring me into the present moment and coaching presence is amplified. How nature participated in my process in one way was through a wander. I remember going on one in a threshold practice and it was as if my senses were heightened naturally. I was open and relaxed and curious. I think this experience can remind me as coach to be aware of coaching presence, baseline, sense of safety in being held in sacred transformational space and to remain open relaxed and curious about clients experience.
The ICF core competencies I think I can build on to feel more confident are under Co-creating The
Relationship: Maintains Presence #5 is comfortable working in space of unknown & #6 creates or allows space for silence pause or reflection. I do already do these but I am not 100% comfortable working in the unknown and I sometimes jump to say things too quickly and second guess my timing out of impulse that I may forget so I need to say something. I could instead make notes about what I want to ask client and that could give enough time to allow more space. -
@Sophie
I resonate with your reflection about some days it’s easy to lean into discomfort other days its hard to sit with it. If I understand correctly you are saying this arose during threshold? That is interesting and is a good point to make. As coach I will consider how this may be a day of willingness to be present with uncomfortable things that arise in threshold or if it is day that my client is really not okay with the shift and what has arisen.
I relate to your reflection about ICF CC. I too have strength in coaching presence but could use more practice and awareness with it. I like how you mention doing rituals to prepare yourself to move your energy levels to arrive fully for others is key. As someone who is energetically extremely sensitive I need to do my rituals of boundary building and releases before and after working with others or I get sick. Very important points you made Sophie and they help to remind me about my process. Thank you! -
@ALLY
Thanks for your reflection about not really liking being in the threshold. This is helpful for me an insightful. I didn’t really track that threshold was uncomfortable for others as my experience with discomfort that may have arisen in my threshold I had welcomed and remained curious about any emotions I felt. But as coach your honesty is a great point and will keep me more in coaching presence about what uncomfortable emotions my client’s may had during.
I see how tending to your plants is a way to nurture yourself and that it is very important to you. I will consider how nature plays with my client in sessions and wonder about the reciprocity they may be experiencing like you did with your philodendren.
Evoking awareness is an interesting CC. It makes me think of trusting intuition and offering something to client and if I’m wrong then back track and rephrase my questions which is okay to do. Thanks for sharing all of that, Ally! -
My summary post for foundation three:
In reflecting on the entire learning experience of this module and the discussion with my cohort there are some connections I’m making.I really value the experiences of my cohort to learn from diverse range of others and how this work travels through their souls.It makes me think of creating questionaires that provide me with feedback from clients about their sessions with me.
I’m thankful for the discussion about ideal clients and gaining clarity on that for my practice. I also got some helpful tools to bring into my practice with learning how to care for my well being as a coach and tracking patterns of thinking in others like contemplation and how to approach that.It got me thinking of things I was contemplating for awhile and what can I do to make a change but also acknowleding that it’s hard. Just because I can be coached and have tools for awareness doesn’t mean it’s not hard to figure out your life. -
@sophieturner I hear you in your reflection on being in threshold. I have a similar feeling, where I am still trying to wrap my head around it in terms of words. I don’t think I can adequately describe it in words. Which, in reflection, might be part of my problem, in that I think out loud and in words. Not having the words to describe something can be a bit challenging. Anyway, I have found, like you, that you have to feel into it.
@allysonduffindalton I am perhaps reversed on your threshold experience in that I tend to need more time to feel into whatever is happening in that threshold. Maybe it is the need to completely experience that energy moving, to completely remediate it, wrap my arms around it? But – It is still uncomfortable and sometimes I’m not prepared to experience whatever gamut of emotion is coming out.
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Jenny Rogers describes moments of high performance as “being in flow.” Threshold isn’t a performance, but similar aspects apply. When I seek to understand or assimilate an experience or piece of information, my tendency is to wrap words around it. I process by talking things out, by utilizing allegory, or by likening an experience to a previous experience. Threshold, however, is more akin to simply being in the flow. I have to feel my way through the experience, let the emotional and physical energy completely wind its way through to its natural conclusion. It reminds me of the wind. Wind will move through a tree, but each individual leaf has its own latent time to complete the motion of that energy after the wind has completed its motion. To try and intellectualize, contextualizing the threshold through words after may make sense, but to do so during the experience can deter the threshold from happening in the first place.
Rogers discusses how being in the flow is almost “effortless.” Threshold may not feel “effortless” being in it. However, it is important to distinguish the difference between being “uncomfortable” and “effortless.” Emotions and insights will come unbidden and easily, even if they are uncomfortable in the feelings they evoke, or the newness of a realization. The question with threshold, I feel, is are you going to fight it, or let it happen? In myself, letting these findings naturally unfold illustrates what The Coyote’s Guide describes as the “subtle happenings that we’ve been subject to all along but never fully appreciated.” My threshold experiences haven’t been revelations of foreign knowledge coming from unknown and alien sources. Rather, they have been the subtle wisdom that has been there all along, hidden under layers of living a “civilized” life.
I am looking for that moment when a client has released the resistance, letting the threshold move through them like a wind moves through a tree. It’s the moment of letting go in order for that internal wisdom to fully land. My threshold experience was informed by the work I put into my garden, and how my garden makes me feel on a daily basis. It draws me closer to the earth, it inspires, it brings wonder and joy, which in turn continues to draw out my own internal wisdom. In the coaching experiences I’ve had so far, I’ve noticed how the observance of what is happening in the environment contributes to the internal wisdom in my clients. As written in The Coyote’s Guide, Since you live on planet Earth, then you are quite familiar with the sun’s path through our lives. You know it in your bones…” Nature is the nursery and catalyst for generating, revealing, and expanding on our internal wisdom.
When looking at the ICF Core Competencies, Creating Awareness is one that stands out as a valuable reference for this process. This section of the competencies touches on invoking “inquiry for greater understanding, awareness, and clarity,” identifying “typical and fixed ways of perceiving himself/herself and the world,” discovering “new thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, emotions, moods, etc. that strengthen their ability to take action and achieve what is important to them,” and expressing “insights to clients in ways that are useful and meaningful for the client.” There is also much to be said about the establishment of trust, asking to guide through sensitive areas, your coaching presence as led by intuition, and competences related to communicating effectively with the client. All of these areas of skill contribute to being a guide for others during this sensitive and powerful process.
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Jen you have hit the nail on the head and something that has become much clearer for me over the last few months, the notion that threshold is about being in flow, allows me not to try and put a process around it, to not try and experience it as a checklist that is applicable to each client. I’m at my best coaching when I can be in flow, no trying to intellectualise the process.
I’m looking forward to observing and experiencing more of the threshold when we all meet again, there are so may take aways during those short moments of peer to peer coaching.
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I am still in deep process, a year later with the concept of the threshold. Words are inadequate to describe the inner knowing that arises when I am tuned in to the environment with a client.
The other during a winter coaching session, a rare and unusual animal appeared in the canyon. A white weasel- whose coloring has shifted in synchronicity with the coming of winter. Although the weather had not caught up, the animal was still honoring a code written into her very being.
What this tells me is that we are all programmed to survive and thrive as beings of nature. This unusual moment matched a threshold for my client in which her realized that he was withholding the truth of his feelings from his aging father.
I cannot explain why but in this magical moment in nature, he suddenly decided it was worth the discomfort and vulnerability, to share his truth.
This was a threshold. Was the animal saying… “It’s safe to be yourself- even if the Environment is not caught up”?! I don’t know, but NCC is really like nothing else I have known.
Sometimes all I do is slow down and help a client notice, really notice what is going on in the baseline. When it shifts so does the the client. The session almost completes itself when we truly tune in.
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Awareness is a key concept here. Awareness in nature feels so natural and never needs to be forced when attuned to the environment. Coaching presence and deep listening follows naturally. When I listen to a client in nature, it is like I am tuning into creation itself.
I usually take clients to a canyon near my office. (How lucky am I?!) When we leave the space, there is a process of re-entry. I like to ask them. “What are you taking with you?”
“How will you work with what you’ve learned this session?” “How is it different than how you were being last week?” “What will this mean for you?” “How will you notice the shifts in your life?”
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Entering each day with a growth mindset and curiosity is a starting point for which I am grateful. Sustaining both throughout each day is another story. It is challenging, for sure, and I am now additionally grateful for the threshold experience.
I told my students in the first few minutes of the first day of each new school year that I hoped they would learn as much from me as I was going to learn from them. I have been reflecting on this after experiencing threshold as a client because I don’t think I ever said to myself, “Naffer, I hope you learn from you as much as I am going to learn from me.” Or something to that effect. Even if I did, I don’t know that I would have recognized threshold experiences for what they were and then have given myself the time to reflect on the experiences and what I learned from them.
Coyote’s Guide talks about Improvisation (p. 237) and how it involves a sense of play, expects risks, and is quintessential edge-walking. In threshold, I think ‘play’ could include the creativity of the experience itself. The “balance between dedicated study (planning) and in-the-moment creativity (improvisation)” is where I think threshold dances. I went into the session both as the client and as a student, as one who is a practice coach and as one who was planning for and then improvising a threshold experience for someone else. With all of those “alsos” that I shared with my coach, I was stunned at how much I didn’t know I wasn’t going to know about going into that experience as a client- the unknown unknowns.
Even in severance and up through the point of invitation into threshold, I still felt like I was anchored and had a grasp on the conversation and where the session could be going. Once in the threshold experience, however, it really felt like I had stepped off of solid ground into mid-air. I was surprised by how profound the experience was, the depth of the emotions that I moved through, and how exhausted and fulfilled I felt coming back onto that solid ground of incorporation.
Nature also helped to hold space for me in threshold, and I am still reflecting back on how different of a connection that was from my solo nature awareness practice and connections. I am excited about how powerful of a partner it was in my own coaching session as well and can’t imagine how much more there is to unfold in that partnership moving forward. As both client and guide/coach, my threshold experiences confirmed for me that Nature is the most magnificent stage for improv.
We plan. We plan, and we are still met with, and must remain intentional about, inviting in the improvisation and unexpected, both as client and as coach/guide. There are two competencies that are coming up for me at this point in my growth that I feel are essential for me to practice and build on to feel confident in that “place” as a coach. For ICF, it is designing actions to facilitate learning and results. Specifically, I think the skills of helping the client “Do It Now” during the coaching session, while also holding space for a comfortable pace of learning, providing immediate support, and encouraging stretches and challenges.
For NCC, I feel that all of the aspects of deep listening, inspiring nature-connection, and guiding the ceremony are essential for me to practice and build on. Guiding the ceremony is the newest to me of those skills, and I feel like it is my biggest learning curve so far.
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I feel like I am starting to grasp the more specific aspects of ceremony that loomed large at first. Going back and forth between the big picture of ceremony, to its individual parts, to the big picture again, and back down to an even more granular level of the individual parts has been challenging, but it is starting to come together. I also see how being both client and coach with my cohort is helping ceremony come to life for me within the coaching context. I am also making connections with my experiential education experiences.
I don’t feel like I have fully grasped the business side of things yet. I know it’s still early on, and I think the homework about “One year from now…” is going to follow me this year and beyond. Those are key questions to be able to answer, and my sense is that my responses are going to evolve over time, especially in the first few years of my work as a Nature-Connected Coach. When we learned about “training inner vision”, I wrote some notes about how that will also apply to my work around developing my NCC business. For example, taking part of that discussion into thinking about my NCC work in the future, how will the world look when I am fully immersed in that intention?
