Partswork September 2018

[Lauren Lucek]

This was my second session with Nicole. She had to cancel the one that we had scheduled the week before. This time, we grabbed a coffee and headed to the park! As we entered the park, I told her to pick a spot, ‘whatever space was calling to her’. She headed to a spot in the park that was on a cliff’s edge with a nice view. She chose to sit at a picnic bench (which I didn’t love, as it’s concrete and forces you to face each other but with a good amount of distance)…but then again, it’s not about me. I established the coaching agreement and reminded her that this was confidential, except to use in my training.
She dove right in when I asked her how she was feeling and what she wanted to talk about. She started describing a guy she had been on a few dates with and how unsatisfied she was with him and the situation. She stated feeling empowered a few nights ago, when she decided to go home instead of stay with him for the night. She said she felt happy and not lonely (like usual), but then she said that she started questioning herself and wondering if she has ‘given up on finding love’.
Quick backstory and some things she stated in the session:
Nicole has believed for years that being married and having kids equals love. Since moving to San Diego and her father dying, she states that she wants to be happy and proud of herself in her career and as a person, and not get so wrapped up in the pressure to marry and have kids (that she puts on herself). However, she has been questioning herself, as to if she has changed or if she has just given up. She also disclosed that she was kicked out of her mother’s house by her step-father at the age of 15 and was forced to stay with whomever would take her in. Her stepfather said he didn’t want to have kids, and her mother (drug addict), allowed this to happen because ‘she had a horrible upbringing and she was doing the best she could’.
This traumatic experience has created a very important mindset in how Nicole sees herself and what she believes she deserves and what people expect of her.
Some key statements that Nicole made that brought me to talking about Parts Work were: ‘I need to figure out the bad things about myself so that I can change/fix them so people will like me more.’ ‘The natural me is not attractive.’ ‘If they don’t NEED me, they won’t LOVE me.’ ‘Pleasing others makes me feel whole. But it’s not reciprocated ever. And I blame myself because I created this situation. I become a need over a want for people.’
I started talking about the theory of Parts Work and talked about Soul, and how different parts are always fighting to take the drivers seat. I also stated that we all have these different parts, and they are not good or bad, they just ARE. So, given that short introduction, I asked her to describe the parts of her that were in conflict. She immediately came up with Pleaser and Critic, and these two being a massive struggle for her. At this point, I thought about doing the exercise where the ‘part’ talks to the Soul. I’m not sure she is ready for that, but definitely will use it in the future!
We talked about how these two parts can be helpful in certain situations, and also how they can be debilitating in others. I invited her to start observing how and when these parts start trying to take control, and how that makes her feel. I told her not to focus on getting upset with herself, but to simply observe. She said she thinks she will like doing that because ‘it will make me more aware of how I treat myself.’
We continued our conversation with her expressing her need for personal goals/direction. She stated that if she didn’t have goals then she was ‘a loser’. She described her life in Tacoma before she moved down here, and said that she was very successful in her career as a mortgage broker and was ‘surprised but proud’. Then one day she had these overwhelming feelings that she had made the ‘wrong choice’, (following a career path) and that she wouldn’t be able to get married if she was a serious businesswoman. She decided that she was going to quit her job and move to San Diego because she wanted a different life and her new ‘goal’ was a relationship. And so far, she states that this is a failure (another reason she is really hard on herself). At this point I wish I had been recording the session, because I honestly feel if she had listened to it back, she may feel that these statements sound a bit sad and ridiculous and it’s frustrating to hear and see women get so wrapped up in society’s expectations…this was a challenge for me. I wanted to shake her and say, ‘you are a great person and just because you do well at your job doesn’t mean you can’t have a relationship!’ Side note: this makes me think about my business plan and the type of clients that I want to work with. But somehow I’m going to have to understand how to deal with women that struggle with these choices.
Towards the end of the session, we talked about journaling again. She said she had used her journal to write about all the deep dark stuff she felt she couldn’t tell anyone else. I offered the journal as a place to write down goals, to explore her different parts, and maybe some affirmations. Nicole said that she needed a bit of direction with that and it would help her stay more accountable. I sent her the following email after our session:

Nikki,
Great job today being open and honest. I know sometimes it is hard to be vulnerable, but in the long run, it is worth it. So thank you for allowing me to hold space for you.
We talked about the benefit of journaling today, and while I believe it is a great outlet to unload your feelings and fears, it is also a great place to write down what you want and need in this life.

What we discussed about journaling this week was:
*What is your idea of happiness?
*What makes you happy? And what does that ‘feeling’ of happiness look like to you?
*How do YOU define success?
*What are your goals?

I don’t want this to be overwhelming, but more of talking points. Don’t feel like you need to write paragraphs about each question. Just write down your initial GUT feelings about the questions. Remember, this is for you. And the most important thing you can do, is OBSERVE what you are writing. Notice that ‘voice’ or ‘part’ of you that may want to change your answers. Just NOTICE. Remember that these are all just voices. Voices that are trying to tell your soul what is right or wrong. But you already know what is right or wrong.

See if this exercise works for you. We can discuss it next week in our session.

“True personal growth is about transcending the part of you that is not okay and needs protection. This is done by constantly remembering that you are the one inside that notices the voice talking. That is the way out. The one inside who is aware that you are always talking to yourself about yourself is always silent. To be aware that you are watching the voice talk is to stand on the threshold of a fantastic inner journey.” – Michael A. Singer The Untethered Soul

Take care,
Lauren

I had brought a sage bundle and a piece of Palo Santo wood with me, and pulled it out of my bag as we were closing our session. I talked about the uses for both and expressed how she had spoken pretty negatively about herself throughout the session, but had ended on a positive note. I invited her to clear that negative energy with the sage and then invite positive energy and love for self with the palo santo. She grabbed it right out of my hand and stood up and started dancing around and bathing herself with the smoke! She said ‘clear that shit out!’ with the sage, and when I gave her the palo santo, I invited her to state something positive about herself. She said, ‘I am happy and I am beautiful!’ This was really cool to watch, especially since most of our session was filled with tears and had a lot of dark moments. She gave me a hug at the end of the session and said she felt so much better. I’m looking forward to our next session this coming Sunday and to hear what she has been observing and noticing about herself and her Parts.

[Daniel Brisbon]

Lauren, I hear a lot of great insight and awareness being shared between you and your client. Your follow up email with questions that are inviting her to focus on where she wants and needs to be are right on point. And there is a lot of truth and wisdom in that quote you shared from The Untethered Soul.

Along with practicing Partswork, these coaching sessions with this client sound like a great opportunity to identify Want and Deeper Need as well. The statement we look to hear from our client is that “I need to be….” statement. And this helps us, as coaches, the deeper need within the client. The want may be happiness, successful career, ideal partner but the deeper need is always finding that spark or fire that those things provide us within ourselves first. Rather than focusing on what makes the client happy, invite the client to listen deeply to how they can empower themselves to align with happiness within themselves first.

And that small shift can bring about great a-ha moments. Maybe the clients need to be kinder and more forgiving with herself and let go of the story that she HAS to have the perfect job and ideal partner in order to find happiness. Or maybe it’s something different, but the point is the answers and solutions are always within the client.

I look forward to hearing more about the growth and learning you get to experience with this client!

[Kaity Holsapple]

Daniel,
Thanks for sharing the reminder on looking out for language around the want or need. That feels really basic, but a really powerful foundation for deepening through severance.
You shared: “Rather than focusing on what makes the client happy, invite the client to listen deeply to how they can empower themselves to align with happiness within themselves first.”
I think that it takes a lot of trust as a coach to bring our client’s deeper. They may come to coaching with a desire to bring about more of what “makes them happy.” It is wise and of service to hold space for that, but also trace what lies underneath. Thanks for sharing!

[Kaity Holsapple]

I’m so happy you were able to do another session with Nicole, as I was really curious how things progressed after your first Gestalt based session. I appreciate how you tracked and emphasized Nicole’s negative self-talk as a gateway into partswork. It sounds like to me there are some rejected and traumatized parts she has within. I love how you explained partswork to Nicole. I think it can be really important to build that context for a client so that they can approach the work with more understanding and ease. I think it would be interesting to play back some of her self-talk to her! I’m curious if you have used this in sessions since then, or simply reflected the language back to her to see what her reaction would be. Perhaps that’s a new level of awareness that she doesn’t yet have.
The end of your session sounds like it was uplifting and empowering for Nicole! And I love your gentle, compassionate email. It sounds like that energy could really serve her in being more gentle and compassionate with herself. I look forward to hearing more on your progress and experience with Nicole!

[Kaity Holsapple]

Initial Post:

My client is a friend from my cohort, Mandy. She is around 38 years old and transitioning to being a full time coach! This feels scary and unknown for her, but also exciting and rich with possibility. Mandy and I have been working together with monthly coaching swaps for about a year now. From guiding her, we have mainly worked through blocks in her ability to fully take care of herself. She has a traumatic brain injury around 5 years ago and is still recovering. Her recovery takes a lot of time, discipline, and effort on a daily basis. She often struggles with giving her physical therapy the time and space she feels it needs.
Mandy currently works at a coffeeshop and is in the process of cutting her hours back so that she can begin to take on more clients. In the past month, she has gone down to three days a week, but hasn’t picked up any more clients. She is worried that she won’t be able to make the transition work and is in fight or flight most of the time. She spends her days off frantically working to pull her website, business cards, and business plan together so that by graduation in January, she will be ready to launch her business fully. She feels pressure with time and money. Working three days a week has been hard to live on. She also feels that she has no free time to enjoy friends or take care of her body.
Our coaching relationship is firmly established through all of our work together, and we traded sessions on the day this specific goal came about. It is ironic and funny that each time we work together, our sessions mirror one another and end up being really similar. But, in this way I felt that I was really able to build trust, authenticity, and presence with our session. We discovered her want as wanting to feel like she is ready for this next step, and her need as stepping into her Wise, Highest Self.
From that point, parts work very quickly became a huge part of our session and our entire threshold. Mandy was able to identify these two parts of herself:
– Adolescent Mandy: Really afraid to step into her power. Self-doubt. Self-criticism. Fear of the unknown. Scarcity mindset. Feels like she cannot accept money from others without it being greedy. Feels like she has to support the whole family. Feels afraid and uncertain.
– Future Mandy/Wise Woman: Trusts herself wildly. Powerful. Abundance mindset. Values her work in the world and accepts money in exchange for her gifts. Expansive. Grounded. Focused and wise. Successful. Simmering under the surface and ready to emerge.
When I asked Mandy to tell me more about these two parts, I noticed that when she spoke about adolescent Mandy, she spoke in the “I” tense. On the other hand, when she spoke about the Wise Woman, she spoke in the “She” tense. We dove into a practice of switching that dynamic and speaking from the wise woman in the “I” tense. This allowed Mandy to really embody and step into this wise part.
This exercise led us to her finding a really powerful mantra. I can’t remember exactly what the wording was, but it had to do with surrender and acceptance. This allowed her to step into this part completely and fully. It was POWERFUL and so cool!
We collaborated with nature by simply being within and among it, allowing it to hold space for Mandy’s higher self to emerge. My largest challenge was to not get too immeshed in the session, since our goals and stories aligned in very similar ways. I adapted by stepping into my coach and guide part during the session.
I’m personally very interested in using partswork to look at where my clients are limiting themselves, and how we can breath through that. This session with Mandy made it really clear that this is the direction I want to go with partwork. My growth will be in holding space for complexity of partswork without trying to over simplify it or box it in, and learning to identify how and when my client shifts parts.
Partwork influences my coaching presence similarly to Gestalt. It gives me a lens for tracking my client on a really deep and powerful level. I look forward to utilizing it more and honing in on my skillset.

[Lauren Lucek]

Kaity,
I really loved how you were able to help Mandy identify her different parts of the adolescent Mandy, and her future/wise woman Mandy. Very interesting observation of the language she used when talking about these parts! The exercise you did with her to change her language was excellent. It seemed to really help her identify what was holding her back. Great job! I think discussing the idea/concept of Parts work makes a lot of sense to clients because it is common language when people talk about themselves. “A part of me feels like…A part of me wants to do this or that, but…” Through the intensive and learning about these different parts and being able to identify them, it helped me to understand why I do/think some of the things that I do. But it’s easy to use them as excuses as well. The key is getting your client to identify these parts, and then take ownership for their ‘behavior’. The ability to make changes then becomes a bit easier (at least in my experience). Keep up the good work and keep exploring how to incorporate Parts work into your practice!

[Kaity Holsapple]

Summary Post:

I am still exploring how to weave parts work into my coaching. It is yet another awareness tool, and I find it so interesting to watch as I switch from one part to the other, or my clients shift parts. I felt inspired by how Lauren described parts work to her client, Nicole, as I think I need to set that groundwork and orient many of my clients to what parts work even is. One fear I have around using parts work, is that it may be too theatrical or “out there” for my clients. Though, this could definitely also be a projection of my own discomfort during some partswork experiences and explorations.
I find that simple awareness around our many parts, as well as gentle invitation for them to begin collaborating and communicating, can create a more cohesive, soul-based life.

One thing I am extremely curious about is the intersection of neuroscience and partswork. I am curious how different areas of the brain can light up when we are in different parts, and perhaps how each part may have its own high-road or low-road circuit to develop and explore. In my own experience, I can feel different talents/ease and struggles in each of my parts. I am looking forward to deepening into this in Partswork 2 in just a few weeks!

[Lauren Lucek]

Since the intensive training in September about Parts work and Gestalt, I have noticed a lot about myself. All these ‘hidden’ parts of me sitting under the surface for so many years, limiting me in so many ways!!! Mostly I am thankful for the introduction to this concept, not only for myself, but the new tools I have to work with my clients.
Continuing to work with my client Nicole has been a bit of a challenge. Sometimes I think she is not ready to put in the work, and other times I think she has not had someone to actually listen to her. So I remain patient. I watch her small successes and more consistent set-backs, but I remind myself that I just need to hold space for her. I continue to use my Gestalt awareness concepts and gently remind her of the Parts she has identified (and that Rome wasn’t built in a day), and change can be slow, but putting in the work is worth it.
The last training we had around Trauma has also helped with different Parts work and given me some excellent tools/exercises to work with my clients in a more effective way.

[Wendy Barnett]

I haven’t had practice clients until very recently but have found that I have been able to bring in the concept of Partswork to my 2 most recent clients, both of whom are now paying for my services.
Partswork has always resonated strongly with me because it made sense and I’ve always found that when I can understand something myself, I can explain it to someone else in a way which resonates for them. With Maggie, I talked thru the concept, which she understood, but haven’t yet been able to follow up on this. However, she’s a lawyer and works on facts and information, so I sent her a written summary of what Partswork is and how she might dig into her own parts. I’m looking forward to working on this with her because I can see some parts which show up and I’m excited for her to discover them and be able to understand how they inform her behavior and reactions to situations and people.
When Lauren and I worked on this at the retreat cabin, it was fascinating and a little scary to watch how a part will show itself, whether or not you want it to. I distinctly remember her child showing up in a very powerful and ‘I demand to have a voice now’ way. It surfaced so much for her, and that was while we were simply working thru’ what parts she thought she had.
As a coach, this was the module which resonated most with me and, therefore, probably the one I will default to based on comfort level. We do tend to speak the language ‘a part of me…’ so I believe that it resonates with people who aren’t coaches. I have also seen this play out already with Maggie. However, I don’t intend to use it exclusively, it’s just another tool in the toolbox – I consider it a great foundation. Even today, during my coaching session with Blayne, while we didn’t speak about Parts, she was explaining how her current leader triggers her because he reminds her of her mother. I haven’t ventured down this path but, in my follow up notes, have noted that we need to explore this as it’s come up in both sessions so far. I want to explore the part of her that’s triggered and why so that she can learn to manage it. For now, we talked about a mantra to manage her emotions in the moment but I am confident that Partswork is just around the corner!
In reading ““Self, Soul, Spirit”, I was interested to see that Roger assigned animals Roger to his parts. When Lauren and I did this activity, I wrote down animals and objects which aligned with each of my parts (and couldn’t help but build my whole mandala); I found this to be very helpful as it gave body to a concept and helped me to relate to each part in a way which helped me understand it. I would, without a doubt, encourage a client to do this as it helps to bring the part to life, give it emotions and makes it relatable.
Another interesting article was “Part 2, Changing for Good” – the concept of the rut and the sheer effort it takes to rewire the brain, the idea that failure is not actually failure but just an opportunity to do it differently and better next time, it’s just a relapse – it’s forgiving language which is so important when we are trying to change habits and behaviors; our Judge/Critic can be very vocal at these times. I’d likely recommend this article to clients who are seeking to make a change as it explains just why it’s so hard to effect change so that it becomes integrated into our lives.
So, while I’m still at the beginning stages of coaching clients, I know that this will be a powerful tool for helping my clients to understand themselves and their behaviors in a healthy and, hopefully, non-judgmental way.

[Wendy Barnett]

Kaity – I read your post and a couple of things really stood out to me:
1. the deep listening your demonstrated by hearing your client’s language around her former self and future self and, how you took that information, digested it and suggested a way she could connect to her future self. That was amazing! Certainly it seems that it was unconscious language that might be contributing to some of her current challenges. I would be curious to know if you are able to do this with all clients or if it is a result of the deep trust and knowing that you’ve built over the year with Mandy
2. the deep empathy that you seem to have held for Mandy – you understood her health issues and how they may factor into her efforts to step into coaching full time but you also helped her get to her want and deeper need. Your language is wise and I can only imagine gave Mandy courage to be vulnerable.

[Wendy Barnett]

Lauren:
– You were so vulnerable to share how you were triggered by her introject (?) that she couldn’t have love and be a successful careerwoman. I’m curious if you have reflected on which part of you was triggered and why, knowing that, as you say, this is also the demographic you have chosen to work with?
– I share Kaity’s observation around the empathy you demonstrated in your follow up email, especially given you were challenged on a number of levels (concrete table, can’t have love and…). As Coaches, it’s our responsibility to remove all judgment and to create that safe space for our clients to explore and learn; you clearly did this and helped her find tools to express herself privately and perhaps more fully
– The way you created ‘homework’ and the opportunity for the next session was so subtle and encouraging. There was no instruction, just invitation. I know that you are an achiever and a doer so kudos for being so supportive and non-directing! Was that easy for you or did you find a need to edit your email to ensure your language was that way?

[Wendy Barnett]

Summary post:
Personally, Partswork was illuminating to me as it is a language which I have used without necessarily understanding fully what it means to be made up of many parts. Once we did the work to start to unpack our parts, I started to make sense to me! The inner conflicts felt more normal, the ‘mood swings’ made sense because there was a part of me which was trying to be heard while being suppressed by my environment, the despair was my unheard and unfulfilled soul crying for attention. Just mind-blowing.
Why this matters so much as I embark on my journey as a partner to others is that it makes so much sense to me that I feel I can articulate the concept of Partswork to others in a way which, hopefully, makes sense to them too. It has been so liberating to understand myself at this deep level and it’s a gift I really want to share with my clients. I’ve started dropping it into sessions with 2 of my clients recently and it has immediately resonated with them. They haven’t yet committed to doing the deep work but, superficially, they both use the language and as they do, they recognize that they are speaking about a part of themselves.
It’s a powerful tool to understand that we have different parts of ourselves which are either leading or wanting to lead at any given time and the real power comes when you allow them to surface and speak.
I’m totally in love with Partswork, for myself personally and also as something which I’d like to continue offering to my clients.