Amanda Newman
Forum Replies Created
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Wendy, you have come such a long way and I am so grateful to have been a small part in your journey. It’s extraordinary what you have created in terms of your coaching career, but more so, the clients that you have positively impacted. In my experience with coaching the same person now for a bit over a month, I’ve noticed too that every session doesn’t have a huge threshold moment, (at least not what we’re used to going through!) I think the threshold experience doesn’t need to be this huge moment and can be a small, yet significant, discovery of something deeper within the client that they weren’t aware of before. In other words, they have discovered consciousness to a blind spot.
I think it’s great you’ve been taking your corporate clients out into nature and really channeling the NCC. Especially because they probably don’t get out into nature much during the week, it’s recognizable that their baselines would shift after doing a session outside. Your work with people is so inspiring and you are going to shift the image of corporate America in your work! (You already are! :D) -
Summary
Something that I found incredibly profound about this intensive was that my consciousness wasn’t aware of what my brain was doing to protect me from my trauma. That is something that really stuck out to me; the brain and mind are different. I used those words interchangeably throughout my life without realizing that they are actually different. Although we can be so conscious of what happens around us, we will never pick up everything in our conscious state. Nonetheless, the brain has it all stored away and can bring something to our consciousness, even if we didn’t know it was there before. When we were learning about trauma and fight, flight or freeze, I finally got why I was in freeze mode and I understand my body so much more than I did a year ago. I understand what’s coming up for me and am able to communicate with my body and my mind so much easier, instead of resenting and resisting myself for shutting down or being the way I am – there’s so much more space and ease with all of my complexities.
When it comes to clients, I feel that creating the distinction between the mind and the brain are important and to acknowledge what the person is going through is real for them. What happened for them might not be what actually happened but since they are in this perception,it’s important as a coach to guide them through what is real for them, what their brain and mind are telling them about the experience and help them discover what they can do to move through the issue. We learned so many great exercises in the module and it was one of the most profound weeks of my life. -
Lauren thank you for giving such a detailed description of what Nicole was going through. I love that you pulled in Katie’s exercise and asked Nicole what qualities she likes about herself. Isn’t it so interesting that we have to rewire our brain and remind ourselves what greatness we all bring to the table? Negative thoughts are easier to come to our minds. I’m wondering what happened after that exercise with Nicole, what did the integration moving forward look like? You’re great at bringing people back to the present moment and creating a safe space for them. Can’t wait to hear about later sessions with Nicole!
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Initial Post
So I think in the Brain 1 section I posted about trauma, so here I will write about the Brain 1 intensive. During this intensive we learned about how the brain and the mind are different. The brain is essentially a computer that keeps all of our experiences, knowledge and resources filed away whereas the mind uses our experiences and feelings to create what we believe is truth. Whatever feelings we had in the past during a certain experience gets stored in our brains. When we go through an experience that either a) reminds us of a past experience or b) the same feeling occurs, we create a story due to what we think happened. What we think is important flows into our consciousness and the things we don’t find as important gets stored in our brains. Nonetheless, even if we don’t find things as “important” something can happen where the unimportant memory can show up. It’s something we didn’t even know we knew. I think that’s how the brain and mind shows up when trauma comes into our consciousness, they work together to see what we store and what we keep into our consciousness.
The mythic image is the story that we create for ourselves and I’ve noticed when dealing with one of my clients (and myself!) that the story has limited them from doing what they wanted to do. She made it mean that the break up meant that she was unlovable, wasn’t worthy of love and has issues of accepting love from her partner. As a coach, I’ve held space for her to be where she’s at and she’s come up with mantras regarding love. I told her that to believe what she does now, her mind had to program this myth. So the same goes to reprogramming it for the belief that she is worthy of love. -
Summary
I took a coaching call with a practice client who was interested in EBI. I thought our conversation went really well and we definitely connected deeply about nature. When it came time to ask me about payment (after the first free session), I completely babbled on about how the money wasn’t important and I could lower payments and so on. When I got off the call I was a bit angry with myself about the fact that I was very unclear with her about how payment would go. I was unclear with myself on continuing our relationship due to a question about money. I was completely triggered!! It’s taught me that the way I show up for a client is the way I need to show up for myself. One cannot exist without the other and when I start to coach more people, this is something I need to step into – the powerful of having conviction. It was great learning experience! -
Initial Post
After this module, I became clearer on what it is to be coach and how I want to show up for a client. I created a greater understanding of what I want in an ideal client as well as provide them a service to come to me continuously. I created a greater intuition of what service I can off to potential clients. Like David mentions above, the role as a guide is client-driven so I’d want the client to feel comfortable around me and my coaching style.
My ideal client would be someone who stops themselves from achieving what they want in life because of their limiting beliefs. Furthermore, they don’t live the life they want to (in terms of money, relationships, travel, fulfillment, purpose, etc.) and they come to me to seek guidance with breaking down the story. This person does not need to be a certain age but needs to be coachable, even if resistant at first. There would need to be a connection on both sides and trust. I’m glad to give someone the space they need to thrive and in doing so, it would establish I’m willing to show up for them in a place of vulnerability and potential skepticism.
This module taught me the power of what my time is worth and knowing that I’m of great value. I thought that asking for what I think is a lot of money would be challenging (which it was!) but after the breakdown of my services, I realized I’d be putting in a lot of time and effort for clients which would need to be compensated. -
David, thank you for your post. It’s very clear to me what kind of client is your ideal client and how you show up in that space. You’re following all of the appropriate steps to enroll your client in continuous sessions which builds trust and creates commitment. I remember talking to you about how your work differs from what we learn here and I’m curious if you’ve brought more of this into your guiding at work. Awesome job!
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Hey Lauren! I can appreciate how you held space for your client even though there seemed to be some internal conflict around how she was showing up to the sessions. I really appreciate the exercise that you did with her around creating a conscious space for her to hear what she was saying. I can imagine her writing it down allowed her to become very aware and also challenged by her thoughts. When you wrote that she said “I must be so annoying,” we can actively see how she allows the Judge (or potentially called something else) has manifested and controlled aspects of her life. This client sounds like someone who can benefit from some Partswork if open to it. That voice in her head who is judging herself and other people (maybe it’s two parts?) could make an appearance into her consciousness. Awesome job guiding her and being there for her. I really love that exercise you did with her and I think that completely shifted her baseline.
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Summary
Grief is something that has not logic to it. Although in my post I mentioned that my client was grieving and she had that realization, that didn’t take away the fact that before she “knew” she was grieving, she was still grieving. That happened to me during our grief sessions. I had always felt some way but didn’t understand what it was – oh, I was grieving! I think the Brain Change and Grief were in the same week because our bodies can inherently be going through some intense feelings and our brain does not “understand” what it is. Grief is not logical but putting the two pieces of realizing what you are feeling is what we call grief, I feel it allows us to surrender to what our bodies have been telling us. And this isn’t just grief, this is everything in the world. We are knowledge and learning machines, always wanting to know, understand, figure out, and our bodies feel things that our brains may not comprehend. It’s incredible that when we discover what is happening we are able to nurture ourselves. Grief has no limits or boundaries and I believe that is a beautiful way to be human. Nonetheless, dealing with grief is challenging and I think that if we are able to nurture our grief and surrender to it without judgement or resentment, we learn to live with it and move through it. It doesn’t have an expiration date and it may never go away but we can nurture it and work to heal it. -
Initial Post
One of my dearest friend’s parents got divorced when she was a child and it was very messy. There was the custody battle which her parents were not shy of discussing their hatred of one another to her, going back and forth from each of their houses, dad getting remarried and blending families and mom dealing with depression and other mental health issues. All of this has trickled into her adult life, her adult relationships and she is cognizant that she needs some form of “help.” I invited her to have a session with me and although we are very close and I’m close with her dad and the blended family, I invited her to have a session with me. We sat down and she spoke about all the things that have upset her (things I already did know because I was there for a lot of it when we were kids and teens) but just allowed her space to talk about everything she was going through. At multiple points in the session she kept apologizing for going on about these things, and I kept assuring her that there is nothing wrong with this. This is why we’re doing a session. She continued and started talking about her current relationship and how she doesn’t feel like she’s enough for her partner and when into story as to why she though that way.
I invited her to take a moment and breathe a few deep breathes. I recognized that she had not had closure on anything happening in her life but also didn’t want to tell her that since I’m not there to give my input (can’t lie, it was hard not to!) When she opened her eyes there were tears and I asked what was coming up for her. She said that she thinks she needs therapy, which I responded “why?” She said it’s because she feels like there’s something wrong with her. I reflected that back to her and she started giggling. When I asked why she was laughing she said it’s because she felt uncomfortable with being so vulnerable. She then mentioned that she constantly is trying to please her boyfriend and she doesn’t feel it’s reciprocated and she’s always doing something wrong.
I invited the possibility into her consciousness that there is nothing wrong with her, just she’s grieving over a childhood that was complex and complicated. She stayed silent for a moment and said she’s never thought of grief like that. At that point maybe I put my two sense in (thoughts??) I asked her if there’s anything we can create for her to feel unapologetic for the way she is in this moment. She asked for a hug (which I love doing!) but wanted to make sure what our intention was in doing so. I asked why do you want a hug? She said because I provided her an avenue of love and space which she did not get from her folks. Then I asked if we can role play and pretend I’m on of her parents (she picked dad) and to hug me and let me know what you’re going through. As we did this she cried and said she was angry and she loved me and she was hurting. We stayed embraced for a few minutes as I told her that I love her (as dad). After a few minutes we came out of it and our session time was pretty much up. I asked how she felt and she said she’s never had this realization before. I asked her if there was something she can do to integrate what just happened into her life and she said “write it down.” She then grabbed a notebook and started writing down her feelings about everything. I sat in silence and acknowledged how strong she was. This was a powerful session for me, as we are good friends and it hurt me to watch her hurt, but ultimately worked to not project my friend self into her experience. -
Kent, I got goosebumps reading your passage. This is a profound coaching session and I want to acknowledge how present you were with your client. Even though you were on Zoom, you were able to create a nature connected space in which created a conversation between your client and her grandmother. It really is incredible to read that she sat under and oak tree and an acorn fell on her head! That’s beautiful, and the way you kept her present moment with powerful questions guided her create some closure (potentially) with grandma but also within herself.
You kept her in present moment, constantly checking in and even shared that what she was going through hit a nerve with you as well. When Derek was teaching us Gestalt, he said that he’ll tell his clients that what they said had an impact on him and that there’s nothing wrong with sharing that with the client. I also love how you were able to go into threshold and having your client integrate a mantra in her life that’s so prevalent to her grandmother. I’d love to know how your next session with her goes! -
Elizabeth, this session speaks so highly on how you show up as a guide but also a human being. From my own experience being guided by you, I know exactly how gentle and nurturing you are. I believe it’s inherent in you. After reading your post, your ability to provide a safe space for your client seems like it created an urgency in your client to feel grief in a way they may never have before. Although you may not have been aware that it was grief she was dealing, you created a pathway that your client was able to walk down, recognize the grief in her life but also really feel the impact of what had happened. In doing so, she said she hasn’t cried like that and now since she has, there’s so much room for growth and empowerment of creating a different possibility of her life.
I also really appreciate that you asked her about a time in her life she felt the way she wanted to feel and she mentioned when she was single and making art. You created a doorway for her to bring that sensation and true sense of self back into her present life. Also, great job tying in the nature connection. Although you did not provide her the oracle, it seems there was an inherent connection between the two of you through nature of self expression. Great work! -
Summary
Agreeing with Wendy: CHANGE IS HARD! Our brain really is a fascinating mechanism. After learning about the brain, the neurological waves and patterns, the neurosystem of it all, I can honestly say that reprogramming our brains is no easy task. We have been living in survival forever!! We are constantly carrying around story and the myth to what’s actually happening because the brain wants to resolve conflict of feeling. We’ve literally been programmed since we could remember on how to be, act, feel, etc. and our brain has been absorbing this until we walked into the Star House. We can create how we want to be in this life, what we want our lives to look like, paint it any way we want. How many humans do you think create that possibility for themselves? I think not enough. Our brain is just absorbing information and protecting us on how it sees fit, I have an immense amount of gratitude towards that. From my own experience reprogramming is no easy task, but since we have this awareness of autopilot, unconsciousness and consciousness, under every image if a feeling and every word is an image, there’s possibility to create a new way of being. To achieve this, I need to program my brain differently and surrender to the fact that it is difficult, but attainable. -
Lauren, after reading your post my initial reaction was that this person is just very much boggled down in her own story of self suffrage and needed someone to talk to about what’s going on. Since we went through EBI, it’s easier for us to recognize that all the “stuff” is just a story and we are the ones that put meaning behind what’s happening. And our story is designed to become real for us. Your client was in their “stuff” and it seems like she had no consciousness of being there. The story she had created put her into autopilot and thus, she believes that is reality.
As being coached by you, I know how incredible you are at providing space for your clients and giving them that space to let out all the “stuff.” To me, it seems like she the greatest thing you did was to give her space to just be. To sit with it, vent it out. Now moving forward, I would ask her something to bring her back into the present moment – acknowledging that she’s going through a lot but to shift her neurological pathway of how she normally perceives her life. For example, “What’s something you’re grateful for in your life right now?” or something along that line to bring them in present moment. Even if the client doesn’t know right away, it’s a good exercise to help them discover what they are grateful for and that their world doesn’t need to be their story.
You know I’ve always struggled with my confidence as a guide, so I can see how this session could make you question what you were doing. But you’re an incredible coach and trusting your learning process is all about becoming a strong guide. Great job! -
Wendy, I loved reading this post! The ending was fantastic 😉 I can really appreciate what you said when you were talking about client #2 going from pre-contemplation to termination. You said that it doesn’t go away but we find it easier to manage and it no longer becomes a focus. I think that’s a brilliant way of looking at termination because if there’s anything I’ve learned from Partswork is that we don’t get rid of our parts but recognize that they are saying something and work to accept them for who they are. Moreover, it doesn’t mean they go away and we learn to live through them and discover what life could be like if we didn’t allow them to control Soul.
As being a client of yours in the past, I know how incredible you are at being able to ask thought provoking questions and really work to understand what is coming up for your client. I recognize that when you said you did not give input or state an opinion to your client, that you are absolutely shifting your own neural pathways to become more open, present to your client(s) and to yourself.
