Forum Replies Created

  • Catherine Peterffy

    Member
    July 26, 2018 at 11:41 am

    I have really loved foundation one. I just read through some of the highlights, which are essentially bringing awareness to your connection with nature and consciously deepening it with regular practices. This foundation also covered basics about coaching and what it really is. To me it has been grounded magic – connecting with nature and the subtle realms, and then grounding it into a structure that can bring this magic into todays world, ie coaching and what that really is.
    Practicing opening up into the subtle realms all around us is so nourishing to my soul. I have loved learning these practices in the intensive, sharing these deep moments with each other (especially meeting each others councils!), and continuing to practice on my own. I have also really loved doing the listening practices. I do them most days and I find I am able to shift into that state of interconnection with the natural world much more quickly and easily now.
    The vision has been so helpful too. I see it as a giant obsidian arrow (or maybe I’m just really tiny on a normal arrow). And its edge is wavy and I just keep working on making my way towards the tip. When I see and feel this I feel clear, grounded, present, and alive, knowing I am exactly where I’m meant to be.
    Foundation one in general has been incredibly supportive in these feelings. I am really loving learning about general coaching too. There are simple structural things such as brain patterning, that I have known about, but reading the words describing them in a book is bringing new insights for me and has been incredibly supportive in my own healing process. It has helped me to take a step beck out of my own life to see the bigger picture of how we exist and function, how I can relate to this understanding in my own life and how I can someday support others knowing this. Sometimes I think the most simple ideas are the most awe inspiring.
    I guess overall foundation one has taught me again that I am exactly where I need and am meant to be. I feel like I have been looking for this my whole life! By this I mean the way to bring magic into real life and spread it… and to do that as my profession! And by magic I mean the magic of the earth. And our connection with her. And how healing and encapsulating of everything that is. I am feeling grateful and looking forward to continuing onto the next foundation.

  • Catherine Peterffy

    Member
    July 20, 2018 at 9:55 pm

    Amanda I really loved how you spoke to how nature based coaching helps you/your client connect to they’re deeper souls calling! Its so true! Like how town and busy lives are like the mud or ripples and when you get into nature, and especially work with someone in nature you can see clearly to the bottom. I loved feeling your passion and can totally see you supporting people to find there’s!

    Wendy I loved hearing about your childhood! I spent a good amount of time in nature as a child, mostly in the suburbs and occasionally in the country. I found my own magic there and it was special… And wow… the relationship you had with nature throughout your childhood sounds like a fairy tale!
    I also really loved how you spoke of her “lack of judgment [and] the ‘enoughness’ that she creates”. Reading those words feels nourishing to my soul and I can completely relate! … also curious to hear more about the lizard brain and how you instantly start to re-wire yourself.

    Wow Lauren your time with nature throughout your childhood also sounds like a fairy tale!! Truly I want that for my children some day and it just sounds so pure and magical! I also love how you brought up nature deficit disorder. I’m feeling sadness around that right now.
    I also love how you spoke to guiding your clients to they’re edges. That quote may have been the most impactful and inspiring in the reading for me. Just through reading it, and allowing it to settle inside of me, coyote has brought me to one of my edges ☺.

    Kelsey I love how you talk about how connecting to nature connects you to your power! Something lit up inside me when I read that and I experience that too- probably more in nature then anywhere. I think its because it connects you to your truth that is easy to forget when your not so present… or consciously supported.
    I also really love the quote you chose about how nature invites you to notice and appreciate the dynamics of community. I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on how each part of nature plays its role, and how I am a part of that web, but I often forget about how it reflects the larger symbiosis of a community! That is so beautiful!

  • Catherine Peterffy

    Member
    July 20, 2018 at 9:51 pm

    To me, being connected to nature is being open to nature. Allowing the energy of the natural world into you and giving something in response. It is communication; there is an exchange of energy. There is a language being spoken between you, which may occur through words, feelings, symbols, sounds, sights, smells… For example, I was just looking for a place to sit and write. I found one that felt good, I wondered is this really it? Then I saw yellow flowers growing. I work with yellow flowers and to me they symbolize growth, forward movement out into the light, into the world of being seen, and of expression. EBI is a way for me to connect with that energy. And then I noticed a snake… transformation… it is time to express, to change, and to engage… This is the right spot for me ☺.
    I love the listening practices we learned in the intensive. I love them because they foster this connection. They remind me of the life above, below, and all around me. While listening I feel like a puzzle piece that has been put back into its puzzle. I feel I am a part of something, the something I evolved with, my homeland, and that I am exactly where I am meant to be. I am in conscious connection with the seen and unseen beings and forces that make up our world. I believe the conscious piece of this is important. Because there is a big difference between being absorbed in my “monkey mind” while in nature and actually listening, sensing, feeling, and opening to nature.
    While every being can connect with nature, because essentially we are nature, I believe there are different levels of connection, some shallower and some deeper. If you do not live in nature, these deeper levels must be cultivated. And cultivating these deeper levels is incredibly supportive in coaching because they widen your awareness and deepen your presence. They reconnect you with your guides, your supporters, your wildness, and your vision.
    The more time you spend in nature, and open to nature, the more you notice tiny details. The shift in a bird’s song, the change in the winds direction, a cloud passing across the sun and the affect it carries all around you. You may notice a plant that has flowers that have died, flowers in bloom, and flowers just beginning to open; the entire life cycle expressed all at once in one being and how extraordinary that is.
    This supports you as a coach because your client is just another kind of ecosystem. They have a history and stories but also thoughts, feelings, and sensations passing through all the time. Like connecting with nature, when coaching you are completely aware of and open to your clients experience, (and what’s going on in they’re surroundings as that is natures contribution to the session, both signaling to you and supporting your client). For example your client may be telling a story without noticing how they’re muscles constrict as they speak. We tend to exist looping around in familiar thoughts and habits. Like the Coyote, the coaches job is to bring them out of these comfort zones, to guide they’re attention to the wisdom of they’re body, and to help connect the dots. Connecting with nature opens you up to subtleties and the ability to notice these subtleties in and around your client makes you a better coach.
    Connecting with nature also supports freedom to engage and be with all parts of you. I believe what many of us are missing is a deep connection with the natural world, the feeling of finally fitting back into our puzzle. And being in that puzzle involves not only sensing and openness but also wildness, play, fight or flight, love, serenity, curiosity, reverence, intimacy, passion, anger, sadness, laughter, fierceness… It requires freedom to feel and express every part of the rainbow that makes up the human experience. And to do that while in relationship with the world around you. Every part of that rainbow is mirrored in and can be exercised and inspired by every part of the natural world.
    Being in connection with nature is being open to nature. You are speaking the language of the Earth and you are listening in response. You are open to the subtleties and your awareness and presence deepens and widens. You feel and respond to the freedom to hunt, nourish, pray, and play. You become more flexible, more open, and more awake. This supports your work as a coach because you are more able to notice tiny details in your client, shifts in they’re energy, and patterns in their life. Your more able to meet them where they are, to feel them where they are, and to guide and inspire them towards they’re edges… and ultimately they’re growth and evolution.