[Kairon Yeng]

Summary Post

I second what Mandy said in her summary post. Grief teachers our humanity. Like I spoke about in my initial post, grief takes me to a place of existential questioning. Why does grief even exist? Surely Life has a plan in place and grief serves a specific function in our human experience. As odd as it sounds, grief might be a logical response to all the intense human experience especially sudden loss, sudden change of events and even traumatic situations. Also, with the nature of Life that is impermanent, we have to face Death, one way or another. It sounds almost as if, grief is the way out in coping with these rites of passage. If I were to put a definition on grief, it is an emotion that helps us to process the changes of Life. It takes us from one end to the other. Unprocessed, we are stuck in the past, not being able to move forward and assimilate to the changes through time and space.

Secondly, experiences of grief humbles us. It reminds us that as strong as we think we are, we still have a place of weakness and vulnerability. It sobers our narcissistic tendencies of being able to control the elements of nature. In this context, experiences of grief, requires us to rely on another, reminding us again of the true nature of humanity which is about interconnectedness and interdependence. With this humility, we can then reconnect to life – doing what is necessary than only what we want. It helps to come to place of service and be in a place of compassion and love because through grief we are reminded that the very same Life situations can happen to us too.

[Kairon Yeng]

Initial Post

This module on Grief had brought me into many existential questioning. My human experience tells me that there is a well so deep of unprocessed grief that is brought upon beyond just our present life. And my understanding is, that if we do not take this hero’s journey down this well, we may not understand who we truly are. As much as it triggers lots of fear and uneasiness, who knows what gems or wishing coins are waiting to be uncovered in that well?

I was working with a client of mine who felt that she could not take the next move in her life. There were many to consider and there were many reasons why she could not just decide, breakaway and start anew. There would always be a perfect reason for her that she could not go on and start her own career. She had been a housewife for 30 years, had the best intention and deep desire to have her own vocation but felt inhibited when she needs to take the next step for the fear of losing her family, doing the wrong thing or become an irresponsible person. Looking back at her life, she had experienced many losses which at age 16 her father passed away. She mentioned that she didn’t have time to grief and it was as if the next day she had to go back into her normal life and go on. Growing up she had been the caretaker and the only thing she knew was to give.

After many sessions, I reflected that she had already given so much of her life to the people around her and that it seems like she is in a juncture where she wants to start giving to herself. I then asked a question, “when is the last time you received and became truthfully grateful?” She took a long pause and she said she could not remember. For many reasons, we did not dive deeper than that but here are my thoughts and reflections moving forward from here.

This may be a projection but I still feel the need to test it out. I believe one of the reason why she couldn’t give to herself or be in a place of receiving is because her heart is shutdown from the many tragic experiences of her life and that she did not have a chance to process them. I reason it this way because to truly receive one needs to be vulnerable and be open. The reason why she can give others so willingly is so that she did not have to risk opening her own heart to receive. Consequently, she could never really give herself anything.

I wonder if most of this were cultural interjection where people in her community had to numb themselves as if tragedy and crises were part of everyday life and that they had to go on anyway to survive. In my astrological work, I could pinpoint that she had to go back and retrieve her inner child, working on assimilating unprocessed emotions and recover skipped developmental steps when she was growing up. It looked like the soul’s evolutionary lesson was to learn how to nurture oneself and give oneself their own gifts. From this information, I felt she was at the crossroad of her life and have to take the leap to dive deep into her own well of emotions in order to move forward. Only time will tell as I continue to work with this client.

[Kairon Yeng]

Summary Post

Spirituality and science has to come together. I felt that they might have different language but they address the same problem. Just like how the formation of mythic image and soul language can be directly linked to what happens when the brain experience state change. Just like how synchronicity and picking up moments of flow and effortlessness could be explained by the power of the RAS. What always blow my mind is that RAS is programmable! Does this mean we can always create moments of synchronicity? I think the potential is there, and if we can do this at will – we might be as powerful as Gods? I doubt the explanation is that simplistic, rather I felt that there is a relationship between us and nature that is happening all the time. RAS and the different components of our brain of what we know could help us be attuned to that sort of relationship.

I believe with self-consciousness, we are learning to build and connected with consciousness beyond just our self. Through our senses and our brain’s nerve connections, spirit can be embodied. I found that we still have little knowledge about the potential of our brain. Imagine what else the brain could do and what other exercises can be done to enhance the capacity? And with that, what kind of reality can we shape for ourselves? Our brain is the gateway to the entire universe and it has definitely have to be connected to the heart where we are aligned back to the principles of truth, love and neutrality.

[Kairon Yeng]

Initial Post

Lately I came across a documentary “Missing Links” by Gregg Braeden that there are neural networks in the heart and spoke about brain-heart synchronization that can bring about multiple powerful benefits. One of them is the stimulation of healthy happy hormones, reducing stress and helps cell regeneration. Another one which is more profound is the ability to create the reality that we are looking for in our lives. This new information gave me an understanding that it is our entire body that is fostering change as neural networks from the brain stretched throughout the entire body. Despite that, I still think the Brain is the programmer and the conscious mind has the ability to foster intentional change. Even though the Brain is the programmer, it doesn’t leave it in charge of our lives. Instead the Soul has to be leader that show up and I believe when we speak to Soul in Partswork, we are speaking to the Heart. I think it is crucial to able to provide resources to my clients to able to regulate this connection between the Brain and the Heart. According to the documentary, we only need 3 things (1) slowing down of our breath (2) feelings of gratitude, compassion and love (3) feeling the space of heart somatically to stimulate this connection. Spending 3-5 minutes in this space can give prolong results. I have tested it myself and I found this simple exercise provide profound change in how I walk through my life daily. I am curious to find out how my client will respond to this going into a session. So the following is what I had observed!

One thing I found powerfully useful in sessions is to be able give resources to my clients and letting the know that they have all they need at the present moment to work through what they need to work through. There are three resources that I will always bring awareness to my clients – nature and the surroundings, their body and then their heart. One shift I realize in my long-term client is that her intuitive wisdom came out effortlessly as we worked through her blocks. It was quick and short and her answers were definite and confident. This reminded me of what the documentary had said – the language of the heart is simple and short and doesn’t build stories around what is right and doesn’t justify our answers. I was able to observe that and I noticed how quickly after those short answers, stories start coming in for justification. This shows how quickly the brain/mind comes in to plan out the “orders” from the heart. I think this is a positive response because it shows that there is enough energy to move from contemplation to action for change. However, I could also see how quickly the plans and stories from the mind could cover up the message of the heart.

There is something else I found peculiar and interesting was my personal experience in the moment as a coach. There was an attunement and contact which made the session feel seamless, timeless and effortless. My reflections was quick and precise and my questions were powerful and short. There was a feeling of diving into the point and very little swimming around cluttering details. What I take from this is that we were connected to our hearts and we mirror each other to a similar frequency to nature.

From the many sessions that I have with this particular client, change is definitely possible and effortless if we allow and welcome change. Moving forward, I am planning a celebration ceremony with my client with her upcoming birthday end of the month. To celebrate the positive changes that had occurred for her and a newfound transformed Self. It is going to be a wonderful closure and welcoming new challenges that is coming.

[Kairon Yeng]

Hello everyone!

Thank you for the wonderful replies and feedback from all of you. I found so much profound insights as well as I had felt deep love from each and everyone of you. I just want to start by highlighting the word “Soul” – yes, there is so many different expectations, projections, thoughts, about that word. It is another over-used words by our New Age spirituality movement. Then again, the substitute for that word is our Higher Self, our Heart and our deeper knowing just like what Mandy has suggested! I feel there is still a need to bring in that word – soul into my practices with my clients despite what definitions they might have about that word. I think that is necessary because spirituality and science has to come together where science gives a ground and template for spirituality to be understood through our rational mind and spirituality can take our understanding of science beyond the limitation of our awareness. Again, it feels like we are bridging some sort of duality here just like what we are doing with our heart and our brain. The more ways we can bridge this duality, I believe change and transformation can just unfold naturally because it is the natural order.

There is also something mysterious when the brain-heart connection is established. And this connection is definitely block when our limbic system is activated and that we are in fight or flight mode. Though, it might be worth investigating – can we still create that brain-heart connection the same time when our limbic system is being triggered? I don’t know if that could exist spontaneously within a single person at a single moment of a specific space. But as a coach, if I could hold that connection, mirror neurons might be working and that might help my client be attuned to me. And if I can’t do it, maybe nature can help us do that? I’m curious where this might go!

[Kairon Yeng]

Summary Post

I have to constantly remind myself that I am not the healer and that I don’t do the healing. Nature does. I am just there to facilitate and mirror this quality. I believe I need to stop getting in the way of myself in order to not to get in the way of my client. This brings me to this question, “How do I know if I am nature-connected?” I think there is a switch button that we can turn on to get into that frequency and this frequency is potent when it comes to nature-connected coaching. Also, the awareness to simply know that I am disconnected is something that I can continue to work on in order to remind myself to go back into connection.

Trauma is such a powerful catalyst for our growth and evolution. I also think trauma is also part of nature’s creation. The simply phenomenon of birth and existing can be traumatizing. This is why we are also blessed with a healing system that can rewire that. Moving forward from here, I would continue to ask myself, “how can I develop a deeper relationship with trauma?”

[Kairon Yeng]

Initial Post

Guiding through Trauma is one of the most empowering experience that I had in the Face-to-face meeting. One big takeaway for me is the importance of “process” and in the terms of Trauma, it is the importance of “sequencing”. In approaching deep soul work, as a guide, I am also approached with lots of charged emotions coupled into their stories. It is like walking with my clients to approach their guardians altogether. What this mean is that I as a guide must be centered enough and be attuned enough to the client’s needs at every single moment. It is through this centeredness and attunement that I could provide the clients enough safety to process their guardians and begin to uncouple the stories and emotions and eventually begin to finish and incomplete assimilation of frozen emotions.

I had the privilege to guide one of our good friends in the Fishbowl session. I thought it was the biggest opportunity for me as a guide to make use of the tools that I had learnt that week and more importantly it was biggest lesson for me as a guide to learn humility that I am not in charge of the process but rather, the process was a larger organism that I am part of. As a facilitator of such tender process, sensitivity and attunement of my senses to my client and to what is around me had to be more delicate and more precise. There is no space for doubt even though the whole process is a big experimentation process where mistakes bound to happen. For me, the doubt comes in when I as a facilitator tried to make “something” happen and it becomes especially strong when nothing that I did seem to work or make any progress. The problem wasn’t because there wasn’t any progress, but I was too attached to my own idea of progress that I did not catch the miniscule progress we were making. With that, I went into my mental space and lost the sense of bodily attunement and deep connection to the process I was in with my client. Again, I have to thank my mentor and my fellow observing peer to remind me of this importance. I also have to thank my practice client for having the patience and the trust despite being in a place of great distress in this process.

I learned a great deal about building resources this week. It is a powerful toolbox that I could co-create with my client as necessary equipment to take on our journey to face the guardians in the soul development process. The idea is not to beat the guardians but the ability to have enough safety to befriend these guardians and relieve their duties because they no longer serve the greater purpose of the soul. I also learned how Gestalt is such an important skill if not the most important skill as a guide when it comes to navigate such processes. Again, I cannot stress how important it is to stay connected and attuned to the process, and how the process alone has its own higher intelligence in resolving what needs to happen between the coach-client relationship and in the session.

Lastly, I have to mention that trauma has a wide range of severity to mildness. I see it in a perspective that trauma is unassimilated experiences and with it, the stories and emotions behind it. It is trauma because it is stopping the soul from its continual evolution and maturity. I feel that is the only reason that soul can stop maturing. Otherwise, with the force of evolution in consciousness, the soul can only continue to grow, fulfilling its entelechy. Thus, I’ll end in a note seeing a possibility that the greatest healing we can do for our clients is to sequence the unassimilated experiences and allow their innate intelligence and creative unique potential to do the rest of the unfoldment of the expression of their true nature.

[Kairon Yeng]

Summary Post

Brain and Change has definitely deepen my process of coaching and guiding as it opens a new language to what Gestalt and Partswork are on the brain perspective. This quickly encourage me to start experimenting on the get go during the severance stage. 1 hour with my client should be a life-transforming hour especially when they are completely clueless about their own authentic wisdom.

Brain and Change also offers a language on the work that we do. We are doing neuro surgery – only on the outside and also not by me, but collaboratively with my client. By having the brain perspective, it allows me to create experiments that are more intentional especially when I know which part of the brain light up during the coaching process. I can also understand how to push different buttons of the brain to stimulate new patterns in the process of change. With that, I can gauge how far I can go to disorient my client and how I could bring them back to equilibrium especially in the severance and threshold process. The strategy used will then be very specific rather than just going through every options of trial and error.

[Kairon Yeng]

From what I have read through this session, I sensed profound skills being developed here not just by ticking off the coaching competencies but profound human-relating skills and immaculate tracking skills to tie in all the different information that you had already have through the many sessions that you have with your clients. It almost felt like the previous sessions had led up to this one and what an opportunity it was for your client to uncover deep unresolved emotional knots.

This whole notion of giving permission is so powerful. I can’t help but to wonder why do we even need permission to express such emotions. One that comes to my mind immediately is the way that we are conditioned and taught in our culture and in our times where people are required to be stoic, shoulder everything and break through every obstacles.

You mentioned, “Overall, I think honoring the bigness of the life change she was going through and letting her know that I was walking beside her was all the “coaching” that needed to happen in this session.”

I think this is huge because our modern society has no place or space for us to honor any life experiences. We don’t have the community, we don’t have the time as well. This could potentially be the sickness of our modern society. And to be able come in a place of honoring with our clients, that would be such a wonderful service and shouldn’t be taken lightly how much healing can be done just by doing so. So, thank you for showing up and doing that work!

[Kairon Yeng]

Such an empowering session for me to read and digest what happened there. During moments as such, I can imagine myself not knowing what to do. Maybe, it was truly about dropping everything away – my ideas about what coaching looks like, what my role is, what is my client here to get out from me, etc and simply just be humans. Then, maybe I would know what to do during those moments. So thank you for sharing, for your courage and resiliency to hold spaces as such and to be complete vulnerable and true to yourself and your client.

I appreciate how you bring forth such a holistic way of guiding the space, from verbal, to body, to soul, to just simply process.

“We talked about her dad and she cried. We talked about the trauma of his death. We used the body to feel what was coming up. We worked with soul retrieval and healing the inner child that had been wounded from the death. But mainly, we both just cried. I think that’s what she needed space for, just grief. It felt like a very simple, yet powerful and profound session.”

This sounds simple, but I believe not many people can hold this unless they been through something as intense or similar. I felt hese are words of wisdom that comes from direct experience.

And you are right, Grief is everywhere! What comes to mind for me is maybe it is time that we normalize grief as a natural process and emotion, starting with ourselves and maybe by doing so that gives other people the courage or a non-verbal permission to do the same!

[Kairon Yeng]

Thank for your sharing. Your session reminded me about not coming in a place of solving other people’s problem especially when there is a personal resonance of a similar problem. I sensed courage and resilience from your post where you held your role as a coach with neutrality, love and truth where you did what needs to be done for your client and also have a powerful truthful reflection about your own dynamics. Sounds like there is already healing going on and the process of transformation had already begun.

“Melissa shared with me that it felt good to no be judged about it.” I think this is a powerful feedback where a client had taken something out of the session. The changes might be subtle but I sensed that there were more going on behind the scenes. Even though she kept going back to the story level but I believe the exchange that you both had were deeper than that.

Lately, I had been contemplating about this notion,”can we speak directly to the soul?” Maybe some parts are constantly activated and maybe the roles of the parts were much stronger in certain people where they start to overpower the soul – is that why people are stuck in the story level? So how can we start to have conversation with the soul instead? What must happen on the brain level for this to happen? These are just my thoughts and they don’t necessarily had to be answered but I hope some day I will find out :).

thank you again!

[Kairon Yeng]

This is so inspiring Mandy!

Thank you for sharing your process with your client along with the insights that come with it. I really see that power in just being present for the client’s need. I see this as developing safety, trust and intimacy with the client. When that happens, as a coach, we are our client’s biggest resource! I tend to forget that when we as nature-connected coach embodies nature and are attuned to the frequency of nature, we are nature that could talk and respond back to our client.

One big clue for me when it comes to the question of ” is this coaching or is this therapy” is when I am dealing with situation of my client larger than the scope of my training and my expertise. I think it is important that I am completely honest with myself as well as having a dialogue with my clients about what do they truly need. I feel most people would not know the differences and would not know what they should do. And my job as a coach is to create the awareness and assist my client to have a clarity about what they really need.

There is also a difference between “trauma or Trauma”. This is where I feel that there is a grey area in our work. That at-the-moment heart wisdom will be something we need to be connected to in order to know what we should be doing.

Thank you!

[Kairon Yeng]

Hello! Took me a while to come back to this page and respond to these wonderful reflections.

Heber – I believe I need to clarify what I meant by maturing because it can come from many different context. In this case, I am speaking about emotional maturity. Emotional maturity has a deep connection with soul development. And in the case of trauma, it halts the growth of emotional maturity temporarily. Also, interestingly, it acts as a catalyst for tremendous amount of emotional growth and maturity leading to soul development. It is as if pulling a bow backwards, waiting to be released so that the arrow can propel forward.

Nevertheless, there is also the case where a person can end up in a loop re-experiencing the triggers of their trauma and with coping mechanism that rather than releasing it, bypasses it or suppresses it. This is what I meant about people can end up being in this loop and not develop any soul growth. One good example is that one could develop sophisticated meditation practices and have many spiritual insights about their life but have no weight in their soul. What I mean by that is that we can know things, understand things and work with things but the trigger of traumatic experiences have not left us or there will be cases of inappropriate(out of context of the situation) emotional outbursts. People can still become more functional, more equipped with tools and look as if they have profound growth but in my point of view growth as such are still on the mental and superficial level. Until we address the core of the wounding/trauma and find deep acceptance of that experience, we are still stuck there. And I believe we will continue to re-experience this wounding/trauma through subtle triggers to big triggers until we fully allow our consciousness to go there.

Thank you for your reflection Heber :)!

Mandy – Yes, I totally agree. It is not minuscule at all. It may seem that way but it is definitely not. Again, I am reminded that the best gift to a person is our presence. I think to take the next step in my coaching is to really come from a place of not knowing. Thank you for your reflection 🙂

[Kairon Yeng]

Yes! The Mythic Image. I think it is something that is not taken for granted. I definitely feel exactly like your client there. For some reason we held a belief that our path of destiny only has to be contained in one element and that we have to make a choice of choosing ONE path. I remembered how this came up in my childhood when the elders (parents and teachers and adults) are asking me what would I like to be when I grow up. This question felt like there is only one answer and that I had to be that answer no matter what. I felt that this question destroyed what we know about our potential, hence our own Mythic Image.

I think the Mythic Image is ever-discovering Image and that every now and then we get pieces of this beautiful puzzle. Like what Anna said, discovering this image brings up some state of arousal as well as the state of quiescent which is definitely a state we want our clients to be in threshold so that the Deeper Need can emerge. By allowing our clients to tap into that potential, RAS will then start programming new pathways that we can see to manifest that. I feel that the only thing holding us back is our old beliefs and stories that are rooted in fear. The tough and most challenging part will then be in the incorporation state which we need to ritualize our life towards the new programming.

[Kairon Yeng]

Hi Elizabeth,

I share the same experience with you as a coach with wanting to deliver quick results to my clients as well as feeling inadequate and doubtful when my client is stuck and when I had nothing to offer my clients. I had asked this question a while ago, “How do I know if I was doing a good job as a coach and that I had given my clients all that I had in the process?”With this question, I realized that how ever much my client received out of what I give is not up to me completely. As a coach or a guide, I can’t make anyone change or direct the whole process by myself. I kept forgetting sometimes that this work is collaborative as much as living our own life is as well collaborative. This is the very fundamental reason why I even started writing my thesis on “Sacred Relationship”. I think as coaches we are powerful mid-wifes to deliver our clients’ soul. Despite that, we cannot be the one delivering for them.

I love the whole idea about Vitamin G. I think it is the best medicine one can give oneself. Just like you mention along the lines of “nature is a powerful collaborator in this process”, understanding how our brain processes mimics the process of nature helps us understand how we can change by being in nature itself. And for us coaches, we can definitely deepen our sensitivity to severance, threshold and incorporation!