Kaity Holsapple
Forum Replies Created
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Summary post:
When it comes to grief, the greatest gift is to just let our clients FEEL what’s coming up for them. There is no way to change or fix grief. We can’t wish it away or ignore it. Well, we can, but it doesn’t lead to any long term peace or resolution.
What strikes me as important in this module is standing with our own experience of grief. When we come from a death-denying society, death and loss become a programmed fear within our brains. One perspective change I have offered my clients when we’ve broached fear of death, is comparing life to the cycle of the seasons. Each cycle is necessary and beautiful in it’s own way.
When we can accept death as a part of life, it allows us to begin to accept our own losses as not only sad, but beautiful and loving as well. How precious is it to have people/experiences/etc. to miss when they are gone. Grief and joy stand hand in hand.
There is a double bind that grief can often create where we don’t want to accept our loss because we don’t want to forget or move forward in life without our loved one (or whatever it is that we are grieving). At the same time, we are afraid to really experience and feel grief as it is a scary, deep emotion around death and dying (which again, is TOTALLY rejected by our culture and society). This can leave our clients feeling stuck, like there is no where to go. No where they can show up with their grief.
However, as a coach we can make space for grief to breathe and exist. We can share with our clients that there is nothing to change, and that sorrow is just as much of an experience of life as joy is. We can hold space and let our clients bring their grief, which often comes hand in hand with anger, doubt, or fear.
It feels simultaneously simply to show up for grief and so complex at the same time. I am really grateful to have discussed grief in its many forms, and to begin deepening my own relationship with death and dying. -
Summary post:
When it comes to the brain, I am extremely curious around the interplay of high road and low road circuitry with the model of change. If we build awareness around our low-road circuits and step into a space of contemplation, we can step through the cycle of change to strengthen neuro-connections that lead to more high-road functioning and embodiment. It seems as though to me that each of our parts could have a high road and low road circuit, making this idea even more multifaceted. The largest tool I’ve found again comes back to awareness of all of these processes that occur on a consistent basis.
I am also very interested in the Reticular Activating System and how it influences our perception. A shift in perception can easily bring us into contemplation or planning, strengthen our high-road circuits, and integrate trauma. Our brain is constantly deciding what is or is not important based on our past experiences. As a coach, awareness of this has allowed me to invite my brain to filter in new input. I have trained my brain to look for new things that I may not have seen in my clients a year ago. This also encourages me out of my default “business as usual” mode and into a present-centered network where I am able to align my actions with the intention of my soul, and attract more that supports my soul’s purpose and journey. -
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!
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Summary Post:
Thank you all for your patience as I’ve created some time and space to reflect on this big week again! I had a lot going on with work in the past few months, and I also think it has taken some time for me to re-approach everything that happened up there on the mountain. It’s been really beautiful to read over your posts, and I appreciate reconnecting to the depth of Gestalt with this group again.
Gestalt is so obviously powerful, from my own experience and also from the work I’ve done since the intensive. I find that using Gestalt techniques brings me and my clients to the deeper need 10x quicker than without them. In that sense, it is an amplification and intensifying to my sessions that creates even deeper work. Considering all of the “jections” that are constantly at play within myself and my clients, it is easier to see what is being avoided and what holds charge. I have particular interest in introjection and retroflection and how that influences my client’s on a day-to-day basis.
As Lauren shared, AWARENESS is a huge takeaway for gestalt. Awareness of language, assumptions, body language, eye contact, base-line, nature, and also myself. And, where all of these places meet and communicate with one another. It is like the ultimate internal tracking that leads right down into the heart of everything. I am so appreciative of this module, and value learning from Derek in such an experiential way as a client and observer. It really showed me how MUCH is under the surface for each and every one of us. -
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. -
Initial Post:
My client, Amorita, is an old friend from high school who recently moved to Hawaii with her boyfriend. She is 23 years old and works as a waitress, and is transitioning to life on the island. She has found a lot of power and strength from coming to the island, but has been struggling with her relationship with her partner and mother in recent months.
She came to me for coaching in the following areas:
She has recently had a big spiritual awakening, but feels unsure of how to be around her family, specifically her older sister and mom. She feels that many of her family members are very judgmental around her spirituality, which brings up shame and uncertainty in her ability to trust herself.
Her relationship is on the rocks. They still live together and she still feels deep love for him, but he has been having some anger issues that have been difficult for her to get past. She wants him to work on himself so they can be together, but he is uninterested in changing. She knows she can’t force him to change, but I sensed that she really wants him to be somewhere/something he isn’t so their relationship can move forward. She is uncertain of whether she should leave him or wait for him to change.
Her mother is dying from sorosis of the liver. She has been an alcoholic for many years and Amorita cut their relationship off when she was 19 years old. Amorita saw her mom briefly a few months ago, when she was in the hospital in Hawaii after a night of binge drinking. This is really sad for her. She wants so badly for her mom to shift her behavior, especially for her little brother’s sake, but she has given up hope. She is in anticipatory grief and can’t decide on whether she should visit her mom or not.
It was clear to me that there was a lot happening for Amorita. She would constantly deflect from one story line to another. When we would begin to go a little deeper in one direction, she would switch gears to a new story or struggle. She was also the type of client to talk a lot, and not leave a ton of space for silence. Reflecting on the Gestalt tools, I would be interested to point these patterns out to her the next time we work together, if it continues. I have a feeling that this will be a useful tool with other clients as well, and want to work on how to gracefully share what it is that I see and notice.
Since this was our first session, we stayed mainly in severance and story-telling. We had a baby threshold and a short incorporation. From using the Gestalt awareness tools in my own listening, I could sense Amorita’s overwhelm and confusion. It became apparent in the chaotic manner she was telling her story.
The largest gestalt thread I picked up on was the similarity between how she spoke about her mother and her partner. Her voice would inflect in a similar way, and the stories felt very similar. She felt very powerless in regards to both of these relationships. The two both struggled with not being able to control their impulses (for her partner it was anger, and her mother it was drinking). She had cut her mother out of her life and was having a similar feeling toward what she wanted to do about her partner if he didn’t change.
Amorita identified that what she really wanted was to be at peace, and not have rocky relationships influence her inner state and growth. She needs to trust herself and build boundaries to achieve this.
Amorita connected to Nature through the recognition and understanding that the power of the island often brings up challenging feelings and emotions because they’re ready to be processes. This threshold realization opened up space for her to trust that the island was holding space for her to grow.
In future sessions, I’d like to explore some of the deflections I came across as well as the projected belief that came up from time to time that she cannot trust herself and is “evil” for following her own spiritual path (she grew up in a catholic family).
I feel that gestalt has been the best toolbox for enhancing my coaching presence. It gives me the framework and tools for really tracking the shifts, on very subtle levels, in my clients to read what their bodies and minds are saying. Using gestalt also has allowed me, with many clients, to get to the heart of the deeper need much more efficiently. I look forward to continuing my study and work with gestalt techniques. -
Initial post:
Jenny is 30 years old and we have had three sessions prior to the one I will write about today. Some brief backstory: her father died in November about 6 years ago. She had an estranged relationship with her mother that recently was amended after her mothers diagnosis with Leway Body Dementia. She is married and owns a sign business with her husband. Most of our work up to this point has been about boundaries and self-empowerment. Since we’ve worked together before, and have practiced yoga with each other for about 8 months, the coaching relationship was fairly established. We focused the session by doing a grounding and a check in.
She was pretty disregulated for this session. During our check in, she told me the story of how she bought a new dog with her husband yesterday, and then decided that she couldn’t take care of a puppy so she brought the dog back this morning. She didn’t really want the dog, but her husband did so she wanted to get one for him. Once she decided it was a bad idea, she felt all sorts of guilt and frustration around bringing the dog back. Her husband was angry with her and they had a big argument right before she came into our session. In addition, we we’re approaching the anniversary of her father’s death. She shared that this is usually a really hard time of year for her.
As we discussed, we uncovered that she often feels like she is taking care of everyone. Her husband. Her mother. Her step-brother. The act of getting a puppy felt so overwhelming. She couldn’t stand to have another thing to take care of. She said “And, I have no one to take care of me.”
From previous sessions, I knew that Jenny’s dad had been her caretaker and source of support. She came up against enormous grief around his death and losing this figure in her life. She still feels enormously sad and guilty around her dad’s death. Her father died from a heart condition, and it was a sudden death. There wasn’t much time to process or integrate what had happened.
The next unfolding was a lot of anger. She felt extremely angry at her dad for not taking better care of himself. For leaving her to take care of everything after him, which included her mother, their land, and his funeral arrangements. He didn’t have anything lined up or in place for his death. It was a complete shock.
It became clear to me really quickly that her reaction around the puppy was connected to her father, and she realized it as well. We spent the rest of the session in grief work. There was no coaching. No real defined threshold or incorporation, just space to feel. I suppose this space was a threshold for her in itself.
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.
My largest challenge in this session and with grief work is my own fear of loss and death. It definitely brought up feelings in my around my own experience of loss. I noticed this, and journaled about it after our session. I think there is more work to be done within me and within our culture on accepting death as a part of life.
I don’t foresee myself specifically seeking out clients who want to heal grief, but grief does seem to be everywhere. Even beyond physical losses of loved ones, I often see the smaller more subtle grief in my clients around change and transition. This is the grief I currently feel called to working with. Having the language and tools to see grief when it comes up and create space where it’s okay to exist feels like big work in my coaching. I eventually wish to get more comfortable with and around grief for myself, my clients, and my loved ones. That feels extremely important. -
Mandy,
Yes! Less is more. What a perfect saying when it comes to grief. I think that can be challenging as a coach, because we are trained to help individuals move forward. With grief, there is no movement forward, only movement inward and through. I also appreciate your reminder around telling our story and how that allows us to make sense of our loss or trauma. It shows me that it is equally important to share our stories, feel our bodies, and allow our feelings just exist with no judgement. Easier said than done, but having a coach definitely helps with this. -
Rachel- Wow, what an interesting way to set up sessions. I am super interested to hear how this has been going for you, Rachel! As a client, I could see having an on-call support network in the heat of the moment being really empowering and clarifying.
I am constantly amazed at how our natural settings speak to and deepen our coaching. The fact that you were in a graveyard to speak with your client’s grief is a total goosebump moment.
It sounds like when you allowed him space to share his story, while gently questioning what was there beneath it, it allowed him to integrate his past a current relationships. Your ability to weave his experience back to his throat and body shows a lot of skill in helping him integrate the two experiences even more.
I love your final note about the RAC and how that interplays with what we see and attract in our lives. I’ve definitely been noticing the same thing lately. For me, it feels like a combination of brain science as well as the fact that our brain’s are just super connected to other realms and mysterious forces that I couldn’t even begin to understand. Either way, it’s pretty powerful!
I had a similar experience where one of my long term clients, literally the day after the intensive ended, came in to our session in tears about her deceased father. I think life has been bringing me what I am ready for. -
Rachel,
It sounds like your client was stepping into contemplation with her awareness around finding a “middle way” that was neither extreme health eating or total disregard for health. It sounds like you explaining the brain and tuning into the limiting belief beneath her actions of fear she won’t receive the love she needs were a great method of bringing her into a deeper space, despite her resistance toward feeling any big emotions.
I appreciate your discernment in tracing beneath her “annoyance” around self-love to find that she hasn’t actually discovered how to experience and cultivate self-love. WOW!
It sounds like the discovering & flipping her default mode loops and thought processes brought her right into the deeper need! So cool.
I also love that you caught on to her desire to jump straight into action again, but encouraged her to stay in contemplation and planning for just a little longer. This may be the step she was missing in creating success for her health goals. -
Thanks for sharing, Kairon!
I am really interested in watching this documentary. I am particularly captivated by brain-heart synchronization. It reminds me of the work Heart-Math does, which I find so powerful!
I appreciate your reminder that our body is our nervous system: “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.” That is so cool!
From my experience in similar exercises to the one you you shared, “(1) slowing down of our breath (2) feelings of gratitude, compassion and love (3) feeling the space of heart somatically to stimulate this connection,” it really can move mountains within to connect our heart with our brain!
It sounds like this heart work is not only transformative as a client, but empowering as a coach as well. From reading your words, it sounds like it brought you into an experience of resonance and connection with your client on a deep level. Thanks for sharing! -
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! -
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! -
Hi, Wendy! Wow. It feels so powerful to read over this intense experience again, but from your perspective. I remember how important getting onto the ground and using my senses was during this session. The “I don’t know’s” did feel like a big wall to me. When Derek said something along the lines of “I have the sense that you feel like you are going to answer this wrong,” that was when I broke through the wall and into a big, and pretty scary, release. I am glad Derek was there to help facilitate and co-guide this with you, and to be able to see how his expertise in Gestalt really led me down a new path. It is interesting having you, Michael, and Derek there all at once, picking up on completely different but really useful feedback. It’s almost been 3 months since this, and the intensity has worn off, but I still feel really interested in what the heck happened up there that led to such a big somatic experience and release. I think we all learned a lot from this experience, in many different ways. I’m grateful that it all happened, and have been working through the experience on many levels since then that has led to a LOT of inner growth and metamorphasis. Thank you, Wendy!
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Lauren, reading this was such a beautiful refresher for me of the power within Gestalt. It sounds like you we’re able to see an recognize occurrences in your client on many different levels, including within yourself. You were aware of her body language, speech, and your own sensory experience of the contact boundary. I love how you saw the thread between your client’s dad passing, and her “story” regarding dating. You were able to reflect this, and bring your client back to the present moment. I really appreciate your questions around her relationship with her sister, asking what she wanted and needed from her. It sounds like that wasn’t something that had occurred to her before, and she was stuck in between wanting a different relationship and wanting to settle for the relationship as it was. This sounds like a lot of ground was covered for your client, and that you were able to gather a lot of important information to use when moving forward to future sessions. I echo what Ivy has shared, beautiful job holding space and being present with some heavy and big emotions! I’d be curious to hear how your following sessions have unfolded after this point.