Thanks so much for sharing, Sarah! It is good to hear your “voice” after all this time 🙂

I totally agree with Kent — that same quote really stood out to me as well. I love the way you describe internalizing aspects and elements of nature in how you relate to the world and your future clients. I will take this with me as well as a great remin…

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I totally echo this and really appreciate you including some indigenous beliefs in your writing! This statement about the Navajo, “To live in balance and harmony with all life is one’s ultimate goal, “developing pride of one’s body, mind, soul, spirit and honoring all life”. There are no “troubled” or lost people, no addicts or the insane, there…

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Kent,

I too can really relate to what you write about in your post regarding straddling two worlds, one of a sort of escape to the natural world which feels whole and cohesive, and the other a sort of messy and dismembered civilization. It is very disheartening for me to see how disconnected much of humankind is from nature and our roots and from…

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For me, being connected to nature is about being fully present in my body, in my mind, with the land and with the other beings around me. I feel like there’s a difference between being in nature as opposed to being connected to nature. The former being much more about doing, and that later more about being and relationship. Being out in nature i…

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Rachael,

I really resonated with the part of your post where you mention: “Someone with their wants, needs, and skills aligned in the wild…will have a self that feels more integrated. This sense of belonging creates more spaciousness for inner reflection to be positive (stronger internal connections), and for deepened relationships with nature and…

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David,

What you write about here is so rich for me! I appreciate how you break up the notions of anomie, alienation and flow into states of being experienced rather than “conditions” that one is sort of stuck with as an issue. It feels to me like the very manner in which you have observed yourself experiencing the movement from anomie to ali…

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Brian,

Thank you for sharing such an honest and raw look at the transformation you began to experience in the face to face. Like Kent, I also really resonated with this statement you made: “maintaining my personal connection to nature is vital to me being fully available, without judgment, and full of love and empathy for each client that I work w…

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Kim, awesome work! Reading this just brought up for me how powerful having educational or teaching moments can be. Look how powerful it has been for all of us! It sounds like helping your client learn about neuroplasticity and the power he has over his own neural connections, as well as his actions/reactions had a profound effect on him. Like you… Read more

Wow, amazing posts so far and juicy to read! Reading these gets me jazzed even more about partswork and how powerful it is for both us and for our clients. One of the themes that I am hearing in your posts is some doubt about how to explain this tool and whether or not clients will understand it. While I totally understand, I just want to reflect… Read more

Wow, Kim, that’s awesome that you are finding your way of incorporating the longterm coaching approach within your specific vision and business plan! I love that this happened on the water 🙂

“Neither were ready to commit to too long of a term so we agreed to put an agreement together that initially is 3 months with the option to extend or… Read more

Hi Melody,

Awesome job presenting a plan to your client!!! That takes a lot of extra thought and care and some courage as well. And you did it! I want to respond to what you said here: “A challenge I faced was my client being apprehensive of signing up for an 8 month program, which I totally understand can seem overwhelming so we agreed on a… Read more

Woooohoooo!!!!

All I have to say reading all of your visions and ways you are being called to bring your medicine into the world is HECK YES!!!!!!

Thank you. Thank you. Thank YOU for listening to hear your own callings and for courageously stepping up to meet who and what is calling to you.

Deanna,

This is such great awareness and so important for us to continue to hold in mind as coaches and guides:

“Crossing the “threshold” is like crossing one massive edge. To cross that edge, I must feel safe, trusting of my guide/coach, and have a clear plan. Otherwise, I will not want to cross. ….By my coach trusting in my process, emp… Read more

🙂

Wow, thank you all deeply for contributing in such heart-felt ways to these posts and this discussion. They are a joy to read over!

Wow, what rich and beautiful discussions happening in these posts! It truly reinvigorates and inspires me to read what nature connection is meaning for all of you. I hear such sincerity, passion, care and dedication in the words of this cohort. Here are some words that stand out to me. I’m enjoying just leaving these as raw quotes from you all a… Read more

“What do you do with your mind can change the structure of your brain“ -Dan Siegel

Wow, Nadine, this sounds like such a transformative couple of sessions for your client. Great work!!

I’m really struck by how ready the Soul part of your client was ready to step up and take control once the insight and awareness were there of the parts. That is fantastic.

I’m also really struck by your deep and active listening. “During the… Read more

YES!! Love these questions. How powerful to incorporate these into your partswork practice.

“Are all the parts in harmony/flexibility? Are some in chaos? Are some in rigidity? Is this the root of the inner conflict for our clients?”

Such great comments, Ivy. And such a powerful work you are doing already with your client, Amber, even if you ran into the confines of time or the limits of where you were able to go to in a given timeframe of a session. Thank you so much, Ivy, for the reminder of the power of space that we are holding and that we can help our client to create for… Read more

Wow Sheri, awesome work!!!

This sounds like a really powerful and transformative session!! Its so cool to hear how you were able to incorporate the embodied partswork with your client by using the table settings even in an online session. So great!

What you say in your post, here, really struck me and can be so important for your clients. In… Read more

Oh my gosh, I hear you Nadine! Finding my way with incorporating nature in the online sessions has been a journey. Stay curious about how you might do this in little ways that work for you. Some ideas that might get the creative juices flowing:
– meet with clients outside (do a phone call from an outdoor place or put Zoom on your phone and… Read more

Awesome Melody!

I’m so psyched to hear you are finding your way with partswork and that reading Mindsight is helping pull some of this together for you!

“I feel like this flowed well as learning about it is easiest done by experiencing it.” — YES! Learning is best done by doing, experiencing in the moment. This is really where the tra… Read more

Kim,

Great work seizing the moment, asking for permission to coach and diving into partswork where you saw that it might be helpful! This is awesome!!

Yes, as most of you noted, it can be interesting to find your way into explaining partswork to clients. For many of us, the concept is natural–it’s not a stretch to understand that we have m… Read more

Kim, this is so awesome! I love the session on the water idea, particularly thinking about your unique gifts as a coach so connected to adventure and movement!

Nadine, wonderful point you bring up about the friend possibly needing to build trust in this new role of Kim as coach.

I would also add that it’s important to remember that w… Read more

Nadine, this is awesome and such a wonderful job from your write up of the experience. I want to address what you wrote in your last paragraph. I think Gestalt in the way we are learning to incorporate it with coaching is like a pair of x-ray vision glasses we can put on. I would say yes, it is an awareness tool super focused on what is arising in… Read more

This specific visualization experiment is not something I’ve led a client through before. It was just an inspiration and idea that came to me in the moment based on the content of what we were working with. I find that when I am coaching and I am truly present (setting down my own parts that try to plan out the next move or know what to say) t… Read more

Sheri, these are great reflections on your work with your client. And yes, practicing with a Gestalt-y approach might be a bit different via phone. In this case you are not looking at body language so much as reading tone of voice, tapping into baseline shifts and other energetic shifts that you can perceive as you tune into voice (which you… Read more

Awesome observations Amber! I think filling in the space with talking is something we can all relate to!! One of my mentors had me do an experiment once, to time myself in a session and give at least 20 seconds of silence and see what happened. It was so eye opening. First of all, it felt like a loooong time but in actuality it was only 20… Read more

Yes, such a good point to be highly aware of eye contact, when and how it helps and how it can potentially serve to allow someone to go a bit deeper at times. This reminds me of a session I had with a client where she was very triggered but not yet fully verbalizing what was going on for her. We had been sitting on the ground face to face and I… Read more

Nadine,

This is such a good question and one I am constantly playing with in my own practice. I think this is one area where the practice of Gestalt and Coaching meet in a paradoxical manner. You are correct in that Gestalt is about the “here and now”, acknowledging that whatever is arising in the moment is the actual work that is most rel… Read more

Nadine,

Yes! What you said here resonated with me, “being confident, and trusting the process will be critical as we are entering into the unknown.” And this is an important element in creating trust with your client. When we as coaches are able to fully 100% trust in the work we are doing, and in the innate wisdom of our clients, and when we a… Read more

Wow, incredible posts so far! I’m hearing several themes as I read through these. One of that realization of just how wise and powerful nature really is in providing the exact medicine the client needs in that moment in their lives – so long as there is an openness and a willingness to see it. Which leads to the other theme I’m hearing; just how… Read more

Sheri,

I really appreciate your truth and honesty with these readings. What you said here especially stood out to me, “While I enjoyed the concepts and took away what I believe to be very supportive information for this path I am on, connecting others back to nature. I am realizing I am much simpler, it is much simpler. I think we, humans, get… Read more

What a beautiful post, Kim. I so appreciate the other sources you included in your post. I really appreciate Plotkin’s quote about the healing nature of connection for BOTH humans and the land.

And OMG, I am tearing up with total joy that some of you had an experience of reciprocity and the kind of healing that deep connection can bring both t… Read more

Yesssss! Well put!

Hi everyone,

Oh man, I am sure excited to see and meet all of you in person!! For any of you that I haven’t met yet, I’m Mandy. I’m one of the student mentors for EBI and I can’t wait to dive in with you.

I know that the energy and momentum is picking up speed, and we are in the final stretch before the trip and intensive. Please know we… Read more

After thinking about this module as a whole for my summary post, and re-reading your post, it is just striking to me just how freaking beautiful this is. You wrote about how you asked your client “what becomes possible as she holds these both at the same time” (two seemingly opposing parts). And I’m thinking about that within the greater con… Read more

Summary Post:

It has been a little challenging for me to really identify specifically what I learned in partswork 2 (above and beyond partswork 1). Though I clearly see my ability to guide a client through partswork expanding, it has been a challenge for me to identify specifics of what this module taught me. But actually reflecting on the… Read more

Yes, I love that. I think this is where long term coaching and partswork can really interface — when a pattern becomes so clear that I can then kindly name what I am seeing and give the client choice to continue as we have been, working with the part, or to try something different. So empowering! Thanks <3

Summary Post:

It strikes me reading through the posts on here again that through long term coaching we are engaging in a large scale process of increasing one’s window of tolerance, titrating not only within each session, but on a larger scale titrating through phases, and even seasons, through periods of intense discomfort into periods of e… Read more

Wow, Rachel, thank you so much for being willing to share your personal experience of being coached/guided. I do feel like this was helpful for me and that I learned from reading your post. The part about bringing in a resource and calling in the soul especially stood out to me. You said, “We can invoke “parts” from our clients simply throu… Read more

Initial Post:

I’ve been working with this client weekly for about 5 months with one little break. She is an art therapist with a high level of awareness and clearly some understanding of the parts of her that are at play. She has many different parts that seem to have developed in response to life events, like a 4yo little girl, a 5yo lost c… Read more

Rachel, so cool!! Your own reflections on this seem so right on. To answer the question, “what do I want?” seems simple but is so dang complex. We would all be answering it if we could. It makes so much sense to me that it has taken this much time for her system to become more integrated. That is something that is standing out to me with this mod… Read more

Initial Post:

I had an initial intake with a new client about a week before we had our Long Term Coaching module. During the initial intake, which is 2 hours long, after my client gave me a brief overview of the issues she was seeking coaching for, I had my client take about 30 minutes to tell me her life story. She actually began pre-birth and… Read more

Summary Post:

For me, learning about the brain has been so empowering. And I find that it is empowering for my clients as well to understand how they are wired and how change actually works. It takes change from this out of reach concept into a grounded physical possibility. It helps me to feel that there is possibility and that I have the… Read more

Initial Post:

My client is a woman I have been working with regularly for the past several months. She is an art therapist with a high level of self awareness. She has a deep connection to nature, and a large capacity and willingness to imagine. She is working with shifting old patterns and limiting beliefs that were encoded throughout her… Read more

Thanks for sharing about this, Kaity. Something I can relate to in your post is the client staying caught up in the story, and the difficulty of dropping into deeper territory with them. It seems like when a client is circling in their story, they are more than likely in pre-contemplation talking about what happened (often to them) and what they… Read more