[Naffer Miller]

Summary

When we do the seven breaths, we consider one of two questions, “How do I heal this?” or “How do I create more of this in my life?” Those questions are focused on growth and positivity. The answers to both questions and the subsequent actions are going to present varying degrees of challenges and difficulties, but the questions themselves are setting us up for success by firmly rooting us in a positive state from which to heal and grow. We can facilitate change for ourselves and in working with our clients by keeping an eye on that red ball, waking up our RAS’s and orienting to what we want, and focusing on the “DO”.

In thinking about those breaths, which are often surrender breaths, and about reframing when talking about the brain and change, I have also been thinking about the word “surrender”. Going back to Dispenza and other NCC conversations, we have looked at crossing the river of change, leaving one side completely and arriving upon the shores of the other. When we accept that our “old selves are just going to be there,” I get stuck on the word “just”. I believe that we are a culmination of our experiences and our collected moments leading up to each of our present moments. We could not arrive where we are without having been where we were. Why does the old self need to die? Why can’t we get rid of the word “just” and fully accept ourselves for who we are, what we have experienced, and how the old is going to indelibly inform the new?

I’d like to, instead, say to my old self, “Thank you. Welcome to our present. We are here because of you. We are honored to join with you as we all step forward into the ‘new unpredictable, unfamiliar’ self.”

[Naffer Miller]

In all of our intensives, the connections betwixt and between continue to be made for me. In this intensive one of the connections that landed very solidly for me was between the ways in which we can correlate guiding through grief and the stages of change. Because grief can be so uncertain (e.g., when will it hit us?, in what ways will it manifest?), there is some comfort to be found in a construct like Kubler-Ross’s five stages. Naming stages can provide otherwise absent mileposts and landmarks that can help a griever feel less untethered and lost. This is where I wondered about the stages of change that we discussed against the backdrop of the brain. Perhaps, where the brain is the hardware applied to stages of change, the mind is the software for the different aspects of grief.

Change is inevitable, and I would argue that grief is also inevitable. We discussed in Brain and Change that the “Termination” stage is not a destination upon which to set our sights. There are aspects of the Termination stage that will serve our continual changes, perhaps feed back into the loop of Maintenance and other stages. As we grow, mature, and arrive at different events and points in our lives, changes previously created will require maintenance, fine tuning, shifts, and new needs may inform new changes. I think the same is true with grief. Like with the stages of change, “getting over it” and/or achieving a feeling of being “complete” with grief is not a destination upon which we would set our sights in partnering with a client as a Guide. Similarly, there are aspects of grief that will serve our continual changes and evolutions as we move forward.

I found it curious that we were advised to beware of “stages” of anything that people look to as a standard or expected steps they “should” be going through. When discussing stages of change with our clients, we are sharing a tool. From one point of view, starting from guiding through change, there are connections that come to mind for me between any sort of life changes and grief for that from which we are evolving away. From another point of view, starting from guiding through grief, so too are there connections I see between any sort of grief and changes that evolve out of those processes. If we are providing a framework- perhaps Rose’s Cycle of Grief- we can guide as NCCs through ceremony and with ritual, in the same way we would in sessions that incorporate modalities like Partswork, and/or exercises like resourcing.

That’s where Prend’s “The Myth of Closure” helped bring it together for me. Within the microcycles of individual sessions and ceremony, there is incorporation. As we Guide through grief with ceremony, and with Nature as a partner, we are also within a macrocycle, over the course of any number of sessions, and there is another kind of incorporation and healing. In many ways, grief is associated with a loss of some kind, but it is not an absolute loss. There is the remaining energy of what was lost, the memories associated with it, and maybe there are physical reminders that remain. Even if we eradicate the physical, there will still be residual evidence of what was previously present.

The goal is not eradication with grief, just like the goal is not the stage of Termination with change. As guides, we are working with our clients to microcycle through ceremony, with incorporation, within the ever-present and ever-evolving macrocycle of healing. In my notes from the module, I wrote “people grieve when they can.” When I think about cycles and ages and stages, I also added to my notes that, in different places in their lives, and in different ways, “people will also grieve how they can.”

A question that came up for me during the module was, “In what ways does Nature grieve?” I feel sad that I know woefully little about this. What ceremonies and rituals exist in Nature after a loss is experienced? In what ways can I, one who humbly partners with Nature and stands in awe and wonder at the marvel and magnificence of Nature, honor those losses and support that grief?

[Naffer Miller]

Summary

I have spent a great deal of time in this module reflecting on my experiences throughout my life of visiting the homes of those in mourning, and in the last 20 years, as a member of my synagogue’s Chevra Kadisha, a group that supports the preparation of a body for burial, the staying with the body until the time of burial, and also the mourner’s home and the week of shiva. When entering into any of these situations, especially that of a mourner’s home, a container has already been set, and we are doing our part to continue holding those sacred spaces. In the home of a mourner, it is customary that we do not speak first. We remain quietly with the mourners, and if they wish to talk, share memories, or ask us something, then we follow their lead and energy. If they wish to remain silent, our presence is the comfort, not our words. Just as we do as Nature-Connected Coaches and Guides, sometimes the deepest listening takes place when no words are exchanged at all.

Building off of that, I often think about the “point A to point B” description of Coaching and Guiding, and with grief there are no endpoints. By allowing one who is grieving the permission to engage and/or not engage in any sort of giving or receiving of language, we are not moving them away from the awareness that they are in the act of grieving. It’s all about allowing one to experience the grief. The hardest part, I think, is holding onto that and remembering that the permission does not expire, even after the “officially” recognized (e.g., days off from work, religious periods of mourning) timeframe is over. Holding onto that permission for our clients, while also guiding them on other paths, can be hard to lose sight of and crucial not to.

[Naffer Miller]

I love all the required readings that have been assigned and the recommended readings that have been shared, both by our instructors and our cohortmates. For example, I have found the book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, by Joe Dispenza, to be enlightening, interesting, applicable, and at times, mind-blowing.

I have to say, however, that I can’t stand the title.

Why does Dispenza want us to hold the intention of Breaking the Habit of Being ourselves when we read his book? Why would we ever want to hold that intention when we are partnering with our clients in a coaching relationship?

Throughout this entire course, we have been discussing the importance of starting from places of strength, beginning with resource, and trusting that our clients have all the answers inside of themselves. There is value in each and every one of us, flaws and all. All that we are has served us at one time or another. The title of Dispenza’s book just sounds out of key and disharmonious with the rest of what we have learned, experienced, and discussed.

“All change is difficult, even positive change.” I have heard myself say that more times than I could guess over the years. I don’t remember where or when I first heard it, but it resonated so powerfully and so deeply that I have carried it with me ever since. Whenever I am working with my students, talking with my two children, facilitating a session at work, and now guiding with a client, this saying is an actively vibrating wave in the undercurrents to those exchanges.

Change is difficult, and that we have so many resources available to help us through change is evidence of that difficulty. Both the Brain and Change need a new Public Relations firm, though. Let’s start with the title of Dispenza’s book.

How about Be Yourself and Create New Habits?

Or You Rock! You Can Create New Habits! You’ve Got This!

While I’m on this topic, I’d also like to rename some of the “beauty” products out there, like anti-aging creams and freckle reducers. That’s a different post for a different day…

In most discussions of which I have been a part about the brain and change, there is a tendency to lapse into negative phrasing. “The brain is lazy” is a phrase I’ve heard often, and we’ve even used it in our NCC course. How about “efficient”? What if we reframed the brain as one of the most complex systems on the face of the planet that is also one of the greatest “energy conservationists”? Change can also be reframed to focus on creating, moving forward, growing, and resilience. Resilience itself can even be reframed from “bouncing back from” to “springing forward towards”!

One of my favorite activities to do with groups is to have them close their eyes while I repeat, “Do not think about a red ball. Whatever you do, do NOT think about a red ball. Think about anything other than a red ball. I repeat, do NOT think about a red ball.” I have used it to introduce a number of topics, and there is always an element of reframing discussed. In our NCC discussions, we talk about asking powerful questions, and we have even practiced restating a question to make it open ended, less leading, and so on. The same goes with our reflections back to clients and what is focused on in our statements. I believe these are not just about semantics, and they are all key to supporting the changes going on in the brain. The brain processes, “Don’t run!” very differently than, “Walking feet, please.” The responses to and eventual habits created from those repeated responses are also vastly different. Do we want to focus on NOT running and any negative consequences of failing to comply, or do we want to focus on walking and the positive successes enjoyed of practicing that new habit?

I don’t want to break the habit of being me. As a Guide, I also don’t want to start from a point of breaking anything in/with/for/about my clients. We all rock, and we’ve all got this!

[Naffer Miller]

Recently, in trying to put words to my work as an NCC for some of my more skeptical listeners, and in recognizing the roles of the brain and Nature, I landed on an equation that may help introduce Nature-Connected Coaching to some of my clients who are otherwise wary of the “squishy” parts of it. I introduce to you the Law of Non-Squishy Coaching: If everything happens in our brains and our brains are nature, then everything happens in nature. I’m still working on it. Where I am going with that loose application of the Transitive Law is that perhaps connecting the brain to coaching for our clients could also be a way to introduce Nature as a partner in the equation who is already doing the work with them. In working with an issue, Nature could be introduced as a safe source for metaphor and/or for resourcing, without raising the flags of “trust falls” and “touchy feely” aspects of coaching that some of my clients have expressed fear of in the past.

For me, the role of Nature in this module was like a salve for all of the triggers that threatened my ability to concentrate and engage. We talked about resourcing and its power to change people’s lives, and how we can always find and get to resource, no matter how challenging things are. Nature itself is an amazing resource, a bottomless well of resourcing.

In contrast, I have been sitting with the questions about the traumas and Traumas that Nature experiences. On a local level, I love my garden, and I talk to my plants. I know they are adaptable and resilient (for the most part), but I don’t want to be the source of their pain and/or trauma. In what ways may I be doing that? On a global level, I find those questions to oftentimes feel crushing and paralyzing, and I am feeling pulled, now more than ever, to fight that discomfort and find answers to those critical questions. In what ways can we help guide Nature through Trauma?

[Naffer Miller]

I have not yet had any sessions with a client that have touched on trauma. When I was trying to decide what I wanted to write about for this submission, however, I was overwhelmed by how many examples I had of working through trauma on my own and/or with others that I could share. From my personal life at home, to my experiences as a volunteer with my Rescue Squad, or to working as a teacher and at camp, I had examples of working through trauma in any direction I turned, and it made me think of the saying, “Everybody has their stuff.”

Everyone also has their resources.

In all of the examples I just listed, in addition to being able to identify traumas, I can also identify resources and experiences of resourcing. I appreciate how Katie talked about starting with resource, much like when we start from a place of strength in Partswork. The topic of resiliency has risen to the surface in many communities and conversations recently, especially in this time of COVID. Whether it’s named as such or not, starting with resource is a key element in building resiliency.

Resilience is a process. I have often thought about the contrast between the images of bouncing back and springing forward. For me, bouncing back feels like it starts from a place of a reeling, backward movement that is unsettling and out of one’s control. I feel it in my belly when I think about bouncing back because there is that initial state of unease, and a sense that it will require more effort to shift towards forward movement. Springing forward, however, feels like it can start from a state of stillness and calm, and there is more control over the process. With resourcing, we can start from a grounded point, naming challenges and obstacles, and collecting lessons learned. We can then spring forward as we work through sequencing and celebrate the capacity to heal.

One of the chapters in The Untethered Soul that resonated with me was, “removing your inner thorn.” I read that “thorn” to be trauma. “The first choice,” Singer says, “is to look at your situation and decide that since it’s so disturbing when things touch the thorn, you need to make sure nothing touches it. The second choice is to decide that since it’s so disturbing when things touch the thorn, you need to take it out.” A thorn doesn’t have to be big to cause serious pain, and we need to complete the process, sequence, and be sure it’s removed in a way that is going to allow for healing. Reading that makes it feel so obvious. Why wouldn’t you remove a thorn?! And yet…

When we participated in the different resourcing exercises, I was drawn to the balances between safety and fear, the familiar and unknown, fluid and frozen. The protection of the thorn from being touched and the process of the thorn being removed. I found comfort in the fact that pain and pleasure are both perceived and processed in the same part of our brains. I felt it in my heart and chest when Katie said, “Whatever happens is perfect.”

Rather than avoiding, masking, or suppressing trauma, which have been the prevailing responses in my personal experiences, for both myself and those around me, it is crucial to allow it to sequence. I am grateful for what we learned about trauma and sequencing, and I feel better equipped now to support a client in that awareness. I am also buoyed by the notion that with resourcing and support in sequencing, we can move forward with a wider window of tolerance and from a place of balance.

[Naffer Miller]

One of the common threads that has followed us throughout the course is that “one size does not fit all.” This is something I have intuited since I can remember, and it is one of my favorite aspects of coaching and guiding… and of teaching and facilitating, for that matter! In stepping us through the Stages of Change in Changing for Good, Proschaska, Norcross, and DiClemente emphasize the number of techniques that can be employed within each of those steps. While there are universals that serve as a framework for tracking where our clients are in the process of change, they are unique individuals working within and amongst those universals. The steps serve as a framework, and the deep work we do with our clients will flow iteratively and fluidly within it.

For my own neural pathways and reflections on my development as a Nature-Connected Coach, I journaled about my session with K on a few different days. One of the things I wrote about was how it helped me hear a familiar message in a new way, “What we focus on grows.” I have often used my garden as a metaphor for some of my own growth and my own journey. During that session, I also heard and experienced that interconnectedness between focus and intention. I am curious to see how that message comes back to me in future sessions, especially when my focus starts to turn toward any doubt about my ability to guide effectively, for example.

[Naffer Miller]

I have been in the role of a Career Coach at my company for over a year now, and I have been working with K recently on the issue she brought to our 1:1 of feeling stuck. We had only had one session prior to our Brain and Change module, and while it was a good session, I was excited to meet with her again after learning about the Stages of Change. While ‘stuck’ is a commonly used word – I know I have certainly used that word more than once in my own coaching sessions, and I have heard it in other sessions as well – here was an opportunity to explore it within my client’s unique experience and within this new framework.

K started the session asking for my advice on creating long-term career goals because she thought that might help her start to break away from her stasis that she described. She identified shifts that she had recently made in her personal life and with her career, and she shared her frustration with how none of them seemed to help her feel like she was moving forward. With each decision, she felt like she was just moving laterally.

As her coach, a struggle I had was in identifying which of the stages of change she was in. She wanted to get un-stuck and feel like she was moving forward in a constructive, meaningful way, but we hadn’t quite landed on her deeper need. Could the vague notion of just wanting to find her “next thing” be enough of a goal? It wasn’t a SMART goal, but it was a start. Her stasis had not been a problem before, those patterns were no longer serving her now, and now she was ready for a change, so it felt like she was in Contemplation.

As we continued to explore her deeper need, at one point she said, “Now I’m finding that I don’t much like not knowing.” We have been learning that the brain loves patterns and will find them where they don’t exist because our brains also don’t like uncertainty. The high level of uncertainty that K was experiencing was causing her stress, so I asked her some questions that I hoped would help get her neurons firing in a way that would find other patterns that did not cause her stress, patterns of certainty and knowing.

She was very fidgety, and while I can only see her from her shoulders up in our Zoom meetings, I was tracking her baseline and noticing signs of disregulation. After guiding her through some breaths and grounding, I invited her to keep her eyes closed and think about what it looked like for her at a time when she was in a place of knowing, when she was moving forward toward a clear goal. We then spent time with her experience of being in graduate school, in a program she loved, and explored those patterns and behaviors that she named as empowering and of service to her and her goal and how she could apply them now and moving forward. Her statements of excitement about her “homework” indicated to me that she was starting to write a new story for herself, focusing on possibilities.

K started by asking for my advice, and she left our session with next steps and a new excitement that she identified for herself without one bit of suggestion or advice from me. While we didn’t do a threshold out on the land, we did talk about the possibility of doing a wander in the future. I “put a pin” in the word wander for a future session because she talked at one point about being drawn to “people who like to wander”, envying them, and wanting to be able to do that herself.

I was unsure of myself at the beginning about how I would do with the Stages of Change, and I was excited when I noticed early on in the session that she was jumping into Planning. I also felt validated when I reached the bottom of page 41 in my copy of Changing for Good and read, “’I want to stop feeling so stuck.’ Those simple words are typical of contemplators.”

[Naffer Miller]

When thinking about radical acceptance, I also think about the ways in which I strive to extend grace and kindness outward and to be compassionate with others. Going back to Dr. Taylor, something that stood out for me was when she said, “For me, it’s really easy to be kind to others when I remember that none of us came into this world with a manual about how to get it all right.” I believe it is vital that we strive to extend all of that grace, kindness, and compassion inward to ourselves as well. When I struggled with my well-populated Mandala while learning about and practicing with Partswork, I immediately connected with the concept of always starting with strengths. Instead of describing it as a mess, I need to reframe that and instead see my Mandala as fertile ground for the Partswork I will do on my own. Partswork feels to me to be big and vast, as we lean into the unknown, and simultaneously familiar and accessible, as we connect with what we can identify and name.

In the limited experience I have had with Partswork so far, I have felt like those parts that are best-known to me are a source of comfort and safety in my system. I also wonder if those parts will keep me from readily connecting with the rest of my system and being able to bring more order to it. One of my biggest takeaways from Partswork is that we have to practice it ourselves in order to be able to do it with a client. During the intensive, we experienced that it is possible to introduce Partswork into a single session and that it can be profoundly impactful. There is such a rich array of entry points and invitations into the work, and it feels like a modality that can be infinitely effective when used in long-term coaching as well.

On a different note, I was pulled to change my setting for this intensive and to go somewhere with access to a different space for Nature connection and awareness, and I am feeling pulled now to share this with you all. My daughter, puppy, and I stayed in a hotel on the beach. The entire week, I couldn’t bring myself to close the sliding glass door- I wanted to hear the wind and waves without a barrier! I left it open every night, and the last night there was a rainstorm. As exhausted as I was, I couldn’t sleep because I wanted so badly to listen deeply and take in every possible minute of the storm. It was like the last night of camp when I didn’t want it to end. I always “knew,” and now I KNOW that I need to live on the water someday. Or in the mountains. I need to be able to hear Mother Earth’s waves of water on the shore or wind in the treetops. I also need to be able to walk out the door and just. be. there. I have a pond off of my backyard, and I am grateful for the natural space in my house’s immediate vicinity. I am planning for my next space now.

[Naffer Miller]

As distant as I felt from Gestalt, is how hard in love I fell with Partswork. I know Gestalt and Partswork are connected, but I am not able to fully see how or why just yet. Gestalt baffled me, and Partswork empowered me. It instantaneously gave me a lens through which I could consider my feelings, my actions, and the world around me. Who, for example, is typing this right now?

I struggle with my Mandala, though. It’s a mess. I was a combination of ashamed, anxious, and determined when I saw Mandalas that others shared. I have parts on top of other parts, different colored stickies for parts based on what they bring to the system, and it is just a cacophony of words and colors! I even added pages to my Jamboard to make room for some reorganization, a “green room” if you will, for those parts I need to put off to the side for a bit, as I figure this all out. In Self, Soul, Spirit, I was comforted to see that there is no set number of parts. I also enjoyed reading the “descriptive phrases that give meaning” to their parts. Perhaps clearer, more articulated descriptive phrases that emerge over time will help to identify those parts on my Mandala that are truly parts. I also feel like some of the current names of my parts will eventually be absorbed by their descriptive phrases as their true names are revealed.

When I reopened my Mandala after being away from it for a while, my head felt like it was buzzing with indistinct chatter, conversations, and activity, like you might encounter in an exhibit hall at a conference. I felt welcome in that chaos because I knew who everyone was, and I was in familiar territory, which was a happy place to be after feeling so untethered in Gestalt. I knew, however, that if I was going to be able to do deep work WITH my Mandala, I was first going to have to do deep work ON it. I am grateful for the struggle with my oh-so-many parts and the process of sifting, sorting, and streamlining because it will help me as a Guide in doing Partswork with my clients.

I am also fascinated by the idea of making a Mandala in nature and wish we’d had the opportunity to that during this intensive. I picture my parts in a 3D sphere of sorts, outside of myself and usually above my head, with Soul at the center. I think the experience of working with my Mandala in Nature will bring it to life for me in a way that the Jamboard can’t.

I know that Dr. Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight focuses more on the brain, but as I was going through it, I kept thinking about Partswork. The ways in which she characterized the personalities of her hemispheres and the tasks and activities at which they each excelled made sense to me. The way she described how people could know, by how she carried herself, “who” walked into a room, felt very much like a description of her parts. What are the relationships between the two hemispheres of our brain and our parts? I am curious about what it would be like to drop into a part and consider whether it was in more of a right or left hemisphere space. Can a part flow between the two in the same ways Dr. Taylor describes?

Dr. Taylor also talks about the storyteller “portion” of her left brain, and then refers to it outright, as she describes observing “my storyteller”, as if referring to a part. She then goes on to describe the elements of her left brain that she chose not to recover because of how they made her feel and how they manifested physically in other ways. I keep thinking that her choice not to activate a certain neural network, and instead focus on activating and strengthening other neural networks, is somehow related to Partswork. For example, perhaps that “circuitry” she chose to leave behind is connected to introjects somehow, and that circuitry no longer served her and her system.

[Naffer Miller]

I described my feelings about Gestalt at one point as being the same as the frustrations I felt with those hidden 3D stereogram posters. When they were popular about 20ish years ago, I would stare at them, gaze at them, and look at them. And then I would throw a crazy combination gazelookstare at them some more. I would let my focus go soft and blurry. I’d look off to the sides. I would try to surprise it by looking away, pretending I no longer cared about seeing the hidden picture anymore, as if I were trying to trick my brain into remembering a word on the tip of my tongue by “forgetting” about the fact that I was trying to remember. Then, I would look back quickly to see if it spurred some ability to see and capture the image. I dared it to try and continue to elude and hide from me!

And it did. Every. Time.

Gestalt felt the same way for me this week. I listened so hard, I reread my notes during breaks, I looked stuff up online, and I still feel like I missed the entire parade, point, and purpose.

So, you know what I did? I researched those pesky stereograms to find out WHY I could never see them! I thought maybe that would help me understand, or at least serve as a metaphor for why I could not connect with or wrap my arms around Gestalt.

“A stereogram is an image which, when viewed with two eyes, produces the illusion of depth perception.” (Can YOU see the shark? Researchers reveal how the magic eye illusions work – and why not everyone can see the hidden 3D images, Daily Mail article from October 24, 2016) Instead of looking AT the image, you were supposed to look through it, which the article identifies as “divergent viewing”. That is in my notes! Gestalt is about seeing the whole picture, and also about looking inside. I know X-ray vision is not the same as divergent viewing, but they feel very similar.

In an article from Brown University’s Math Department, I can’t see the #$%!*&%ing thing! (a title I personally feel resonates with how I felt in the Gestalt module), there are several experiments shared to see if you might be one of the “rare” cases of people who are unable to see these pictures. I tried a few and think I fall into the “dominant eye” group, but I am not sure. If I do fall into that category, the article says I am one of the ’lucky few’ who actually has an excuse for not being able to see them. I’m not convinced, and that doesn’t make me feel lucky, but it is comforting to know that there are other like-minded (obsessed?) individuals out there who conducted studies and surveys (at MIT, for example) around this phenomenon.

What does this tell me? I am willing to research things to find out why, and I keep trying and trying if there is hope of figuring something out (I have gone back a few times to try to see the pictures). Specifically related to Gestalt, I think I understand the why, and I don’t yet know how all of this informs beginning to practice this with clients. I plan to continue to read and research more, and I would also like to join a Gestalt deep dive at some point.

[Naffer Miller]

Summary

“Partswork invites such a rich array of points of entry into the work, and I imagine there will be as many unique mandalas as there are people creating them.” I wrote that in my journal back when we started Partswork together. As I reflect back on my time with my Cohort throughout this course, I am also reflecting back on all of our intensives, fishbowls, toolboxes, and other experiences together. We have grown so close through our uniquely shared experiences, and it still feels as if there remains an infinite amount of unexplored wilderness in the landscape of our tightly-knit group. We are all parts of a magnificent whole. Together, we have faced numerous points of entry into our practice work with one another and in our discussions during our sessions. Partswork, for me, has become more complex, layered, subtle, and powerful as a modality against the backdrop of my reflections.

There are universal aspects to our mandalas at a very high level (or very basic level, depending upon one’s point of view). Like with the stages of grief, stages of change, or even the stages of group development that our cohort experienced in its own way, the ability to label them helps make them accessible and familiar. In reality, however, there are no absolutes or right or wrong ways to live through and experience them. With Partswork, a name on a mandala can be one of several that parts can embrace, an identified strength upon a first interview can be one of several other strengths a part can realize. Just as we grow and evolve, so do our parts and our mandalas. I think I had “known” this with my head pretty early on, but the knowing I now have in my heart, after our continued work and learning together, has a new richness to it.

[Naffer Miller]

I remember the first time I imagined my Mandala. It was hard for me to compose it in a 2-D jamboard on my computer. I think even sticky notes on a big piece of paper would have been difficult for me to work with at first. Instead, when I closed my eyes, I saw it so clearly, slowly spinning above my head, gently contracting and expanding. It was like an expandable breathing ball, with my parts at each of the connection points holding the sphere together. The structure was strong and sturdy, and it was also flexible and delicate. Soul was at the core of the sphere.

In Self, Soul, Spirit, we read that “It is up to each of us to identify all the parts we feel we are born with.” That first connection with my sphere Mandala above my head did not also include all of my parts with names, but it definitely revealed the power of and potential for evolution. Since that intensive, and as we worked through this second Partwork module, it has been comforting to remind myself that my Mandala will continue to evolve the more I work with and on it, and that the growth and change will take place over a number of years, not weeks or months. “Mandalas shift as we get to know ourselves better and listen deeply to the voices inside.”

As that evolution takes place, I am also reminded of the principle of Challenge by Choice (CBC). As we work with ourselves and we work with our clients, we have to remember that what feels seamless and simple for some can feel dangerous and difficult for others. We’ve talked about how one size does not fit all in our NCC course, and CBC includes the elements of creating a safe container, holding that space, and allowing for ourselves and our clients to stretch outside of our comfort zones, but not push so far as to enter into a panic zone. When we worked with each other in this intensive, there were times that our Partswork brought us to those edges. Stopping short of panic can also lead to those “ah-ha” moments that we also discussed. It’s the hard work we do from those seeds of transformation, within our stretch zones, that will lead to change.

[Naffer Miller]

Summary

In his essay, “Eye and Mind”, the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty discusses how we cannot see everything at once, that our positions in the world at certain times limit our perceptions; there is always more to see. While some may see this as a limitation of our being human, I see it as liberating. It allows for the digestion of information and the germination of new ideas that offshoot from the previous ones, just like in nature. More specifically, it allows for more than one approach and more than one point of view. This is something I feel is vital to remember, especially when it comes to a long-term coaching relationship.

Over time with a client, the recognition of multiple perspectives gives us the freedom to explore diverse expressions and to embrace the creative process of guiding/coaching. On a deeper level, we are shaken from the comfort of a unilateral, linear progression of thought. Instead of seeking explanations, we open ourselves to iterations, cycles, and continual learning and evolution. An explanation implies an end, a conclusion. Since something has been explained to us, there is sometimes a sense that we no longer need to think about it or work on it ourselves. Even if our coaching relationship closes with a client, their practices and process will resonate forward. I see this in the same way as the question of how an artist knows when they are finished. I feel like an artist’s work is never finished because it changes every time it is perceived. I also feel like a client’s work with us as NCCs will never end because it will change with each new experience that they have. Nature is the most enduring, compelling testament to change, and it is an honor to partner with it on this journey as a guide/coach and with clients in all spaces, including a long-term relationship.

[Naffer Miller]

I have been reflecting on the long-term coaching and the work I do as a Career Coach at my company. There are tasks that we need to accomplish together as part of the company’s criteria and constructs, and there is also space for me to create the container of the time we have together. There is a framework we are given for the first year of employment, and we have milestones to track with our coachees throughout that year, while we support them with their multiple learning curves- company, role as consultant, learning about the clients we support and government contracting. Within all of that, I have found room to also begin weaving in some of the NCC practices and ceremony without compromising the roles and responsibilities my company is relying on me to execute and support. One of the reasons why I am able to do this is that my company is focused on a holistic approach to learning and development. It is one of the things my coworkers often refer to when talking about things like having Career Coaches. We talk about personal and professional growth, passions, and in our company’s language, even deeper needs.

One of my coachees, S, is still in her first six months of employment, and it has been interesting to reflect upon the similarities and differences in the long-term coaching relationship I have with her and with K, the coachee with whom I have been working the longest, and since before beginning this NCC course. With S, the coaching I do is still very much rooted in the work that she is doing with the company. When she meets with me, I am still a face of the company- Naffer, her company Career Coach- and I feel like we are still some months away from her coming to our sessions to me with me as Naffer, her Guide/Coach. When we are talking about wants and deeper needs, they are focused on the arc of the year within the context of work- hitting her billable target hours, completing all of her first-year trainings, and identifying and completing professional development opportunities to feed her growth in her role and in her client work. Even there, I am able to incorporate Nature as a partner in our conversations about growth and change, how that looks for her, and how she sees herself in that bigger picture.

When I was in graduate school, I participated in a Silent Way workshop. One of the most important concepts that we experienced and discussed in it was the dynamics of relationships. In thinking about my relationship with current and future clients as a Guide/Coach, I am reminded of one of the basic tenets, “The Silent Way is the subordination of teaching to learning.” As partners in co-creation, my goals include for clients to approach and enter open doors to their experiences in and understanding of their own growth, of their own path, of their own relationship with Nature.

Throughout the Silent Way, we were discouraged from relying on notes and answers given by others, provided by instructors, and/or found in teaching materials. We were guided to learn based on what was without ourselves, and the experience of the process was more important that the end result of the Hindi we’d learned during the workshop. I don’t remember the Hindi, but I remember the process and methodologies and still apply them today. With my clients, my goals will not include their ability to remember the exact details of what Points A and B were, but rather the incorporation of what we did together and the empowerment to continue their developed practices on their own. Long-term coaching is the subordination of preconceived notions of what “is” and of the self to the unknown and to the process.