The Body Contains Intelligence
I’ve always loved working with the third domain of my ontological training… the body. In the early years of my coaching I focused here, using my own body as a sensing device to pick up on the somatic cues of clients, and then supporting them to use their own body to tune into the knowledge and truth their body held. If you’d filmed me back then you’d see me on the phone, moving about the room, guiding my clients to get up and out of their chairs, making imaginary lines on their floors to jump over or finding other symbolic material to support them to somatically break free, become unstuck or open up.
Open your arms wide, lift your face to the sun… tell me what it’s like to fly.
What can you see from up there that you couldn’t from down here?
As coaching became more mainstream I shifted to a more cognitive approach and the somatic domain moved to the back of my toolkit, waiting patiently for me to return to it one day.
David Bedrick and the Santa Fe Institute for Shame Based Studies.
Last year and quite by accident I discovered David Bedrick and the Santa Fe Institute for Shame Based Studies. Immediately excited by David’s unshaming approach and process oriented psychology, I began his Process Oriented Facilitation Certification and lo and behold it amplified, enriched and at times contradicted the ways I’d been trained somatically.
If you know me, I love contradiction and counter intuitive challenge, it keeps me growing as a coach and human and most importantly, any opportunity that enriches your life or makes a difference with you, I’m on it.
I also learned a thing or two about how coaching unwittingly causes shame so there’s been some unlearning and unshaming in my approach that’s been going on over here.
It’s been a beautiful experience. Clients who have been willing to explore somatic sessions with me have expressed how impactful it has been for them.
What does this mean for my coaching clients?
Being certified in Process Oriented Facilitation means that I am able to reach into the heart of your struggles and symptoms with skills that work with the body/soma, dreams, movement/dance, voice, inner criticism/role play, abuse and trauma, and wait for it… the Earth.
By sensing your subtle somatic cues I’m able to work with you to tap into the things that lie beyond your awareness.
It also means that I have now fine tuned my awareness of how to proceed when issues of abuse and trauma arise in addition to unique skills and interventions to learn from the wisdom of your body. I now have a unique and refined clarity about the psychological ethics that arise as I proceed in facilitating your sessions. And… a heightened sensitivity to old ways of working and thinking that actually cause more harm and reinforce shame.
So, more ways to work with you that meet you where you are.
What kinds of situations benefit from these sessions?
Struggles with food, relationships, conflict, team or group dynamics, grief, body image, pain, trauma, identity, shame, guilt, anxiety and neurodiversity are just a few of the topics that greatly benefit from this safe and enlightening experience.
The best part is that my heart and mind now views you from a new paradigm – one that doesn’t pathologize, but instead sees the seed of new life in all that you bring.
This powerful new skill set allows me to work with you in ways that will shape and shift your life in profound ways.
I’ve learned to see with new eyes the medicine, magic, and miracles that our bodies contain and how to extract and work with it’s intelligence.
It’s a mindset shift and a philosophy that resonates with me deeply and aligns with my purpose, world at peace, beginning within. I think you’ll fall in love with the results it causes, especially if coaching hasn’t been making the difference you hoped.
The shift has changed my coaching forever.
We conduct all our sessions via Zoom so whether you’re overseas or local, we can still do the work!
Curious? Explore a session with me.
