Ben Florsheim
Forum Replies Created
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Initial Post
The client I had was dealing with accepting the future loss of her father. She had a scare over the past year with some health issues with her dad that brought the fact to life that he would be dying soon. Through her story the loss of her father brought a lot of different family dynamics and where some of her fears lie. There were three relationships that she felt like needed to be tended too including her father, mother in law and her brother. After some discovery of her own and talk all three situations through I posed the question with the reflection of all three and said what would be most beneficial now for you. She opted to talk about her brother and how she wanted to be more supportive with him through the process with her father. This was the initial want and the deeper need was more about not only wanting to be supportive but really show her brother the effect the pending loss was having on her as well, which meant showing and opening up a more vulnerable side of her. This was difficult because she felt that she needed to be the rock for her brother.
The client’s discovery was made through this time of grief because she may not have become away what was troubling her most.
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Initial Post
I have a long-term client that I have met with about 15 times. She has a history of trauma in her life, so there was some hesitation that we would be able to implement any “brain change” without first addressing the trauma. Over the past couple of months, we have worked with some resourcing tools for in the moment trauma episodes, these definitely helped, but there was more work to do for sure!
The Brain 2 module helped tie this together for me into a working experience for the client. What she was missing or rather holding onto was the old self that was keeping her stuck. The session that I was able to put the concepts of the brain change to work was a hike that we decided to go on for our session. This was kind of a last-minute decision on my part to give the client the option to move the session to nature, and actually it was the first time I have had any of my sessions in nature. This has really opened my eyes to the power of nature and to allow the client the opportunity to do what they need for themselves and put my agenda or fears aside, but that is a story for another time.
The session began at the trail head on the bed of my truck where the coaching relation was established, and some intentions were set around a goal that the client had. This was a working goal that wasn’t really concrete at this moment in time and change as we processed more of the story and the feeling around the story. The goal started off with something like I don’t want to have the chest feeling associated with fear and I want to change how my past dictates my future. I should also emphasize at this point that prior to the session I offered one of Dr. Joe Dispenzas podcasts for the client to listed to. Because of the trauma I didn’t know how the podcast would be taken, however she was very receptive to it and there was an underlying intention of wanting to “do what the Dr. talked about.” As we set out on the hike it felt like a race to the top, this was the chest feeling hard at work and not even realizing it. As we made way to our stopping point the goal shifted to what do we want. The new goal was set to want to feel safe, like the feeling a hug gives you. She had been searching for this feeling from exterior sources, men and social groups primarily. I did not challenge this because I wanted to see if the connection could be made within her that it had to be a feeling that she embodied.
With the new gola of wanting to feel safe and knowing what that felt like with some undirected pendulation from the client, we brought her request to nature. I had her recite who she was (the feeling of fear and the chest feeling) sit in that for a moment, make the conscious decision to let nature have it and welcome in the feeling of who she wanted to be. I didn’t want to interrupt the clients process at this moment, but the second time she initiated the exercise I instructed he to use the words “I am” instead of “I want”. I asked her if she needed to go through it once more and she was relieved to say I don’t want to feel that anymore. There was some excitement when I heard this! At this point I asked the client how does the safe you carry themselves, talk to others, talk to self. What does she say or do as she passes other hikers on the trail.
From this moment on there was some real change that occurred. The pace to the bottom had slowed, head was raised to greet her surroundings. We used the rest of the hike to sink into this space and set up a plan to continue and bring into the days ahead. The planning and action steps were to invite a morning self-discussion of “who I am” and the spot check mantra was “I am safe”. She has checked in with me to let me know that she is carrying out her new rituals. I can hear the change in her voice, and I am excited to meet with her next to really see how things are going. Brain changes at work!
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Summary Post
The trauma workshop has been one of my favorite intensives so far. I use the exercises we learned with a lot of my clients. I have also started beginning my sessions with some sort of grounding exercise to get a focus for the session. Starting the session this way seems to help the client figure out what is most present for them at that time. I find that this helps start the session in media res if you will rather than taking up precious time with story. This has been really outside of my comfort zone but helping direct the client I feel has been super beneficial to the session. I an curious how you start your sessions.
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Initial post
I haven a client that deals with trauma everyday as she is a paramedic. However, her trauma manifests in a slightly different way than you might think. I would say it is a combination of survivors’ guilt and lack of confidence. She feels that when she looses a patient that she didn’t do everything that she could. It is a manifested feeling because when we go through the experience she identifies that medically nothing more could be done.
The way her trauma shows itself in her life is the form of anxiety and loss of self control. She will have an episode and lose control and pop off on her spouse or just shut down all together. She already has this awareness and is able to see it happening. She told me that when she exercises it makes her anxiety feel better, but she cant always exercise when she feels it coming on. In our session we tried the describing exercise. I asked her to feel the anxiety and she said, “oh I already feel it, it is a constant 4.” So I had her describe a Hydro Flask bottle that was sitting next to me and she quickly spouted of a number of things then I asked her a few questions about it to keep the conversation going and to her surprise without me even asking she felt the anxiety of 4 dissipate. This is something she is able to take with her and try on the fly in her head to subside the anxiety.
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Summary Post
It has been nice to read about how everyone is using what we learned with trauma and the brain. I have found myself using the trauma exercises more and more with clients that aren’t even experiencing trauma and using the exercises to ground the client. Most of the clients I have used pendulation with are able to bring the concept into their daily lives and use themselves. I feel that these exercises are very beneficial in changing and rewiring the brain.
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**Initial Post**
I recently had a client that was struggling with self doubt and negative self talk. She would have an experience that was very impactful and surround with lots of fore thought that when was satisfied with, a sense of pride associated with, the time and work that went into it. Upon completion of the experience she would be able to embody and feel that satisfaction and pride, but then her brain would almost immediately begin to tell her that she is a piece of shit, no one understood what you were talking about, etc. So I ask her to recall a time or times when she felt that price and accomplishment and pendulated between that feeling and the negative self talk, and almost immediately the feelings dissipated. This exercise didn’t seem to be one that she felt she could use and bring with her, however it definitely brought awareness that she can feel different and doesn’t have to stay stuck.
In the same session I started her off on the feeling of the negative self talk and talked her through a 7 breathe exercise because in the session she mentioned meditation and focusing on the breathe. The exercise brought calmness and grounding into the feeling of pride and accomplishment. Basically once again separating the two feelings of what she described and hard to breath to easier to breath. Through the session we were beginning to change ritual and start the process of rewiring the brain.
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Summary Post
I absolutely love parts work and I have been experimenting with it with many of my clients. I have not done a full parts interview yet, but I have been able to make the work I have implemented with clients relevant to their given situation and been able to give them homework to explore deeper for our next session. I feel that partswork is one of those things that just about everyone can benefit from if they use it as a daily practice. It has been fun seeing this modality work in people lives!
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Summary Post
After some reflection and reading through everyone’s posts so far it is nice and somewhat relieving to know that we are all on similar paths. Similar in that we are all discover new ways to implement things into our clients experience and to some degree experimentation. Experimenting to see if the client can relate or dig deeper into their feeling. Some experiments fall flat with some clients where the same experiment can be monumental to other clients. Your experience shows me that just because something falls flat or may not hit the client in the right way doesn’t mean it was the wrong approach. As we get more comfortable in our own styles of coaching i think experimentation will become more natural and be better received by the client.
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Sandy, This is an awesome accomplishment for the client. I have toyed with a few similar ideas and it has been a little stressful, but when I put my agenda aside and do what would be in the best interest of the client it has proven to work out. I like the way in which you used the questions as a way t slow the client rather than jumping into old habit, very powerful tool. Watching the new circuitry start to form is truly and amazing thing to watch. Thank you again for sharing!
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Josh thank you for your feedback! The anxiety that she feels cam long before the trauma she has from her job. We have found that the trauma has just perpetuated the anxiety. When we were working with the “4” anxiety, that is what she feels and carries with her on a daily basis. We used the 4 as a baseline to gauge if she could feel it lower through the exercise to make sure the exercise worked and was something t=she could bring into her daily practice.
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Josh thank you for your post and congrats on the new business partnership. That’s awesome!
I completely feel where you are coming from on having our own thoughts on certain situations and applaud you on being able to separate that and give the client their own experience. What is trauma to one person maybe a daily activity to another and being able to meet the client where they are like your said is very important. Again thank you for your post and reminding me that the client has to take their own path and we are along for the ride so to speak.
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I am not sure that she “feels better” she is more aware that she can feel different rather than stuck in a single emotion or negative self talk.
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This is interesting Sandy. I feel like it could be either way for this client, she may have gone through the cycle of change completely through her sessions like you said by just venting and getting everything out or she may still be in contemplation and settled with the lesser of the two evils. I would be curious to see where she is in the next seven months. Either way she was able to find what she deems a viable solution through her coaching experience. Thats the great thing about coaching is we can miss the mark or feel like we missed the mark and the client experience can be something totally different and unexpected. thank you for sharing your experience!
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Keeping the client sole directed and sole minded has been challenging, but I also feel that it is part of the fun as the coach to keep the client in their process. I have found that the explanation and what we are trying to accomplish through partswork is extremely beneficial for the client.
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Taylor,
I feel the same way Partswork is turning into a multi-session experience with the clients I am introducing it to. They are finding it very beneficial and seeing the transformation happening. I really feel like I want to make it a big part of my practice. It has been difficult sometimes to explain to clients what they have to do and how to work with it but I think once it clicks it becomes much easier for them to understand and connect.