Matthew Nannis
Forum Replies Created
-
Hey Mel! “Long term coaching enhances my coaching presence by being able to focus on the current path and being able to make a note of something that may be able to be explored deeper in a future session. So we can both be more focused. I can hold a better container with more space for my client to explore because I know there will be another session to get back to something if we need to. I will listen for where my client is in a cycle of change in the current session but also in the program as a whole.” This is a perspective that resonates fully with me and my integration process with this portion of the intensive. I keep hearing the dude from Gladiator yell out to the main character before he enters the Coliseum “SHADOWS AND DUST!” This approach, as it allows and enhances the guide’s presence with the client and a more vast healing container for the journey has been such an exciting and unanticipated result of this material in such a short time. I am excited to read/hear more about how you might formally incorporate LNT into the NCC work that you are/continue to do, as well! That is something that I am continuing to explore over here in Asheville with our client pool: leveraging the benefits experienced in sessions – both immediate and longer term – into stewardship! Keep me posted!
-
INITIAL POST
My approach to the materials in this past intensive is focused around the lens with which I approach my clients. Primarily, I do not have the honor of spending much more than 3 months with any given client in my groups; and, occasionally, those groups only meet once a month, so that is only 3 engagement opportunities. As I mentioned during the intensive, I allowed these previous experiences to create a barrier of sorts to the applicability of this material. Fortunately, when we started to dive right in, it was immediately clear how this way of approaching and engaging with the groups I facilitate allows for a more expansive container within which healing might have the invitation to occur.
While nearly all of client engagement is front-loaded, I still have ample opportunity to explore and often challenge what all participants are bringing along on our outings. Most of the time, my groups are kinda sorta mandated by house rules and expectations they signed upon entering the sober/transitional living programs where I meet them. This can provide a juicy source of access points into the engagement and collaborative efforts – either a client or group of clients are pissed that they “have to” participate; or they are subtly and passively oppositional – either way, their amplified emotional state often results in amplified engagement with the initial check-in we run, which is always designed to provide all participants/facilitators with a base line for the experience we are all setting out on. It is often a welcomed situation as it brings more information to the table to work with in comparison to individuals in the group who are just psyched to be out of the house and go explore a new-to-them area in our region.
It has been essential, from the outset, to allow space for an organic unfolding of our sessions. This is where I found the applicability of long-term coaching to initially be confusing. I have found that, in the outings I have facilitated since, thinking long term while allowing the session itself to unfold in its own time, creates added motivation and insights for my clients. We can sidestep the almost scripted expectations they have expressed that I am only there for a few short interactions, that myself, or my guides, are only invested for the next 6 hours when we pick them up until we drop them back off at their program. By incorporating long-term engagement frameworks and bigger picture questioning, there has been a notable response from our clients that we may only be seeing you for the next 3 months; however, we are talking about how you are going to continue to invest and re-invest into yourself and that we are hopeful that this momentum can continue for the rest of your path…
When considering incorporation portions of the outings we lead, long-term coaching is something that has always had a presence and now exists in a more formalized capacity. I am inviting my clients to set some actionable goals for the week ahead (or month, depending on which program I am working with at the time) and we can take a further step back and consider how goals for the rest of the day/week/month fall in to place in a larger picture. While this has had the effect of cultivating amped up motivation, as I said earlier, it also has brought up acute fears and doubts (which, in light of Partswork 2, I find SO VERY relatable!!). My dedication to approaching each outing as potentially the only time I might have to explore the internal landscape while running around in the woods, allows for a sacred quality to our shared time. And where I once hesitated to use that word in my facilitations, I now name it as such and in repetition. That establishes a space for us to either explore what arises as it does, or to at least work towards naming it with the invitation and suggestion (at times, depending on what’s coming up) that such topics be unpacked in their IOP sessions the following week. Sometimes, I ask, privately and individually, if they would like me to reach out to their clinician and relay this simply as a topic for discussion, leaving the details to be explored between the client and their therapist at a later date…more of a bookmarking gesture on the client’s behalf.
There is also some fun overlapping of our organization’s hope to leverage any and all of our offerings into the foundations of environmental stewardship. The parallels between this beacon/marker for us as an organization and the pillars that I perceive as essential to long-term coaching engagement are a fun connection to play around with. It is something that we have done previously with our work; and, like so much of this curriculum, have now been gifted with more formalized processes, procedures, and examples with which to fine-tune! -
SUMMARY: I can echo Mel’s testament to resourcing being such an invaluable tool for guiding. I continue to find so much synchronicity in the experiences that are unfolding in my work here in AVL and the components of the NCC curriculum. They have consistently expanded on parallel paths throughout this journey! I am reflecting on the importance of not observing the session with wide-angle vision. Incorporating a Gestalt approach to the time shared with a client and being curious about what is unfolding as it is unfolding. This perspective is helping inform my sessions with practice clients in that I am becoming increasingly appreciative of a client’s present moment experience as it is being presented. So where I previously noticed layers of somewhat cold (or even frustrated) elements to observing a client being engaged in story; I now am far more compassionate and empathetic to the likely context of where the client is during the session. The expanding context that each of these modules is providing to the scaffolding we were introduced to in Gunnison is consistently and impressively cultivating more and more empathy with each session.
The additional elements and lenses we are being introduced to are also challenging for me at times, in that there is more cycling through my brain and observation as I share time with a client. It is all still so new and percolating in my brain and system. Some sessions, things are calm and have clarity around the hour/hour and a half; other times, I have resourced with a client for my own grounding and truly embraced that we are both, as humans, resources for one another…and then been able to proceed with more connection, more awareness, more heart, slightly less mind! -
Hey Mel! Thank you for reiterating the simplicity of the work happening for all of us! “You don’t even have to be doing it on purpose for nature to ground and heal you so sharing with people how it is when you do it with intention is even better! Inviting a client to stop and ie listen to the birds brings them back into the moment.” I will not project this on to you, as it is definitely mine, I often am amused at how the complexity of the work we do is around me getting the heck out of the way and allowing for what is already within myself, my clients, and the surroundings, to have a chance to do what they were all designed and placed here to do! I also can relate to the benefits of having some more “official” words for some conversations; however, also agree with something Kim mentioned: that perhaps we don’t really need a name for these experiences so much as a deeper understanding/experience with them.
-
Hi Kim, I applaud you for the interjection when your client is in the story, particularly in a hyper state. I’m curious how you navigate that: when to jump in? how long to let your client “go off” on a tangent, or come back through a cyclical narrative. “He then was open to ground and center himself on the earth. I asked him to talk to me about the trail we were on, what he saw/felt/heard/smell. It was like a light switch turning on – we could then really talk.” It is so wonderful to read other’s experiences with the grounding that comes by simply inviting a client to engage their senses! Thank you for presenting the simplicity of this, it seems that you embraced the unfolding of the time with your client and allowed space for what he needed to work through while holding clear ideas around your role in the moment and how to best support his time with you.
-
INITIAL: This was a repeat client that I had originally worked with in a group setting through my organization. Originally, he asked if I rented out the mountain bikes I have and I mentioned that I did one on one sessions with individuals and that we could certainly try to incorporate the bikes into that time if he wanted to engage in some movement while we connected. And he was eager to do so. As an aside, this response is one that I have come across a few times and it brings up some interesting feelings for me as a guide. I think that some of it is around genuine concern that the gear that we work with is a little gimmicky. It does not feel organic or spontaneous during the coaching sessions, somewhat forced actually. It has been an interesting part of the development of my services as a guide, and has bled into the work I do with groups as well. I am still not sure where that comes from; however, am leaning in to it and, in this session, allowed it to play a part in the time I shared with this client.
We met in Bent Creek Experimental Forest and I had two bikes on the car. I had the intention of beginning the session with some resourcing as I felt so empowered by watching Katy explore that process with us as practice clients during the last intensive; and yet, I couldn’t get past this background feeling of being somehow fraudulent with using the bikes – as if I was hooking a client with this flashy piece of gear and it felt wrong. I worked through this narrative in my head while I was loading up the gear and thought I could facilitate a session through it, in spite of it. As soon as we greeted one another at the parking lot, I felt that I couldn’t. I asked the client if he minded if I explored something with him before we began, and acknowledged that, as we were on his schedule, that I did not want to take up our time together, and that I thought that, to best use our time together, I was hoping for an exchange. He consented and I named this concern of mine, framing it as a curiosity around his interest in doing some nature-connected coaching vs wanting to rent a mountain bike and go for a few laps on a single track. I believe that some of the signs/symptoms in Katy’s article about trauma were in the forefront of my mind during this experience for me as I kept coming back to the use of the bikes as a dissociative mechanism – as a way of escaping. The trauma here being a concern on my part of not being capable of facilitating the session. I had the thought, suddenly, that I was asking my client to be my guide and hoped that I might be able to find some grounding in our dialog (if he would engage in one around this) and be mindful of myself as a guide vs being a client myself and unfairly asking something of him, of unfairly asking him to be a resource for me. The long and the short of it is that he felt that the bikes WERE the reason he scheduled the session. Like one of those tours/sales pitches of a fancy condo and in exchange you get a free weekend trip (those are things, right?). He said that there was something that kept coming up for him around large group activities (active client, lot of social engagements) and he thought he could trick himself into committing to some coaching sessions by telling himself that he just wanted to ride.
What started off as (unfairly?) asking my practice client to be a resource for me, created some space for him to ask in to why he wanted to ride, too. And while he agreed that the gear was what he WANTED to use; the session is what he knew he NEEDED to have. We ended up going up and down the service road rather than the track we had picked initially so that we could lean into the experience and check in with more frequency during the 1.5 session we had together (didn’t start the clock until after we had this initial conversation).
In reflection, and though it was NOT my intention at the outset, me requesting some of his time and feedback before we began, has taught me the value of how our presence as a guide (or as a client) is all the nature that there needs to be in nature-connected coaching. My vulnerability, self-doubt in the moment, and willingness to name it and ask in to it WITH the practice client, created trust and a container where he revealed the beginnings of a deeper need almost immediately. We were able to explore some dissociative patterns that he relied on and spent our time together really establishing the safety and support of our work that will continue by practicing awareness around the use of humor, we explored when the urge and drive to go for rides or runs or pick up games at the park arise for the client. Tried to navigate, through recall, what was coming up around these plans: busy part of the week? deadlines? other stressors? And while I did not feel it was going to be effective to start exploring specific interventions, I shared the idea of some interventions, in their effectiveness of working through the body’s cycling of an event…I didn’t use the word sequence exactly, but the idea resonated and we came up with some incorporation homework of sorts. He is going to carry around a little moleskin journal and, as he makes plans throughout the two weeks before our next session, he is going to do a body scan (which we walked through after loading the bikes back up) and note sensations and their locations in the body.
It was a super weird, unexpected session, and having read Sheri’s initial post, felt compelled to share the content of this module as it pertained to myself in addition to the client. -
SUMMARY: I am thoroughly enjoying the process of catching up (SLOWLY) with you all and reengaging in this material and the reflections that all of you have shared. What is coming up for me in this process has been how valuable the application of the material in these intensives are not only informing the work with clients; it is also informing my own self-reflection/evaluations/self-talk. And in a way that is tending super caring and self-friendly soil! I also see it in so many of the posts and reflections that you all are sharing with the class.
I realize that I am approaching most of the materials as we are presented them from a code-decode-recode kind of process. That is to say, I rely most consistently on a lens that has informed my mental/physical/spiritual growth through the modalities of recovery in which I engage. So I am filtering this material, at first and second pass, through that lens (almost more of a sieve!) and then making sense of it on the other side. I think this reaction is one that may serve or hope to serve a way of protecting me from feeling overwhelmed with all this juicy material given to us, in the intensives at least, in such a short period of time. That said, the materials we have covered and shared on in this module: the charts of stages of change, brain circuitry, story-making vs myth-making; the have all informed my OWN process with ME – both as an individual AND as a coach. And in that, I am more comfortable sharing and holding space with others (clients, friends, family, whatever). I hope that makes sense…it is a tricky thing to type as I am typing/editing/re-typing it. Seems like it requires drastic hand and arm motions and dramatic facial expressions and gestures to really drive it home?!?!
I think the takeaway is one that was presented to me from the outset with this program: that this is a transformational process for me as an individual; and that, from there, I might support and guide a client to grow along his or her or their own journey. -
Hey Kim: Always appreciate your honesty and how you show up! Appreciate the sharing of your experience with your father and your seeing his use of myth to “make sense of it”. So eager to jump down the rabbit hole around that need, that want to categorize and explain out…to provide that ‘why’ so one can move on/through/past an event. I have spent a good many times staring at the last slide on the Brain and Change 1 powerpoint section: “When a ritualistic process happens in a mind that has not made sense of intense energy through story making or myth-making the end result could be dissociation rather then euphoric expanded connection. However, the function is the same. That’s how powerful it is.”
The movement from rigid story making into more fluid meaning making working towards myth-making: a process, as I currently (barely) understand it, as naming it > creating a belief around it > finding resolution around it. It really brings out how honorable and sacred we are as coaches; how honorable and sacred our shared time with clients (or friends or family) must be held. What a privilege! -
Mel: “It was a challenge for me to keep bringing them out of the story the very much wanted to tell so I let them tell it to “get if off their chest” and they were then able to focus on the present moment and sensations in the body.”
What came up for me while reading this portion of your post was that I internally feel something similar quite regularly–or rather I have MORE so prior to this last intensive. Have you found that the introduction to our own stages of change and the over view of the highroad vs low-road circuitry of the brain have helped inform that frustration? Maybe not lessened it popping up so much as reframed the awareness that you have of it as it comes up? I am finding my process around what I hear you saying her to be: “get outta this cycle!” > “should I jump in here and reframe/re-ground?” > to (now) “this is where the client needs to be, and I will integrate the skills I have so far to help highlight opportunities for them to recognize potential patterns and hold space for them to seek a way through this part of their cycle/story/journey”
I mean, it’s definitely far more clunky in the moment; that is to say that there is a lot more patience and compassion around it for me anyways. Great insights! -
INITIAL: I am finding that the intensive around change theory and the neuroscience from the last intensive have created a lot more patience and compassion around my engagement with the client. While I still come back to some self-doubt with less and less regularity when I perceive that the client is stuck in a cycle; I am now aware, through the content of this particular intensive, that the client is TRULY stuck. That the session is NOT stuck, that I am not stuck as a coach. Simply that we have hit upon a rich area in the client’s story/experience, and that what I am perceiving as “stuck” is actually some encoded tendencies of the client’s brain reinforcing a dated protective mechanism. With some continued practice, I look forward to gaining more comfort and skills around supporting future clients in processing THROUGH this cycle and gaining deeper insights into their own journey(s).
I found myself referring back to Katy’s example of the deer in the field foraging, becoming alert, and finally shaking off the excess energy when safety is determined to exist. I am currently aware of a good deal of clunkiness in recreating/retracing the analogy for clients (and for myself) in presenting this as a potential introduction to the high road and low road cycles that occur within our minds as we either engage in automatic pilot or attempt, through intention and awareness, to forge new pathways, new patterns of behavior, and new experience.
I continue to experience all of my practice sessions and other sessions with groups after these intensives, as if another layer of clarity has been provided. I think back to learning the parts of the microscope in high school science class and how we went from ones with only one objective lense (had to look it up!) to those with THREE lenses; and one class even had one electronic microscope!! The picture continues to come in to focus, and it is providing more access points to explore with the client throughout a session. Maybe “clarity” is not the right word, as that might imply a degree of comprehension that I do not yet have; however, I am not trying so hard to learn the nuts and bolts/behind the curtain elements of these lenses so much as how they might inform what I am already doing.
Again, I come back to the patience that the change theory and neuroscientific principles have developed in my own self-awareness and compassion. I am super stoked to watch how this can be conveyed to my clients during sessions; AND how to invite clients to perhaps try on such a lens of self-awareness and self-appreciation. It’s powerful, self-hug type stuff. -
Summary: In reading how many of you provided insights and reflections on your practice clients over the course of multiple sessions, I am looking forward to begin tracking my client sessions thoroughly. I will NOT say “more thoroughly” as I have been quite lax in maintaining formalized files or something similar for each practice client.
My takeaways from this module are largely around approach. I love how, as Amber mentioned in her summary, complementary Gestalt and Parts work can flow together. The practice of the lens of Gestalt when working with a client not only to see the initial baseline shifts; but also, to sort of feel out/ask into whether or not the client has slid into a different part. I am also growing more aware of how isolated I may be approaching practice sessions through this particular discussion board of this module. In balancing out my work with groups through the nonprofit, I am becoming aware that I have a low expectation of repeat client interaction through the unfortunate inconsistency of client participation among the sober living facilities and programs I work with. I am curious and will check in with this moving forward with my 1-on-1 sessions, if I carry that sadness/low expectation of continuation of care/multiple sessions with me and project it at all onto the client/into our session…something for me to look well into! I have had a warm/enthusiastic reception to exploring a client’s parts, or rather encouraging them to explore their parts, and am also appreciative of how being present with what the client brings to the session is the best way for us to decide if leaning into Parts work is the way to go. And another take away is that this is not just a checklist to run through. The less I speak, the more I actively listen and take in what the client is offering up, the more this will begin to flow as a journey of exploration. I am grateful for my practice clients’ willingness and open-mindedness to support ME in my navigation of this work. And am SO pleased to be back trudging through this work online and re-engaging with you all. Albeit on a hefty delay! -
Hey Mel! Thank you for highlighting how parts work adds to your approach by (i think this is what you were saying) creating a more dynamic observation field for your client. Reading between the pauses in the story, maybe? Am I projecting a little here? Oops! And the appropriateness of incorporating Partswork as an introduction to the client’s Soul part as a grounding source, “encouraging connection at that level” is such a wonderful lens for this incorporation. I also resonate with what came up for me in reading your initial post around nature being an element of the session regardless of location. I LOVE the exchanges thus far with practice clients around something that I cannot recall if Michael or Derek mentioned, that WE ARE NATURE. Having a phone session with a client while they have made it a point to be on their back porch by the creek with the dog…and then I name my surroundings and happen to be at my friend’s shop in a room with no windows and a loudly vibrating heating element rattling out of the wall! that is my environment in that moment…and my perspective, embrace of it is what I try to highlight, work off of, rather than the aesthetics! Anyways, I appreciate you naming the presence of Nature in ALL things.
-
Hey Amber. It is SO cool to read about the intention around the Parts work you share here! I appreciate the formalized approach to doing parts work here and utilizing the interview process to bring out the identity of your client’s parts. Your navigation around her conflict and “Shouldn’ts” reads as so tactful and exciting. I am reminded through your reflection of the value of working through some of these initial interviewing assignments with a client to help inform suggestions like “how to incorporate Soul” into the experience. I appreciate your approach to this and what’s coming up for me is an excitement to explore this with my practice client if we continue to the eagerness she displayed at our first exposure/exploration of this lens in our sessions together. I appreciate the aside/question around the unnamed “Doubt” maybe being a fear as an underlying experience rather than a part…I find that a tricky part of the navigation myself and appreciate you carrying onward with guiding your client’s exploration without seemingly getting caught up in it during the session itself! Sure do miss ya! Look forward to catching up at the Starhouse!
-
Yep. I totally figured it out! Sheri! “I also really clicked with the idea of front loading the sessions of the long term plan. I realize this puts a stronger commitment on me as the guide up front financially. If payments are spread out more over the long term and in person sessions are heavier as we start the plan. So there may need to be clear expectations around payments up front.” My board is 100% with you on this one! Your reflection, and much of the discussion around this topic in particular, has brought up this interesting awareness for me with some consistency. It’s like, “Oh YEAH! This is also my JOB! And I got RENT/MORTGAGE/BILLS!!!” haha. I think that this comment of yours has brought me back to some of the first gap-work analysis I did with Ben Marchman during practice sessions when I began this curriculum with you all. It’s easy for me to lose sight of the fact that this is also work. Don’t get me wrong, the effort and studying and emails and meetings and permits and AHHHH all are pretty wonderful reminders that it is work! That said, the exchange, the time with a client, is such a calm…in the eye-of-the-storm sort of a sensation for me, that I find this topic – and your reflections on the pragmatic ways to approach it – to be so valuable. so THANK YOU!
-
First off: I am SO excited that MAYBE I just figured out how to actually reply to a post in-line!!! So I would like to pause in that accomplishment for a moment if I may …….
Okay, Thnx!! Kim! “I do see there may be some bigger hurdles as we try to create agreed upon milestones for them together and as individuals. But that will be part of a future discussion.” I appreciate this bigger picture lens that you seem to be using in staying curious about the development/evolution of this group work. I am hopeful that you continue to explore (and share about it!!) the group offerings as a way to bring in more dynamism (is that actually a word?!) to sessions when you and your clients collectively feel an openness to it! I have explored the individual sessions from the similar curiosity – “jeez, I wonder how this group dynamic plays out in a 1-on-1 session over the long haul?” There is so much space to play in with this work! And I am so drawn to the concept of a moving sit-spot. It reminds me of all the times we have heard “don’t forget that you and your client are nature, too!” in our intensives…I lean on that a LOT, and love how you bring the water element into that. AND, I’m taking a group down the French Broad this Sunday…so it’s all sorts of apropos!