Megan Theoret
Forum Replies Created
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INITIAL POST
For this practice session I was working with an existing client. This was our third session together so the coaching relationship was established and I noticed a falling into deeper trust and rhythm together as coach/client.
We began by checking in about what had happened since our last session and whether or not she had accomplished her goals. Then I asked her how she would like to use the session. She laughed and asked if I could fix her anxiety.
I sensed a discomfort in her laugh and the way she brought it up in jest. Perhaps she wasn’t sure if it was appropriate or ok to talk about her anxiety with me, her business coach. I also had a moment of wondering if I was ok with it, and how on earth I was going to navigate. But I had a pretty immediate sense that it was important for me to be completely okay with meeting her in her anxious place, and that backing away would potentially break the trust we’d been building. So instead I paused, and waited for a question. And then a question came – Do you have a sense of what your anxiety is in relationship to? She seemed to surprise herself with ‘YES’, and so much unraveled from there.
This simple question exposed a deep core wound from childhood. It was obvious from a story she shared that there was some unresolved trauma, and she acknowledged this herself. She began to use a metaphor of a lake… one that she’d perhaps been avoiding for many years, but now was willing to stand at the edge of, and let the waves brush her toes. I asked, what do you notice about your anxiety when you imagine yourself standing at the lake? She seemed surprised to observe that the lake felt grounding and calming. She said it helped her anxiety.
She volunteered that it would be good for her to sit with the lake some more, and we created a general structure of how she would continue working with the lake in between sessions.
At the end she thanked me for NOT trying to fix her anxiety. This was a huge breakthrough for me. It reminded me of the power of curiosity, and also what a gift it can be to just meet someone where they are and be completely ok with whatever IS.
This experience is helped me start to build a new confidence in my ability to meet what comes my way. In a way, I was also standing at the edge of a lake, letting the water brush my toes. For years I’ve been afraid of being in relationship to other people’s trauma and mental illness, and done what I can to avoid it. And now here I am standing at the edge of the lake, realizing maybe it is not the beast I dreamed it to be.
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SUMMARY POST
I’ve worked with the same practice client once more in person as well as been in communication with him via email since my initial post. He just shared with me a wonderful affirmation that I really helped him by bringing his awareness to the issue of “I don’t know what I want.” After our session he brought his focus to that and realized he does know what he wants, he was just afraid to admit what he wants for fear he might not ever receive it. Since then he has received exactly what he wanted… from my perspective it was almost like all he needed to do was admit it, and there it was waiting for him. I feel very grateful to be witness to this sort of beauty.
He has also shifted big time from seemingly having no direction to suddenly wanting a timeline and to know how quickly we can get through the process of launching his business. This is pretty amazing to me as well. The energy of working with a client who is in the planning and action phase is SO different from pre-contemplation and contemplation. I notice that I need to shift my energy to meet him where he is. The presence I had when he was in contemplation doesn’t feel appropriate for the planning phase. I have this sense of needing to sit up straighter and be more alert. The pace is faster. Where as in contemplation I was super relaxed into a slower state of deep listening and reflecting, now I am more in a more dynamic mode of guiding.
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This practice session was the day after the face to face ended, so many of the new tools were naturally fresh and right there.
As we moved into the session the majority of our time was spent discussing the issue, which had a lot of factors. The underlying theme was that the client wasn’t clear about a decision he needed to make. There were so many factors playing in – career, personal life, relationship, beliefs, old story.
Each time I ask what he wanted, I felt like we ran into a block. He didn’t know.
In the past I might have taken this on as my responsibility, tried to fix it, or create a story that I was failing as a coach because my client wasn’t becoming aware of what he wanted in the session. But NO! It was so clear – He’s in contemplation! He knows there’s an issue but he doesn’t know what he wants yet, and so he can’t yet see where he’s going or what he needs to do to get there. And that’s OK.
As I became aware of this, I knew to let go of getting anywhere except where we were – in the mystery of the want. Sinking into this, I began seeing an image of him planting a red pennant flag in a stack of rocks, saying “this is what I want”. I shared the image with him and he laughed and seemed to relax a bit in seeing that this was his next task.
If the session had been longer I might have suggested a wander or some sort of experience to perhaps get closer to the want, but instead I invited him to treat his life for the next few weeks as a wander, and to see what emerges as he continues to ask the question, “What do I want?”.
I can also see now how continuing to work with connecting with the want might be the issue for the next session, and there might be a new myth opportunity or a deeper need for getting in touch with “what I want”.
This was a big learning as I hadn’t yet come across a client who did not know what they want, and now as I reflect I realize that there are a lot of opportunities to work with this and meet them in the uncertainty – when was a time you knew what you wanted? what was that like? do you know anyone who knows what they want? what are some of the qualities they have?
Understanding the stages of change was immensely helpful to me in navigating this session and I am looking forward to continuing to get to know the different stages through future sessions.
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SUMMARY POST
At the beginning of this thread I was not clear on how I could use this with clients. Through the last few months I have discovered at least one way: decision making. I discovered this through my own experience and need to make a decision.
I have had a pattern of going back and forth throughout my life when I come upon major life decisions. Perhaps it is the Gemini within me. I often feel like there are two parts of me, but only one can be on stage at a time. When one is on stage I’ll be completely convinced to choose the path on the left, and then two days later the other will come forward and I’m totally sure I’m going to take the path on the right, and then two days later back on the left… and so on. It can be a very exhausting cycle and not a particularly good use of my energy.
So… I happened to come across such a crossroads over the last month and I started to ask myself – who is the one who wants to go left? Who is the one who wants to go right? Two very different parts emerged. One was the Hipster, and one was the Mother. The Hipster is very concerned about becoming bored and depressed by the mundane and wants to be surrounded by diversity, culture, creative people and new ideas. The Mother wants to create a solid financial foundation, build her energy reserves, and create a nest where she can give birth to a family.
Seeing these two parts sent me into more of an Observer/Soul part, and helped me to make a decision that would be in service to Soul, and also accommodate the needs of both parts. In order to do this I realized that the Hipster was in need of a sacred flip. She is an outdated part that came to life in my teens/early 20s. She longed for the creative colorful life and surrounded herself with people who embodied this. Now, she is ready to become the Creative One. She doesn’t need to base her life decisions around going where the creative people are. She embodies creativity. Wherever she goes, she naturally attracts other creatives by expressing her own creativity.
This has been so helpful for me and feeling the value is inspiring me to want to share this piece with others.
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INITIAL POST
Thanks Carrie and Anna for getting this thread going. I’ve had several coaching sessions now since the face to face and have not practiced parts work in any of them. Reading Carrie’s post was great for me because it helped me give myself permission to say I don’t feel like I have enough of a grasp of it yet to practice with a client. And Anna’s post helped me realize that the way for me to get a better grasp, is to work my own parts – to learn from personal experience.
I had a great experience with parts work in our Action and Planning call a few weeks back. Michael used an example of the GIFT and the ENTREPRENEUR. He said to me, be careful not to ask the GIFT part to act as the entrepreneur. Just recognizing these as two separate aspects of myself was hugely helpful, and somehow felt energizing, like a load was taken off the shoulders of the GIFT part. I could see how the ENTREPRENEURS role is to create a supportive container (a business) so the GIFT has a good way to show up and share its medicine.
I’ve also been doing an exercise recently that is designed to help you bring your vision forward into reality. The exercise is to sit in front of a mirror for 10 minutes every day and focus on your third eye. If you lose focus, just return to the third eye. It’s a very simple meditation. For me, it’s been wild! Each time I sit and do this I start to see this part of myself that apparently I need to see right now. It is old and wise and not at all attached to “Megan”. Megan is just a vehicle for this part to work its magic. And… it seems like all the parts that create the Megan part, have been getting in the way by thinking that Megan is all that I am… by being super attached to this incarnation and thinking the I (Megan) am running the show. It might sound weird, because I do connect with soul in other ways quite a bit, but somehow getting visual glimpses of soul has helped me connect with it in a new way, and create more room for it to lead the way. I think “Megan” (sorry if this third person speak is getting weird but this is just the only way I can figure out how to communicate it), needed to see to believe that she could trust that Soul is really there, and really has her back.
So, this is just a little window into my personal parts work right now. My intention is to get to know my parts a little better, to see how they relate with one another more clearly, and as Ryan described, help them do the sacred flip in service to Soul. Then maybe I can open up to experimenting with clients.
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SUMMARY POST:
I worked with a client recently who was wanting help with focusing her energy to create a business that will support her financially and energetically.
As we got into the issue, I noticed this feeling growing within myself of being unfocused – scattered and confused. With each question a new aspect to the issue seemed to emerge and 40 minutes in I felt like I’d lost my way and had no idea where to go next. Some doubt and fear started coming in for me.
I became aware that I needed to find some solid ground in order to be of service in the remainder of the session. I took a step back energetically to ask myself what I needed. Instinctively I knew. I asked if it was ok if I spent a few minutes organizing the information she’d been sharing to see if I was understanding the issue. She seemed SO RELIEVED when I offered to do this. I noticed her energy shift and I felt a calm and grounding come into the session, like a big sigh.
Taking this action was hugely supportive to me as well. As I started organizing what I’d been hearing into themes, a glaring disconnect emerged. Then I knew the next question: Are these two themes connected? Much to my surprise, she practically exclaimed, Yes! In that moment I sensed a new connection happening and felt a rush of energy, like in chemistry when two molecules form a bond. I imagined new connections forming in her brain, and soon she volunteered some insights that affirmed this.
I had a follow up session with this client a few weeks later and the same theme was up, and my client was aware she wanted to be more PRESENT in her life so she could focus. As we started exploring the issue I could hear clanking and banging in the background and I guessed that she was doing something else and not fully present with our call. I wanted to point this out, or at least inquire about it, but knew from her intake how important it is for her to feel she’s in a safe nonjudgmental space. I sensed that being direct would not feel good or support the trust we are building. So instead I surrendered it to the session and just kept going with the flow and trusting. Finally there was an opening when she told me that she was not being completely present and doing other things while we were talking. I asked “how are you feeling in your body right now?” From there, all the awareness I was hoping to bring about came. And it came from her, instead of from me telling her what I was noticing. This for me was a total gestalt moment, a variation of the “what are you aware of now?” exercise. And a reminder of how much more powerful it is when a client comes to an awareness for themselves.
I continue to be amazed by this process. It seems in almost every session I hit a wall of fear in myself. A panic. “Oh my god, I’ve completely lost control, I have no idea where we or going, where we need to go, or how to get there.” And then I surrender and say, “well, I’m just going to do my best and be present”. And somehow, miraculously, it all comes together. And I’m just there watching, in awe. I feel like this is what my shamanic teachers have been describing to me for years when they say, “Get out of the way so spirit can do the work.” Finally, I am getting a glimpse of what the means. The questions really help me get out of the way.
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Hi Everyone,
I have a practice client for the first time since our F2F scheduled for next week. I am going to go ahead and make an initial post because of the timeline.
This client is someone with more than 20 years experience with mindfulness and different inner practices. She has just completed several trainings including a coach training and is wanting to develop some sort of practice.
I sent her an intake and practice client agreement, and some general guidelines for how to prepare for the session.We are going to meet over the phone because her internet connection is not good enough for video chat. The vast majority of my work with clients will be by phone or skype, and so its good practice. I am also finding myself a bit intimidated to practice gestalt tools without any visual cues. It will require me to listen to vocal cues and for energetic incongruence, instead of the body cues I learned to trust in the F2F.
I intend to work as a business coach, both in this practice session and in my ongoing practice. I’ve been pondering how gestalt will fit with this type of work. Once thing that seems really clear to me is that I will invite contact with the present moment to reveal deeper truths. For example, in my fishbowl session, I noticed that my client seem to have a surge of energy when she made contact with her business vision. Simply noticing and sharing this observation seemed to deepen the client’s awareness and I noticed what I interpreted as a ‘sinking in’ at this moment.
I see nature being a big part of contact in the present moment. I hope to expand the idea of being in contact with the client, to also be in contact with the environment and invite the outer world to be part of the revelatory process – to also inform me as a guide as to what is important, what is happening beneath the surface, where to focus, what questions to ask, and so on.
Looking forward to sharing more after I meet with my client!
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Hi Michelle,
I really appreciate what you are saying about the role of trauma in our lives, and the opportunity we each have to either identify with it and use it as a justification for the way we are, or to take responsibility for healing it.
I am curious about your own experience with personal trauma, and/or your experience with noticing other people’s trauma. Once you are aware of the trauma, and are able to ground and become present again… what do you see as the next steps to healing? I ask because I don’t know that I have an answer myself for this question. I really believe in the heart of what you are saying and I’m just wondering how we as people with our own trauma, and we as guides, help ourselves and others come to resolution.
Thanks so much for your sharing!
Megan
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Elizabeth, I’m so intrigued by what you remember most from the module compared with my own big takeaways. I love reading through your recap of the river, which totally escaped me in the module, but here listening/reading your words I feel a visceral sense of an actual roaring river and a woman clinging to the banks. I have been working with a metaphor recently of ‘surrendering into the river of my heart’ and this idea reminds me of that. It sounds very romantic to me, to surrender into the river, but my experience has shown me it can be quite terrifying…. never know when you’re gonna hit rapids, or drop off a hundred foot waterfall, or… who knows what. I really appreciate what you are saying about the shift you experienced since the module, and the new way you are working with your client who is clinging to the river bank. I hear compassion and patience in your new approach, something I’m going to set my sights on integrating into my coaching presence. Thank you for sharing!
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Hi Kairon,
Thank you for sharing your own experiences with your mandala. I am working on seeing my mandala more clearly and bringing my parts into harmony as well. As I read about the dilemma you shared, between the Senex and Puer Aeternus, I found myself wondering… is there a third part that might help them? Like a mediator or one who is able to hold space for both of them?
Hope you are having/had a great trip to Peru!
Megan
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Hannah,
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences, and especially the questions you worked with to guide your clients into connection with their parts. These examples are helping me as I continue to explore how I can bring parts work to sessions in a natural way.
I was talking with a friend last night and became aware that she was projecting a part of herself onto me that she is not yet seeing in herself. She was complimenting me on what she was seeing as an ability to navigate life and have a clear sense of direction and knowing about my path. We are close enough that I was able to gently acknowledge the projection and ask her, who is that part of you, the one who knows the next step? Who is that?
She didn’t have an answer, but it seemed like a good beginning. I reigned in my Guide part, because we weren’t in the context of a session, and I also felt really inspired to lead her into Threshold, wandering through the landscape in search of ‘The One Who Knows the Next Step’.
Thanks also for sharing your vision around incorporating this in the group setting. I love it!
Megan
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Hi Kairon,
I really appreciate what seems to me like a truly collaborative journey you’ve described. I am immediately inspired by your instinctive/intuitive awareness that your client needed a space where she would not be interrupted or judged. This reminds me that every client is different, every session is different, and that I want to cultivate a flexible and fluid coaching presence so that I can shape shift as needed for each client and issue. While one client might need complete freedom to express themselves without interruption, another may need to be interrupted frequently to stay on track and not get lost in story.
As I read about your session, I get the sense that part of the embodiment may have come from your client experiencing a collaborative moment with you, her coach. I imagine this building off one another that you describe like climbing a ladder up up up – building off the other with each step. Neither one of you could have gotten to the new awareness alone, but together you created it. You got there. Reading between the lines of her issue, I wonder if this wasn’t part of the deeper need – to trust in her ability to be creative/co-creative in relationship to another, and perhaps she had a threshold experience through co-creating with you?
Whether or not that was the case, I’m seeing/reminded of the power in co-creating the session with the client, and wanting to put some of my energy and intention towards cultivating a free flowing collaborative energy with my clients. For me this reflects a deep level of trust and intimacy within the relationship. I wonder – is this sort of co-creativity something you notice often in your sessions? Or was it more accentuated and unique to this client?
Thanks so much,
Megan
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Hi Brad,
I really appreciate what comes across to me as a gentle and compassionate spaciousness in your coaching presence. I can feel a deepening and sinking in within myself as I read your description of how you will show up for your client. As I start to prepare mentally for my upcoming practice sessions, I have been reflecting on the power of presence and how this for me all comes back to my own unrelenting faith in my client. Some sort of space opens up when I relinquish any responsibility to figure out what my client needs, and instead rely on the powerful questions to guide them to their own knowing. Then, I find a quiet peace of mind and am able to open to deep listening. So I really appreciate the way you’ve described a flow of your session being anchored by powerful questions – what are you experiencing? how does that feel? it seems that… is that accurate? and so on. For me this reflects a genuine curiosity that I interpret coming from a deep honoring of the sacred wisdom that lies within your client. Is that true for you? Are there any tricks or underlying “knowings” you work with to prepare yourself to be present in the way you describe?
Thanks so much,
Megan