Rachel Thor
Forum Replies Created
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Summary post
I think the biggest thing I’m discovering is just how easily distractions can fill all my mental, physical, or time space and make it harder to stay connected to this vision. Since moving back to Boulder I’ve been working a full time job that just barely pays, so I feel like I only have a few hours a week to work on this, as opposed to quite a lot of time I had before when I lived in PA. I’m feeling the loss of that pause I’ve been in for two years, like an eddy in the river. and I’ve just pulled my kayak back into the rapids. still trying to stay connected but honestly struggling right now. this job only goes through mid August, so I suppose I just need to stay connected to the next right steps for how my security, jobs, and business can show up beyond that. I’m really looking forward to the nourishment I get when we meet. Only 2 weeks away!
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Initial post:
Hey crew! chiming in late here but better late than never 🙂
Kick-off Question: When you think about coaching and/or guiding others, who comes to mind?
two big main groups keep forming. one feels more focused while the other one feels like it’s connected more deeply to the larger collective vision.
the “vision” group is basically – that I want to work with anyone and everyone who feels a sense of calling toward building a better more loving and more sustainable world. to the people who want to live soul-directed lives of purpose, much like EBI. It kinda feel like that’s the big umbrella, maybe for all of us, or at least, for all of the possible ME’s I could have become based on whatever path I chose to walk.The more specific group that I seem to be better able to start orienting a business model or marketing material around is women who want to live powerful lives of purpose and healing relationship – who have suffered #metoo trauma in the past and who are ready to not let that stop them.
What is the population that most excites you, and why?
At this very moment I feel a little disconnected from this. it feels like it’ll always be this idealistic fantasy and never actually become concrete and simple enough to be DONE. Why is this part so elusive, changing, seeming so certain one day and so hopeless the next? Why do other people and businesses seem to be able to answer this question so easily?Also, search the web and share with us a few examples of individuals or organizations who work with similar populations.
http://www.thetraumarecoverycoach.com/
https://www.traumapro.net/evgcert/ctpHow do you imagine working with them? Take time to consider all that you’ve learned during these Foundation Modules and express how you might work with your ideal client. What would be the common categories of goals that you foresee them working towards? How would you like to collaborate with nature to support their awareness and success?
I imagine creating an online program that teaches them about relational trauma in their body and mind to normalize it, then work on embodiment and mindfulness tools as well as trigger-plans for if they are alone and for their close loved ones to know what to do to support them in the moment. lastly, I will of course bring the coaching aspect into it and frame all these steps as pieces to learn and practice as they move toward their personal/professional goals. The program will include weekend or week long wilderness trips.Add to your post, a comparative critique of these organizations based on what you know about Nature-Connected Coaching.
I think I can make a similar but better product than the first website. -
Initial post:
Background – i have this amazing practice client and friend, we’ve met several times outside at a park and she’s been working with the goal of bringing her soul’s vision into the world. I’ve loved getting to see how her story plays out over multiple sessions now, because what felt slow at first has all proven to be critical puzzle pieces for the unfolding. First session we discovered a few of the main parts like her critic, analyzer, and child who show up and impact her goal of letting soul run the show. Analyzer even sometimes wants to be the soul, which is a fun thing to playfully point out (and so much more obvious than I even expected it to be!)
next session we really felt the soul land in the middle, and saw a few shadow parts. this session we really began to use the park to demarkate her parts – most of them became trees and the shadow parts she didn’t want to see yet actually became the park bathroom, how fitting! One “part” seemed to be the voice of her husband, and was a big power source for her.
In between sessions she would return to the park and offer spontaneous ceremonies, appreciating these parts and more. Our third session was when all of this groundwork came together. All of the sudden, from the place of soul, she could see the “husband tree” as her own creative life force instead… and in an instant realized she had been hiding behind his power and leaking her own power toward him as a way of hiding from herself. this moment she discovered that she could be in relationship to him, without becoming him, without enmeshing her power with him – but by standing firm and loving in her own power!
Our experiment was lovely – she approached this power tree by meandering along the roots and I got to make a step with my hands to boost her up into the tree where she could feel her own clarity and power radiating. It was a simultaneously wonderful experiment for me because as I danced around the tree below her, celebrating her shining, I realized I was living out my own experiment of what I hope to do as a coach! not become anyone else’s power, but rather give them the one step up they need to stand in their radiance.
Each time, we’ve integrated these experiences into more of her next steps forward. she’s begun offering tarot readings and teaching community classes on mindfulness, and she’s trusting the PACE of her soul’s unfolding more and more. I’m looking forward to our next session in a few days, because it’ll be the first time we meet over the phone since I now live in Colorado again!
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Initial post:
I got to meet with my favorite practice client last week. She’s outstanding to me because somehow we always seem to find ourselves in the territory of whatever toolbox module is coming LATER. Aka last month we had a big parts work session. This week (while we did use some gestalt) I ended up spending some time more in teacher mode than coach mode explaining to her about trauma and the brain and the body, letting her know that since she is interested in creating healthy relationships again yet her past has relational trauma, that one thing we will want to do is establish clear resources and plans to utilize so we can titrate anytime that trauma starts to arise.
Anyways our previous session feels more relevant to this partswork/gestalt conversation, so I’m going to answer the questions about that one:
What steps did you take to establish the Coaching Relationship and focus the session?
Before I even got on the phone with her I sat, centered, and listened. I was called to drum and sing a song with words specifically about relationships, and to draw a spiral in the sand. When we talked for the first time, I felt into her energy and shared with her that’s what my intuition had shown me. Since she very much resonated with those things, it formed a strong bond of trust quickly because she knew I was listening deeply beyond her words to the larger organism guiding us toward healing.How did or could Gestalt fit into your nature-connected coaching session?
So many times we dropped back right into the body. I’d notice whatever I noticed. That her voice changed when she talked about this or that, that a bird flew by every time she said that word, etc. we used the present moment to reflect the stories that were being told and healed.How did or could you collaborate with Nature and combine Gestalt and Coaching principles?
I find that walking or moving in nature helps me stay grounded and present so I use that a lot even when I’m on the phone. Her’s was such a case. I spun a stick or drew spirals with it the entire time. It felt helpful for keeping us in the gestalt.What challenges did you face? How did you adapt?
There were many moments when I felt her deflections kick in, mostly through avoidance by storytelling, or overloading herself to overwhelm. I would calmly name them, discover if they were familiar, and use whatever arose in her body’s response to guide us back to present moment.What flowed and how did you build off it?
Her parts just naturally started coming out, naming themselves, and speaking to each other! I wasn’t planning or trying to do parts work at all but hell here we were and it was happening quite beautifully.What did you learn about yourself and nature-connected coaching?
I just love this. I love trusting the unknown and in this container of coaching and healing I am finding more and more confidence in it. which is also permeating my whole life, which I love.How do the readings relate and interact with the face to face material and your work with your practice clients?
Eh honestly I’m underwhelmed by the readings which is why I have fallen behind on them. But that also is familiar because I’d almost always rather be doing threshold work than building the foundation needed to be there sustainably and successfully. It seems to me that Coyote’s guide has wonderful frameworks and metaphors though written with children in mind, and Coaching skills has basic skills needed to help business type people who haven’t done quite as much self work yet. I guess I feel like my clients are neither of those, so I don’t feel strongly like I’ve connected the readings to my real life sessions. I have however undoubtedly connected our in person intensives to sessions! I’m learning a lot there.What ideas do you have for how you might use Gestalt and nature-connected coaching in the future with your client?
I’m going to keep being present, staying aware, bringing in more “yes-and” to the noticing.How does Nature-Connected Practices, and Gestalt Therapy interface?
It feels like the same thing to me, whether I’m noticing that two cats start fighting in the background or whether I notice her body language and voice change when she talks about competing dilemmas, in either case I can name it and we can discover together that we’re officially dealing with parts in conflict. So whatever awareness I do have, I can trust it. Because the same present moment pattern is playing out everywhere, just waiting to be noticed. -
In conclusion, I’d say I already rely on and love threshold moments, surrender, listening, flow very much. and what I’m taking away is allowing myself and my client all the time needed in the stages before and after threshold, so that it’s held within a container that can truly intention and integrate the changes. That being said, coaching presence is still probably my biggest intention and strength as a coach and I will continue to cultivate it.
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Hi everyone, I am making up for some online modules I missed, so here is my initial post for this section.
When I experience being in a threshold as a client (or coach), I feel a thick presence settling around everything. My awareness becomes more heightened, I am more capable of drawing connections. I feel poised and curious, completely open to whatever will arise in the present moment with trust and anticipation in its intentions for goodness or healing or epiphany. It feels like my favorite place to play, like this is how I play with the universe, by engaging in the unknown and trusting the larger organism to have our best interests held. It’s like dancing, with wild everything. I often feel a huge amount of love coming through me when I’m coaching someone in the threshold, and as client I may feel any wild number of sensations or emotions. And yet, as best as I can, I trust that whatever shows up is meant to.
Honestly I don’t know how to explain it. I think travel and psychedelics and prayer have all given me tastes of this altered consciousness state and because of my becoming more comfortable with that place, I am more able to access it sober on command with intention, although there are certainly plenty of moments where I think “oh okay we’re in the threshold”, and then all of the sudden some voice of the soul breaks through and WHOOOSH we get taken down another step like a wave crashing over us and then I think “OKAY NOW WE’RE REALLY IN THE THRESHOLD!”.
More and more I am convinced that all healing happens in the present moment. It doesn’t come from thinking about the past or future differently, although new perspective can ease the mind. But true bodily experience is always happening, over and over again, in the now, and so if I want to make changes to my future or my past, my best access point is the present moment. To me, that’s what threshold is all about. Right here, right now, living out a new pattern. Telling a new story. Embodying a new choice, in the present, and trusting that it will ripple out to all the other places in life it is connected to.
And yet, this present moment experience and access point, for many of us in many times, is only accessible through intentional pre-steps that lead us there. It’s possible that the pre-steps are always required for success in this stage!
In the Coyote’s guide they talk about several models of transformation that follow roughly the same type of energetic flow. Whether its the 8 directions (where the intention and action of east and south lead to the surrender and celebration of the west threshold), or the classic “forming, storming, norming, performing” model, there are precursor stages to getting an individual or a group into “threshold”. The threshold is where the magic happens, like the cocoon stage, but all the caterpillar stages must come before the cocoon in order for the butterfly to be revealed.
I feel like the way I can best relate threshold to the Coaching chapters is that most of what Jenny Rogers spent time talking about were techniques to help clients get into greater self awareness. Without self awareness, there can be no threshold, because there can be no present moment. So A lot of what she’s talking about with 360 degree interviewing and helping clients out of denial seems to be another variation of the necessary precursor steps to arrive at the present moment – to which I still submit is where the moment of healing actually occurs!
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Wow everyone, I am SO SORRY I missed this section of the discussion. I was leading a 10 day trip through South Carolina that turned into quite a wild journey!
I just wanted to write in and say that I got a chance to watch the call you had while I was on that trip, and I loved seeing all of you.
I even got so inspired by your progress and updated that I…
FINISHED MY WEBSITE!! WOO HOO!
I’d love for you to check it out and send any feedback
http://www.rachelthor.com/ -
Brian
I love seeing how passionate about children in nature you clearly are! it comes from the heart and soul. I so appreciate the reminder of working with humans even from that young age, and especially from that young age. teaching from the start, rather than just working with adults who have to “unlearn”. Have you gotten a chance to use any Coyote guide activities yet in your experiences? How have the job apps been going?
I just started working with kiddos at Avid for Adventure (including Michael’s son Grayson) teaching outdoor adventure sports, and I try to slip in nature awareness and mindfulness whenever I can. Best to your journey! -
Kaity,
I always appreciate your perspective as a yoga therapist because while I teach yoga I seem to somehow always forget about it as a tool. I focus more on embodiment and energy in general and sometimes yoga seems to be the form. I’d love to hear if you get a chance to incorporate some NCC skills or principles with that woman you described, whether in a yoga class or offering her a session. What does she love about both?
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Mandy, it’s so awesome to read this and watch you taking this all the way! I really connected with the moment where you felt “unsure” or a little struggle, that her part wasn’t what you all expected it to be. And hearing that not only was settling and sitting with it (and using the interview tools) helpful in finding clarity on the part, it was actually the part that had the answer to her original goal/want!
The story I make from this is something like, just our intention naturally arises and brings out what is needed to meet that intention, even when we don’t know it’s happening! So to bring more allowing and trust to the moments after an intention (or want/need) has been established can be a fun and rewarding experience for us as coaches, and for our clients.
Keep rocking it Mandy, can’t wait to see you again in a few weeks -
yesss Mandy!
This part felt like gestalt experiment/work on so many levels:
My client was able to pick out branches of the tree that represented different people within the leadership team and slowly voice her feelings to them. Over the course of our session, her energy moved from doubtful and hesitant, to being aligned and speaking her truth from a deep place.And I am so thrilled to hear how you are letting yourself be more “human” in it all. You are such a natural healer and coach, I imagine that simply being who you are already is a strong intuitive and healing presence for many, that these tools are wonderful additions, but that you don’t have to become someone else to be a wonderful coach – YOU already are!
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Hannah what wonderful self-reflection and powerful coaching!
I Loved this at the end: “it is their journey, their pain, and their work to resolve it. When I make it about me, that’s when healing could potentially be thwarted. It’s not about me! What a relief to realize.”
I feel your caring nature so strongly and I can see what a delightfully interesting practice it may be to walk that boundary of loving and caring so deeply and wanting all the pain to turn into healing and happiness right away, and the strong part of you that’s willing to let others have their own journeys – in a sense, allowing that is one of the most loving things we can do sometimes!
Lots of respect for you (and the incredible power of this group!)
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Zach, responding to this late but WOW does this feel more true than ever. That we can only guide people to places we know well. If we are wanting to guide them through suffering to compassion, we must be familiar with that path. If we want to guide them into their bodies, we must inhabit ours.
Every practice session I have with a client feels like two sessions, one for them and one for me, because in order to stay present with them I am constantly noticing and dissolving my expectations and assumptions as quickly as I can, or naming them so they are not floating around messing with our present moment interactions unconsciously lol.
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David I appreciate this post and your storytelling capability. This paragraph felt particularly poetic and resonant:
I can clearly see how my psyche paints the picture of the world, and my perspective shifts from the world being set in it’s ways to the world being malleable and simply taking the form I’ve sculpted it into. In the threshold I become one with everything around me, and I can begin to take ownership of myself and how I navigate the world.
The whole paragraph about how you feel and how your perception changes in threshold sticks out to me because the vivid descriptions lend me to believe we experience at least some part of threshold in a similar way!
And I LOVE the noticings you brought to guided vs unguided threshold experiences. As a self-improvement loner for many years of my life, and still at times resisting vulnerability or intimacy with others (even thought I’m pretty cool with it myself), I’ve also had many unguided or self-guided thresholds. While I think I may have done some more poignant learning had I had help from someone wise, grounded, and able to see me during those times, I also was forced to learn how to do that for myself or be swallowed whole by my states. So even as such, I think there was still a lot of learning that happened, it just landed in a slightly different place and more experiences later filled in what I had missed. Same for you?
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thank you Kent!!
If there’s ever a picture of how the soul moves, this website has been it. Sitting “under construction” since my October vision quest. I’ve worked on it in bursts but often felt like I was still waiting for something….
Then last night at 1am I burst awake with a clear image of my logo and site, worked on this until 8:30am. Just like a seed buried in the soil, churning, and bursting through the surface all at once.
I so appreciate both the solidity of discipline and the surprise of flow in this whole process. Thanks for listening and sharing this win with me everyone!