Sarah Hope
Forum Replies Created
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Wow! What a cool concept you bring up here. I love the idea of educating women on brain function as a feminist tool of liberation. This is mind blowing. I hope you work with it more in your coaching world- it could be revolutionary. Understanding the brain and the function of the RAS could have the potential to liberate women from the confines of oppressive ideologies and the freedom to choose different though patterns, ultimately creating a potential new reality. Woweeee!!! I’m so thrilled with this idea. Thank you.
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There are two clients that I chose to focus on when practicing the skills learned in this intensive.
One client was highly analytical and I intuitively knew he would benefit from an explanation of the brain. His goal was to become more present and connected to his life as a father and husband. We talked about the PFE and the practice of mindfulness and ritual. For him, this allowed him to connect with the work we were doing and give himself more fully to the process.
The other client had a completely different need. She had been having trouble identifying what she really wanted though she knew she wanted to change her career and was clear on what she did NOT want. She was not interested in hearing any explanations or theory- so we dive right into experiential practice. Rather than examining why we breath, we would just breath and notice the feeling and address what came up. We worked mostly with awareness. I would track her and stay with her as she identified important emotions. This seemed to give her the safe space to clarify what she was feeling. When she was growing up in a religious household she was not allowed to express her wants. This resulted in a blockage in being able to visualize or name what she truly wanted. I came to realize that for her she needed to identify what she was feeling before she could express what she wanted.
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This intensive on grief was fascinating for me. Having grown up with my father, a surgeon, we often minimized the experience of grief and loss. It was liberating to open this concept up in my life and allow it the space it deserved. Having grown up this way I came to fear and avoid grief.
Having gone through the Gestalt portion of EBI, I came to view grief as a cycle of experience with many colorful layers. It needs time and space to cycle through the nervous system. This could take years and when the cycle of experience is denied as it often is in modern life, a person is limited stunted or suspended in limbo.
I often wonder if the some of the clients who seek coaching because they feel stuck are actually experiencing stunted grief.
When working with clients around grief, the one thing I have learned to do is allow space and work with the breath. Recently I had a client who cried for the entire session, and I simply sat with her and allowed the energy to cycle through. I’ve learned not to try to put a positive spin or reframe something that inherently sucks for the client. As a coach this would be disingenuous. I’ve come to realize that before transformation can occur the surrounding emotions must be allowed to process and move through, otherwise the affective filter will stifle any authentic change. Even when the changes are positive, their can still be a grieving period for the loss of the old way of being and the comforts it contained. Transformation and grief are closely connected. Words are like futile paddles in a boat tossing through a furious ocean- presence is really all we have in these moments. It has to be quality.
In facing grief, the coaching presence and relationship are key. Presence in the face of grief means being a witness and a safe support for authentic emotions to emerge. This can be an amazing gift in a society that continuously denies grief or lacks meaningful rituals for this deeply human experience.
I was recently in an West African dance class. There had recently been a death and a birth in the community. I was amazed at the way some of the dancers were moving- the emotion was like a current being expressed by their entire bodies. They were dancing the complexity of emotions cycling through the community, sorrow, loss, despair, celebration. I understood the movements from a deep place inside me- something human, but forgotten. I don’t quite know yet what to do with this information but it points me towards a desire to do some work with somatic experiencing perhaps as a next step in my professional training.
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I feel so connected to what you have expressed here. The mere mention of grief also brings up a discomfort that feels unbearable. My mind starts to reach for distractions. The physical sensations are palpable.
I’m glad I am not the only one who put this off. Reading Jen’s reference to Jill Bolte Taylors “My Stroke of Insight” provides some context and reminds me that there is a physiological component to grief.
Thanks for sharing your resistance. It meant a lot to me to read your share.
Right now, I’m struggling with the gradual loss of my father as I knew him because of Parkinson’s disease. Somehow the notion that we all share grief brings some comfort.
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I deeply appreciated this section on trauma. One thing that really stood out for me was the brains reaction to trauma. Learning and forward momentum becomes impossible because the brain is in a fight or flight state- more concerned with the survival than self-realization. I’ve had moments with clients where I realized I was no longer talking to an adult but rather a traumatized younger version of the client. Goals and intentions don’t make sense at this point and pushing them will only cause the client to get frustrated and angry. Having some skills around trauma awareness is a great addition to any coaching practice.
I had two female clients around the time of the session that presented opportunities to practice the trauma awareness skills we learned.
Client #1: A therapist who was struggling to make the move away from a Medical model based-therapy practice into a more personally meaningful practice. She was having a hard time moving forward on this- when we began to talk about it she would nervously pick at her fingers and deflect attention elsewhere. In our last session we worked with resourcing. she loved tarot cards and we were able to use them to pendulate safely between the trauma- and the deeper meaning (offered symbolically by the tarot cards). We also used some gestalt and physical movement to discharge some of the energy, When trauma came up. I employed the pushing technique with this client a few times and that seemed to diffuse some of the tension around this topic.
Client #2: Has had trauma come up on a few occasions and I was able to better recognize it during our session together. I noticed that she often seemed physically fatigued but hyper-animated in her speech. By bringing in some present moment and body awareness she seemed to shift quickly from fatigue into tears and other noticeable discharge of emotion- such as sighing, and relief breaths. After this she was better able to find clarity and realize which of her decisions were fear-based and which were aligned.
From this I learned that it’s hard, if not impossible to accomplish new goals while stuck in unprocessed trauma or a fear/survival mindset. I am beginning to realize that people can compound their initial trauma by blaming and judging themselves for not being able to access their potential. they feel guilt and shame for not reaching the goal, this seems to add to the feelings of worthlessness. Have a sense of self-worth seems central to being able to accomplish a personally meaningful goal. It seems to me in order to feel self worth we need to be able to process the trauma and fearful reactions to the world. I am profoundly affected by this class and this topic- it has made me a more sensitive coach and also given me permission to be sensitive and aware of trauma in a coaching session. -
Is there another task to be done here? I noticed this is marked as incomplete.
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I’m loving this class. The more I learn the less I know. I appreciate being able to witness this in practice. The space is both vulnerable and safe.
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Gestalt has honestly changed my life and my practice in so many ways.
The principles of interjection, projection, deflection and retroflection have helped me to understand my own life and behavior as well as that of my parents and caregivers. There has been great healing in understanding the forces that shaped me. It is through this lens that I can see others with clarity and compassion and recognize where they are expressing a “not self” characteristic. By noticing this, I am able to track the journey of the client to their true desire.
Since coaching is my full-time job, all of my clients have been practice clients and each ceremony becomes a cycle of experience. Understanding this and allowing myself to be more a part of it has helped me to recognize a threshold experience with more certainty.
A recent session with a client stands out to me as a good example of using Gestalt with the limited experience I have. I noticed that as we got close to the deeper need in her session, she began to deflect almost like a clever animal trying to throw me off the trail, but I persisted, gently but firmly. She finally said, because “it matters to me.” I don’t remember what I said exactly but it was something like “Does it matter because you matter? (Reference to an earlier part of the conversation in which she expressed that she does not feel like she matters or that anyone listens to her.) Hearing this she broke into tears- and wanted to turn away from me. I said, that she was welcome to do so and she still would matter to me. It was a strong moment- a lot changed after that. I think she shifted to a place of readiness for action within the week that followed because she arrived with an action plan for changing her business in the way she had been wanting to.
I hav loved Gestalt so much that I decided to join the deep dive. It is one of those mysterious practices in which it seems the more you learn, the less you know. I like practices like that. It’s much mike my understanding of shamanism- each door opens a new door and other worlds may appear. -
Jen,
your insights on the readings always help me connect to them better. The layers of emotions involved in grief and their various locations in the brain and subsequently the body, is a source of fascination for me.
Multiple layers of emotions both positive and negative appear when we unpack grief. It is so valuable to look more deeply at this complex emotion.
Your clients will be lucky to have you as a coach. Your capacity to hold grief and patience to allow the layers to emerge is a powerful gift.
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Ally, your openness throughout the program was an important part for me. I noticed how you were always willing to say exactly what was true for you and be honest about how you were feeling.
Knowing that we share our struggles as a collective makes grief more bearable.
I appreciate the way you named the experience of grief in losing parts of your own life. This gave me the freedom to give more space and compassion for the ambiguous types of grief that appear in the lives of my clients and friends.
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Replying to @Leslie
I love that you brought trauma awareness into the medical context. This topic is on my mind a lot lately I’m thinking of the doctors and nurses who have been involved with the pandemic.
In a busy job like nursing, so much stimulus passes through that we never fully get the chance to process. My father was a physician and at the end of his career he developed Parkinson’s disease. When I asked him how he thought it developed he said “stress”. I don’t think he had the language to describe unprocessed trauma in the body. His perception of trauma was limited to physical trauma and had an outward obvious manifestation such as bleeding, bruising or a medical emergency. The trauma we speak of can remain hidden even from ourselves. I so often wish there were a paradigm for doctors and nurses to receive trauma support and awareness training.I also like the way you take the time to mention the readiness of your client. Opening a coaching paradigm has to mean being ready to face the things clients have been keeping inside. It can be scary to look at these things. I appreciate your sensitivity to that.
I also appreciate your mention of the use of resourcing in distance coaching. A lot of my work is also distance coaching- and it can be hard to imagine how to pull off an effective session when trauma comes up. -
@deanna I love that you named the introject about giving up yourself for your client otherwise you are selfish. This is a big one for me and I can often remember my mother using the word selfish against my or others so that I internalized that having self- and personal needs is wrong. Earlier in my practice I would find myself almost enmeshed with my clients lives and issues at least during the session. I might have even sent a follow up text like. “How are you doing with….” but this put a lot on me and I might carry them, mentally, outside the session. I’ve developed better boundaries over time but Gestalt has really helped me put more faith into the strength of the session and it becomes easier to stay present in the session and also not tuck in it when it ends.
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@Gina, I think you just named one of the biggest gifts of Gestalt for me here. I was previously unable to put a name to it- but I do often struggle with attachment to outcome in the ceremony process. I think you are right that Gestalt can help the experience become a shared one- and it can unfold more naturally in that context. Thank you for naming this. I’ve had more ease in coaching since the gestalt session.
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It’s wonderful to see that gestalt is being applied in other places, outside of coaching. It is such a healing practice. I wonder what would happen if this became the norm in more workplaces and organizations. This idea really inspires me
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I think I need a reminder of what the grand Canyon metaphor is.