What's going to make you a better coach or therapist?

Nancy and the rubber Plant, Alice Neel 1975

What's Going to Help You Be a Better Coach Part 1: Doing Your Own Inner Work

What’s going to help you help clients transform at deeper levels? What’s going to help you feel a greater sense of competence as a practitioner? What methodology can you work within that will create the most transformational change for clients? What specific skills and insights can you strengthen and leverage to really bring an exceptional presence to your work? And help your clients create exceptional results?

A few things:

1. Doing your own inner work

2. Bringing a depth psychological perspective to your work

3. Incorporating intuitive energetic awareness and spiritual principles

4. Shifting your view of your role in the transformational process

5. Developing a transpersonal, meta-physical and ontological worldview

6. Incorporating neuroscientific best practices related to neuroplasticity

I’ve been a coach and therapist since completing my graduate training in 1999. Over the years I’ve worked with the prison population, young children and teenagers, young parents, people in their elder years, middle-aged professionals, 20-somehings, moms, and pretty much everyone in between.

When people come to us for help, healing, advice, reassurance, counseling, coaching, or therapy, they are coming because they want something in their lives to be different. They want something to change. In some sense, they are looking for transformation. Perhaps it’s transformation out of the grief and loss process or transformation toward greater productivity or transformation in who they are as communicators, parents, lovers, employees, professionals, students, parents, and on and on.

Most people will come to us because they want something to be different. But the fact is it’s the client who will have to become different. It’s the client who will have to change, in many ways. One of my favorite axioms from the wall of a distinguished old therapist I so admired read as follow:

Things don’t change. People change them.

Indeed.

When clients come to us, they are hoping we can help them change or transform something about themselves or their lives. It’s our job to 1) know if we can help and 2) know how to do so.

I want to share with you some insights I’ve gained over the time I’ve been in private practice in the suburbs of Philadelphia (on traditional unceded territory of the Lenape peoples).

In order to know if we can help and how to do so, we must have some gravitas about the sacredness of the work we do. We must also have great humility. We must have lived experience and a felt sense of our own embodiment, empowerment, and sovereignty. Part of how we get there is through the process of doing our own inner work.

Doing your own inner work

I come to this work from the perspective of a psychospiritual lens. I see our role as guides out of the morass of contemporary culture and into the archetypal and timeless nature of the true authentic self. I view our role as guiding clients toward the discovery of their own authentic and whole self. This means that as we do our own inner work, we continue to peel back the layers of conditioning and programming that has been laid upon us by the overculture (the dominant culture of our society whose beliefs, mores and values are implicit, internalized and followed without conscious awareness).

Inner work is contemplation, meditation, self-exploration, and self-reflection. It involves conscious awareness, noticing, understanding, insight and intuition development, journaling, dream work, active imagination, creative and future visualization and what I call the Radiant Envisioning method which is a process I teach to help clients eliminate limiting beliefs and traumatic memories that are keeping them stuck.

All of these methods are powerful ways of learning about the inner workings of the subconscious mind (which includes beliefs, ideas, memories, conditioning, societal programming) and the personal unconscious (previously conscious experiences and parts of the self that are not currently conscious or have been repressed). By doing our own inner work, we get to know and appreciate our own inner landscape and the archetypal elements that reside there (e.g., the inner mother, the inner companion, the inner healer, the inner wise woman).

Beginning or continuing your own inner work is imperative. You simply must do so if you want to be a better coach or therapist. Here are some ways to get started.

Journaling: stream of consciousness pen to paper writing for a certain amount of time or number of pages on a consistent daily basis preferably at the same time each day and preferably in the morning before the day gets away from you. Allowing a stream-of-consciousness flow of words to emerge, we begin to become much more familiar with our desires and our emotional triggers. It’s especially helpful to use prompts (for those in the Authentic Wholeness Practitioner training program, you will receive daily journaling prompts via text message). Although stream-of-consciousness is a tried and true method, you should use whatever method works for you. You are the expert on you and what will be most pleasing and meaningful.

Symbolism & Imagery: This is a favorite of mine when it comes to inner work. Explore 5-10 tarot decks on line and purchase the deck with which you feel the greatest connection. Spend time with one card each day, and note your reflections about the emotions the card evokes, the imagery, the story of the card, and the colors. This work is incredibly helpful as you learn to take a symbolic orientation toward imagery and its impact on our individual psychology, especially in artistic expression. Taking it one step further, go ahead and engage in an artistic practice. The psychospiritual development that occurs through artistic exploration is remarkable.

In the Authentic Wholeness Practitioner Training, inner work is an integral component of the program. We explore all kinds of inner work techniques so that you can experience them on your own journey of growth but also so that you can teach them to your clients and have clients implement them on their own healing journeys. In addition to journaling and work with symbolism and imagery, there are so many other important and effective ways to come to know our inner landscapes.

Part 2 Coming Soon...

Sometimes a Wild God by Tom Hirons, 2017

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table. He is awkward and does not know the ways Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver. His voice makes vinegar from wine.

When the wild god arrives at the door, You will probably fear him. He reminds you of something dark That you might have dreamt, Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.

He will not ring the doorbell; Instead he scrapes with his fingers Leaving blood on the paintwork, Though primroses grow In circles round his feet.

You do not want to let him in. You are very busy. It is late, or early, and besides… You cannot look at him straight Because he makes you want to cry.

Your dog barks; The wild god smiles. He holds out his hand and The dog licks his wounds, Then leads him inside.

The wild god stands in your kitchen. Ivy is taking over your sideboard; Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades And wrens have begun to sing An old song in the mouth of your kettle.

‘I haven’t much,’ you say And give him the worst of your food. He sits at the table, bleeding. He coughs up foxes. There are otters in his eyes.

When your wife calls down, You close the door and Tell her it’s fine. You will not let her see The strange guest at your table.

The wild god asks for whiskey And you pour a glass for him, Then a glass for yourself. Three snakes are beginning to nest In your voicebox. You cough.

Oh, limitless space. Oh, eternal mystery. Oh, endless cycles of death and birth. Oh, miracle of life. Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.

You cough again, Expectorate the snakes and Water down the whiskey, Wondering how you got so old And where your passion went.

The wild god reaches into a bag Made of moles and nightingale-skin. He pulls out a two-reeded pipe, Raises an eyebrow And all the birds begin to sing.

The fox leaps into your eyes. Otters rush from the darkness. The snakes pour through your body. Your dog howls and upstairs Your wife both exults and weeps at once.

The wild god dances with your dog. You dance with the sparrows. A white stag pulls up a stool And bellows hymns to enchantments. A pelican leaps from chair to chair.

In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs. Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields. Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs. The hills echo and the grey stones ring With laughter and madness and pain.

In the middle of the dance, The house takes off from the ground. Clouds climb through the windows; Lightning pounds its fists on the table And the moon leans in.

The wild god points to your side. You are bleeding heavily. You have been bleeding for a long time, Possibly since you were born. There is a bear in the wound.

‘Why did you leave me to die?’ Asks the wild god and you say: ‘I was busy surviving. The shops were all closed; I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’

Listen to them:

The fox in your neck and The snakes in your arms and The wren and the sparrow and the deer… The great un-nameable beasts In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…

There is a symphony of howling. A cacophony of dissent. The wild god nods his head and You wake on the floor holding a knife, A bottle and a handful of black fur.

Your dog is asleep on the table. Your wife is stirring, far above. Your cheeks are wet with tears; Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting. A black bear is sitting by the fire.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table. He is awkward and does not know the ways Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver. His voice makes vinegar from wine And brings the dead to life.