FAQ

“The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership.

We all have goals we want to reach, challenges we’re striving to overcome and times when we feel stuck. Partnering with a coach can change your life, setting you on a path to greater personal and professional fulfillment.” -ICF website

I call this approach to coaching a cognitive approach, because much of it revolves around engaging with thoughts, language, stories, perspectives and mental barriers. This all has a place and value, and I know how to coach in this style.

Well, I’m biased because of my experience receiving somatic coaching, but I think somatic coaching is better than cognitive coaching (and so does this documented research).

Somatic coaching is different because it has often seen that things that people really care about tend to live not just in the mind but in the whole body. Maybe when something important is happening in your life, you’ve experienced increased heartbeat, sweaty palms, swelling joy, or some other physical signals. Things we care about tend to be thoroughly tied with our being, so it makes sense we experience them as more than thoughts — as living feelings. Somatics holds that the blockages that prevent us from living into what we care about also live physically in the body.

Because blockages to greater personal and professional fulfillment live in the body and the mind, they can’t be resolved by insights and discovery and perceptual shifts alone. If we put new habits on top of old habits, when the pressures of life come in, the mind gives way to what the body knows, similar to how a knee jerk reaction happens automatically.

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is the power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” -Viktor Frankl

The practice of cultivating mental awareness is helpful, but the cultivation of somatic awareness (which is a core piece of somatic coaching) builds more space for choice. This helps align our actions with our values more reliably than we could if we just worked on the level of thinking.

This alignment of our actions (what we do in the world) with our values (what we care about in ourselves) is also called ’embodiment.’

What would you like to embody?

Coaching offers no guarantees on outcomes because it’s a coachee-led space. The work is yours and it unfolds at your speed.

I do guarantee confidentiality.

Each session we’ll find some place to work on small parts of your bigger goal. The small part might be defining your bigger goal. It might be working with something in the way of your bigger goal. Sometimes this involves planning, sometimes it involves practices I lead you through and we reflect on, sometimes it involves roleplay. We’ll follow what develops for you.

Content-wise, I ask questions. Sometimes I’ll ask if you’re open to me sharing thoughts, observations, or parts of somatic theory.

Aligning action with vision and values in a way that holds mutual safety, dignity, and belonging.