The Storm is the Norm: The Urgent Need for Mindful-Somatic Coaching

:: 00:00

And I want to talk briefly about state of affairs in the world today and its impact on us and our clients. What's going on with us all is the storm is the norm. The world asks way too much from us in terms of complexity of our lives and the things we must endure just to get through a day. Our thousands of messages of people trying to get our attentions with shock and awe coming at you constantly. The extreme amount of this, the unbelievable thing that happened here, the incredible everything is so amplified.

:: 00:40

And we're not designed to take on that many shocks to a nervous system in a day. We're designed to walk through natural landscape and be in that for growing and hunting and fishing and that's what we were millions of years. That's the way our neurology was crafted, in that context. And now we're in a completely different context. And our nervous systems don't adapt to the digital age in 200 years, when really the digital age is only really coming around in my lifetime.

:: 01:23

And so that's a very brief period of time. The rate of changes exceeded our capacity to adapt. And this is having an impact on us. We don't really know what all this is about yet, what this does to us, but we do know that it does have an impact. And so what is that?

:: 01:46

And what is a way to help people navigate this new world? This is a statement I use a lot. Problems that seem overwhelming, which we seem to be in a lot of overwhelm these days, get much smaller as you get bigger. And so one of the reasons this method works is because what happens is you connect to something inside of you that's bigger than you. You connect to what I call the absolutes.

:: 02:18

The absolutes are things like creativity, justice, peace, the urge to be helpful and healed yourself and the world. So as a coach on the planet, you are someone who is as a coach or whatever practice you have, I want to say this is actually good for all different kinds of people. You're connected to wanting to help people. And when you really, really land in that, it's not just about you. It's about a bigger story.

:: 02:50

It's about healing ourselves, our world, and it's about having a world that we want to thrive in and feel safe in and feel supported and creating a place where we can all be who we were born to be, rather than some idea of extreme performance and success, which the culture is telling us we need to be. That's a big deal. When you connect to that, it's a mission bigger than how am I going to do my taxes today? Or how do I fill out this form? It's bigger than that.

:: 03:29

And when we get into stress, when we're connected with this bigger mission, the stress seems to recede into the background because you're connected to something that's bigger than any transient moment in your life.

:: 03:48

This takes some work to see how it happens, but once you land in the truth of that, it really is a magnificent experience. I was working with an ADHD coach and he a great guy and he was concerned and I have authority to talk about these from these people.

:: 04:14

But he felt there was a little bit of impostor syndrome going on and by working with him, he really got in touch with the truth of his own journey. That his actual work to become a coach was actually a model for how other people could work through their own neurodivergent issues and he could help people in his specialty. And he really landed in that this is really true. I really do have something here that's powerful and important and it matters rather than, well, I don't know if I can and it's like there's such rather than being in the confusion, he landed in the somatic embodiment of the power of his lessons, the journeys, the hard lessons that he had fought for and learned. And when he owned that, it became solid ground from which he could move forward.

:: 05:14

And then his doubts are just doubts. They're not an identity. It's not someone who is worried about it's just I am someone who has a worry. I have a worry, but I am not that you see the differences of a language difference. It's sort of like one of the things I coach people to say is like I'm having anxiety about this interview.

:: 05:39

I'm really anxious, I'm really worried about this interview. I don't know if it's going to go well. One is I'm in it, I am anxious versus I am experiencing anxiety.

:: 05:54

Anxiety is in my experience, but it's not who I am. I'm something bigger than that. The language matters. So that's a finesse that we teach in the method as well that's actually borrowed straight out of focusing. There's a whole technique, beautiful training called focusing.

:: 06:13

It's also very somatic and powerful.

:: 06:19

One of the things I hear from people is that people say, well, I've studied mindfulness, so why do I need mindfulness coach training? And I want to say that it's absolutely imperative, I believe that coaches have a mindfulness background or a study training in it. That in and of itself does not give you a framework though, for how to move a client through the states and stages towards embodying a new identity. It helps tremendously for you to see opportunities and to connect and create authentic rapport. Mindfulness is fabulous for that.

:: 07:04

So even if you don't do anything else but do that, that will help your coaching a great deal. However, it's just the beginning of what's possible. One of the things I like to say is like once you've done the hard work of creating the space in yourself to be mindful and present with another person, then what? Right? So you're dealing with your client and you're seeing there mindfully and you're present with them and they tell you about a problem.

:: 07:33

Now what do you do? Yeah, okay, I'm mindfully. I'm present with them what's in your Mindful toolkit. And the Mindful Coach method is about those tools. Like what are the Mindful somatic tools that you can use now that you've done the hard work to make yourself a present coach?

:: 07:51

So this is resourcing a coach in a really rich way, so that there's a very rich array of choices for you to be able to choose interventions that are appropriate for the state and stage that your client is in. But you have to have some idea about where they're at and where you're going. And that's a framework which we'll talk about in a minute. Here's another case study scenario where this was a woman who was in my last cohort, and I really like this story that she brought to the group. She was working with an Asian American, and actually, I don't know if they were American or not, but they had an Asian Pacific heritage and that's important in this context.

:: 08:43

And the person was feeling like they just weren't enough, that they weren't living up to expectations. And there's a little bit of imposter syndrome, I think, going on there. But what she reported is that by using the methods, this person was able to connect to a big realization that they weren't in this by themselves, they didn't have to do it all themselves, that in fact, they were connected to a rich ancestry. Now, this is not something that Americans connect to that much like I'm standing on the shoulders of my rich heritage instead of it's like, well, you got to do it yourself and you're self made. And it's like we're all on our own in a way.

:: 09:26

The truth is we have generations of people before us who have created the opportunity for you to be here. And when you connect to a rich lineage of in this particular case, and I don't remember the skill set that this person was working with, but let's just say healers or doctors or teachers and you go, oh, I've had teachers, generations of teachers in my family. That's a resource for me just to connect to and to realize that I'm gifted with this is fate or destiny as I'm created of the stuff of this. And when you connect to that in a foundational level, suddenly it's like, well, wow, what a huge resource that you to bring to the table. And when you own that, you can just imagine the coherence that that could provide to you to be in touch with the fact that it's not just me standing here, it's generations standing here.

:: 10:32

Wow, that's a big deal. That's the kind of thing that this kind of approach can do for people. What I'm trying to do with the Mindful Coach method is a fast track version in a way to give you the essential tools that you can use right away to really shift the way you work with clients and your clients into another mode of connecting to resources within themselves so that they can then manage and navigate their world in a much more resilient resource place. And there's a sequence of techniques and approaches to doing that that I don't believe take months and months and months to begin to implement. Now it takes a while to integrate, there's no question about it.

:: 11:24

But you can begin to work with the tools right away and see tremendous benefits. And once you start to use this stuff, I added this bullet at the last minute. Trust me on this. You'll wonder how you ever worked without this. I live in a state where these things are, like in my daily interactions.

:: 11:45

Like, I've taught my wife one of the techniques called contact statements. And it's like that's straight from Hakomi. And sometimes she'll say, well, why don't you do this? And I said, no, really, honey, what I just need for you to just say is like, sounds hard. Something just very simple like just connect with my feeling rather than the solution.

:: 12:05

Right. Just that little technique right there is exceptionally powerful not only in client work, but also with everyday conversation.

:: 12:20

I want to play a video here and I wanted to play it because it's a really nice tight demo of quickly creating trust and rapport. It didn't quite go the way that this woman thought it would, but it was perfect. It's perfect for this example. So this is only about three to four minutes long, I think. How are you doing today?

:: 12:44

I'm doing well, thank you. I'm home at my parents place and have a beautiful view of the ocean in front of me. So doing very well. That's nice. That's so great.

:: 12:54

Okay. How are you doing, Brett? I'm doing great, thank you for asking. So I'm going to time out right there again, so I know already that she is connected to beauty because she named it, she said, I have a beautiful view of the ocean. Right.

:: 13:11

And so she's already got this thing going where she's able to appreciate her world, the natural scenery. So I'm wondering, I might ask you a question like this just right away. Would you say, Lex, that your relationship to nature is important to you? Absolutely. Right, okay.

:: 13:32

What's it like for you when you hear that question you asking that makes it evident that you're present because you're kind of continuing to double click into this present moment and not kind of going through this agenda list of items to get to the point? Yeah. And the response in you is to what do you notice? I'm going to take your word for it that that's true. And so what happens in you as you experience that?

:: 14:10

What do you think about what's going on between you and me. As a result of that, I feel seen and yeah, just engaged. Perfect. So are you okay if we stop right here? Yes, absolutely.

:: 14:27

Because that's a really good little mini demo of what I was talking about. It's like just by me listening to her noticing it, her eyes. Did you notice when she's talked about the ocean, she went so beautiful. It's like you could see her just light up. That's what I call a limbic state shift.

:: 14:48

I'm noticing that her limbic system, her nervous system, she stepped into a momentary experience of beauty, a recollection of it, and her whole nervous system, just for a second, kind of went, whoa, beauty. Yay, beauty. And she's going over it pretty quickly, verbally, like she's skipping over it kind of fast. So I know that she's got a lot of complexity in her world as well, but I'm just going to land in the groundedness of her connection to beauty, because that is real. That is something that would and if I'm a coach in my method, I'm going to use that as bedrock.

:: 15:27

Whatever problem she has, I'm going to take it back to your appreciation for beauty. Because I'll bet you and this is me being a little more intuitive and projecting, that whatever her issues are, they're all about alignment around what's between me and that kind of somatic relaxing around the natural goodness and harmony in the world. But is that true? You can see you're going, yes, right. I don't have as much time to dive into that as I would like.

:: 15:55

But the point here is there was a lot in that little demo where I'm connecting, I'm making contact statements. And because it's so brief in such an artificial context, doing a demo like this, that would be a lot slower in real practice, but you can see how very quickly I was able to make her feel seen. Now, what that does in ron Kurtz would say in the Hakomi method, he would say you're working to get the cooperation of the subconscious. So when she feels that she is seen and she knows that I'm paying attention in an unusually refined way, something in her relaxes, and that opens the door to doing deeper work. And so what you're doing here is you're connecting to you're creating the conditions that are necessary to go even further.

:: 16:54

So that's the very first stage. And so let's just talk a little bit about the framework. And so here you can see where I'm tracking. I'm like paying attention to her lighting up around beauty, and I'm contacting that beauty. I'm saying, is this true?

:: 17:16

What's it like for you to be connected to beauty? And if we were doing more, I would say really connect to that and let herself really land in the truth of that and really go deep with it and see who emerges as a result of that. One of John eisman's. Powerful statements would be who must you be that you are so connected to beauty? What does it say about you as a soul, right?

:: 17:46

And how powerful is that to walk around in your world connected to the truth of that about yourself? Because it's indisputable and it's untouchable. No matter what anybody says to you, it doesn't ever take away the fact that you are connected to something so profound and so persistent and so omnipresent that it's a resource for you your entire life.

:: 18:14

So that's it. In a nutshell, the storm is the norm. This work helps you to connect people in a deep way and give voice to that new self to facilitate towards resourcefulness, which is something I didn't have time to get into, but you could see what I was doing. I said, if she's in my method, I'm going to keep going back to beauty or whatever presents in her case. I'm sure there are other things as well.

:: 18:36

And you don't just always make it about beauty. It's whatever the client brings to the table and connecting to what lights you up in these case studies. And ancestry, nature, creativity, your own story of healing and the mindfulness is useful, but it's just a part. You need the framework and the skill set to know how to intervene where. Now all of this is in the Mindful Coach Method, which is this eight week training that I do, where we go really deep on all this stuff and the step by step and enumerating taking a person through this.

:: 19:10

You start with your own mindfulness and you have an intent here, this coaching intent, and you take people through this process of you're paying attention, you're contacting them, you're helping them immerse in their own experience, then you're waiting for insight emerges, then you help. There's another step in here called integration. This is insight and integration as well. But that often happens rather or all of this actually happens organically if you just water the seed, so to speak. You to create the conditions for insight to emerge and it does.

:: 19:45

And you can reach me at Brett, at Bretthill coach so you can find out if you would like to talk about The Mindful Coach Association where you can see how the course is structured as well as all the bonuses and some reviews from the alumni about the course and how they've appreciated the work there. Also, if you're interested, you can connect with the stuff that comes off of my desk. If you resonate with this kind of content, the best way to do that is to go to themindfulcoach.com and sign up for the newsletter there. Because I publish to the newsletter sometimes, stuff that only goes to the newsletter and you'll find out about any new content or webinars that I'm offering there as well. If you're interested in meeting other people who are also doing mindful work in the world coaches, therapists, doctors, all kinds of folk are members of the Mindful Coach Association@themindfulcoachassociation.com completely free to join.

:: 20:43

And so please, if you resonate with this, and this is something that you do professionally, join us. Because we are developing a really vibrant community there where we can resource each other, we can connect, we can collaborate as well as act as a whole in terms of being able to bring resources and skills into the group in ways that are very difficult to do when it's just you out there all by yourself, kind of seeing what works and what doesn't. There's a lot of knowledge in the community in terms of what works, what's available resources that can be helpful to you, and we're going to be amplifying and elevating all of that. And in fact, the Mindful Coach podcast is a part of that mission. So if you're interested in that that resonates with you, check it out.

:: 21:28

So themindfulcoachmethod.com, themindfulcoach.com, themindfulcoachassociation.com. That's the trifecta of the content that I'm involved with, and I hope that you can connect in one of those ways. We'll talk soon. Thank you.