Moving From The Conscious Mind To Expanded Awareness

Supporting the people we work with to create new conscious awareness in the process of desired change is one of the key aspects of being a coach and a leader who coaches. And sometimes you may find the people you work with move from a deeper unconscious space where they are creating new perspectives and expanding their consciousness back into their ‘head space’, which may stop the deeper exploration.

When someone is in their head space or conscious mind during a coaching conversation, it can sometimes be challenging to support them to move back into the wiser parts of their heart, body and mind. And as a consequence of noticing this yourself as the coach or leader, you may also be in your head trying to work things out for your client. (The ‘client’ being a professional coaching client or a team member or colleague or family member). And it doesn’t have to continue to be that way.

 Below are some strategies to support your client to move back into the deeper, wiser place of their unconscious mind.

1.  Be open with your client about what you perhaps notice as a change from being in a place of discovery and greater awareness to being back into a confused head space or over analysing thoughts or going into non-essential details. Reflecting back what you observe can be an effective way for your client to reconnect with their unconscious mind. 

Using the coaching core competency of direct communication by being clear and succinct with your words about what your client is potentially doing can be very effective.

By sharing what you perceive is happening with your client - going back into their thinking mind - it can support them to create conscious awareness about what they have done, and it may also reflect a typical pattern they do when they are on the verge of a breakthrough in their thoughts.

Saying to your client something like 'It appears you're in your head again' can assist your client to move back to the unconscious mind and heart towards their goals.

And by asking them what was the trigger for the change to come out of their deeper exploration of themselves, it can powerfully support the client to perhaps recognise deeper thoughts or a behavioural pattern, which holds them back from achieving their goals.

You can also reflect back a potential ‘parallel process’ going on between you both by sharing your experience with the client of – let’s say - potential confusion or going back into an analytical part of your mind, and asking your client what they might be experiencing or what's coming up for them in that moment. This process can stop the client to pause, reflect and perhaps identify new awareness and perspectives.

 2.  Move inside your body and support your client to do the same is one of the most effective ways you can support your client into a deeper state of new conscious awareness. Research says 58% of our communication is through our physiology and experts such as neuro-scientists, doctors etc say our unconscious mind lives in our body. So if you ask your client to tap into their body’s wisdom and what it is saying to them, your client can create new thoughts and expanded understanding.

You can also slow down the conversation by using your powerful voice. By using a lower tone, slower pace, lower volume, you can support your client to move into their unconscious mind to create greater awareness. 

And If you realise you are in your own head, take a deep breath and perhaps ask your client if they would like to do the same. This can support physically re-grounding yourself and your client. 

Inviting the client to physically move during a session can enable your client to come out of their story and bring awareness to themselves when they shift their body. Even if the body movement is ever so slight, it can again create new powerful awareness. Small physiological movements such as looking up, sitting up straight, standing up, putting a hand on heart, lowering shoulders can create deeper perspectives.

3.  Simply asking your client what's going on underneath their story, and not letting them go into more details around the story can support them to find their truth. Getting curious about the strategy of avoidance and what is really going on for our client can often create a shift and lead to great new awareness.

Supporting your client to go beyond the surface of their stories is a courageous and critical part of what you do as a coach or leader to be able to empower your client/s to create the transformational change they seek. Enjoy the process of supporting powerful change!

 Be empowered.

Learn strategies to support your clients to move out of their habitual stories and create greater awareness for themselves. Listen to Jeanine and Marie in in Empower World Coaching and Leadership Podcast, Episode 136 here

Episode-136 can be found here: 

Direct Link: https://bit.ly/2Q9rJhX

#stitcher: https://bit.ly/st-podcast-episode-136

#spotify: https://bit.ly/sp-podcast-episode-136

#itunes: https://bit.ly/EW-Podcast-iTune 

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