Presence in Focus

As coaches we tend to have great listening skills.

It’s what we do every day, and we tend to do it well. We use these skills to helps us support the client get wherever they want to go. We tend to be good at listening to the client story, context and also emotions. Our focus is wholly on the client.

Yet there is a different kind of listening. A listening that comes from being fully present in the moment. Listening that allows you to connect with the aliveness in yourself, in the client and in the connection between you. This kind of listening can also bring many gifts to the client. It helps tap into greater wisdom that comes from your own bodily wisdom. It also allows new insights to emerge and deepens the client’s transformation.

I’d like to share a case study of how I use this other kind of listening and how it supports my work with clients. In this kind of listening I am present with what is in me, in the client and I have no agenda or plan for the client.

My client was wanting to create more time for strategic work, but he would get caught up in endless meetings and he didn’t like to say ‘No’ to them. Obviously one way to work with such a client, would be to help him get more awareness of his situation and then support him to create an action plan.

My approach is quite different.

Before the start of the session, I had taken time to get really present with myself. After he had shared the issue, we then took some time to help him arrive more into the present moment as well. I reminded him to bring his awareness to the warmth of his hands touching each other. He had discovered in a previous session that this anchor was remarkably effective for him.

Then I gave him the space so that he could bring a slower, more present, kind of attention to himself. I invited him to notice what he noticed as he reflected on his situation. I was as present with him as I was with myself and with my own body.

I didn’t feel the need to ask him many questions. As I created space for him and accompanied him, I sometimes reflected the essence of what I had heard and sometimes I was silent. I was following my own inner feelings on this. As he reflected on what saying ‘No’ meant to him, he became aware of all kinds of judgements that he had about himself. Now, in this slowed-down state, his underlying thoughts and beliefs could emerge. He was also able to find words for them and acknowledge them, when he hadn’t even known were there.

I wasn’t only following what was alive in him I was also following my own felt sense of the situation. Not for my own resonance of his story but for what my body was picking up from him. Most of the time there was congruence, but from time to time I experienced something quite different. For example, as he imagined declining a meeting, he experienced tension in his gut even though he knew it was the right thing to do. I recall quite distinctly, in that moment, that my belly relaxed. I was able to share this with him a little later, and after hearing this, he was able to find and experience his own sense of relaxation as well.

In the subsequent session he shared that he no longer attended so many meetings. This had enabled him to find more time for his strategic work, but he was also more available to support his team .

This approach I use comes from focusing and the felt sense which was created by Eugene Gendlin in the 1960s

For coaches, Focusing can help you:

• Deepen your client work through your own embodiment.
• Bring greater presence and aliveness to your client work.
• Become better able to process any emotional responses to difficult clients.
• Regulate your own and your client’s nervous system.
• Feel more resourced in general and in your work with clients.

Find out more about my work and the trainings I offer other coaches here.

This is a guest blog by Ruth Friedman, a Credentialed Master Executive Coach from the Association for Coaching and has been recognised by the Forbetter Institute as one of Edinburgh’s Top 10 coaches. She is also a Credentialed Focusing Practitioner and Trainer and a Credentialed Circling Leader. She draws on these practices in her work with clients and also provided trainings for other coaches.? More information about her work can be found at www.leadbeingyou.com