Blocks to Your Connection with Coaching Clients: The CLEARER Way to Transformation

Are you a coach, leader or facilitator with the knowledge that to be more effective in your practice you need to have a deeper understanding of yourself and tackle your own ‘stuff’?

Are you aware of the power of coaching and conscious communication and want to take things to a deeper level? Do you want to develop yourself as well as your practice as a coach- working more holistically and achieving true growth and transformation for your clients?

There are many mediocre coach trainings in the market today, many coaches working at a transactional rather than a transformational level. I have experienced that people always feedback how different and powerful my method of coaching is and how transformed they are through my training.

The theme of my work is developing you personally as the coach, transforming you and your practice so you can work more deeply with your clients. This is a journey of finding your True Northe and if you don’t know who you are you won’t know where you are going.

Many approaches to coaching are one dimensional, addressing only the clients thinking, keeping them in the safety and limitations of their cognition and yet we are not one dimensional and in this guide you will learn how to effectively explore all the dimensions of your client and their emotional, physical, mental and spiritual world.

Over many years I repeatedly heard the frustrations of working within traditional models which for me neglect the personal growth of the coach; resulting in the coach lacking the skill or confidence to work with more complex issues, which in turn limit the potential for both the coach and client.

Instead you will learn to:

• Listen beyond the client’s words
• Create psychological safety and trust in the coaching relationship
• Use your intuition
• Go beyond the cognitive to the emotional dimension
• Unlock unconscious processes
• Align internal systems
• Enable transformation

I believe that the development of self is fundamental as a coach and without working on yourself you will not develop the capability to stretch your clients and keep them safe. You will find here the philosophy which sits behind the work I have developed over a lifetime through my own experiences and through co-creating with my colleagues.

When you follow this philosophy you can expect to experience a safe and nurturing space in which you can pause and reflect on your life, your passions and the importance of what you truly value.

As you invite others to share their truth and their feelings and listen without judgement or agenda and you create space in which they are encouraged to be completely themselves you are likely to deepen your connection.

The pages that follow are intended to act as a road map for your own life and for creating a transformative coaching experience for your clients.

The knowledge, steps and process I have written about here can be applied to anyone in any context, it doesn’t matter if you are working with business leaders, managers, parents or children. If you are working 1:1, with teams, couples or families. It all revolves around the purpose of enabling each of us to just be ourselves, to show up in the world simply as we are.

I hope that you will apply these teachings and that you will be inspired to come and experience the training for yourself at one of our centres. You can only digest so much through the written word; your experience is your greatest teacher.

What you will find here, is a comprehensive guide for coaches, who want to take their coaching conversations to the next level.

It will give you the tools and process to work holistically, supporting your clients to identify and overcome unconscious patterns and blocks which consistently hold them back and you too will need to be prepared to go within and take a close look at your own patterns both conscious and unconscious.

I have found that a depth of connection with my own intuition and with clients enables me to work in a way that wakes people up. Transformational coaching, as I offer it to you here, is a way to awaken people to their own light and power and who they really are and it is my hope that you too will awaken to your own light and power.

When a client presents with a problem it often goes far beyond the presenting issue. As a transformational coach I work intuitively and energetically to raise awareness in my clients of beliefs and realities which sit deep in their unconscious minds and energetic fields which can illuminate the whole self.

And all this relies on your self-awareness as a coach or mentor to fully understand your own patterns and triggers and the part they play in the dynamic of the conversation.

Your desire to help your client may lead you to a focus on finding solutions, forgetting the clients’ resourcefulness and inadvertently colluding with their belief that they need to search externally for an answer only they have.

Getting to know yourself intimately and recognising all aspects of your personality means you are less likely to fall into the traps laid by your ego, which can diminish the clients’ power and responsibility.

A truly effective coaching relationship requires equality and equality requires strength, humility, courage and vulnerability from both the coach and the client.

Walking your talk as a coach or mentor means rigorous self-exploration and consistent curiosity about yourself in relation to others.

Observing yourself in the coaching conversation, recognising when your own ego, judgements, emotions and vulnerabilities are at play, allows you to facilitate the same level of self-awareness in your client.

A lack of awareness and emotional intelligence on the part of the coach or mentor limits the possibility of the coaching space and conversations may become transactional and task focused, leaving the client without access to their own abundant wisdom.

In this scenario it is likely that the coach or mentor will create dependency in the relationship and limit the growth of the client and themselves, ultimately colluding with the often unconscious belief that’ we are not enough’.

However, when you become friends with your own vulnerabilities and acknowledge and accept both your strengths and your imperfections, then you invite your client to do the same, as you are able to model self-acceptance.

With a CLEARER approach we pay attention to our clients’ psychological world where their hopes, aspirations and desires sit alongside their fears, doubts and self-limiting beliefs. Their potential is intricately intertwined with their assumptions.

You may be keen to help, to look for the solution to your client’s problem and ‘fix’ things based on your own map of the world. This may lead your client towards a practical set of actions without adequate exploration of the complexities of the issue; thus failing to leave the client with new awareness or increased resources.

Many coaching models still prioritise action and focus on this as a measure of success, colluding with the common organisational culture of action plans and outcomes. However, the limits of this approach show up when solutions drawn from a rushed and superficial dialogue fail to address underlying issues and therefore cannot lead to sustainable behavioural change.

When we use the coaching conversation to reflect and examine all the dimensions of the presenting issue, we raise our clients’ awareness of the part they are playing in the existing dynamic and they are then able to take responsibility for their own contribution to the problem.

In other words, we illuminate that the problem the client had previously seen as an external issue also has an internal psychological element to it and then they may realise that it is their perception of the issue which is the main problem.

They are likely as we all do, to be making incorrect assumptions or failing to acknowledge some of their own behaviours as part of the problem. Maybe an inflexible belief system or powerful self- concept is at odds with the other person’s responses. This can result in blaming rather than self- examination and taking personal responsibility.

Of course, there are some problems that contain a relatively minor psychological element to them and these we are unlikely to encounter as clients can solve them on their own.

The fact is that significant issues, the things that clients tend to bring to coaching, will involve all the dimensions and this is why working holistically is necessary. This requires you as a coach to enhance your psychological understanding and competence.

Your ability to reflect on the meanings behind your own and your clients’ emotional, cognitive and behavioural responses is fundamental to effective practice. Your ability to see the past in the present and recognise connections between current issues and your client’s history allow you and your client to consider more deeply the choices they have in the present moment.

This book will guide you to connect fully with yourself and your clients; and I truly believe without that connection the effect of your coaching will be limited.

Too many coaches are currently working only at a conscious problem solving level, failing to shift underlying imprints and established patterns which results in your client’s repeating behaviours and feeling stuck back in the same place time and time again.

With greater connection your clients will feel safe and held, questions will flow with ease and you will know exactly when and how to support and challenge your client in a way that serves their highest need. With this approach you will be able to facilitate shifts in yourself and your clients that may have previously eluded you.

Working transformationally means being open to unlimited possibilities.

I have seen clients and students grow and change in ways that are incredibly inspiring and completely unpredictable.

I am now proud to present to you the Clearer model which I have developed to support you to accelerate the changes we are capable of making and achieve results beyond cognitive understanding.

As you learn to be more of you and become more authentic in your life and your practice, you will attract to you exactly the clients you are able to help. You will also begin to understand how they can help you. Every encounter becomes an energetic exchange where you are able to give and receive in a way that is powerful and sustainable. Your coaching practice will nurture you and provide you with what you most need.

Whilst these promised outcomes may seem grandiose, my steps to deliver transformational coaching are grounded and practical and applicable to all areas of your life. Let me start by sharing with you the overall model and then in this blog I would love to share with you the first chapter.

The CLEARER Model

Connect and Contract

Listen

Explore and Expose

Awareness raised

Responsibility taken

Esteem increased

Review of action

The process begins by establishing a CONNECTION and agreeing a CONTRACT. The roles and responsibilities within the relationship are clarified, practicalities are agreed and a psychological contract is established to create the necessary and safe conditions for effective coaching to take place.

Find Your True Northe- Awaken to the pure wonder of Transformational Coaching

A personal and professional deep dive for Coaches and Facilitators who want to transform themselves and work more deeply with their clients.

This book is a transformational and holistic approach to integrate all dimensions of self.

Chapter 1 – Connection

What is connection?

The first connection is with self; being present, connected to source and aligned within yourself is the most important foundation. How can you really connect with another when there is a disconnect within yourself?

There may be many things in your history which have caused you to become disconnected from yourself; experiences which have caused conflict between your head and your heart or led you to mistrust your gut and intuition. You may have fragmented into multiple parts that are pulling in different directions or battling with each other for ultimate control of your behaviours and your destiny.

Without an awareness of these parts we relinquish control to our unconscious fears and assumptions, we passively observe the battles playing out within us and fail to take responsibility for the trajectory of our lives.

We may first become aware of this when we experience dis-ease in our physical or mental body. The lack of alignment manifests in ailments and illness. Many of us believe that we can store unexpressed emotions and suppress the expression of our truth without consequences.

This suppression or depression intended to ensure function, actually leads to dysfunction. We are pure energy and when that energy becomes blocked and stagnant, we experience pain and lack of function, our bodies express our internal struggles through physical form.

When you become present and tune into your body you can feel the energetic vibration; emotions are literally energy in motion and sometimes they catch us unawares as they move unexpectedly through our bodies. Clients often wonder ‘where did that come from?’ as a wave of emotion moves through them. A deeply buried awareness is released and surfaces with force, often accompanied by tears or laughter as it is released.

A release of stuck and blocked energy can lead to dramatic physical transformation, in my experience we can heal ourselves of all kinds of dis-ease by re-connecting with ourselves and bringing our head, heart and gut brains back into alignment.

Connection with yourself is also necessary to hear your intuition.

Working transformationally means that we listen to our own inner wisdom and guide our clients to do the same. Many of us rely heavily on our heads for problem solving, guidance and decision making. Our busy minds will respond readily to the challenge of ‘working things out’ and yet much of the awareness we need sits outside of our own cognition; often the truth we seek cannot be ‘thought’ but rather must be ‘felt’.

Tuning into your heart is necessary in this way of working and you will encourage your clients to feel their emotions as much as they think their thoughts.

So what is intuition? My experience is that it is what we ‘know’ rather than what we think; it is a wisdom that resides within each of us and is available if we are willing to listen to it. When you ignore your inner voice on a regular basis it may become withdrawn and uncommunicative.

It is common for us to deny our own truth in favour of seeking approval from others; we learn to listen to external influences and mistrust our inner voice. Take the time to listen to yourself, be still and quieten your mind, ready to hear from your heart and gut as much as your head.

Recognise that you may keep your mind busy to avoid hearing the truth. Many of my clients and students discover that they are afraid of acknowledging what they ‘know’, they are fearful of the perceived consequences of listening more deeply to themselves. They have in fact spent their entire lives avoiding the questions we may ask in the process of coaching.

So be honest with yourself first; ask yourself the difficult questions and be willing to hear your own reply. When you strengthen this connection and flex the muscle of your intuition it can be used for your own benefit as well as in service of your clients. You can listen and speak from your heart in conversation with others, you can feel the exchange of energy and know without analysis what question to ask or observation to offer.

It takes an investment of your time to encourage your intuition, particularly if it has long been ignored.

You may need to notice how readily you react rather than respond; re-action is just as it sounds, habitually re-enacting, running old scripts which contain many assumptions. To respond requires a pause, a consideration of what is being communicated and how it feels to receive that communication.

What do you notice in yourself, in your body and your energetic field? Can you be still in the presence of the other and listen with your whole self? In my programmes a great deal of time is spent in the practice of being present and learning to listen at a deep level, and it is common for students to realise just how poor their listening has been.

Blocks to connection

Your history may have a large part to play in your ability or perhaps inability to connect effectively with your clients.

Indeed your history will be affecting all your relationships; with yourself, with others and with the world. Notice the linguistics of this word hi(s)-story. What story are you choosing to tell about yourself and your life so far?

Of all your experiences which ones have been remembered to be part of your narrative, your identity and which ones are forgotten, deleted, filtered out? How have you chosen to perceive the circumstances of your life?

Consider that we do not see the world as it is but as we are. This awareness leads to choice; we can choose what we hold onto, what we believe to be true. We can see things as they truly are and respond more consciously to the events of our lives.

Notice how you come to your client, do you meet them afresh each time, in the present moment, allowing for all the ways in which they have changed to be seen and heard? Or do you carry forward your perceptions and presumptions, colouring the encounter with judgement and bias based on the history of your life and this shared relationship?

Do you allow yourself to be new each day, to be free from the clutter and baggage of the past? Consider connecting with others on a heart level, communicating soul to soul free from the limitations of what has been. Imagine the lightness of exploring anew yourself, the world and your relationship to others.

It becomes necessary to acknowledge the multiple parts of self, as unacknowledged these ‘parts’ remain unconscious and influence our choices; making decisions on our behalf, often from a place of fear or hurt.

The wounded child who shows up and inhibits our ability to speak up and assert our own needs or the rebellious teen who wants to be seen and heard and causes us to be defensive and confrontational in our interactions with others. Many parts exist within the whole, developed through our experiences and responses to our circumstances.

The more we can embrace all of these parts and bring them into alignment, the more we experience connection and can choose our relationship to the world.

When we tune out from the conversation with our heart and soul the body often attempts to communicate more strongly and struggles to get our attention, speaking in physical sensations and manifestations. When we are not aware of our bodies we are missing out on a huge amount of our own wisdom.

So connection is our foundation, the core of our practice and we will work consistently to develop it throughout this book. Take time now to consider:

When do you feel most connected to yourself?

When do you feel most connected to others?

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