Inviting Nature Into Coaching
My inquiry today is — what happens when you invite nature into your coaching session? Dang, some powerful stuff, to be sure.
Photo: Small tree with smooth, twisted branches seen on my neighborhood walk
My brilliant, intuitive coach Stacy Raye Kellogg invited me on the spur of the moment to go for a walk during our coaching session yesterday.
This was a welcome departure from sitting or standing at our desks on zoom as we usually do, so I said heck yes!
One of the things I love most about Co-active Coaching, the kind of coaching that both Stacy and I offer, is that it invites the wisdom of our body-mind to come forward.
Yesterday, I was amazed by what happened when we invited the wisdom of the natural world to come forward too.
The topic was my desire to let go of pushing / forcing / perfectionism. How to let go of the fear of “doing it wrong” and being found out as “a bad person.”
It’s a heavy weight which has hung on me all my life. Which we’ve talked about many times before. And which I’ve talked about with several therapists in the decades before.
Up until yesterday, this work has been like carving a stone sculpture with a spoon. Sure, you can make progress, but it’s going to take a minute…
So Stacy asked: “What would need to be true in order for you to let this go?”
I noticed my steps slowing as my body offered an answer:
“I would need to slow down,” I said.
I took a moment to savor the feeling of walking more slowly than usual. Dreamlike. Warm.
“What else?” she asked.
I noticed a tiny feather on the grass and picked it up.
“I would need to soften.”
The feather was white-grey, fluffy and buoyant. Not much more than an inch long.
Photo depicts a tiny feather in the palm of my hand.
The feather made me think of my 3-year-old daughter and the hard edges that I’d had in some recent bedtime battles. Tears welled up in my eyes.
“What would that mean for you?” she asked.
I clued her in to the bedtime battles and said, “You know, it’s important to me that my daughter learns to fall asleep by herself, but she doesn’t have to learn it RIGHT NOW this second. She’s three. This is a really sweet and fleeting time. She won’t want to hold my hand forever, but right now she does. And I want to be present for that.”
Wow. We both let that land.
I gazed at the feather in my hand, its fluff moving minutely in the slightest of breezes.
My body and the natural world had spoken their truth right on time and it was inarguable.
And I now had an indelible embodied memory of standing on a specific section of sidewalk (in my black boots and blue fleece) while having this realization.
I can’t know but I strongly suspect that this realization would not have come to me while sitting at my desk. Or, if it had, it wouldn’t have arrived in a form that is so very visceral, so very “sticky” and portable.
Now, when I need to remember to soften my hard edges, I will call up the memory of this moment and this feather. I will remember what it felt like to have my body slow down of its own accord, because it knew what I needed.
Coaching questions:
How does the natural world speak to you?
How could you create more space for it to speak?
What impact would it have if you did this?
