Following would help to bring the clients in presence:
- Sensing the emotions of the client and helping him/her go through it:
The client comes with mental activity, non-acceptance, restricting beliefs and underlying emotions of frustration, helplessness, anger, jealousy, fear etc. Emotions are a powerful indicator of the state of mental activity. The first tendency of any human being is to suppress any negative emotion by taking the mind outwards. This could include addictions, talking, doing work, meeting people, overeating or anything which could distract the mind. The coach should be able to help the client identify the emotion and allow clients to live the emotions in awareness, encourage the client to face it. The process of facing an emotion or thought is to go through it, feel it and help mind to accept it to let it go. This is a powerful process for releasing and freeing oneself from that state.
Some questions that could be asked are:
- How this state of being does help you?
- What’s the importance of this state in your life?
- What are you feeling now?
- Describe the feeling and the thoughts.
- How do you feel as you experience the emotion?
- How will this state will help you now and after?
- Help the client through an exercise where the client experiences the feeling and goes through it. There are powerful techniques as Anchoring the two states to relive these states.
- Breaking the bond of Psychological Time (PT):
The coach can ask powerful questions to the client to help her/him break away from the future and past and come to the presence. These could be :
- What is in the situation that you are not facing?
- What is lacking right now?
- What is the worst thing that can happen if you accept the situation?
- What is the worst thing that can happen if you don’t accept the situation?
- What are you assuming that makes you turn away from the situation?
- What can you do not to improve on /change the situation?
- Acceptance of the presence and reducing resistance:
The coach can help the client identify what they are resisting and help them accept the past and live in present. The powerful questions could be :
- What are you resisting now?
- What would you do to set up face the resistance of not taking actions?
- What could you do to accept what happened in the past and /or what is happening now?
- If you were to be yourself in your life, what would you do differently?
- What do you find good about what is happening?
- How important is the past for the present and future?
- Accept and act:
Action usually emerges from resistance to something. This is fundamentally flawed from the perspective of the book. When we accept the present situation and then act. We act free of emotions, past beliefs and anticipating result then only can bring a fresh, empowering approach to the situation. The coach can help the client refine their approach so that they first accept and then act. Some powerful questions could be :
- If you’re not afraid, what would you be risking?
- What is the reason for the action?
- How would you like to approach the present situation?
- What could be a different approach before you start acting?
Power of Presence for the Coach
Deep listening would be critical to understand the waves of emotions and thoughts in the mind of the client. Deep listening requires being in the presence and providing a space to the client to talk, feel and expand.
It’s truly essential for the coach to be in the presence to listen, build rapport and ask questions. Before the coach enters a coaching conversation, he/she should prepare by coming fully into the presence. This could be done by using the various tools and techniques described above. Only when the coach is in the presence would he do the justice to the conversation and help the client move into a fulfilling space.