How embodied coaching can support clients during the COVID-19 crisis

“The coach who can embody sustainability, resilience and self-management has the capacity to “affect the field” of the individual client or team and ultimately benefit the organizational landscape.”

— Monica Ross, 2015

I wrote this statement back in 2015 and as I re-read it now it feels almost prophetic. 

In the past few weeks, as I have been holding space for clients and supervisees who are grappling with the consequences of the coronavirus, I’ve recognised how my capacity to be connected to my own resources in an embodied way has allowed me to support them to regain resourcefulness in these unprecedented times.

As an Embodiment Leadership Coach, I bring my full being to my work. The daily practices that I engage in — which include meditation, mindfulness, energetic and somatic exercises — bring a steadiness, calm and clarity to my own being which then allows me to meet and engage with my clients with greater capacity and less likelihood to be drained or triggered by the situations that they describe to me.

Through centering and taking time to access presence at the beginning of sessions, I notice that like a wilted plant that has just been watered, my clients begin to access a sense of space where moments earlier they felt squeezed and pressured; and more precision and clarity in their thinking where previously their mind was racing in disempowering circles. Where they have felt fear and judgement in their relationships with others, a greater sense of compassion and opening becomes available. All this through the body.

Working in an embodied way brings a deeper commitment to living one’s purpose, because it comes from alignment of head, heart and gut. I have noticed how leaders, coaches and supervisees become more upright in their posture, relaxing their shoulders; there is a sense of a core stability and strength while a softening of the eyes points to an openheartedness and inclusivity that is almost palpable.

I have been gratified to hear one of the key tenets of Embodied Leadership — “we are in this together” — become the shared language of individuals, organisations and governments. There is a greater sense of the limbic resonance that connects us all as humans. 

In the forthcoming Catalyst 14 Embodied Coach webinar with my colleague Damion Wonfor, I look forward to sharing and exploring together what it means to work in a more embodied way as a coach and how one might begin to support clients through greater use of self as instrument.

You can register for this free webinar here.