How committed am I to my own growth and development? Tasha Colbert, Anneliese Monden and Deborah Price share how they engaged with this question by co-coaching one another beyond their comfort zones
We met in 2005 on the boas professional coach certification programme1. Since then, we’ve supported our development as coaches through bi-annual co-coaching retreats. During these sessions, we give each other feedback, and mentor and challenge one another. As coaches, creating an atmosphere of trust and safety is critical in inviting our clients to allow their most vulnerable selves to be expressed. The space has allowed us to share our coaching tools and to appreciate both their contribution and their limitations in the coaching dialogue.
Working with mind, body and spirit is central to our approach. Creative tools that access different senses such as drawing, movement, voice work and/or imagery, form an important part of our work.
According to the International Coach Federation’s minimum skill requirements, coaching at a level of mastery requires confidence in working with strong emotions, complete trust in the client and the process, and the coach’s comfort with “not knowing” as a state within which to expand awareness, and the coach’s willingness to be vulnerable with the client and have the client be vulnerable in return.
We share this experience to demonstrate how we interpreted this and our belief that to coach at a transformational level we need to commit to our own transformation.
The Identity Matrix2 Model
We used The Identity Matrix, a model created by Robert Dilts3. We each felt drawn to raise our game as coaches and this tool is aimed at the level of identity4: a catalyst for transformation.
Your Identity Matrix is represented by your answers to the following six questions:
- What do I want to be but will never be? (limitation)
- What don’t I want to be and will never be? (boundary)
- What do I want to be and can become? (potential)
- What don’t I want to be and can become? (weakness)
- What do I want to be and will always be? (deep core)
- What don’t I want to be and will always be? (shadow)
We each chose a different modality to explore the matrix. This allowed us to experiment and deepen our experience, both as coach and client. Here, we describe our own coaching experiences.
Anneliese’s experience
I look at my answers to the questions. Words, just words, and not even in my mother tongue. My legally trained left brain reads them, all neatly in their boxes. My right brain feels them and I want to go deeper. I sense a combination of fear for the unknown, and yet excitement too. Instinctively I go to the unexplored territory of using Soul Cards5 to represent my Identity Matrix.
I let the pictures reveal their meaning for me:
- The bird of freedom, my limitation. How free can I be?
- What don’t you want to be and will never be? Indifference, my boundary. A shiver runs through my spine as I look at the picture of someone blurred by dark clouds. I really dislike what I feel. I’m asked: “What does this boundary mean for you?”
- My answer is spontaneous and comes from a place deep inside me: “I want to challenge indifference and dissolve (perceived) boundaries in the world.”
- The next picture is powerful as it shows a very pregnant woman with the world in her womb. Confidence, my potential. Very feminine and connected to the world at large.
- My weakness is my passiveness. I smile when I think of my husband and his ability to drive me to action.
- So what is my deep core? What do I want to be and will always be? Stretching. I look at the image of the man at the edge of a cliff. Adventure! And yet, there is something not right about it?
- We move to my shadow, the sixth card. Feeling pulled. As I talk about my different roles in life, an incredible feeling of integration takes place. The picture radiates, like the sun. I see a very centered person. This is not my shadow, this is my deep core. In a flash I realise what felt wrong before.
- Decisively, I swap the shadow and deep core pictures. The “stretch” picture becomes my shadow representing the danger of being out of balance. The feeling pulled image radiates as my deep core: reaching, constant growth.
After talking me through the connections between the different images, the coach asks: “Is this picture complete?”
“No, it is not”, I answer. I draw a big circle around the cards and write in the centre: “Anneliese Monden. MY Identity Matrix.”
Tasha’s experience
To explore my answers to the Identity Matrix questions, I choose to trust the wisdom of my body to reveal its deeper meaning. The process of embodiment can be a tool for integration and transformation as I have witnessed in my clients. I embody each word, inhabiting its characteristics through my gesture, posture, facial expression and body movements.
In the following, I describe a transformational moment:
As I explore my weakness which I describe as feeling ‘overwhelmed’, I recognise this place in myself right away: it is dark and familiar. I fully embody the feeling of overwhelm – my head bowed, a heaviness in me as I crouch down near the floor, my legs feel too weak to stand. I feel cut off from others and my surroundings?
I move from here to connect to my deep core which I describe as ‘love’.
To my surprise the transition is flowing and easy: moving from a closed posture to a new open stance with my arms open wide and a soft gaze. I see the image of a flower, with its petals slowly opening and feel warm energy moving from my chest to my fingertips and toes. I feel a sense of deep connection to myself.
The coach responds to me by reflecting my movement. She shares that she feels vulnerable in this stance. I feel vulnerable too, yet also connected to my strength. My deep core is love, an integration of my vulnerability and power.
The coach suggests I try this movement in reverse , moving from my deep core to my weakness? as I begin, the warm energy that I feel in my body moves with me, transforming this place of overwhelm to something that feels gentle and compassionate. I feel a sense of peace and relief.
I repeat this movement several times to anchor it in my body. I realise that I can use this in my daily life, to transform those moments of overwhelm, as I bring compassion to my weakness.
By exploring the matrix kinaesthetically, I discover connections between the different facets of my identity and how the light and dark parts of the self complement and support one another.
Deborah’s experience
I just know that my vulnerability for this exercise lies in using my voice. I feel this is the right place to take the risk of getting it wrong.
Fear, trepidation, excitement and a total commitment to playful exploration take their hold.
I scan the cards and easily choose ones to represent five of the matrix cells. An image for my deep core totally eludes me. No card feels right. Instead, I choose a card at random and place it face down in the matrix. I trust I will find meaning in the image, and am excited at the prospect.
The coach asks me the questions relating to each cell and I respond with a sound rising from deep inside of me. I have no musical training or experience from which to classify or clarify my “music”.
Each sound heralds its true arrival by eventually finding its own rhythm and pitch – fluid, perfectly balanced and full. The coach echoes each sound back to me until it finds its place and strength. I feel deep emotion.
Finally, it is time to explore my deep core? As I calmly turn over the card, I allow the significance of the image to emerge? and I begin to cry as its significance unfolds.
Gradually my sobbing subsides. I feel rejuvenated and safe. I allow my voice to explore its expression until the inner feeling generated by the image of my deep core matches the vibration I am creating.
What don’t I want to be and will always be? My shadow comes forward with conviction – a collage of images beckoning the sound. Exhausted, connected, I complete the matrix cells of sound. The coach helps me to connect the sounds of my “opposing” identities. I feel my body ease and my voice soar. The transformation is profound. As the sounds flow all feelings of repulsion disappear and joy replaces pain.
Conclusions
These three experiences give a clear example of how coaching can support the ’emergent self’, helping us to gain insight into what we can become.
By taking the Identity Matrix as our starting point and bringing an eclectic range of skills as coaches to the table, we were able to collectively trust the process, not knowing how our sessions would unfold.
Our choices as clients were intuitive and spontaneous and yet suggest a deeper knowing of what was needed. The value of using visual stimuli, voice resonance and embodiment in coaching, the ability to bypass our logical and highly rational left brain, allowing us to access creative thinking and our innate wisdom. It is from this place that we find our own answers and realise our strengths and inner resources.
References
- boas professional coach certification?
- For information on the Identity Matrix, see “Identity Matrix for Self-Concept in Encyclopedia of NLP, pp522-524, www.nlpuniversitypress.com; and Robert Dilts’ book Visionary Leadership Skills
- Robert Dilts has been a developer, author, trainer and consultant in the field of NLP since its creation in 1975 by John Grinder and Richard Bandler. See also www.nlpu.com
- For information on the Logical Levels of Change, see “Logical Levels” in Encyclopedia of NLP, pp667-671, www.nlpuniversitypress.com
- Soul cards (created by Deborah Koff-Chapin) are decks of cards depicting a range of images powerful enough to evoke an immediate emotional response. For more information, go to www.touchdrawing.com/3SoulCards/SC1/SC1gal.htm
About the authors (see also their soon to be launched website: www.coachingintotheunknown.com)
- Tasha Colbert is a professional certified transformational coach, senior registered dance movement psychotherapist and supervisor. London-based, she has extensive experience of coaching and supervising individuals within a variety of organisations and sees clients in private practice.
- Anneliese Monden is an ICF Professional Certified Coach specialising in transformational leadership. Based in Antwerp, Belgium, she is experienced in working with individuals and corporations in a global context and has co-authored a coaching book in Dutch and translated into Chinese.
- Deborah Price is an ICF Professional Certified Coach and works with clients (corporate and individual) across a variety of sectors. Based in London, her work includes management development, leadership and executive coaching assignments in the UK, mainland Europe, the US, Asia and the Middle East.
Coaching at Work, Volume 6, Issue 1