This quote from Victor Frankl speaks to my work to help us become more present.
It reminds me of the work I’ve been doing in the Relational Presence Training just completed.
Here is a summary of the course highlights.
Session 1: Arrival and Grounded Presence we explored how to find that space that Frankl speaks to. And to create that space in a very real and physical way. The participants loved it, and they were surprised at how deep, and impactful the exercise I gave them was. And that included the participant who had signed in at three o’clock in the morning, as she was joining from Mexico as well as participants from all over the UK and Germany. I was super excited for the next 10 weeks we were embarking on together.
Session 2: Introduced the Felt Sense.
First, I had a surprise. There was an unexpected guest in my zoom room.
I was in the middle of offering an opening arrival practice to the group. and there she was. What the heck!
It was the kind of thing that would have totally wobbled me in the past but that day I felt calm. As I continued to guide the practice, I reflected on what I want to do. I didn’t know who she was, but I knew I didn’t want to deal with this right now! So I put her into the waiting room. I completed the practice and sent everybody off into breakout rooms to unpack their experiences.
Then I got to speak to the new arrival, and I was thrilled to discover that she was a new participant joining the group. She had been referred by someone in the group, and I am so happy and grateful that word-of-mouth is working for me. She was eager to be part of the experience. I welcomed her in, got her up to speed, and she seamlessly joined the session.
I was also delighted to hear how participants are applying the tools that I gave them last week, deepening their presence with clients. They also discovered a feeling of more spaciousness as they connected to something that’s larger than they are. This was a key practice I’d introduced. It’s giving me so much to witness them engage with this approach.
In the session we focused on getting into more contact with their inner felt sense. The exercises landed really well with them. They especially appreciated a sense of playfulness that came with listening in a new way.
Session 3 Introduced the work of Eugene Gendlin – who coined the term the felt sense and was the originator of focusing. Focusing provides a pathway to the inner felt sense of a thing. That, often vague or fuzzy feeling that connects us to a deeper inner knowing. Once again, I was struck by how much these easy to learn tools was bringing the participants.
One participant shared how good it was to be in contact with a deep place that had been there for a long time. Part of him that it they had often overlooked in the business of life.
I related to that very closely as it turned out, as in my own focusing work the previous night, something similar had come up. Something old that had been there for so long, that was easy to ignore. Yet that morning I had awoken feeling calm, warm and grateful in a totally new way. Grateful for this practice and the opportunity to share it
Session 4: Focusing Listening Skills
If you are a manager, coach, or work with people, you probably think you are a good listener. But true listening is about being fully present, which is often more challenging than we realise.
It’s all too easy to get caught up in planning your next question to ask or thinking about what you are going to say next. I’m guilty of this as much as anyone! Staying present, really listening, and giving the other person the space they need is not always as easy as it seems.
That’s why we were working with listening skills. We were talking about how using your own body can actually help the other person. You can pick up signals from the person speaking that they didn’t even know were there. My students loved the fresh approach I offered them.
One of my students stayed behind class. He had experienced something that he felt embarrassed to share with his counterpart. To share in a way that felt true to him and that was useful to the other person . He wasn’t sure if they were HIS feelings or if he had picked up something disowned from the speaker. Hard to tell unless you check it out and deal with a potentially awkward and embarrassing moment. He was curious to know how he could have handled it better. It was delicate, as sometimes feelings are raw, powerful, and often disowned.
I was reminded of how the week before I’d been working with a colleague. I was tired that day. I noticed I was bit disengaged. I caught myself thinking, “I’m bored!” At the end of our session I hesitated, but I decided to be honest. I told him, apologetically, that I was finding it hard to stay engaged. Much to my surprise he told, me ‘Yeah that’s right I’m kind of bored with all this stuff I am dealing with myself’. and he even thanked me . What a relief that he hadn’t taken it the wrong way.
Not that long ago, I probably would have tried to cover it up and make myself wrong. But my feedback had enlivened him so much so that he reminded me of it the next time I saw him.
It’s moments like these that remind me when we are brave enough to share our experience, we create the space for others to do the same, and that’s when real connection happens. That’s why I love this work, and it is a work in progress.
Session 5: Being with What is and with Not Knowing in a Focusing Way. This session was all about helping students finding ways to include more of themselves in their work, and it’ was gratifying to witness how they were getting on.
One student talked about how she thinks in images. She shared that this process helped her to connect with her images and use them in a totally new and enlivening way.
Another spoke to her habitual way of managing dissociation. She explained that she no longer needed to push this away or exclude that part of herself. Instead she was now able to honour her need, open her eyes, ground herself in the present, and feel connected to the person in front of her. She shared that she no longer felt limited by it.
I was struck by how amazing it is that we all learn in different ways! One participant didn’t relate to the exercise I offered this week, but something else came up for her. How beautiful that she had that space to discover it. Another participant was asking me about bullet point five. I don’t recall what was in bullet point five. Another person said, I don’t know about bullet point five. I sort of read the instructions and then ignore them. I find it playful, and I’m learning something slightly new every time, but it’s basically the same’.
I was so happy to hear this and I told him that’s fantastic! When you learn something new with the right part of the brain, it’s a different kind of learning. We allow the new learning to slowly seep into us and we’re integrating it. I am following the approach of my teacher Karen Whalen. Other teachers were teaching level one, level two and then level three. She taught them all together over and over again.
That’s how we learn together with both the right part of the brain and the left part of the brain.
Session 6: Self Resourcing In this session I taught this movement from polyvagal toning.
In the image you can see I connect the reptilian part of the brain, at the back of the head with the brain the prefrontal cortex, across the forehead. It’s an amazing way to calm down the nervous system. Participants loved it. You might like to give it a try.
In Session 7: Circling practices. These practices support us to share moment-to-moment lived experience in an open and authentic manner. It helps us feel deeper levels of acceptance and empathy for ourselves and for each other.
Most of the group loved the exercises and appreciated how valuable it was to feel seen, validated and heard by another person.
One participant, however, expressed how challenging the experience had been for her and that it had brought up feelings of anxiety. She shared that she was used to having a clear role – either being fully present in herself or fully present with the client. She shared that she had not had any experience of being able to feel both at the same time. As we unpacked it, she realised that when she was able to share her own experience, it could also help the client to feel seen, heard, and valued.
She came to understand that when she is more present, and available, she can be more relaxed in herself. She realised that the client would get the ‘real self’ and then she would have more of herself to tap into than when she had her “helper’ hat on.
I really appreciated the courage she had to express her challenges so openly in the group. It helped me bring more of myself in what I am teaching so that the learning for the whole group could go much deeper.
Session 8: Integration Session – How to apply this body of work with directly clients.
That day I had been dealing with some personal stress, and I simply wasn’t at my best. I had demonstrated an exercise for the group, hoping it would illustrate the techniques. But these kind of live demos can be unpredictable, and that day, things didn’t quite go as I’d intended.
Nonetheless the group were all up for practising. when they returned, I was really touched by what they had gained from the exercise—regardless of my less-than-perfect demo.
One participant, in the role of coach, shared how challenging and frustrating it had felt for her. She told us that it all felt really difficult and that she didn’t get it all. Oh dear, I thought, but then the person she had coached spoke up. They shared that they had absolutely loved the exercise. They described how valuable the experience had been for her and what great coaching she had received.
Isn’t it interesting how we can often be hard on ourselves and think that our work isn’t as good as it needs to be. Yet, in reality, we are, in fact, making a meaningful impact.
Session 9: The Role of Trauma
That session turned out to be even more stressful than the last one. That morning I’d woken up and realised ‘Oh No! No internet! The dreaded black box with no lights. To make matters worse, I had two webinars scheduled that day.
My call with the internet provider didn’t help—I could feel my stress levels rising as I tried to troubleshoot the issue. My nervous system was far from regulated when I started the session. I shared a trauma framework that helps navigate patterns like people-pleasing and perfectionism.
The framework helps to dig deep and can address the root causes of these types of behaviour. Naturally, it’s a big topic, and my group had plenty of thoughtful questions! While it’s complex, I was so excited to share as much as I could in the time we had together.
Despite the rocky start, it turned out well. The group really appreciated the new perspective, to see things from a different angle.
Session 10: Closing Session
This session was really a bit of a celebration – but not in the way I had expected.
I had been hoping to hear clear articulations of what they’d gained and engagement and interest for the next level of training
What I got was much more precious. I got ‘I want to go away and integrate all of it’ and ‘I want to go over and re-practice everything I’ve learned’.
I also got in how participants are integrating in different ways – increased confidence in work with clients, more self-acceptance of their own qualities ‘Before I was beating myself up for not being able to feel into my body and use it as an instrument, and now I am valuing a lot more the images and metaphors that I do bring to my clients’
‘I was able to be in awe and wonder and sense of bliss of feeling the sun streaming through my window. And feel grateful for that experience as well, and the recognition that if I’m resourced and clam it will have only a positive impact on my work with clients’
Many of the participants referred to having learned to be able to role model behaviour and attitudes to their clients as a different way of learning – and that they saw me do that in the way that I cared for the group.
The course is running again starting October 7th. More info over here
