Somatic Coaching and Neuroscience
In coaching we are generally looking at the way a client thinks, behaves and takes actions. We are then creating a series of coaching interventions that address both shifts in thinking and mood management and alterations in behavior (Thinking, Feeling and Doing) thereby shifting results. There is, however, one crucial element missing from this widely used change model. All mental phenomena and all action in the world happen in the context of a physical body.
Generally, we are unaware of how the physical body is informing, shaping and altering our thinking, our mental maps, our moods and our actual behavior in the world at large. In contrast, we employ a somatically informed coaching methodology, working with clients at every level of their being: the physical body, the mental structures, and the spirit.
We are first and foremost biological beings who eat, sleep, reproduce, fight, run and freeze all in an effort to survive. Under pressure any biological organism responds in certain ways. The human organism is no different. For instance, you walk into the board room for a meeting with your executive team and the CEO. Within the first several minutes of the meeting the CEO fires someone in front of the whole group. Every organism in the room is instantly perturbed: blood pressure changes, heart rate speeds up, hormones are released and the reptilian brain registers this experience as one of immanent danger. The room is so quiet you might say everyone is frozen in their seat, and from a physiological perspective you would be accurate. Any biological organism would either fight, freeze or flee in the face of this kind of danger.
Though not a tiger on the tundra, this scenario is our modern day equivalent. Most people are likely to take no action (i.e. freeze) rather then confront the CEO or leave the room. What the most recent neuroscience is illuminating is that when a human being alerts to danger they lose their capacity to think creatively and quickly and to act nimbly and flexibly. When perturbed in this way any organism has its attention focused firmly on its survival.
Innovation, strategy and reflection all happen in the neo-cortex of the brain to which we have limited access when in this agitated state.
Somatic coaching teaches people how to work with the physical body in order to mindfully focus and pro-actively return to a physiological state where they are once again capable of effective action and to condition themselves to operate with ease, grace and efficacy under pressure or perceived conflict. As with any top performing athlete, we offer clients a range of practices that build stamina, presence, focus, empathy and integrity so that mind and body are operating in concert and on command.
Our somatic discourse draws most specifically on the latest Neuroscience and quantum physics; on the work of somatic trauma expert Peter Levine and most deeply on the pioneering teaching of Dr. Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Ph.D. who has single handedly championed the relevance of the body in coaching practice. His teachings have infiltrated, in limited form, many coaching schools including The Newfield Network and elsewhere.
Meditation and Mindfulness
A recent issue of Business Week included a special report on the “significant but sometimes quirky new trend” in which businesses are embracing Indian philosophy and mediation practice. Companies, it reports, are increasingly making links between the development of intellect and the focusing of concentration that can control the mind and body and the business results and success an executive is capable of. Likewise, business schools, they report, are adding courses that combine ancient wisdom with the needs of modern managers.
Peak performing athletes and elite military teams know that high performance requires more than a skill set. To deliver breakout performance under intense competitive pressure requires superior mental clarity, focus, problem solving ability and perspective. Each one of these skills provides critical competitive advantage and can be the difference between winning and losing. Seven Stones wisdom practices include meditation, guided visualization, somatic coaching and yoga. These practices dramatically enhance a leader’s ability in each of these key areas. These practices are integrated, as appropriate, into coaching sessions.
Ontological Coaching
Ontology, the art and science of being, is derived from the philosophical work of Martin Heiddegger as articulated in his text Being and Time. To address “being” in coaching we must understand that we are not solid, rigid beings but rather malleable. With increased awareness and skill we can alter or transform our way of being. In turn, we will generate more effective action and unprecedented levels of integrity.
Human “being” is antecedent to human “doing” so in order to achieve sustainable action changes a powerful coaching exchange has to address this foundational and existential aspect of a clients’ make-up. In ontological coaching we assert that “being” is the source of all effective “doing” and that leadership evolution requires this level of dialogue and trustful coaching.
Moods and Emotions
Human thought and human emotions are married for life: “One never goes anywhere without the other.” We coach people to be smart about feelings so that they can think clearly, build rapport and trust with their colleagues and develop feeling informed wisdom both at home and at work. We work to clear emotional roadblocks to productivity and to reinforce the feelings foundations for sustained satisfaction and lasting health.
Recent organizational thinking has posited that emotional intelligence and strong interpersonal and intrapersonal skills are a far more reliable predictor of organizational and managerial success then technical expertise. As a cornerstone of our coaching practice we teach emotional self-awareness, mood management and the capacity to “go to the balcony” and negotiate with one’s own reactivity and defensiveness as a key leadership capacity. Emotional self-awareness and self-management are core competencies in the domain of relationship skills.
Seven Stones’ coaching approach was shaped with significant input from leading thinkers in multiple disciplines of psychotherapy and group work. We drew on their expertise in gestalt, psychodrama, family systems work, group dynamics and narrative therapy to inform our discourse.
