What is a "Coaching Container" ?
When I saw this beautiful painting by artist Mara Friedman I was struck by how accurately it depicted the energy of the coaching container - what it feels like to sit with an attuned, compassionate, and loving practitioner - the energetics. There is a magic that happens in the coaching session: you are held in safety, free to show all of yourself, deeply listened to and mirrored in your wholeness, a rare and deeply nourishing opportunity in life.
In my experiences with my own Soul Centered Coach, I noticed that my consciousness was amplified by the coaching dyad; that insights and epiphanies spontaneously arose in each session. Images, archetypes, and symbols have energetic form and that energy becomes available to us when we engage with it consciously, creating valuable resources to draw on in daily life. The symbols in Mara's painting - the butterfly, spiral, and flower, the golden orb - are arising in the energy field created in the session - the synthesis of my energy field and yours bringing the mingled field to a new and higher level, a level from which insight arises.
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.
From poem "St. Francis and the Sow" by Galway Kinnell
As a healer and guide, this poem is dear to me, as it touches into the heart of the coaching relationship. In our work together, we'll be exploring your inner world through the lens of your soul self with love and an eye to developing that "self-blessing" .
I'll share an example from my own experience. In the early spring of 2022, an image of a wise woman holding an ornately decorated scrying bowl arose in one of my own coaching sessions and began to kindle my imagination. It seemed to be the perfect image for the energetics involved in working with someone as a practitioner - the bowl as the container. I brought this into daily life, gathering some of the many bowls in my home and considering their energetic qualities and what that might represent. I journaled on this and have included a segment below. It was an enlivening and satisfying process.
I
I hold this sacred image, a wise woman holding a bowl in her two hands, offering it to those seeking soul sustenance.
When I sit with a bowl on my lap, the well of my heart opens and pours love into the world.
When I'm tending a soul, my own, or another’s, which container will best serve their needs?
The blown beach glass bowl with swirls of blue waters to bring flow and clarity?
The Himalayan singing bowl, to sound the complexity of overtones and bring forth new energy?
The heavy clay bowl, Raku fired with wood, and its many hued blue glaze, bringing its gift of earth, water, and fire, and grounding into the body?
Or the turned wood bowl, gifted to me with love, full of the nature elements of the standing people, home to the winged ones, and of earth, air, and sky?
Which bowl is called into service today? What energy is needed in this particular coaching container, with this precious being?
What is an image you hold? Can you expand it into daily life using metaphor?
If this intrigues you, book a free clarity call for more information or a session, here.
