Episode 97: Drive With an Open Heart – Coach’s Corner
In Coach’s Corner episodes I coach a client in real-time! It’s like being a fly on the wall in my office ☺️.
In this episode, Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, CEO & Founder of The Flourishing Center, takes us through a real-time coaching session with her client Blake.
Blake is a rock climber and athlete who wants to explore a call to be driven as she emerges from a period of ease and softness in her life. Together Emiliya and Blake use metaphor and imagery to navigate the space between these seemingly dualistic energies so that Blake can come away with her own model for drive and a trust that she will get what she needs.
Drive with an open heart
In this session Emiliya’s client Blake wanted to be coached to better understand two states within herself: an action-oriented state of drive and a softer, gentler state of being. She wanted to celebrate a recent period of flow in her life while recognizing a call to strive again.
Coaching through metaphor and imagery
Emiliya and Blake worked together in the session to find images and metaphors for Blake’s experience. As an athlete, Blake recognized that it is through rock climbing, with its pushing and striving, that she experiences her humanity.
Blake invoked the imagery of a motor boat, with its hard working engine, and a canoe that requires less effort to steer, to explore the different energies Blake experiences in her life. The motor boat engine burns gas, while the canoe moves mostly on its own. It can be still.
Trust in letting go
Throughout the course of the session, coaching helped Blake to see that there are times in her life to ramp up and use her drive. But she can’t rev the engine all of the time, because it’s difficult to deeply connect and relax.
Blake realized that he can’t always burn hot and fast, she also needs to slow down, drift and feel. In her past she had felt fear that she’d have to keep driving the motor boat. In this session she found trust that she could let things go and they would still come back when she needs them.
This episode is sponsored by The Flourishing Center’s Applied Positive Psychology Coaching (APPC) Certification.