Nature as a source for coaching
NATURE AS A SOURCE FOR COACHING
Being heard and understood
In today’s noisy, fast-paced world, most of us are starved to be truly listened to. One of the most important qualities of a coach is the ability to listen deeply, providing space for their clients to feel heard, seen and understood. Moreover, a coach will help their clients hear things in themselves that they hadn’t yet noticed.
In the emerging field of Nature Coaching, the coaching process is taken into the natural world, where we learn to listen to nature as a partner.
Nature as a source for insight
What happens when we listen to nature? What do we experience internally, compared to sitting in a room and thinking?
We tend to think of our mind as separate from the world around us, but our inner world is profoundly influenced by our environment. You may have experienced this before, when peering across a vast mountain overlook and feeling a sense of spaciousness, or when sitting at a calm lake and feeling your mind settle into stillness. Maybe you have pushed your way through a problem while hiking a strenuous trail, or felt a release of creativity while listening to a gently flowing river.
Say there’s a particular problem you’re trying to work through. Solving a problem is a dynamic process between thinking and listening. While thinking through something, we’re posing a question to ourselves, but where does the answer come from? There’s often the sense that the answer is there within us, we just can’t access it. We think and think, but we find it hard to pause and listen for answers. Or, we try to listen, but we only hear noise.
Perhaps what we need is a change of environment. By using nature as a coaching partner, we can intentionally change our frame of mind by understanding that the inner mirrors the outer.
Let’s say you’re in an anxious state of mind, and you feel too narrow, too constricted, too myopic. In order to shift to a more open and creative frame of mind, you might go sit in a big open field, setting your intention on the problem you’re trying to solve. With a feeling of spaciousness, different thoughts will arise, and in the silence of the pasture, you may be better equipped to listen deeply.
Or, say you’re feeling stuck, and you can’t move past a particular issue. By sitting by a flowing river, simply watching and listening, your thoughts may begin to flow more naturally and creatively.
Try it out for yourself
Take a problem you’re trying to solve, and try listening for answers in different environments. Listen in your bedroom with your eyes closed; listen while looking at a blank wall; listen while in a noisy coffee shop. Then listen while lying in the grass looking at the clouds, watching them take form and pass by. Listen while sitting under a tree or gazing into a calm lake. Experiment and see what happens. Notice what you’re hearing and seeing, the feeling of the air on your skin, and the space around you.
Don’t try to actively think through the problem; just be in a receptive state, and take in what presents itself to you. Listen without expecting anything. Maybe it will feel like nothing happens, but then later that day, you’ll notice that you have insights that you didn’t have before.
The gift of nature
Our brains work so hard, and we are constantly thinking and solving problems. Pause, breathe, and allow yourself the gift of insights from the natural world. Be at ease, see what nature brings you, and what you are ready to receive.
Collaborative Thinking has coaches trained to work with you in nature. Let us know if you’d like to explore what’s possible.
