What hidden mindsets do you operate out of when supporting people?
To step efficiently into and learn a new paradigm, it’s useful to become aware of the silent assumptions, hidden expectations and unconscious conditioning that conflict with the new framework. You’ll learn:
- The critical differences between inner presence-based support of Clients and other systems.
- The essential mindset shifts you must make before you can step into supporting your Clients’ inner presence.
- How we determine what is an effective means of support.
- What conflict situations can teach us about presence.
- The most common responses helping professionals have with Clients that can seem beneficial, but upon closer inspection, are not so helpful.
- The most under-utilized and overlooked source of supporting another’s transformation, that’s been right under our noses all along….PRESENCE!
What is presence and how do you know you’re being present?
Your understanding and experience of presence will set the stage for doing effective Inner Presence sessions. In this module, I’ll give you a step-by-step experiential understanding of presence and explain in detail EXACTLY what you need to offer to make the optimal gift of presence to yourself and others. You’ll learn:
- How to work with presence as a dynamic state instead of a static state.
- How to avoid falling into the trap of making presence an ideal state to attain.
- The difference between contrived and uncontrived presence.
- The various referential markers that are indicating presence.
The basics of "seeing without evaluating" for particular inner contexts.
Imagine having a conversation with someone where they are speaking from such a high-level abstractions; there is little or no reference to what they are talking about as it specifically relates to their life. This is how many of us start our inner inquiries. We get trapped using labels before we even start! In this module we’ll learn:
- Why it is essential to make your daily life your meditation cushion.
- The biggest mistake people make when looking within and how to avoid that.
- How to see without using evaluative labels.
How to increase and channel your emotional literacy into deeply supporting yourself and others.
In this module, you will raise your emotional intelligence to the highest possible quotient. You’ll learn how:
- Optimizing your emotional intelligence will allow you to connect more deeply with yourself and others, which means more efficiency in supporting effortless transformations.
- Attuning deeply to what others are feeling (even though they are not expressing feelings directly) will allow you to give others the gift of clarity and deep self-connection.
- Distinguishing between feelings and what are pseudo-feelings, so you don’t make the mistakes most people make when expressing feelings.
- Learning to connect with the emotional centers of the brain is the key to accessing hidden beliefs and constructs that impact our lives in so many ways.
Becoming aware of the hidden desires, wants, and values that operate in your life is the key to effortless transformations.
Many of your needs, wants, desires, and values are tightly held in your body/mind system and operate outside of your conscious awareness of them. The information in this module is the foundation to inspiring effortless transformations when you begin to hold these desire/want/ values lightly (become detached). You’ll learn:
- How to increase your need/want/desire literacy in your own life as a way to connect with yourself and others in deeper, more meaningful ways.
- The truth about the relationship between what you feel and what you need/want/desire.
- How understanding what you desire radically empowers you in any given situation or circumstance.
Presence that includes empathy and compassion is the most powerful connection you can have with another.
In this module, you’ll learn the most effective way of holding compassionate empathetic presence for others. This deep way of being with someone is transformative in and of itself. It will be one of the important building blocks for doing Inner Presence Inquiries. You’ll learn how to:
- Effectively hold compassionate space for another, which allows them to connect powerfully with themselves.
- Clear yourself before being present to another.
- Empathetically reflect back what a person is saying and watch their whole body and disposition transform before your eyes. (It is rare to be heard on such a deep level!)
- Distinguish between Pseudo-empathetic methods you should NEVER use which take the energy and focus away from the other and draws it to yourself.
- Ask the wrong questions can cause the other to disconnect and inspire them to go up into their head.
Using parts terminology will liberate you from the “I” orientation embedded in our language.
What is a part and how do you know a part is emerging in your experience? We tend to be conditioned to think of ourselves regarding a singular “I”. We are going to break up this notion by looking at our experience regarding parts emerging. Just making this shift to perceiving parts has given people so much relief in living under the tyranny of the “I.” You’ll learn why…
- Using parts in describing our experience is liberating.
- It is beneficial to determine what is and is not a part.
- It is essential to know whether you’re identified with a part or not.
- It is important to speak for our parts instead of from our parts.
Categorizing parts of yourself will make it crystal clear what is emerging in your experience.
When you begin to look inside yourself, it can be very confusing. At any given time, there is kind of a stream of thoughts, feelings and body sensations happening. We have been enculturated to believe this stream is our “I,” who we are. In this module, we’ll sort out and tease apart your stream into various parts categories and begin to understand the relational aspects of these parts. You’ll have a robust framework to understand and navigate your inner terrain. You’ll learn how to:
- Hold a high degree of Presence in the face of painful aspects of yourself and not be consumed by these painful parts.
- Hold presence for the parts of you that protect you and keep us safe from painful experiences.
- Practice holding presence for protective parts, which helps you disidentify from these parts as “me, in my entirety.”
- Understand that the parts we don’t like are looking out for our best interests, but doing so in a way where there are huge costs to the bodymind system.
How to bring presence to disowned, exiled or shadow parts which will inspire effortless transformations.
The deeper disowned parts of ourselves hold the keys to transformation. This is a level that people often do not access, yet this is where the potential lies for effortless transformations. The feelings and beliefs of those deeper parts have a dramatic impact on our lives in ways in which we are not aware. It is like they are running our lives from a script on how to be or not be, how to show up, who to associate with, or what careers to choose. In this module, we discuss the foundational knowledge needed to identify and connect with these shadow parts as they emerge. You’ll learn:
- The basics about how disowned parts are formed and why it is essential to learn the important information they hold for us.
- How bringing compassion and empathy to these parts can inspire monumental shifts in our beings.
- How our gifts and passions become casualties of protection from pain, and how connecting to disowned parts is the doorway to integrate these back into our lives.
How working from the widest possible perspective will give you the clarity you need to do life-transforming Inner Presence.
The Inner Presence work operates from a particular viewpoint or perspective. Learning this perspective will serve as an overarching guide when supporting ourselves and others. In this module we’ll learn:
- The labeling mistakes you want to avoid.
- Intimate knowledge of relationships between different part categories will increase your effectiveness in an Inner Presence Session.
- How to cut through the intractable inner loop between two different polarized aspects of yourself.
- Four critical questions to ask about the relationship between our conditioning and presence to arrive at an intention for the Inner Presence work.
How to hold presence and cultivate a particular kind of connection with our inner parts.
When doing inner work, it becomes important to discover who or what is doing the observing of the inner terrain and the type of connection. Recognizing this crucial distinction can make the difference in whether you have a highly effective session or support the client to spin around chasing their tail. You’ll learn:
- Why this critical step is necessary to start an Inner Presence Session.
How to check on the level of identification will save so much time and energy. - What is an effective connection to internal parts and what prevents us from a useful contact?
- Why spending the time to cultivate a certain quality of connection is the key to going deep.
- How to acknowledge and welcome different parts.
The most effective ways to enter an Inner Presence Session with students
The particular way in which you support a student to enter an inquiry session will hugely impact its effectiveness. You’ll learn:
- How to explain what an Inner Presence Session is to students and familiarize them with the work to increase their comfort level.
- How to have a pre-session conversation to discern the object of the inquiry as well as particular contexts to start a session.
- How to ground the session for both you and the Client.
Attuning and attending to the flow of an Inner Presence session.
This module will support facilitators to attend to the flow of a session. It will address how to allow flexibility within a certain structure.
- What are the roles of the Coach and the Client?
- How to create the open-ended space of the Inner Presence session.
- What are effortless transformations and how do they occur in a session.
- How to use invitational language to ensure the Inner Presence session is Client-led.
Working with parts that are concerned about the Inner Presence Session
In the flow of an Inner Presence Session, people often encounter parts that have concerns about the session or about allowing some particular part to emerge. In this module, you will learn specific strategies to use when meeting these parts. You’ll learn:
- The seven most common concerns, and why they must be acknowledged.
- How to turn concerned parts into allies.
- How to negotiate with a protector part.
Using the At-a-Glance Prompt sheet in an Inner Presence Session
This module will review the various prompts on the At-A-Glance sheet. You’ll learn:
- When, and under what circumstances, to use the various prompts on the sheet.
- How to use the sheet to be aware of certain contingencies that arise during a session.
- How to use it as a live reference when doing a session.
Common obstacles to being an effective Coach
This module will explore the common ways an Inner Presence session can go astray from the protocols. You’ll learn:
- The nine common ways a Coach can diminish the effectiveness of a session.
- The nine common ways a Client can diminish the effectiveness of a session.