Yannick’s Coaching Lab features guest coaches from a broad variety of approaches, who showcase how they work as part of a live 45min coaching session, followed by reflections and Q&A with the audience.
Curious to know what this session was like? Have a peek at the Lab Report below or consider VIP membership to access the full recording of this and many more exciting sessions.
Yannick’s Coaching Lab #49 — Jindy Mann
Lab Report by Natalie Fraser
Session Summary
Jindy and his client had a 30 minute conversation before this session, sharing a bit about each other but avoiding sharing anything coaching related and without contracting.
Jindy’s client is a coach herself, balancing professional and family roles including running her business and caring for her father. Over the past 2-3 weeks, Jindy’s client has been aware that she’s been holding two polarities – wrestling with two ideas that each seem impossible to achieve, each seem at odds with each other, and each are something that she wants. She feels stuck. Specifically, these two things are:
– Being in my ‘soft girl era’, a ‘Gen Z’ phrase for being taken care of, resting, not a lot of outward energy. Jindy’s client recognizes that this is due to being in a carer role that has left her emotionally and spiritually fatigued.
She questions ‘when will someone take care of me?’ which makes her feel selfish.
– ‘Full Send/Open throttle era’ – motorcycles are a big and important part of his clients life, and where possible and safe, she goes ‘open throttle’ pushing the motorcycle to its maximum capacity, bringing an extreme sense of freedom.
The session became an exploratory experience, uncovering deep tensions, perspectives, desires, and unmet needs that Jindy’s client is carrying.
Key Moments
Jindy began the session without formal contracting, inviting his client to share what she’d like to look at today. His client presented two themes that she’s been holding, which she felt were opposing:
– ‘Soft Girl Era’ – being taken care of
– ‘Full Send/Open Throttle Era’ – extreme sense of freedom
Jindy drew compatible themes between his client’s two ‘opposing’ eras: desire and need
Jindy picked up on his client’s non-verbal communication such as her gestures and speed of talking, reflecting and demonstrating this back to her in relation to the spoken content which evoked different speeds and gestures
Jindy picked up on his client’s non-verbal communication such as her gestures and speed of talking, reflecting and demonstrating this back to her in relation to the spoken content which evoked different speeds and gestures
Listening to his client’s dialogue, Jindy sensed something deeper than the tangible exhaustion being discussion and invited exploration of this, revealing complex emotions and tensions being carried
Revisiting the polarities presented at the start, Jindy reflected back several more polarities which emerged within the narrative his client was discussing their situation, then challenged the incompatibility asking, “are they really at odds with each other?”
Bringing life to the abstract terms, Jindy asked his client to explain and explore, “what does ‘soft girl’ look like?”
Jindy challenged his client’s valuing and perception of being independent, revealing dissonance between the ‘story’ she’s telling about independence and the ‘reality’ of her being independent
“If you could completely extinguish it right now, and it was gone from your body right now, what would you be asking for?” was a powerful question revealing deeper pain and conflicts that his client has been carrying
Jindy translated want and metaphor statements to embodied experience: I want tenderness – where does tenderness live in you?
Picking up on his client’s goal-focused dialogue, Jindy invited a shift in perspective asking “What if it wasn’t goals, what if it’s what is most important?” which revealed a deeper meaning of the situation
Having tapped into painful life experiences, Jindy brought the session to a close drawing on some of the lighter elements such as his client’s possibilities of freedom and abundance
Jindy gave space for his client’s voice to close the session, asking Anything you want to close with?
nsights & Take-Aways
The audience and his client recognized that Jindy provided the safety, tenderness, and softness that his client needed in her life with his presence.
Jindy described the session as a dance, fluid, spiraling around getting closer and closer to the topic, occasionally abruptly moving outwards before returning to the circling – his client resonated with this metaphor
Without explicit contracting and goal setting from the outset, the boundaries were not clear and as the emerging topics were painful Jindy felt that taking a gentle, exploratory, intuitive approach was most important. The openness rather the goal-focused approach felt appropriate for the client and were well received.
When the client disclosed traumatic experiences, Jindy ‘self-filtered’ He held the space but did not explore ‘head on’ – this was an active choice to hold back due to the setting (being recorded). In a private space, Jindy would have asked permission to ‘become curious’ about this, or explored it depending on his intuition.
Jindy was able to make his client know that what they’ve bought has been acknowledged, without necessarily making this the direction of the session
The limited time and being recorded prevented Jindy from naming or floating a few hypotheses related to the deeper elements of the session, such as: grief, death, abandonment
Jindy often closes his sessions with: “[this] is what the narrative of the session has felt like for me” and given space for his clients to explore, challenge, reframe, expand on this.
A list of all available recordings can be found at https://bit.ly/LabRecordings
This Lab Report was authored by Natalie Fraser
Natalie is an existential Counselling Psychologist, specialising in trauma and transformation, and curious about coaching. Interested in exploring life’s Big Questions? Find out more at: www.existentialofferings.com
