Final chat with coachee Claudia

This week Claudia opted for the second form of conversation. She spoke with her aunt who she says is normally a great listener and is quite helpful when Claudia needs guidance. In past conversations Claudia has expressed difficulty with practicing presence and good listening and this week was no different. She said that her aunt thought it was strange because Claudia was "too quiet" as she was trying to focus on listening deeply. I advised her to take a different approach to listening and not to take it so literally. Listening is only generative and helpful if you are engaged with the conversation, so I suggested that she contribute more next time instead of only listening and not speaking. Also, she said that they spoke about nothing in particular, just "general stuff". This kind of exercise would be more useful with a conversation around a specific topic or idea. It is difficult to engage with a conversation if the topic and focus are constantly changing and not allowing for deeper analytic and generative growth.

Claudia agreed and said that in the future she thought this type of conversation would go better if she asked more questions and was more active in the conversation.

Coaching "Call" with Sara

This week I was unable to speak with Sara during our scheduled time so we communicated through email. She was very understanding and accommodating. I told her about my experience with option 2, a conversation with an old friend of mine. Sara is always a great listener and asks the questions that often make me shift my focus and reevaluate my thoughts. At first I was explaining the many differences between my friend and myself because she is always the empathic listener and never talks about herself or her own experiences. But Sara asked a simple question "What qualities do you think you share with Anastasia?". Instead of focusing on our differences I started to think about the similarities we share in our conversation styles and come to realize that we weren't all that different...a nice little change on my perspective.

I went on to tell her that my conversation felt a little strained at first but there came a time when the empathic listening was far more organic and automatic at which point she asked some pertinent questions about how my conversation related to Kantor's model and made me consider how and why this change came about. 

Sara has been a fantastic coach and always did a great job of providing a neutral perspective that offered guidance in times of confusion as well as praise for my hard work. These exercises were instrumental in helping me grow internally and adopt the methods we have learned about in to my every day conversations.

Week 8 with Sara

Sara and I talked mostly about our experiences in the first part of the assignment (the self reflection within nature). As always, Sara was a great coach and probed with pertinent questions. We focused on my experience on the Muddy River in Boston where I sat for about 45 minutes (It was really warm on Saturday!). I thought about my family and the quality of the relationships I have with my parents, siblings and grandparents and how I wish I could improve them. I love my family very much and they mean the world to me, but I don't always get to see/speak to them as much as I would like. I don't tell them that I love them enough. This exercise helped me envision what I wanted out of my future self and how I could improve. After the exercise I visited with my grandparents, I took my Grandfather out to lunch, I spoke with my mom and sister and resolved to make contact with them more regularly in order to achieve the happiness and fulfillment that I had pondered on the river that day.

Week 8 with Claudia

During our call, Claudia and I spoke mostly about the second part of the assignment (the conversation with another person). She spoke with a friend and focused her energy on her listening in an attempt to tune in to the highest future possibility of that person. We talked about seeing deeply and presencing within the conversation and how emphatic listening played a key role in the conversation for her. In previous weeks Claudia reported having trouble with her listening skills and so this week she was able to use her deeper listening to connect to the conversation. I asked her about how she thought this contributed to the quality of the container and she felt that it made for a more connected experience and improved overall "vibe".

Suspension with my Coachee, Claudia

This week Claudia focused her assignment around a conversation that she had with her best friend. The friend talked mostly about her boyfriend and the problems surrounding their relationship. Claudia admitted that it was difficult for her to practice any dialogic techniques because she found her mind wandering to other topics, like "did I feed the dog this morning?". She didn't feel that she had an important role in the conversation because it was dominated by her friend spilling out details and talking extensively about her personal problems and not allowing for much input or advice. 

  Although the assignment didn't go as planned, we discussed that there is still lots to learn from her experience. I explained that in order to have any good dialogue both parties involved have to be engaged and committed to the conversation. In Claudia's case she was not engaged in the topic, so she never truly left Field I. In order to progress to other fields you must create your own feelings, beliefs, and point of view to offer. Claudia concealed her beliefs because she felt unappreciated. I suggested that she point out these feelings to her friend even though they do not directly relate to the topic of her relationship problems. Voicing her views and making it clear to her friend how she feels would carry the conversation in to another topic. I suggested saying something like "I don't feel like you value my feelings because you only talk about X and don't involve me or ask my opinion". This would be a better stage for her to practice her dialogue techniques because she would be more invested in the outcome and would have passionate beliefs to voice.

Claudia said that it would be difficult for her to find the right way to bring this up, but that she would try to have a second conversation with her friend express her feelings fully. We agreed to talk more about her second trial next week. 

Suspension: Call with my coach Sara

We started our talk by discussing the conversation that I used for the assignment. My boyfriend and I were deeply involved in field II when I began to practice the technique of suspension. The conversation took an abrupt turn when I said something along the lines of "I think that my statements thus far have been close-minded and judgmental, but you make some great points and I think you are right". Initially he was shocked and thought I was being facetious, but after discussing my feelings a bit further we were able to move in to field III and had a more constructive talk. 

  Sara and I analyzed the different phases of the discussion and how I felt a sense of enlightenment when I suspended my beliefs and opened the conversation up. It wasn't difficult for me at all, but we noticed that it might be more difficult if I didn't have this assignment in mind. We talked about incorporating this (and other techniques) in to our every day lives not because we are assigned to, but because we enjoy it and find our conversations to be more deep and meaningful. One change that I would have liked to make was having the conversation in person. My talk with my boyfriend was over the phone, so it lacked the physical cues and intimacy of body language. Though I thought the conversation went extremely well, I would have liked to be more attuned to my own body language as well has his. 

  

Meditation in Week 5

3/4- Awareness of Body

When I first woke up I meditated for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes I stayed in the same seated position and focused on my posture. I naturally slump forward a bit so I began noticing the labored feeling of keeping my back and neck upright and my shoulders pushed back. I could feel each muscle working to keep my spine erect. After sitting and focusing on keeping my back straightened I was actually more comfortable than before. I felt as though my neck was elongated and my head was inching toward the sky. Throughout the entire day I sat with perfect posture and it was almost effortless.

While climbing six flights of stairs I paid special attention to the muscles of my lower body, especially my calves. I felt the burn of each contraction and felt each toe gripping the ground as I elevated my heel to climb to the next step. I felt the connection between my hamstrings, quadriceps and abdominal muscles each time I raised my knee. By the top of the stairs I could feel my gluteus muscles burning. When I reached the top my heart was pumping, I had begun to sweat the tiniest bit and my breathing was more rapid. I felt like an oiled machine warming up. This made me view my body as a machine; each muscles one of the moving parts, and my mind being the command center. 

3/5- Awareness of Breathing

At the gym I always monitor my heart rate throughout my cardio workout but today I coupled heart rate with number of breaths.. At the beginning I didn't notice my breathing at all, but as I started to warm up and my heart rate rose steadily I noticed my breaths becoming more frequent. At the peak of my workout I felt relieved after each breath, as if I couldn’t get the air in fast enough. I have been thinking of my body as a machine all day and after the gym I felt like air was my fuel. Not food, not water, but each breath was keeping me alive.

I counted 16 breaths per minute as my resting breathing rate, with a resting heart rate of 116.  At the peak of my workout I counted 57 breaths per minute, with a maximum heart rate of 202

(written 3/6) As I fell asleep last night I paid special attention to the rise and fall of my chest. I typically have trouble falling asleep, but paying attention to my breathing actually helped me drift away. There was one particular moment when I was breathing normally, then I took a deep breath and suddenly after that my breathing was much slower. I felt as though there was a threshold on the sleepiness scale and once I had crossed it my breathing slowed and I was able to enter a “low power” state. I don’t remember much after that, but I slowly faded in to sleep.

3/6- Awareness of Emotions

Today my boyfriend came to visit me from NY (as he does every Thursday). I always get excited for him to arrive and today was no different. I tried to keep busy by doing homework and housework while waiting, but the anticipation of his arrival was very distracting. When he called to say that he was going to be late I felt deflated. I was feeling somewhat irritated and let down. Cognitively I knew that he had just hit some traffic and he wouldn’t be long, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit angry at him. I knew that this was unfair so I tried to be understanding and move on. When he arrived I was thrilled to see him and I couldn’t stop smiling. I was genuinely happy. 

After bringing awareness to my annoyance and unjust anger I contrasted that feeling with other times that he had called to say he was late (or couldn’t come at all). I felt that being more aware helped me calm myself down and take a more realistic approach to my emotions. The emotional journey is one that I experience inside, but I would not express this to my boyfriend because it is somewhat of an irrational emotion. This made me think about our inner struggle with rational and irrational emotions and how we try to conceal our irrational ones, or really any emotions that would make others uncomfortable. We have this social consciousness that tells us what is acceptable and what is not. Even though we may feel one way we often hide it or pretend to be unaffected by things that bother us.

3/7- Awareness of Thought

Today I went to track practice for the youth team that I coach. I worked with the ten year old group and after running and doing drills we reviewed their performances from the previous week. I noticed that as I was addressing each child’s event I was altering my tone and delivery based on the personality of the child and their performance. One girl in particular is very emotionally fragile and unconfident so when I announced her mile time I made sure to give her some positive reinforcement and congratulate her for finishing the race. I notice that some of the other kids who are more “mentally tough” got a different response from me. I monitored my thoughts about each child before reading their results: “Okay, this kid is a champ but he didn’t perform as expected, I need to fire him up and get him thinking about his next race” or “I know that this girl isn’t the most social and she just recently joined the team so I need to make her feel comfortable and welcomed. I should take a softer approach” and so on. Although the process was automatic and I didn’t even pick up on it until I was half way through I felt that I had complete control over these thoughts. My memories governed my thoughts and my thoughts governed my speech. It was a seamless journey and it was refreshing to reflect upon.

Assignment #2: Coaching Call Response (week 4)

After our initial coaching call in week 3 I think that my coach Sara has done a great job of creating goals for our talks, asking the right questions to engage in deeper thought, listening to my responses and encouraging me to explain my ideas and state them clearly. We started this week’s talk by discussing the three assigned conversations that I had in the week. My first conversation was with a large group of people which tempted me to jump in as a leader and made it especially difficult for me to abandon my usual role as “mover”. However, it also opened up a great opportunity to be a bystander. The bystander role can be difficult in one-on-one or small group conversations because these types require a bit more contribution from everyone involved, but with a bigger group it is easier to take on a listening role. 

In this conversation I did my best to suspend my opinions and neither agree nor oppose the ideas put forth by the group. Instead I gave a general perspective of what was proposed and a brief overview of the pros and cons. We talked about how Isaacs defines suspending as “bystanding with awareness” and how this sort of approach to conversation is unfamiliar to me. 

As a teacher, Sara often facilitates discussion and is usually found filling the roles of mover/follower and bystander so she was very helpful in providing some insightful points on her perspective. 

Moving on to the second and third conversations we talked mostly about what I would have done differently to make my conversation with my mom a bit more productive. I think that my mom’s feelings of being attacked and undervalued could have avoided if I had shared the four-player model with her prior to beginning our conversation. It would have been helpful for her to understand the model and to choose a role that she most closely identifies with (instead of me placing her in a role and being judgmental in my approach). Having her choose her role would help to make her more aware of her conversational habits and create a sense of accountability for her actions. We discussed that having a sense of awareness and understanding about your own role and how you contribute to discussion is key in shaping more productive conversation patterns. If she had identified with the role of mover on her own then she would have naturally been more in tune with her patterns and would not have faulted me for “blaming” her and making her feel attacked.

Assignment #2: My Conversations(Week 4)

After reading about Kantor's four-player model I began to identify most closely with the role of “mover”. According to Kantor, movers typically initiate ideas and offer direction. I tend to volunteer myself for leadership positions and I enjoy being very involved in my relationships and conversations, shaping their direction and goals. Although movers okay a key role in shaping conversations I was eager to learn more about the other roles. 

For my first conversation I wanted to take on a more passive role and allow others to take the lead so I chose to occupy the role of a bystander. While making big birthday plans for a close friend of mine I got in to a discussion with about five of my girlfriends. We set out to decide on a gift, a restaurant and a place for the group (about fifteen people) to go to afterward. Usually in this type of conversation I naturally fill the leadership role. I would be the person to initiate the talk,  then I would be the one to select a restaurant, make the reservation, coordinate the bill breakdown and payment for everyone, choose the bar to go to afterward, call the cabs, etcetera. When we began talking and ideas started to float around I made an effort to actively listen to what was suggested. Instead of commanding the direction of the conversation I sat back and took note of what I didn’t agree with, but I did not interject. When asked for my opinion I simply laid out the discussed options and mentioned a few pros and cons of each. I refused to be the deciding voice. I noticed that some of the more passive members of the group spoke up and took a more active position in the conversation by  offering their opinions, opposing others views and so on. By me leaving the “mover” role open there was more room for them to speak up so in a sense we swapped player roles.

We ended up going to a restaurant that I would have never chosen, followed by a bar that I had never been to in a neighborhood that I don’t typically frequent and I had a great night. It was refreshing to try something new and do what others wanted (not necessarily what I wanted). 

I chose to start a conversation with my mom to fulfill my third conversation and I ended up incorporating both second and third conversation requirements in to one. Like myself, my mother tends to be the “mover” in conversations so we sometimes interfere with each others plans of which direction to go. She can be very forceful and harsh because she often sticks to her guns and “reloads” instead of listening. The talk took a personal turn and she felt as though I was accusing her of being a bad person when in reality I was only trying to discuss her conversational patterns. When she got upset I decided it was best to explain the model to her and let her look over some of the class materials. This conversation touched on some personal issues and got a little heated. It was not nearly as productive as my first conversation.

Coach Reflection (w/ Claudia)

Claudia and I discussed some of her confusions with the course and addressed a few of the questions that she had regarding our readings from the week. We mainly discussed politeness and how it can become a precursor for the disconnect between what we feel and what we say. We acknowledged that particular conversational patterns can be detrimental to dialogue and so we agreed to remain aware of these patterns during our future calls.

Claudia is in her final semester and so has quite a bit on her plate this year. We discussed the goals we have for this course and what we plan to do after our time at UMB. Unfortunately our call was cut short due to technological problems with our Skype connection. In our future calls I hope to work out these kinks and maximize our time together. Claudia is a very bright individual and I look forward to learning more about her in the coming weeks.

Coachee Reflection (w/ Sara week 3)

During our session Sara and I got to know each other by exchanging some of our goals and experiences within the CCT program, and in our respective career paths. We also discussed some of our class posts from earlier in the week, specifically about how to catalyze change and break bad conversational habits, something we both vow to be mindful of. One thing that I appreciated about Sara’s facilitation of the call was that she asked me questions regarding how I wanted to structure our chats, how I learn best and what I felt I needed most help with. 

We agreed that critical feedback would be a priority for us to focus on since it can be difficult to give/receive this type of response from our peers in the class discussion board. We also agreed to conduct our calls toward the end of the week in order to absorb as much of the course information from that week. This will allow us to take some time before our weekly calls to read one another’s posts made during the week to have meaningful points of discussion. This will help with raising important questions and forming a better understanding of the others thoughts as they unfold within the group discussions. 

All in all I think that Sara and I will make a great pair for these coaching exercises. We both have a very realistic approach to our goals and matched passion for improving ourselves. I can’t wait to see what is in store for us.

Assignment #1: My Coaching Vision

Below is the coaching vision that I imagine will take form in my sessions with my coach Sara Kaplan. I look forward to getting to know Sara better and digging deep to answer some questions of my own.

Sara,

This week marks the first week of our coaching sessions, a section of the course that I have looked forward to in anticipation. I am excited to generate some dialogue with someone other than myself or online, and to have an opportunity to reflect on my ideas from throughout the week. I have found that my ideas don’t just stop once I click the “post” button on our discussion board. There is a lot of thinking that continues after my ideas are formed, and I tend to think about other peoples’ posts I have read throughout the day. I find myself applying my new knowledge to different scenarios in my everyday life and wondering what changes could be made. Is this person really listening to me or are they just downloading what I’m saying? What that couple is arguing about? How could their situation be improved, and what role can dialogue play in this improvement? Aside from posting my experiences on the discussion board, I feel that I don’t have anyone to talk to about these evolving thoughts of mine. 

In our coaching sessions I hope to talk about these ideas and questions that I have. I imagine that we could start by reading a few of each others posts before our calls to familiarize ourselves with the ideas being formed throughout the week. We could then start our conversations by discussing the responses, the continued ideas and their applications to daily life, and if a particular point stood out or prompted further thought. This would be helpful in figuring out the facts and uncovering what I am really feeling. For you I imagine this would mean asking questions, however simple or insightful they may be. In one of the coaching articles from this week Thomas J. Leonard stated that one of the ten things he does with his coaching clients is “I ask the obvious questions-I want the facts, feelings and preferences, and I want them to know these as well”. Asking questions makes the coachee clearly state their thoughts and ultimately clarify their inquiries not only to the coach, but to themselves. Another article posted the 15 Proficiencies of coaching. Among those listed were “reveal the client to themselves” and “relish the truth”. This is exactly what I hope we can achieve together.

Another proficiency listed in the aforementioned article was “engage in provocative conversations”. I would like for our calls to be free and open to critiques and criticisms. If I am guilty of downloading, being close minded, or not developing an idea enough don’t hesitate to call me out! Provocative conversations aren’t produced by constant praising and passivity, so let’s not waste any time with them. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t offer congratulations where due, but let’s put constructive criticism as a priority. 

I look forward to working with you!

Best,

Sabrina