It is Valentine’s day today, and there is a lot of attention for the commercialised stories of romantic love. In our Western culture, we can easily get lost in that narrative, where it’s about ‘finding the one’ or ‘happily ever after’.

And even though my man surprised me with flowers (this is something very unusual, and it was a delight to see how happy he was with himself for thinking of it :)), and I am super grateful for him in my life, I am not all that interested in this way of celebrating love.

I saw a far more powerful example of accessing and celebrating deep rooted love yesterday. One that I think has far more value for all of us.

In our coach training, one of our participants was struggling to find confidence in the new skills she has gathered. I’m sure you can relate: when you enter a new field, you need to find /build/ explore your confidence in that field.

And she used the opportunity to be a practice client in our weekly live session.

And from a space of not knowing about confidence, and feeling mostly anxious, she went to feeling like she was soaring like an eagle – within 5 minutes. It was a strong visceral change, rooted deeply inside of her. We could all see it happening for her. And we felt the power of that metaphor flowing through our online classroom.

Will she feel that way for the rest of her life? No, there are many other feelings to be had. Will she always feel confident like that? Probably not. But she now has a very clear energetic blueprint of what confidence is for her. And the eagle is always with her, to tap back into and guide her to ‘the right perspective’ (her words for this experience). A very powerful resource.

Imagine an eagle flying with you at will.. (Chances are this is going to change more things for her.)

And this is what love can do.

This is what can happen when we skilfully offer a riverbed for what someone wants to have happen.

This is what can happen when we create the space for Love to build us up.

And if you want this, for yourself or your clients or loved ones, here is a way to do it. It is a shorthand description of a process without giving you the why’s and what exactly’s, because it would take too long for a single post 🙂 So just trust and try it, even if it seems odd or counter-intuitive.

Start by asking: “What would you like to have happen?”.

Listen carefully to the answer.

Pick out the bits that are pure resourcefulness (so leave the problemy-bits alone for now), and repeat them, literally as they were said.

Ask them: “And is there anything else about that?”

Listen carefully. Repeat the main words they said, again literally.

Ask them: “And when it’s like that, where is it?”

And when it gets to have a location (either inside or outside of their bodies), ask them slowly, as if it’s already happening:

“And when [what they’d like to have happen in terms of it being real here right now] is [in location], it’s like what?”

And then hold your breath for a bit, sit on your tongue, whatever you need to do to allow silence.

Chances are high the answer will be a metaphor.

Whatever the answer is, treat it with the reverence you would treat an actual eagle with.

Treat it as real. Ask more questions, just about whatever this answer is. The questions serve as a doorway for your client to connect more deeply with it. Until it becomes a deeply rooted resource, like the soaring eagle for our participant.

So no analysing, no judging, no ‘for me it’s like this’, or ‘this model tells us it should be like that’.

Only helping this metaphor be born.

Because our soul speaks metaphor, and Love is it’s language.

In our work, that is who we serve.

Nothing else.

And this is how easy it can be to connect with Love and celebrate it.

And how amazing is it, when you can help someone build themselves up rooted in Love?!

Do tell us about your experiences!