Soul-based Coaching is unlike any other form of coaching. There are many ways of helping others out there. And yet, there is a unique flow of magic that happens when we do our work as a soul-based coach.

This has to do with the way we are trained to fully honour our client’s experience and their shakti intelligence, their life intelligence.

What is that, people’s life intelligence?

Your life intelligence is the energy that moves through you. It is life itself, expressing itself through you. It is an intelligence that is far greater than your intellectual mind has access to. It goes deeper than just your bodily knowledge.

When we come up against something that we fear, grieve or ar angry about, we are not used to stay with the flow of these emotions moving through us. We have decided that these uncomfortable feelings must mean something is wrong. And we jump into our mind to analyse what it is, what the causes are and what should happen next. By jumping into our mind, we create a storyline. And when we think of that storyline, we trigger the emotions. And the emotions trigger the thoughts. So we keep ourselves in a loop, that is often outside of our awareness. We just notice how we are not happy, and the thoughts that go with the storylines.

If we could stay out of the storylines, and ride the emotions in our body, in the moment, we would continue to be connected to our shakti intelligence. We would feed the emotions back into the loop where our real learning takes place. And we could move quite quickly, beyond it. But this is not something that we are trained in, in our societies. And it can look and feel messy and unpredictable.

But when we can honour that shakti intelligence in our clients, their energy starts to transform in line with their deepest truth.

So, how do we do that in a way that is not messy and full of full-on emotion?

In Soul-based Coaching, we use an incredible powerful motor for transformation. When I tell you, keep paying attention. It may seem trivial, but I promise you, it’s not.

The most powerful way to tap into your client’s deepest knowing, is to pay attention to the metaphors that they use.

(To be absolutely clear: this is not like many NLP structures, where a coach decides on a useful metaphor. That is powerful, but nowhere near as powerful as working with the client’s own metaphors.)

Your client’s metaphors are their way of putting into words the unique nature of what they are experiencing.

And the beauty of using their own metaphors is multifold:

They bypass the logical brain. That is the side of us that is always so busy to decide what it cause, what is effect, what is good, what is bad and what should happen. The logical brain is invited to play along in the process, but it’s not the originator of the metaphors, and therefore it cannot drive the transformation process.

They are an expression of both our practical, bodily experience, and the knowledge of our soul. Our soul speaks to us through our body, not through our mind. The metaphors help us express our deepest knowing from both sources in every moment.

The metaphors change naturally when we pay them attention. A natural flow starts to happen when we pay attention to our metaphors. Nothing in life is made to be ‘fixed’, energy always wants to move and transform. This process allows the metaphors to transform in their own way, allowing the client’s life intelligence to emerge.

When our metaphors change, we change. As hard as it is for our logical mind to understand, this is what happens. Our metaphors are expressing the fabric that we are made of. When the metaphors change, it is an expression of that fabric rearranging itself. We no longer feel, think, sense, act in the same way. Often, clients are not even aware of how big the shift is, as they are completely inside the new normal.

They are surprising and fun  It’s quite normal for a client to have a diamond in their heartspace, birds flying around looking for a nest and bubbles of joy bubbling up through their belly into their head. Or to realise they are a unicorn treading into the forest. When you read this, it will not make any sense to you – to your system. Imagining a diamond in your heart-space will be nothing like it was for this client. But for these clients, it is the absolute truth of what they are experiencing. And working with these metaphors provides a light and easeful way to transform big issues.

How can you invoke your client’s magic, and start soul-based transformation?

If you want to tap into your client’s deepest knowing, start paying attention to their metaphors. You will know you have one, when they say: ‘It’s like ….’

And then, tread lightly. You have found a way in!

Now you want to nurture the magical flow of energy that can start to emerge. But it’s important to know that it will vanish as soon as you enter your own thoughts, assumptions, beliefs or needs (yes, coaches have needs while they are working!).

So, for example, when your client tells you what they are going through ‘is like standing on the edge of a cliff, and I am ready to step over that edge’, it is important to keep all your thoughts and feelings to yourself. It is very common to feel uncomfortable or even scared for them, and intervene to make it seemingly safer or more comfortable for your client.

But if you want to allow the magic of soul-based transformation, you need to learn to follow the shakti flow. You will need to learn to follow the intelligence that speaks through the metaphor. And that is a delicate process, that requires paying exquisite attention to your client’s words and what you are doing to support or hinder that flow.

In Soul-based Coaching, we start asking questions. The best questions to ask, are clean questions (developed by David Grove). They are designed to invite that flow to keep flowing where it needs to go.

So we could ask: ‘And when you are standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to step over that edge, what kind of edge is that edge?’

Or: ‘And is there anything else about ready to step over the edge?’

And later on, we could ask: ‘And what happens, when you take that step over the edge?’

And you just might find out, that they are ready to fly..