Evocative Coaching

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For years I searched for an alternative to describing my work as "life coaching." There are countless people calling themselves life coaches, some apparent stars. Not that I don't admire success, or scads of money, but I do wonder if the "better" life some coaches promise belongs to the maya category (all is illusion). Efforts, in other words, to satisfy clients' egos.

Then I read about a Clinton Presidential staff retreat, with Jean Houston as one of the facilitators. Houston's self-description, also shared in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, struck me at first as hilariously theatrical:

"I would call myself an evocateur of the possible, and a midwife of souls." Dr. Jean Houston.

Sometimes my laughter and immediate rejection of an idea are defenses against taking a risk. Sure enough, I couldn't stop thinking about evocateur. Too grandiose, too foreign, too too . . . yet somehow edgy and intriguing. Out of curiosity I played around at the online Thesaurus and Dictionary. 

As expected, life coaches are described as "helping people to make changes in their lives, to learn new ways of coping, and to function at their maximum potential." Ho hum. 

Some synonyms: expert, consultant, guide, counselor, mentor, partner, confidant... and in a lighter mode, kibitzer. At the more directive end, I like buttinski. 

Evocateur doesn't appear in either source, but I found evocator and this is my synthesis:

"Through artistry and imagination, evocators call forth a vision of transformed reality, elicit passion, and summon others into action."

The synonyms for evocator tend to derive from prophet, including predictor, forecaster, oracle, reader, diviner, clairvoyant, seer, soothsayer, and witch. I admit to all, on occasion.

Following this thread, I googled evocateur. The first hit was Jean Houston's site, where this description expands on my synthesis above:

"The times of great change and remarkable opportunity are upon us... we can no longer go it alone, but must partner... to share innovative and creative ways in which to rethink and restructure our individual existence within the context of our expanding global communities. To do this requires a heightened awareness, an awakened sense of purpose, and a dedicated commitment to actively seek out the possible."

Evocateur went too far for me, but more and more I liked the intimations of evocator and coined (I thought) evocative coaching. I've  found only one use of the term in Evocative Coaching: Transforming Schools One Conversation at a Time, a "teacher-centered, no-fault, strengths-based approach to performance improvement."

Their principles for school transformation are the same as those I recommend for Enneagram coaching, based on consciousness (self-awareness), connection (high- trust relationships), competence (celebrate clients' abilities), contribution (honor client's input), and creativity (openness to change, in a flow state) as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyl: "During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life."

See also:

Evocative Enneagram Stories  &  Self-Coaching Tips 

My Books at Amazon.com

Hungry Ghosts

In Buddhist and other texts throughout the Far East, Hungry Ghosts are depicted as teardrop shaped, with bloated stomachs and necks too thin to pass food—representing our futile attempts to feed ego patterns: we can never find satisfaction, like drinking salt water to quench our thirst.

This is a useful analogy for our addictive personality patterns. And it won't help anyone to suggest, metaphorically, "You needn't be so hungry" -- or worse -- "You really need to go on a diet."

Instead of theorizing about or labeling behavior, it's important to see the path of our Hungry Ghosts with compassion, not judgment -- to identify, embrace, and learn from the nature of our hungers.

Right-Brain Rorschach

In a Rorschach Inkblot Test, people are asked to provide meaning for inkblot shapes, which demonstrate how we interpret ambiguous circumstances. Dr. Michael Yapko uses the Rorschach as a metaphor for how we project assumptions onto our life experiences: 

“Life is like an inkblot – an ‘experiential Rorschach,’ so to speak. Life doesn’t have an objective or assigned meaning. We give it meaning by our individual values, beliefs, relationships, careers, hobbies, and other life experiences.”

There’s a poetic form called “erasure” poetry, where you take a page from any book, article, newspaper, etc. and cover up all but the words that appeal to you. Those remaining words create a poem. Not only will any two people come up with different poems from the same text; when you come back later to the same page you may also “see” the text in a completely different way. 

The content on the right is from a page in Out of the Box Coaching with the Enneagram. Here’s my erasure: parallels expressing talents be playful, listen to your dog I suspect in my own metaphorical universe the “dog” refers to an instinctual part of me, and while I didn’t know it when I started this post, I’m realizing how uptight I’ve been about an upcoming project, getting into a head space instead of taking a deep breath and listening to my “dog.” Try it for yourself. Notice what words show up for you when you look at the page; then follow this “Rorschach” to see what your unconscious might be telling you. And remember, we all operate from a perspective that may or may not be held by others. It’s always good to open ourselves to the differences.

business failed. Mary asked if she could remember a situation where someone regained face. Linette then recalled a story of a young, unwed mother in her grandmother’s village. “She was urged by her family to leave the village in shame, but she refused to.” Mary inquired,  what happened to her?” The answer “She raised her child well and eventually earned an honorable reputation through her good works in the community.”      A useful story has a structure similar to the client’s sensation, including the underlying problem and an embedded resolution. These elements were present in the above story. The young woman losing face when she became pregnant was analogous to losing face by not being promoted. The woman in the story regained face by choosing to be self-defined. Mary pointed out these parallels. The lessons in Linette’s story helped her set her sights on expressing her own needs and talents. Creating Room to Play      The word “metaphor” is from the Greek pherin, “to carry,” and meta, “beyond or “over.” We are carried beyond our worldview by breakthrough experiences; metaphors illuminate the path. When clients shrink from a new perspective, that’s a clue that intellectual understanding has not freed them to move. This is your chance to be spontaneous, playful, inventive – anything that will reach them at a symbolic level. We’ve just written about the power of stories. You can also create openings through the symbolic use of humor, behavior, gifts, or even poetry.      Use your own imagination and creativity to develop metaphors for each style. Sometimes you can ask clients for a metaphor of how they see themselves and work with it. Don’t worry about getting it just right. The meaning of a metaphor is often individual. Listen to your clients. They’ll give you the metaphors that have meaning for them. An Eight told Clarence, “I’m a junkyard dog.” Clarence stayed within that metaphor: “Who is the dog loyal to? Who cares for him?” Whom does he let pet him? What is he protecting and from whom? In what way is he trapped by what he is protecting?”

 

Going for the Gold

Two very different kinds of change are represented by the familiar phrase "going for the gold." 
      With Olympian goals, we focus on satisfying worldly desires. 
      When seeking greater self-awareness, our focus shifts away from achievement, and "going for the gold" becomes the search for light, for illumination.
      Below, the language of alchemy--converting base metals into gold--provides nine metaphors for aspects of awakening that parallel Enneagram patterns:

1. Calcinatio--purifying by fire, subjects the basic material to intense heat, driving away alien substances and leaving a pure, whitened ash. Psychologically speaking, this works on the mind and ego, burning away the false self. The whitened ash represents releasing fixated illusions of reality.
2. Solutio--melting hard hearts and entrenched positions, uses the purifying and dissolving properties of water to return the ash to its basic state so it can be worked with successfully. This dissolution works on the heart, releasing buried emotions.
3. Solificatio--making things real, represents moving from the lower to the higher mind. Our deep intention to change is not limited by rational thought and conscious goal attainment, but rather our thoughts are enlightened, transformed into light, a vision of what's possible.
4. Nigredo--separating the extraneous from the real. This aspect of alchemy means putrefaction or decomposition, all ingredients cleansed and cooked to a uniform black matter, representing the moment of maximum despair, the dark night of the soul, the dying of inner chaos and doubt, discovering authentic essence.
5. Separatio--separating wholes into components, separating the essence of dissolution from its wastes. This refers to dismembering the personality, retrieving the energy released by dissolution of negative beliefs and emotional blockages.
6. Mortificatio--killing or dead-making, consciously working on reduction of ego attachments; in Jungian terms going inside ourselves to embrace the shadow so our self reflects the whole instead of a dissociated part.
7. Sublimatio--infusing with spirit, transmuting to a higher form. In chemistry a solid, when heated, passes directly into gas and ascends to the top of the vessel, where it resolidifies. Metaphorically, we are made spiritual, we move above. 
8. Coagulatio--mastering the forces of nature--accessing our own soul power to change our reality on all levels. This refers to earth and to being solid, to a chemical reaction that produces a new compound. We are stable in our newfound peace, accustomed to our spirit-based self.
9. Coniunctio--uniting apparent opposites to make a larger whole. Here we unite conscious and unconscious, balance masculine and feminine principles, increase our intuitive insights and synchronicities, entering into psychological wholeness.

From Going for the Gold: Alchemy in Coaching

Reframing Spiritual Emergency as Positive Change

So if you're experiencing psychospiritual/ transformational crisis, don't assume you're crazy. Tell your story to someone who will listen, an experienced coach or counselor who understands the nature of spiritual transformation. ("Spiritual Emergency: When 911 Can't Help")

In the post from my Evocative Enneagram Self-Coaching Tips blog where the above is cited, I encourage anyone on a path of deepening self-awareness to reframe a rapid, forceful shift in perception as a "good" thing, so it doesn't necessarily become destabilizing.

Anyone helping clients loosen ego bonds, personality patterns, and defenses also needs to be on the alert for spiritual emergencies that may turn us upside down, but also lead to deep, positive change.

These major shifts from "normal" reality may appear in a variety of forms, many of which I've experienced in myself and/or seen in some of my own clients.

Becoming more familiar with the deep changes that are possible can help you hold steady when your clients describe one or more of the following:

1. Powerful sensations of heat and/or energy pulsing through the spine, sometimes accompanied by an embodied sense that "something big is happening -- I don't know what!"
2. A peak experience, mystical sense of awe, or feeling within profound love.
3. Awakening of extrasensory perception, including precognition and telepathy, increased occasions of synchronicity or more than usual "coincidences."
4. Feeling "possessed" by an archetype, a heretofore unknown and unfamiliar persona.
5. An initiatory crisis, the sense of self as a "wounded healer" -- facing into our deepest wound to receive its blessing.
6. Experiencing what we commonly know as "the dark night of the soul," a sense of something dying and not knowing what's on the "other side," even questioning one's own sanity.
7. Similar to a peak experience but a more profound feeling of being at the center of or part of the cosmos.

What first brings confusion and fear can lead to profound healing. Spiritual emergency "shatters your entire world only to rebuild it again. It occurs because it is time for the individual to awaken."

If you're interested in a personal assessment or to delve further into these concepts, check out The Questionnaire Measurement of Spiritual Emergency (scroll through to Appendix).

See also:

Evocative Enneagram Stories  &  Self-Coaching Tips 

My Books at Amazon.com

"Do I Belong?"

I found The Instincts Dialogue at the 2018 Enneagram Global Summit to be the most actionable discussion for coaching, exploring the instinctual aspects of the self-preservation, sexual, and social subtypes--"reptilian, biological, unconscious, automatic impulses to survive" (Bea Chestnut), "drives and also sensation, known to the body and important to know what they feel like" (Russ Hudson). My main takeaway was to pay less attention to subtype descriptions and to ask instead, as Hudson suggested, "What's my habitual relationship with this drive?'" 

I've simplified the subtype distinctions as defined by three key questions:

• Self-Preservation instinct: "Am I safe?"
• Sexual or One-to-One instinct: "Am I loved?"
• Social instinct: "Do I belong?"

In my practice, every coaching call in some way addressed one of these questions. You want your clients to find a YES to all three: "I am safe." "I am loved." "I belong." And deeper understanding of a client's instinctual subtype preference will heighten your effectiveness in helping them answer these questions--not with a series of prescriptions but by encouraging them to ask, "What's my habitual relationship with this drive?"

Bea Chestnut offers an inspiring personal example on her web site, with a deep look at her Enneagram Two self-preservation instinct. And we learn from her story that growth arises from staying present, observing ourselves without judgment, becoming conscious of what has been unconscious and automatic:

... I felt something sweep through my entire body--an emotional and energetic recognition that told me he was right. I couldn't argue with him, even though my pride wanted to. If I was really honest with myself, I did feel like I needed protection. I wanted to say I could protect him, but I felt, so clearly, in my body, it wasn't true. So, I went and sat in the group with the other Self-Preservation Twos.

Of special interest to me has been the "Do I belong?" question because several of my clients explored how Enneagram patterns help or hinder connection to the world community--mostly through political or environmental concerns. As Bea Chestnut said in The Instincts Dialogue, "We've lost touch with the fact that in primitive people, being part of a tribe was essential to survival."

I'd been reading about the physiological and neurological aspects of our instinct to be part of a tribe (activating social connectivity via the ventral vagal nerve system in The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy, and the effects of social connectivity on gene expression in "The Social Life of Genes"). So where does this curiosity lead me? As did Bea Chestnut in her story above, I have typically explored the practical aspects of a concept through self-observation:

• Historically, my one-to-one instinct had been the strongest influence on me at point Nine ["At Best, bonds with others, supportive of their ideas, gets buy-in through consensus; At Worst, lives too much through another (parent, spouse, boss, friend, client)"].
• I'd developed some fairly deep self-awareness and found my own agenda in relationships to a much greater degree than previously. Then my aging mother's need for help gave me an advanced course in staying present. During the 17 years of caring for her, our early life relationship dynamics threatened to define the two of us again. Exploring those triggers helped me further loosen the unconscious hold of my one-to-one instinct. 
• At the same time, my least-preferred instinct, the social, was being further compromised--by increasing responsibilities for Mom (she lived to be 104!), my natural introversion, and--with the burgeoning of the internet--the opportunity to maintain all my interests (phone coaching, reading/writing, painting) almost exclusively within these four walls. 
• So, I've felt the pinch of a lack of social connectivity, wanting to be part of a tribe, wanting to feel in my bones, "Yes, I belong," yet also asking What's my habitual relationship with this drive? Noticing when I've stopped myself, and also noticing circumstances that help me to connect--groups of moderate size, groups where the discussion is centered on something I want to learn, groups where there's no pressure to speak but interaction is facilitated, groups whose members share my most fervent beliefs.
• One step at a time.