The art of pacing in the coaching container

Frauline Ellen in grass by Gabriele Munter, 1934

The coaching container is where coach and/or facilitator and client engage in the coaching process. This is the sacred space where the relationship is contained and protected from outside influences and real movement and shifts can occur for the client.

Within the coaching container or encounter, coach and client go through an attunement process where the coach is sensing the client's mood, energy, stress level and overall pace for the session and the work in general. As expert coaches and facilitators, we must be carefully attuned to the clients sense of pace. Checking in with the client is a great way to establish pace if the client has gained a level of awareness about his or her readiness and the physiological indicators of readiness as opposed to resistance. How does it feel in the client's body when he or she is open to new actions and lines of discussion? How does it feel for the client in his or her body when there is resistance and shut-down?

As the client becomes more self-aware, we can ask the client to determine pacing and empower the client to correct the pacing in the coaching encounter. This becomes a transferable skill that the client has learned from your modeling during the session. And this is a valuable skill for the client outside the coaching container as well.

The client can feel the self-knowledge of knowing when the pace is right, when its rushed, when its slow. The client can learn to recognize bodily and somatic cues that signal the pace is right or off in some way (breathing rate, heart rate, tension in the body, holding certain muscles taught, sensations in the abdomen and chest for example). The client can feel empowered to take this awareness out into the world for use in conversations of other kinds.

Before we can check in with clients about pacing, we need to do some education, modeling and awareness-raising. We must make the attunement process explicit, share our intentions for using attunement or somatic tracking in this way, and give clients language for speaking their experience in encounters where they are likely to shut down. So that they don't.

In the Authentic Wholeness Coach Training Certification Program, I teach skills for 1) orienting the client to the concept of pacing in the coaching encounter, 2) teaching the client somatic awareness techniques to understand the body's responses to subtle stress that occurs below the level of awareness, 3) client self-empowerment to talk about readiness to address certain topics or courses of action and to re-negotiate with coach/facilitator as needed, and 4) how to take the self-awareness, somatic awareness and self-empowerment skills outside of the coaching container for use in the interpersonal and professional realms.

Rebirth and the Almost Moon by Heather Cahoon

Trace it back, movement along jagged horizon,

to the time Coyote and Antelope sent their sons to steal the night sun.

But the moon was the favorite plaything of a certain tribe of animal people

and they were not about to let it go without a fight.

However, Coyote’s sons were cunning, capturing the moon.

Outsmarted owners in close pursuit they raced through forest across plain

until Coyote’s sons began to tire; thus, stretch of ankle met mouth, trip to fatal fall of teeth and bone.

As heartbeats slowed they tossed the moon to the Antelope brothers and the chase continued.

Antelope’s sons ran like lightning and made it home.

Upon presenting their father and Snč̇ĺép[*] with the moon prize and the story of Coyote’s sons’ death,

Coyote bent hollow-mouthed howl crying as only a father can.

He took the moon back to its owners to make a deal: he would return the moon if they would return his sons to life. They agreed and one by one, Coyote’s sons’ hearts resumed beating,

chests rise-falling, wrists pulsing, until their amber eyes

blinked on like stars.

[*]Snč̇ĺép = Coyote