Dear students interested in transformational coaching workshop:
Welcome and thank you for your interest in our Transformational Coaches Training to be held at Hollyhock on Cortes Island in British Columbia, Canada on August 1 – August 6, 2008 and at Hecla in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on September 22 - 26, 2008.
I want to offer those of you signed up for, or are considering taking this course, a more in-depth description of what to expect than I was able to provide in the catalogue: This five day course will give experienced coaches/counselors/therapists new perspectives and skills while also providing those of you newer to this work with the foundational training to coach with confidence.
WHAT THIS TRAINING WILL OFFER:
We will work with a variety of skills to help you support others in creating awareness and lasting change. Fundamental to our approach is that change in the outer world happens most effectively from the inside out - from awareness, energy and choice.
Transformational coaching theory and model
We will explore a model and understanding of how change happens, the different points of intervention and the best strategies/skills at each stage.
Purpose and vision.
As human beings we are all hungry for a felt sense of purpose and a vision for our lives. Our life force gets deadened when we are focused on fixing what’s wrong. Instead we build from a foundation of what works, cultivating our creative energy, joy and positive vision. We build on our innate gifts and skills in concert with our purpose and what we love. We ask the questions, What am I dedicated to? What do I love? What is mine to do? As we connect with our purpose we are infused with energy, direction and satisfaction.
Presence, deep listening & compassion
These skills are foundational and rarely practiced consistently enough. We cultivate self -compassion which then fosters compassion for others. To do this we welcome everything that arises – our humanity in all its guises, into the embrace of compassion.
As we drop into full and compassionate presence in ourselves, we are naturally able to invite our clients to do this as well. The quality of presence and listening we are able to offer invites them to find their own understanding, and to make inner shifts and outer changes for which they feel ownership and commitment.
Alignment coaching
Much suffering, unproductive activity and staying stuck in old, limiting patterns arises because of conflicting needs, beliefs and feelings. This powerful coaching tool helps clients move through these inner conflicts and ambivalences in a very efficient way.
Apparent obstacles to desired outcomes, seem to fall away as purpose, intention and energy move into alignment.
Dissolving limited beliefs and identity
Our sense of identity, ego and who we think we are, is generated through the interplay of personal history, beliefs, mental and emotional conditioning and the circumstances of our lives. But we are not that. Spiritual traditions around the world understand that these concepts and the feelings that arise with them, are the root cause of suffering. As we learn to step out of the story and our identification with it, true joy and freedom naturally arise.
Radical self responsibility
We waste huge amounts of our life force and precious time focusing on how other people or circumstances outside of our control are not providing what we want and need. We learn to resource ourselves as adults rather than as frustrated children and claim responsibility for our lives and our own responses to the circumstances we are presented with. This work is energizing and empowering.
Accessing inner wisdom
There is ultimately no authority outside of your self. As we learn to quiet our minds, dropping into the spaciousness beneath the chatter of competing voices inside our heads, we can learn to tap into an ever-present river of wisdom that is available to each of us. In this way we deepen our capacity to guide our own choices, our own lives.
The balance of working from the emerging present with goals and outcomes
We source each session in the present moment. The content that is wanting attention will always arise if we allow it. From this perspective we don’t have to plan or direct the content of the session. At the same time, specific goals and desired outcomes are also welcome. This approach fosters a marriage of the archetypal masculine which is about intention, focus, form, doing, creation; and the archetypal feminine which embraces receptivity, being, flow, feeling, relationship and receptivity. Our approach is to bring goals and dreams to consciousness, articulating them and inviting them to develop. We keep looking at the next available step in the context of our larger goals. We keep tracking our successes rather than focusing on our failures or limitations.
WHAT IS A LEARNING LABORATORY?
We will be practicing with each other. Every aspect of theory and skill is translated into specific exercises in which each of you will be providing the content relevant to your own lives. I believe that in order to help support and guide others, we have to know the terrain that we are asking them to travel. We are not just giving people a map, but we are teaching them how to use it. The deeper our own integration of the tools and understanding, the more effective we will be as a guide to others. And the great fun is that you will come out of this week with greater clarity, commitment and movement in your own life while also learning to be more compassionate and effective in supporting others.
In the class we will coach each other so we are simultaneously practicing the skills presented and getting real mileage in terms of our own personal development. In this way the skills and theory are grounded in our own bodies and experience. We are learning to ‘walk our talkâ€. You may remember innovator Marshall McCluhan’s words “the medium is the message†or the equally famous words of Mahatma Gandhi –“Be the change you want to see happen in the world.†As this occurs for us, we very naturally become teachers or guides for others in both formal and informal ways.
We will also create coaching clinics for applying what we are learning to your back-home situations – from clients, to people you may supervise or work with, to friends and family members.
Although we will be working hard – we will have fun. Expect to participate in a community of warm good will with other dedicated practitioners.
About Judith Ansara Gass MSW
I have been committed to the study and practice of helping people manifest their highest capacities for over 30 years. My passion for living a deeply embodied and conscious life has informed every aspect of what I have done and how I have lived. I have studied psychology and a wide variety of therapeutic modalities and been immersed in spiritual study and practice, embracing and learning from many different traditions and most importantly from my true teacher – direct experience. I have learned easily as much from my very human challenges and conditioning as I have from the grace, privilege and good fortune that have also blessed my life.
I have had the honor to support thousands of people learn to be more present, loving, compassionate and effective in their lives and chosen professions, in settings ranging from, non-profits, government, universities, community groups, adult education centers and spiritual retreats.
I am dedicated to all of us waking up from our individual and collective dream of separation and us all doing whatever we can to take care of each other and our beautiful home planet.
My work and my life are not separate from one another and are both expressions of the gratitude and joy of being alive. I have lived, learned and loved in committed relationship with my husband, Robert Gass for 40 years and have had the honor to raise three amazing children, and now the delight of being a grandmother. I am a life-long dancer and lover of beauty in all its forms.
