Why have guidelines?
Guidelines provide boundaries in the sense that they announce verbally that we are entering transformative space.
Coaching is not meant to be an everyday conversation but a growth opportunity.
Yielding to the greater forces of becoming does require much courage and trust as well as vulnerability and openness to receive the gifts of presence.
We will be convening virtually, and it is more difficult than in physical gathering to foster a group-wide threshold of trust and engagement.
Without reaching such a threshold, inevitably, some of us may drift off along the way while others may feel like they are sharing in a void.
This serves neither group.
In our community, everyone who joins is agreeing to participate at a specific level and to communicate in a manner that is conducive to maximum camaraderie and care.
This is not meant to be pressuring or demanding in any way.
Rather, it is a gift we can give to ourselves and one another that will make our time together so much more fulfilling.
These guidelines are equally valid in group settings as well as in one-on-one coaching sessions, so please make use of them for the benefit of all.
These guidelines aim to support you in the teaching sessions, group calls, and one on one coaching sessions.
Some Words of Encouragement
I encourage you to carve out time for this learning experience. Integrate the ideas and practices you encounter during our time together into your everyday life, so you may find the practical benefit that would matter to you; integrate the practice of learning from experience.
Apply the guidelines and principles to optimize your learning; make it a habit, make it small, focused, and relevant.
Follow these success principles
Set your intention for the hour.
Clear your mind and bring your heart fully into this.
Aim for powerful, tangible results.
Get involved and co-create.
Get clear on what you want from this, and how all this may serve you well so you may serve your community well.
Be perceptive to the fulfillment and joy you create.
Be powerfully responsible for your life.
Actualize to the next level.
Enlarge your view about yourself and about what is possible.
Create community with the group.
Create a psychologically safe place, a circle where you and others can be open and accepting of receiving the support of the group.
Open up to contribute to others and the contribution of others.
Agreements for the Calls and Guidelines to Make Calls Productive
Be on time for the calls, even a few minutes early.
Focus during the call, get into conversation and get yourself engaged.
Communicate in a bottom-line fashion, practice this way.
Show up consistently; how you show up in these calls will have an impact on the way how you show up for your work in other areas of your life.
Come prepared, have your coaching folder and participate; take notes, journal insights, actions, and homework.
Ask questions. Bring your own examples. Pick any relevant challenges.
Agree and commit to making these calls powerful.
May this or even something greater manifest for the greater good of all.
Guidelines for Communication
All sharing with other members of the program, by phone and online, is to be courteous and respectful, offered in service of the highest good of both self and others.
All feelings expressed by participants are to be welcomed and valued, met with reflection, affirmation, or compassionate inquiry. We take responsibility for our own emotions and triggers, using any challenging experience, to the best of our evolving ability, as an opportunity for healing and growth.
We refrain from giving any kind of advice to others unless specifically requested. We refrain also from any judgments or opinions of anyone but ourselves; in the latter case, self-compassion is the fruitful way.
In addressing others we always consider them as whole and complete; never, by contrast, as either broken, flawed, or in any way less-then.
We intend to meet ourselves and others in ever-growing acceptance of who we are, the situations we face, and the way we face them.
Please note: If you are unable to keep to these guidelines for communication and participation and it comes to my attention, I will check in with you about it and do my best to help you heal and grow through the challenge.
If another such experience occurs again, I will graciously ask, on behalf of the other abiding members, that you not continue with us.
We will review the guidelines in our orientation call and kick-off meeting.
Guidelines for Participation
Each session, you will receive a set of two or three questions to forward your action and deepen your learning. These questions are to be answered by the day before our next call on your personal project blog, or your member page. Feel free to write as little or as much as inspired, reflecting on the questions in whatever way is best for you.
Each session, in addition to your inquiry questions, you will design a personal ‘stretching activity’ based on your current theme of attention, your growth edge, or your leverage points to gain momentum. Sometimes it may be wise to take a step up, and sometimes it may be a sidewise step that is needed. These activities may require just a minute, or much longer; the importance is in experiencing, observing, completing the learning cycle with learning or abstracting, and then moving through experimenting to experiencing again. When your activity is complete, you will, again, write your reflections about it on your personal project blog.
You can share your posts and invite others’ commentaries and reflections, this can serve as a valuable social support structure and inspire others in your community to be part of your growth journey.
I ask you to post your reflections one day before our meeting so I can orient myself to your progress; we will also review your learnings and celebrate your achievements during our session meetings. This is not meant to create pressure, but to create structure, to create form into which abundance can be poured.
In your inquiries and your sharings, consider a mindset of inclusivity; invite in the good and make place for what appears to be not so good, the difficult, the dark, the shadow. Integration may be an outcome worth striving for.