Coaching in Nature with Laura Festa

In episode 44 of Deep Seed, Podcast for Coaches Renee Hodgkinson interviews Laura Festa on how Nature supports her and how she uses coaching and mindfulness approach in Nature to support clients who are experiencing fatigue and want to bring more resilience in their lives. 

Laura's mission is to elevate clients through exploration of awareness with mindfulness, self-compassion and somatic practices. 

The connection with Nature through Mindfulness helps to find alignment between needs, values, objectives and action, to strengthen their decisional skills, self-esteem and sense of self-efficacy.

The Nature Coach, by facilitating the reconnection with the “external” landscape, helps you to also reconnect with your own “internal landscape.” The result is that you gradually feel more and more integrated, discovering and living your own value and uniqueness.

Excerpt:

Renee 10:36

When we look at any journey of a coach and,  I maybe speak more from my personal journey, there's a journey of awareness, that it's about doing the work,  That we are asking our clients to do that we take on ourselves. So on that level, what has nature taught you both as a coach and as an individual? What does nature taught you that is such a valuable lesson?

Laura F 11:35

For me, personal level and coach level are already in symbiosis. So we talked about also relationship between coaching and my personal experience. That's the only thing I really have and the power to do. One of the first lessons is resilience, how to be resilient. 

In the past three years, there have been quite particular situations here in Beijing in China. Nature, for me was my companion during that period. It helped me to find, the strength, the inner strength, to stay grounded. For me it is fundamental to be present and to create. Also, resilience for me is a matter of bouncing back and create something as a result of my inner peace and inner strength. So being in the Nature, for me was a kind of duty and necessity to cultivate that. Of course, somehow being restricted to city parks, because we cannot move so much. But I found out during that time that water is very important for me. For instance, to be resilient, we learn from the nature and trees: how they cope with changes of seasons. Another important lesson is how to be still and accepting: when it's time to rest to rest, when it's time to grow it means grow, right? When it's time to pause, it's time to pause. Nature also taught me that this is very important for coaching: how to activate your listening to all five senses. 

So to be completely there, not just with what you hear, also with your body perception. Through my work with clients I found out that we are not so used to activate all the senses. We are used to just one maybe, and then base all perception on that sense. So this conditioning prevents us to broaden the awareness. We do that by getting in touch with the different elements in Nature: feeling water with the hands or feet, or the feeling of getting connected with earth. That for me, personally as well, as a coach enables me really to open all the doors of perception. And you don't need to do so much after that, because everything's coming naturally. 

So being in the Nature is not just for the clients, but also for myself. That's what I want to say also. In the beginning I was doing coaching on Zoom, eventually we get used to doing sessions on Zoom online. and I could really get the same perception through the screen. I was amazed to experience that. Since I coach clients abroad as well, I was relieved to realize that online sessions work equally well. 

Renee 15:27

What happened? 

Laura F 15:32

Luckily, here in Beijing the connection is really good. So I brought my iPad in the Park and did the same process. I was showing what I could see to the client and invited them to choose three elements they were attracted to. And then we started the session. The client didn't look at me during the session but at plants and the elements of the client that was choosing.

Renee 16:20

You'd mentioned as well, that you've have these different elements that are working together. So we have elements of of mindfulness, because, of course, your own personal practice, you have elements of somatic coaching, as well. Elements of nature being brought into the fold. And of course, you know, with all of the ICF competencies, you've even touched on some most important ones, right about coaching presence, active listening, evoking awareness. And so there's this wonderful sort of blend of all of these aspects together, how do you how do you hold all of those elements together, when you're coaching? 

Laura F 17:12

Presence.

There is no one session that is the same. So I will say, I integrate these different elements based on the connection and the needs of the client. And I can also integrate part of maybe Qigong practice that I'm doing. As for me, after one hour in nature and after the sessions ended, I need to stay in the nature again, to settle down and come back to my senses. 

So recently, I had a session with this client who came into the session quite low and feeling down, talking about wanting to do some bad things to herself. But the moment we began to explore a little bit the client took around 10 minutes,going around to find her safe spot. For me this was the sign that she was going through ups and downs, being unsettled. So I said to her, go into the space, explore everything. So when she found her spot, we sat down and she started crying. Right after that she talked about her inner voice. Of course it's not the first time we met it's a kind of cycle so we know each other and she is familiar with the process. Then I said: "How can I support you?" And she said, "You know, already be here in Nature it is awakening a lot. 

I said: Let's explore the Nature. And she said, "You know, I'm moving very rarely because I need to go work. I am sitting down in front of the screen and then miss moving. And I said, "What about going for a walk?" And she says, "Yeah, please." So walked, right. And I observed that she was always looking down. So I invited her to walk with the purpose of being together and receiving support and lift her head up feeling this support and staying connected with everything around. And right then she said to me, "I know that I'm not able to look up. I know that." So she accepted to explore that. And then she found another spot. In that spot, she recognized the elements she wanted, she wanted the sunlight. So she chose a spot that was really dirty spot and said, okay, but the sunlight is here. So she sat in the sunlight. And at that moment, she rised the head up. She was savoring the sunlight. So we stayed savoring. And then I felt like she was a little more calm. Then we integrated the practice of Qi Gong . And definitely you could feel we are sitting her breathing was getting calmer and slower. 

Join Laura on Tuesdays 19.00 - 20.00 

in person, in nature for group sessions

Connect with Laura for a 40 minutes chemistry session: l_festa@hotmail.com | wechat ID:  lauraluolan |LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/laura-festa-88389910 | Facebook: Laura Festa | Facebook

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