Ani
Hi, and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy podcast. This is episode 71, and I'm here with my co-founder. Hey there, Brian. Hey, Ani.

Brian
How are you? I'm doing great.

Ani
Good. How are your travels back from the Level 3 Somatic Coach professional retreat?

Brian
Well, Thankfully, my travels were short because we hosted it at a beautiful retreat center very close to our home, actually around the capital district of upstate New York. Yeah.

Ani
My travels were great, too. Thanks for asking. My driver was phenomenal. You did a great job. Thank you. And thank you for driving me home because I was tired. I was ready for a break. So it was good. Had some good coffee on the way home. Yeah, it was a nice trip. The retreat center was really nice. Amazing. So today we're talking some top takeaways from our Somatic Coach Professional retreat. I think before we hop into it, we should probably talk a little bit about the placement of the retreat and why the heck it's there and stuff like that. Sure. Is that okay?

Brian
Yeah, absolutely. The retreat is about two-thirds of the way through our Level 3 training. Really, the retreat marks, in a lot of ways, a culmination of all of the tools and processes and practices and all those kinds of things that students learn, actually all the way from starting at level one, all the way level two, all the way up to level three. Because at the retreat, we do morning practices that are based on our core centering practices. We get up, we practice together before we go have a really amazing breakfast together. Then we come back and start to do some work with our level two fundamental transformations work. Then we dig into some of the more advanced training that we've done throughout the course of level three. At the retreat, it's really gives us an opportunity to be together, be in person, in real life, as the kids say. We can be connected together and really do the practices in real time, in real person, in real community, in real contact, and also have a lot of space after the practices to debrief and talk about and share. Of course, we're having meals together and those kinds of things also.

Brian
Where there's just a lot of time to share and percolate on all the lessons that we're learning. It's a bit of a page-turning, too, because after the retreat, we start to then focus more on, 'let's take these tools and practices out into the world. Let's work on packaging your programs. Let's work on integrating them into what you do. Let's talk about differences between coaching and mentoring and overcome the hurdles and competencies and all those kinds of things'. I really like to think about the retreat as really a celebration more than anything else, celebrating the journey that everyone has been on to get to that point, and then to be able to really go through a transformational experience themselves so that they can become the somatic coaches that can really help other people have powerful transformations, too.

Ani
Yeah, I agree with you about the celebrations. And through the context of, well, at least in the Level 3 program, it's like a lot of tools that people are gaining. And we do practice them. We practice them plenty. And then to be together, like you said, have that space to practice them and put them into the context of a coaching container, too. So we're not just practicing the tools, but we're really practicing within the context of a session. So some of the people that study with us are already coaches, and this is the point where they're like, Oh, yeah, now I see how it all fits together. Then for the people who are newer to coaching, this is the part where they go, Oh, this is the coaching part where it all starts to click. Everything starts to click at the retreat, and it is a fun celebration. It's fun to have everybody get together. A lot of times, our students have known each other for many months before the retreat. We've had people at the Retreat Center who are our hosts, our Retreat Center hosts, be baffled when everybody gets there and they seem like they know each other.

Ani
Because a lot of times at retreats, people don't necessarily know each other when they get to their retreat. And he'll say, Do you all know each other? Oh, yeah, we're old friends.

Brian
But it's the first time many of us are meeting in person.

Ani
In person, exactly. It's a super fun time.

Brian
Yeah, amazing. We just had the retreat recently, and I thought it might be just a good opportunity to have a conversation about, hey, what were some of the top lessons that we saw coming not only out of this retreat, but a lot of the retreats that we run through Level 3. A lot of the themes and the lessons tend to be the same. A little different nuances because obviously, there's different people in each retreat. But I thought it might be cool to look inside and what are the actual the themes and the lessons that we're pulling away that we thought might be valuable to share with people.

Ani
Yeah, I love this. Do you want to start? Sure.

Brian
No, it doesn't matter. Do you want to go? Sure. Okay, what do you got?

Ani
One of the things that I noticed, it was probably in the first hour or so of the retreat, it was really in the beginning, was this idea of working with and being with. Our students were really thoughtful around wanting to deepen their own practice of being with their clients. And I loved watching that happen because I think that's a unique thing that we teach our students anyway, that there's two things going on when you work with people. There's what you do, there's the working with, and then there's this who you are being with that affects the transformation and the change. And I loved seeing how excited our students were about that. Then I loved seeing how for each of them, they took an intention about what being they wanted to work with at the retreat. And watching them deepen that through the course of the few days was great.

Brian
Yeah, I agree. That was also a touching point for me where there were intentions made about which parts of the being with matrix that people were working with. Then through the retreat, you'd see people actually embodying those types of things. Then when they're coming back and doing debriefs, whether or not they mentioned that they were actually having experience with that element, you could hear it coming out from them. Sometimes you said, Oh, wow, that sounds like that element you're working with. They're like, Oh, my God, you're right. I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

Ani
Yeah, that was one of those. Yeah, very cool. Right off the bat, I noticed that.

Brian
Yeah, that was great. One of the my biggest takeaways, and this is true for actually every one of the somatic coach pro or sensation-based motivation coaching retreats that we've done, is that every single person that goes to the retreat, by a 100% have some type of major awareness, shift, a breakthrough, and potentially even a transformation.

Ani
I would say paradigm shift.

Brian
That's one of the ones- Yeah, huge paradigm shift. People have massive paradigm shifts. World in reality. How they see things. Something becomes very clear and apparent to them all of a sudden. It's almost like a dirty window gets washed off, and they can see the world in a different way, maybe for the first time. And that happens 100% of the time at the retreat. And I think a lot of that is because of the way that the program is set up on the way to the retreat. And then, of course, the container that the retreat for itself sets up. So we didn't come up with this little phrase. I think one of our very first cohorts did, is that when you work the process, the process works. The other little takeaway is that it's about leaning into the process, the sensation-based motivation coaching process. When you lean into that process and we let go, and this is another thing that you start to see at this retreat, as our coaches that we're training, they start to let go of trying to be smart, of trying to outthink what's going on with their client, of trying to always have the right answer for their client, of trying to navigate with their client.

Brian
But instead, they just settle in and allow the process, the coaching process, to do the work itself. If they just can work the process, the process works every single time. For me, that is just so enriching and endearing and really, in a lot of ways, feels so amazing to know that something has been created that is so reliable if you can just do it. If you can just stay with that process, it works every time.

Ani
We were actually talking about that in class this week because some of the students were talking about this idea of... We're talking about rates and programs and what do I charge. Some students were talking about this idea of finding my value or owning my value, which is something that we hear out there, out there all the time. One of the things I was relating is how valuable the process is because the process works every single time. One of the ways we can get out of our own way around, quote, unquote, knowing our value, which that totally gets sticky, by the way, with all of our human stuff and the way that we think and our conditioning. But when you know that the process works every single time and you lean into trusting the process, that becomes very valuable. And even the process is valuable, the tools are valuable, but even that predictability of knowing that it works and being able to lean into that, that's valuable, too. Yeah, absolutely. I have one that's similar to what you said. And one of the exercises that we do is around asking natural law questions. Oh, yeah. And it was really fun to watch the students have epiphanies about how it was less important around what specific law they picked and which question they asked, because it was almost like, as long as I ask a natural law question, something good is going to come out of it.

Ani
And watching that was so phenomenal because similar to what you were just saying, the students relaxed into being aware that it was the process that was at play. It was the process of asking natural law-based questions that was at play. It wasn't about them being smart or figuring it out.

Brian
I love that, too. Because the question itself is doing the work for you because a natural law-based question is based in, well, of course, natural law, and then it carries a certain element or certain frequency along with it, then that activates certain things inside a person that can't be denied because natural law is true. Natural laws are always true. They're the only thing that is true for everyone. When you ask a question based in ultimate truth, it's very difficult or almost impossible for a person's subconscious to try to create something that's not true from it, right?

Ani
Yeah, exactly. And as coaches, we're known for asking questions. That's what we do. And when as coaches, we ask natural law questions, all of a sudden we know that actually, just like you said, we help our client to align with a vibrational frequency that helps them to be the person who can create the changes that they want to see. And we know that that's true because the question aligns with the natural laws, and we don't have to figure that out. It's so... For me as a coach, knowing that is so great because I can just sit back and be witnessed to and watch the unfolding of the process rather than trying to figure... It's not about me trying to figure anything out so we can get anywhere in particular. All the magic unfolds from there. And so as as a facilitator at the retreat, watching that experience happen within the students was super gratifying.

Brian
Yeah, really amazing. So picking up on that, too, about the process. Why does the process work so well? Well, my other takeaway is that words matter. Words really matter. And what we mean by that is that part of what we do when we're teaching a process is that there are certain points in the process where it's very important to use certain words in certain places because of the way, again, that they elicit more honest and truthful and deeper responses from within a person. More specific responses. One of the things that we noticed, I always noticed during the retreat, is that someone may ask a when they're in a coaching diad, and maybe the exchange won't go as they anticipated. And then I'll say, Okay, well, tell me again how you asked that question. I'll go, Oh, that's why. We just need to shift that word a little bit. So try it this way. When they just move... It could be the same word in a different place in a sentence, or it could be one different word in a sentence.

Ani
Yeah, omitted or added. Exactly.

Brian
It's so important. It's very interesting. When you ask the person then to ask the question again with a word in in a different place, it creates a completely different response for someone. The other big takeaway for me every year is that words do really matter. That's why it's important to lean into the process, because the process has been cultivated in such a way where the most important words are in the most important spots at the most important times in order to help, again, facilitate a process of gathering information for a person and also creating a transformation.

Ani
You're talking about the words that were said, and one of my takeaways is how our students were cultivating an elevated capacity to listen for specific certain words.

Brian
Sure. Yeah. Also that. You're right. Right? Yeah.

Ani
When they listened for specific certain words, they were able to put the exact right tool match with that word to help elicit a major breakthrough for somebody. It's magical to watch that happen. It is so specific, and yet it's really so easy. Yeah. That was fun.

Brian
That's a great takeaway. Another takeaway that I have from inside is on one of our podcasts somewhere, I'm not sure, we talked about the three levels of safety and polyvagal theory.

Ani
Yeah, I know you're bringing this up.

Brian
That's what's a good one. The first level of safety is social engagement. That's a ventral vagal pathway. The second level of safety is a sympathetic nervous system response, fight or flight. Third level of safety is dorsal vagal complex response. What we notice is that, really... Transformation, and especially transformation where you are transforming a limiting belief, a core limiting concept, something that you were taught sometime in your life that has a deep hold on someone and it limits their life, that ultimately it's coming back to social engagement and actively and purposely eliciting a ventral vagal response in yourself is one of the most powerful ways to help move a client closer to finding who they truly are and being able to express who they truly are in the world.

Ani
I think that a lot of people would talk about what you're describing as empathy, Brian. I'm not saying that's exactly what you're saying, but I think that might be a a general way people talk about it out there. One of the things I appreciate about the retreat is empathy actually is a word that comes up quite a bit for our students, whether they want to be more empathetic or less empathetic. The process you're talking about by helping people to understand the ventral vagal stuff really helps them to embody and do this concept that they hear about. I loved watching that happen as well.

Brian
I think empathy is really amazing and really important. The one interesting little nuance that I just want to mention about empathy a little bit is over-empathizing as a coach in that relationship, sometimes we can get pulled into whatever it is that our client is dealing with, and that doesn't help anybody. But at the same time, if we are completely detached from empathy, then there's not a connection between. There's really this masterful way to practice empathy, but then purposely, purposely bringing in ventral vagal engagement or social engagement tools in order to support the client. Sometimes people talk about in terms of co-regulation, but there's actually things that you can do as a coach to intentionally, within yourself, not only create co-regulation, but project, project safety through social engagement pathways to the client that they feel supported and safe and heard as they're moving through their own transformation.

Ani
I think part of the difference from more of a beginner coaching program, and this is in the beginner coaching program, they tell you things like stay out of your client's stuff. But this allows, like you said, a really masterful way to not be attached and not be disengaged, which is masterful.

Brian
Yeah. It's like a fine little line or window there.

Ani
Yeah. It's really an art. Yeah, it really is. More than a science, don't you think? Yeah.

Brian
You have another one? Yes.

Ani
Speaking of art, I love watching the unfolding of the art of container setting. So how do you set up your session and how do you end your session? And I specifically watch the setting up the session and the evolution of our students being able to do that. And my takeaway is, again, how important it is to set up your session because it's like you're setting the GPS for where you want to go. I could set my GPS for New York City, but when I get there, I could be any number of places, or I could set my GPS for the Gershwin Theater in New York City, and I get exactly what I'm looking for. Setting a container to have a tight container can take some time. When we were doing sharing, we had some students who... And it wasn't just some students, it was just some circumstances where the container setting went really fast, and we had some circumstances where the container setting took some time. But regardless of how much time it took or where they had to go to get there, setting that tight container, set the GPS like magic for the client to be able to get where they wanted to go.

Brian
Brilliant. I love that one. Just another one that I have a big takeaway, too, and something I think is really important and powerful about our program is the whole idea of the muscular layer practices. When we are working in a somatic coaching relationship with people, one of the things that means, of course, is that Soma is body-centered coaching. I think we've talked about this a lot, some somatic coaches and practitioners, they're just doing body stuff. There's no question or anything like that. They're just working with the body solely. Other people, there's just a lot of asking questions, and there's not a lot of body engagement. What I see in our practitioners and our coaches, we saw a lot of this, was there's always a lot of involving the body during the coaching process, and specifically to work through the resistances to change that a person would be going through in a change process. We talk a lot about any change process at all always includes resistance because that's how our subconscious is programmed and wired. It's not about not having resistance. It's about being masterful and navigating the resistance. What I see is that when you have an understanding of how to work through the muscular layers of resistance, it makes you so much more a stronger coach, a more effective coach, in a lot of ways, a more intuitive coach, a more sensitive coach, and really, at the end of the day, actually a coach that can help someone to discover something more about themselves that they hadn't realized because you're resourcing all of them in that process.

Ani
Yeah, we saw breakthroughs that I pretty much guarantee we wouldn't have seen without the muscular layer practices.

Brian
Totally.

Ani
Because you could see throughout the trajectory of where we had the students practice them with kinds of things that were happening for themselves within the context of their shares.

Brian
Cool. Absolutely.

Ani
It's a predictable part of the process. It's really neat. Okay, I have one more.

Brian
You got one more? Okay. I have one more, too. You go ahead.

Ani
Okay. I think the last takeaway is a personal takeaway to watch the students be able to absorb the information that we were bringing, which could be seen as incredibly complex. It's answering big questions that people have about human nature that could potentially be those big hairy questions that never get answered. But not only to see how clearly it was articulated from them, but some of the graphics that we've created for the information so that they can listen to it, they can see it, and then they can put it into practice. I was just really excited about that because I think it's nice to see it on Zoom, but when we see it in person, how the students' knowledge, you can just see their eyes, like the light bulbs. You can see the light bulbs going off as they're digesting the information and looking at the models. That's a little bit of a personal like, high five on that. It was really solid. We had a number of students say, I've studied this stuff for years and years and years. The way you've described it and the models that you're using to describe it makes so much sense.

Ani
They're crystal clear, practical, and simple.

Brian
Yeah. Yeah. Love it. So true. My last takeaway is that light-heartedness matters. Even though we're together doing some pretty deep work, there's laughter throughout the whole retreat. We actually had a graduate come back, and one of our associate coaches came back and joined us from last year. When I was asking her about, so what was the difference in your experience between last year and this year? She said, well, last year, it wasn't really a difference, but I remember last year, I just laughed so hard, and I was just belly laughing. This was on the first day, I think I asked her that. Of course, at the last evening of our retreat together, we do something different with every cohort. We really, really tried to choose an activity that matches the personality of the cohort.

Ani
Individual to the cohort, yeah.

Brian
For you guys listening that were at the retreat, for you graduates that are at the retreat, you know what we're talking about. We did an activity, and there were 12 of us, 13, 14 of us doing this together. There was so much laughter and so much joy. Tears of laughter. Tell me last. So much letting go. It was just wonderful. It was just really a beautiful experience. Just see all the smiles around the face. What I'm saying is that there can be right there's both sides. There's always both sides. It can feel like there's a lot of times depth, a lot of depth in the work. But what I love about our retreats is that there's always a hearty dose, an equal dose of light-heartedness and joy and just effervescence as a part of the retreats, too. That's another just something I love so much about them. Another big look from what happens inside of those retreats.

Ani
We have people routinely tell us they laugh more at the retreat than they have all year, things like that. I love that. I think for me, too. It's super fun. Yeah, it's really great. It's fun to reminisce a little bit and highlight. We always do our debriefs afterward, but this was fun to share some of the things that we see behind the curtain.

Brian
Yeah, absolutely. If listening and you want more information and you're soaking this up and like, "This sounds really cool, I want to know more about that, just reach out to us at info@somaticcoachingacademy.com. Right now, we're enrolling for Level 2 and Level 3, so Somatic Coach Pro. If that's something you want to just jump in, then why hesitate? Give us a call.

Ani
Yeah, come to our info sessions because they're run by a grad, so you get to ask all those questions about what is it actually like and get a little peek behind the curtain yourself until you're in the program and you actually understand. Thanks for joining us for this episode. We'll see you next time. Bye.