Jeanine: Good morning. Good afternoon and good evening wherever you are listening to this podcast and I'm delighted to be here in Doha with my fabulous business partner Marie Quigley. Hi Marie.

Marie: Hi Jeanine. Hi everyone. It's a beautiful sunny day in Doha.

Jeanine: Yes it truly is and it feels quite interesting doing our podcast right here in your home office Marie, compared to where we were yesterday.

Marie: Yeah. We had a great experience with the Ginger Camel. Thank you to Stefan for inviting us in to do a lovely podcast that's coming out shortly. So listeners, watch out for us being interviewed by another great podcaster. We highly recommend you tune into his podcast Ginger Camel "Your Onion".

Jeanine: "Your Onion", which is focused on businesses and how they create their success how they move through challenges etc etc.  So yes we're very lucky to be on that show and it was a very different set up compared to where we are right now.

Marie: Much more professional and a big shout out to Stefan because he got us on this journey of podcasting. It wasn't even in our view. We had thought about a radio show all those years ago. And then Stefan invited us to showcase our work through Ginger Camel and here we are with our own podcast.

Jeanine: Yes, many years later. So as you say Marie big shout out, Thank you Stefan. We've been really enjoying what we're doing, hoping that we're attracting listeners from around the globe.

Marie: Yeah.

Jeanine: We believe we are. So today listeners we wanted to bring a topic that has been coming up now and then for us… it's something that we've noticed that potentially some coaches, focusing on the positive elements of a coaching sessions… so potentially, a focus on positive thinking and perhaps not exploring the deeper things that are perhaps coming up for a coaching conversation. And we at Empower world, we absolutely believe that when a client brings something to a session, it's come up for a purpose. It's potentially come up for healing or it's come up for, as in healing, as in having a powerful coaching conversation to understand what is the wisdom underneath this, that will support us with our goals, our dreams… and support us to step into our power. So we thought this might be a good topic to talk about today and perhaps what our philosophy is and we know that there are other coaches who are along this philosophy and we're also aware that perhaps there are some that perhaps might think I can't go to the emotions or the deeper emotions or the pain.

Marie: Yeah. And I think often Jeanine I hear that the general public think that coaches were kind of these ‘positive fairies’ that fly around spouting off all these positive things that we should be saying and doing.

Jeanine: Motivational…

Marie: Yeah kind of motivational stuff. And we love the positive aspects. We try and find a perspective that is maybe different around it. And part of the work we do is creating transformation and that means supporting the client to be wherever they are in the moment and explore what that means for them. So for those coaches who do work with emotions and aren't afraid to go there, we call it process coaching. And we're allowing the client to process whatever is coming up. And actually positive or negative emotions, because we don't believe that there are positive or negative emotions we just believe there are emotions. They’re termed in those ways. It doesn't matter what emotions are coming up. If we can be with them, process them, then new awareness comes up.

Jeanine: Yes, absolutely and again at Empower World our belief is there is no such thing as a bad or a good emotion. There are all these ranges of emotions that are here to serve us. And if we don't look at all the range of emotions then we potentially miss out on a perspective or an understanding or a learning that will support us again with whatever it is that we want to achieve. So we also say that the emotions that come up for all of us and you know we can't get rid of any emotion. We're human. We're wired to experience all of these emotions. However, what we can do is manage our self, manage our focus, so that we can create the emotions that we want to experience on a consistent basis and of course life happens. So we're going to experience that whole range of emotions. However, the emotions that don't feel so good- they are those signposts or signals that let us know that something is off track with our life. Something is, perhaps, needing to change or perhaps a perspective is skewed in a way that's not serving us and perhaps there is a another perspective that can support us to move into a different, more supportive emotion. And of course the emotions that do feel good, They let us know Where we're perhaps really on track with where we're going what we're doing what we're choosing to do and focus on an experience. So again if we explore all of these emotions with our clients, let our client actually go on a journey inside themselves and process those emotions as you say Marie, there's so much wisdom there.

Marie: Absolutely and it reminds me of a recent coaching conversation I had with my fantastic client who was really in fear about what was coming up for her in the next stages of her life and she knew what she wanted, absolutely knew what she wanted. She could feel it she could taste it and she could smell it. But she recognized that there was something else going on that wouldn't allow her to step into that place of moving forward. And I remember saying to her “is it something you would like to look at? This thing that was coming up?”. And she said “I don't know actually because it feels too scary to look at it”. And with her permission she agreed to experiment. And what we did was we went inside the body and how we do that as coaches as we ask our clients permission whenever they're ready to just take a look inside and using all of their senses explore what was coming up. And initially she noticed that in her body there was this heavy sensation so we went into that heavy sensation. We smelt it. We touched it. We tasted it. And she started to become more and more aware of what this heavy sensation meant for her. What it was saying to her. And then she discovered there was something underneath that. So she allowed herself to move into that space to explore that. And then there was something even more underneath what was happening for her there and as she got curious, She said you know “I'm feeling really uncomfortable here”. And I said “Are you OK to stay here?” And she agreed to stay that just that little bit longer. And she found her way through it. It was a fascinating experience to be with. And like you, we've experienced all clients going through this process many times. It's so fascinating to see the physiological effect of someone that is brave enough to stay with what they are scared of, what they fear. And as she moved through the process of all these challenging emotions and she named them fear, anger, sadness, loneliness… she then moves through them and out of that she saw this beautiful white, Bright, sunny environment that she moved into and she couldn't believe that staying with the challenge allowed her to see the light. It was a joy.

Jeanine: Yes, beautiful recounting of your client's experience Marie and yes this is the work that we do as coaches. We support our clients to go inside and explore what's going on inside and utilizing those emotions because those emotions live in our body. They can get trapped in our body as well. And so if we do this brave work with our clients and support them to explore the emotions and what's underneath that and what's perhaps the core fear that's driving all of this. And if we stay with our client, if we champion and acknowledge the client and meet them where they are and believe them and still hold them in that naturally creative, resourceful, whole way… that strength... I don't know it's a beautiful partnership dancing of support that allows the client to explore, with their permission, to explore what's really going on underneath it. That supports them to face the fear and move through it and again create beautiful outcomes and I know we see this over and over again with our clients because this is the work that we do. And as one of my mentors said to me as I was doing my MCC credentialing and he was listening to my recordings and he shared back you know “what you were doing here is mastery and you are supporting your clients to go on that beautiful, powerful transformation journey because the client is not in their head where thoughts can disappear very quickly. They're experiencing it so it will stay with them that experience will stay with them versus a thought which can quickly disappear if you don't act upon it if you don't focus on it”. So it's brave work.

Marie: Yes incredibly brave work. It is brave work because of having done the work myself, for myself in this processing was going on for me. It doesn't feel very nice to be in it. And it's having the courage to stay in it just that little bit longer than feels OK. And that's again, you talked about the word mastery as a coach, the more masterful you become, the braver you are in supporting your clients to just stay with it. Because you've created a psychologically safe environment for them to explore this. And then there is the question “So what are you learning from this? What in this present moment do you know, now after experiencing that?”. So a lot of people's fears that they're scared of, they're actually living them in the moment and when they are able to live them, then they don't have to be afraid anymore because it's never as bad as you think it is.

Jeanine: Exactly. And most times like I would say 99 percent of the time if not 100 percent, clients will realize “I made that up. I'm living with something that I made up. And it's actually not true, what i've made up that's creating all of this fear and all of this uncomfortable emotion”. We finished two of our coach training program this Saturday. And as I said to the participants on the on the course, you know, coaching is not a comfortable conversation. It will be uncomfortable. And if your clients are uncomfortable, and of course, you set ways of working to let them know that it will be at times very uncomfortable, because that means when it is you're supporting your client to stretch and grow. They’re moving outside of the boundaries of thinking and experiencing. So, then when that's happening you know that you’re supporting your client to move into the transformation they seek.

Marie: Yeah fantastic Jeanine thank you so much for sharing that. So coaches we trust that you'll be that little bit braver with your clients this week. That you’ll stay, with their permission, in the places that they fear to go and that maybe, coaches, you’ll also do your own work and stay that little bit longer in the places you’re afraid to go. Because as coaches if we do the work ourselves, we're going to be braver with what we do with our clients.

Jeanine: Yeah and just to add to that it is really seeing, again, yourself and your clients as naturally creative, resourceful and whole. They have the answers inside; they possess the wisdom underneath all of that they're making up for themselves. So coaches, be brave.

Marie: Thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed, please share it. We'd love to hear your comments. Tell people about our podcast. We want more and more coaches to hear about the work we're doing so that we can support others around the world to grow in the work.

Jeanine: Thank you.