Virginia Karavakou

The lectures and coaching practice on Saturday were a revelation for me in many aspects. I was truly inspired by your demonstration especially by the authenticity that you approached your coachee with, as well as by my readings on Rogers, and my effort to integrate these elements in sessions has already proved very beneficial for both myself and the clients. I really felt that the humanistic approach is where we start being coaches rather than just doing coaching.

I take away three important realizations:

– Making assumptions about others, events, situations hinders my genuine curiosity and interest about others, and more importantly creates blind spots in my perception as a person and as a coach. I am an analytical type of person, and I have come to realize that although it is beneficial to some extent to maintain this trait for certain aspects of my life and work, this way of thinking and being influences my relationship with the client and the overall process. Acknowledging this during Saturday has been very insightful and liberating.

– Being present in the moment, in full contact with my thoughts, feelings, emotions, can have a very powerful effect in the coaching session. It enriches the unconditional empathy, positive regard towards the coachee and our relationship, and also facilitates the coaching process by making it more real. 
What I had been lacking for almost two years now since I started coaching professionally after my first accredited diploma – and was offered by this module, Yannick’s demo and the peer practice– is this sense of being congruent with my own experience and just being myself with a person in a session.Not to enter the role of the coach, not to sort of positively organize myself prior to a session, but to actually be myself in the session. 

– To take it a step further, sharing my own experience in the present moment as a response to the coachee’s words etc. is another way to be myself in the session, but also affects in a deeper, more dynamic way the interaction with the client. By accepting who I am and how I feel in any given moment creates a space for the client to be accepted and understood.

It is fascinating to bring into play all these elements and balance other aspects of coaching such as the process models, interventions and so on.

Best,
Virginia 

Virginia KaravakouFlow Coach