In her coaching business, Liz Stewart tells her clients: your way is welcome, how you are, who you are, is welcome – you are enough. Working shamanically, she uses spiritual guides and drums to go beyond the thinking part of her coaching into a deeper place.
Liz Hall reports
Shamanism and constellations work have helped coach and coach supervisor/ICF mentor Liz Stewart both to feel freer and to re-discover her voice and her “way” by healing ancestral wounds. Now she’s bringing the approach into her client work.
“I’ve experienced coaching and I’ve been working with a counsellor. Then along came shamanism: ‘Oh, you’ve got a block there. Let’s just clear that out with a drum and some deep inner work.’ … And that’s where my voice really came back.
“[This work] has definitely made me stronger, braver, feistier and more vocal. It’s cleared out some stuff that wasn’t mine, an ancestral silence that wasn’t even connected directly to my parents.
“I think the six years of the shamanic work is like layers and layers of old stuff peeling off to get this freer and freer version. I’m not totally free yet. I’m not a perfect, complete and whole human being. [But] I’m as whole as I have ever been. I’ve had the opportunities to meet the ‘lost parts’, and my experience of that then enables me to support others who are in that place.
“I really feel shamanic and constellations work can reach parts that coaching doesn’t always, because they go beyond the thinking part, into that energetic, spiritual place where you’re working with guides or ancestors or drums or rattles, which I love using.”
Into shamanism
Stewart had been increasingly interested in working shamanically “but I was also scared of, ‘is there a darkness to this? Are there evil spirits?’… an ignorance of what it’s really about.”
After someone very close to her started to practise shamanically, Stewart attended an introductory workshop, learning about journeying and having guides.
“I had a profoundly amazing experience during that. It was like being woken up to ‘actually, there’s a safe practice and a level of care that’s here’. My daughter wasn’t doing very well at the time, so I approached the person who I’d been on the course with, and said, ‘Do you think you could help her?’ So Erin had a couple of sessions with Rhonda, which really helped her.
“Then I thought to myself, ‘wait a minute, put yourself back in the picture. What would I like to do?’ ”
Soon Stewart embarked on a year-long shamanic training programme, “part coaching, part journeying, and part meeting guides”. Having completed this, she signed up for a three-year shamanic constellation training programme which she completes next month [October].
Mental health
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Stewart went through a six-month mental health crisis fairly recently:
“I really hit a place of extreme anxiety and terror. I couldn’t leave my bed for three weeks, although I was still managing to do the online piece of my constellation training.
“There was the horrible experience of that level of anxiety where my heart’s pounding so much I think I’m going to die. That was the place I was repeatedly at.”
However, throughout, Stewart stayed in touch with the “idea that we all have ‘a resourced one’ within”.
Being with nature helped. “There were times when I just went out and sat with a tree and a journal.”
Getting in touch with nature (of which we are all, of course, part) is core to the shamanic tradition: “You don’t just sit with a tree. You ask the tree’s permission. There’s the idea of when you sit on the roots and with your back to the tree, what are you really connecting to?”
There were times Stewart couldn’t get outside to drum. “So I sat in my bed and drummed, or played music, or journalled.
“And the ‘resourced one’, she never sat down – she stood with her staff and with what was to be discovered.
“I think that intense experience was ultimately about collecting parts of me that I’d forgotten or disowned. [Including] the part of me that had maybe been afraid as a child. I’d really ostracized her, like, ‘you embarrass me’. It was like bringing her back home.”
All ways welcome
Although much of her healing around not feeling seen and heard is down to shamanism and constellations, seeds were sown when she trained as a supervisor. Nervous about being “good enough” for the presentation of her supervision philosophy and for her final assessment, she nevertheless received “great feedback and felt really seen” and heard.
“My way of expressing [my philosophy] was profoundly accepted and really well-responded to… I have huge respect for the people doing the training who were really willing to accept the difference of people in the room, like, ‘your way is okay, your way is welcome, you’re welcome’.
“That language has come from the shamanic work I’ve done since. But in hindsight, [(I can see that] that confidence came from being welcomed, from absolute acceptance.”
This gave her “the confidence to think I’d like to start my own business, Point of Light”, which she set up 11 years ago.
In her work, everyone being welcome to have their own worldview is “a profound string that I hold. I have my view and perspective of the world, but how can I, and also others, be open to somebody else’s view and perspective of the world?
“And I think that’s something that moves and surprises people even when you [just] use the language of ‘your way is welcome, how you are, who you are, is welcome – you are enough’.
“So if I’m doing any group work, whether that’s drumming circles or facilitating something or doing leadership pods, I always hold a space, whether it’s verbal or non-verbal, for ‘everybody has their way’.
“There’s a vulnerability for anybody who holds self-doubt or maybe silences their voice or holds themselves in a view of lack or less than. And I think many people do in many different ways. So [it’s about] honouring that.
“Even in supervision, in coaching, before I start a session, I always hold the ‘settling space’.
“Part of that space is that ‘you’re welcome and you have space’… It drops people into themselves. There’s not always a verbal way for them to express what just happened, but you can see it in the face, or what I’ll sometimes hear as well – ‘I don’t know what you just did there’ – but they know something different has just arrived, and it feels like this delicate place. I love creating that for people, where they can just soften.”
A book that has inspired Stewart is The Four Agreements (Ruiz, 1997), in which Ruiz talks about “the book of law” – the set of rules and beliefs we acquire that dictate behaviours and perceptions, potentially hindering us from living in alignment with our
true selves.
For Stewart, the book of law “explains to me what was happening when I was younger…
“The first time I came across it, I thought, oh, what rules have held my life? I got four pages of flip chart [paper] and the main focus was,
‘be good, be quiet, be kind’. When you look at that initially, you go, ‘that’s good stuff’… [but] what I’ve learned over time is that there were brackets after [each].
“For example, ‘be good [no matter what]’: “The ‘no matter what’ removes – or had in the past removed – my ability to stand grounded in me with my needs, my voice, my boundaries. It was never done with the intention of unkindness, of cruelty in any way – it would have been handed down to my parents as well. But I’ve had to learn to have a voice… I don’t ever want to lose my kindness… but I’ve had to learn to be angry.”
She shares how a supervision colleague said to her recently, “Unless you know when you’re creating a contract and you’re creating the banks of the river as the contract and the flow of the work is in between, then your kindness is a bonus.”
“I was thinking, Yeah, my kindness is a bonus. It’s not there to be maybe abused or less than or diminished… I can hold great kindness and great compassion, but not to the point of invisibility. The level of that invisibility cloak was very powerful [before].”
Coaching
The shamanic and the constellations work “have definitely informed my coaching”, she says.
In the summer, she delivered a virtual programme called The Power of Story, which included looking at the book of law and a one-to-one session. She’s informed and supported by guides and ancestors in her coaching:
“I’m aware that I have my guides and the support of the ancestors… that sense of we might feel alone sometimes… but there’s a whole line of people standing right behind you, back to the beginning of your clan, cheering you on.
“Does that always come into a coaching session? No… Everybody experiences connecting to their spirit or their guides in different ways. I’m often gifted words or sentences, and I’ll share it with the client, and they’ll go, ‘Can you share that again?’ And I might not be able to, because it was just something that came through.
“I think I’ve now more awareness of the unsaid, and from a shamanic and a constellations perspective, when you sit with someone, it’s like my field and my life experience, [and] their field and life experiences, are held in this universal web and energy, like this coming together of mine and their guides and ancestors… It’s an awareness of an entirely different energy.
“Your ancestors are that line of birthright – the family tree that stands right behind you. Your ancestors or members of your family tree may or may not choose to step forward and be with you as guides – my grandfather who I never knew sits with Erin quite strongly. But they’re supporters within the system.
“Your guides can come in many forms – from that place of myth, or goddesses, gods, animals, or they could be stones, special trees, moths. For everybody, it’s slightly different. One of my healing guides always seems to hold quite an Aboriginal energy. He arrived with a staff, and when he’s there, it’s a very solid state.
“People will experience their guides in different ways. When I first started the shamanic work, sometimes I would see a guide quite visually, or just a colour. You’re visiting the other realms, and what comes in is coming from the other realms.
“My protector guide initially just looked like a green mist. This is the challenge with shamanism and with life – that comparison is a thief of joy! You’re sitting learning with people who are describing [for example] the black leopard that comes through the jungle as the protector. I remember sitting there thinking, ‘I’ve got green mist!’ But the green mist now has a form of a person, and wings.
“In coaching, if at any point I’m not feeling secure, or it feels like something could be a transference, I just visualize the green.”
How much does she share with clients?
“I know it’s not for everybody… I think there’s a real fear – sometimes it’s talked about as the witch’s wound, the place where there’s fear of that difference, the person that’s the healer, the herbalist, the person who kind of connects differently, who was once valued until [they weren’t].
“[But] this is the opportunity in terms of where I am right now. I’ve got a couple of clients who are fully aware of all that I do with the coaching, the shamanic work, constellations, the Emotional Freedom Technique. And they arrive with that openness to go, ‘This is what I want to work on. I’m really open [to how]’.
“I have a lady who started off doing executive coaching with me… she was like, ‘Liz, I love you as an executive coach, but I’m really not interested in the woo stuff.’ I was like, ‘That’s okay, we’ll stick to the executive coaching.’ However, as my journey progressed, so has hers.
“[Now] the client has learnt about the book of law”, and comes to Stewart’s drumming circles.
Constellations
Having had ”quite amazing experiences” participating in short constellations workshops, including with John Whittington, Stewart was very up for training in constellations, initially for her own healing.
“Anything that I say yes to is in support of my own healing. So one of my first experiences with Carol [Day] doing constellations was this idea that somehow I was the holder and carrier of grief for my family. My personal response to grief and loss was, and I didn’t realize it at the time, very profound.
“What constellations and shamanism taught me more than coaching was what we can carry for others when we can have resonance in the family field. I’d become the holder of grief.
“My dad had discovered when he was doing the family tree that my granddad had had a brother called Willie, who nobody had ever spoken about. Willie was 21 – the same age as my daughter just now – when he was killed at Pearl Harbor. He was lost at sea. The constellation part was that sometimes a death or a loss like that creates displacement, a gap in the family tree. So the shamanic constellation we did was to bring Willie back into place. It was almost like I physically felt that happening… like bringing him home… The grief then could be given back to the ancestors.
“How many families have displacement in the lines, and how much does that lead to how we behave, how we relate to others, and we don’t even think about it… we’re not surgically removing anything when we’re in a constellation field. It’s [about] acknowledging they have a place, allowing everything to come back into possession, to be seen, to have a voice, to be honoured.”
Stewart shares how she has had two miscarriages, and “doing the shamanic and the constellation work, one of the most touching things for me was to be able to say, actually, I have a family of six, not a family of four…[having] the appreciation of the space of these souls who aren’t missing any more… to have each of my children in their place – that healed something, and it saw something. Constellations sees the unseen and gives a voice to those who are voiceless.”
Background
Stewart graduated as a primary school teacher three decades ago, having always wanted to be a vet or a teacher.
“I discovered that I’m useless with blood. So although I still love animals, the vet option wasn’t viable.”
She “thoroughly enjoyed” the four years (of teacher training) but when she graduated there weren’t any jobs so she joined the local supermarket (then William Low & Co).
Soon grocery retailer Tesco took over the supermarket chain and was looking for local training managers. An ideal candidate with her teaching degree, she did this for six months. And again, because of her degree, and with her new training experience, she was then recruited as a personnel manager.
At one point, Angus Council called to offer her a temporary primary school job. “But I’d only said yes to the personnel manager job a month or so before. I asked if I could have more time to decide. It felt like a big decision. And they said, ‘No, we need to know now.’ I chose to stay with Tesco.
She ended up working at Tesco for 13 years, enjoying the “great teamwork, camaraderie, fun – and we did great charity work. I’ve got really fond memories of the team and the people that I met in the various locations, and a lot of them are still friends.”
Getting into coaching
Stewart came across coaching when Tesco launched a prize-winning internal coach training programme, ‘Living Service’, to shift attitudes and mindsets – classic coaching territory although it wasn’t called coaching. Stewart participated in what was “intensive training” and had a
“great time”.
However, soon she found herself driving up to eight hours a day. She remembers one time when she was pregnant, getting home and “I couldn’t get out the car. I was like, ‘okay, that’s enough. I can’t keep going.’ I had my maternity leave, then had the opportunity to go back into a new store as a personnel manager and job share with somebody else who was also a new mum.”
People not products
Coaching was becoming a passion.
“I loved the people I met in all the stores, but I’d kind of lost my passion for yoghurts and beans. I don’t think I ever really had it. I was asked at one point if I’d like to be a store manager. But I knew that wasn’t me.”
Two weeks later, another Living Service coach told her about a new coaching company, which was recruiting coaches. A month later, she left Tesco to join Coach in a Box.
Sadly, she was bereaved around this time. “I was so pleased to be moving into a place where I felt I was meant to be, but my arrival in Coach in a Box was also at the point where mum died.
“There was lots of grief, a huge transition happening at the same time – I didn’t have the awareness I have now. And I made some personal mistakes which I didn’t know were mistakes at the time. I was just like, ‘Oh my request has been answered!’ ”
Coach in a Box was operating in the UK and Australia – Stewart joined in the UK and took on the role of building the coach community, recruiting and training coaches, which she loved, and developing Coach in a Box material.
“I was interviewing people in Peru and in the States. Coach in a Box grew at high speed. What started off as maybe 20 coaches, building a community with them, became 40, 50, 60. It was enjoyable to find the right people – people who were interested. [But] it was also stressful. It always felt like we were a little bit under, a little bit on the edge, with the speed of the growth, and the people on the ground trying to keep it going.
Mind, body, emotions
“But to be in an environment where, from the beginning, we were working with that mind, body, emotion piece, was a real gift. I’d had really great training with Tesco, but working with Coach in a Box, it wasn’t just [about] your mind but your physicality, your emotional responses.
“Having that awareness serves me to this day, operating across those three doorways [mind, body, emotions].”
At the point of Coach in a Box being acquired by BTS Group, Stewart was no longer an employee but an associate coach and coach supervisor – she’d trained as a supervisor so she could act as a qualified supervisor for the associate team. She’s still on its books as an associate.
Integrity and healing
For Stewart, being in her integrity is important. “I don’t ask other people to step into a place that I’ve not experienced myself. I’ve been in environments where what we’re expressing can feel out of integrity. So it’s just like, I can’t do that.”
She cites Roger Steare’s book, Ethicability: How to decide what’s right and find the courage to do it (Steare, 2009), in which he uses the term “courageous integrity”.
“Courageous integrity is when you choose to live your life following the values that matter to you…. to stand up for what matters to you, even if that means stepping out of a role or stepping into something else. I’ve not always had the voice and capacity to maybe do that in as clear a way as I’d like; it’s still an aspiration. There are things going on in this world where I often wonder how to express a view or an opinion. How do I live a value? Values of kindness and compassion in the brutality of the world right now. How can I live with courageous integrity? Where do I bring in my voice?”
For Stewart, it’s helpful to have an idea of how, as a practitioner, we also keep ourselves safe. “And part of what keeps us safe is our contract and the contract that we build with our clients.”
Looking back, Stewart realizes that when she set up her own business, she wasn’t healed sufficiently to fully show up. “My personal challenge from when I started Point of Light until now was that I’d not finished healing enough to show up. It’s hard to have your own business if the Liz behind [it] hasn’t found a way to express herself so that the right people can find her. It’s taken a while, but [now] I’m kind of standing here, going, ‘OK, where are the people who would like to heal?’… If I was to bring my resourced one to the world and to the people who could use what I do, how do I speak them in a way that they go, ‘Ah, there’s Liz’?”
On her mental health crisis, she says, “I’m so glad I kept the journal every day, because to go back and read that, it’s quite shocking to see where I was and what I was experiencing… that experience is kind of the opposite of spiritual bypassing. You can spiritually bypass, or you can be in a place where you profoundly meet yourself in a way that you’d never expected. And I think that’s what my experience was. I was absolutely terrified of not getting ‘back to normal’.”
“I’ve always described it as falling into the pit… I knew from the moment I was falling in, trying to scramble my way out of the hallway I was going in, that I wasn’t going backwards.
“As a coach supervisor, that’s what’s I bring – all of what I’ve got now – that concept of working beyond the edges. We’re not just working within a traditional supervision space, [all this] is what I’m pulling on there. I’m thinking just how rewarding it is, creating spaces for coaches where I don’t have to hold the river bank. We can just paddle for a bit.
Vertical development
Another approach that informs her work is vertical development: “It’s profoundly helped and enabled me, and my clients as well…it’s given me a real map of what space my clients might be in, the language I can use to relate to them.
“In terms of what the world needs, when I think of my supervision offering and what I’m working towards, how do we move into a more post-conventional (later meaning-making stages) space? if we keep doing what we’ve always done, the world’s not going to recover. We’ve got a very, very narrow window of opportunity, and I think [it’s about] raising awareness of the difference [needed], respecting that there’s a place for everybody.
“I find the world a hard place to be in at the moment, so I am choosing not to look away, especially if we’re talking or thinking about Palestine. I find the lack of humanity and response to that is unbearable. On LinkedIn, I’ve chosen to make connections and learn and discover things. And each day, I’m scared when I open my LinkedIn feed, because what I’ve chosen to have in there. Where’s the compassion in the humanity in the world? It confuses my soul. Maybe I can’t create a cease fire but part of my commitment is, I will not look away.
References
- Ruiz, D. M., & Mills, J. (1997). The Four Agreements: A practical guide to personal freedom. Hay House, Inc.
- Steare, R. (2009). Ethicability: How to decide what’s right and find the courage to do it. Roger Steare Consulting Limited.