Finding Your Way at Career Crossroads: How an Embodied and Creative Approach Can Help

Lina’s Story: An Excerpt from a Coaching Session Combining Embodiment Techniques and Metaphor Work

In my coaching practice, I work with metaphors, play, visuals and the environment (indoors and outdoors) to break through limiting perspectives and see doors where there were once walls. But what does this mean exactly?

It’s easier to get a sense for it when your body can experience it. Here is an attempt to at least give you a mental idea about it. Maybe this will help you decide if this approach is for you or not. And if it is, maybe it will inspire you to connect with a qualified practitioner that could offer something similar to support your own career transition.

This is a story about Lina (this is not her real name).

Before coming to our first session

Lina had experienced a lot of life changes over the past few years (job changes, burnout, grieving losing a parent, relocation, marriage, ADHD diagnosis, deep personal work through all of it), which made her question her path forward. She still occasionally enjoyed her corporate job but it wasn’t deeply fulfilling. She wasn’t sure if it was the job itself (and so she should be doing something entirely different), her work rhythm (maybe it just wasn’t sustainable), the format (maybe she should stay in this line of work but freelance instead, or only do contract work, so she doesn’t get sucked in by corporate life entirely). She was looking for clarity and so she reached out.

At the start of our first session

After she told me a bit about the questions she has been pondering on, I invited her to do a short meditation with me as a way to ground herself and let the right question emerge into her focus for our time together.

When our minds jump from one question to another, this doesn’t inspire a state of being that helps us find a solution. It could even complicate the matter further as we can go into endless mental loops that seem to not get us anywhere, because the mind comes up with more and more questions, and when it compares, it finds pluses and minuses to everything. How much more difficult decision making becomes then?

And so my first invitation had the purpose of bringing out a more resourceful state of being. Calming down the nervous system, letting a deeper part of her guide us to what is best to focus our exploration on.

Lina’s question emerged: “Should I stay or should I go, in this line of work”.

Once the focus was clear

One of the decisions she felt she needed to make became straightforward to her: If she was to stay in that line of work, it had to be part-time and as contractor or freelancer, so having just one foot in it, not both. She was about to move on to other considerations, so I gently brought her back to it. I felt there was something more to that metaphor which came to her.

Embodying the metaphor

I invited her to stand up and try it out. To imagine having her one foot in her current line of work. I said: “Show me how that would be.”

Lina: “There are different circles on the floor. My left foot is in one of them, it represents my current line of work. My right foot is in another circle, which is intersecting with other circles/interests, it’s something totally different. For example, coaching.”

I: “How does it feel to stand in these two circles?”

Lina: “It feels like different energies are coming up my feet. My left foot is heavier, more grounded. Regular income, my comfort zone, doing things I already know. Like the roots of the tree. Through my right foot the energy feels more subtle, more electrifying, more exciting, out of comfort zone, like it frees things inside me so I don't feel stagnant. Like the branches of the tree that extend towards the sky.”

I: “Is it the same tree or different?”

Lina: “It’s the same tree. One of the things I am doing helps me feel my roots, the other thing helps me reach for the sky and the light.”

I invited her to embody this image, to let it guide her body to more clarity. She started feeling into her roots under her feet, then she looked up at her beautiful branches extending into the sky. As her arms went up in the air, her whole body lit up, a big smile on her face appeared.

I: “How does this feel? What do you do in your body as you imagine this?”

Lina: “I am a bit confused as it's the same tree, but one of my legs are the roots and the other one - the branches. I feel unsettled. I feel I can't really stand. If I imagine both of my legs being the roots and my arms being the branches, it feels much more healthy and balanced, but I don't know if the change in metaphor translates into something.”

I: “When you imagine your current line of work being your roots entirely, how does that change how you feel about it?”

Lina: “It feels like there is a risk that the roots will take up the whole tree and I won't have branches anymore, I will just be a trunk with roots but no branches. It will be like the roots are fungi extending up the trunk, eating up everything, not letting me breath and get sunlight.”

I: “What if you imagine the other thing as roots, if you are just doing this other thing?”

Lina smiled: “There is that electrifying energy again and it goes into my whole body, like ants in a nice ticklish way, giving me energy, it feels much lighter, not grounded but flying, so I am not a tree but a bird.”

I: “Do you miss not having the roots connecting you to the earth?”

Lina: “It doesn't hurt, just feels like a jump, like taking a risk. If I am a bird, it's much safer to not fly and be a chicken or peacock, but if I have wings and can sore in the sky, it makes more sense to me to use what I have and jump off the cliff. I am a bird which is a bit scared to learn how to fly.”

The check-in

I invited Lina to take a little pause, go back to her seat, take a deep breath in and out and then share what new realization came to her, or what new questions opened up.

Lina: “I feel like there is a third option of how I can have both that is still eluding me, or maybe the roots can be something else entirely, maybe selling some assets for income to do all the things I want to do.”

I: “So you don't need your current line of work as roots, it could be something else, it's just that you are looking for roots?”

Lina: “Yes, I am looking for roots and security. I don’t know if my current line of work is just something I want to do out of need for security, it’s difficult to feel the difference.”

I: “We opened a big topic that needs its time to be explored deeper. How did the question change after this awareness?”

Lina: “What does my current line of work represent for me now? Is it security or is it part of my purpose? Or maybe a better question would be, how important is it for me, could it be replaced by something else or does it have its own place in my life? If it just represents an impression of security then it could be replaced by something else.”

A new focus for our session

I invited Lina to try a quick “centring” exercise (thank you to my embodiment teacher Mark Walsh for introducing the principle of centring to me) to bring her to a more connected state, where a clearer question can emerge.

Lina: “What is the role of this line of work in my life? How important is it in my bigger purpose?”

I asked her about the context of her query. About her concept of purpose. She said: “I believe we each have a big purpose that can be expressed in different disciplines, and I am trying to figure out whether being in this line of work is part of mine or just a step towards something more purposeful.”

I: “So you are wondering, if you can express your purpose through this line of work?”

Lina: “Yes, exactly!”

Embodying your purpose

One of my favourite tools from the embodiment coaching training I did with Mark Walsh is “the toolkit” - a set of poses which bring more awareness and choice to the body. The “giving pose” particularly felt like it could help. I asked Lina to find an object around her that is not too heavy, but has some weight to it. She picked a cosy scarf. I then invited her to put it in front of her heart and imagine it represents her bigger purpose, her gift for the world. Then to extend her hands in front of her body while leaning a bit forward as if offering her gift to someone.

I: “Can what you currently do be this gift? Or can it be a vehicle for it?”

Lina: “I feel like my current line of work is not the finished product of this gift, it's just one of the ingredients and needs to be refined. I need to transform this experience into something else that comes from it.”

I asked her to go more into her body, beyond the “I need to”.

Lina: “I feel that the gift is not ready yet so I can’t give it, I need to still work on it.”

I: “Does that mean that your current line of work CAN be part of that gift you give to the world, just not in the shape it is in now?”

Lina: “Exactly! It’s like the gift I want to give to the world is a golden necklace and my current work is just a gold bar, which I need to melt and make it into jewelry before I can give it to the world.”

At the end of our first session

I: “If we go back to your initial question, from what I am hearing, it sounds like your current line of work CAN be part of your bigger purpose, but you need to make some changes about how you do it, it needs to be transformed? Which could be a topic to explore for next time.”

Lina agreed. She felt the session opened up so much for her and she wanted to use the unblocked energy she now had to propel herself further into exploration. She said she wanted to journal on everything that happened in our time together, and also draw out the tree metaphor, to see what other clarity her creative expression will bring.

In addition, I invited her to practice the “giving pose” for a minute every day or on most days, while asking herself what shape her current work needs to be in so it feels ready to give to the world. Practice brings more clarity and like regular time in the gym, practice builds skills that can help us make change stick.

The aftermath

Lina sent me her drawings after our session, which illuminated so much more for her. It wasn’t just mental awareness, what she had was a full body awareness. No more going back and forth with it, because parts of her were not on board. Her whole being was aligned behind her realizations.

Lina also sent me her journal entry with her reflection on the entire experience which she chose to publicly share as she also felt inspired to reconnect with her passion for writing.

All we had was 30 minutes together but it was enough to help Lina move forward. She now has a few more holistic resources at hand for her journey forward.

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Update to the article:

Three months later

Lina told me so much had changed since our last session.

She knew in her body that she shouldn’t waste her time further half-heartedly applying for permanent jobs as it was not what she wanted. She made herself available for part-time freelance roles instead. When an ex-manager of hers shared he was looking for someone to help, she casually mentioned that, which turned out to be the best set-up for him as well, and so she took on a freelance role with his company 3 days a week.

Lina: “And and I’m having fun!”

She then went on to share how reconnecting with her passion for writing was going. She had written about a dozen articles for an internet platform and started creative writing classes. She wasn’t looking for classes but when she serendipitously found a leaflet about them when visiting her doctor, she applied whilst in the waiting room.

Lina: “Life is starting to look like I wanted it to 💕 All thanks to you!!”

Now that she had taken care of the roots of her tree, Lina was looking up at her branches extending into the sky. What she wanted to tackle next was to build her coaching practice.

What we can learn from Lina

I’m in awe of her courage and openness to grab every opportunity in life with such conviction and inner alignment! What I also find fascinating is how life brought to her the right opportunities at the right time AND how she was able to recognize them, because she knew in her body what it is that she was looking for.

Our minds can be such a confusing place to be. But our bodies, perhaps underneath some layers of conditioning, can guide us to the things that are right for us. Our brilliant minds are a great resource when in a support role, but if we let them run our decision making in life, they can analyze us to the ground. Because life is more complex than a chess game. It’s constantly endlessly moving. The moment we make a decision and move through a door with it, other doors open and the body can figure out which doors to walk through faster and better than the mind.

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Content piece originally posted on my Substack. 

Photo by Jonas Stolle on Unsplash