COURSE WSL

Ways of Sacred Listening

The ICF Core Competencies define Listens Actively as, “Focuses on what the client is and is not saying to fully understand what is being communicated in the context of the client systems and to support client self-expression.”

Drawing on the best of Spiritual Direction practices and Life Coaching competencies, this course is designed for coaches who wish to incorporate a strong spiritual foundation into their current work. Based on a belief in the sacred and prayerful discernment, The Art of Sacred Listening provides listening strategies that will enhance both the coaching relationship and the spiritual growth of the client. In an era in which active listening is a lost art, the coach who is fully present to what the client is – and is not— saying goes beyond simply hearing and, instead, provides the clarity that leads to growth, increased awareness, and even dramatic mind shifts.

Taught on Zoom, this course will involve lectures, group discussions, readings, in-class coaching practice, and a final project involving a brief transcript of a Life Coaching session excerpt with a classmate or client.

Topics include:

• The Lost Art of Listening
• Approaching Mystery/ Guiding the human spirit
• Entering Sacred Time/ Sacred Space: Incorporating mindfulness, meditation, prayer, and silence.
• Levels of listening: Deciphering the subtext and making room for shifting agendas
• Cross-cultural considerations: Crossing over into the client’s experience
• Identifying biases, assumptions, and other distortions
• Listening as Spiritual Director, Therapist, Mentor, and Life Coach
• Cultivating curiosity and posing clarifying questions
• Reinforcing reflective skills: mirroring, evaluating, discovering, affirming, encouraging, challenging, focusing …
• Reading the client: observing body language, speech patterns, choice of words, and images…
• Appropriate sharing ("Do’s" and "Don'ts")
• Facilitating Epiphany Moments

Required Texts:

• The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh
• Unlocking Epiphany Moments: A Primer for Life Coaches & Other Inner Guides by Elizabeth-Anne Stewart
  

Frequency: This course is offered once a year.

Course Prerequisites

None

Register for this course

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