choice Magazine

Episode #99: Mastering the Art of Coaching Taboo Topics with guest coach, Maria Connolly

• Garry Schleifer

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Unlock the secrets to navigating taboo topics in coaching with master practitioner Maria Connolly. Maria, an expert in NLP, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, and the Feldenkrais method, brings her rich background and unique insights to our conversation. Discover how creating a safe and trusting environment enables clients to openly discuss uncomfortable subjects, a crucial aspect Maria attributes to her extensive training as a psychotherapist. We also delve into her daily routines of grounding and somatic practices, emphasizing the importance of breathwork and body awareness in preparing for impactful coaching sessions.

Step into the nuanced world of coaching and therapy, where Maria shares personal anecdotes on balancing the dual roles of a coach and therapist. Learn how recognizing clients as resourceful individuals capable of finding their own solutions can lead to transformative coaching experiences. Humor and irreverence play a key role in fostering deeper insights and meaningful exchanges, illustrating the power of trust and rapport. Through candid examples, we reveal how these techniques can invigorate conversations and help navigate the delicate boundaries between coaching and therapy.

Finally, we shed light on the significance of coaching supervision and continuous growth. Maria discusses strategies to overcome feelings of imposter syndrome and the joy derived from focusing on clients' needs. We underscore the importance of a culture of openness, self-reflection, and empowerment, ensuring mutual success and growth. Don't miss this treasure trove of wisdom for advancing your coaching practice and fostering meaningful interactions. Tune in and let Maria Connolly guide you towards mastering the art of coaching taboo topics.

Watch the full interview by clicking here.

Find the full article here.

Learn more about Maria Connolly here.

Visit Maria's website here.

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

Garry Schleifer:

Welcome to the c hoice Magazine podcast, Beyond the Page. c hoice, the magazine of professional coaching, is your go-to source for expert insights and in-depth features from the world of professional coaching. I'm your host, G arry Schleifer, and I'm thrilled to have you join us today. In each episode, we go, go figure, beyond the page of articles published in c hoice Magazine and dive deeper into some of the most recent and relevant topics impacting the world of professional coaching. We explore the content, interview the talented minds like Maria, oh that side, I don't know Zoom, behind the articles and uncovering the stories that make an impact. choice is more than a magazine. For over 22 years now, we have built a community of like-minded people who create, share, use coaching tools, tips and techniques to add value to their business and, of course, what we all want to do, make a difference with our clients. Awesome. In today's episode, I'm speaking with M aster P ractitioner, Maria Connolly, who is the author of an article in our latest issue, and there's our Barbie pink and I guess I'm wearing pink in solidarity. Oh, it's hard to see when you do that. But anyway, there she is replacing me f or those of you watching. I t's called " Unspeakables Uncomfortable Topics We Avoid that Impact Coaching Outcomes." Maria's article is entitled Boost Coaching Impact Five Powerful Ways to Tackle Taboo Topics.

Garry Schleifer:

A little bit about Maria. She's a certified NLP master practitioner and Ericksonian hypnotherapist. As a coach, she creates a safe and courageous space for clients to clarify intentions, discover possibilities and reach new heights. She combines fierce honesty with loving compassion and her coaching sessions are known for being inspiring, dynamic and transformative. Maria is also a practitioner of the Feldenkrais method. She integrates the somatic principles to bring integrity and a unique knowledge of the body-mind connection to work with her clients. Maria, thank you so much for joining me today. What a diverse background. Did I say that o ne right Feldenkrais?

Maria Connolly:

Feldenkrais, Feldenkrais yes. German? Israeli. Oh really? Y yes, Moshe Feldenkrais.

Garry Schleifer:

Interesting. Well, I hope I gave it justice in the pronunciation. Oh, my goodness, I just loved, loved, loved this article and I can't wait to share some of the pieces that were memorable for me as I reread it like the 50th time, because that's what we do. But I want to ask you what made you write it, what called you to write this particular article for this issue? And, by the way, for those of you listening, M maria is a multiple contributor to c Choice. She contributed to the women's leadership issue, back about four years ago. She also contributed an article that was a blog post for us, and so she's here today, t third time writer, first time podcast guest. So welcome, welcome.

Maria Connolly:

I'm so thrilled to be here, Garry. T thank you for this. So why did I choose that topic? It's dear to me, so I'm actually trained as a psychotherapist first. I'm a licensed psychotherapist here in Oregon and in psychotherapy it's really important to build rapport and to make people really comfortable and being able to talk about any kind of topic right, because life is rich, and so when I saw this topic, I thought like, oh, this is what I want to do.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, Well, okay, so you brought this up. G good pointing the psychotherapy and coaching, because we always talk about therapy versus coaching and when you think about it, that's one of those things that they have a similarity a trust environment, like you wrote in the article c Creating a trusting environment, being empathetic. So a lot of that stuff's very similar. So yes, it dovetails. T the whole issue is about u unspeakables, but I think you really nailed it down when you talked about creating a safe environment for discussing these taboo topics. W what ground rules should I set? Well, I think, even before that what should I, what do you do, or what should I do as a coach to get ready for any session, even if we know or don't know, there's a taboo topic coming up?

Maria Connolly:

So I think that's a great question. l Before the ground rules, I think we have to sort of set ourselves up for success, and you know, part of my routine is a daily practice of grounding. I'm a somatic coach and so I work with the body and so I set my body to have a sort of greater capacity to handle anything that comes my way, and so then I can let go and I can go, I can handle whatever comes my way. I simply do a practice of connecting with my breath and expanding my body, doing some stretching. Y yes, like you're doing right now.

Garry Schleifer:

I'm doing it. I do that a lot.

Maria Connolly:

Actually sometimes my clients will say, like you take a breath a And it reminds me to take a breath because I continue to set myself throughout the session and I think it's a modeling for clients also to breathe and to settle. So that's first. T that's something that I do consistently, not just when I'm coaching, but just something that I do every day as a way of just having more expansive presence wherever I am. And then, as far as ground rules, one of the first things is that when I meet clients for the first time, I sort of set it up and I say how should we handle something surprising or something awkward, so that in their mind they're already, you know, thinking about like, oh, that might happen, because you know, if you have a conversation long enough with somebody, stuff happens right. So that's first. I introduce it at the beginning. I think, as humans, we like when we know what to expect or we know that something is coming.

Maria Connolly:

And then there are four things that I focus on. So the first one is confidentiality. Even if we write in the contract this is confidential, I think that sharing that in the conversation and just saying, by the way, t This is confidential and you know everything that you and I talk about here stays right here. This is what I do with my notes and stuff so that their nervous system can go like oh okay, reminder, confidential. The second one is assuming an attitude of non-judgment. Seeing things as everybody has good intentions and everybody struggles. I think it's important to do that as, again, as a somatic therapist and coach to convey the non-judgment with words and body language. Sometimes, you know we have incongruencies. W we convey something with our words and then our body language says something different, and so making that congruent is really important.

Garry Schleifer:

I have to stop it. Give me an example.

Maria Connolly:

So you know, for example, somebody might say something surprising and I might pretend that I'm okay. Instead, my body language says I just stopped breathing, and so in that case I might say, oh well, that surprised me and so bring it into the conversation to be more authentic and more sort of natural with that.

Garry Schleifer:

Okay, so not hiding anything?

Maria Connolly:

Yeah, oh, I didn't expect that. Oh, that was surprising you know, something like that. Tell me more, yeah.

Garry Schleifer:

Respect.

Maria Connolly:

I think respect is really important, important respect from you know any ideology, any walks of life, anything that you know people have struggled with or continue to struggle, making the person feeling valued and heard. T these are some of the skills that I've learned in neurolinguistic programming, which is sort of the foundation of what I do.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, and it's well known in the coaching industry as one of the training methodologies, not necessarily for coaching. I mean, there's NLP and coaching things as well. So you know, I just want to go back to what you said about confidentiality. I place a great deal of emphasis on that, like right away, and I even give examples, because most of my clients I'm paid indirectly by their company and of course they want their employee to be thinking. They don't say it, but I'm sure they want to be thinking that their employees thinking about applying this for work stuff. And I make it clear that it's like I don't know who your manager is.

Garry Schleifer:

I keep, like you, I have some notes, but half the time I don't remember and I can't understand my own notes from it. So not to worry, don't go anywhere. We can talk about anything, business or personal. I give an example. I say, for example, some clients want to talk to me about not working for the company they're working for. I said that's totally fine by me, and then I kind of you know, and you mentioned humor, we'll get to this, but I'll just lighten it up by saying you know that now I forgot. But anyway, I close it with that. That's lovely. That was all of a sudden I channeled my mother. I forgot what I was going to say. It'll come back.

Maria Connolly:

But it happens to me a lot.

Garry Schleifer:

Right, yeah, so I have a little, a little humorous close to that part too. So, and then the other thing I want to say is for me, and everybody's different, but you touched on this too. T there's something about leveling the playing field where a lot of the times, the clients come in and they think that the coach is up here and they're down here. So I do a lot of work to do this and remind them that I'm in, just like I read in yours about, I call mine ruthless compassion, so I hug you and kick you in the ass at the same time. I'm the friend that'll tell you the truth, right, and I'm paid to do it. So I do add a lot of humor to it, but that's the sort of thing I talk about.

Garry Schleifer:

But, for example, if I have a BIPOC client, one of my things is okay, obviously I'm a white guy, I'm a white man of privilege. I don't want you to ever think that you can't be honest with me about anything. Please do not worry about it. And I also remember they chose me, they saw my picture, so they knew what they were getting into. But I add to it by just saying that too. Or a woman, I'll say you know what, I know what guys are like, so feel free to take a stab at guys. I won't take it personally. So just like, humorously, brings it down to a more level playing field partnership versus power.

Maria Connolly:

Yes, and you bring up something I think really important, which is the level of specificity. So, for example, you know, let's talk about confidentiality. Y you work for a company. We're going to talk about you working for the company. Here's what's going to happen. You know, if they ask me, I'm going to say yes, they showed up. I'm not going to say they talked about this and this.

Maria Connolly:

Right so again, I want their nervous system to calm down. We are better when we're safe, and a lot of people don't know that their nervous system needs to be regulated in order for them to be able to have a conversation to go deep and all of that. So I like that level of specificity that you're bringing up examples.

Garry Schleifer:

I always find that that's helpful. And reminders. I if they're talking about somebody and I know it's a guy, I will add in a jokingly say and I know what guys are like, right, so then tell me more. So it just kind of opens it up for that. What's been your most awkward conversation with a client about a sensitive subject? Y you better tell us how you recovered from it.

Maria Connolly:

Yes, I was thinking about this. So there have been many, many awkward moments, you know. I think it's part of the growth in our work. So one comes to mind, and it was a lovely guy that I was working with and very professional and very punctual and all of these things. T the presence was just like so, on point, and then maybe it was a third or fourth coaching session, and all of a sudden they started talking about this addiction that they were dealing with and it really, it was unexpected, took me by surprise and I had this moment.

Maria Connolly:

That reactive body language moment. Yeah, like I had this moment. And then, you know, I stopped breathing and then I'm thinking, oh no, they're thinking I'm not okay with this. And really what was going on in my mind was I'm not a therapist, I'm a coach, and how do I handle this. And it was you know that moment. I it was you that moment a And so I did say thank you for sharing. This is really brave of you. And I had a moment because I noticed that my two hats, therapist and coach, sort of like mixed and it was great because he bursted into a laugh and I started laughing and I was able to be vulnerable about like, okay, the two personas, and so, let me grab the right hat. And I said, okay, coach. T thank you for sharing.

Maria Connolly:

And so then we really talked about how great it was that we could talk about that and that he was really struggling and there was no judgment. There were, you know, questions about what's it like to share this with me right now and and what should we do with this together. And so it was a collaboration. So I recovered and I still remember, I still have the know, all the feels in my body about that moment.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, it's funny you should say the hats, because as soon as you went down that telling that story, I'm like she mixed up her hats. W we come from other backgrounds, so I come from an entrepreneurial background. So once in a while I say I'm going to take my coaching hat off and I'm going to put my entrepreneur hat on and let's have a conversation, a brainstorm, around what you're struggling with right now.

Maria Connolly:

It's so helpful. I it's so human and i in coaching, and especially for me as a therapist, there's a lot about make sure that you know when you're a therapist and you know when you're a coach. And I agree with that. I'm not going to be coaching somebody who needs a therapist and at the same time, I'm not going to leave my training out the door and I'm not going to leave my compassion out. I think I'm learning how to blend the two and how to use them appropriately and then saying what are you doing about that? And you know who are you talking to and you know all of that.

Garry Schleifer:

Y eah, no, that's great

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, we all have so many diverse aspects to our life, why wouldn't we bring it in as appropriate? And we have to trust. Well, we watch. I always say I watch to see if my clients can discern for themselves and process the way they see fit the information I share. And I share things without any uh, attachment. Right, it's like, you know, it's like offering somebody advice and it's like, and then you're like, well, you didn't take my advice. No, it's not like that. I love when I can see that my clients, well, you always have to start from their naturally creative, resourceful and whole.

Maria Connolly:

So you make another great point. If you see your client as whole and resourceful and like we say in N nLP, they have all the resources. They just need access to those resources at the right time and we can be the catalyst to say you have a resource right there. We don't even have to offer the resource, we can point to the resource that they already have and if you show up that way, I think your client thrives.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, oh, very much. So yeah, sorry, I have to laugh. When I was reading this you had given some points when conversations get uncomfortable. My favorite one was number four, c Carefully irreverent comments. Shake things up. I think that kind of goes to what I was saying earlier, even though I forgot the humorous part of it, but making a little irreverent and fun. But what made me laugh was early on in the article you gave an example and said coach Liz suddenly felt like she was tap dancing on a minefield in stilettos. So even in your article you're a little irreverent. I thought that was absolutely amazing.

Maria Connolly:

So that's great well, and, if I may, may I give you a a couple of examples of being irreverent.

Maria Connolly:

I learned from one of my coaches that sometimes it's important to have a shock value. S so, of course, at the base of all of this, you have to have great rapport with your client and you make sure that you know the client and the level of comfort and all of that.

Maria Connolly:

I remember one time when my client was talking about why they were doing a particular thing and I listened and then I said I'm going to call BS and you know, they stopped and went and then they started laughing and they said you've noticed that? Y yes, I can go to that place of rationalizing, ok, and I said, ok, so like the BS is out, now what's really the story? And then we were able to have such a deep, lovely and meaningful conversation about what was really happening. So sometimes it's appropriate to say you know, something that sort of shocks the client or just stops the thing to get something deeper.

Garry Schleifer:

And to your point, though, it requires a deep level of trust, lots of rapport, lots of just shared conversations. Yeah, I have a client like that and I stop them all the time on these things. I'm like no, no, no, no, slow it down, g Go backwards. And I don't call BS, and then the client rolls their eyes and they're like busted again.

Garry Schleifer:

And then you know a little bit humor and then we get into some real what's behind all this I've learned lately. You know we always talk about coaching. It's forwarding the action and deepening learning. I've added an evoking awareness, so that's the third aspect to it. So it's not just about driving here, it's about learning and then awareness around the learning and around the heading for the goal.

Maria Connolly:

Yeah, saying what's happening right now, right.

Garry Schleifer:

Right, yeah, no, that's brilliant. You already touched on this in your example, but can you give me some other ways that that I, as a coach, can calm my own discomfort when it blindsides me in a coaching session? I have a feeling you have a few more tips and tricks there.

Maria Connolly:

Yeah, so b big one self-awareness. W e need to be aware of just who we are and what we've embodied, our own history and the sort of trigger points for us. It's so good to be aware of that. And so how do we do that? Well, therapy, supervision, coaching, even just with talking to colleagues. Just saying again, with confidentiality, not divulging any information that could disclose the client. J just saying I'm dealing with this and I'm having these feelings and it's so good to have an extra pair of eyes.

Maria Connolly:

You know where the person might say like I dealt with that and for me it was this, and so that you can go, Huh, I wonder if it's that? Supervision is really a big one for me. When I work with coaches, I say seek supervision. It's so important. It's not a sign that there's something wrong with you. It's a sign that you're ethical and that you are not relying on your know just yourself but that you get some support.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, and you're growing. It's a growing methodologies supervision, mentoring and even peer coaching and working with someone else. Y you bring up a really good point, because I took on a new client this week and I was blindsided by the disparity between where he sees me and where he sees himself, and then just some other aspects of it that just had me. That really threw me off and I noticed myself trying to recover. So, to your point, I'm going to have a meeting with a friend of mine next week and I'm going to talk to her about that as a peer-to-peer before I have that next conversation with the client.

Maria Connolly:

Yeah, that's sometimes that happens to us. S somebody shows up and they have you know like degrees and letters and status and all of that, and we might feel the imposter syndrome or less than and things like that. And so this is, I think, a big one. It's keeping the focus on the client. R remembering that they might have all of that but they didn't come to us for that. They didn't come to us because they're dealing with something and they're struggling with something or they want to get something. And so, remembering they're still human, they're still struggle, they still deal with all the human stuff that we all deal with. And I think that can get us back to focusing on the client again.

Garry Schleifer:

Right, any disparities or any uncomfort. You touched on a really good point with the degrees and all that. So I'm not a person with a lot of degrees and things like that. I've worked through all of that. We all have had a different path to where we are. I'm an amazing coach. I love it. I have no issue around it.

Garry Schleifer:

What I do notice still sometimes is when there are people who are in a higher stature in life. L let's say I'm coaching somebody, I don't want to name titles, but you know, higher up in the military. I work with some people in the US military and I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, now I'm the opposite. You know I was saying before about the coach up here and the client down here. Now I'm kind of the opposite, going, oh you know, and I get over it really fast. But again, it's what do you do? Ground yourself. Remember they're human beings. T the old joke they put their pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else, those sort of things. And to your point and what you wrote, to observe it, call it out in yourself, put it out there if it's in the middle of a conversation and recover.

Maria Connolly:

This goes back to what you said at the beginning about leveling the playing field. I think we need to do that e ven when we're starting to go, oh no, they're up here and I'm down here. We have to level the playing field and say they're still human and they're still putting their pants on one leg at a time and all of those things.

Garry Schleifer:

And when you get to talk to them, they're not that what you, you know. Especially at the beginning you're like oh wow, this, there's this. Then you start talking to them and you develop a rapport and it's like, like we're having here. W we've never met before. W we're having this wonderful conversation and I've known you forever.

Garry Schleifer:

Oh right, exactly I know where you grow up, you know, just so you know folks, we do have a little green room time where we meet each other. So but but yeah it's really easy because we're colleagues. Our desires, our hopes, our wishes are all the same for our clients, our coach colleagues and the world. So thank you.

Maria Connolly:

Garry, when we manage all of that then we can talk about anything, which is great because coaching is, to me, one of the most wonderful conversations when we focus on one person. Yeah, exactly.

Garry Schleifer:

I love it. I've been jokingly saying a lot lately that my younger sister just retired, t That makes me old, from banking, so corporate job, and it's quite natural. And then my mom will say to me so when are you going to retire? And I'm like, retire from what? S she said, from work, I said I don't work.

Maria Connolly:

I agree with you.

Garry Schleifer:

Right. And then the friend I'm going to talk about this other client. She says as long as I'm healthy, I'm coaching.

Maria Connolly:

This is one of those jobs that doesn't really feel like a job. I have conversations all day long with people and I have to tell you, my husband is a little jealous. He's works in IT and so he fix computers all the time and he says you know, what I do almost every day is tell people to turn it off and turn it on, and when I talk about I had this just wonderful conversation with this person he goes, I'm jealous. Y eah that sounds nourishing.

Garry Schleifer:

Yes, but he could have that too. He just h as to ask a couple of questions. How are you doing?

Maria Connolly:

I know I'm working on it.

Garry Schleifer:

Send him on a coaching course. I want to close with a quote. "W hen you encourage a culture of openness, radical acceptance, self-reflection and empowerment, you'll experience greater success. Both you and your clients will experience tremendous growth when you let the unspoken become a catalyst for change. Thank you, well said, and thank you for writing for ch oice multiple times.

Maria Connolly:

Thank you. Y you have a wonderful magazine.

Garry Schleifer:

Thank you, we think so. What would you like our audience to do as a result of the article a nd this conversation? Anything come to mind?

Maria Connolly:

So I hope that many people will be inspired to have an embodied practice of grounding themselves every day and maybe having a routine before they see clients, if they don't do it already, and seek supervision and and maybe deepen their conversations with their clients.

Garry Schleifer:

I think a lot of us, w We don't even know we're avoiding taboo topics. W we don't really know that it's landing in there. So I think this whole issue it was about, so thank you for contributing to it and thank you so much for joining us for this Beyond the page episode. B efore I forget, what's the best to reach you?

Maria Connolly:

Okay, so, t through my email, I I'm on F facebook and I'm on LinkedIn. I think those are the major ones.

Garry Schleifer:

Let's get the spelling right. I think there's two N's and two L's.

Maria Connolly:

And an O in the middle.

Garry Schleifer:

An O in the middle, a couple of them, and your email is Maria@ newwayscenter. com. That's N-E-W-A-Y-S-C-E-N-T-E-R. com, and you can always check out her website, newwayscenter. com. Yes, awesome, thanks again for being here.

Maria Connolly:

Thank you so much, Garry.

Garry Schleifer:

That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app t hat got you here. Please take a moment to rate this episode and leave a comment. It's helpful for us. If you're not a subscriber, you can always sign up for a free digital issue of c hoice Magazine by going to choice-online. com and clicking the Sign Up Now button, or get it right here using your camera and scan that QR code. There you go. Our mission is to get a copy of c hoice Magazine into the hands of every coach on the planet. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery. Thanks again, M aria.

Maria Connolly:

Thank you.