Impactful Integration (Part Four): AI-Generated Visual Metaphors for Sustainable Change in Coaching - Case Study Two
Using digital images to support clients in their integration after a somatic coaching session.
For the past few months I have been working on a project using digital images, generated by an AI tool, to support clients in their integration after a somatic coaching session.
Catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 where I cover the background of the project, the symbolic resonance of visuals and why integration is such a key part of the coaching process.
Part 3 is the first case study, retelling Ruth’s session and her image on Reframing Time.
This is Part 4. Introducing Molly and the journey to meet her Earth Goddess.
Case Study Two: The Earth Goddess
Here’s where Molly began, “I’m in a process right now of trying to tease out what part of my personality is the survival bit, and what is true self. What those look like and to appreciate when the more curated side comes up.”
At the start of her session, in a calm and measured voice but with eagerness to share, Molly described two sides of her personality. The first: the Survivor. The side of her who makes people laugh, who has been taught to bring joy and silliness and punchlines. Someone who was created out of necessity, and being her takes up a lot ‘survival’ energy.
The other side of her: her true self, her Earth Goddess. That Molly is peaceful and quiet. She is more connected to the earth, and knows what her body’s true pace looks like. Molly tells me about her history of being housebound for many years due to illness and in that time having to work carefully with her depleted energy budget. During this chapter though, she discovered the attunement she felt in her garden. “This real noticing of inner energy and inner source, just being in line with the stillness and slowness of nature.”
The fast paced comedic performer had no place here and Molly dived into recalibrating in nature.
Molly’s questions, for the coaching session, then became:
How can I honour both of these sides of me, the Survivor and the Earth Goddess?
How can I have more choice in who leads?
Is the Earth Goddess (or true self) enough without the Survivor?
As you will see, through Molly’s visual landscape Molly found a way to invite these parts of her to work together.
Focussing Inwards
We used the body-oriented coaching tool of Focussing, where Molly closes her eyes and searches internally for felt sensations that arise when she asks the questions she wants answers for (see Glossary for full explanation).
Molly’s Focussing began with this feeling of expansion in her chest which got bigger and bigger. She could hear the birds on the feeder in front of her. She wanted to simply sit with this new expansive sensation that was now stretching out into parts of her body. She seemed to be transported to another world, somewhere with the capacity to heal. It was an inviting realm where she wanted to bring people.
There was bird song, water flowing, grass rustling. Molly had a sense that this space was inviting her to be a part of it but not in control of it.
Where is the Survivor was right now? She explained that it’s too much of a juxtaposition imagining that part of her in this other world. The rhythms don’t fit.
What might she say to her Survivor? The words came to Molly, “I’m so appreciative. Everything that was done to keep me alive. I truly love the gifts that have come out of the place of survival.”
She didn’t want the Survivor to rest, she said she was useful and necessary but just not in this realm. “Finding a new job for her might be what she needs. A slower job maybe, some transition for her.”
As we came out of the Focussing and reflected, Molly said she felt supported and comfortable in that landscape. As she looked around her now with her eyes opened the room felt clear and refreshing.
She could take things in around her. “I am not poised for someone else’s benefit.”
I invited Molly to savour the words she just spoke. Even inviting her to touch herself with one hand to ‘be with’ that new understanding as it lands in the body. As a body-oriented coach, I encourage clients to find and anchor new learnings in this way. Connecting mind to body. It’s a way to embed new learnings, and a place to go back to outside of the coaching room. A Resource. A continued embodied experience which supports this ‘neural shift’ that was taking place in the coaching room (i.e. a new neural pathway forming).
I left Molly savouring this with a hand on her chest, as some self-touch anchoring.
Private Integration
Before we met again Molly shared the following with me, “As I sat with the experience there was a lovely exchange between the curated (sarcastic, performer) survival part and the earth/nature goddess part. It was a “passing of the crown”. I got to feel the first (survivor performer) part genuinely calm at the passing of the torch. Her true sense of “retirement”, but not exclusion, sat so comfortably in my skin and there was a sense of her feeling honored to pass the torch onto the true owner of it. What a gift to be able to witness and experience that embodied handoff! I’ve worked with these two parts for quite some time and they’ve danced so close to this moment but never quite made it to the genuine, honoring embodied moment.”
The integration had begun and the visual landscape was supporting Molly doing this work for herself.
I knew it would be important to incorporate this aspect of ‘passing the torch’. Although I had begun work on the image I began to build in this handover element. Survivor to Earth Goddess.
Molly’s Somatic Integration Visual
We re-met and after inviting Molly to come into some mindful presence in her body I pulled the image up.
Molly broke into a smile and was quiet, soaking in her visual. Closing her eyes she revisited this landscape and invited a new part of herself into the realm. She has previously worked with these parts of her with her psychotherapist (under the modality of Internal Family Systems), and a familiar warrior part of her entered the scene. Oxana, as she calls this warrior, rarely drops her weapons but in this landscape she felt safe to do so.
Oxana even started to play with the survivor self. Molly felt a softening in her belly which has never happened before. “I felt this sensation creeping into areas of my body solidifying slowly throughout.” She was somatically resonating with her brain’s visuals.
Molly explained that, due to her past trauma, she’s felt a detachment to this world, but this experience and connecting with the Earth Goddess allowed her to feel, “a part of this”.
She could sense into the Earth Goddess like a mother looking after the different parts of her, the Survivor and the Warrior. Allowing them to play.
I purposefully use the word ‘sense’ over ‘feel’ because with ‘feel’ we can get caught up in emotions quickly. Part of building better embodied self-awareness (as opposed to just conceptual, or thinky/all in the mind, self-awareness) is to get more familiar with our body’s sensations. Spot them more easily and allow them to be there as fully as they need to be.
Molly described the experience as, “mind blowing”. It had not just deepened her understanding of herself but connected the dots in ways she’d not managed before. She likened the experience to a ketamine-induced ‘trip’. Essentially describing the experience like she was high: going somewhere else deeply personal and resonant, and hard to describe.
Molly’s Integration in her Therapy
“I could tell that a big shift had happened. I had been working with parts previously but it was always a matter of ‘who is taking on the host’ and now Earth Goddess means I have stability, calm and can stay in control.”
Molly later told me that the Earth Goddess figure has been helpful in her maintaining a secure framework when she’s working with her therapist. This is within a modality called Internal Family Systems (developed by Richard Schwartz). Molly explained that usually when a part of her is surfacing and clamouring for attention she can get dysregulated, and she lets this part flood her completely. However, now she has the Earth Goddess structure (which represents her true self), she is able to use her as a Resource to stay calm so that she can continue exploring her emotions with her therapist.
Finding Resources are invaluable in the process of improving your embodied self-awareness. Resources can be things like going to nature, speaking with a good friend, dancing, breathing, carving alone time, journaling. Resources can also be internal felt senses that are resourceful for you (we can gather these when we do more somatic activities and healing). What I started to realise was these Somatic Integration Visuals can also become Resources! As was happening for Molly.
She is also demonstrating how having a tangible visual allows Molly to distance from the emotions associated to the issue she came to therapy with. It allows her to acknowledge what is arising but remain curious. In order to continue the therapeutic work.
She now has an ability to stay present and calm (in embodied self-awareness) so that she can continue figuring things out. A door has opened for Molly in this way. One that she eagerly stepped through.
Stay tuned for the next case studies, following three more clients and the co-creation of their Somatic Integration Visuals.
Part 5: Case study 3 — Swarming Flies
Part 6: Case study 4 — At a Crossroads
Part 7: Case study 5 — The Artist’s Store Room
Just itching to try this out?? You can book a somatic coaching session with me via this link: So you want to get somatic?
Lastly but by no means leastly… I have been invited to showcase the Somatic Integration Visuals, and their related case studies, at the upcoming DAR Fest exhibition in Brussels from 1–25 Feb 2024 at the Octopus Heart Center.
Happen to be in Belgium? Come check it out! Event details are here. You can catch me doing a live Q&A on 17 Feb at 5.30pm.
Somatic Integration Visuals - Glossary
Block: Refers to the ‘issue’ (or area of the client’s life or specific problem) that the client is stuck on. Something the client can’t seem to move past, no matter what they try.
Bodymind: We are integrated neuro-psycho-biological beings! in somatic modalities we don’t treat the conceptual thinky mind as separate from the embodied experience of life. We invite our clients to show up as an integrated whole.
Embodied Self-awareness: The holistic understanding of yourself through physical sensations and experiences of the body. Being conscious of your body's movements, feelings, and presence in space, and recognising how these physical sensations relate to your emotions, thoughts, and overall sense of self.
Focussing: A body-oriented coaching tool the client is invited to focus on any internal sensations that arise. The client names these ‘felt senses’, without meaning making. The aim is to understand how these sensations are connected to their emotional state or life situation. We dig to find the story behind the story which can be told by these subtle clues in sensations in the body. By naming the sensations this helps the client ‘disidentify’ with them. The client listens to the data held in their body and this can lead to insights in how they view their situation, or even resolutions to problems.
Integration: intentional incorporation of new insights into your lived experience. It isn’t necessarily an action-based process. It’s more about incorporating, merging with, activating, embedding, unifying and even empowering something you are newly learning about yourself. In a holistic and intentional way. It’s ‘being with’ this new understanding and letting it, on an embodied level, sink into your being.
Resource: These are invaluable in the process of improving your embodied self-awareness. Resources can be things like going to nature, speaking with a good friend, dancing, breathing, carving alone time, journaling. Resources can also be internal felt senses that are resourceful for you (we can gather these when we do more somatic activities and healing).