1. At Play in the Fields of Coaching: An Experiential Narrative Workshop
University of Bristol, UK
December 11, 2010
David Drake
draft 2
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

2. To apprehend the process, we have to move into a different state of being— one which is simultaneously inside and outside, participant and observer, analyst and artist.
Allan Kaplan
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

3. SITUATION (Curiosity)
Walking the path you’ve taken
Creating resonance and dissonance
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

4. What is narrative coaching?
People reveal themselves in small, unrelated fragments; to understand them we have to step back so that the distance permits us to discern larger patterns and shapes.
Mandy Aftel
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

5. How did you get here?
Ten of the world’s major cities will be posted around the room in proper geographic alignment as if we were looking down on a flat world map.
Stand where you were born; close your eyes and notice what images, sensations, stories, words come up for you; when you are ready, walk to the next location on the map where you lived. Do this in silence, paying close attention to your body and taking brief notes as you go.
Continue to walk to between the key places where you have lived until you reach the present moment. As you move, pay attention to what it was like to leave one place and arrive in another.
Once everyone is done, look at your notes to get a sense for the gestalt of it. Pair up and share the highlights of your stories, the experience of retracing your steps, and how it seems for you in the moment.
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

6. Activity: Neuroscience and narrative
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

7. Connecting neuroscience and narrative
Work in pairs to help each other to tell more of the whole story by asking questions that invite him/her to access both the left and right hemispheres (particularly the non-dominant one).
Share in groups of four: (1) what you noticed as the teller about how your story was different in the end and (2) what you noticed as the listener about the questions you asked.
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

8. Higher brain Right brain Left brain WHOLE STORY Lower brain
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

9. ALL THE TRUE VOWS All the true vows are secret vows the ones we speak out loud are the ones we break. There is only one life you can call your own and a thousand others you can call by any name you want. Hold to the truth you make every day with your own body, don’t turn your face away. Hold to your own truth at the center of the image you were born with. Those who do not understand their destiny will never understand the friends they have made nor the work they have chosen nor the one life that waits beyond all the others. By the lake in the wood in the shadows you can whisper that truth to the quiet reflection you see in the water. Whatever you hear from the water, remember, it wants to carry the sound of its truth on your lips. Remember, in this place no one can hear you and out of the silence you can make a promise it will kill you to break, that way you’ll find what is real and what is not. I know what I am saying. Time almost forsook me and I looked again. Seeing my reflection I broke a promise and spoke for the first time after all these years in my own voice, before it was too late to turn my face again. David Whyte
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

10. Being mindful enough to notice Working with what emerges draft 2
SEARCH (Courage)
Being mindful enough to notice
Working with what emerges
draft 2
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

11. Using your body as an instrument
Know a story’s parts Be a mindful PRO
Internal External
Situation Pause Trust emergence
Search Relax Listen deeply
Shift Open Speak the truth
Observers journal about what is happening
in the field between the two people
PRO is based on the work of Gregory Kramer
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

12. Helping yourself in the moment
Drop down within your body/heart as a coach when you feel disconnected, distracted, lost/confused by what the coachee is saying, or uncertain what the coachee is feeling.
Move up within your mind as a coach when you feel triggered by the coachee, reacting from old habits, when you need to put words to the images/sensations you’re experiencing, or when you need to shift the frame of the conversation.
adapted from Louis Cozolino
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

13. Working with one of your clients
Coachee: Tune in to your subjective experience as you talk about a client (experience) you found challenging
Coach: Notice what is reverberating in you as you listen to the verbal communication and experience the nonverbal communication
Compare notes when you’re done
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

14. as our stories will take us.
We can only go as far
as our stories will take us.
David Drake
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

15. Experiencing the narrative field
Two people have a coaching experience while the observers note key words, phrases or gestures that resonate for them
The observers then spend 5-10 minutes journaling about whatever comes up for them about one of their ‘marked’ items
In pairs, share about what you have written, helping the other person to distill what he/she wrote to its essence, and then write it as a word, phrase and/or image on a piece of paper
The papers are placed in the centre of the room and then the coachee—with the coach’s support—is invited to notice any patterns, assemble the pieces into a larger narrative, and share what he/she thinks it means.
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

16. All things in good time . . .
I remembered one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the bark of a tree, just as the butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life.
The case opened, the butterfly started slowly crawling out and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them. Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath. In vain. It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of its wings should be a gradual process in the sun. Now, it was too late.
My breath had forced the butterfly to appear all crumpled before its time. It struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in the palm of my hand. That little body is, I do believe, the greatest weight on my conscience. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

17. SHIFT (Confidence) Using the Narrative Diamond to listen
Working with central metaphors
Integrating your experiences
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

18. Elements of the Narrative Diamond
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

19. Using the Narrative Diamond
Focus What is listened for Goal of listening
Narrator What IS being said Empathy for fellow human
Story What IS NOT being said Agenda for change
Characters What WANTS to be said Vision for new options
Field What is being said DIFFERENTLY Structure for new behaviour
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

20. Working with metaphors, images, etc.
Welcome the presenting issue or goal
Midwife the stories that emerge
Track their themes and patterns
Identify a guiding metaphor or image (or idea, emotion, object, gesture, etc.)
Work with it in the field
Help the person to cross the threshold to the other side and the deeper meaning of the story
Mind mapping the stories that come
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

21. Example: Bill’s story (ten minutes)
Presenting issue: We just moved
Stories: Description of move
Themes: Smaller space, giving away
Guiding image: Boxes
Image in the field: Unpacking
Threshold: Recognition of anticipatory grief related to his wife’s ill health
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

22. Some principles for your practice
Consider taking a more non-directive approach with people — focusing more on real-time attention to their narrative process and content.
Provide both an interpersonal structure and a narrative structure in which people can safely and fully engage with their stories.
Trust that people will begin where they are ready and the critical themes will emerge in time regardless of which stories they share first.
Put more emphasis on generating experiences and less on rushing to interpretation, meaning, or action.
Take a kaleidoscopic view of people’s situation and stories.
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

23. What is narrative coaching now?
Part of this work is helping people to turn problems into paradoxes by surfacing false dualities — so that the energy currently stuck there can be freed for new uses.
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

24. What resonates in and for you now?
David B Drake, PhD • Center for Narrative Coaching • •
Drake & Congram Narrative Workshop • Bristol

25. For more information David B Drake, PhD Center for Narrative Coaching
(Sydney)
© 2010 David B Drake, PhD
David B. Drake, PhD