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Understanding Green Space Coaching.
17 Plays8 days ago
You have just had a long hard day at work. You are exhausted. You could take the short walk home. Instead, you take the longer route through the park. Somehow you arrive home not feeling as worn-out as you did when you left work.
The question is why.
In this episode of The Independent Minds Michael Millward finds out from London’s Green Space Coach Karen Liebenguth of Parcival coaching why being in green spaces can make us feel relaxed and re-energised.
Coaching will work in any environment, but for some people, and some situations green space coaching can be the best solution, because it creates a more constructive coaching experience and more workable outcomes.
We may use say ‘a walk in the park’ to describe something as easy, but just because green space coaching takes place in a park does not mean it is easy. Karen explains how to make the coaching run smoothly and is free from distractions.
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Find out more about both Michael Millward and Karen Liebenguth at Abeceder.co.uk
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Transcript
Introduction to The Independent Minds
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencaster. Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abecedah and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone. I'm your host, Michael Millward, the managing director of Abecedah.
Introducing Karen Liebengut and Green Space Coaching
00:00:27
Speaker
Today, I'm going to be finding out about green space coaching with Karen Liebengut, who is one of London's top green space coaches and runs a company called Percival.
00:00:41
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, the independent minds is made on Zencaster. Zencaster is the all in one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to all of the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and YouTube Music.
00:01:01
Speaker
Zenkaster really does make making content so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zenkaster, visit zenkaster.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code ABACEDA. All the details are in the description.
00:01:18
Speaker
Now that I've told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading, and subscribing to. As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
Understanding Green Space Coaching
00:01:36
Speaker
Today, as I said, my guest Independent Mind is Karen Liebengut, who runs Percival Coaching in London. Hello, Karen.
00:01:46
Speaker
Hello, Michael. Lovely to be here. I'm really pleased that you could you could make the time available. I know you're very busy. but Could we start by you explaining what green space coaching is? Yeah, thank you. I already like the first question very much. Coaching clients while walking in London's green spaces and London's parks is something that I feel very passionate about and that I enjoy very much.
00:02:19
Speaker
It's very simple. I take my coaching clients on the walk and talk outdoors in London's green spaces. We walk on the land, I like to say, on the grass of the path to create a real experience of being in green space in nature on the earth and to create a confidential space because often on the path and parks there's other people And when we walk across the land, and across the grass, there is some space around the coaching ah conversation. Very interesting. I think we'll talk about being on the grass and not on the path you know in a moment, but I'm also intrigued about the name of your company. You've named your company after one of King Arthur's Knights from the round table. Yeah, Parseval.
00:03:09
Speaker
Why did you select that particular night? It goes back to my teenage hood when we read the story of Parseval in school and I was fascinated by it and Just a few years later, a well-known German author rewrote the story of Parseval. And he is, as you said, one of King Arthur's knights. And Parseval is the equivalent of Lancelot in Britain. Parseval is more known and in Germany. I've always felt attracted to his journey. So all of King Arthur's knights go on a journey in search of the holy grail.
00:03:52
Speaker
and to find the holy grail they have to overcome all sorts of challenges and obstacles and mature as men. Often they set out as young men and they have to mature, learn about themselves, learn about life, learn about other people. It's been my own journey in my life and it's what my clients undergo if you like when they are ready for coaching. They go on a journey with me with themselves and look at themselves and learn about themselves get to know themselves better so they can live more the life they want to live be more in the world in the way they want to be in the world so that gave me the idea of calling my business passable because it's about the journey of
00:04:40
Speaker
maturing as a person of integration, of taking responsibility for one's life and living it in the way we want to live it. There's some very important words in there really, isn't there? So they jump out at me a little bit, but how did you become
Karen's Journey to Coaching
00:04:56
Speaker
a coach? What was that what was your journey to becoming a green space coach? Yeah, just like Parseval being unhappy with with my life, with myself feeling underconfident, wanting something else.
00:05:12
Speaker
um somehow already knowing that more was possible in my life, that there was more to my life than I was experiencing. And I didn't have the confidence and I wasn't in kind relationship with myself. I was very self-critical, had very high expectations of myself. And I think it was in my early 30s that I really came up against myself, being in a job that I didn't want to do anymore.
00:05:42
Speaker
And I knew I had to do something about it that nobody else could do it for me. And a good friend suggested that I looked into coaching initially for myself, to explore myself, to find out about myself. And that's what I did. And this was already in London. I came to London in 2001, worked for a big corporate company for three years. And felt deeply unhappy and dissatisfied with myself and I did a coaching weekend initially really for myself. It was life-changing. I decided after that weekend that I wanted to do the whole coaching training to learn more about myself and to become a better
00:06:30
Speaker
team leader, I was heading up a team at the time. I wanted to also be in better relationship and communication with my team members. That was the beginning of my coaching journey initially for myself. And then I did the whole training and then it became clear that that is what I wanted to share with others. Sounds great. I wonder how many thousands of people there are listening. I like to think I've got a big audience, but I wonder how many thousands of people are listening who could say that what you were saying about not being happy at work, just not being happy with with life in your 30s actually resonates with with that number of people. We all go through those sorts of stages at some point in our life. And the difference I suppose is that some people do something about it.
00:07:20
Speaker
One of the words that jumped out at me from what you were saying was responsibility and how you had to take responsibility for the situation you were in and responsibility for getting you out of that situation.
Core Elements of Coaching and Personal Growth
00:07:33
Speaker
Then when you were explaining the coaching experience was that's what coaching helps someone do, I suppose is help someone to accept responsibility for the now and the responsibility for what is going to happen in the future.
00:07:48
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. I think in that sort of summary, I suppose, although it's very easy to roll off the tongue, we've actually, i've I've actually sort of said that in many ways that like, if you go into a coaching type situation, because it's about responsibility, it's about change. It's not going to be an easy experience, is it?
00:08:13
Speaker
No, it never is. And that's very much reflected in the journey of Parseval and a hugely challenging ah journey he goes on and a real awakening because one of his biggest challenges is, and by the way, Parseval is an archetypal figure It's not really about possible being masculine or man. It applies to all people. It's an archetypal figure that is beyond the masculine or feminine men, women. It applies to all people. the The biggest challenge he has is the realization that
00:08:53
Speaker
he has to take responsibility for his life, that it's up to him, that there was nobody who could do it for him. Because initially, at the beginning of the story, he shows up at King Arthur's port and says, in quite an arrogant way, and naively, of course, I want to be one of your knights, thinking that he has nothing to do for it, that it will just happen.
00:09:23
Speaker
sort of a sort of entitlement or righteous indignation that he can show up and it will all happen for him. And he had to learn that it's his task to earn his place in King Arthur's court and that he had to make an effort for it and learn some lessons. And that is very much about all our journey, that living life well and living life with meaning and giving ourself meaning requires each one of us to take responsibility to look at ourselves honestly and to make an effort. And I think sometimes many people think life should be easy. There's no law in the universe that says life
00:10:12
Speaker
should be easy or is easy life isn't easy life is hugely complex it's tragic and it's also full of beauty and good stuff the willingness i think in our life the willingness to make an effort the willingness to look at ourselves for who we are, including all the bits that we don't like so much. That's hugely challenging and also hugely rewarding when we begin to do it with kindness and we drop the burden of our self judgments, which gets most in the way of living well, our self judgments and critical attitude towards ourselves. It's interesting that you say that there is an expectation almost that life is going to be easy. Because one of the expressions that we use to describe something that is easy is it's a walk in the park. As if it's just, you know, it's just a walk in the park. It's so easy. Anyone can do it type of thing. And then thinking about what you're saying and that expression and then the green space coaching. It's sort of like we're talking about being in a coaching environment, but being something that can be both physically and emotionally draining.
00:11:24
Speaker
And yet you choose to do it in the park, in the green spaces. Yeah, I do it outside in nature because the outer space creates more inner space.
Nature's Role in Coaching
00:11:35
Speaker
We are part of nature. We forget about it. We are we come from nature. As soon as people arrive in the park, often they make a big sigh of relief or release. And it always shows me that they've sort of come home to themselves, to their own nature. Being outdoors creates more space for everything to be there, for our experience to be there. We walk side by side, we walk on the land, on the grass.
00:12:04
Speaker
It's grounding, it slows us down, it's calm, it calms the nervous system. And often people say walking alongside the court feels less intimidating, creates more space to talk things through. Also, it feels easier to be silent outside to just walk.
00:12:23
Speaker
in silence to let things sink in. There's more space for reflection, for letting things resonate, for drawing on deeper layers of knowing outside, because we are more embodied So walking outside always helps us to drop out of the head and more into the body, into the heart. When you're talking about the green space reconnecting us with nature, the thing that came to mind was that if we're at home in an office, a workplace, wherever it is,
00:12:56
Speaker
There are things around us that are man-made, artificial, and that reconnection with nature. If you have a meeting in your office, it's like your office is a corner office, not a corner office, it's got a big window, it's got two windows, all sorts of things inside the office, inside your home.
00:13:15
Speaker
are the labels that you attach to yourself to tell the world who you are. Whereas when you connect with nature, when your feet are on the grass, there's no barrier between you and the grass.
00:13:31
Speaker
It is very leveling, very humbling in lots of ways. You are you can be very aware of both how important you are and how insignificant you are within the the realm of nature.
00:13:48
Speaker
yeah Yeah, you have that put so beautifully humble. It's an experience that I had when I went on a holiday in a big part of the holiday was it was trip across North Africa and we're in the Sahara desert. You picture this landscape is made up of these really small grains of sand, but there are billions upon billions upon billions of these grains of sand which make up this desert. And you stand there barefoot feeling the sand through your feet and you become very much aware or at least I did of how big nature is in compared to me in my corporate career and how in the office how important I was and blah blah blah blah blah and then you're in nature and you
00:14:34
Speaker
To say the power of nature is the wrong way to describe it, it's it's almost like how we fit in, but we're not bigger than that combination of the grains of sand or the horizon or the the clouds in the sky or the thousands of leaves on a tree.
00:14:52
Speaker
You can walk through some of the parks in London and they're very convenient shortcuts and you're going from A to B. But when you talk about coaching as a journey, it's worth stopping and taking in your surroundings and allowing your surroundings to interact with you. I get the feeling that like green space coaching must involve simply just allowing the green space to, well, allowing yourself to and so to absorb the green space.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah, very much. Often clients arrive on autopilot out of their busy day into the session and often walk quite fast and that's how we often start.
00:15:39
Speaker
by me inviting us to slow down, to have a look around, to feel the feet on the earth. And clients really like that invitation and often say, ah, they're not even aware how fast paced they were. The slowing down slows down, slows down the nervous system, the heart rate. Sometimes I invite people to just pause, to stand, to really take in their surroundings, even to name four things they see and to rest a little while on each thing, particularly when people feel stressed and are very caught up in their head, which many people are thinking, overthinking, analyzing. Of course we need to think. We spend too much time in the head, not enough time connected to the body and what's
00:16:33
Speaker
actually going on inside and so slowing down looking around connecting to the senses seeing what we see hearing what we hear also the invitation to listen for birds people love it often they spend no time doing that in their life when they walk through a park as you said i actually it would invite everyone even on their way to work or through a park even if that if if it's just to get somewhere to slow down a little bit and too open to the gaze and to let in nature. It's so beneficial for us, so soothing and also of course gives a different sense of perspective immediately because as you said we are so insignificant in some ways compared to the vastness of nature and the earth
00:17:29
Speaker
in the big scheme of things. The Earth, of course, is also very small in the scheme of
Modern Challenges: Separation and Belonging
00:17:35
Speaker
the cosmos. but Of course, it connects us to ourselves, it connects us to our surroundings, it gives us grounding, it gives us a sense of belonging, a sense of place, a sense of being part of something bigger than o ourselves. Yes, that sense of being being part of something that is bigger than ourselves, I think is very important.
00:17:56
Speaker
that is a connection to the spiritual, if you want to call it that spirituality has nothing to do with religion, but it points to something that is more than us, which also then allows us to feel into the interconnectedness of all life, which again in itself is very grounding because often in our modern life we have a sense of separation, we feel separate also because of our individualistic lifestyle. I was just going to say that that was
00:18:32
Speaker
What was going through my mind? We talk about, we are talking about how being in nature, taking your socks and shoes off and actually feeling the earth, feeling the grass beneath your feet, connects us to the greater the greater world and how we connect into that, how that connects with us.
00:18:51
Speaker
And yet most of our modern life is about being an individual. It's about how wonderful I am or how terrible my life is rather than how do I fit into everything? Where do I come from? Where am I going? What's my journey going to be?
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, where where's my place? That's one of the biggest questions today. You know, what is my place in society? What is my place in this community? And of course, we all long for that. It's one of the greatest longing mean of our time. What is my place in my community? What is my place here on this in this world? And this comes from the sense of separation because we have lost communal living. yeah we We are social beings and we most of the time of humanity we spend in close-knit communities. The way we live today, that is only, you know, has only happened for five minutes, if you like. And we suffer from it, a great deal. I think we do. And I think, though, that we talk about how the process works and how being in green space, connecting with the green space,
00:20:03
Speaker
is a great catalyst for a different type of conversation, a different type of coaching experience, which is much more organic, I suppose, um in many ways more holistic and organic. What sort of success stories can you tell us about?
Comparing Outdoor and Traditional Coaching
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah, lovely question. There are many. In some ways, Micah, they are not so different from perhaps other coaching success stories. Because I always want to say this, um that coaching outdoors is is a very, very conducive way of doing inner work, of doing change work, doing personal and professional development work. That can happen indoors as well and online. I just want to be very clear about it. I think coaching is a fantastic, very powerful practice for personal and professional development.
00:21:00
Speaker
invaluable, I think, if one takes one's life seriously. I can understand what you mean there. Yeah. And coaching outdoors, I think, creates very, very conducive conditions to the change process, because it's a much more embodied way of change, if you like, of the process of change, because it connects us very easily to the physical body when we walk outside in nature, in the fresh air. It connects us to the heart, emotions, it connects us to the mind, our thinking. And all our work we do outdoors in the coaching comes much more from the whole body rather than the head. I think if we sit indoors or online, the coach has to work harder to help the client be embodied, if you like.
00:21:53
Speaker
to access all of them. So that's great advantage of working outside while walking, while moving. You're going to understand the element of of movement and how, because you are moving, your body is going to be more active and as a result there will be oxygen, etc., fueling your brain as well.
00:22:12
Speaker
Have you found that green space coaching works better with some people than with others? And when somebody is deciding, okay, I think a coach would, or a coaching experience would be what I need at the moment, how would they work out for themselves whether green coaching was right
Adapting Coaching to Client Needs
00:22:31
Speaker
for them? Do you see people who, a type of person who who finds it more successful than another type of person?
00:22:39
Speaker
know is my short answer. I only once had someone a client with ADHD, which I often get because nature is very grounding for people who have ADHD. I'm definitely someone who attracts people who benefit from being outdoors because it's very grounding and calming. yeah I once had a woman who said immediately to me that she loves being outside, but she needs to be still, that walking is too distracting for her. And so what I offered to her was, let's go on a walk and let's find a spot that works for you where we can sit. And this was in the summer, which worked very well. And we found a spot by the lake. We have a lake in Victoria Park that had a little jetty
00:23:32
Speaker
where we could sit and was perfect and that's where we met each time she came and it was exactly the right spot for her, her sit spot where we could sit together next to each other and we looked, we didn't sit opposite each other, we would sit next to each other and we would both look over the water over the lake and that was very calming for her and that was exactly right. There is a theory about sitting next to each other rather than opposite each other which is that it's less there' you remove the confrontation it's you remove almost an element of you're talking to another person and you're talking but yes you almost could be talking to yourself. I've heard it recommended as as a technique for parents if they want to have a conversation
00:24:19
Speaker
with their child and especially with their teenager if they're on the school run in the car ah or walking to school with them is because you're beside them. It's less confrontational for the person who might want to tell you something that they're embarrassed about or worried about. It breaks down at another one of those barriers. I totally get the idea of wanting just to be still and let nature sort of wash over you and whether that's lying in the grass, sitting on a bench, sitting on a jetty, wherever it is, I totally get that.
00:24:49
Speaker
But I know there will be other people as well who will be thinking, oh, I can walk the dog and you have a coaching session at the same time. um Do you, do you have coaching sessions in the green space with, with the dog? Generally not. Sometimes people ask me, can I bring my dog? And I always say, find out for yourself, bring your dog.
00:25:10
Speaker
see whether it works for you. Generally from my experience I would say it doesn't work so well because the focus then becomes on the dog rather than on more on yourself. So this really I think is time for yourself I would say to the client.
00:25:27
Speaker
And I had someone, they usually clients get it immediately and say, Oh, no, no, no. I leave for my dog at home. I had once a client who brought that dog and she immediately realized that it wasn't the best idea that it was distracting. You have to worry about what the dog is doing.
00:25:42
Speaker
And I suppose as well that dogs become the subject of conversation. it's that's right you You meet lots of people because they've got a dog and you've got a dog or or you can pass a comment about a dog and start a conversation with a complete stranger and it's possible so I get the the presence of the dog becomes a distraction from the issue that you're trying to to and uncover and resolve. In the end it's the client's choice, what they what's best for them and I'm always keen that people find out for themselves that they experience
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:26:14
Speaker
what's best. I think that's that that's a really good point as well. And I know in this space of time, we only have so much to time to be able to talk about it and explore all these issues, but it is a really fascinating area for coaching and one that I think possibly more people should explore. But um it's certainly been a very interesting conversation, Karen. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time.
00:26:40
Speaker
Thank you very much for having me. I enjoyed it too. Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the managing director of Abecedah, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Karen Liebengut, a green space coach from Percival in London. and You can find out more about both of us at abocido.co.uk. There is a link in the description. I do, after talking to Karen, feel very much more relaxed. You've got a great way of, Karen, your voice is very relaxing and at the end of a long day, and before we started the recording, I was telling you how
00:27:19
Speaker
hectic my afternoon had been, but talking to you in this conversation I do feel very much more relaxed than I did at the start. So thank you very much. I really do appreciate that. Thank you.
00:27:32
Speaker
Thank you very much. If you are listening to the independent minds on your smartphone, you may like to know that 3 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data. So listening on 3 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:27:56
Speaker
The description also includes links to all of the websites that we have mentioned in this episode of The Independent Minds. I'm sure you will have enjoyed this episode of The Independent Minds, so please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe.
00:28:17
Speaker
Remember the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abecedah is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. All that remains for me to say is until the next episode of The Independent Minds. Thank you for listening and goodbye.