A Year of Mindfulness: A Group Coaching Model

The profession of coaching has become established as a way to help individuals achieve goals. As such, the use of core coaching skills and competencies in groups or teams that share common objectives is known as group coaching. Whereas in organizational development and workplace settings, group coaching focuses on themes such as effective leadership, diversity training, and team building, recently a new trend is emerging that is the focus of this paper. From integrative and preventative health care the integrative wellness coach has emerged, and so too have groups created to address the goal of increasing health and wellness. The Year of Mindfulness (YOM) program I offer was inspired by this new trend. However, I did not create the program with clarity about the difference between training, facilitation, and coaching. Further, in my research, I discovered several convincing reasons to revise the YOM to more fully align with group coaching. Consequently, several factors including setting ground rules, getting consent, and co-creating agendas should be altered to take advantage of the potential of group coaching and to better realize the goals and intentions of this group.

My main goal in creating the YOM was to offer something low in time commitment but high in quality and longevity to integrate learning in the participants' lives over the long run. The program tuition included 12 monthly group meetings for 3.5 hours each, three dyadic (one-on-one) coaching sessions, and unlimited access to weekly yoga and somatic classes. I incorporated the dyadic coaching for individuals to work on their own goals and be able to apply what they were learning in the group program into their lives, or as Britton (2010) calls it, to make the learning stick. There was no screening process or requirement to be a part of the group; likewise, there was no screening to ascertain if the participants were candidates for coaching.

In my research, I realized that bringing a coaching orientation that each participant is creative, resourceful, and whole provided and modeled empathy and safety for group members to take interpersonal risks and is an essential condition for a successful, productive group. I further discovered that there are some persuasive reasons to use coaching skills more intentionally in this group for it to reach its full potential. I will explore those reasons here and in the last section, share ways to modify my current program, and make recommendations for future groups.

The YOM program was set up as twelve Saturday workshops that each included a lesson on an aspect of mindfulness and health, break-outs into smaller groups for exercises to support the lesson, and group discussions. The lessons and agenda were pre-determined by me, based on the areas I have knowledge and training in. In areas where I do not have training, I hired other experts. I always allowed space and encouraged questions and sharing during the lesson section. Further, I often incorporate active participation during lessons like role-playing, and demonstrations such as heart rate variability training using the EmWave. I also always incorporate experiential and somatic components like body scan, somatic meditations, or walking meditation.

Consent

Though I offered dyadic coaching to the participants, and my interactions were oriented from a coaching perspective, one important element was missing from the onset of the program that would be necessary to implement group coaching: consent. Even when the issues of coaching are not focused on emotions or personal issues, it can be uncomfortable for people to step outside of the normal group training roles many are used to (Brown & Grant, 2010). Consent from group members about what the group process will be like, and their agreement to take part in that process is necessary and contributes to psychological safety and willingness to take interpersonal risks (Edmondson, 1999). In my case, because I did include dyadic coaching, group members were beginning to understand the process and potential of coaching; however, consent will be more explicit at the beginning of future programs.

Setting Ground Rules

Britton (2010) and many of the other coaches she interviewed in her book agree that setting ground rules is another critical practice for group coaching. Inviting the group to create and agree upon rules of engagement and ways of working together at the start of the group fosters a collaborative learning approach. Some examples of ground rules include start and end on time, confidentiality, come fully prepared, focus during the call – turn off email, cell phones, and agreeing to participate fully. In my case I presented “guiding principles” at the beginning of the program.

They were:

• curiosity orgrowth mindset,

• run your own race,

• practice, and

• set micro-goals.

Though my participants liked these principles, and we referred to them often, to align the group with coaching principles, in future groups, I would like to co-create our guiding principles and ground rules.

Co-Creating the Agenda

The third area that would effectively move the group toward coaching, and perhaps the most important, is to invite the agenda to be co-created rather than pre-determined by me. In dyadic coaching, we begin each session anew, with space and trust for that which is waiting to emerge to emerge. Once consent was obtained from all of the group members saying the phrase what do you want to work on today could be the purest application of group coaching. However, to truly harness the power and combined wisdom of the group, and to work from those deeper levels of presence, a group process of discovery may be needed. To more explicitly initiate a process at each of our meetings, I created a Group Discovery Process for a group with the goals of increasing mindfulness and wellness. The steps follow.

Step one: Preparation and Planning

Initiated by the group's interests and suggestions, in a yearlong program, this needs to happen once at the beginning and again at the halfway mark, or more. In a weekend format, this would need to happen before the meeting or at the end of the first day before the second day. This step involves:

• Break out into smaller groups and brainstorm answers to What do you want to learn in this program?

• Have a large flip chart, and ask a person from each group to share what their group came up with. Themes and common interests will emerge.

• Choose one of the common themes and begin a coaching dialogue around that theme to find out what the participants would like to learn and to uncover the underlying motives.

• This can lead to a homework assignment that they will prepare for the next session.

Step two: Grounding

Grounding in the body through somatic exercises like a body scan or slow movement, soft belly breathing, and somatic meditation will bring each participant out of their mental activity so they can access deeper levels of awareness. It can also decrease any somatic tension in their body and anxiety they might be feeling, and it will increase feelings of connection to each other. Note: Don’t forget to reinforce the reasons why this step is important verbally.

Step three: Noting and Sharing.

Noting is a practice we are borrowing from Buddhist meditation. Noting is valuable for moving away from habitual thinking patterns as it teaches us to de-bias away from our patterns (Kerr, Saacchet, Lazar, Moore, & Jones, 2013). As we note thoughts as the thoughts that they are, and emotions as the emotions that they are, and so on, we begin to see that they are equal in value, so this practice starts to decrease our capacity for rumination and fixation on the importance of any one emotion, thought, or sensation (Kerr et al., 2013). This step can involve either leading a noting meditation, allowing for reflection time for journaling, or both. Depending on the group size, people can share what they noted or practice active listening in dyads to share what they noted. Like step two, verbally reinforce the reason for doing this exercise.

Step four: Soak Time

In some ways, this will feel like taking a break from the discovery process. In somatic bodywork we call this kissing the boo-boo. It is an important step in building trust and acknowledging why the individual is there. It is also a powerful tool to build accountability. The group can be invited to reflect on the topic or question they had prepared for the session. If there are prepared resources on the topic, they can be shared now; remember the coach is helping people access both their internal and external resources. This would be the time to use an exercise or demonstration that would be appropriate. As they have been able to experience the grounding and noting of the discovery process they may see what they prepared with different eyes. As participants share, opportunities for coaching dialogues will arise.

Step five: Sticking and Steps

The phrase making it stick is an important part of taking learning forward into life or making it stick. Ask: What comes to mind when you think about applying today’s experience to your life? How will you take this awareness forward into your life? Give the participants time to reflect, and sharing can be in dyads or small groups.

Along the continuum of group processes, inviting this discovery process from the participants moves the coach out of the central role and the group into the center. Organically, in my program, as we have developed trust and intimacy as a group, suggestions have begun to stream in from individual group members. I have one participant who told me that she does not like the long check-ins, which I described above, and have started to love. So this challenged me to find other ways of sharing and growing as a group. I had several members tell me that they wanted to do more somatic work at each session. In response, I learned from them and realized the importance they sensed in grounding the body at each session. So the process of the members creating their own group agenda had already begun.

Conclusion

The Year of Mindfulness (YOM) program I offer was inspired by the skills and competencies I was learning and developing through yoga, somatic practices, and my research. My primary objective in creating the YOM was to offer a quality program that provided long-term support for learning and lasting health change. The program was modeled after mind-body skills groups and other trends in integrative and preventive health care. The content and themes of the group are substantiated by research that supports mind-body integration and stress management to affect health change. As an integrative wellness coach, I brought an orientation that each team member is creative, resourceful, and whole, whether I was acting as a trainer, facilitator, or coach. I believe this orientation fostered an environment of empathy and psychological safety, which has so far contributed to the program's success. However, I did not create the program with clarity concerning the difference between training, facilitation, and coaching.

The differences and similarities between group facilitation and group coaching were analyzed in this article. Group coaching offers unique benefits, some described in the narrative and others listed in an appendix. Learning about these benefits convinced me that the YOM would greatly benefit by making a few adjustments. Two essential practices that will be modified in future programs are creating ground rules for learning and getting consent for group coaching at the program's outset. In addition to those, intentionally co-creating the agenda with the group will be implemented moving forward. Though groups like mine can still encompass training and facilitation, these three elements will ensure a widening application of coaching across broadening domains, hopefully affecting lasting health change of