Susan Britton MCCICF Award-Winning Coach Educator, Neuroscience-Informed ICF/SHRM Coach Training, INSEAD Executive Masters in Change, Advocate for Evolutionary Shift from “Red Zone” to “Blue Zone” for Leaders, Coaches & Fellow Humans

Neuro Coaching Tip: Change, Ambivalence, Life and Death

Name: Neuro Coaching Tip: Change, Ambivalence, Life and Death
Uploaded: 2025-02-12T06:00:11+00:00
Duration: 1 min 8 s
Channel: Susan Britton MCC
Description: In this brief coaching monologue, Susan (with the Academies) shares an insight she had while walking and observing a lotus flower surrounded by decaying…

12 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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1:08

In this brief coaching monologue, Susan (with the Academies) shares an insight she had while walking and observing a lotus flower surrounded by decaying material. She uses the scene as a metaphor for personal growth and change: moving toward a new, vibrant goal (the lotus) often requires acknowledging and releasing what is dying or diminishing. This process creates ambivalence, which she highlights as a natural part of transition. Susan explains that confronting both the emerging life and the dying elements allows the brain to renegotiate its neural networks and meaning‑making maps, ultimately helping a client honor the new direction while saying goodbye to what must end.

Chapters

Susan with the Academies. I'm out walking and I was noticing the things around me, and this caught my attention. I do hope it's showing. It's a lotus flower, and what caught my attention about the lotus flower is that it's surrounded by some dead stuff, and it got me thinking about when we coach people that there will always be some sort of life that they want to move towards, and oftentimes something that's dying or decaying or diminishing or just time to let go. Go of that they need to say goodbye to. But that usually creates some level of ambivalence within people. And so just appreciating what nature provides here in terms of a metaphor or analogy about what we have to explore when we think about moving towards something new— there's often something else that's dying in the process. So exploring both of those things gives the brain a chance to renegotiate all of its neural networks and maps and figure out what is the meaning that I want to put behind that beautiful new lotus flower that I want to move to words, and honor and say goodbye to that which it is time to say goodbye to.