Coaching and spiritual practices

Recently, I conducted an ICF mentor coaching in which the coach offered the client to end the coaching session with a prayer for the client. As I don’t usually include religious practices in my coaching sessions, I was surprised. Noting my bias against this, I asked our community for their perspectives. We ended up having a lovely meeting wrapping our heads around spiritual practices in coaching. Here are some thoughts that I took from the meeting.

Suppose spiritual practices are integrated into a coaching in a helpful way, what could be the benefits?

Spiritual practices that the client is engaging in in their daily lives might be a great resource for the client. For example, someone who is practicing meditation might think about how meditation may help them to cope with stress. Someone who prays to a higher being might think about what that higher being would notice if they moved closer to what they want in their life.

Spiritual communities can also be of great help to the client. Suppose a client wants to test out new behaviors, for example speaking up more and showing themselves a little more in groups, they might tell their spiritual community about it. In my experience, positive spiritual communities are usually happy to support people on their quests. Feeling connected to others tends to help.

Including the client’s spiritual life in the coaching session might also allow the client to speak about what really matters to them. If the client is connected to a spiritual tradition, they might connect what they value to a story provided by the tradition and to a community who values the same things. For example, a Christian might connect to stories in which Jesus showed kindness to outsiders and use these stories as analogies and metaphors for their own life.

What do we need to take care of to avoid the pitfalls and integrate spiritual practices to the benefit of the client?

I want to focus on what we need to take care of rather than describing the million things that could go wrong here – rest assured, I am aware of them, but listing them all would require a book rather than a blog post.

The client gets to decide whether they want to speak about their spiritual life or not. The coach should not attach any value to either choice of the client: both should be equally fine. I think good practice may be to be open to the client mentioning their spiritual life. When the client does, the coach needs to stay judgement free and curious about how the client’s spiritual life contributes to their sense-making and growth.

Some “spiritual” (and non-spiritual) traditions are exploitative. High demand groups can lock clients into world views that limit their thinking and possibilities for growth. I don’t really know what I would do if I found out that a client was stuck in such a group or world view. And yes, I am noticing that this would always be my hypothesis and my judgement. Probably I would do some soul searching and take supervision sessions to ensure that I can continue coaching responsibly: with curiosity and unconditional positive regard for the client. If not, I would have to refer the person to another coach. But this is a tough one!

If coach and client share the same spiritual practice, they might use it as a resource (like praying together). However, this joint practice also “cements” one world view as the shared one. If we both engage in a practice, this practice is normalized. This might lead to closing avenues for the client if they change their mind or spiritual orientation. Whenever client and coach share a world view, it is important for the coach to remain open to changes the client wants to make.

As you see – this is not an easy topic and we had really interesting conversations in our little meetups comprised of atheist, Christian, Buddhist and Muslim coaches. If you would like to join us for these and other discussions on any topic that you would like to discuss or simply want to meet us, why not join one of our free meetups and exchanges?

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