Coaching Outdoors Episode 3 - Karen Liebenguth

The sun is shining as Karen Liebenguth, coach and mindfulness teacher joins us from her outdoor office in Victoria Park, East London.Karen transports us back to the start of her coaching journey and gives an insight into breaking out of the confines of her office in a health centre to working outdoors. During a dawn-to-dusk ‘sit spot’ retreat on her ecotherapy training in Scotland in 2010 she experienced an ‘ah-ha’ revelation that she could take her coaching clients outdoors.   She touches on how the weather and seasons can influence mood and behaviours of both the coach and the client. These observations are illustrated through real coaching scenarios where her client moves through ‘autumnal stuck-ness’ mirrored within their life and shifting resistance from self-criticism and unhappiness against the backdrop of a cold spring day. Karen describes how her work is heavily underpinned by her studies in ecotherapy and ecopsychology where she initially encountered the idea of eco-self from the works of Arne Naess,  John Seed, Joanna Macy and Aldo Leopold. She later discovered Edward Wilsons’ research on biophilia hypothesis and Rachel and Stephen Kaplans’ work on Attention Restoration Theory (ART). Collectively these have given confirmation to her earliest personal experiences. More recently Karen has been inspired by Iain McGilchrist who cites three great estrangements which we all suffer from; our disconnection or alienation from nature and how we all long to life more closely and in union/communion which nature.