Impactful Integration (Part Five): AI-Generated Visual Metaphors for Sustainable Change in Coaching - Case Study Three
Using digital images to support clients in their integration after a somatic coaching session.
For the past few months I have been working on a project using digital images, generated by an AI tool, to support my clients in their integration after a somatic coaching session.
Catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 where I cover the background of the project, the symbolic resonance of visuals and why integration is such a key part of the coaching process.
Part 3 and Part 4 are the first two case studies.
This is Part 5. Our third case study. Introducing Daphne and her Swarming Flies.
Case Study Three: Swarming Flies
Daphne came to me with a Block (In coaching a ‘Block’ refers to the ‘issue’ (or area of the client’s life or specific problem) that the client is stuck on. See Glossary at the end of this Part.)
She complained that she gets sucked into laziness and can see that if she shelters in this safe ‘cocoon’ then she is hiding from the world. Hiding who she is, staying invisible.
She wanted to be released from her cocoon, as a butterfly would. Wanting to ‘actualise’ into a full and beautiful expression of herself. Being visible to the world. She yearned for this feeling of lightness and spaciousness, “Where I can breathe and be myself.”
Daphne was in an inner war between this strong unexplained urge dragging her back into this metaphorical safe place, and her mind telling her ‘enough! Take some action!’.
During our session, she turned inwards and followed the sensations and visuals that were emerging. There was a theme of this cocoon which was a womb-like safety. A membrane that started to move further down her body and break open.
Little flies appeared as a sensation first, prickling in her back. “They are tiny and there are many of them. Happy to be busy, no burden, really in flow, completely flexible, they can be anything they want, they’re together.”
For her they symbolised activity, joy, and a sense of being ‘full of life’. She was smiling, “It feels very revitalising. Agitated in a good way.”
(This is a perfect example of how the symbolic nature of visuals in this work is very personal. Flies to you might symbolise something dirty or even irritating. To Daphne they represented joyful activity! It’s important to stick with whatever resonates with you rather than what others might think. This will be the route to the deeper layer of understanding.)
The flies were juxtaposed with the idea of a stone in her belly. She shared with me that the stone was symbolic of something you can count on but not be dependent on. She said, “Grounded but not attached.” (This phrase becomes very relevant for her.)
(In coaching we trust that the client is creative, whole and resourced all by themselves, a coach is not there to interpret, fix or lead. It’s important for me to follow the client wherever they go. Whatever symbolic language is arising is coming from a place within their subconscious and will mean something to them. Even if it doesn’t resonate with me. )
This is where Daphne mentioned her mother, who had passed away three years ago. The image of her mother as a little bird, keeping busy, was a nurturing presence that formed part of this visual landscape. The relevance of her ancestry ties into her process later on.
As she reflected on this internal world she noted that the relationship between the stone and the flies is something she wanted in her life. She wants to be grounded but not attached, so that she’s free to ‘fly’ and can flourish out in the world. In full visibility. At the moment, she finds herself being airy and not pragmatic, a sense of being lost in her head. Which was keeping her in the comfort of hiding. But that was shifting…
“The stone means I’m safe, I’m ok, I’m good, it’s safe to fly. I have everything I need.”
Could this feeling be what she needed to safely emerge from her cocoon?
Daphne’s Discovery
We re-met a week or so later, and I shared her unique visual on the screen.
“It makes me cry. Lightness and happiness at the same time. The perfect balance.”
She returned to the sense of the stone, “I feel the solidity and the lightness. It feels like I can manage it. I like how it has the shadow too. Feels Like I can take it in my hand and caress it.” It was hers to hold. This was the grounding she needed in order to launch herself out into the world, to be visible.
Without realising, she repeated some of the words from her first session, “Grounded but at the same time not attached.”
The Somatic Integration Visual started to bring insights previously unknown to her, “I feel like I’m carrying stuff with grace and openness. I can carry shadows or heaviness, all the traumas from the past, they are there, when I see the dark flies and greyish tones, they are there present but not stuck.”
The presence of her mother in the representation of the bird moved her, and she noted that she felt connected to patterns in generations before her. “Something that I carry, but I can be more than that.”
She was carrying the burden of generations before her. Having to be a certain way, achieve certain things.
But now? Daphne can be with her history in a liberated way and it was, in her words, “very powerful.”
Daphne’s Integration
As I do at the end of most coaching sessions, I asked what Daphne might take away from this. Asking the client to verbalise whatever learnings have happened helps to integrate them. Even better, as was the case for Daphne, if they can verbalise and feel the new learnings. She said there was a texture in her body of lightness and a new vibrant way of being. She said it was the opposite of being immobilised. She saw the, “possibility of growing, movement, and change. Of going outside my protective shields and boundaries, going beyond.”
Daphne’s initial Block she’d come to coaching with was this war between the safety of hiding herself and her yearning to be more visible in the world. How could she safely become the butterfly that breaks out of the cocoon? She hadn’t realised the weight of what generations before her had passed to her. Keeping her in this place of hiding.
She said, “wow you see that?” She now felt seen by the creation of this image. More than just being seen by me as a coach in our first session, a deeper sense of validation.
She took the image as reinforcement that she was on the right path and that she just needs to follow it now. She realised that she was doing so much thinking about where she was heading and now had this shift in understanding, “Actually I’m already there.” There was a sense of, “There’s nothing more I need to do.”
She left the session wanting to integrate further through some meditation and connecting to herself and noted that this experience felt, “Very important and precious.”
Daphne had moved from grappling with her lack of focus, feeling flighty and not grounded to yearning for the momentum to break free and be visible in the world. She desperately wanted to know her path and be released from these patterns which seemed to have routes in generations before her. Through cultivating the imagery she discovered she had the grounding and safety in her (the stone) in order to mobilise out into the world (like the flies).
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." – Anaïs Nin
Stay tuned for the next case studies, following two more clients and the co-creation of their Somatic Integration Visuals.
Part 6: Case study 4 — At a Crossroads
Part 7: Case study 5 — The Artist’s Store Room
Just itching to try this out?? You can book a somatic coaching session with me via this link: So you want to get somatic?
Lastly but by no means leastly… I have been invited to showcase the Somatic Integration Visuals, and their related case studies, at the upcoming DAR Fest exhibition in Brussels from 1–25 Feb 2024 at the Octopus Heart Center.
Happen to be in Belgium? Come check it out! Event details are here. You can catch me doing a live Q&A on 17 Feb at 5.30pm.
Somatic Integration Visuals - Glossary
Block: Refers to the ‘issue’ (or area of the client’s life or specific problem) that the client is stuck on. Something the client can’t seem to move past, no matter what they try.
Bodymind: We are integrated neuro-psycho-biological beings! in somatic modalities we don’t treat the conceptual thinky mind as separate from the embodied experience of life. We invite our clients to show up as an integrated whole.
Embodied Self-awareness: The holistic understanding of yourself through physical sensations and experiences of the body. Being conscious of your body's movements, feelings, and presence in space, and recognising how these physical sensations relate to your emotions, thoughts, and overall sense of self.
Focussing: A body-oriented coaching tool the client is invited to focus on any internal sensations that arise. The client names these ‘felt senses’, without meaning making. The aim is to understand how these sensations are connected to their emotional state or life situation. We dig to find the story behind the story which can be told by these subtle clues in sensations in the body. By naming the sensations this helps the client ‘disidentify’ with them. The client listens to the data held in their body and this can lead to insights in how they view their situation, or even resolutions to problems.
Integration: intentional incorporation of new insights into your lived experience. It isn’t necessarily an action-based process. It’s more about incorporating, merging with, activating, embedding, unifying and even empowering something you are newly learning about yourself. In a holistic and intentional way. It’s ‘being with’ this new understanding and letting it, on an embodied level, sink into your being.
Resource: These are invaluable in the process of improving your embodied self-awareness. Resources can be things like going to nature, speaking with a good friend, dancing, breathing, carving alone time, journaling. Resources can also be internal felt senses that are resourceful for you (we can gather these when we do more somatic activities and healing).