If you’ve been hanging around my community for a while, you know that basically everything I teach and share is related to Depth – I’ve got practitioner training programs named things like Sacred Depths, Advanced Depth, Into the Depths…and my organization’s name is Applied Depth Institute.I am really obsessed and geeky when it comes to going deep!
And I can say without hesitation that the success and sustainability of my business have been built first and foremost on depth.
(And my guess is that if you’re here in this community, you are a depth geek too…even if you don’t know it yet!).
But…why is it important as a transformational practitioner [& entrepreneur] to go deep?
And also…when should you not go deep? Because there are certain pitfalls to it as well.
Before we even get to these important questions, let’s answer this:
What does Going Deep even mean?
In brief, Going Deep means that as a practitioner, you understand that your clients are going to face challenges, obstacles, blocks, procrastination, self-sabotage, and more as they work towards the goals they’ve hired you to help them achieve.
And along with that, you understand that in order to help your clients with their challenges, obstacles, and blocks – as well as to vision out goals that are true matches with their desires – you cannot stay on the surface. You cannot rely simply on strategizing visions and action steps. You cannot ask each client the same, tired questions. And you cannot stay only on the cognitive levels.
Going Deep means that you are a master of human behavior and transformation skills, and how to hold loving and nurturing space for others.
It means that you know how to ask questions that penetrate the “regular” answers and lead clients to the even more authentic places inside of themselves.
It means that you are skilled at supporting clients – not just cognitively but also somatically – with befriending their fears, and re-wiring their unhelpful belief patterns, and working with their Shadows.
It means that you are an expert at supporting your clients to know and understand, and eventually love their innermost selves and experiences.
The Pitfalls of Going Deep
While I am passionate about teaching practitioners how to go deep, and it is one of my greatest purposes in life, it’s also important to share that, just like with everything in this world, you want to be really intentional about going deep, or else it becomes more of a hindrance than an asset.
Don’t ever simply “go deep” for going deep’s sake.
Go deep at the appropriate moments, or else the client session will just become an interesting, philosophical conversation or fascinating naval gazing…but without true purpose and without forward movement towards your client’s goals.
The other thing is that Going Deep requires training – you don’t want to dive into the waters unless you have the trauma-informed skills to do so.
The Benefits of Going Deep
There are so many benefits of going deep, and it would be untenable to list them all here. But I’ll list some of my favorites. When you go deep you:
- Are better able to help your clients reach their goals
- Support your client to connect important dots in their narratives and histories
- Guide your clients to navigate their fears, shadows, blocks and procrastination
- Create an atmosphere of vulnerability, sacredness, self-compassion and magic
- Help your clients build resilience inside of themselves
- Create experiences and a-has that your clients remember their entire lives
- Feel more satisfied and on purpose with your work
- Become even more connected to yourself & your life force
- Know how to work somatically to create long-lasting change
One of my most passionate missions is to upgrade the coaching and transformational industries that I love so dearly so that surface client work simply doesn’t exist at all anymore and so that all of us are confident that, as practitioners, we have the skills we need to support our clients in all the ways necessary.
I am SO GLAD that you’re here, in the Applied Depth community, as part of this revolution!!
