"I can't recommend Marlena's classes highly enough. She is a masterful teacher and creates a positive class environment where we as students feel at once challenged and safe to step up and try out the tools and skills in class. I have been able to use what I learn in her classes right away in my coaching practice with professionals and executives and they love it. My clients so often get stuck going round and round intellectually and the body coaching approach is a brilliant addition for helping them get out of over thinking mode so they can connect with their true self and own wisdom."

"My work as a coach focuses primarily on work and career. Marlena's course has given me many new ideas and suggestions that will help my clients unlock their limiting beliefs and find work, or ways of working, that play to their strengths and energize them. Marlena's experience is evident in her presentation style, examples and demonstrations – the course is well structured and the materials are well coordinated and useful!"

"This class deepened my capacity to use the body as a powerful intuitive resource in coaching clients.  I was able to immediately put the skills into practice with current coaching clients, benefitting them in tapping into this already existing resource they have - their body!"

"I do 10 minute laser coaching sessions for wellness coaching. I was able to use the Awareness Technique in this short time frame with ease! I was surprised and pleased when I asked my client to go stand some place in her house that "felt better" and she wound up standing in front of her refrigerator! She said she knew she ate for comfort, but did not realize the full extent of it!!! Now she is aware of it.

No judgment, just letting the body speak....and look at what she learned by listening to her body!!"

"I have been in search of a differentiating style as a coach. I am a Yoga instructor as well as a coach, and I want to be able to help clients find a mind body connection. Marlena's program delivered the method. The plan is simplicity, uncluttered and delivers results quickly. The sessions, support materials and Marlena's style are concise, her delivery warm and friendly, and the net result is tangible. It is the KEY I have been looking for, I like being able to offer a method to help my clients find their way to a better place using their own body wisdom."

"Marlena, your classes over the telephone have been invaluable to me on many fronts. I live in a remote area where professional development is almost non existent yet I've been able to participate in a high standard of learning without leaving my home. On a personal level I've gained some life changing insights; and on a professional level, I have gained more confidence in myself knowing I have some very significant tools that I can use to help others."

"As a demo client on the second call of the Decision Making series I got to experience first-hand the power of Body-Centered coaching.

Marlena's mindful listening, powerful questions and masterful holding guided me to find clarity around a decision I had been stuck in my mind with. My body clearly told me what I needed - REST! One email following the call and I found a perfect place to go for a winter respite and rejuvenating time. Sedona, here I come! Thank you, Marlena! This work is enriching my life and I'm bringing my clients to a richer, fuller experience of their souls through this fundamental approach. I recommend Marlena's work to all coaches!"

"Marlena clearly models her belief that the client can access guidance through the wisdom of the body. Her elegant and gentle style makes space for clients to dip into their body wisdom, retrieve what is needed for a particular decision and transform that wisdom into action. Beautiful work."

"Marlena's has created a wonderfully compact and high impact course with "Beyond the Limits."  The skills she demonstrated were both easy to learn and practical.  As a result of putting her methods to use I personally experienced positive results during the course and was immediately able to use them effectively with my clients.  I highly recommend her as a teacher and her methods as a tool."

"Marlena generously shares a plethora of materials in a variety of media in order to teach her highly focused body-centered coaching. You will come away with specific and easily applicable tools to complement your coaching."

"Thank you so much for a fascinating and valuable course. I've greatly enjoyed your teaching style, which is both compassionate and insightful. I’m already tuning into my body’s feedback more, and I look forward to putting the course into practice with clients over time."

 

I had an interesting experience with a long standing client a few weeks ago.  He is a very senior leader in a corporation. He was at a crossroads about a decision. After a lengthy discussion I said "let's try something I've been learning about, an experiment of sorts. Lets pick a piece of carpet for you to stand on while you embody the choices we've uncovered." He didn't blink...in fact he said to me: Just a sec while I get myself centered! Then he stepped onto each carpet section. In the first place he said - oh, I feel my lungs are full or fresh air and on the second one his chest fell so far that we both were startled. We ended the meeting with a very solid sense of which option he would consider more fully.

A client who has studied kinesiology is working with me on career planning - I casually asked if he thought his body could help him gather more information about his options. He immediately perked up. I asked him if he could feel his knee without touching it - he said of course and immediately understood what I was getting at.

I was working with my own coach last week and at a certain point I stopped and led myself through an obvious conflation - "if I become too successful I will cease to be humble". I noticed a lovely vibration in both hands separately and when I brought them together  in the prayer position (fingers tips touching so that there was space in between) the energy in the middle was electric! My hands rose up over my head together and then as they came down they began to swim like a fish. I will practice this motion when the conflation comes around again.

Yesterday my brother called and asked me if I would coach his son who is trying to decide what major to choose for college. So, this evening when my 19 yr old nephew called, I used yesterday's technique of standing in the place of choice, feeling it, and moving from choice to choice. It worked like a charm.

The first choice was truly a dud -immediate drop in energy - slumped over, so we narrowed it down to the last two. When he thought he had made a decision, I asked him to place a ruler on the floor, put his toes up to the edge of the ruler, and step over when he was truly ready. 

He hesitated, so I asked him to turn around and reconsider the other choice. He felt sad to give up the other choice. So I asked him to retrace his earlier process and go back to the two locations (one by the window, one by the piano) and re-examine his body's responses to each.

It became very evident where the higher energy choice was. With the one he felt confident; stood up straight; he talked with a stronger, more energetic voice. With the other, he put his hands in his pockets, dropped his head a bit, felt restricted. At that point, he laughed and said he was then ready to cross over the line. After he crossed over, I asked if he had any regrets. He said, not now.

He really enjoyed the experience and said he appreciated not going through the pros/cons list which is what he thought we would do. He found it interesting how powerful it was to pay attention to the answers in his body.

Within minutes after the third session, I had occasion to do a 20 minute unplanned session on a friend who was having a very challenged day, feeling lots of stress, shaky confidence in ability and fear filled over potential loss of a good client. He was questioning his professional ability and it was blanketing his entire mindset and body.

We did not change the cause, but we certainly brought him to a resourceful place. He put his fear, anxiety, and feeling of inadequacy into a bucket. He compared that bucket to the five full buckets of good clients and successful endeavors. He saw more clearly, felt the discernable change in his body physiology, smiled and decided to deal with the “solution” later. He realized that he was now much more resourceful; he also felt the value of not spending any more time on the doubting treadmill.

I had a body-centered experience when buying material for slip covers for my lounge - which I eventually listened to - and it ended up saving me from making a terrible mistake.  It's interesting to look back to that time and see that even though the colour made me feel sick - I totally gave this feeling no significance and went and bought it anyway.  Yet I know that once I got it home I would have thrown it out! I've done that with so many other furnishings as well as clothes.  In future I will always go into my body and get a body-centered feeling before I go ahead and buy. In fact I'll use it for all decisions.

 

"With Marlena’s body-centered coaching I got something I was missing in more "traditional" coaching training. I got the techniques on how to use the body’s wisdom in my coaching. It is about being mindful and listening to what your heart and body knows that your head doesn’t know yet. There is no "hokus pokus" or quick fix in Marlena’s teaching. It is about something we all have but many of us have "forgotten" how to use and trust. With Marlena’s help you get this trust back and can start to use the body as the enormous resource it is - in your coaching as well as your personal life! 
 
Another thing I loved about the body-centered coaching classes with Marlena was her warm teaching style. She is very present and shares her wisdom and knowledge in a very generous and sincere way.
 
I also appreciated her gentle push to encourage us to practice her techniques in buddy coaching with other students. It takes practice to really get something into your bones and make it your own. The buddy coaching is the perfect way to get this practice in a safe environment with room for feedback and improvements.  But I would probably have had an "excuse" for not doing it without Marlena’s gentle push...and missed out on a great opportunity.
 
In Marlena I have found a coaching guru I want to learn more from. She seems to bring her heart to everything she does, and I can strongly recommend her Body-Centered Coaching teleclasses - as well as anything she is up to in the future!"

"I so enjoyed Marlena's recent Body-Centered Coaching course! She provided a safe, relaxed and fun learning environment. The structure and pacing were great and being a kinesthetic learner, I appreciated the demos and the opportunity to be coached by Marlena. The body-centered techniques I learned have produced valuable insights in myself and in my coaching clients.

Thank you Marlena for a rich and valuable learning experience."

"The Body-Centered Coaching Course was amazing. The techniques and tools add an enormous depth to the traditional coaching methodologies I have been learning in other programs. I can see using some of the exercises as part of initial client discovery sessions to greatly enhance the initial process of  truly understanding the client and what their real desires and roadblocks
are. 

Thank you so much for sharing your gifts and insights and coaching the coaches to greater self-awareness!"

"I highly recommend taking a workshop with Marlena. She has a gift for teaching and coaching. The material and methods she uses for teaching body-centered coaching is powerful and immediately useful.

Her experience and ability to field any question, even from those who maybe the most skeptical was amazing!"

"Marlena's Body Centered Coaching program is a powerful add-on for any Coach Toolkit. Her book, and the tools she covers during the program, adds an important element and depth to any work coaches do with individuals, as well as teams and groups. The body is an incredible rich source of information for our clients, and through discussion and demonstrations, the Body-Centered Coaching model is brought to life throughout the calls. Thank you Marlena for such a rich learning experience."

"As a counsellor and coach, I found Marlena’s Body-Centered Coaching workshop to be invaluable. Marlena’s experience and skills as a Hakomi Trained Therapist and her training as a Co-Active Coach offer a unique blend that has resulted in a powerful methodology with application to a variety of disciplines in the helping professions.

Using the body as a source of information for change requires stillness. Marlena’s personal style is gentle, humorous and patient. She conveys a sense of calm rather than urgency providing a consistent role model for her work. I was particularly impressed with her impeccable sense of timing. She listens deeply to her clients needs and has the ability to motivate and inspire people in the direction of their own potential with insightful and sometimes provocative probes. She does not impose or direct but rather guides and facilitates change.

Marlena trusts her client’s inner knowing and gently moves them to a place where they can trust that place within themselves.

I like the integrity her work conveys."

"Marlena’s Body-Centered Coach training is a truly amazing healing offering, and her class is a magical experience not to be missed! Her teaching style is both clear and full of light and humour. I looked forward to each class, and was over and again astounded by how much wisdom our body’s contain, just waiting to be tapped into. This is truly transformative work, and will add depth, clarity and a playful sense of spontaneous discovery to any healing path or coaching session."

"I had longed to take Marlena’s training for three years before I finally took the plunge!  What I found is that, given some health issues that I’m facing, Marlena’s training and her gentle presence have been very healing to me personally. The timing for me taking the class was perfect, and Marlena provides so many resources that I can continue my own healing at the same time as I begin using the techniques with clients. I’m very grateful for Marlena’s training.

Before attending Marlena’s class, I knew that mindfulness was an important part of being present in coaching and I thought I WAS being mindful. Then during the class, Marlena led us in becoming mindful each session and I’ve been able to embody a whole new level of mindfulness that I now bring to living my life and my practice of coaching.

I hadn’t made the connection before just now, but I made a huge personal shift during the class that is redirecting the course of my life. I am now focusing more on self-care and my own healing and less on pushing to make things happen.  I’m actually living into letting things develop, and this is something Marlena stresses in the course – to trust the body and those things will unfold in the way they need to.  All I need to do is stay present. Like I said, this is huge for me, and for the first time in my life, I’m beginning to relax and let go. I don’t know yet where my life is headed, but I have this powerful growing ability to stay present as I sort through the threads!"

"My favorite part of the Body Centered Coach Training teleclass is when Marlena does a coaching demonstration with one of our class members using the technique that we've been reading about and have discussed. When she coached me one night, I learned about some things that have never surfaced even though I've been coached on that topic many times. Since then I've been able to move forward--finally! My body knew!!

I know I couldn't have put to practice the things she talks about in her book without the learning that discussion brings, the opportunity to ask questions, and the practice demonstrations."

"Our body is an incredible source of information and wisdom - and most of us only tap the surface. This program teaches you a new language and new skills. The techniques are so natural and so simple that they can be deceptive (Marlena makes it look easy - but there is definitely skill involved!) Time after time I was blown away by the powerful impact as she demonstrated the skills on us. Surprising new information became available when the body was included in the conversation. The possibilities are staggering. I feel like this was one of the most important classes that I was lucky enough to stumble across. I loved the book - but didn't know where to begin. This will get me started. And in my deepest heart, I know this will take me to startling and unexpected new places. Thanks Marlena!"

“As someone whose strength as a coach is providing insight and clarity, mostly through words, I understood, but didn’t really “get”,the power of body-centered coaching until I took Marlena’s teleclasses. Marlena is a wonderful, gentle, patient and supportive teacher and role model. I recommend her book and teleclasses to any coach who wants to learn how to help clients connect with their truths in a deeper and more profound way.”

“Body-Centered Coaching skills are essential for anyone who works with people in a coaching or therapeutic capacity. This course opened my eyes to a dramatically different way to access a person's wisdom. This approach allows the spaciousness the client needs to cut through to their truth easily.”

“Working with Marlena and a team of coaches and watching the process unfold through the live demonstrations is an exceptional “real life” learning experience. As a coach, I was able to learn about the principles, see them in practice, take them back to my clients and then watch as they began to access their own bodies as a new, deeper source of information. My clients have been surprised by this new information they have and have moved forward into their own greatness as a result.“

“I was searching for a way to add more depth to my coaching, these techniques have allowed my clients to take deeper dives than I had imagined. I have been working with a client group for over 3 years; I used one of the techniques and watched two of the team members connect at a level even they were surprised by.”

“Marlena’s Body-Centered Coaching demonstrations are a very powerful way to experience where our emotions live in your bodies and how we can consciously chose to change negative emotions and instead anchor more positive and beneficial ones for ourselves. I was amazed at how quickly my energy shifted from feeling anxious and powerless to powerful and peaceful.”

“Marlena's book and teleclass offer profound but simple insights into the importance of mindfulness and deep listening in our lives and coaching. The wealth of information that our body can reveal to us and our clients is incredible. Marlena is a master at being able to tap into that reservoir of information. The learning for me came from witnessing her calm, patient, mindful approach to tapping the body's wisdom, always letting the client lead the journey and having complete trust in where that journey leads. This work has enriched my life and coaching.”

"I signed up for the Body-Centered Coaching teleclass after hearing Marlena explain her techniques on a free call. I was very impressed with Marlenas’ presentation and clarity. The Body-Centered coaching class more than met my expectations. Marlena is a great instructor/coach, easily able to work with the members of the class on any level. Previously I was intuitively using a body-centered style. Now I have methods that add depth and precision to my work allowing me to help clients shift intractable blocks, and the process is gentle and very effective."

“It was wonderful to participate in Marlena's Body Centered Coaching teleseries and witness her Mastery in this coaching process.  Each week I would be excited to go to the call and even more eager to use the techniques with my clients. I always felt like I would walk away with a treasure from every call.

I have used her techniques to help my clients change disempowering beliefs, tap into resources and included various of her exercises in my enneagram workshops. My clients are amazed at the insights that they take away from each session. The wisdom of the Body is a powerful resource and Marlena has opened my eyes. This wisdom is in your body is with you all of the time. Fabulous work - thanks for this wonderful opportunity and training.”

"Marlena's Body-Centered coaching class is well-designed, masterfully implemented and packed with powerful new learning. Before attending the class, I occasionally intuitively tapped into the wisdom of the body during coaching sessions. Now I have concrete practices with proven results to interplay with my intuitive nudges. I've already noticed positive impact with clients and am delighted to be of ever-greater service. Thank you Marlena! Your warmth, preparation, graciousness, ease and appreciation added much to the experience."

"It’s difficult to truly describe the impact of mindful coaching with Marlena. Her ability to listen beyond the words, her skill to tune into the blocks, her insightful and light-hearted approach to coaching is to be experienced rather than talked about. Mindful coaching has been around for many centuries; trust yourself to take your next step supported by a mindful master called Marlena."

"Marlena does an excellent job outlining the material as well as demonstrating it during the class. The course adds a great compliment of skills to being a creative and resourceful coach.

Marlena lays out simple and clear Body-Centered Coaching techniques to use with clients, using the co-active model as a frame. I find that the somatic coaching techniques work really well with a full spectrum of clients from my executive coaching clients, to entrepreneurs and artists.

My clients are grateful for the grounding in using a resource they always have available to them - their body.  Clients can be thoughtful and learn to listen to the wealth of wisdom and information their body is offering. Body-centered coaching is like treating the body as a library - there is a lot of information available, and you can add new books/information. Grounding in our body allows us to stay present when stepping forward.

Body-Centered Coaching helps cut through and get past the story, so the storyteller (the client) gets good coaching."

"I have participated in several classes with Marlena and always come away feeling inspired, energized, enlightened and excited. I love her example of quiet, calm acceptance and the supportive atmosphere she creates. As a coach I always want to embody those qualities and she demonstrates it so beautifully. The Body-Centered Coaching techniques are amazing and so powerful. I look forward to more opportunities to expand my knowledge and grasp of Body-Centered Coaching to enhance my effectiveness with my clients."

"This course was so inspiring! In my opinion, Marlena is on the cutting edge of coaching and what’s possible with mindfulness and the body. The course was so engaging, insightful and was so interesting that I hired her as my coach so I can go deeper. I admire Marlena and what she’s about. This is important work."

"Thank you for a wonderful series. It was a gift-presented so personally and capably, from your heart-and I received all of it-especially the wind up session. That just wrapped it all up, with a bow...What a tool kit I now have."