In the heart of London, one of the world’s busiest financial centres, where commuters rush between glass towers and tourists walk along crowded pavements, stands a majestic cathedral. Step through its heavy wooden doors, and the noise falls away.
The vast dome soars overhead, light filters through ancient windows, and time seems to slow. This sacred architecture holds something beyond physical space, a quality of presence that invites reflection and transformation.
The cathedral creates what we might call a “transformational space”, a sanctuary carved from the chaos of everyday life, where different possibilities emerge.
This is exactly what happens in coaching. Like the cathedral rising from London’s bustle, the coaching relationship creates a sanctuary within the busyness of daily demands.
The coach develops and holds a space that is both safe and spacious, a place set apart from usual pressures where clients can slow down, look inward, and explore questions they might never voice elsewhere.
The transformation doesn’t come from the space itself, but from what becomes possible within it: honest reflection, deeper awareness, and the courage to see oneself differently.
Opening the Door Gently
You can always begin sessions in a similar way, “This is a space where you don’t need to figure anything out.” Or, “We can go at your pace. There’s no rush to land somewhere.”
It sounds simple. Maybe too simple. But what you’re really doing is setting a different kind of frame, one that says: You don’t have to perform here. You don’t have to be fixed or healed or even coherent. You can just be.
Most people live their entire lives without anyone giving them permission to do that.
The Space Between Words
What if real transformation in coaching isn’t sparked by clever questions, but by something quieter, deeper, and harder to name?
Transformation doesn’t happen because of smarter questions. It happens in the healing space itself, in the way silence is held, in how a sigh is noticed, in the brief moment when someone’s eyes go distant, and you choose not to pull them back too quickly.
The process of coaching is about creating and maintaining a transformational space, tending it like a fire or a garden. With quiet attention and reverence. With the understanding that something alive is unfolding here.
When someone says something vulnerable and their voice changes, drops, or almost disappears, that shift matters. Not rushing to fix it or reframe it, but simply naming what you notice: “When you said that, your voice got very quiet. I’m just noticing that.”
That’s what I mean by keeping space. Tracking what’s alive in the room, even when it’s invisible. Especially when it’s invisible.
Questions That Don’t Demand Answers
I’ve learned to ask questions that don’t require fast answers. Questions that land in the body, not the mind.
“What’s here now, just beneath the surface?”
“What’s the deeper truth wanting to be heard?”
“If your soul could speak, what would it say?”
These aren’t questions designed to extract information. They’re invitations. They create space for something to emerge that wasn’t there a moment ago. The client doesn’t need to know the answer when I ask. Sometimes the answer doesn’t come for days. That’s fine. The question is doing its work anyway.
The Body Knows Things the Mind Won’t Admit
When someone is stuck in their head, try bringing them back to their body. “Where do you feel that in your body?” Or, “What does that sensation want to tell you?”
The body doesn’t perform or hedge or try to sound smart. A tightness in the chest, a knot in the stomach, a restlessness in the legs, these are messages.
The mind is clever. The body is honest.
Naming the Shift
There are moments when something changes. The energy in the room shifts, subtly, almost imperceptibly. Someone sighs. Or they sit back in their chair. Or their eyes soften.
You can name it when you feel it. “Something feels different right now, can you feel that?”
It sounds risky. What if I’m wrong? What if they don’t feel it?
But here’s what happens: even if they didn’t feel it before you named it, they feel it now. Because by naming it, you’re making the invisible visible. Reminding everyone that this isn’t an ordinary conversation. Something transformational is happening here.
And that awareness, that meta-awareness of the space itself, deepens the transformation. Similar to stepping outside yourself for a moment and noticing: Oh. I’m changing right now.
Shifting the Voice
Sometimes people get stuck in a loop. Same story, same voice, same victim or critic or perfectionist running the show. When that happens, invite a different part of them to speak.
“What would your Future Self say about this?”
“What does the Rebel part of you want to do?”
“Can your heart respond to this, instead of your mind?”
This isn’t therapy. I’m not diagnosing parts or healing trauma. But inviting them to step outside their habitual identity for a moment and speak from somewhere else. And that shift can break the pattern.
When the Space Gets Stuck
Not every session flows; sometimes the energy feels dense or circular or just stuck. When that happens, don’t try harder. Instead, shift the modality.
“Let’s take a movement break, stand up, shake it out.”
“Can you draw what this feeling looks like?”
“If this feeling were a landscape, what would you see?”
It sounds strange, but it works. Because thinking more rarely breaks a thinking loop. You have to interrupt the pattern. You have to remind the person: This is your playground of becoming. You’re not trapped here.
The body knows how to release what the mind can’t solve.
What Makes the Difference
None of this is formulaic, and you don’t need to follow scripts or techniques linearly. Every session is different because every person is different, and every moment within a session is its own world.
But underneath it all, there’s one thing that’s always happening: I’m staying present to what’s alive. I’m tracking energy, noticing shifts, holding silence, naming what wants to be seen.
This is what it means to be the keeper of transformational space.
