When the body knows before the mind does

Deepen your coaching: When the body knows before the mind does.

You’re mid-session. The conversation flows well. Your client is sharp, reflective. You’re mapping out a Core Quadrant: strengths, pitfalls, challenges, allergies. It all makes sense.

And yet… something doesn’t land.

You know the moment: the client understands, they can name what’s happening, but nothing shifts. The insight is there in words, but not yet in behaviour.

Knowing isn’t the same as changing

As a coach, you see it often. The model works fine. But the moment stays in the head. And that’s not where transformation lives. Real change happens when the insight drops from thought… into the body. Into breath, posture, voice. Into something felt.

Especially when working with patterns like perfectionism, boundary-setting or self-worth understanding alone won’t cut it.

From insight to embodiment

Insight without experience stays abstract. But when a client feels something shift, in their shoulders, in their breathing, in how they speak, the work becomes real.

The body gives honest feedback. Before the client has even finished their sentence, something in their posture already knows the truth.

Strengths and pitfalls aren’t just ideas, they show up as tension, openness, resistance.

Working with the Core Quadrant, physically

What happens when you ask your client to walk their Core Quadrant?

To physically move between their strength, pitfall, challenge and allergy and notice what changes?

It stops being a diagram. It becomes a lived experience.
The model comes alive. Not as a concept on paper, but as a full-body exploration of behaviour, awareness and choice.

Practical techniques that shift behaviour

You don’t need to be a somatic specialist. You only need to get curious.

What is the body showing you right now?
What if you didn’t talk about tension, but invited the client to explore it?

Simple physical techniques can create powerful shifts. For example:

Embodying a strength through voice or posture
Practising a challenge under light stress in roleplay
Mapping out stress triggers across thoughts, behaviours and physical signals

This isn’t about adding complexity. It’s about bringing coaching back to where change happens: in the whole person.

For coaches who want depth without heaviness

Working with clients who understand everything but still feel stuck?

You’re not alone. Insight doesn’t always translate into action, especially when old patterns live in the body. This is where coaching deepens: using the body as a compass.
No need for jargon. No complicated methods. Just accessible, practical tools that fit your coaching style.

Where real growth begins: connecting head and body

Coaching gains real momentum when thinking is grounded in feeling. When the body is seen not as a problem, but as part of the solution.

That’s when clients not only understand what needs to change, they feel ready to do it. From within. With ownership. And with strength.

Check out here the ebook: the core quadrant, using the body as a compass