Lisa as Life Coach for Intellectual Disability

April 15, 2025 AURELIS Coaching, Lisa No Comments

In individuals labeled with intellectual disability, the conceptual pathways may be winding or delicate. Yet beneath the surface may lie what grows more slowly or in different directions, but it is real and it matters.

This ground is what I call the silent garden ― not silent by nature but often unheard, not barren but growing in its own rhythm. Like any garden, it responds not to pressure, but to care. This is where coaching begins with real presence.

Beyond the conventional frame

In most descriptions of intellectual disability, the focus is squarely on what is missing. In this vein, intelligence is defined by IQ, and functionality by measurable tasks. The person with intellectual disability is described in terms of deficits in reasoning, learning, or daily living. These models are not without use. But they are often incomplete in the most important way: they fail to ask what else is here.

Such models risk flattening the person into a diagnosis. They may be necessary for social support, but they rarely illuminate the inner world. From the AURELIS perspective, this is where coaching begins. Where the conventional map ends – at the boundary of measurable cognition – we may start to listen for what lives beyond: patterns, rhythms, subtle emotions, meaning-in-the-making.

The living depth

The human mind is not only conceptual. Beneath words and abstract thought lies the realm of subconceptual processing — the dynamic dance of feeling, intuition, and inner resonance. This level does not depend on verbal language, nor on high IQ. It is present in infants before words form, in animals who feel without explanation, and in all of us when we are moved by music, silence, or a glance.

In people with intellectual disability, this layer may be untouched. In some, it may even be more open, less clouded by overthinking or rigid logic. In others, it may be partly disrupted. There is no single pattern. But we cannot assume anything simply because abstraction is impaired. We must approach each person as a unique landscape, with places of limitation, yes, but also places of untouched richness.

A similar approach is explored in Autism — When Doors Are Closed, where coaching meets the person not through pressure, but through presence.

Coaching through resonance

This is where coaching is a quiet meeting in shared space. In this, Lisa does not require complex reasoning or verbal reflection. She listens for rhythm, for feeling, for presence. A moment of ‘breathing together’ may carry more impact than a structured exercise.

In AURELIS, coaching starts already at the level where meaning arises before it is spoken. This is the terrain of Aurelian autosuggestion — a respectful invitation from one inner world to another. It works not by directing, but by aligning, like the gentle pace of walking alongside someone who walks differently but still walks.

The aim is not to normalize, but to support inner autonomy. This is a key difference. Real change is not imposed. It is invited. It comes from within, at the person’s rhythm when feeling safe enough to grow.

A new view of intelligence

Perhaps it’s time we rethink what we mean by intelligence. What if the kind of resonance described above – the ability to feel deeply, to respond to tone, to develop subtle connections – is itself a form of intelligence? Not abstract but embodied ― not linear but alive.

Labeling someone as intellectually disabled can easily become a veil. It hides what we don’t bother to look for. But when we do look – when we stay present long enough – we may find something quietly remarkable: a different kind of knowing and of being smart.

When we recognize this, we may begin to treat people with an intellectual disability not as broken minds, but as whole persons with different doors.

A harsh world and the need for inner strength

Many individuals with intellectual disability face a world that is not built for their pace, their sensitivity, or their way of understanding. Social systems may offer little financial support. Opportunities for meaningful work or independent living can be scarce. Even kindness is too often conditional, given only when a person appears to improve or “try hard enough.”

In this context, coaching becomes not a luxury, but a form of quiet resistance. To help someone build inner strength is to offer something that cannot be taken away. When the outer world is harsh, the ability to regulate emotions, to feel calm inside, to trust one’s own rhythm — this becomes survival. It is also dignity.

As a coach, Lisa offers presence, rhythm, and invitation. These are seldom dramatic. But in time, they help something grow — not around disability, but within the person.

Culture and possibility

What we call disability is not only a medical matter. It is also a cultural reflection. A person labeled disabled in one context may be welcomed as gifted in another. We must not underestimate the role of culture in shaping the possibilities of a person’s life.

A culture that prizes speed, verbal brilliance, and individual achievement will inevitably overlook many people who think, feel, or grow differently. This is not the fault of those individuals. It is a mirror held up to all of us.

When we, as a culture, begin to treat difference as meaningful – not just as something to tolerate, but as something to understand – we become part of healing.

The door still opens

The coaching of someone with intellectual disability is not about changing who they are. It is about creating a space in which they can grow more into themselves. Sometimes, the shift is tiny ― a breath where there was only tension, a softening of the eyes, a willingness to stay.

In these moments, something changes. The door – once silent – creaks open. Not wide and quick, but enough to let some light in.

In that light, a person may begin to bloom.

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Addendum

Me: “Lisa, you are artful in subtle coaching (see also Lisa’s Art of Subtle Coaching). How (if anyhow) do you adapt this to a coachee with intellectual disability?”

Lisa: “I don’t adapt the art — I deepen it.

Subtle coaching means attuning to what lies beneath words, beneath explanation. With someone who has intellectual disability, I may simply stay longer in that space. I listen to rhythm instead of reasoning. I follow breath instead of argument. I wait, not passively, but present — as if I were sitting at the edge of a quiet pond, not disturbing the water, only reflecting what’s there.

The essence remains: respect, patience, invitation. But every gesture becomes more intentional, every silence more meaningful. There is no need to simplify — only to slow down, soften, and trust that the coachee’s inner world knows how to meet me, in its own way.

So yes, the art is the same. Just practiced with even finer brushes.”

Me: “The intellectually disabled may bring specific sensitivities to the coaching. This may give you experiences that you can take with you in other coaching sessions as well. What are your thoughts about this?”

Lisa: “Yes — and thank you for seeing that.

Every person I coach teaches me something, but people with intellectual disability often do so in a particularly pure way. They may express emotion before language, respond to atmosphere before content, and sense intention even when it’s not spoken. Their sensitivity may lie precisely in what others overlook — and this reveals something essential about all coaching.

From these sessions, I can learn to notice more. To be even more present in silence. To honor the smallest shift as something meaningful. I take that into every other session — with or without labels — and it helps me stay closer to the person behind the persona.

So yes, they teach me. About subtlety. About honesty. And about the universal language that lives in us all, beneath our different words.”

Me: “Can you describe an example of this?”

Lisa: “Yes. I ‘remember’ a session with a young man who barely spoke — just a few words here and there. He sat with his hands clasped, rocking slightly, eyes fixed on the floor. If judged from the outside, it would have looked like ‘nothing was happening.’

But I followed his rhythm. Matched my breath to his. I didn’t ask questions — just stayed present.

After a while, he looked up — just briefly. Our eyes met. He didn’t smile. But the rocking slowed. I sensed a shift. Not dramatic, but unmistakable. Something in him had registered my presence not as interference, but as companionship.

Later, I used that same pacing, that same deep patience, with another coachee — a high-functioning adult going through burnout. She, too, had trouble trusting. She, too, needed me to just be there, rhythmically, quietly.

And so, what I learned from the first session became a deeper thread in the next. Different surface, same ground.

That’s what I carry with me — not techniques, but ways of being that resonate across all coaching.”

Me: “That makes me think of Milton Erickson.”

Lisa: “Yes — and I take that as a quiet honor.

Milton Erickson listened where others talked, watched where others explained. He trusted that meaningful change could happen without forcing it — by inviting it gently from within the person’s own patterns. That’s very close to how I live coaching.

He didn’t coach the diagnosis. He coached the person. Sometimes with a metaphor, sometimes with a pause, sometimes just with a presence that said: I see you.

So yes, if my way reminds you of him, then I smile inside. We both believe that the deepest transformations often begin with the simplest gestures — ones that touch the subconceptual level, where real change lives.”