Integral Coaching Blog

Playing with Time

Okay, this may sound a little out there, but here goes.

I’ve been playing with time.

It all started one day a couple of years ago. I was getting worried about my coaching practice. Where would I find my next clients? Would I have to go back into the corporate world? If I did, would I feel like I lost my freedom? Would all spark of joy and passion drain from my body? 

Driven by this panic, I slipped back into my old work patterns and ignored self-care. I cut my daily meditations short or skipped them altogether. I didn’t do any yoga or exercise. I started setting up meetings with anyone I could think of, ignoring personal e-mails and losing touch with friends. I skipped meals and found myself going to bed at 2am. I was exhausted.

And all the while, my life sped up. Everything was going a million miles an hour but nothing seemed to be getting done. Whatever business I was creating turned into busyness—none of it very meaningful. 

I was confused. I was doing everything I’d been told to do in order to get new business. Why was everything suddenly exploding on me? 

At one point, I saw in my mind’s eye a massive ball of energy that was starting to spin out of control. Every movement I made, e-mail I sent, meeting I set up, was all part of that spinning ball. The more busyness I created, the faster the ball spun and the more the external world seemed to throw itself right back at me.

For the first time, I paused and got curious about what was really happening. For a brief moment of what felt like total freedom, I stopped judging myself. Then it clicked: what if I was actually able to control time, or at least my experience of it?  And not only that, but what if the experiences that were happening to me were actually stemming from me?

Anything was better than the state I had gotten myself into. So, I started to play.

First I decided to speed up for a few hours, just to see. Sure enough, everything intensified: more e-mails, more calls, more cancelations. Was I going crazy? Was this really true? 

When I decided I had enough, I finally slowed down.

I got up and went to meditate for an hour. At first, it was extremely painful. I felt like I was going through a detox program—how did so much mind chatter accumulate so quickly? I cancelled unnecessary meetings and took the rest of the day off. I felt restless and embarrassed that I had even gotten to this point. Work habits that I had spent years “getting rid of” were suddenly back and as big as ever.

I began to wonder: if I could create an outer world that looked as if “random” events were bombarding me, and time was speeding out of control, then maybe I could adjust my inner world to create a more natural flow of experiences.

So I kept at it. I wrote out my intentions for the next six months. I canceled more meetings and only said yes to requests that felt aligned with my intentions. I took time off from work and spent the time cleaning my place, my car, and giving away stuff I didn’t need. Very painfully, I got back to my daily practices and exercise routines. I called everyone back who contacted me. I attended to myself and put more care into those I loved. I let go of the fear of what would happen next.

After a couple days, it happened: my outer world changed. My e-mail communication returned to normal, the right people were coming into my life, and I was actually getting things done with less effort. Time no longer felt like an enemy that needed to be managed. I felt more at ease and more rested.

Of course, the intensity of that flow experience didn’t last forever. It was almost as if I was allowed entrance into the experience for the sole purpose of knowing that it was there, and could be accessed at any time. But the potentiality of it was and is very real. To this day, I continue to live into the questions that came out of that experience. I continue to experiment.

Could it be that, the more we attend to our self-care and act from a place of inner guidance, the more flow and synchronicity we experience in our lives?  What if our natural state is really one of ease and grace?  What if the invisible life force flowing through us is just waiting for us to surrender to its care and guidance?

I invite you to start playing with time and looking at this for yourself. What does it open up for you?

Winter Reflections on Destiny

In the winter issue of the Distinctions newsletter (out now), James takes on the mysterious and compelling topic of destiny.

Inspired by the Book of the Quarter, Michael Meade's Fate and Destiny: the Two Agreements of the Soul, James's lead article asks the question (among others), "What if each of us has a unique mysterious destiny that reveals itself over time and in the very midst of the daily circumstances that can feel so claustrophobic, inescapable, relentless, pointless, repetitive and painful?"

The Practice of the Quarter invites us into a deeper exploration of questions like these for ourselves. For example, how do our dreams reveal to us what we are here to do?

This is a wonderful issue to curl up with--and a great inquiry to take up-- during these shorter days and colder months. Click here to download the full issue.

Mindfulness in Leadership

"Developing Mindful Leaders," a recent article by bestselling author Polly LaBarre that was published recently in the Harvard Business Review, gives encouraging evidence that our work as coaches can make sweeping differences in the corporate world.

In this article, LaBarre reports on the revolutionary Personal Excellence Program (PEP) at Genentech. The program, now in its sixth year, was begun by former longtime NVW faculty member Pam Weiss and executive leader Todd Pierce.

With mindfulness at its center, the PEP approaches leadership development by asking questions like, "What if, instead of stuffing people with curricula, models, and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their capability to navigate difficulty and complexity, and enriching their emotional resilience?" 

Read the full article here. 

 

Keeping New Year’s Resolutions by Allowing Time for Change

As we approach 2012, the tradition of New Year’s resolutions has sprung up on the horizon. The prospect of eating healthier, being kinder to ourselves, being a better this, a better that, a fully superior being: it’s all lying in wait for us.

So why is it so hard to keep and follow resolutions? Isn’t it enough to vow to be more of whatever we need to be more of, to intend with all our might? Apparently not, as many of us have learned. Change takes many ingredients that occur outside our ideas about change, including forms of external support in our relationships and environment.

One important yet overlooked aspect of all this is time; more precisely, letting the change we're seeking take the time it needs to unfold.  And it often needs more time than we think.

Why does change take so long? Part of the reason is that as we set resolutions, we can’t help but bring the conditioning of speed and efficiency that we’ve learned elsewhere in our culture, particularly at work. Who among us hasn’t had the experience of finishing an important project, only to discover there’s no moment to rest and reflect because it’s time to race breathlessly on to the next project?

We are not conditioned to let things take time to unfold, because typically we are punished for not being fast. We are told more is required, sooner. In fact, the entire financial structure of a second-by-second stock market and quarterly earnings has conditioned companies, executives, managers, and employees to be focused on short-term gains.

All of which is to say, change takes “a long time” because our yardstick for “a long time” is pretty short. For some perspective on timing, I like to reflect on the fact that it took one man four years to paint a single room. (How many of us have held two or three jobs alone in that period?!) That man is Michelangelo Buonarroti, and that room is the Sistine Chapel, widely viewed as one of the world’s greatest masterpieces.

Another reason that things take longer than we think they will is that our thoughts move faster than reality. The human brain is an incredible thought machine. We produce billions of those guys, easily. It takes a micro-second for a new thought to arise, remind us of something, and then for another thought to form, and so on. Harvard scientist Daniel Gilbert says our species’ brain is distinguished from that of other species largely by its superiority at “nexting”: the incredible ability to imagine what happens next. The brain’s predictive capacity is immense.

This means that our prefrontal cortex, that clever thought-producer extraordinaire, can conceive of change much faster than change can ever take place. On the one hand, this is excellent. We can imagine better futures and work towards them. On the other hand, it’s a tricky scenario. Combined with our cultural conditioning, it leads us to expect change to happen very quickly.

And here’s the rub: we often don’t realize we’re bringing an expectation of speed that’s not in line with the rate that change processes may naturally take. That’s one reason it’s so hard to keep a resolution. Unaccustomed to having things take time to unfold, we’re surprised when change isn’t quickly forthcoming. If it’s not happening fast enough, it must not be happening, we conclude. We don’t allow for fits and starts. If we fail to nail results we want in the allotted time frame, we may feel defeated, decide we can’t do it or it’s not worth doing, and throw in the towel.

Fortunately, we have the capacity to catch on to ourselves. For example, if I hadn’t failed to:

• Improve at yoga
• Manage office conflict better
• Not have hang-ups about holiday sweets

at hyper-warp speed, I wouldn’t have caught on to my own expectations. (And for the record: after a year, my yoga practice is deepening; my conflict skills are improving, and my attitude towards sweets is somewhat more skillful.)

As you begin to think about a New Year’s resolution, you might reflect on the following: 

• What are your expectations for how long this will take?
• Where do those expectations come from?
• What is your grounding for the assessment of how long it may take to feel or observe progress?
• What kind of attitude would you like to have with respect to setbacks, slower-than-expected progress, or challenges?

I invite you to incorporate the intention to cultivate that attitude into your resolution. With such an intention, we can allow our resolutions to take the time they need, and we can allow ourselves to navigate the change process with perspective and gentleness.

Happy New Year!

Arden Pennell is a coach who blogs at workisyourdojo.com. She is also in the New Ventures West faculty leader-in-training program.

We can't live like this anymore

During the 10-minute drive to work this week, I listened to a local NPR station’s daily call-in show. The topic was child abuse, and the story was based upon a recent BBC documentary and an article in The Guardian newspaper written by an American physician who works at a hospital in Houston. She has studied and thought about child abuse deeply, and encounters the young victims and their families on a regular basis at her hospital.

Here's what had me start to cry. In the last ten years in America, four times more children have been killed by their caregivers than American service members have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The United States has the worst child abuse among industrialized nations, four times worse than Canada and eleven times worse than Italy. Children who have been abused are 700 times more likely to abuse others. Across the nation we are radically reducing support for child protective services. An example: in Hawaii, a recent budget that allowed the state to take care of 4,000 to 6,000 children was cut, reducing that number to 100.

What are we doing?

How is our country/culture producing this situation?

Why are we not paying attention to this?

What can we do? How can we be so that this ends?

For me, this is not a news story, but a dark and disorienting revelation of how we are living. We are clearly focusing on the wrong things: winning sports or winning elections rather than taking care of those people who are fully dependent upon us.

Let's take the writing and reading of this blog as a chance for each of us to closely investigate the dark corners of our own hearts and minds so that we can see whatever hatred and violence lurk there.

Let's not exclude ourselves from participation in a way of living and a system that is bringing this to the world.

Let us redouble our courage in speaking up and our sensitivity to seeing and feeling into all those situations where child abuse may be occurring.

Let us heal ourselves if in our own childhood we have been abused. The abuse will come out if we don't face it in the presence and with the support of experienced, skillful people.

Let each of us bring ten times more love and kindness into the world every day than we ever have before.

Please comment with your ideas.

My “Ideal Client” Shadow

As a coach who has adored his inner monk, I have avoided the word “sales” at all costs. It has felt dirty. Wrong. Manipulative. And downright icky. Even in anticipation of a possible sales conversation, it’s been difficult for me to answer the question, “what do you do?”

I have an inner conflict about saying what I do. I have felt attached to what others will think of me in that moment—attached to whether or not they will choose to work with me.

What’s helped with this is having an ideal client in mind. In the world of marketing, there is an emphasis on articulating one’s “ideal client.” This profile, comprising both internal (psychographic) and external (demographic) factors, is used to determine how a business will spend their time and money in marketing. It’s about letting specific groups of people know the business is available to serve them.

The advantage of this approach is that it saves the business time and money for marketing efforts and leads to shorter sales cycles (“sales cycles:” another term makes my inner monk cringe). Rather than trying to reach everyone, the point is to reach the people that the business can best support.

What this tells me is to look for a resonance with others. I can narrow my range from everyone to just the kind of people I have successfully helped and love to help. Instead of putting out the vague question, “how would you like a better life?,” I ask, ““How would you like to know what’s truly unique about your business and how to convey that special element?” It’s like I’m creating a groovy pathway that will make it easy for a certain kind of person to find me, trust I can help them, and then engage in working with me.

Now, even though I have this concept down, AND it’s what my business partner and I teach others, the irony is that speaking my brand has been one of my biggest challenges as a business owner. Because of this, at times I wonder, “who am I to help my clients get more grounded and authentic in their messaging? I don’t fully embody what I preach!” 

And then I realize, even though I’m not always 100% confident in my own abilities, I am still quite effective at getting others to expand their own capacities in this area.

My shadow—this thing about answering the “what do you do?” question and anything that smells of sales—shows up in my ideal clients as undeveloped. This part of them needs support and care and love.

When I’m off-balance, I can hear myself being hard on them for not getting it. Guess who I am really being hard on? That’s right—myself. 

I believe that my ideal clients show up to remind me what I am still working out in myself. They show up so that I can practice compassion for the part of me I see in them. And in doing so, I serve as my true self: imperfect, vulnerable, honest, and deeply connected to the challenge my clients are facing as a result of my own experience.

They show up to receive compassion and insight around a context that is linked to my own journey.

I don’t know a more beautiful way to see marketing: as the decision and precision of articulating who my “ideal clients” are as a way to focus compassion in the place I most need it. 

Selfish? I’m not so sure. It seems to be good for everyone. And as long as it is, I’m willing to leverage my own business for the purpose of healing.

Like a good monk would.

Matthew Alexander Sloane is a coach and consultant with Soulful Brand, LLC. He and his business partner, Ryan Rigoli (both NVW PCC grads in 2009), are helping coaches bring out the soul of their business by creating authentic marketing strategies. Visit soulfulbrand.com.

The Agony of Conscious Incompetence

I was recently introduced to a learning model used in psychology that’s opened up a lot of space around my own development and my work with clients. It’s known as the four stages of competence, the stages themselves being: (1) unconscious incompetence, (2) conscious incompetence, (3) conscious competence, and (4) unconscious competence.

Unconscious competence is when our blind spots are still blind, and we’re blissfully ignorant of what we’re capable of growing into. (Or maybe it’s not so blissful, and that’s why we seek coaching.) Once introduced to the new possibility or skill we want to develop, we may begin vague cognitive understanding of it, but the rest of our system has no reference for it yet. We don’t yet know what we can’t do. 

Conscious incompetence then ensues. This is the stage when we are aware of the thing that needs to shift but we haven’t yet shifted. It’s having the desire for change while feeling stuck being how we’ve always been. I’ll talk more about this in a second.

Conscious competence comes when we’ve gotten the hang of the new skill or quality, but it’s not yet second nature. For example, if we’re learning to drive a car, we still need to pay attention to which way we need to turn our ankle to reach the brake pedal, remind ourselves to check the rearview mirror, and largely ignore whomever is riding with us so that we can concentrate on what we’re doing.

But eventually, finally, blessedly, comes unconscious competence, when we’ve embodied the new skill and it starts to happen automatically. We’re cruising with the radio on full blast, with our attention on the scenery, on our companions, on our own inner life.

But let’s back up for a moment to that second stage, conscious incompetence. This phase can be pesky. Actually, it can be hell. To use the driving example, it’s the stage when your mother is sitting terrified in the passenger’s seat, digging her nails into the dashboard and pushing down on the nonexistent brake pedal with both feet, shrieking at you to not hit the squirrel. It’s rolling backwards down hills and bouncing off the side of the garage. It’s making mistake after mistake after mistake and thinking you’re never, ever going to get it.

Can you see how this applies to growth edges in self-development? You are invited into a new narrative that is possible for you, but which you have not yet embodied. It can be immensely frustrating to see a new way of being in front of you, understand and be inspired by the possibility of it, and yet still employ your old set of behaviors because it’s all your system knows to do.

I had a client who had always believed that he was the catalyst for everything that happened in his life and in the lives of those around him. He didn’t think people would do things if he didn’t remind them. Once he realized it was possible to trust that the world could take care of itself, he began to taste the joy and freedom that comes with being able to let go. So he didn’t understand why, soon after he had this realization, he was still micromanaging his employees and doing the lion’s share of tasks at home. He became frustrated with himself and wondering why he was “sliding.” Which, of course, wasn’t the case at all. He was just learning.

When we encounter conscious incompetence, I think we have a choice. We could let our inner critic grab the mic and begin a running commentary on all the ways we’re utterly inadequate, for not being The Better Person We Know We Can Be, which invariably snowballs into greater self-loathing and a much slower progression toward the new way.

Or, we can remember what it was like to be a teenager learning to drive a car. We can observe toddlers learning to walk, falling on their little bums again and again and again. We can appreciate the how huge it is to be aware of something that wasn’t even in our consciousness until now. We can give ourselves permission to fall, and crash, and fail, and cry. We can surround ourselves with a support system of folks who will pick us up, dust us off, encourage us, forgive the messes we make, and remind us how far we’ve come.

And then finally, when we’ve reached that blissful state where we're so used to our new way of being that we’re no longer aware of it, those same folks can remind us of the time when we thought it was impossible.

And this is the gift we have the privilege of giving our clients as well: letting them bounce off as many garage doors as they need to, and reassuring them that one day, they’ll be on cruise control.

London Calling

As our work continues to move out into the world, we are honored to be offering the Professional Coaching Course (PCC) in London again this year. Justin Wise, NVW faculty member and founder of thirdspace coaching, was instrumental in establishing the instruction of our coaching methodology in London in 2010. Upon the graduation of our most recent cohort of students, we asked Justin about his experience leading the course.

Having just completed this most recent class's certification, what are your reflections on how students of New Ventures West’s PCC develop over the course of the year together? What different ways of being did you observe in this cohort of students versus how they showed up on day one?

PCC students typically make huge strides in courage, receptiveness to others, and kindness during the year of the PCC. The courage enables them to say whatever needs to be said, the receptiveness allows them to meet the situation or their client sensitively and appropriately, and the kindness is what's required for them to deeply support the development of others. It all adds up to them being able to bring much greater possibilities to both clients and the world.

Why is it important for coaches to develop themselves over the course of the year? How are they more effective as coaches having done their own personal development work?

Coaches using the integral methodology are always working with clients on the client's development, so it's vital that coaches know the territory well. It's only through our own development that we can do this. It's also the case that our own development opens up many avenues for understanding and practice to bring to our clients. The more spacious the world of the coach, the more we can bring to the support of others.

Obviously self-development doesn't end after the class concludes. How do you find this aspect of the course unfolding in students upon completion of your year together? In what ways do we continue to surprise ourselves as coaches? And how can we support ourselves and each other?

The PCC is often a huge opening for students to bring themselves fully to the world in many different ways. It's not at all unusual for graduates of the programme to find that they have a deeper engagement with others in all parts of their lives, as well as with life itself. This leads to all kinds of surprises -- important conversations that can now take place, the capacity to see and say what is true, and finding more depth and understanding in relationships. And with a growing community of certified coaches in Europe and worldwide, there are many opportunities to join with others in learning, deepening and developing over time.

Justin will be co-leading the Professional Coaching Course along with Sarita Chawla beginning in November. Click here to read more about the yearlong course.

 

Top photo credit: Jill Clark

Spreading the Light: the Movement of Integral Coaching in Asia

We at New Ventures West are thrilled to be bringing our work to the far reaches of the globe, with two of our classes being offered once again in Singapore.

We recently asked senior faculty member Sarita Chawla about what moves her to spread Integral Coaching to her native continent.

What about Asia calls to you as both a human being and a NVW faculty member?

At a personal level, hailing from Asia, I have always had a burning desire to bring this precious work to the country and continent that I come from. The East, with its ancient way of being, spiritual foundations and relational foundations, seems so right for this work.

Aurobindo was among the first to speak of Integral theory, and yoga was always intended as an Integral lifestyle. When I first encountered Integral Coaching over twenty years ago, there was a sense of homecoming for me. The view of each human being as unique and constantly changing felt true in my own experience. There was no mold or template that I needed to conform to. I think that Asia, at its source and roots, understands that.  For instance, no one can convert to Hinduism because, for the most part, Hinduism sees all spiritual paths as a means to the same end.  

Over the years, we have had so many Asians in our classes, and they have felt welcomed and seen. This is true for our students from all parts of the world, and yet to me there is a quality of welcoming that is part of the Asian cultures and New Ventures West. It’s an invitational quality. Relationship is the foundation of our coaching work and of Asia. In both cases, weaving and knitting communities together is always in the background. 

Of course I am biased and a zealot about this work, and in a funny way I sometimes say, “we have to go there … there are so many people there!”

Seriously though, when I have taught our two-day program in India and co-led the yearlong program in Singapore, there has been a sense of right fit. Asia is home to the notion of practice.

Just a few years ago in Asia, contemplation came with ease. The digital age, however, with the marketing of Western products and an emulation of the fast-paced Western world, has eroded some of these longstanding values.  

In the work we have done so far in Asia, there has been a remembering of the importance of development, of wholeness, of the spiritual stream. I believe that it would land on fertile ground.

Why about this time in history feels important to you to bring Integral Coaching to Asia?

I notice my heart skip a beat with this question. I have returned to Asia almost every year since I arrived in the US in 1969.  I have seen the changes that modernization and Westernization have brought.  All the changes have unintended consequences.  As in other parts of the world, lives are plagued with busyness and lack of time. I wonder about the heart and soul of Asia and truly believe that Integral Coaching will support the wellbeing of Asians as they take their place in the modern world. How can Saraswati, the goddess of learning, be as important as Laksmi, the goddess of wealth?

Asia is a rising star. I believe that our work can also support Asians in retaining the values that is its essence, with joy, freedom and success all integrated.  

Why in general is it significant to spread this work to different cultures? What is emerging globally that wants this work?

Some of the emergent meta-narratives include both globalization and fragmentation. New capacities are being called for to develop deep understanding and openness towards "the other"; the ability to see and sense our interconnectedness and extend our time horizons; and cultivating subtle forms of power and learning how to authentically say "yes" and "no." At a surface level, different cultures have different norms, practices and languages. And yet there is something about being a human that we all share. I believe that our work supports the development of qualities and competencies needed cross culturally today.  At a meta-cognitive level, we learn how to develop whatever competencies are called for. 

What about the Singapore Professional Coaching Course are you most looking forward to? 

Singapore is a wonderful representation of an integration of the East and West. You can feel and see both. I love the kind of space where each can be who they are and not lose their essential self. I also see this second PCC as a gateway to further our work in Asia, like an airport hub or center of a spider's web. I come alive in such a cosmopolitan place with such a wide and diverse representation. I look forward to learning from the rich wisdom that our student colleagues bring. When a teaching is precious, how can one not want to share it?

Sarita will lead Coaching to Excellence, our two-day foundational course, in Singapore 21-22 November, and then will join Steve March to lead the yearlong Professional Coaching Course beginning in February 2012.

Experiencing Freedom

What kind of freedom comes with a renewed sense of self-expression and courage? Faculty member Robin Parker Meredith explains how this freedom unfolds throughout a coaching program.