Category: Article
The Somatics of Home
When I was in college, a friend and I walked into an art gallery one night, looked at each other, and walked out. It could have been the fifth or sixth we’d been in that night. For some reason, we felt like something was off in that one. We both sensed danger in that building,…
Accidents and Mastery
It’s going well! Something must be wrong! One day not long ago a newer student in our Aikido class was doing a rather advanced technique rather beautifully: throwing me every time, gently and with ease. We were dancing; we were in flow. And yet, as time when on, things started getting a tiny bit choppy.…
The Ask and the Answer: Distinctions and Dualisms
We can learn a lot by making distinctions between things. When we’re able to name differences – for example, between enlivening and deadening, generous and fickle, ethical and manipulative, truthful and untruthful – we make it possible to observe what would otherwise have been invisible to us, and take action on the basis of our observations. Being…
Saying “No” Using the Three Centers of Intelligence
In “The Wisdom of Saying No,” a presentation I give for women in leadership, I talk about the importance of knowing your very own values, and how saying “no” is often a way of honoring those values. But saying “no” is not that easy. It can trigger us to have our core values challenged, and…
Marketing from a Place of Presence
Marketing can be a challenging activity for many coaches building their own practices. They often find it tough to stay authentic, while maneuvering in the day-to-day business world. As a brand coach and consultant, I’ve seen many of my clients attempt to do marketing in a way they were taught or shown, using models that…
Revolutionary System Changes with the Enneagram
At this year’s Enneagram Global Summit, James Flaherty spoke with host Jessica Dibb about the inextricability of humans and systems. They delve into how each Enneatype can develop their engagement with systems to revolutionize them at every level, from personal to organizational to global. This is James’s third appearance at this annual event and, as…
Coaching Circles: from One Coach to Many Coaches
There is something both awesome and disturbing about the idea that a bunch of people could be coaching you, all at the same time. It’s hard to imagine how coaching conversations, typically one-on-one affairs, can happen any other way. Yet, working together to support a colleague or peer in breaking through a difficult issue or…
A Sense of Belonging
The need for belonging I am just back from a trip to Europe to visit my family, my country of origin and my soul’s home. Coming back to California I once again felt torn between all the places I could call home and all the people I know, love and miss. It brought up two…
The Writer and the Written: Adult Development in Leadership
Dr. Robert Kegan postulates that there are five stages of adult development. The first two, Impulsive Mind and Imperial Mind, are mostly seen in children (or those who act like children!). Stage 3 is the Socialized form of Mind, where we look for external validation and allow the opinions, beliefs, norms and behavior of others…
Waiting to Know
Waiting until you know for sure what’s going to happen – where people are involved – means waiting for ever. With machines, it’s easy. With sufficient understanding of mechanics you can often predict exactly what’s going to happen. Cause and effect, straightforward to establish. But human situations are nothing like that, even though we pretend to ourselves…
We Are Not Snakes, We Are Mountains
In a few of his books, Jack Kornfield talks about the myth of a snake and a beautiful young princess. The princess is to be wed to the snake prince, unwillingly, so she goes to see an old witch who advises her to wear 13 wedding gowns and every time the snake prince asks her…
Facing Fear, Every Day
I was out driving today and I saw a man crossing the street. No big deal, right? Except this man was blind. Watching the traffic all stopped obediently at the lights, watching him calmly cross the street and then meet his bus… the scene really gave me pause. Just think about all the systems he…
Opening the Heart Relaxes the Mind
During times of significant change, whether it’s in our career, a relationship, or even a shift in our identity, the chatter in our minds can intensify. Like a ping pong ball that won’t stop pinging and ponging. A common challenge I hear in my work with clients is either, “I’m caught between multiple ideas of…
We Are All Required to Be Uncomfortable
“Things are not getting worse, they are getting uncovered. we must hold each other tight & continue to pull back the veil.” — Adrienne Maree Brown Uncovered, yes. All of it at once, it seems, and undeniably. Racism. Sexism. Abuse. Privilege. Unjust war. Injustice, period. Environmental destruction. The myriad wrongs baked into our human existence,…
More than Anything Else, You Must Remember This
Something like 56 million sensory impressions come into our body at any given moment. We walk around or drive around listening to music, talking to people, reading billboards, thinking/planning/evaluating and, in midst of all that, someone or something interrupts us and takes our attention in a different direction. Our life could be seen easily as…
The Revelatory Convergence of Buddhism and the Enneagram
At the Shift Network’s 2018 Enneagram Global Summit, James Flaherty joined host Jessica Dibb to for a profound discussion about the many ways that Buddhism and the Enneagram overlap. They explore how integrating the Enneagram into a Buddhist practice allows us to come to it with greater openness and understanding. By giving us insight into…
A Space Beyond Time
For many years now, I’ve been curious about time. It started one day about ten years ago. I had left Yahoo! the previous year, just created my coaching practice, and was new to building a business. I had a number of questions running through my mind, the most prominent being, ‘How could I find clients?’…
Three Myths to Give Up on If We Want to Grow Up
At the times when the world has shrunk to its smallest horizons, when I have been most despairing, desperate, or alone, or when I have found myself working and pushing much too hard, it usually turns out that I have been living in thrall to one or more protective myths about life that I have carried…
The Real Lesson in the Taoist Farmer Story
There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.…
The Perfect Relationships Don’t Allow Us to Stay the Same
We can spend so much time wishing our partners were different, complaining to ourselves that they’re not responsible enough, they don’t make sense to us, they’re unable to be who we need them to be. Or they simply drive us nuts with how they chew their food or take too long to put their shoes…