Category: Article
Find Your People
This piece originally appeared in the Huffington Post in December 2014. Holiday time is family time. But what exactly do we mean by family? So many people live three time zones – or an ocean – away from their parents and siblings, turning travel “home” into a costly or time-sucking ordeal. Then there are the…
Is Change Really Difficult?
I suppose that the whole discipline of coaching wouldn’t exist if the assumption didn’t persist that change for us humans is quite difficult. The notion seems such common sense that many of us have never challenged it or even given it much thought. But I wonder if it’s the case? Or to be more exact,…
Transparency
I’m a little sad most of the time and I’m not up to much of anything. Great conversation starter, huh? But if I’m honest, that’s my in-the-moment answer to the question of how am I doing these days, and what am I up to. It’s winter, it’s dark, my body wants to hibernate, I’m tired…
Limitation and Infinite Possibility
As Integral Coaches, we don’t have to leave out any parts of ourselves … just as we don’t leave out any part of life in our client work. This is, of course, easier said than done since we live in culture that has strong public standards about what it is to be a “good person.”…
Freedom: Do You Really Want It?
Freedom and liberty are not the same thing (at least in this article). Liberty is the political/economic/legal structures that allow us to associate as we like, make a living as suits us, say what we want, etc. Freedom is when we act consistently with what is essential for us even in the face of uncertainty,…
Forgiven
Forgiveness. Among the most healing of all human possibilities. Today, can you start by forgiving yourself? .. for your forgetfulness, your anger, your irritability, your desire to please, your frustration, your resentment, your boredom, your rushing, your waiting, your confusion? Can you forgive yourself, please, for everything you judge so harshly about yourself? And for…
Marry Yourself
This post by NVW faculty member Marina Illich originally appeared in the Huffington Post. I don’t have enough. I can’t do enough. Indeed, I’m not good enough! Is this your mantra? I think it’s a mantra a whole lot of us intone daily, and with a frequency we barely notice. No surprise. Wherever we look,…
Studying the work of Sri Aurobindo
In the autumn issue of the Distinctions newsletter, James Flaherty takes up the topic of tuning into our inner guidance. To set the stage, he introduces the work of Sri Aurobindo. Here is an excerpt from the article, which includes a bit about this fascinating figure. Sri Aurobindo was a philosopher and spiritual teacher in…
The Model Is Not the Person: Warnings About Assessments
The following is an excerpt from James Flaherty’s upcoming book, Coaching Now. Integral coaching employs three central models. Before I begin talking about them, I’ll give you the warnings that all model-givers provide but that are often ignored. The first warning is that the model is not the person. We know this more broadly as…
How To Help
Of course you want to help. Of course you want to relieve other people of their suffering and difficulty where you can. But it’s easy to confuse what’s actually, genuinely of help with what makes you feel better. In other words, it’s easy to do what makes you at ease and then take your ease…
Uncovering Integral Leadership: Leading With Our Whole Selves
An article written by James Flaherty is featured in the September issue of HR.com’s e-publication, Leadership Excellence Essentials.
How Mindfulness Makes You Powerful
This post by faculty member Marina Illich originally appeared in the Huffington Post in July of 2014. As an executive coach and leadership consultant, I think a lot about power in the work place and beyond. What is it? Where does it come from? How does it work? Conventional thinking has us believe that power…
The difference between achieving goals and being fulfilled
Rather than helping clients solve problems, Integral Coaches work with them to develop a new way of being: one that has them live in ways that are more effective and useful across all areas of their life. We are interested in deepening our clients’ capacity to be self-generating and self-correcting. Another way of explaining this…
The beauty of breakdown
Most of us spend our time doing everything we can to avoid breakdowns. In our culture the word itself carries an energy of panic and dread. We arm ourselves against anything or anyone that my thwart our plans or challenge our ideas of who we are. Entire lifetimes are spent busily keeping things in order…
Story People
As well as living your life, you’re always in the midst of a story about it all, though perhaps it doesn’t often seem this way. Our stories quickly become transparent, invisible, in the living of them. But one evening, reading a book or watching a film, you find yourself deeply touched by the situation of…
50,000 Life Coaches COULD Be Wrong: The Importance of Development in Coaching
Entering a six-month coach training program on the suspicion that life coaches are glorified confidantes who charge a lot of money and that coaching is “new-age nonsense,” the author of a recent Harper’s article finds lots of evidence to support her hypothesis. The irony of the piece’s title, “50,000 Life Coaches Can’t Be Wrong,” becomes…
The Heart of Mindfulness
This article by faculty member Marina Illich first appeared in the Huffington Post. A Sioux saying has it that the longest journey we’ll ever make is the journey from our head to our heart. As an Ivy League-trained academic, some part of me still winces when I hear this kind of adage, thinking it sounds…
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—Poetry by Emily Dickinson
#1129 Emily Dickinson Tell all the Truth but tell it slant— Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind—
In all seriousness
This morning I sat down. Immediately greeted by the Mystery we burst into laughter. It was a deep belly laugh. The kind that linger – that have an indelible affect. As soon as there was pause we erupted, again. We were struck by how silly I am. Oh the gut bursting hilarity of thinking richness…
Nothing more whole
Right in the middle of your most profound difficulties, maybe the difficulties you’ve spent your whole life trying to avoid, there can be the birth of something new. Perhaps an illness, a loss, or a disappointment leads to a new kind of strength, intelligence, compassion, or kindness. Perhaps it leads to gratitude for your human…