Category: Resources
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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…
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Power of Empathy
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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…
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Support in Grief
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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?’…
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Gateways to Conversation
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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From Hopelessness to Possibility: My Journey to Becoming a Coach
I’m an Integral Coach. I’m also a martial arts instructor, creative director, and workshop leader. I couldn’t have imagined even one of these things as a possibility when I embarked on my year of training at New Ventures West. Many people come into the Professional Coaching Course with particular intentions for what awaits them at…
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What You Think You Need—And More
After I returned to my yoga practice after a longer-than-usual break last year, the teacher said something that kept sticking in my mind: “Get more props than you think you need.” In a yoga class, props are objects like blocks and straps and blankets that help you bridge the distance between, let’s say, your hands and…
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Where Horizontal and Vertical Coaching Intersect
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How Deep Can You Go as a Coach?
How deep we go in as a coach may well come down to three factors: how open and capable of deep exploration our client is the depth of presence and skill of the coach the intention of the program. I guess as you read this there are a lot more than three factors in the…
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Transcending Unconscious Stories
It was one of these weeks where things were quickly going downhill. Or so it seemed. My partner was away for work. My dog got diarrhea. My daughter got the flu. My network of support was on vacation… and so on. I could see that I was looking outside myself, trying to identify the perpetrator…
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Of Not Knowing
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Is Anyone Listening?
It’s amazing how often we assume our requests can be heard while ignoring the capacity of others to listen to what we’re asking. Some examples: You made a request by email If your recipient didn’t read it, didn’t see it, or is overwhelmed by emails and messages, as so many people are, you probably don’t have…
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Integrating Painful Feelings
What are you doing with your feelings? Chances are, not enough! We’re all trained by our culture and family of origin to become “thinking” and “doing” machines and to forget about our feelings as much as possible. It starts early. As young children, we’re told that we don’t need to feel afraid, that it’s not…