Tag: Personal Development
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Focusing and Integral Coaching Webinar
Focusing Resources founder Ann Weiser Cornell and New Ventures West Managing Partner Cynthia Luna recently hosted an exploration of what it means to know you have everything you need to live from wholeness. Learn how Focusing and Integral Coaching compliment one another, and learn about opportunities to experience both methodologies more deeply.
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Finding clarity in times of transition
Reflecting back over the last 2-3 years, with so much unpredictability, change, obstacles, and discouragement, what has kept you moving forward? For many, the pandemic and other recent upheavals have put us in more immediate contact with what is essential. Of course, there have been countless immediate concerns to address. But in our work, we’ve…
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“It” vs. “You”: A Field Experiment
How many times have you heard this: “kids, don’t try this at home”? But here’s one you might want to try. Zero cost and an ROI that might surprise you. I got the idea from my son. On occasions, after I had done something for him, he would say, “I appreciate you.” I would not…
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Replenishment, Starting Close In
This article was originally published on the Mindful Leader blog in August 2022 “I have nothing left.” It’s a sentiment that’s been in our shared consciousness for a long time, and recently I’ve started to hear folks actually name it. Maybe you have too. World events have taken their toll, and many of us find…
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Courage v. Bravery
Bravery and courage are cousins often confused as twins. While they share DNA of context containing an element of fear, upon examination they are quite different. Bravery is observed and measured from the outside. We see someone perform admirably in the face of danger—whether physical, social or relational—and we comment upon their bravery. They managed…
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What’s the Difference Between Self-Improvement and Self-Development?
This article was originally published on the Mindful Leader blog in May 2022. It has several questions for reflection in italics. In these places, you’re invited to pause, feel into your response, and perhaps explore a bit with some notes or journaling. “To be purposeful is not to be goal oriented, but to seek to…
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Changing and Staying the Same are the Exact Same Process
Cyd is the person in the office who is always fixing everything: the broken printer, the scheduling snafu, the delivery gone awry. They see things that are invisible to most: the bump in the ceiling that could become a leak; the fact that you’re halfway through the second-to-last jug of water and haven’t placed the…
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How Can We Be Good Ancestors?
I just finished the book The Good Ancestor- A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking by Roman Krznaric, a philosopher who writes about the power of ideas to change the world. In this excellent review of the book, published in The Guardian in July 2020, the journalist Andrew Anthony makes salient the point that I too…
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I Am Not Me Without You
This post was originally published on the Mindful Leader blog in January 2022. A few weeks ago I had the privilege of witnessing the certification of a new group of Integral Coaches: a powerful rite of passage that is the culmination of a year of hard work, dedicated practice, and profound growth. At the close…
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The space we need to grow
This article was originally published on the Mindful Leader blog in July 2020. When folks are considering Integral Coach training, they often bring very reasonable questions like: These are all perfectly understandable scenarios, which is why it can be surprising to learn that our answer to each of these questions is “no.” We require students…
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Beauty and Wonder: An Invitation into Experience
Do this, if you would: Google “René Magritte, Clairvoyance.” Bring up an image of the painting.* Sit with it for 30 seconds, one minute, two minutes. Five. Receive it through your heart. Notice its effects on your body. Analyze it with your mind (you probably started doing that the second you saw it. We can’t…
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Ten Seconds of Spaciousness
10 seconds. That was all my client needed to hear to start shifting her mindset and easing her doubts and worries. Her social conditioning did not allow her to take time for herself or do something that was not obviously attached to an accomplishment or for the benefit of others. Just 10 seconds gave her…
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Coregulation: the Heart of Skillful Response
This article first appeared in the Mindful Leader blog in December 2020. “If you want to improve the world, start by helping people feel safer.” —Stephen Porges Can you recall a moment in your life when you felt truly supported? Perhaps it was a session with a therapist, bodyworker, coach, or teacher. Maybe it was…
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Staying with the Questions
I’m a little obsessed with getting to the very bottom of a question, and then filling up the hole with all the resources I can find. Tell me more. What’s it about? How does it feel? What is the problem you want to solve? Curious, always. But then I do have trouble staying with the…
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Coyote Trickster: Embracing the Unexpected
While catching up recently with two of my wonderful colleagues, one of them asked the other what kinds of new connections she was making since having chosen her fetish. Wow, I thought, what a juicy conversation this was going to be! Yet quickly I was told that this wasn’t about the kind of fetish I was…
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Body-Centered Speaking and Listening
This article was original published on the Mindful Leader Blog in June 2021. In Integral Coaching we often talk about the three centers of intelligence: head, heart, and body. Useful across all areas of coaching, they are particularly interesting to explore in the realm of speaking and listening. Recently, I had the opportunity to spend…
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Innocence that Heals
What’s possible as we re-emerge, and my experience in a laudromat A day after a spiritual healing retreat I attended in Feb, 2020, I was at the laundromat. As the Buddhist teacher, Jack Kornfield, says in his book, “After the Ecstasy, The Laundry”. This was about three weeks before COVID, so a pretty appropriate title.…
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Knowing When to Stop
There is an ancient tradition in Judaism called the shmita, or sabbath year. It’s the seventh and final year of the agricultural cycle, when any and all productive activity is forbidden in that field. The intent is to give the land an opportunity to rest. Shortly after the pandemic arrived, I decided to stop working,…
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Aligning Thoughts and Actions: a 2-Part Exercise
This article was originally published on the Mindful Leader blog in October 2020. The “Integral” in Integral Coaching has a few different meanings. It points to the multiple traditions and disciplines that weave together to form the method itself. It indicates the ways that coaches synthesize all they know and are learning to support their…
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Overcoming Imposter Syndrome by Normalizing Hardship
Michelle Obama was asked what hurt her most during her tenure as First Lady. She responded by saying, “The shards that cut me the deepest were the ones that intended to cut,” referring to the negative comments on social media. Among such comments include ‘she is an ape in heels,’ ‘her daughters don’t like her,’…