Tag: Personal Development
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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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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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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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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…
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Prison of Personality
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Integrating What Is Broken in Us
We are all broken. In some circles, this is a radical thing to say (“Hey, some of us are doing just fine, thank you!”); for others, it’s a downer (“That’s a pretty negative view of people”). But for me, this is an uplifting truth and a fundamental tenant for coaching. For most of my youth,…
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The Importance of Self-Development in a Breaking World
I admit it: even as an Integral Coach and the person at NVW most responsible for spreading the word about our work, I’ve had moments in recent months when I’ve second guessed the point of it all. With so much of the world in dire emergency, it’s to the point that I’m literally forgetting to…
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Responding to our Times, Part 2
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Balancing Judgement and Mercy
Whatever we say we’re most committed to, a great many of us live as if judgement were the primary human value, judging ourselves mercilessly and without respite. And, when we live in the stream of harsh judgement, no effort is enough, no achievement worth much, and our efforts to help seem to us nothing but disguised…
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The Enneagram Prison Project and Integral Coaching
NVW founder James Flaherty was recently interviewed about his work with the Enneagram Prison Project as part of the Shift Network’s 2017 Enneagram Global Summit. He was joined in the session by EPP founder Susan Olesek and program ambassador Alex Senegal. Inspiring, informative, and deeply moving, this conversation gets to the core of what can…
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Choosing a Coach Training Program
My path into a coach training program Eight years ago I found myself entering a life transition. Up to this point I was making a living as a technical consultant, working just enough to stay financially stable, while I devoted the majority of my time to nonprofit work. Specifically, I was part of organizations that worked…
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Responding to Our Times, Part 1
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How We Make Humans Into Monsters
As our culture becomes more polarized, it becomes more tempting to label those who disagree with us as “monsters.” But what do we really mean when we say someone is being monstrous? And how willing are we to see our own monstrous tendencies? To explore this, I’m going to go where monsters originally came from:…