Jenny Devine – Leadership Coach

 I feel very comfortable with the fact that there are many factors at play in creating a consciousness transformation in Essentials coaching. Consciousness is not simple, so why should a process that transforms it be anything but multi-factored?  As I listed and worked through the above points (see previous post), I became aware that there are so many different routes available to the client for transformation and any of these can act as an accelerator or provide the tipping point. There are many analogies available for this process of transformation. These include moving from sleep to awakening, illusion to reality, darkness to enlightenment, imprisonment to liberation, fragmentation to wholeness, separation to oneness, journey to arrival, exile to home, seed to flowering tree and even, death to re-birth. (Frager, UPR lecture series)

For those clients who open themselves to the process, who do the work the program demands, any one of these analogies may seem appropriate. As I coached a client through session fifteen today, a week from program completion, she shared with me that for the first time she can remember she is waking up without a sense of fear or anxiety in her life. When I asked her what it was that had moved in her life to precipitate this change, she responded that she had a sense of trust in her self and in her life that she had never experienced prior to the program.

The analogy of fragmentation to wholeness seems particularly relevant to me here and I believe there are powerful integrating factors at work that begins to move clients from the uncomfortable experience of fragmentation towards a sense that they are more successfully holding together or uniting the various factions of their life.  I have no doubt that the practice of accessing inner wisdom is an integrating one; or that a relationship between ego and Self (even in its infancy) is integrating; or that the practice of mindfulness and taking actions from that place of mindfulness is integrating; or being held in a supportive yet challenging relationship is integrating; and it would be difficult to argue against the fact that all of these factors combined have a highly integrative influence on human consciousness.

References

Frager, Robert. Spiritual Psychology Lecture Series (Los Angeles, University of Philosophical Research)

 Self Actualisation

Reviewing Maslow’s work on self-actualisation helped me come to the realization that Essentials invites clients to step into a self-actualising process. There are two factors that I believe are initially involved in clients stepping into this process: a willingness to engage in the transformation process, into the possibility of stepping into a new reality; and the engaging of the will to determinedly begin taking responsibility for all aspects of their life. Once this happens it seems the wheel of motivation begins to turn, self-esteem rises and higher levels of energy and consciousness are released. This is my greatest joy in coaching —observing and experiencing human potential fully, creatively and joyfully utilized.

The Coach

 My final area of focus was on the coach and the coaching relationship itself. I explored the process of preparation that is required before each call and the specific coaching skills of active listening and powerful questioning. I examined the training of the coach and was able to determine that this training is a process of self discovery where one explores what Jung would describe as the conscious and unconscious dimensions of the psyche.

While human relationships were shown to be an essential medium for human growth, I was able to observe that the coaching relationship provides a particularly fertile environment. The coach, having journeyed through the terrain of his/her own psyche, is able to show up in the coaching relationship with a personal understanding of the depths of human experience and all that it entails.

In the ideal coaching relationship a skilled, yet humble coach enters into the relationship as a clean and neutral instrument. The challenge for coaches lies in getting out of their own way, that is, standing outside of agendas and righteousness, so that they can be a conduit for clients as clients become aware of the mystical presence of the deeper consciousness, and the opportunity for them to access the wisdom within, which will guide and influence their thoughts and feelings as well as their actions in the world.

Inner Wisdom

 In order to explore the concept of inner wisdom, I examined Jung’s personality structures that exist within the human psyche, in particular the ego and the Self. As I progressed with this exploration I was intrigued to discover that the idea of the ego-Self axis was highly relevant to Essentials. I discussed how, at some point within Essentials,   the ego, which under usual circumstances thinks it is the center of the psyche, becomes linked to the Self as a result of what I view as an accelerated process of dialoguing with the Self through the internal exercises.

Jungian experts seem agreed that this link, which may eventually develop between ego and Self, is the result of the long, hard work of understanding and accepting unconscious processes. I presume they are meaning work that takes many years. In the past I certainly would have agreed with them. But having been coached through Essentials myself, and having guided clients through the program, when I explored this idea of the ego-Self dialogue I had an unmistakable sense of intuitive knowing that this process takes place within Essentials.

 I am not suggesting that this ego-Self relationship is completed during the Essentials program—in fact, I’m quite sure it can continue into a much deeper connection for many people, continuing to change their worldview following the program—however I am very clear that this program nurtures and strengthens ego consciousness at the same time that it invites dialogic communication (albeit in some limited form comprehensible to the individual) with the Self. I think it is inevitable that at some point in the programme, for clients who are able to surrender to the process — that is, do the work that the programme and their inner wisdom demands of them— the nurtured ego becomes linked to the Self in a positive way creating a powerful spiritual and psychological shift in perspective, experience and choice.

 Breath Work and Inner Wisdom

 I explored how breath work, the conscious process of inhalation and exhalation, and the associated relaxation response, are able to open the client to the possibility of accessing inner wisdom. I used supporting literature to show that this concept has been well explored both in the West and for thousands of years in the East.  I looked into the nature of the human imagination and its power in guiding human beings to bring forth a powerful vision of a new reality.

I was able to summarize some of the processes used by Dr Marcia Emery, to show that accessing inner wisdom or, as she terms it, intuition, is not an extraordinary event but rather a skill that can be developed; an “oracle-to-go” that can be accessed at any time at any place.

The final posts in this series draw a conclusion as to why and how the  Essentials coaching programme facilitates a consciousness shift for clients who are prepared to do the work involved.

 A flat, shiny, brown stone sits on the hard drive of my computer. In the early hours of this morning, as I sit reflecting on this body of work, the stone is cold to the touch. It fits perfectly in the palm of my hand, and as I hold it, my fingers trace the word “integrity” that is etched into it. This stone was given to me when I graduated from the Essentials program.

 As I reflect back over the clients I have coached and am coaching through this program I am aware of how often the word integrity arises on the calls; choosing  to live in alignment with one’s innermost beliefs and values and all the challenges that go with that. It is this call to integrity that seems to me to characterize so much of the work that takes place in the Essentials coaching programme for clients. 

 An article I read recently by psychiatrist and author Nick Arrizza explored the link between integrity and spirituality and found that the two words were essentially the same.  Arrizza uses the same definition for integrity as we use in Essentials, “living a life in alignment with one’s own truth,” while spirituality is defined as “the state of being and living as one’s true self.”  Arrizza believes that being “spiritual” is the same as invoking the constant presence of “you” in your life; that is, being present and sentient at every moment. In other words being spiritual is essentially the same as being in integrity, he explains.  He introduces the term “spiritual integrity” to mean the constant presence and sentience of you as a human being.

 This link between integrity and spirituality is particularly relevant to this work. I delved into what it is that creates a psychological or psychoanalytical shift for clients who do the work that the program of Essentials demands. However following this exploration I now feel that it is necessary to modify the description of that shift to the more accurate “psycho-spiritual” shift.  I believe that the shift that clients undergo is such that they become awakened to an essential aspect of themselves, a transcendent aspect, which enables them to view their world with new eyes; or one could say, awakened eyes.

 As I explored the shift or transformation that takes place in Essentials, there were three specific components or aspects of consciousness that I was particularly focusing on regarding client transformation: 

 The first was the capacity for sentience. This is the ability of the conscious being to feel, to be aware, to know, to experience, to receive.

The second, the capacity for subjectivity, to have a perspective, a point of view.

And the third, the capacity to choose, to have volition and intention about what to believe, what to pay attention to, what to do and which perspective to adopt.

 As I summarize and review the following seven areas in the following posts it is these three aspects of consciousness that I am particularly interested in. Is it likely that each area is able to create a shift or transformation in an individual’s capacity for sentience, subjectivity and choice?

 References

Arrizza, Nick. Integrity and Spirituality (http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nick_Arrizza,_M.D.)

As the trainee coaches enter into specific Essentials coaching training, their own personal growth work is intertwined with specific skills for coaching. So, as well as learning about and practicing such skills as active listening, mirroring and asking clarifying and powerful questions with their practice clients, trainee coaches explore their own righteous positions and hidden agendas, both conscious and unconscious that exist for them. The result of this is that as new coaches emerge, they step out of the role of student coach and their necessarily self-focused journey of personal growth into the role of coach, with specific skills and also, what I hope is true for every coach, a new understanding of the concept of humility. They have journeyed their own terrain, and one who has truly done this can show up for another human being only from a place of humility.

To me humility within the context of Essentials is not about modesty, deference or lowliness; rather it is the inside knowing that comes when one has journeyed inward; it is about ego understanding its relationship to Self; it is about opening oneself to one’s own essence, and the purpose of the human experience in realizing one’s human potential.

Cope captures the essence of this humility in Indian Gurus as described by Ramama Maharsi. “The Guru is one who at all times abides in the profound depths of the Self. He never sees any difference between himself and others and is quite free from the idea that he is the Enlightened or the Liberated One, while those around him are in bondage or the darkness of ignorance…There is no difference between God, Guru and the Self” (Cope, 1999, p.165).

 On the final page of his book, A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle uses the word humble and meek interchangeably.  He believes that the humble (or meek) are those who have awakened to their essential true nature as consciousness and recognize that essence in all “others”, all life forms.  They live in the surrendered state and so feel their oneness with the whole and the Source.  They embody the awakened consciousness that is changing all aspects of life on our planet, including nature, because life on earth is inseparable from the human consciousness that perceives and interacts with it.”

 References

Cope, Stephen. Yoga and the Quest for the True Self (New York. Bantam Books, 2000)

 Tolle, Eckhart. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Maryborough, Victoria, The Penguin Group, 2005)