A Riff on Leadership and Leadership Coaching in Liquid Times

This blog post is an email that I sent to the mailing list after an Advanced Masterclass on leadership coaching that I offered as a teaser for the Unfolding Great Leadership course. You can download the recording by clicking this button. This riff touches on several key points.

Thank you to all who attended today’s Advanced Masterclass. We took a deep dive into what’s unfolding in the world of leadership and leadership coaching (and yet only scratched the surface).

I shared some of my current ideas about why the leadership industry has failed to develop the leadership competencies that are needed.

I shared that the biggest source of complexity we face comes from the historical shift from what I call the Phase of Solid Identities, a developmental phase of culture, in which we have lived for hundreds if not thousands of years, to the Phase of Fluid Differences. This language comes from the Seven Phases of Development, a developmental model that we use in Aletheia Coaching).

I recommended reading Zygmut Bauman’s prophetic “Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty” which he published in 2006. His other works are also important, especially “Wasted Lives: Modernity and its Outcasts” which articulates much of the suffering (unintentionally?) generated by the institutions of power in the Phase of Solid Identities.

Another philosopher who is feeling into the emerging, yet already present, reality of fluid differences is Timothy Morton. In the masterclass, I explored how his concept of ‘hyperobjects’ starts to grapple with phenomena that are so massive and with effects so distributed in space and time that they are ungraspable as a unity (in contrast to objects, like the pen in your hand).

You already know and experience hyperobjects, even without this fancy name. COVID-19, global warming, racism, sexism, inequality, the economy, capitalism, the team, the organization, the government are all examples of hyperobjects. Hyperobjects have design agency. What do they design? You and me. They design how we relate, how we act, how we know ourselves, and what it is to be human.

Leaders must lead in the midst of this VUCA reality (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous). True as it is, to say it this way, with this acronym which has become so commonplace, cushions the blow that these hyperobjects produce. And, it goes without saying that leadership coaches must help leaders navigate such a world. But how? It isn’t as if we as leadership coaches have a grip on this complex world any more than our clients do.

The prevailing notion of ‘the ideal leader’ is what Morton has called the ‘hypersubject.’ A leader who is dominant, in control, power seeking, and unfortunately often (unintentionally?) exploitative. Each of us in our own ways is a hypersubject and often we aspire to upgrade and improve ourselves as hypersubjects. Clients come to us wanting “Self 2.0” or more. Leadership coaches often make that exact promise, though probably not using this jargon.

The kinder, gentler way of talking about such hypersubjects as leaders is usually through leadership competency models. In these liquid times, any concept of an ideal leader is brittle. The flux and flow of these liquid times overwhelm such models - again and again. There are examples of successful leaders who lack such qualities. And examples of leaders who have them but are failing. In fact, a growing belief among leadership experts (no less than Jeffrey Pfeffer at Stanford and Barbara Kellerman at Harvard, among others) is that leadership is not teachable. For something to be teachable it has to be characterized and locked into a particular form and definition. The behaviors can then be taught and tested. Definitions of leadership abound yet an abundance of evidence demonstrates that we, the leadership industry, are failing to teach leaders how to lead.

A McKinsey survey revealed that only 7% of executives find their organizations effective at developing the leadership capacity they already need. A survey by Accenture found it to be 8%. Deloitte found it to be 6%. This is a startling clear finding. The leadership industry has failed inspire of earning ~$14 Billion annually in the U.S. alone and an estimated ~$50 Billion globally. Citizens are similarly disappointed by the lack of leadership competency among elected politicians. Could it be that politicians too are powerless in the face of hyperobjects? Indeed!

Leadership competency models are context-free yet the practice of leadership itself is highly context-dependent and situational. Morton (and other Speculative Realists, the philosophical camp that he hangs out in) are starting to build a philosophy that decenters the subject as a powerful design agent and shows how power is shifting to hyperobjects. Power is shifting from leaders to followers, to teams, to organizations, to markets, to social media influencers, and even to pandemics, record-breaking weather events, political movements, etc. As Kellerman has observed, the power has been draining from leaders progressively for hundreds of years and to such an extent that she has even declared the “end of leadership,” which is the title of one of her books (recommended).

I sometimes joke that when leaders grow up, they want to become followers because that’s where the power is these days. Morton might add that actually they want to become hyperobjects. (Will I ever get used to this language?) Consider the plight of Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify who is now flailing as he must react to artists pulling their content from his platform in the wake of Neil Young’s reaction to Joe Rogan. Who is in control? Who has the power? It certainly isn’t Daniel Ek. Yet, it also isn’t Neil Young who is the current mouthpiece (not to diminish him in the slightest) of a social sensitivity that is larger than him and erupting here and there, now and then, in a distributed way. Of course, the emergence of power in places that challenge the existing institutions of power is long overdue. Wherever it is happening previously marginalized people (Bauman’s provocative term is “wasted lives”) are now having a valued voice. The society of content creators that Spotify can’t exist without is another hyperobject. The social movement that Neil Young is speaking for is another hyperobject. And these hyperobjects have a design agency that cannot be underestimated without blinding ourselves to reality we face.

Consider how your own life was (is?) turned upside down by the hyperobject called COVID-19. And consider how many of us felt (and are still feeling) overwhelmed, stressed, burdened, confused, isolated (ironically together), depressed, and even suicidal. The prevailing ways of being in our culture, most of which try to cling to a sense of solidity and identity are ill-suited to the fluid challenges that we already face. COVID-19 accelerated our awakening to this liquid reality yet notice how many of us just want to get life back to ‘normal.’ Will we stay awake? Or will we fall asleep?

Morton speculates that a new way of being human - or more accurately a new way of becoming human - is called for. His name for this new kind of human is ‘hyposubject.’ (I don’t like this jargon anymore than you probably do, but he is sensing into an emerging future that is already upon us yet we don’t have a way to talk about it yet. I invite you to play with this languaging, as he is doing, and introduce your own languaging as you explore what’s unfolding.)

The sense of self that you and I have emerged intersubjectively (meaning, in relationship with others). We have been pretending that it is a solid identity and yet, in truth, it is a fluid emergence with many micro-identities (identities that we take on in different contexts). These liquid times call for us to recognize the inherent fluidity of who we are as human beings and who we might become. To do this we must release self-grasping (much easier said that done). Releasing self-grasping is the primary outcome of practicing unfolding.

Consider the changes that this shift calls for from leaders and from leadership coaches. You can’t learn leadership from a book. You can’t learn leadership from a theory of leadership. You can’t even learn leadership by modeling successful leaders. You can only invent and reinvent leadership in the middle of the context of action. Furthermore, leadership isn’t the action of an individual. Instead, leadership is an emergent social phenomenon. Recent studies in the social psychology of leadership are clearly demonstrating this. Integrating this into leadership coaching calls us to explore different forms of coaching and coaching contracts. The failure of the leadership industry to develop leadership is largely explained by observing that we have mistakenly believed that leadership comes from leaders. Instead, it comes from social systems.

Hyposubjects are feminist, antiracist, ecological, and queer allied. Hyposubjects seed revolutions in places that those in the mainstream aren’t looking or expecting. Hyposubjects occupy liminal spaces and they are at home there. They are bricoleurs creating mashups. They are entrepreneurs of identity. They tread over boundaries with ease. Their superpower is exposing the weak spots in the power establishment. And, they are deeply skeptical of any attempt to characterize or define them, most definitely including this one.

There are at least three responses to the challenges of these liquid times. We can try to reassert solid identities. Let’s be honest. We will all try this a lot before giving up. Everyone has a power base founded on solid identities no matter where you are in the power structure of your team, organization, family, community, or society. But the presence of hyperobjects has already doomed and foreclosed this option as viable. Power has already been stolen by hyperobjects and it isn’t coming back. The sooner we own this, the better. Another response is to throw our hands in the air and say, “I give up.” This is not entirely a silly and unserious response. Sometimes, it will be the only option and it must remain on the table. Yet it isn’t the only alternative. The third response is to work through this fluidity and find a new source of grounding, one that isn’t built upon rigidity and institutionalized power structures. This has huge ramifications for the practice of leadership and for leadership coaching. It is this response that I am exploring in Aletheia Leadership Coaching.

Recall that we work with Four Depths in Aletheia Coaching:

1. The Depth of Parts

2. The Depth of Process

3. The Depth of Presence & Absence

4. The Depth of Nonduality

These are depths of the present moment. The simple discovery is that being present is not binary (present vs. not present). Instead, when you shift to being present, you can be present at various depths. Using the methodology of Aletheia Coaching you can help your clients deepen in Presence in ways that help them find a new source of grounding in themselves and in their innate resourcefulness, creativity, resiliency, and genius.

In Aletheia Coaching, we understand the Phase of Solid Identities as centered at the Depth of Parts and the Phase of Fluid Differences as centered deeper at the Depth of Process. And beyond this, the Phase of Living Wholeness is centered at an even deeper depth, the Depth of Presence & Absence. It is here, as Presence (or even deeper still as Nondual Presence), that we find the grounding needed to navigate these liquid times without burden and overwhelm. Coaching with depth has never been more needed than it is today. And, I believe this need will only expand in the coming years.

The Four Pillars of Great Leadership are meta-competencies. These are competencies that are not housed within individuals but enacted within contexts embodied in individuals and social systems together. Meta-competencies always engage the unique context of the present moment and situation. Expressing a meta-competency might look very different from moment to moment. An example might help. Unfolding is a meta-competency. If you are already an Aletheia Coach, you’ll immediately recognize that every unfolding conversation is radically different. Yes, there are some high-level maps and some gestures (or so-called ‘dance moves’) that you can enact spontaneously as you coach. This helps beginners find their dancing legs but eventually experienced coaches learn they must let go of these beginner moves and invent their own moves in the moment as they dance with the music that’s actually playing and the client they are coaching right now.

Meta-competencies are cultivated through meta-practices. Meta-practices are so highly contextual that the untrained person can’t recognize their repetition because they are so different each time you do them. The meta-competencies and meta-practices of leadership are:

1. The meta-competency of Leadership as Presence is cultivated with the meta-practice of Integral Unfoldment

2. The meta-competency of Leadership as Insight is cultivated with the meta-practice of Integral Sensemaking

3. The meta-competency of Leadership as Design is cultivated with the meta-practice of Integral Redesign

4. The meta-competency of Leadership as Ethics is cultivated with the meta-practice of Integral Ethics

These meta-practices reinvent leadership in a context-dependent way. And, this is what you are called to do as a leadership coach. You must engage the client in the middle of the action, in the current context, and practice with them. What are you practicing? Unfolding, sensemaking, redesign, and ethics.

In general I find that leaders are already practicing some form of sensemaking, design, and ethics. What’s often missing is unfoldment. In Aletheia Leadership Coaching, you practice unfolding, sensemaking, redesign, and ethics with your clients in a way that they learn how to deepen their skill and practice with others. In fact, you might even invite the others they practice with into coaching conversations. (This will call for new ways to establish coaching contracts.) This helps them deepen their skillfulness in navigating these liquid times.

Sensemaking, redesign, and ethics are implicit within unfolding. However, I find that making them explicit helps to reveal these meta-practices in a ways that they can be more easily learned.

In these liquid times, the demands on leaders are mounting. The responses required of leaders are very different from what has been expected in the past. Many leaders feel unmet by coaches that are using a life coaching methodology to practice leadership coaching. Of course, many leaders can benefit from life coaching yet I find they need additional support of the kind found in Aletheia Leadership Coaching. This distinguishes leadership coaching from life coaching and establishes the rationale for why leadership coaching is more highly compensated than life coaching.

If you want to explore the realities facing leaders in fresh ways then Unfolding Great Leadership is for you.

If you want to evolve your leadership and leadership coaching to meet the challenges of these liquid times, then Unfolding Great Leadership is for you.

If you want to learn how to practice unfolding, sensemaking, redesign, and practical ethics with your leadership clients, then Unfolding Great Leadership is for you.

If you want to leverage recent discoveries in the social psychology of leadership in your coaching, then Unfolding Great Leadership is for you.

If you want to be an innovator in leadership coaching, then Unfolding Great Leadership is for you.

Building on what you have learned in Level 1, you will learn the meta-practices of Aletheia Leadership Coaching in a cumulative way, skill by skill. This style of learning enables you to expand your skillfulness through experiential practices.

Lastly, please remember that the prerequisite for Unfolding Great Leadership is the Advanced Coaching Program Level 1: The Fundamentals of Unfolding. Completing Level 1 is your ticket to this and all other courses in the Advanced Coaching Program and the Advanced Developmental Strategies curriculum where we apply Aletheia Coaching to the most common coaching topics you will encounter as a coach.

The next cohort for Unfolding Great Leadership launches on March 3, 2022.

The next Level 1 cohort launches on March 10, 2022.

Please reach out to us with any questions.

With love,

-Steve

The Four Styles of Transformation Part 2: On Transmutation

This article is a continuation of The Four Styles of Transformation in Aletheia Meta-psychology Part 1. If you haven’t read that yet, I recommend doing so.

Transmutation

In Part 2 of this series, I want to explore the first style of transformation called transmutation. In Aletheia Coaching, we practice transmutation through Integral Unfoldment. These two terms can be used synonymously. Briefly, through practicing Integral Unfoldment, Parts are transmuted into Process, Process is transmuted into Presence, and Presence is transmuted into Nondual Awareness. Let’s unpack this in more detail.

In the Advanced Coaching Program (ACP) curriculum, transmutation or Integral Unfoldment is the first style of transformation you learn. It forms the core of Aletheia Coaching. In Level 1, you learn how to practice transmutation by working with the client’s current experience in an ever-deepening way. In Level 2, you learn how to amplify and accelerate transmutation through integrating somatic practices like breathwork, movement, and bodywork into your coaching conversations.

“Transmutation” is not a widely used term. Transmutation most often refers to the legendary alchemical process of transforming base metals into gold. According to modern physics, a physical transformation like this requires so much energy that it can only happen in the center of stars.

Many interpreters of alchemical texts say that the processes they describe are metaphors for psycho-spiritual transformation not physical transformation. This was Carl Jung’s view. I’ve spoken to present-day alchemists who stand by the claim that transmutation is a physical transformation. It may be, but I can’t confirm this. I side with Jung on this point. In Aletheia, transmutation is a process of psycho-spiritual transformation that is relevant to us as coaches. Transmutation is the most important form of ego transformation for the journey of individuation.

In Part 1, I defined transmutation as the unfolding of innate wholeness into further expressions of wholeness. This is the most common form of transformation and it is found everywhere in nature. This is the transformation of an acorn into an oak tree. It is the transformation of a child into teenager, a teenager into an adult, and an adult into an elder. It is the transformation of a person who is disempowered and stuck into someone who is creative and capable. Transmutation is the transformation of anyone into a leader. Through transmutation, potential becomes actual. For this reason, learning how to skillfully facilitate transmutation is a core coaching competency.

Self-improvement vs. Self-unfoldment

If you follow my work, you know that I often make the distinction between self-improvement and self-unfoldment. The drive toward self-improvement is a dominant thread in mainstream culture. The coaching industry owes a huge debt of gratitude to the self-improvement movement. This movement has produced the ever-growing self-help industry and the proliferations of books and YouTube videos showing yet more ways you can optimize your life and and improve yourself. In fact, the narrative of self-improvement is so dominant that most people don’t even know about self-unfoldment, which utilizes transmutation. Furthermore, most people don’t realize that true effectiveness and fulfillment are rarely the outcome of self-improvement and self-optimization. Instead, the drive toward self-improvement and self-optimization is, more often than not, a source of suffering. I sometimes call this the tyranny of self-improvement, but that’s another soap box.

The premise of self-unfoldment differs significantly from the premise of self-improvement. Self-improvement is usually initiated in response to self-deficiency. You don’t like the shape of your body. You are dissatisfied with your job performance. You are unhappy in your relationships. You feel overwhelmed and stressed out. It feels like you just don’t have what it takes, whatever that is. Experiences like this are what often bring clients to coaching. But self-improvement isn’t self-transformation. Through self-improvement can upgrade your skillfulness but that doesn’t necessarily transform your way of being. Such a profound shift requires self-transformation.

The most powerful outcomes of coaching tend to come from self-transformations that fundamentally shift the client’s sense of themselves. In fact, that such a shift is even possible is often a surprise to clients. It is rare that clients seek such fundamental transformations because they don’t know they are possible. However, when clients experience the profound power of self-transformation they usually become an almost endless source of referrals. Self-transformation always over-delivers. One of the best ways to build your coaching business is to provide more value to your clients than they expected or paid for. Transmutation or self-unfoldment is the first of four styles of self-transformation that we practice in Aletheia Coaching.

In contrast to self-improvement, self-unfoldment starts with self-sufficiency. That is, self-unfoldment takes the view that who and what you are is whole and complete from the beginning. To be clear, I’m not using the term “self-sufficiency” in is usual connotation as being ‘capable of doing something on your own without support.’ Instead, I’m using the term self-sufficiency to indicate the opposite of self-deficiency. Another way to stay this is that innate wholeness as latent potential is unconcealed, embodied, and expressed through self-unfoldment.

By definition, unfoldment is always the unfoldment of wholeness from wholeness. Let’s return to my earlier example of an acorn. Rather than holding it as a deficient wannabe oak tree, lacking roots, a trunk, branches, and leaves we can hold is as whole and complete in itself. An acorn is a miracle in itself. It has the potential to be an oak tree if the conditions necessary for its unfoldment are met. What are those conditions? The acorn needs nourishing soil, water, sunlight, and air in the right mixture. As the acorn swells with water, splits open, sends its first roots into the soil and its first leaves upward into the sky, the acorn-becoming-an-oak-tree is whole and complete in every moment. The acorn is transmuting into an oak tree. This is the miraculous process that the alchemists so celebrated and studied. This is transmutation, the core process of life itself.

Like the acorn, you are already whole and complete in every moment and so are your clients. And, like the acorn, you can unfold your potential if the conditions needed are present. When you practice Integral Unfoldment, you foster the exact conditions required for unfoldment within the coaching relationship. And as a result, the client unfolds more and more of their depth, more and more of who they are as a self-in-relation (and you do as well).

Meeting Normal Psychological Needs Creates the Necessary Conditions for Unfolding

What are the conditions required for spontaneous unfoldment? According to Self-psychology, founded by Heinz Kohut, we all have normal psychological needs that must be met for us to naturally unfold and develop. In no particular order, they are:

1. The need for mirroring – the need to feel seen, understood, loved, and valued exactly as we are, especially when showing something important to another valued person

2. The need for idealization – the need to experience being cared for and protected by a sensitive, capable, powerful, wise, and respected other who is perceived as possessing the qualities, resources, and capacities that we lack

3. The need for belonging – the need to experience an essential likeness or kinship with other human beings (Kohut’s word for belonging was “twinship”)

4. The need for efficacy – the need to experience that you have a positive impact on others and can evoke responses from them that satisfy your own psychological needs

5. The need for supportive adversaries – the need to be challenged by others in ways that help us be our best self

6. The need for self-delineation – the need to experience support from others for articulating what one is perceiving, feeling, and thinking

7. The need for validation – the need to experience validation of one’s subjective reality, especially of how one feels

Whew! That’s a lot of needs! Yet each of these needs are spontaneously met in multiple ways through practicing Integral Unfoldment with your coaching clients. There is no need to track and satisfy each need individually. All of these needs are met in natural ways within a well-organized coaching relationship centered on exploring the client’s direct experience and integrating what unfolds into their life.

I frequently hear from students in our classes that they are surprised how coaching in this way feels effortless. Some will even say, “It feelings like I’m not doing anything.” How could this be an effective way to coach? Because meeting these needs requires that you stop trying to change the client. Even well-intended efforts to change the client will thwart this natural process from unfolding. Instead, you meet the client exactly where they are. You meet the client exactly as they are. You hold an open, accepting, loving, and appreciative space for them to meet themselves exactly as they are with no change agenda. In fact, the majority of the work is in helping the client relax their own self-improvement and self-optimization agendas, which themselves need to be seen, understood, loved, and valued exactly as they are. Paradoxically, as these conditions are met, the client spontaneously unfolds in profoundly transformative ways. That’s the power of transmutation!

When these normal psychological needs are unfulfilled, your clients will struggle with self-trust, self-acceptance, self-nurturance, self-worth, self-esteem, self-understanding, self-confidence, self-enjoyment, self-engagement, and self-satisfaction. All coaching clients struggle in one or more of these ways. As their normal psychological needs are met within the coaching relationship, they will naturally deepen and develop in all of these capacities.

Coaching with Depth

The method of Aletheia Coaching is organized around a model of depth called The Four Depths of Cosmos, Psyche, and Soma. Listed from shallowest to deepest, the depths are as follows:

1. The Depth of Parts where you experience a reactive and fragmented self (usually felt as ‘not enoughnes’) and a world of separation

2. The Depth of Process where you experience a fluid flow of felt relatedness and experience

3. The Depth of Presence & Absence where you experience the innate wholeness of yourself, others, and the world

4. The Depth of Nonduality where you realize the profound non-separateness, unity, and oneness of reality

The mindfulness movement and the popularity of books like The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle are thankfully introducing the concept of “being present” into mainstream culture. However, the notion that most people have of presence is binary - being either present or not present. However, Presence is more textured and multi-faceted that this simple binary distinction reveals.

In general, our culture is blind to depth. The four depths distinguishes four progressively deeper ways of being present. That is, when you shift from being not present to being present, you can then deepen your presence in four distinguishable ways. And, as your presence deepens, your experience of yourself, others, and the world is transformed in profound ways.

When you coach it is crucial to meet your clients where they are within these depths. Without realizing it, the vast majority of people are living at the Depth of Parts. They experience a world of separate and identifiable people, places, and things. And, they experience various reactions to them that can be mental, emotional, and/or physical. In fact this reactivity is one of the key indicators that someone is living at the Depth of Parts as this reactivity diminishes with deepening presence.

Reactivity reveals that a Part feels threatened or perhaps it feels hurt. In turn, Parts react defensively. Fear, hurt, other reactive emotions, and defensiveness are common ways to notice the client at the Depth of Parts. Another way is to notice the activity of The Three Poisons named in Yogic and Buddhist philosophy.

1. Avoidance

2. Attachment

3. Delusion

Delusion tends to show up as a sense of self-deficiency (which is sometimes masked as grandiosity). You might say, delusion is a case of mistaken identity. Delusion produces the belief that you can’t tolerate certain feelings (perhaps feeling anxious, anger, sadness, depression, loss, failure, aloneness, abandonment, worthlessness, helplessness, etc.). In this delusion, you are afraid of being overwhelmed by these intolerable feelings and they must be avoided at all costs.

Avoidance goes hand-in-hand with attachment. Just as you avoid certain feelings you become attached to other feelings (perhaps feeling happy, comfortable, peaceful, righteous, victorious, etc.). In this delusion, you believe you need to feel these ways and they must be sought at all costs.

Naturally, what is an intolerable feeling to one person is not so to another person. And feelings that are desirable to one person are undesirable to others. Nevertheless, we all engage in avoidance and attachment when our identifications are shaped by delusion. Patterns of avoidance and attachment can be unraveled at the root by exploring and unconcealing your innate nature as wholeness, as Presence itself. Presence has the innate capacity to be-with any experience without being overwhelmed. Realizing and embodying Presence liberates you from the hamster wheel of avoidance and attachment.

Self-improvement efforts driven from self-deficiency are usually a form of both avoidance and attachment. And, very often, regardless of the short-term outcome, in the longer term, they tend to reinforce the underlying delusion that drives them. Paradoxically, self-improvement tends to reinforce self-deficiency even as it attempt to address it. This is how incessant self-improvement and self-optimization can be a source of suffering. The alternative is self-unfoldment.

Let’s now explore how self-unfoldment occurs at each of the four depths.

Parts Work

You can meet the normal psychological needs of your clients and create the necessary conditions for unfoldment at the Depth of Parts by practicing Parts Work. Parts Work has three gestures: 1) Identifying, 2) Disidentifying-Accepting, and 3) Loving/Valuing. In the first gesture, you help the client identify the Part that is triggered. In the second gesture, you help the client disidentify from that Part and relate to it exactly as it is in an accepting way from Presence. Then, in the last gesture, the client-as-Presence offers this Part love and appreciation for its good intentions. In turn, the Part relaxes, softens, and melts. Of course, I am describing this practice at a high level and there are many nuances involved. However, the process of these gestures can unfold in a few minutes to a few seconds.

To get a sense of how this feels bring to mind a memory of a time when you felt truly seen, understood, loved, and valued exactly as you are by someone. You might have felt this way with a lover, a friend, a family member, a therapist, or even a coach. How did you feel? I always ask this question when I teach. I’ve probably heard close to a thousand responses to this question in the last 15 years. Most people share that something in them softened, melted, relaxed, or released the very moment they felt truly loved and valued for being who they are. Some people will even notice that this sense of release is the sign that they feel truly loved and valued exactly as they are.

When you feel truly loved and valued exactly as you are, something melts. What is it that melts? This melting dissolves the boundaries of separation at the Depth of Parts and spontaneously drops you deeper into contact with yourself, others, and the world in the Depth of Process. Love melts boundaries. This is the process through which fragmented Parts become re-integrated.

Process Work

In the Depth of Process you experience a fluid flow of felt relatedness. You primarily feel process experience through two channels of perception: 1) bodily felt sense and 2) imaginal felt image. Felt senses and felt images often arise together and amplify each other. Some people are more sensitive to felt senses whereas others are more sensitive to felt images.

Felt senses and felt images are a persistent background in all experiences. Parts may or may not be triggered, but process is always present. These felt experiences are literally the feeling of relatedness (technically, this is prior relatedness). As you bring these feelings into the foreground you become conscious of what’s unfolding in your current relationships.

Have you ever been walking down a street late at night at suddenly felt unsafe? That’s a felt experience of relatedness. Have you ever been at a work meeting and become uneasy with how the meeting is going? That’s a felt experience of relatedness. Have you ever been on a date and felt that special romantic spark with another person? That’s a felt experience of relatedness. Felt senses and felt images reveal what’s unfolding in the field of relatedness in which you live.

To meet the necessary conditions for deepening unfoldment at the Depth of Process you practice Process Work. The gestures of Process Work are: 1) Contacting, 2) Being-with, and 3) Feeling-Saying. In the first gesture, you help your client make contact with their current felt sense and any accompanying felt images. Felt sense and felt images often initially arise in a vague or indistinct way. For example, the client might say, “I feel something in my chest that’s stirring.” In the second gesture, you help the client be with their felt experience exactly as it is from Presence. And in the last gesture, you support them in exploring this felt sense through feeling and languaging it as it unfolds. Through this practice what was initially vague and indistinct unfolds in a way that becomes precise and exact. The client may say, “Now I’m sensing something in my in the center of my chest that feels like champagne bubbles.” In fact, as you the the client explore this felt experience you keep finding that it is more than can ever be put into words. Language just isn’t precise enough yet this felt experience functions more like the source of languaging because whenever you return to the feeling more can be said about how it’s unfolding.

Eugene Gendlin, creator of Focusing, taught that the body’s felt sense 1) reflects the whole field of current relatedness, including aspects of these relations that you are not yet conscious of, and 2) it always “implies a next step” that unfolds in a life-affirming direction toward the realization of innate wholeness. By themselves, these are remarkable resources for navigating the complex relationships that you live and work in. Any client that struggles to navigate relationships skillfully will benefit from learning to drop into the Depth of Process to sense and feel what is happening in their relationships.

Portals to Even Deeper Depths

There are two kinds of felt experiences that show up as portals to even deeper truths and depths of presence: 1) felt fullnesses and 2) felt emptinesses. I call them portals of Presence and Absence respectively.

A felt fullness arises as the feeling of some supportive capacity or resource that enables you to meet the moment exactly as it is. In a romantic moment, you might feel soft and sweet or yummy and juicy inside. In a moment of violation where boundaries need to be re-established, you might feel emboldened, energized, strong, expansive, and definitive. In a moment of irritation and suffering, your heart might become tender and cool in a way that soothes your irritation and brings a sense of freshness. These are examples of felt fullnesses, portals of Presence. If you feel such a fullness when it arises as the feeling of yourself in this moment (and thus collapse the subject-object dualism), you will spontaneously drop into the Depth of Presence & Absence.

By contrast, a felt emptiness arises as the direct feeling of deficiency and lack. Instead of feeling the presence of capacity, you feel the lack of it. This is what A. H. Almaas, founder of the Diamond Approach, calls a “hole” in his Theory of Holes. This word fits as often you feel this deficient emptiness as a hole in your body. You might feel like something essential is missing in your chest or solar plexus or belly or anywhere.

Feeling this lack seems to ground and reinforce the sense of self-deficiency. One response is to side with this belief and reinforce the delusion, which of course now seems proven. However, doing this pops you back up into the Depth of Parts as you crystalize this feeling and identify with it. But you can take another approach. You can get curious about this felt emptiness and start to explore it through Process Work. In fact, ultimately you will want to feel and explore it as directly and intimately as possible. The closest way to explore it is to feel this lack as the feeling of yourself in this moment (once again collapsing the subject-object dualism). When you do this, you spontaneously drop into the Depth of Presence & Absence where your inquiry can deepen and unfold in a profound way.

Presence Work

As I have just described, you drop into the Depth of Presence & Absence by deeply exploring a felt fullness or a felt emptiness. To meet the conditions necessary for deepening unfoldment at this depth, you practice Presence Work. The three gestures of Presence Work are: 1) Beholding, 2) Being-Wholeness, and 3) Unfolding-Completeness. In the first gesture, you open your awareness to behold the entire field of awareness, including awareness itself. Next, you practice Being-Wholeness through being this field of aware awareness exactly as it is as a quality of Presence or Absence. In the last gesture, you experience a spontaneous gestalt shift, a transformative shift in your sense of self.

If you entered this depth through a felt emptiness, this gestalt shift will generate a sense of fullness and Presence. Likewise, if you entered this depth through a felt fullness, this shift generates a sense of emptiness or Absence. Absence and Presence are like yin and yang. They are mutually defining, co-arising, and co-creating. There is no Presence without Absence, and naturally no Absence without Presence.

The experience of this gestalt shift is very similar to the change of perspective that you experience when looking at this famous line drawing.

Initially, you might see an old woman. Yet if you continue stay open to the picture-as-a-whole, you will experience a shift of the entire image. Now instead of an old woman, you see a young woman. Of course, you might have seen the young woman first and the old woman second.

The hallmark of this gestalt shift is that in a blink everything changed yet nothing changed. That is the exact experience of the gestalt shift at the Depth of Presence & Absence. With this shift, the felt sense of emptiness becomes full. Likewise, the felt fullness starts to empty out.

Another analogy is walking into a completely dark room. At first, it feels empty but as your eyes adjust you start to notice that the room is full of stuff. Once again, everything change but nothing changed.

What is actually occurring here is the dance of various qualities of Presence as they flow from the background into the foreground and from the foreground into the background. When you see the young woman, the old woman is unseen in the background. When the old woman pops into the foreground, the young woman withdraws into the background.

Experience at the Depth of Presence & Absence is a dance of foregrounding and backgrounding. Qualities of Presence that recede into the background are not gone. As they recede they make way for other qualities of Presence to emerge into the foreground as needed.

As you realize this, you stop connoting Presence as good and Absence as bad. Instead, you flow through various qualities of Presence in a dynamic moment-by-moment (nondual) responsiveness to life. Each quality being an expression of your innate wholeness and completeness. Each quality being an innate resource for navigating the complexity of life.

This is a remarkable discovery! Consider how much time, expense, and effort is spent in self-improvement and self-optimization projects to address self-deficiency. Characteristically, when Parts feel an inner deficiency, they try to solve it by taking action in the external world. They motivate you to buy more self-help books, follow more social influencers, take more course, get to the gym more often, buy the latest life optimizing app, and maybe even hire a coach. Of course there are many great benefits from doing these things that transmutation doesn’t replace. However, transmutation is an alternative response to self-deficiency that addresses it at the root. Instead of acting externally, you turn your attention internally by exploring your current experience in a progressively deepening way. As a result you unconceal your own innate wholeness and embody your innate resourcefulness in a profoundly transformative way.

Once you have realized a particular quality of Presence, and there are many, and it’s complementary quality of Absence, you can be and feel them both at the same time. This will spontaneously drop you into the Depth of Nonduality. This is one of four kinds of Nondual Work that we practice in Aletheia Coaching. I’m not going to say more about Nondual Work in this article. I will share more about Nondual Work in another article.

Transmuting in the Metacrisis

Transmutation spontaneously occurs as the necessary conditions for unfoldment are met in the coaching relationship at each depth. These conditions are met through exploring the client’s current experiences exactly as they are at their current depth. Integral Unfoldment gives you skillful ways to consciously practice this at each depth. Unfoldment proceeds through transmuting current experience into deeper experience and realization. Through this natural process of self-unfoldment you help your clients to unconceal and embody their innate resourcefulness, creativity, resiliency, and genius.

The metacrisis we now face is a clarion call for change and transformation. Yet the prevailing ways of responding to this call are through self-improvement and self-optimization efforts. Improvement and optimization are a capitalists dream. To sell your products, sell people on the deficiency of their lives and the deficiencies in themselves. Despite short-term gains, in the longer term self-improvement projects generally don’t deliver as promised. Plus, they consume vital resources. In short, self-improvement is not regenerative.

On the other hand, self-unfoldment, the unconcealment and unfoldment of wholeness into wholeness is regenerative. It is the very process of all living systems. This is a process that produces resourcefulness instead of only consuming resources. This is a process that generates more than it consumes. For this reason, I believe that self-unfoldment must become a more dominant response to the deficiencies that we experience. The work that we do as coaches who adopt this approach can make a significant contribution to this social transformation.

There are many nuances and details about this practice that are beyond the scope of this article. If you want to learn more about how to facilitate transmutation through Integral Unfoldment with your coaching clients, consider joining a Level 1 cohort.

I look forward to reading your comments and answering your questions.

In Part 3 of this series I will explore how we practice translucence in Aletheia Coaching. This is a style of transformation that enables you to see self-constructions as constructions and then learn how to see through them to the unconstructed nature of reality. Translucence can be used as a powerful sensemaking practice to reframe and recontextualize experience. And, in its fullest expression, translucence is a powerful way to awaken to Nondual awareness or Emptiness as it is called in Buddhist philosophy.

With love,

-Steve

The Four Styles of Transformation in Aletheia Meta-psychology Part 1

Unfolding in the Metacrisis, the title of this blog, is about exploring how we as developmental coaches can navigate the challenging times we live in and help our coaching clients do the same. In this series of articles, I’m going to dive into the art and science of transformation that informs the Aletheia Coaching and Aletheia Leadership Coaching methodologies.

Inspired by the work of child psychologist Margaret Mahler, in Aletheia Meta-psychology I name eight layers of ego structure that form in the first three years of life during the process of separation-individuation that she articulated. The first three years of life is an amazing time of profound growth, learning, and development. This process of separation-individuation culminates in what Mahler termed the “psychological birth.” This occurs when all of the fundamental ego structures are formed and we have the rudiments of an ego-centric psychology.

Metaphorically, I often think about the eight layers of ego structure at this time of life like the uninhabited superstructure of an eight story home. There are floors, walls, windows, and doors but no furniture or decorations. The home hasn’t yet been inhabited. Remember what it was like to move into your home. As you inhabit your home you figure out where everything goes. You organize it and decorate it. This is usually an experimental process that unfolds over time. If you are like me, you reorganize things every few years as your needs change and you learn what works and what doesn’t work. You may even do some remodeling from time to time.

An analogous process of habitation occurs with ego structure. After the psychological birth, the eight layers of ego structure are populated with life experiences, feelings, emotions, ideas, images, identities, language, learnings, strategies, habits, relationships, etc. Through this, we inhabit the fundamental form of these eight layers of ego structure. Every transformation we experience occurs within these eight layers. Therefore, understanding these eight layers is essential for any science of transformation.

In the nomenclature of Aletheia Meta-psychology, these eight layers are called 1fold, 2fold, 3fold, and so on up to 8fold. Of course, they have more descriptive names as well. In ACP Level 2, we explore each layer in detail and learn how the deep structure of Enneagram fixations privileges one of these layers above the others in its experience of self-world relations. Fully articulating these eight layers is the subject of a book or a course and beyond the scope of this article.

As each layer of ego structure forms, the child progressively develops an embodied way of being a self-in-the-world. Naturally, this process of ego formation is followed by a process of ego transformation that unfolds throughout the remainder of life. Ego transformation is a continuation of ego formation, which itself is a profoundly transformative process.

In Aletheia Meta-psychology I articulate four styles of ego transformation. Following suit, I call these 9fold, 10fold, 11fold, and 12fold. From the view of this meta-psychology, these four styles of ego transformation are implied by the structure of the ego itself. Therefore, they are the only ways that ego can transform. The style of ego transformation in any form of psychotherapy, coaching, or spiritual practice can be understood as one or more of these four styles.

In this series of articles, I want to dig a little deeper into The Four Styles of Transformation and unpack their relevance for us as developmental coaches. The four styles are:

1. 9fold Transmutation - a style of transformation that occurs as innate wholeness unfolds and expresses more of itself as wholeness. Transmutation is a process of releasing self-grasping, which is the end result of ego formation. Curiously, what unfolds from this is a progressively deeper contact with ourselves and the world. This style reveals that our fundamental nature as Being is an inexhaustible surplus. Transmutation is therefore a regenerative organic process of never-ending transformation. The following three styles are latent within this style and progressively unfold from it.

2. 10fold Translucence - a style of transformation that occurs when self-constructions are 1) seen as constructions and 2) seen through to the underlying unconstructed nature of reality. This style reveals the ongoing process of constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing ourselves and our world and helps us understand the central role that language plays in ego transformation.

3. 11fold Transfiguration - a style of transformation that occurs as a form is transformed into a more sublime and beatific form. This style focuses on transformative redesign and reveals the profound interdependency between body and world as experienced through self-conditioning. Transfiguration engaged the process of transformative communion between body and world. In transfiguration, transformation becomes a craft in which we act as world designers who are in turn also being redesigned by our designs.

4. 12fold Transference - a style of transformation in which nothing transforms into something that it already isn’t. This is a paradoxical style of transformation that transforms transformation itself through transforming transformative agency. This reveals how transformation is not only a practice but a grace.

These styles unfold in a developmental way each bringing a new transformative approach that complements and expands upon the styles that preceded. Each style of transformation has particular strengths and weaknesses. Fortunately, the weaknesses of one style are offset by the strengths of other styles.

For example, transmutation generates transformations that gradually unfolds whereas translucence generates sudden transformations like those that occur as insights and awakenings. We need both and any approach to developmental coaching must leverage both.

Both transmutation and translucence are continuous styles of transformation that arise from current present moment experience. They are continuous in time and space whereas transfiguration is discontinuous. Many people are trapped in the view that they can’t get from where they are to where they want to be because there is no connecting path. Transfiguration locates the source of transformation as transcendent of time and space. Metaphorically, it is like teleporting from one way of being into another way of being. This is not as esoteric as it might seem at first. You find transfiguration used in styles of coaching that invite clients to step into new narratives as an act of declaration. Such declarations must be reinforce and embodied through practices. The transfiguration of self-conditioning requires practice which realigns our conditioning in a way that embodies the new narrative. Once, again, we need both continuous and discontinuous styles of transformation.

I often refer to transference as a style of transformation that is “beyond transformation.” That too is needed to transform the persistent sense of self-deficiency that drives so much self-improvement at its very root. Whereas transmutation, translucence, and transfiguration take the person themselves to be the agent of transformation, transference shows how the true source of transformation is grace itself. This is already implied within transmutation but it is made explicit and central in transference.

We are living in an age of unsettlement according to my favorite design philosopher Tony Fry. These are transformative times that call for a deeper understanding of the nature of transformation itself. Our job as developmental coaches is to consciously leverage these styles of transformation to support the ongoing development of our clients and the social systems that they live in and lead.

As developmental coaches, we love to learn and develop. We take many coach training courses, learn new assessment tools, read books, and experiment with new tools and methods. The end result is typically an eclectic approach that is cumbersome and varies widely in effectiveness. When viewed from the perspective of these four styles of transformation, we can see how psychotherapists, coaches, and spiritual practitioners unknowingly cherry pick elements from many styles and try to blend them together with mixed results. Indeed, we need an ecology of practices, however an eclectic approach is not necessarily an integrated approach.

Learning these four styles enables us to harmonize and integrate them into a powerful approach to ego transformation. You don’t necessarily need to become a philosopher of transformation to do this, although I believe that master coaches will approach this. Instead, you can utilize a coaching methodology that already integrates them. This is what I have tried to create in Aletheia Coaching and Aletheia Leadership Coaching.

In Part 2, I will share more about transmutation. We will explore the important difference between self-improvement and self-unfoldment and why this distinction is crucial to navigating the metacrisis.

Transform Your New Year's Resolution

Happy New Year! As Trevor Noah says, 2021 was the best year of the last two years. Whew!

'Tis is the season for New Year's resolutions. If you follow my work, you know that I'm not a fan of these resolutions. Why? In short, our intentions are good, but the results are usually bad. New Year's resolutions are often framed as self-improvement projects. Self-improvement projects are born from a sense of self-deficiency. And the struggles you often experience when trying to fulfill them tend to reinforce your sense of deficiency. Commonly, this leads to the conclusion that you don't have what it takes.

In 20 years of coaching, the most common result I've seen from New Year's resolutions is the reinforcement of the belief that you don't have enough self-discipline. What are you to do if you don't have what it takes? Give up, of course. Not helpful! I call this "self-improvement quicksand." The more you try to fight your way out of self-deficiency, the more you are convinced of it.

The alternative to self-improvement I teach is self-unfoldment. You can spot a self-unfoldment project because it is always born from innate sufficiency. Instead of asking yourself "What is missing?" try asking "What if nothing is missing?" Yes, this is a provocative question because it flies in the face of common sense. But common sense is not always good sense.

Unfoldment is always the unfoldment of innate wholeness into a greater expression of wholeness. The silly (yet serious) example I always give is the unfoldment of an acorn into an oak tree. You don't look at the acorn as a deficient oak tree with no roots, no trunk, no branches, and no leaves. Instead, you hold this tiny miracle of an acorn in your hand and wonder at how a grand oak tree can grow from this. And an oak tree will indeed grow … if the conditions are right.

What if you are already a whole and complete human being, just like the acorn? Well, you are. And you have been so from the beginning. Just like an acorn, you are unfolding. You have been growing and changing and transforming, expressing your innate wholeness in so many wonderful ways throughout your life. And you can unfold in many more ways that can change and transform your body, your health, your relationships, your work, and anything else in your life … if the conditions are right.

Creating the very conditions necessary for unimpeded unfoldment is an art form that you, as an Aletheia Coach, can learn, master, and offer to your coaching clients. The know-how to foster these conditions is really the 'secret sauce' of powerful coaching.

Here are the first few steps.

Step 1: Paradoxically, to foster these conditions you have to stop trying to improve yourself. Instead, allow yourself to be exactly where you are and who you are already. Shift your attention from a future-oriented goal or a vision of what might be to who and what is already here now. Let yourself be, let yourself unfold. What are you feeling emotionally? What are you sensing in your body? What are you observing right here, right now? This shift helps to mindfully re-center you in Presence where your innate wholeness comes into view. As long as you are focused elsewhere, you are blind to your innate wholeness (and highly susceptible to the experience and belief that you are somehow deficient).

Step 2: Trust that the life you want to live can and will unfold from where you are now. Trust that who you want to be can and will unfold from who you are now. How could it be otherwise? Initially, especially if you are still in the grip of self-deficiency, this might feel like a leap of faith. As you become more conscious of the natural process of unfoldment, your trust in it will deepen in profound ways.

Step 3: Accept, love, and value yourself exactly as you are. Oddly, this is the most profoundly effective strategy for self-improvement (really, self-unfoldment) that I have ever found. Doing so doesn't mean that you won't change and transform. Instead, accepting, loving, and valuing yourself, exactly as you are, relaxes inner blockages that impede and thwart your deeper unfoldment. When you completely accept, love, and value yourself in this way, your innate wholeness and sufficiency comes into view and starts to play its role as the catalyst for profound transformation and deepening self-development.

Instead of declaring a new self-improvement goal this New Year’s, what if you declare that you completely accept, love, and value yourself exactly as you are? Any new efforts that you make (e.g., a new diet, more exercise, better self-care, etc.) are expressions of the deep acceptance, love, and appreciate you have for yourself and your loved ones. Any struggles that you face offer fresh opportunities to practice self-acceptance, self-love, and self-worth.

May your life unfold in wondrous ways in 2022!

 With love,

-Steve

Coaching and the Metacrisis: An Introduction to this blog

Most coach training is focused on learning a coaching methodology and developing yourself as a human being, and therefore as a coach. Great coach training helps you have great coaching conversations with your clients. What makes these conversations great is that your clients will leave with an empowering sense of themselves, a fresh perspective on world they live in, and a new horizon of possibilities for action. Through this, you help them develop and navigate their challenges with greater ease and effectiveness.

This view of coaching is microscopic. To study coaching from this microscopic view is to study the finer aspects of coaching and refine your craft. Every coach must undertake this essential project. This is what we do in our Advanced Coaching Program. However, coaching conversations are not isolated from what’s happening in the world. To really understanding coaching, your also need a much wider, more expansive, and panoptic view.

In April 2021, integral luminary Roger Walsh (professor of psychiatry, philosophy, anthropology, and religious studies at the University of California at Irvine) published a call to action on the Integral Life website: Calling All Integral Practitioners!: Responding Effectively to the Crises and Craziness of Our Times. I highly recommend reading his article. Opening this article, he writes:

We are in a race between consciousness and catastrophe, and the potential catastrophes keep multiplying. Social and political turmoil, cold wars and hot wars, culture wars and cyberwars — the list of social challenges is long and growing.

But looming far larger are unprecedented threats to the survival of our civilization and even our species. Pandemics have grabbed attention, but are merely a warning shot. Barreling towards us is a constellation of crises such as overpopulation, resource depletion, ecological collapse, weapons of mass destruction, and more. Worse, the urgency of these crises keeps increasing and the time for effective action shortening. 

In this race between consciousness and catastrophe, coaching has a role. Coaching offers much needed support for awakening consciousness in the face of the unfolding catastrophes - the metacrisis. Therefore, as a coach, you have a role to play in addressing the metacrisis we all face. Regardless of your coaching niche, the lives of your clients are impacted by this metacrisis. The last two years living with COVID have demonstrated this with superb clarity.

With this blog, I want to help you understand this wider, more expansive, and panoptic view of coaching. I want to help you understand how coaching individuals is simultaneously also coaching the collective. Consciously held, this broader context can shape the unfolding evolution of your coaching in a way that it becomes a more effective response to the metacrisis that we all face.

The kinds of challenges and breakdowns that your coaching clients will bring to you over the next decade and beyond will, more and more I believe, reflect the deep interconnectedness of the many crises we are facing. Most approaches to coaching are too narrowly focused on individual development. Yet what’s unfolding in the collective contextualizes individual development. And this relationship is reciprocal. What’s unfolding in the lives of individuals contextualizes collective development. As a community of professional coaches, we must stretch ourselves in this direction.

My intent with this blog is to help you, my dear readers, to sustain an empowered mood in the face of this daunting metacrisis. In this blog, I promise to offer perspectives and practices that you can put to use in your life and your coaching.