Integral Connections

Feel even more empowered in 2021. One way to do that is being clear on the quality of life you want for yourself.

In the coming months, I anticipate there will be many opportunities to lead evolutionary change for self, and with others, in navigating the complexities of shifts we are experiencing globally, locally and personally. I thought you might be inspired and interested to learn more about holistic decision making in designing the quality of life you want for yourself.

I embarked on a journey of creating my vision of a holistic quality of life when I was introduced to holistic land management training. My focus has been on holistic decision making, aligning with my values and the joy of the quality of life we have created, with a feeling of peace and ease in my integral being.

In making holistic decisions, choosing to put my attention and intention on what aligns with my quality of life, values and keeping an insatiable lens of curiosity and openness to learn, I had clarity on where to spend my time and energy in navigating the changes in life conditions in 2020; it informs every choice moving forward into 2021.

Empowerment is in the questions.

In this transition time into a new year, I invite you to allow yourself the space to reflect on the following questions with curiosity, through sensing your inner knowing, and openness to images/sounds/words/thoughts/feelings.

• Describe how you want your life to be, based on what you most value. (Economic well-being, relationships, challenge and growth, purpose and contribution). What is the whole you are holding?
• What are you choosing to care about and take responsibility for?
• What is quality of life for you?
• Who needs to be involved in the holistic context of decision making in your life? Stakeholders?
• What are your decision making context checks? Your own guide to ensure you keep in sight of what is most meaningful to you in both short and long term.
• What life conditions do you need to support this quality of life?
• How will you know you have created a holistic quality of life?
• For each action you choose to do, what is the cause and effect? Will it lead toward or away from your holistic quality of life you desire?

As an individual, group, or organization, if you are interested in professional coaching to holistically orient your internal compass and explore what you want for your holistic quality of life, I am open and would be honoured as a coach to partner with you in such a creation.

I am hearing so many people feeling overwhelmed, spinning, stressed, not sure how to work their way through the unknown. Some coaching questions can help them stop the spin, tap into their inner resources and feel in control in leading self:

• As you navigate the complexities of these current life conditions, what is realistic, relevant and in your control to make choices around?
• As you step back and think about what is most important to put your attention and intention on, what are those things?
• As you envision the quality of life you want to create with your tribe and others, what is that for you?
• As you orient your inner compass, where to from here?

The above questions are meant to move you into a resourceful space rather than feel stuck or trapped. Take personal leadership in your choices to create change that is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Everything becomes an ‘I choose to.’

As a Certified Professional Coach, I am in the business of creating new awareness and insight to help people move out of an arrested state. Metaphorically, I believe people don’t need to hang out in an eddy or be stuck in a strainer; they can choose to ride the flow of the standing wave.

I invite you to step into is the Six Conditions for Evolutionary Change based on the work of Christopher Cooke, rooted in the work of Clare Graves.

• Potential: The mind is open and has the potential for more complex thinking.
• Solutions: Problems related to current and previous life conditions are resolved.
• Dissonance: The inability of the active Coping Mechanisms to adequately respond to emerging life conditions leads to dissonance and a need for change.
• Barriers: The barriers to change are identified and overcome.
• Insight: New awareness about root causes and viable options emerges.
• Consolidation: Consolidations and support exists for the transition.

If all six conditions for change are met, then evolutionary change can happen. If we want to use the phrase ‘coping mechanism’, when all six conditions are met, latent coping mechanisms may be stimulated to awaken enabling evolutionary change. As human beings, we have the complex adaptive intelligence to be able to flex and adapt to changing life conditions.

Clare Graves said not everyone has the capacity to respond to change in their life conditions. All 6 conditions need to be met for evolutionary change to happen. My personal belief is that anyone can respond to a change in life conditions such as what we are experiencing with this pandemic and I hold the space for people to lean and grow into that.

Full spectrum human emergence is what I have been exploring and learning about for the past 10 years and is the newest initiative I have become involved in.

I will begin co-facilitating Stance Matters with Christopher Cooke in September. Here are links to information on the training and the newsletter.

As Christopher says, “this is not the new normal. It is a holding pattern as familiar structures are replaced by temporary ones.” We have yet to figure out what the new life conditions are, and the new life conditions that are emerging.

Here is a link to an article about the COVID-19 virus creating a space for new thinking.

December is often a time when we take time for a personal year-end review. We reflect on the goals we set at the beginning of the year and mark their progress.

I invite you to take some time and ask yourself the following questions:

• What are you celebrating? What are your "wins"? These may be big or small, personal or professional.
• What were your challenges? What did you learn from those experiences?
• What stands out as THEMES of awareness from your year?

As I reflect on 2019, I appreciate that I intentionally created more balance and white space to be even more outdoors in nature. I also appreciate the impact and difference that I am an integral part of making through training coaches and coaching Socialpreneurs. Making choices that aligned with these things was nourishing for me. This brought a feeling of peace, ease and flow in my life and work.

As you are present with yourself and others through the holiday season, what and with whom are you choosing to be present?

What lights you up with joy?

As you hold this space of presence and experience joy, what do you notice about the quality of your interactions?

With whom am I choosing to be present with over the holiday season? It is a time for family, connecting with friends and having quiet reflective space in the longer nights with this time of year. A feeling of snuggling in, enjoying each moment as it unfolds.

Looking to the future, energetically, what do you want to create?

What values are you consciously and intentionally going to espouse and live by?

What has your focus and attention as you take your first steps into 2020?

Looking to 2020, last week I created my values wheel of where my attention will be: nature, love, fun/joy, family and integral connections coming from my inner light and holistic being. I ask myself what life conditions I want and need to create.

I wish you all the best in the coming year. Embrace your joy, celebrate your successes, learn from your challenges, and follow your path with purposeful intention. Happy New Year!

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ― Albert Einstein

In our daily lives there are many unknowns. Change is ongoing. How do you navigate the change and the unknown from an empowered, equipped place? Respond from options, freedom and choice? To be adaptable, flexible, responsive? 

How do you stay internally anchored, firm and sustain that when external structures change? To be comfortable with the unknown? How do you mind the gap between where you are now and where you will be? 

If you know something needs to change, and are seeking clarity on how and what, the skills of a certified professional coach can help you a) to gain perspective, b) have insight to inform your choices and c) be aligned when making decisions of where you will invest your time and energy. 

Create space for your ‘self’ to:

• See options

• Choose something different

• Create an opportunity to step back and learn from the choices you are making

• Integrally connect with yourself

• Create room for something to emerge 

• Be able to identify even more what is meaningful and fulfilling in your life

• Develop further the internal alignment to navigate change

I have prepared an exercise, with some questions, should you wish to begin to explore.

Neurological Levels of Change Exploration

Inspired by the model of Logical Levels of Change by Robert Dilts.

I invite you to consider the following questions and create a mental map.

• What might you notice?
• What might you learn?
• What might you discover?
• What might you gain insight around?

VISION

As you see yourself ‘leading self’, navigating through complexities of change in an integral way, what do you see? Taking a panoramic view, what is in your awareness? What else are you part of? Who else benefits?

IDENTITY

Who are you as you navigate the complexities of change? What energy do you feel within you? What energy permeates around you? How are you showing up?

VALUES

What are you standing for as you navigate the complexities of change? What beliefs serve you? What are your values? What is important?

CAPABILITIES

What capabilities do you have to navigate the complexities of change? What skills do you need? What skills do you personally need to hone in your self-leadership?

ACTIONS

What steps do you need to take? Aligning with your vision and values, what strategies, plans, goals, and objectives will you implement?

ENVIRONMENT

What is the ideal environment, within your control, to support navigating the complexities of change?

Hello Solopreneurs! As you move into implementation and consistent momentum in building your coaching practice, is your confidence wavering, feeling overwhelmed, stuck, unclear or alone?

Join the 3 month Mastermind Momentum Team and succeed with Integral Connections. You will have group coaching, mentor coaching, masterminding, facilitation and an accountability system that will help you increase your commitment, be a catalyst for collective learning, and generate accelerated results in your business.

For the Mastermind Momentum Team specifically for Erickson Coaching International Students and Graduates, click here for more information and how to register: http:erickson.edu/mastermind-momentum

For Solopreneurs please express your interest to Tania directly, click here for more information: http:/www.integralconnections.ca/mastermind-momentum 

Tania offers both online and onsite Mastermind Momentum Teams. Whether you are local in the Cowichan Valley or from anywhere in the World, you can be engaged in a Mastermind Momentum Team and create your definition of success in business and life. 

Hello solopreneurs and entrepreneurs in the Cowichan Valley area! Are you interested in generating new insights? Exploring what happiness and success is for your business and life? Do you want relevant, meaningful action steps you are committed to that will support living your definition of success in business and life?

I will be sharing one of my many coaching exercises that can be used as a visual holistic map, exploring four quadrants of success in your business on June 7th at the Ramada, Duncan.

The Meet Your Neighbours networking meeting is from 11:45 am - 1 pm. If you want to experience and learn more you are welcome. There is no cost except for what you might want to eat for lunch. As with all of my training, facilitation and coaching be prepared to participate, be engaged and have fun!

Where are you choosing to focus?

If you were to scale your level of focus for today, with 1 just beginning to be focused and 10 being fully and completely focused, where are you on the scale? What needs to shift or change to move you up the scale?

When we shift our attention, putting focus on what we want and the way we want to produce results, we become more inspired.

An insightful tip to support moving up the scale is to have a values conversation. Values inform the movement we make in the world and are the core of our being. When you connect to what matters and you have a 'solutions' focus you amp up your commitment, momentum and inspiration. The quality of your engagement shifts.

By answering the questions below, you will begin to dig more deeply, connecting your values to your actions and create more clarity on what you want to focus your attention and intention on to create the results you want in your business and life.

Your Assignment if you dare...

I invite you to ask yourself each morning for the next month:

• "Where am I choosing to focus?"
• "What is important about that focus?"

Imagine, what might happen if you took action on that focus? What would you be doing? What impact would that have on your family? What results would you generate in business and life? The choice is yours on where you want to focus to leverage the results you truly want to create.

To effectively lead yourself, you need to be clear who you are and what your core values are. What matters to you? Your values are your filter to identify and choose what fits for you in business and life. If you were to identify your top three to five core values, what are they?

Values connect you to your authentic self. They reveal who you are and what you stand for. Self-leadership begins from a place of connectedness with your authentic self. If you were truly aligned with your decisions from the inside out, what would that mean for you? What would be the ripple effect to others?

When you act and behave in alignment with your values, you achieve the outcomes you want with ease, a calm centeredness and resourcefulness. When you have this deep awareness of who you are, you can readily act in your own best interest while respecting others.

How clear are you about who you are? Being crystal clear on who you are, having a values-based vision aligned with a strategic action plan is essential to your definition of success in business and life.

Values Elicitation Exercises

Because values are such an intrinsic part of our lives, often times we are not even aware of them. Values often are one word such as freedom, love, peace, integrity, honesty. There are no ‘right’ or ’wrong’ values. They represent who you are now, throughout space and time.

Of the many ways to elicit values, here are 3 ways:

1. Notice in those moments when you get triggered or irritated. Ask yourself, ‘what is important to me in this moment?’ Anything that creates an emotional response has an underlying value.

2. What is your favourite animal and why? Then ask yourself ‘and why else?’ And ‘why else?’ Notice which of the values stand out more. The aim is to find your recurring top most important value and to notice how you speak your values.

3. Think of a context such as work, family, etc.

A) What is hell for you? Drives you crazy? Are triggers? Make this playful. Brainstorm a list of 20 things such as everyone at work has to drink cold coffee, no bathroom breaks, all mistakes are announced over the intercom, etc.

B) Take your top five, think of the opposite and write down one value word. i.e. no bathroom breaks = respect. More often than not, we only become aware of our values when they are violated.

The integral map is just a map,

But it is the most compete

And accurate map

We have at this time. – Ken Wilber, 2014

What do I offer through coaching, mentoring and facilitating? I work in partnership with you to access your integral map more fully. To tap into your deeper knowing or core intelligence, increase holistic awareness and clarity. Generate alignment so you can live your purpose with integral awareness.

Building Business Momentum via Values Based Leadership

Time: 7:00 a.m. - 8:15 a.m.

Place: Island Savings Duncan Branch

#14-250 Trunk Road

Cost: Free

RSVP: [email protected]

Stance Matters: Values Based Leadership - October 25

• Who are you as a business owner?

What do you stand for? It's who you are that makes the difference.

• Gain insight and clarity on your core values so you can generate a centered foundation from which to make decisions and achieve empowering results.

Mastermind Momentum Leveraging Results - November 1

• Facilitative leadership is part of a greater business culture shift from a directive management style to a collaborative system of accountability.

• Discover a method to maximize your team's potential, adding more to your leadership toolbox to invite participation from individuals on your team.

• Learn ways in which to create an environment of innovation and reinforce commitment to shared business goals.

3 Tips to Inspiring and Fostering Trust in Leadership - November 8

• What's the best question to build trust?

• Learn key techniques to easily foster trust, ignite inspiration and accelerate individual and team results