Integral Coaching

Editor-in-Chief:
Ken Wilber
Executive Editor:
Sean Esbjrn-Hargens
Guest Editor:
Joanne Hunt
Managing Editor:
Lynwood Lord
Graphic Designers:
Angie Hinickle, Brad Reynolds
Journal of Integral Theory and Practice is a quarterly publication of Integral Institute. All checks and money
orders must be in U.S. dollars and payable to Integral Institute.
Integral Institute
4450 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 100
Boulder, CO 80303
U.S.A.
No part of any article may be reproduced in any form without permission, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism and discussion. The opinions expressed in the articles are not necessarily those of the editors
or the publishers and do not definitively represent integral theory.
Aims and Scope: Journal of Integral Theory and Practice is the official source for articles related to Integral
Theory and its application. Articles published in the journal represent explorations in several modes of discourse: philosophical, theoretical, pragmatic, experiential, and critical.
The journal welcomes case studies, applied pieces, reflective articles, theoretical explorations, integral research, empirical studies, and critical views. Journal of Integral Theory and Practice embraces a post-metaphysical and post-disciplinary perspective that is dedicated to articulating the ways ontology, epistemology,
and methodology interact and co-arise across various scales of time and space. Authors emphasize the perspectival nature of reality, which emerges as first-, second-, and third-person perspectives interact with each other
to generate phenomena.
Instructions for Authors: Authors must submit their articles as MS Word documents to Lynwood Lord at
llord@integralinstitute.org. Please visit the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice website at www.integraljournal.org for submission guidelines and a glossary of integral terminology. Please note the journal follows
APA style guidelines.
Subscriptions: Current rates and membership packages can be viewed at www.integralinstitute.org. All previous issues are available online in the archives of the journals website.
Journal of Integral Theory and Practice
ISSN 1944-4083 (print)
ISSN 1944-5091 (online)
Copyright 2009, Integral Institute
Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol.4, No. 1
EDITORIAL BOARD
John A. Astin, Ph.D.
Medicine
California Pacific Medical Center
Research Institute
Leo Burke, M.A., M.S.
Business & Leadership
University of Notre Dame
Allan Combs, Ph.D.
Transformative Studies
California Institute of Integral
Studies
Susanne Cook-Greuter, Ed.D.
Psychology
Harthill USA
Lynne Feldman, Esq.
Education
Northern Highlands Regional
High School
John Forman, OblSB
Christian Ministry
Mt. Angel Abbey
Larry George, M.D.
Medicine
High Country Health Care
Thomas Goddard, J.D., Ph.D.
Healthcare
George Mason University
Gail Hochachka, M.A.
International Development
DrishtiCentre for Integral Action
Heather Larkin, Ph.D.

Social Service
Catholic University of America
Simon Senzon, M.A., D.C.

Subtle Energies
University of North Carolina
Andre Marquis, Ph.D., L.P.C.

Psychotherapy
Northeastern State University
Elizabeth Smith, DSW, LICSW

Social Service
Catholic University of America
Randy Martin, Ph.D.

Criminology
Indiana University of
Pennsylvania
Jeffrey Soulen, M.D.

Psychotherapy
University of Maryland School of
Medicine
Cynthia McEwen, MBA, M.A.

Sustainability
Avastone Consulting
Bert Parlee, Ph.D.
Psychotherapy
John F. Kennedy University
Terry Patten, M.A.
Practice
Integral Institute
Willow Pearson, LPC, MT-BC
Sexuality & Gender Studies
Naropa University
Gerald Porter, Ph.D.
Education
State University of New York at
Cortland
Michael Putz
Cisco Systems
Brett Thomas
Stagen Leadership Institute
Paul van Schaik
Sustainability
iSchaik Development Associates
Joseph Voros, Ph.D.
Science
Swinburne University
Dick Wagner, J.D., CFP
Finance
WorthLiving, LLC
Roger Walsh, Ph.D., M.D.
Psychiatry
University of California, Irvine
Gregory Wilpert, Ph.D.
Politics
Fulbright Scholar, Venezuela
Elliott Ingersoll, Ph.D., P.C.C.

Psychology
Cleveland State University
John Records, J.D.

Social Service
Committee on the Shelterless
(COTS)
Karen Wyatt, M.D.

Medicine
Summit Community Care Clinic
Paul Landraitis, M.A.

Psychotherapy
Antioch University
Michael Schwartz, Ph.D.

Art
Augusta State University
Michael Zimmerman, Ph.D.

Ecology
University of Colorado, Boulder
ii
Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Editors Note
Sean Esbjrn-Hargens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Guest Editors Introduction

Joanne Hunt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Transcending and Including our Current Way of Being: An Introduction to

Integral Coaching
Joanne Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Looking AT and Looking AS the Client: The Quadrants as a Type Structure Lens
Laura Divine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
A Unique View Into You: Working With a Clients AQAL Constellation

Laura Divine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Transformational Conversations: The Four Conversations of Integral Coaching

Joanne Hunt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Integral Perspectives on Coaching: An Analysis of Integral Coaching Canada Across

Eight Zones and Five Methodologies
Lisa L. Frost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Building Integral Coaching Canada: A Practice Journey

Joanne Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121
Erratum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150
iii
S. ESBJRN-HARGENS
EXECUTIVE EDITORS NOTE

Sean Esbjrn-Hargens
am very excited to introduce this special issue on integral coaching. The field of integral coaching is expanding rapidly and has become one of the more established fields of integral application and practice.
Thus, as a journal dedicated to making you aware of the best examples of integral theory in action, it feels
fitting to start 2009 with a showcase of the integral methodology of Integral Coaching Canada (ICC). ICC
is one of, if not the, premier examples of integral theory being operationalizedICC has built its school and
approach from the ground up using the principles of the AQAL model within all aspects of the organization.
For years ICC has been tucked away in the Great White North of Canada, quietly doing its amazing integral
work. There has not been much written on its method, its philosophy, or its theory. Thus, when I thought about
devoting an entire issue to presenting their material, it struck me as an important opportunity to ask ICC cofounder Joanne Hunt herself to serve as guest editor. She gladly accepted, though arguably did not know what
she was signing up for. It has been a real pleasure working with Joanne, and I feel that this issue is one of best
we have ever published.
I first encountered the work of Joanne Hunt and Laura Divine years ago, when I was asked by Integral Institute
to review the integral aspects of their coaching schoolits methodology of human transformation and its professional coach training program. Part of my role at Integral Institute has been and continues to be the review
of various training programs and professional applications that are based on integral theory. So over the years I
have seen a lot of great examples of integral theory being put to good use in a variety of contexts. But honestly,
nothing had prepared me for what I was about to encounter in the work of ICC.
I was immediately impressed with what I saw in their materialsits thoroughness, its accuracy, its eloquence,
its applicability, and its originality. Then several weeks later I had a chance to meet with Joanne and Laura
in person as they stopped by my home office to go over my AQAL report on their material. Upon meeting
them, we had a great extended conversation exploring all things integral and I was doubly impressed with the
quality of Being that each of them embodied: grounded, clear, open, loving, and funny.
I began asking them how might I get involved and support their workas a long-time integral scholar practitioner I felt really drawn to participate with what they had created. Soon I was collaborating with Terry Patten
and Bert Parlee to establish a partnership between ICC and Integral Institute. As this partnership formed, a
special cohort of individuals already familiar with integral theory was established to go through their two training modules. I was part of that group. Going through their training and becoming a certified Integral Coach
was an amazing experience. In many respects it was as or more challenging than getting my Ph.D. Joanne and
Laura have been very successful in creating a context where support and challenge are optimally intertwined
to facilitate your own personal transformation in the service of becoming a professional coach.
As the Chair of the Department of Integral Theory at John F. Kennedy University, I am aware of how much goes
into creating a multi-year, rigorous, and demanding program that simultaneously supports personal growth,
fosters community, and cultivates applied leadership. On all three accounts Joanne and Laura have built an
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EXECUTIVE EDITORS NOTE
integral academy worth emulating. In fact, at the end of the certification process each coach-to-be responds
to a question about what impact the process has had on their lives. After saying a number of things in response
to this question, I concluded with, and I bow down to both of you because everything is now possible. That
is the kind of possibility that is available through becoming certified by their school.
Simply put, Integral Coaching Canada provides the most sophisticated professional application of integral
theory I have ever seen. It is not just the best I have seen in coaching, but the best I have seen in any discipline.
The integral approach Joanne and Laura use not only presents the integral model accurately, it even advances
some aspects of integral theory (e.g., their development of using the quadrants as a type lens).
What makes the ICC program stand out is that it is True, Good, and Beautiful. It is True in that it is grounded
in the immense amount of research from many disciplines that forms the basis of the integral framework (not
to mention their model of transformation is based on Robert Kegans subject-object theory and the extensive
research available on ego development). This grounding in developmental psychology sets their methodology
apart from all other coaching schools. It is Good in that both Joanne and Laura are long-time spiritual practitioners of Zen Buddhism, writing, perspective taking, and tai chi. Thus, they infuse their work with a transmission of being in service of global awakening, and as they often point out in their public talks their work is
committed to alleviating suffering. Lastly, it is Beautiful! Its eloquence and its splendor are experienced in
the aesthetic richness of their website images, their training materials, the balanced structure of their program,
and the embodiment of spirit that both Joanne and Laura illuminate.
Enjoy this issueIntegral Coaching Canada provides a testament to the power of an integral approach to transform self, other, and world. And as you read these pages, dare to ask yourself what your own life would look
like if you too were a certified Integral Coach.
J. HUNT
GUEST EDITORS INTRODUCTION

Joanne Hunt
elcome to the first Journal of Integral Theory and Practice issue of 2009. When we started working
on this issue in August 2008, I would not have thought that we would see so much change in seven
short monthsfederal elections in Canada and the United States, bankruptcies, house foreclosures,
and savings plans eviscerated. Fear and uncertainty are presented to us on a daily basis in our news, by our
financial institutions, and by companies long thought stable and everlasting.
And right alongside all of this unrest, the human spirit continues on with the business of birthing, living, and
dying. We continue falling in love (and out of love), moving in together, caring for our elderly parents, and
contributing with all our hearts to our families, friends, and communities. We continue to attend to our spiritual
lives, to the care of our bodies, and to the care of those we know and have yet to know. Human endeavor continues regardless of the state of the economy. Human love and compassion continue right next to despair and
longing, and human steadfastness endures in the midst of hardship and joy. On this sunny spring morning in
snow-covered Ottawa as I write this editorial, I look down from the second story window of my office and see
a woman enter one end of the empty college parking lot with a black lab. From the other end a second woman
enters with a golden retriever. The dogs are off leash and run straight toward one another, playing, crouching,
bounding, and leaping on and with each other. The women keep walking closer and closer to the middle of the
ice-covered pavement. They extend their arms and shake hands, an introduction takes place. Within moments
they are laughing together as they watch their dogs antics. They continue to talk while their pets run. This is
a good and solid moment, one I am somehow touched bythe simple act of sentient beings connecting, however briefly, sharing a laugh, then gathering up their leashes and heading in opposite directions. Who knows
if the two women have lost their jobs, or husbands (or wives), are caring for an aging parent, or are trying to
regain some sense of ground. In this moment, this is simply where they are; intersecting at one point in the
vast spectrum of what is available to us as humans manifesting the full range of birthing to dying: the Great
Matter.
That is what this Integral Coaching issue is about: the all of what it is to be a human trying, as best we can,
to birth ourselves and each other into the next iterations of our unique selves, into the next me and the next
you and the next us. This issue is dedicated to the birthing and dying of who we are and who we take
ourselves to be, the transcending and including path of our becoming. Coaching, at its very root, is about this
birthing and dying. It meets human beings where they are, smack dab in the middle of the messiness of being
alive. Coaching is about bringing about change in our lives from wherever we find ourselves, feeling hugely
successful or a complete failure, poking along or full steam ahead, waking up with great difficulty to the day or
launching into a new dawn. No different. There are a few billion ways to greet the day. Integral Coaching provides one of the spaces where we can meet, starting exactly where you are, bringing form to where you might
be headed, and strengthening resident and newly emerging capacities through practice and deep compassion
into the great birthing/dying of the next you.
This issue of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice is focused on the practice component. You will find
the theory well represented and articulated but, similar to Ken Wilber, we are interested in how integral theory
vi
works in the world. Specifically, Laura Divine and I have been deeply dedicated to the process of applying
elegant theory in the manifest world of everyday life. Integral in application. The issue that you hold in your
hands represents a culmination of our lifes workso far. And, given the page limit of the journal, it is only
a glimpse of our approach to Integral Coaching. Laura and I have worked to help others develop and grow
through our collective work livesfifteen-year corporate careers for each of us in separate countries (Laura
in the U.S.A. and me in Canada) before we came together to build this integral application in the coaching
field. This work represents our deepest longing for skillful means and alleviating suffering, supporting healthy
development in an emerging integral age and, quite frankly, our own personal development as human beings
attempting to make sense of our unique strengths and areas for improvement.
In This Issue
It has been a deep privilege to serve as Guest Editor for this issue of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. I encourage you to read it from beginning to end. It is like a story that you want to take in from the start to
finish. The first four articles provide an introduction to Integral Coaching Canadas coaching method, process,
structure, and underpinnings. These articles provide a way to Look AT Integral Coaching from the perspective
of its two founders: Joanne Hunt and Laura Divine. The fifth article is written by John F. Kennedy University
graduate Lisa Frost, who conducted an eight zone analysis of multiple coaching schools for her masters dissertation. Lisas article also provides a different way to Look AT Integral Coaching Canada in its whole and
parts. The final article in the issue provides a way to Look AS the founders of Integral Coaching Canada with
insight into our personal practices, histories, and how we came to build our Integral Coaching school. This
final article falls more into the genre of memoir. So, if the personal, first-person perspective is your preferred
starting point, then please feel free to start there and then return to the beginning of the issue. If you would like
to get a sense of the whole of our work before getting to know how we came to build our school, then start at
the beginning and move through the issue culminating with the personal; that is, in fact, how we chose to order
the articles.
We open this issue with an article that provides an Introduction to Integral Coaching. I use the four quadrants
to examine the underlying assumptions that weand all coaching schoolsknowingly or unknowingly hold
about how change occurs. Change is at the forefront of coachingchange that leaders want to bring about
in their companies or countries, change that individuals want to bring about in their personal, professional or
vocational lives, change that brings us to fuller and freer expressions of ourselves. Coaching is a relatively
new discipline that supports change efforts in all its forms. In this article I elucidate how the way we hold
change unconsciously shapes coaching conversations. Further, I provide an introduction to Integral Coaching
Canadas approach to change that includes not just the five elements of the AQAL model (quadrants, levels,
lines, states, and types), but a transcend and include way of working with the change we want to bring about
in our lives. This article introduces that we all have a Current Way of Being (CWOB) that has been shaped by
who we have been up until now and a New Way of Being (NWOB), or a future self that we are growing into.
Coaching holds the tension of past-to-present me and current-to-future me. Integral Coaching Canadas way of
working with this developmental tension is introduced. I would like to thank Clint Fuhs and Dr. Deb Thompson (an Integral Coach) for the wise peer review counsel that they each provided on this first article.
The second article, written by the co-founder of Integral Coaching Canada, Laura Divine, focuses on one of
the six AQAL lenses used in our Integral Coaching approach. Over the years of working with clients and
students, we came to understand a new way of working with the four quadrants. We realized that not only did
people privilege a certain quadrant (or two), but that one quadrant seemed to be a persons home base, the place
from which they made meaning, determined what to do, discerned fit, connected or disconnected from others
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J. HUNT
and things, and was the place through which they translated the other three quadrants. Ultimately we started
hearing and seeing the way people uniquely translate their worlds, and therefore their relationship to self,
others, and things. This led to us defining a unique use of the four-quadrants model as a type structure lens.
This article shows what the world looks like and sounds like through four different quadrant orientations: from
the Upper Left, Upper Right, Lower Left, and Lower Right. An example of four people attending a meeting
shows how frustration can crop up in the opening few minutes based on quadrant orientation dialogue alone! In
fact, as Laura and I have presented quadrants as a type structure in talks over the years, it is the show stopper,
the place where people have profound ah-ha moments as to why they have hated meetings or disagreed repeatedly with their partners. You will find your own orienting quadrant through this accessible examination of the
four quadrants as a type structure lens. I would like to thank Dr. Jody Jones and Susan Hodges, both Integral
Coaches, for the wise peer review counsel that they provided on this article.
Once you have been introduced, in detail, to one of the six AQAL lenses that Integral Coaching Canada uses,
the next article dives into the full AQAL Constellation that gives rise to a humans unique way of manifesting in the world. Besides multiple ways of working with the four quadrants (Looking AT and Looking AS),
the other five lenses that are used in our Integral Coaching approach are lines of development, levels of
consciousness, states of consciousness, the Enneagram type structure, and gender development. The AQAL
Constellation provides a full way to comprehend the whole and the parts of what makes each of us who we
are. This article clearly shows how unique combinations give rise to our distinctive ways of seeing, ways of going, and ways of checking for how things are going. It is through each clients unique AQAL Constellation
that a coach is able to look out through the eyes of their clients and say, Oh, no wonder things are unfolding
the way they are. This way of honoring and being guided by the current reality of a client is an integrated
part of Integral Coaching Canadas coaching method. It does not categorize or box someone into a particular
assessment, rather it provides the coach with a way to access and appreciate a clients way of seeing, relating, and functioning in their coaching topic. The nature of this constellation is its ever-evolving capacities. It
strongly supports a developmental model of transcend and include and puts integral theory into an application
that is effective, sustainable, and powerful. I would like to thank Kevin Snorf and James Baye, both Integral
Coaches, for the wise peer review counsel that they provided on this third article.
In the fourth article, I offer insight into the four types of coaching conversations that occur in our Integral
Coaching system. This is the process through which our coaching method is enacted. This is also the form
that is built in and practiced by our graduates. This form is worked with in similar ways that the tai chi
form is developedthere are postures and transition moves, ways to carry out the process such that the flow
is elegant, seamless, and powerful. This article also more deeply explores the role of metaphors in our work.
Metaphors are used as anchors in our coaching approach and represent the clients CWOB and NWOB. Metaphors enable clients to have their sense of self move from subject (I) to object (me). These metaphors and
related ways of being can then be observed, developed, played with, included, and transcended over time. In
this article I also more fully examine the role of practices to build new musclesor competenciesas clients
transcend (move to NWOB) and include (healthy aspects of CWOB) over the course of their coaching contract. This article brings the previous three articles into the applied process of carrying out Integral Coaching
through four types of coaching conversations. I would like to thank Dr. Deb Thompson and Dr. Susan Cannon,
both Integral Coaches, for the wise peer review counsel that they provided on this fourth article.
The fifth article is written by Lisa Frost and provides an in-depth analysis of Integral Coaching Canadas coaching model using Integral Methodological Pluralism. Lisa uses five primary methodologies and the perspectives
available through eight zones to reveal how our model is unique in the field of coaching. The origin of this
viii
work occurred when Lisa conducted research for her masters thesis with John F. Kennedy University, broadly
reviewing over 20 coaching models and then conducting detailed research using first-, second-, and thirdperson approaches to experience and examine three integral coaching schools. Our first contact with Lisa
occurred when she interviewed us as part of her detailed study over two years ago. We were very impressed
with her comprehensive method and were happy that a third-party study was being conducted. Lisa had been
certified by one of the schools in the original 20, so her grasp of the coaching industry was already robust. Her
final research findings concluded that Integral Coaching Canadas school truly represented the most integrallysourced coaching method, process, and coach training program available today. Based on her findings, Lisa
came to study with us for further training and certification. Lisas article provides a great example of the use
of the integral model to learn about and distinguish disciplines. She used the eight zones to look at various
elements of coach training as well as the experience of the client, the intersubjective space of client and coach,
and the coaching methods employed in each system. This article provides an abbreviated look at her findings
related to Integral Coaching Canadas coaching work. I would like to thank Clint Fuhs and Jordan Luftig (an
Integral Coach) for the wise peer review counsel that they provided to Lisa for this seminal article.
In the final article, I provide a brief glimpse into how Laura and I came to build Integral Coaching Canada.
This was the hardest article for me to write. It is the one that is closest to the bone, in its memoir form, and
provides access to Laura and me in a way that is new and vulnerable, for it speaks to our own development
and practices. During the review process, Ken Wilber congratulated us for putting a first-person view into this
journal issue. Although I agree with him, it was still a difficult and personal article to write. The influences
in our livesas in all our livescome from many sources. In this article, I have tried to illuminate major
practices that source, teach, and sustain us: tai chi, Zen, writing practice, and the study of all things integral!
These practices are central to our lives and have, therefore, been strong sources for how we built our school as
more of an Integral Coaching martial arts academy. In Looking AS Joanne Hunt and Laura Divine, we hope
that some insight is provided behind what we built, for although we do not lead with, We are in this work to
alleviate suffering, it is at the root of all that we do. And, however well or poorly we are able to carry out this
vow, we remain dedicated to it in our work and our practice.
It is a vulnerable act to offer your work to the world. An old sculptor friend of mine once said, Its easier to be
an art critic than an artist. But, you have to put your art out there anyway. Somehow, this last article, coming
at the end of the previous five articles felt most like the finishing touches on an art piece: our lifes work at this
moment in time. I hope that you feel Laura and me in it. I would like to thank Dr. Sean Esbjrn-Hargens and
Dr. Deb Thompson, both Integral Coaches, who through the iterations of this final article held these blood,
sweat, and tear-stained pages with such sensitivity and skill, through their own tears arising.
Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank Sean Esbjrn-Hargens, the Executive Editor of this journal, who invited us to
develop an entire issue devoted to Integral Coaching Canadas application of integral theory. Your clear, direct
support, and respected reflection back to Laura and me regarding what we have developed has been overwhelming in its generosity. As you have shared your view of its elegance in form, accuracy in applying integral
principles, and contribution to alleviating suffering, we have been able to see this work through fresh eyes. You
have held a new way of seeing for us and our work that invitednay, obligatedus to step forward and take
responsibility for its power and beauty. I use obligation in the truest sense of a spiritual requisite. We deeply
bow to you, Sean, for your love, humanity, and profound embodiment. May you be prolifically well for many
decades to come. And welcome to the faculty team at Integral Coaching Canada!
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J. HUNT
I would like to acknowledge Lynwood Lord, the Managing Editor of this journal, for your kind words, skillful copy editing, and sense of humor! I have never been a guest editor, so your help answering my editorial
questions about illustrations, references, and grammatical structure were very much appreciated. Thank you
for helping to birth this issue, Lyn.
Integral Coaching Canada is the global coaching partner of the Integral Institute and Integral Life. There are a
few other people I want to acknowledge for this journey over the past few years: Terry Patten, who first called
me after one conversation in Boulder to find out what we have been doing up here in Canada; Bert Parlee, who
immediately recognized the value of our work and championed it before even knowing what was possible;
and Robb Smith, who is integrating our approach to human development into Integral Lifes ecosystem. I also
want to thank the Jedi who keep calling upon us to receive their support and skillful contributions; Linda
Soulire-MacLeod, for your deep commitment to our well-being; and our Integral Coaching Consortium of
teachers, mentors, phone coaches, and graduates who continue to support us and our work in ways too numerous to list. Thanks to each of you.
I want to especially thank Ken Wilber for your support of our work and for letting Laura and me know in our
first meeting years ago that we clearly had been, ...intuitively on to this whole integral development thing.
Ken, you will never know how much you have affected our lives by the sheer strength of your own life force.
Thank you for your invaluable contributions to this journal issue. Deep bow to you. May you be well and may
your wisdom continue to find many forms of expression.
Lastly, I want to thank Laura Divine, my business partner, the co-founder of Integral Coaching Canada, author
of two articles in this issue, and, most importantly, my beloved wife. Thank you for indulging my many integral passions. Thank you, especially, for putting up with me through the deadlines associated with this journal
issue!
And to you, dear reader, may your own integral journeys continue to nurture and hold you. We look forward to
getting to know you and your work in the years that face us together as the integral age unfolds.
Trademarks
Throughout the issue, we have included Integral Coaching Canadas registered Canadian trademarks. These
marks and the intellectual property they represent cannot be used without written permission from Integral
Coaching Canada, Inc.
TRANSCENDING AND INCLUDING

OUR CURRENT WAY OF BEING
An Introduction to Integral Coaching
Joanne Hunt
ABSTRACT This article provides an introduction to the Integral Coaching method developed by
Joanne Hunt and Laura Divine, founders of Integral Coaching Canada, Inc. A brief introduction to the
field of coaching is oered using the four quadrants to appreciate the underlying assumptions of
how change occurs and how schools of coaching have approached the rapidly growing field of adult
development. Further delineation of Integral Coaching Canadas use of subject-object theory and
a transcend and include developmental model is provided and resides at the root of this schools
AQAL approach to change. Included are the necessary steps of working with a clients Current Way
of Being (the strength of its identity, horizontal capacities, and inherent limits) as well as the clients emerging future, a New Way of Being that better supports a clients desires, intentions, and
response to the call that he or she uniquely hears.
Key words: AQAL; coaching methods; human development; integral coaching; subject-object
theory
hroughout human history we have sought out people to assist us in our quests to grow, develop, and
bring about change: shamans, elders, teachers, spiritual leaders, experts, consultants, therapists, and
mentors. In the past 20 years, professional coaches have stepped into this powerful and poignant niche
of need and yearning to provide new ways of supporting human growth. As the demands of modern life
become increasingly complex, many are turning to coaches to address suffering inherent in the dissonance
between how we are and how we want to be in our personal and/or professional lives. Right now, all across
the world, people are being coached on topics as wide ranging as enhancing strategic planning skills, working more skillfully with others, living an authentic life, eating healthfully, becoming a better parent, attending
more mindfully to body and spirit, saying no to requests from others, and so on. This proliferation brings both
an exciting momentum to the field and the need for a steady frame of reference to understand and evaluate
coaching methodologies. In this article, I will leverage the rich depth and breadth of integral theory for this
purpose, as well as outline its rigorous and artful application in our Integral Coaching work. First I will examine the arising of the discipline of professional coaching, including the development of formal coach training
programs. I will then provide an introduction to Integral Coaching Canadas method and process for working
with human beings through an integral frame.
Evolution of the Field of Coaching

Prior to the 1980s, most people used the term coach to refer to a role in the field of human performance,
specifically the field of athletics. During the 1980s, coaching moved outside the boundary of sports and into
Correspondence: Joanne Hunt, Integral Coaching Canada, Inc., P.O. Box 74037, Ottawa, Ontario K1M 2H9, Canada.
E-mail: joanne@integralcoachingcanada.com.
Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, 4(1), pp. 120
J. HUNT
the broader field of human potential, primarily in organizational settings. Companies were actively seeking
ways to accelerate and advance human performance. Change was occurring at faster and faster rates, and with
this came a need to find better ways for people to not only meet challenges but to develop themselves. Leaders
were called to increase their capacities to delegate, manage, and prioritize while simultaneously balancing the
demands associated with the advent of modern technology, globalization, and multicultural teams located in
different countries. Professional coaching became a development modality that effectively met more complex
needs and provided reliable and confidential executive support. Further, coaching emerged as a legitimate profession beyond the field of athletics. As these early years unfolded, business cards declaring one as a professional or executive coach sprouted up routinely and people sincerely offered their expertise working with
business leaders and managers. Despite this surge in mainstream popularity, formal coach training programs
were still in their infancy and not well recognized by the client population.
In the early 1990s, formal coach training courses progressed into professional certification programs. And over
the past 15 years, the field of professional coaching has continued to grow rapidly to include coaching services,
coach training, and coach accreditation. Today coaching services support just about any field imaginable: life
coaching, career coaching, performance coaching, executive coaching, parent coaching, relationship coaching,
and peer coaching, to name a few. As coachings forms of service and modes of training expanded, the essence
of its offerings and training programs remained relatively the same: to support change and development in a
persons life. What differs among coaching schools and approaches, however, are their underlying views about
what it actually takes for change to occur. In this article, I will use integral theory as a powerful framework for
understanding these diverse views.
Laura Divine and I have been active participants in the coaching field since the late 1980s, initially as executives working for large corporations receiving coaching, attending coach training courses, and coaching others.
We have been exposed to and trained in various coaching approaches over the decades and are Master Certified
Coaches accredited by the International Coach Federation. Coincident with our coaching immersion, we have
studied Ken Wilbers work since the late 1980s and been engaged in our own personal development paths for
even longer. Throughout our careers, we continued to hold deep inquiry regarding what it actually takes for
change to occur and also be sustained in a persons life. We began to feel a palpable tension between existing
models of coaching and what we were experiencing through our own coaching work. As much as we could appreciate the value of various coaching approaches that we had been exposed to and used, they seemed incomplete and partial. We wanted to include and transcend the traditional modes of coaching into a more integral,
sustainable, and powerful approach. From this space between what we envisioned and the current modes of
coaching available arose a profound call to develop a truly integral model. Thus, we brought together each of
our histories in various change management modalities, went to the root of integral theory, and developed our
own coaching approach from the ground up. We called it Integral Coaching.
Our approach is sourced by a transcend and include developmental model as described by Ken Wilber (1980,
pp. 93-96) and Robert Kegan (1994). It also uses the other components (or elements) of Wilbers integral
approach, including coaching-specific models that illuminate quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types. The
AQAL model (all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, and all types) forms the primary lens through which
our coaches come to know and appreciate their clients unique worlds. Finally, our Integral Coaching approach also draws upon the wisdom and compassion we have gleaned through our own unique life journeys.
The first section of this article depicts how the four-quadrant model distinguishes multiple views regarding the
requirements necessary for change to occur and how these views shape the role of the coach. Next, the article
moves into its primary focusto provide you with a comprehensive overview or map of our Integral Coach2
INTEGRAL COACHING
ing approach. This article also sets the context and foundation for each of the subsequent articles contained in
this issue of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice.
Belief Structures Underlying Human Change

At its core, coaching is about change, bringing about change, sustaining change, and nurturing change as we
develop over time into fuller and freer versions of ourselves. It is from this root intention of supporting change
that coaching schools started to arise. And, as is the case in any profession, these schools arose with diverse
views as to how human change actually occurs.
Whether realized or not, coaching schools have underlying belief structures regarding change. This includes
both how change is approached and how it is sustained in clients. In other words, coaching schools, unconsciously or consciously, have a view of how people grow, integrate, and maintain anything new in their
lives.
An examination of perspectives on human development and change is well-served by the four quadrants component of the integral (or AQAL) approach. It offers a powerful way to map the various beliefs about how to
enable change in a human beings life. Similar to Wilber (2000) mapping various therapeutic approaches in the
field of psychology using the four quadrants, we will use the quadrants to locate the key perspectives held by
various coaching schools. As is the case with any perspective, it shapes what a coach and client do and do not
attend to or focus on during coaching sessions; it shapes the roles and the dynamic of the coaching relationship;
it shapes what is looked for to discern if the desired progress has actually been made; and it shapes the actual
method or approach that is used to provide coaching services. Although each school sincerely brings forth their
INDIVIDUAL
UPPER LEFT (UL)
UPPER RIGHT (UR)
Change occurs through insights from inside

the client; this alone will create new futures.
Change occurs through new doings and

by accountability to a professional coach.
IT
WE
ITS
SUBJECTIVE
OBJECTIVE
Change occurs through conversation with

another; the connection enables access to
new insights and realities.
Change occurs through the optimization of

a person's fit and function in the context of
the systems in which they participate.
LOWER LEFT (LL)
LOWER RIGHT (LR)
GROUP
Figure 1. Common belief structures for change.

J. HUNT
earnest comprehension of what it takes to bring about change in the prospective coaches and clients whom they
serve, we have found that many approaches are partial. Typically, only one or two quadrants are focused on
or privileged in a single coaching school. Figure 1 provides some of the most common perspectives of change
subscribed to by various coaching schools.
My intent in this article is not to provide specific critiques of particular coaching schools. Rather, it is to
provide a map that serves two functions. The first is to provide you with a way to examine views regarding
what it really takes to bring about and sustain change, and the second is to provide a means to appreciate and
distinguish what is included (and not) in any given coaching approach. When reading through this section,
notice your own preferences and biases as well as consider what quadrants are included (or not) in the various
coaching approaches with which your are familiar.
A school that approaches change from the Upper-Left (UL) perspective believes that change occurs through
bringing what is unconscious or in the clients inner world into the conscious light, that answers reside in the
deep wisdom that resides within each of us. Gaining access to this inherent inner knowledge and then following its guidance is how schools operating from this perspective view change. Stemming from this belief is a
coaching approach that focuses on enabling clients to access their interior wisdom, learning to hear it, trust it,
and give it voice.
The coachs role in this approach is to enable clients to reveal, unfurl, and connect to their own deeper beliefs,
truths, and intelligences. Coaches hold the space and ask questions that open the client to their inner consciousness and potentially to a consciousness beyond the self. This requires the coach to refrain from offering their
perspectives, as this would unduly influence the client in ways that counter the fundamental belief of this
coaching approach. While clients build capacities such as deep internal wisdom, cognitive perspective-taking,
and emotional understanding, they do not necessarily translate these interior capabilities to efficacy in their
lives. In our view, the phenomenological roots of this coaching approach emphasize dimensions that are necessary to bring about and sustain changeinner awareness, reflection, and a more deeply sourced wisdombut
without attention to the other quadrants, it is incomplete, insufficient, and partial.
Schools that approach change from the Upper-Right (UR) perspective hold a belief that change occurs through
taking deliberate action. No action, no result, no change. According to this view, change comes about by shifting what we physically do, how we behave, and how we speak. This behaviorism-based approach to change
asserts that what we do shapes who we are. The strongest enablers of change from the perspective of this
coaching approach are measurable actions, breakthrough results, stretch goals, and getting things done.
The coachs role is to help the client do just that: set behavioral goals, build action plans, and hold the client
accountable to carrying out each step. Through motivation and/or challengecarrot or stickthe coachs job
is to get the client to accomplish the steps in their plan and achieve their stated goals. Clients gain strength
and confidence when they get things done that they have never before been able to do. In our experience, clients coached from this perspective truly can experience substantial accomplishment, but they often become
reliant on the coachs enthusiasm, motivating support, and action-planning capabilities versus building a selfsustaining competency within. We agree that the UR coaching model leverages an important component of
sustaining changetaking action, developing new behaviors, demonstrating added skills, and achieving new
resultsbut in isolation, it is partial.
INTEGRAL COACHING
Schools that approach coaching from a Lower-Left (LL) perspective are rooted in the belief that change is
sparked by the interaction and shared meaning-making between individuals. They believe that conversation
and the shared intersubjective understanding that naturally occur in a conversational space give rise to new
thoughts and ideas that would not be possible alone. Grounded in hermeneutics, this LL approach believes
that change does not occur until we are exposed to language that evokes a break, a crack, or a disruption in
our own construct of meaning. This approach calls for the voice of an other, or the coach, so that through
conversation the power of language can shift a clients view of reality. This approach holds the coachs role as
being a conversational partner with the client, a thinking partner bringing forward new perspectives that are
intended to serve as catalysts towards new client insights. The coach is also fully present with the client and
stays attuned to follow threads that spontaneously arise. This approach advances both the clients access to
new ways of seeing as well as their capacity to be intimate while enjoying emergent conversation. Yet there is
a risk of the client being unable to embody what he or she can so richly talk about. In our experience, the LL
coaching model allows for key elements of human developmentthe capacity for shared meaning, intimacy,
unique expression and insights, witnessing and being witnessed, and understoodbut alone, however powerful, this approach is insufficient and partial.
Finally, we find that schools that orient from the Lower-Right (LR) perspective tend to approach change with
the belief that change has to do with optimizing the function and fit of a client in the context of the overall
system(s) in which they live. While the system discussed here may be the organization in which the client
works, a LR approach would also include any other group or system, such as their family or community. For
example, if there is not a good fit between the clients skill sets and the roles, expectations, and operating
structures of their organizational system, then the client most often has to adapt to better align with the system
within which they want to contribute, develop effective ways to influence the system, or move to a system
where there is a better fit.
The coachs role in LR approaches requires a systems view in order to understand the style and requirements
of the system and how to assess their clients fit in the system. This will determine what is feasible for the
client and what is not possible, barring systemic and structural changes. This step may involve such things as
obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the organization (team structure, mandates, operating principles
and procedures, relationships between players, etc.) as well has how the client fits into the organization (their
role, functions, reporting structure, etc.). Depending on the results of this comprehensive view, the coach
would work with the client to help them build the knowledge and capabilities needed to better contribute to
the whole. This may include working with other organization members similarly, or if a successful fit does not
look possible, the coach would assist the client in finding greater organizational congruence elsewhere. This
approach enables the client to better understand the lay of the land, learn how they can influence the system,
and/or discover an alternative system that could be a better fit. In our view, a LR coaching approach captures a
critical aspect of realistic and substantive changean understanding of the larger system, roles, expectations,
and operational requirementsbut as a sole focus, it is incomplete and partial.
All of the coaching schools that exist today can be mapped using the AQAL model. There are a myriad of combinations ranging from a schools focus that is purely UL or LR to ones that are a combination of these views.
Some schools emphasize the subjective quadrants (i.e., the UL and LL), engaging in deep meaningful connection and inquiry, forging a strong bond between coach and clientthey believe that it is from this subjective
side of the map that all is possible. Other schools focus on solely the objective quadrants (i.e., the UR and LR),
valuing action, results, and systemic contribution. Some schools attend to only the lower quadrants believing
that group dynamics, shared meaning, group structures, systems, and processes are the strongest influencers of
change and human development. Still other schools attend to three of the four quadrants (e.g., the UL, LL, and
J. HUNT
INDIVIDUAL
UPPER LEFT (UL)
UPPER RIGHT (UR)
Client becomes aware of their current way of

seeing and relating to their topic and develops
a new way of relating to and experiencing
their topic (self, other, things or I, We, It).
Client engages in integrally- designed exercises

and practices that involve new doings and
seeings to develop needed skills and capacities.
IT
WE
ITS
SUBJECTIVE
OBJECTIVE
Client gains new insights and understanding

through powerful conversations with their
coach; shared intimacy and meaning support
and model relationship potentials.
Client more objectively sees how they fit in

various systems, roles they play, and how
changing their environment can change themselves.
LOWER LEFT (LL)
LOWER RIGHT (LR)
GROUP
Figure 2. Integral Coaching approach to change.

UR) without including the perspective of the LR, where optimal fit and function is an important dimension in
affecting and sustaining change. Many combinations are possible, and yet very few offer a balanced attention
to all four quadrants.
Integral Coaching Approach to Change

An investigation of the underlying beliefs of these coaching approaches show that they are all right and they
are all partial. The view that we hold for our Integral Coaching approach is that for change to occur in a way
that is embodied and sustained, the focus and attention needs to embrace and include all four perspectives of
how change occurs. Furthermore, the quadrants need to be utilized in an interconnected fashion rather than as
separate segments in a non-integrated way. See Figure 2 for the four-quadrant approach to change that we use
in our Integral Coaching method.
Without an approach that draws on all four quadrants, including a strong system of structural development, the
client may have new insights and very powerful conversations with their coach, but limited sustainability in
terms of action and embodiment. They may become reliant on their coachs skillful guidance and perspectives.
Over time, client growth also requires practices to develop necessary capabilities, the structure of a formal
coaching contract or program to guide the coach and clients work together, and a methodological framework
that integrates all four quadrants into a coaching system that ensures these practices are based on all four perspectives.
Our Integral Coaching approach employs a methodology that includes and enables the deep and penetrating
insights that come to light through conversation, intimacy, and shared meaning (LL). Clients ways of seeing
6
INTEGRAL COACHING
and understanding greatly expand (UL) and systemic impact is readily examined and effectively worked with
over time (LR). Muscle-building actions (UR) are on behalf of developing underlying capabilities needed to
fully and skillfully function in this wider, broader landscape across all quadrants. With a comprehensive methodology such as this, the client tends to more easily trust the map of their coaching work. The structure of their
coachs approach provides a strong, powerful, and safe container that allows the client to understand where
they are, where they are headed, and the journey along the way.
Developmental Models and Coaching Methods

Having mapped various coaching approaches across the quadrants and shown how these four perspectives
guide the way a coach works with a client, I will now turn to the next consideration: What developmental wisdom underlies the method of coaching utilized by different coaching schools? To what degree has developmental theory been investigated? Has a rigorous method been formulated that supports a particular developmental
model? What are the key components of that method, and what is the process for carrying it out? The degree
to which coaching schools have articulated a developmental modellet alone formulated a comprehensive
methodology that brings the theory into actualized formvaries widely.
Developmental, systems-based, and rigorously-defined coaching methods anchored in research are critical
missing components in most coaching schools. If you ask questions in order to reveal a schools method of
coaching, most responses describe the process rather than the method: First our coaches do this, then they
do this, this is the path, this is how we get there. An elucidation of the method driving the process is almost
always missing. Even if one asks directly: But what is the method of development upon which the process is
built, the most common reply lists the elements or components included in coaching in general. Responses
may include words like practice, embodiment, insight, distinctions, reflection, connection, powerful questioning, deep listening, or witnessing, but none of these alone or in combination is a method. They are components
of coaching conversations. They are not a coherent part of a comprehensive system. Unless, of course, the
coaching method is defined as, We just have coaching conversations.
Looking at coaching conversations themselves can help illuminate the way in which a coaching school views
development. Whether the school is aware of their approach or not, it shows up in the way or form through
which their coaches conduct conversations with clients. A coaching conversation takes place between a client
and a coach and is focused on what the client needs, wishes to develop, or longs for in their life. Conversations
may include issues clients are facing at work or home, related topics of concern, or developmental opportunities. How the conversation takes shape directly relates to and is, in many ways, informed by the beliefs underlying a particular schools approach to change.
Indeed, many schools speak about coaching conversations rather than coaching methods. Items generally
included in any coaching conversation are active listening, powerful questioning, and direct communication
that can include bringing forward new perspectives. These are, in fact, International Coach Federation core
competencies. However, most coaching schools do not have a particular method for operationalizing these
competencies in a comprehensive framework of human development. The components do not sit in a bucket
of what the conversation is supposed to be doing, let alone how and why. The competencies themselves end
up being the map. One is left wondering: What is being done and how does the coach know if it is going well
for the client or not? Depending on the coachs own AQAL Constellation (their unique profile of quadrants,
levels, lines, states, and types), the answer is vastly different, especially if coaches have not been trained to see
their own preferences, biases, and related views. There may be great conversations between a coach and client,
but usually the developmental map that core competencies rest in is not well defined.
J. HUNT
One can well imagine the different tenor of conversations led by a coach from an UR coaching approach versus a LL school of thought. Furthermore, as a unique human being, the individual coach will have his or her
unique quadrant orientationa topic explored in depth in Laura Divines article (pp. 21-40 in this issue)
which affects how the coach orients through a particular quadrant and translates the remaining three quadrants.
Quadrant orientation bias is especially noticeable if the coaching school has a loosely defined conversational
approach, without a robust method within which various types of coaching conversations are held, without a
process that is clear for both the coach and the client, and without explicitly defined and developed capabilities
of the coach to effectively carry out the developmental model employed.
Coaching Conversations
Let us explore coaching conversations, as they are a fundamental part of the coaching discipline. Certainly
we can agree that all coaching conversations have a beginning (opening connection, quick update, and how
are you?), a middle (where the majority of time is spent), and an ending (agreeing on next date, next steps,
confirming actions, if any, new perspectives, if any, expression of thanks, etc.). What unfolds in the middle
of a conversation is quite different depending on the coach and the approach they employ. Figure 3 provides
a glimpse into how the middle of conversations can sound depending on the view of change advocated by a
particular coaching school as originating in the UL, UR, LL, or LR quadrant.
If a coach conducts the middle or bulk of the conversation from the UL perspective, then they will most likely
ask questions aimed at evoking a clients interior: how they react to a new frame, how they feel about a new
seeing, and how it affects who they take themselves to be. Coaches who approach change through this quadrant
INDIVIDUAL
UPPER LEFT (UL)
UPPER RIGHT (UR)
So, what arises for you as you connect to this?

What do you think that means? How do you
feel as you hear yourself say that? What could
be a new perspective?
What will you do differently now? Perhaps you

should try it that way. Let's look at a new goal for
next week. I think this will help accomplish your
objective. Last week you did
IT
WE
ITS
SUBJECTIVE
OBJECTIVE
I totally see what you're saying; I felt that too.

That must be so difficult. What else shall we
cover today? Why don't we
What are your roles at work? How do you fit

into your family system? Describe to me your
work environment and how that differs from
your home environment.
LOWER LEFT (LL)
LOWER RIGHT (LR)
GROUP
Figure 3. The middle of four dierent coaching conversations.
INTEGRAL COACHING
do not tend to bring forward their own thoughts or assessmentsas mentioned above, they primarily see their
role as an enabler for the clients interior wisdom to be brought into the light and expanded through skillful
questioning. Through this frame, a coach does not tend to offer structured, well-defined practices or exercises
in the UR to support the client in structurally engaging with a new insight. Who am I to suggest what the client
should do? UL-leaning coaches trust that insight will naturally and organically become embodied as the client
moves through the world. In our view, this is a partial truth. Over time, a client will develop; that is a human
phenomenon. But, a coach can also work to alleviate suffering by employing an all-quadrant approach sooner
and with greater consciousness.
Furthermore, not only is an integral approach fundamental to a complete coaching inquiry, but also to understanding client responses. The clients answers arise from their unique way of framing the world, and therefore sit in a container that by its very nature strives for both transcendence (Eros) and communion (Agape).
Self-identity fights to be maintained in its current structure, and will color the clients responses and reactions
to coaching inquiry. Responses from a client to any question posed are always answered from the vantage
point of their unique AQAL Constellation. This Constellation gives rise to a clients Current Way of Being
(CWOB). This CWOB includes all of who they are at that moment in time: their way of seeing (perceptions,
feelings, thoughts), their way of going (words and actions), and their way of checking for how things are going
(results or consequences).
New insights, perspectives, or expanded views are still processed through the clients current AQAL Constellation. New seeing is primarily a function of the mind grasping something new. It is not yet embodied as
a lived experience, although many clients do feel, Now that I see it, I must be it. Ah-ha moments are, in
essence, state experiences, but that does not mean that what is seen or realized is stably lived at that moment
in time. Competency or capacity building is associated with all four quadrants; insight alone does not lead to
change.
However, many coaches take the wise answers to UL questions or rich co-creative LL conversations as indicators of embodiment versus indicators of cognitive understanding. These are two different things. Without getting to know and work with their CWOB through structured, integrated practices as they transcend and include
a longed-for New Way of Being (NWOB), we are left with mind snacksdelicious, insightful, meaningful.
But not embodied.
If the middle of a coaching conversation rests in an UR orientation, the focus is on planning, reports of action
taken, and required future steps. The available amount of energy and how to increase capacity is also a common concern. While we concur that it is necessary to take action, the UR does not provide an UL ability to
understand the complexity associated with trying on new behaviors: Why do I resist doing this but not that?
Why do I always leave this for the bottom of my list but this other item always gets done? Why did I not get
done what I agreed to do? Similarly, the client may have struggled with behavioral change in response to his
or her way of engaging in key relationships (LL) or systems (LR), and will be unlikely to make true progress
unless those collective quadrants are included. A typical accountability session conducted from the UR perspective may also include a client reporting to their coach that they were unable to carry out an action. A coach
who responds with, Lets talk about how committed you are to this or not? is resting in an UR focus on action
with a singular meaning-making perspective of getting things done through commitment and willpower.
If the middle of a coaching conversation rests in the LL, clients often feel that their coach really gets them
and the conversations are supportive, valuable, and insightful. Clients can have a hard time imagining ever
J. HUNT
being without their coach. The idea of having a solely UR plan of action and then a conclusion to the coaching
relationship is not within this particular frame of holding change, which includes having a thinking partner for
as long as the client is in a particular position. Clients often truly value the intimacy, support, and deeply shared
meaning associated with their work together. However, when you ask a client specifically to speak about what
has actually changed in their lives as a result of their coaching relationship, many times they are not able to
point to many explicit actions or results. They tend to respond more subjectively, Everything has changed. I
am so fortunate to have another person to consult with and I really appreciate her support.
In summary, coaching approaches that orient from one or a few quadrants are inherently partial. Enabling new
actions (UR) without consideration of the impact on the systems in which the client resides (LR), on the shared
space of relationships (LL), or on his or her own unique interpretations (UL) puts at risk sustainability and true
embodiment of change. Similarly, schools that take an Upper Quadrants approach (through UR actions in support of arising UL insights) can leave clients with many seeings and doings without a system or map to hold
it all together. Similar conclusions can be draw about Right-Hand or Left-Hand approaches. As Wilber (2000,
p. 113) has aptly stated, Cripple one quadrant and all four tend to hemorrhage.
The beliefs regarding what it takes for change to occur set the formation of a coaching approach in motion.
These beliefs also influence the degree to which a developmental model is considered and/or defined, a comprehensive method is formulated, and a process for the method is operationalized. In our view, all of these
approaches have relevance and respond to important human needs for support, guidance, and companionship
in development. However, in our estimation, the approaches arising from partial assumptions regarding how
change occurs and the lack of coherent methods and processes in coaching systems leave clients not as well
served as is possible with a full integral approach.
What Laura and I have been (and continue to be) interested in is building a coaching approach that provides
the best opportunity for a client to actually make, sustain, and embody change in a way that contributes to their
unique developmental journey. The following sections describe the coaching approach we have built based
upon the belief that for translation and transformation to occur, not only must we include a four-quadrant view
of change, but the approach itself needs to be fully AQAL (all-quadrants, all-levels, all-lines, all-states, and alltypes). This includes the developmental model our Integral Coaching is guided by as well as the comprehensive method itself. We started with the question: How do you bring a transcend and include developmental
model into coaching? And the answer has been: through a truly integral application.
Our Transcend and Include Development Model

Coaching is a present to future orienting discipline, with many approaches placing a strong emphasis on the
future component: development, growth, and forward-focused change. Many coaching schools focus on the
gap between here (today) and there (future). Often coaching clients are working towards new goals, new insights, new work, and/or a new life, and as such, new or next is the focus of most coaching work. There are
unmet or emerging desires that span from succeeding in a new executive assignment to being a better parent;
from supporting an Integral Life Practice to being less authoritarian; from life is not proceeding how I want
to life is not as meaningful as I would have hoped; from wanting to change jobs to being less stressed in my
current job. As you would expect, the fully free human being has future aspirations that cover a vast spectrum
of longings, dreams, and desires.
The coaching industry contributes to the prevailing not-there-yet climate prevalent in the fields of personal
and professional development and therefore, in our clients as well. This includes dreams not met, goals not
10
INTEGRAL COACHING
achieved, and a sense of still more to do, learn, and be. The gap between here and there for most clients is
significant. And, of course, for people living a life that includes active and ongoing conscious development,
there will always be a gap. Both personal and cultural evolution requires one to lean into this gap and continue
to move forward. And the field of professional coaching may be one of the contributors to the development
fatigue that plagues our current lives. Not done yet. Never done. This can actually be a very freeing view of
growth at later stages of development. However, for the majority of people, it is a tiring time of opportunity as
they also long for solace, rest, and stillness.
You can feel it even in the human potential movement. The drive for vertical development, new, and next can
be greater than the drive for here, now, and the embodied me already at home today. How do I integrate this
mealready herein a healthy way? How can I work with her abilities and limitations with skillful means?
Why is the focus only on the future me? What about being fully aware and present to the current me already
living my life? Working with our current capacities and capabilities leaves much to be done and it is important
to be with the what is of my life and not just the what is possible: we need to attend to both. Coaching
supports striving for achievement and growth (orange altitude) and sensitivity and openness to all forms of
development and transformation (green altitude). Healthy integral development, however, includes the what
is of ourself (this current me) and not just transcending to a future me.
Healthy inclusion is a critical component of Integral Coaching. In our decades in coaching, we have not found
another coaching school whose coaching methods, processes, or development practices formally include a
view that the current me is the ground from which a new me will growwe value the present, not just the
future, in this present-to-future paradigm. Integral Coaching supports a clients healthy transcendence to
the next developmental locale while also including the place where they currently stand. It is this CWOB (Current Way of Being) that is usually unseen and unconscious to us and our clients. Our CWOB has a structure and
a way of seeing, taking action, and checking how things are going. This way of seeing, going, and checking is
distinct for each client and is manifesting in the world whether the client is aware of it or not. And, as is true
with most systems, this CWOB will fight to maintain itself even if change or a NWOB (New Way of Being)
is deeply desired. Like a transplanted heart deposited in the chest of a deeply grateful human being, the first
response of the body is to reject the foreign object, even if it will save our life. Integral Coaches provide
support and structure to help clients through natural resistance such that over time, new ways are embodied,
which includes getting intimate with our embodied current ways.
Our CWOB drives where we sit when we walk into a classroom, who we gravitate to or are distant from,
whether we choose to sit or stand, dive into projects or hold back, what we notice and do not, and how we
check on how are things going. A CWOB is unique and arises from a clients AQAL Constellation. And,
like a fingerprint, it is not repeatable in anyone else. This is why a particular position in a company can have a
clear job description in writing, but John (the new guy) will fill that role in a very different way than Alice who
just left. John and Alice will each have a unique way of seeing, going, and checking in relation to the same job
description. John has been described as a racing boat captain with firm hold of the wheel. Alice has often been
referred to as an oak tree sheltering her team with a strong sense of right and wrong. A race boat captain has a
very different way of seeing, going, and checking. And one can well imagine that Alices departure and Johns
entry will significantly affect everyone on the team!
The strong present of a CWOB is a comprehensive unification of all past moments, a culmination of who
and what we have been up until the current moment. As such, it is important for a developmental system to
acknowledge its power and resiliency. The muscles of this CWOB have been uniquely honed to support our
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current manifestation. Whether we are aware of it or not, these capabilities exist to support a particular and
needed way of being in the world. Integral Coaching pays attention to the strength of the present manifestation, by both honoring it and utilizing its skills and capacities, while at the same time attending to the aspects
of the CWOB that do not support a clients development in the coaching topic that is the focus of their work. A
singular focus on the bright and new future only attends to half of a clients developmental realityit does
not attend to the developmental tension between the current me and the future me that rests in the present
moment. Attending to the future alone creates much dissonance and leaves gaps in development over time.
The tension between the past and future realties is readily seen in organizations. Consider a new leader who
speaks prolifically about the new, shiny future without acknowledging the present; he does not honor the
companys past actions, triumphs, and failures that brought it to where it is today (thank you, very much).
The situation is the same for coaches; the client has survived and thrived in their own unique past to present
without the help of a coach. And it is this strong past that enables a client to look toward a new future and seek
the support of a coach.
In a developmental sense, getting to know, honor, fully see, and work with a clients CWOB is necessary if the
healthy aspects of this current way are to be included in the clients next iteration of himself. As Wilber stated
(personal communication, December 2, 2008), Healthy translation leads to healthy transformation. Working
healthily with the current manifestation of a client enables them to develop a conscious capacity to understand
why they do what they do, say what they say, and respond to everyday situations in the manner that they have
gotten so used to. This manifestation includes the great and not so great aspects as well as the ability to discern
what is to be honored and honed, as well as what is to be let go of in the transcending. In our system, working
with the CWOB also enables the client to work healthily with its limiting aspects (i.e., the parts that they are
outgrowing, shadow elements, and aspects of themselves that are no longer serving a call to a fuller and freer
self). Compassionate openness to the pain and beauty of the CWOB modeled by the Integral Coach, and key
to our coaching model, allows the client to witness himself more fully without running, denying, or suppressing aspects in fear or shame. Many coaching schools focus on discarding and improving only. Our Integral
Coaching method provides a much-needed platform for clients to get real but without judgment or force in
holding their feet to the fire. As Pema Chodron stated (2001, p. 27), If this process of clear seeing isnt based
on self-compassion it will become a process of self-aggression. Spiritual and moral lines of development
along with the cognitive, emotional, somatic, and interpersonal lines create a further integral cascade that allows self-awareness and change to flourish and become embodied.
In summary, Integral Coaching Canada works with two concepts of me that exist simultaneously: a current
me and a future or new me. Both of these identities have a way of being that includes: 1) a way of seeing,
perceiving, and making sense of; 2) a way of going that includes actions, words, interactions, doings; and 3)
a way of checking or gauging if the results or consequences of actions are a success or failure, a happy result
or sad one, good or bad, and so on. Each of us has a CWOB and we all grow into NWOB in repeated and everwidening cycles over our developmental lifetime. Integral Coaching builds the capacities and capabilities to
grow into a NWOB while also working to integrate the healthy aspects of our CWOB as we transcend and
include it.
Integral Coaching Application of Subject-Object Theory

The next section will examine how we use subject-object theory as a foundational element in our transcend
and include Integral Coaching method. Ken Wilbers many publications have elaborated on this develop-
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INTEGRAL COACHING
mental path where what is subject at one level becomes object of the subject at the next level.1 In The Atman
Project, we find the following summary statement:
At each point in psychological growth, we find:
1. A higher-order structure emerges in consciousness (with the help of symbolic
forms);
2. The self identifies its being with that higher structure;
3. The next higher-order structure eventually emerges;
4. The self dis-identifies with the lower structure and shifts its essential identity to the
higher structure;
5. Consciousness thereby transcends the lower structure;
6. And becomes capable of operating on that lower structure from the higher-order
level;
7. Such that all preceding levels can then be integrated in consciousness.
(Wilber, 1980, p. 94)
We would depict this using Integral Coaching language by saying that a client comes to coaching longing for
change in an aspect of their life. Through interaction with their Integral Coach, the client comes to see both
their CWOB (through symbol or metaphor) and all that their CWOB has allowed for in their life up until now.
They also clearly see the aspects of this CWOB that are preventing them from manifesting in a new form. This
is the first step in the self dis-identifying with their lower structure.
Then, the client is exposed to a NWOB (through metaphor or symbol), and the client identifies strongly with
that higher self and the structure of that self (its ways of seeing, going, and checking) as it emerges. This is the
beginning of the client becoming conscious of and identifying with a higher order structure or their NWOB.
Throughout formal cycles of development during the course of coaching, the client engages in a dual approach
of building the capacity to witness and healthily integrate the CWOB as they simultaneously build new capabilities to embody the NWOB in their lives. Through this structured, integral developmental process, the client
progressively dis-identifies with their CWOB and shifts their essential identity to the NWOB. They are still
able to draw upon the strengths and capacities from their CWOB, but they now do so from the vantage point
and capabilities associated with their NWOB.
This process of including and transcending is used in Integral Coaching Canadas methodology in vertical
(transformation) and horizontal (translation) development for, in fact, they are intimately related. Filling out
our horizontal capacities and getting familiar and competent in the whole territory increases the probability of
vertical movement. When we speak about horizontal capacities we are referring to exploring the whole terrain
arising from a clients current AQAL Constellation, which includes not just their level of consciousness
(structure-stage) but also their lines-of-development profile and quadrant competencies as well as the effects
of quadrant orientation, the ability to experience and work with various states (both state-stage development
and moment-to-moment healthy state access), gender development capacities, the current manifestation of
their Enneagram type structure, and so on.2 Working with this full set of AQAL lenses is more fully addressed
in Laura Divines A Unique View Into You article (pp. 41-67 in this issue). Horizontal capacities involve
working with all aspects of a clients CWOB, including shadow elements. In so doing, a client fills out the
territory, addresses shadow elements arising in this current formhopefully contributing to less kids in the
basement issues in the futureand fully claims the talents and skills associated with who they are at this moment in time.3
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J. HUNT
It is important to point out that we hold these transcend and include cycles as microgenetic and not macro-level
stage movement. In other words, our view is that there are multiple cycles of development within altitude or
structure-stage. So, as you explore our method more fully, be assured that we are not proposing that a six or ten
month coaching relationship will produce a shift in level of consciousness, although coaching work definitely
supports this occurrence when clients are at the exit phase within a level. Our Integral Coaching method also
provides evidence for shifts within level from an entry phase (what we term wobbly) to a solid phase and from
this solid phase to an exit phase (what we term disintegrating). This is further elucidated in A Unique View
Into You (pp. 41-67 in this issue).
In developing our coaching method, we also drew from subject-object theory principles that can be briefly
translated into Integral Coaching terms as follows: When I live from a certain way of seeing, going, and
checking (my CWOB), I am not usually aware that I am operating from this place. It simply is me. It is the
me who I take myself to be. Being blind to me, I am the subject; I live as subject. It is my am-ness, my
identity, me. This is referred to as my proximate self and I cannot see it as object.
Development opportunities arise when this unconscious driver starts to become visible. I (subject) become
seen by me and begin to develop capabilities to work with this me (object) fully, consciously, and openly
aware. Once I become seen by me, I am no longer fully identified as the I (first-person subjective) and
movement, therefore, has already begun in the developmental path toward I becoming me (first-person
objective) or my (first-person possessive) over time. I can notice my thoughts or my feelings but they
are not all of who I take myself to be because I am also the one doing the noticing. Within a coaching frame, I
can, with greater awareness, more fully attend to my own development.
The initial shift occurs in the ah-ha moment of seeing my CWOB, usually offered by the coach through a
metaphor or image. Oh, there I am! In this moment, I glimpse me as object and this represents the first move
from proximate I (total subject) to distal me (partially object). Per above, this distal me refers to the part
of me that I can see as object. Of course, at this first moment, I am still living through the reality of my CWOB
so, in essence, I am seeing my CWOB through my CWOB. In other words, at the moment that I have the ah-ha
experience associated with seeing my CWOB, that is the exact moment of initial progression from proximate
to distal, subject to partially-objectified subject. An ah-ha moment is a product of this first shift! Over time,
subject becomes more and more fully object and object is consciously worked with as I dis-identify with it. As
my NWOB becomes more embodied, I can look back and see my old self and its related attributes fully as
object. As I transcend and include, I have the ability to work with my old CWOB through the seeing, going,
and checking capabilities of my NWOB. The subject at one level has become the object of the subject at the
next level, and I have taken responsibility for the healthy inclusion of my CWOB in that development.
Phases of Development in Integral Coaching Canadas Method

Now that we have reviewed the foundation of our Integral Coaching method with respect to key aspects of
integral theory, transcendence and inclusion, and subject-object relations, let us turn to how these components
manifest in the phases of client development as understood and applied through Integral Coaching Canada.
Current Way as Subject (not yet visible to client)
14
The Current Way of Being (CWOB) is the clients current manifestation in

the world. It is an unconscious driver in the clients life. (Subject: proximate
self or I)
INTEGRAL COACHING
Current Way as Object (first made visible to the client as partially-objectified subject moving to object over the course of coaching work)
Once the CWOB metaphor is offered to the client, the CWOB becomes visible and accessible. It becomes an object that the client can now be in relation to and dis-identify with as they work with new practices and reflection
exercises to become more effective with its historical pulls. (Partial object:
distal self or me/ my)
New Way as Object (a future self that starts as an object seen by the current self
and becomes subject over time)
The client also works with the developmental capacities necessary to build
their New Way of Being (NWOB). They identify with this NWOB and its
expansion of seeing, going, and checking capacities. Embodiment is built
through structured cycles of development, including AQAL modelbased
practices and exercises. Over time, this NWOB will become subject and
the next driver of the clients life.
Transcend and Include
The CWOB never disappears, nor should it. This is a radical departure
methodologically from most coaching schools that focus only on the future or the gap between here (now) and there (future). Our CWOB lives
inside our next level of development (vertical or horizontal). Building new
capacities to work with what has been an unconscious driver of our life is as
deeply constructive as building capacities towards a NWOB.
As the NWOB becomes embodied over time, the client is able to work with
their CWOB aspects through the capacities of their NWOB, thus transcending and including as they develop.
This dual-mode development is extremely powerful. It allows the client to identify where they are in any given
moment: whether they are drawing on their CWOB or their NWOB, when it is appropriate to draw from which
one, and when they are being pulled strongly in one direction or another. Working actively with your CWOB
and NWOB calls for being awake, knowing where you are, and bringing this consciousness to your manifestation in the world. This ability has huge and immediate impacts on a clients life.
Figure 4 provides a pictorial representation of the transcend and include developmental model used by Integral
Coaching Canada. At the beginning of a coaching relationship, a client is living fully from his CWOB (indicated by the dark grey circle). Over the duration of a coaching contract, the client builds capacities that enable him
to better work with his CWOB so that its capabilities can be drawn on when necessary. Over time, the strength
of this way of being decreases, and it is no longer the unconscious driver of his life. At the same time, the client
is building capabilities to support his NWOB (represented as the white circle). Over time, the client builds the
capacities to live more and more from this expanded future while incorporating healthy aspects and addressing shadow aspects of his CWOB. At some point during the coaching relationship, the two come together in a
true transcend and include developmental shift (indicated by the gray circles within the white circles). And, of
15
J. HUNT
100%
Presence of Way of Being
Transcend & Include

Development Path
Current Way
New Way
0%
Beginning
Duration of Coaching
Ending
Figure 4. One transcend and include development cycle.

course, at some point in the future, the NWOB will become familiar, taken for granted, not-at-all new anymore,
and will form a new subject or a CWOB ready for the next cycle of development.
Figure 5 provides a snapshot of what multiple development cycles look like over time. We go through many
transcend and include cycles within a particular altitude. (The numerous cycles within a given level of consciousness account for the vast differences that exist within horizontal development.) Enabling horizontal
Turquoise
...that naturally gives rise
to Vertical Development
Teal
Green
Orange
Amber
Red
Magenta
Horizontal Health
Figure 5. Repeating cycles of transcend and include development.

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INTEGRAL COACHING
health involves very different approaches when an altitude first becomes available to us, to when it stabilizes,
and to when it starts to disintegrate as a next altitude enters our field of awareness. In our Integral Coaching
work, horizontal health does not only address balancing the quadrants at a particular phase in a clients level of
consciousness but also attending to the healthy development associated with their Enneagram type structure,
feminine and masculine capacities, necessary lines to support their coaching topic, access to supportive state
shifts, and so on. In this way, we are building AQAL health at any particular level.
Integral Coaching Canadas Coaching Process

As stated earlier, a coaching schools process directly depends on their conscious or unconscious conceptions
of how change occurs: some engage in conversations only, some in action planning only, and some in simply
ensuring that International Coach Federation core competencies are included as elements of each conversation
(powerful questions, active listening, etc.). Very few have a LR system that makes coherent sense of all these
seemingly disparate yet related components. For example, some schools may view a written formal coaching program for a client as a system or map of development. Without it resting in a larger developmental
system and LR coaching process, however, such a document is simply a list of things to do or accomplish
(UR). For most schools, development systems are not defined and elements of coaching are randomly drawn
upon. A compilation of a set of particular elements is presented as a coaching system, but, in actuality, these
Process
First Meeting
Strong connection, use elements, agree on goals,
next steps, way you will work together
Middle Meetings
Use all elements, debrief the last couple of weeks, see if
there is progress (defined depending on UL, UR, LL, LR
orientation of coach)
Agree on next steps, set next meeting
Final Meeting
Some schools don't have this, as coaches
work with clients over years
If closing, final meeting is a reflection of time together
and orientation is per the above quadrant
Elements*
Ethical standards
Coaching agreements
Establishing trust & intimacy
Powerful questioning
Active listening
Creating awareness
Coaching presence
Direct communication
Designing actions
Planning & goal setting
Progress & accountability
Figure 6. Generic coaching process and ICF core coaching competencies.

*Elements are the 11 International Coach Federation (ICF) Coaching Competencies.
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J. HUNT
Process
Intake, offer, cycles of

development, completion
Method & Elements
CWOB/NWOB within
which elements are used
Human Development Model
Transcend and include

development, subjectobject, & integral theory
Figure 7. Integral Coaching Canadas nested system.

CWOBCurrent Way of Being; NWOBNew Way of Being.
systems are a weak collection of separate elements. Figure 6 provides a broad or generic process that many
coaching schools use and the core coaching competencies as defined by the International Coach Federation.
These competencies are basic elements that are used throughout a coaching relationship.
An Integral Coaching system includes and transcends Figure 6 by providing a strong LR structure and processes within which the elements come alive and are more profoundly defined. Integral Coaching Canada has
a complex methodology, developmental foundation, training architecture, and curriculum that are all based
on integral theory. Our methodology is an explicit system that enacts embodied developmental change. Furthermore, as seen in Figure 7, there is a process through which the coach and client journey. It is a dynamic
and rigorous process that rapidly produces shifts in the client and deeply longed for manifestation. The widest
bucket in Figure 7 is the human developmental theory upon which we have built our Integral Coaching
method. From that profound foundation arise the methodological elements, including working both with a clients CWOB and their NWOB. The elements (from Fig. 6) such as active listening live within the powerful
CWOB/NWOB methodology. The final bucket defines the actual process to carry out this method. There
are four distinct types of coaching conversations, per Figure 7: Intake Coaching Conversation, Offer Coaching
Conversation, Cycles of Development Coaching Conversations, and Completion Coaching Conversation.
In this article I have elucidated the underlying developmental and methodological foundations for Integral
Coaching Canadas human development model, introduced our Integral Coaching method that arose from
these foundations, and briefly identified the four types of conversations that arise from this foundation and
method. My Transformational Conversations article (pp. 69-92 in this issue) will address how our method
comes alive through different types of conversations that occur between coaches and clients.
Conclusion
Our process of building a coaching school based on integral theory has led us to include adult development
models, subject-object theory, as well as many other sources of research. We continue to be amazed at the
results that are realized by clients through such a coherent approach. These results are also directly related to
the way we train our coaches to be able to embody this complexity. Not only is our coaching method integral
in its design, but our Integral Coaching Certification Program is also integral in its architecture. Our training
focuses on integration and embodiment as we endeavor to elegantly bring the AQAL model into a practice that
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INTEGRAL COACHING
serves humanity and alleviates suffering. We continually strive to achieve the very high standard of building
the following capacities in the coaches who train with Integral Coaching Canada:
The Mind of an Integral CoachThis development includes the necessary cognitive understanding of the AQAL model that serves as the backbone of our work, the
rigorous application of the transcend and include coaching method (with its inherent
understanding of subject-object theory), and the process wisdom to seamlessly carry
out what it necessary to support another unique and complex human being.
The Heart of an Integral CoachThis component includes the emotional and psychodynamic health of the coach, full and awakened responsibility for the manifestation of their own AQAL Constellation, deep work in effectively working with
their own CWOB and arising NWOB, shadow work associated with their individual
development path throughout the program, and emotional capacities to hold the deep
suffering and joy of other human beings, including the necessary life practices to
build this embodied and loving presence.
The Body of an Integral CoachThis element includes the complex somatic awareness and cultivation associated with embodying this deep work of supporting self and
others, the range of expressions and experiences available (gross, subtle, causal), and
the container (including strength, diet, fitness) to hold the full complexity of another
human being with somatic patience, presence, and courage.
The Relations of an Integral CoachThis fourth component addresses the right and
healthy interpersonal relationships of a coach, which includes the profound knowing
of self in relation to others, shadow elements, projections, and attractions. It includes
the ability to compassionately hold human beings in fullness and freedom, not too
loosely and not too tightly, and the ability to say difficult things because the crucible
of relationship has been built with trust, openness, sensitivity, and love. Present in our
coaches is a deep humility in the face of being given the opportunity to support other
human beings in their one wild and precious life (Oliver, 1990, p. 60).
The Spirit of an Integral CoachThis element includes exploring the spiritual
foundation of each coach, in whatever form that takes. Coaches are able to rest in a
wider net, sink into the experience of non-separation, relax into the ground of being,
experience the natural desire to alleviate suffering for self and others, and healthily act
through their unique form of answering a call to be of service.
The Morals of an Integral CoachThis final element defines what it means to
engage in ethical conduct with clients, to follow right action while in service, to
know what motivates decisions to act or speak in a particular way, and to uphold the
Integral Coaching Professional Code of Conduct upon graduation. What am I to
do? is the deep question for this component and it is fully explored throughout our
coach training.
This is a rigorous integral system. And it is an intuitive integral system. We have developed a meticulous
method and process to guide coaches through each step of working with clients while also enabling both to
19
J. HUNT
draw on their creative and intuitive capacitiesbecause, as human beings, we naturally intuit all the time. We
often refer to the strong back or spine of a coach as the rigorous part of our developmental model. The front
of the coach is the soft animal of our being, our intuition, our compassion, our sensing, our ability to connect,
our capacity to love. Our programs are designed to bring both forward equally: rigor and love; challenge and
support. Science meets soul and the Integral Coaching dance continues.
N OTES
1
References to subject-object development are found in many of Ken Wilbers books, including The Atman Project
(1980); Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality (1995); A Brief History of Everything (1996); and Integral Psychology (2000), to
name a few.
2
At Integral Coaching Canada we have found the work of Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz (2004) to be a great resource
for understanding the role of everyday waking states in coaching work.
3
Wilber has referred to unclaimed aspects of development arising in later stages in moments of disintegration under
stress. For example, he has referred to heading home for Christmas with family as a true test of whether our younger
stage issues have been resolved fully. And, of course, as we continue to transform we are able to bring a more complete
tool kit to the table working with seemingly intractable issues through a wider frame.
R EFERENCES
Chodron, P. (2001). The places that scare you: A
guide to fearlessness in difficult times. Boston, MA: Shambhala.
Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental
demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Kegan, R. (2001). How the way we talk can change
the way we work: Seven languages for transformation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T. (2004). The power of full

engagement: Managing energy, not time, is
the key to high performance and personal renewal. New York, NY: Free Press.
Oliver, M. (1990). House of light. Boston, MA:
Beacon Press.
Wilber, K. (1980). The atman project: A transpersonal view of human development. Wheaton,
IL: Quest Books.
Wilber, K. (2000). Integral psychology: Consciousness, spirit, psychology, therapy. Boston, MA:
Shambhala.
JOANNE HUNT, M.M.S, M.C.C., is a co-founder of Integral Coaching Canada, Inc. She is also the Vice President,
Integral Coaching and Development with Integral Life. She is a Master Certified Coach accredited by the International
Coach Federation. Joanne holds a masters degree in Management Studies and is the lead trainer, with Laura Divine, of
the Integral Coaching Certification Program offered by Integral Coaching Canada. This program is accredited by the
International Coach Federation at a Masters Level of coaching training hours. Integral Coaching Canada is the global
coaching partner of Integral Life and the Integral Institute. Joanne lives in Ottawa, Canada with her wife and business
partner, Laura.
20
LOOKING AT AND LOOKING AS THE CLIENT

The Quadrants as a Type Structure Lens
Laura Divine
ABSTRACT This article provides a more complete examination of one of the six AQAL lenses used
by Integral Coaching Canada. The four-quadrants model is advanced in its usage as a type structure
lens that enables a deeper understanding of the perceptual maps of coaching clients. The type
structure goes beyond giving Integral Coaches obvious access to the competencies of a client
using the four quadrants (Looking AT a client) to enabling understanding of the internal orientation
and translation structure of each client (Looking AS a client). Using the four quadrants as a type
structure lens provides powerful translation language for each of us. You will find yourself and your
orienting quadrant in this article, and, if you also hold a significant other in your awareness as you
read, you will locate sources for some of the dierences and similarities that you have experienced
in relation to one another.
Key words: AQAL; four quadrants; integral coaching; perspectives; typologies
oanne Hunts Introduction to Integral Coaching article (pp. 1-20 in this issue) provided an overview
of Integral Coaching Canadas developmental approach. This approach works with individuals so that
their current way of holding self, others, and things expands to transcend and include into a new way of
being. In addition, this approach is successful in developing the competencies necessary for clients to have the
skillful means to effectively manifest and live from and through this expanded self. This article examines one
of the lenses that we use in our client work while also providing a foundation for understanding how we have
adapted integral models for coaching. We delve more fully into the Integral Coaching process in the Transformational Conversations article (pp. 69-92 in this issue).
Further illuminated in this article are relevant coach development skills, which are examined through one
of the six lenses that Integral Coaching Canada uses in understanding a clients AQAL Constellation: the
four quadrants. Although we work with the four-quadrants lens in multiple ways, this article focuses on what
Joanne Hunt and I have discovered about its subtler contributions. As we deeply utilized the four quadrants
with our clients and students over time, we realized that it had face validity as a type structure lens (i.e., in
the same way we use the gender or the Enneagram as type structure lenses). Furthermore, this discovery is a
unique contribution to integral theory, emerging out of our work with coaching students and clients using the
AQAL model.
As will be more deeply examined in subsequent articles in this issue, Integral Coaches need to perceive
clients in two ways simultaneously. The first is to Look AT the client in the context of their coaching topic
to discern what skill sets are needed based upon what is present and lacking. The second is to Look AS the
Correspondence: Laura Divine, Integral Coaching Canada, Inc., P.O. Box 74037, Ottawa, Ontario K1M 2H9, Canada.
E-mail: laura@integralcoachingcanada.com.
L. DIVINE
client, which involves being able to look through their eyes, from their body-mind-soul in order to get a sense
of their unique way of seeing and relating to their topic. This process of Looking AS is a powerful practice of
embodied perspective taking. Being able to Look AT and Look AS clients, to see, understand, and appreciate
them in their topic from different perspectives and to help them broaden their seeing, is only the starting point
in our approach. The coach then needs to work skillfully with a client to develop and embody the competencies
needed to actually inhabit and manifest this expanded view of self, others, and the world. It is our opinion that
nothing has fundamentally changed until clients not only see and relate in an expanded way, but are also able
to capably move through their day-to-day world in ways that express and manifest the intentions and perspectives of their new expanded self.
Conversely, if a coaching approach only focused on developing new competencies without enabling clients
to awaken to their way of seeing and relating to their coaching topic, the new competencies would sit in their
longstanding and (generally) unconscious interpretive lens. As described by Ken Wilber in Integral Spirituality (2006), A person will interpret a particular state or experience according to the entire AQAL matrix operative at that time. As always, interpretation is an AQAL affair (p. 94). Hence, even though the ability to Look
AS and Look AT clients is one of many skills Integral Coaches must embody in order to understand how
their clients bring about and sustain change, it is also essential and sets the context for the other elements of
our Integral Coaching approach.
One of the powerful contributions of the integral model is that it provides a map that challenges us to see
beyond our own unconscious maps that are likely partial. This AQAL map also gives us a way to hold, appreciate, and understand, as it facilitates Looking AT the territory as well as being able to step into and actually
travel in the territory (Looking AS). Our Integral Coaching approach situates the integral model in the context
of working with individuals in an integrative (horizontal) developmental (vertical) capacity (Wilber, 2000, p.
152). The backbone to our approach is working with a clients AQAL Constellation, a unique profile that
gives rise to a clients own way of interpreting and living day to day. In Integral Coaching Canadas method,
this AQAL Constellation consists of using the following lenses: four quadrants, levels of consciousness,
lines of development, states of consciousness, and types (Enneagram and gender). While this article focuses on
the four quadrants, the other lenses are discussed in A Unique View Into You (pp. 41-67 in this issue).
Clients Way of
Orienting
Clients Levels of
Competency
Looking AS
Looking AT
Figure 1. Looking AS and Looking AT.
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QUADRANTS AS TYPE STRUCTURE LENS
By using these lenses to Look AT the client and Look AS the client, the coach can be guided by an integral map
that goes far beyond the unique AQAL Constellation of the coach. Thus, Integral Coaches are able to truly
serve their clientsmeeting them directly in their world, their landscape, their joy and pain, their skillful and
unskillful domainsin support of what they so deeply desire to change or realize.
Discussed in this article is the evolution of our learning as we worked with the quadrants lens. Initially, Joanne
and I utilized the way of Looking AT clients to understand their competency levels in each quadrant, as well as
the quadrants they tended to emphasize or privilege (Fig. 1). Eventually, we incorporated the way of Looking
AS the client, endeavoring, as best as an other can, to deeply understand the view from which the client sees,
acts, speaks, and looks for results or consequences.
Working directly with individuals in a transformative context for over a decade enabled us to contextualize
this lens to include Looking AS, as we discerned that people have a distinct quadrant from which their view
originates or orients. In addition, their ability to view the other quadrants is translated through this orienting
quadrant or perspective. In other words, people seem to have an orienting quadrant through which the other
quadrants are seen and assessed, and this orienting quadrant remains consistently present regardless of their
horizontal or vertical development. Moreover, four different people who share the same altitude (e.g., orange)
can have four different quadrants from which they orient and through which they translate the other three.
This particular way of using the four quadrants lens most strongly resembles a type lens, as it identifies different types of orientations possible at each of the various levels (Wilber, 2000, p. 53). Furthermore, the same
Enneagram type may have different quadrant orientations. Hence, the quadrant orientations cannot be reduced
to an aspect of another lens.1
Following is a brief introduction to the quadrants lens and then a walk-through of its evolution in our work. I
start with Looking AT competencies, both what is needed in the coaching topic and the clients current levels,
then move to Looking AT a clients preferred quadrants, and then finally to using the quadrants lens as a type
INDIVIDUAL
UPPER LEFT (UL)
UPPER RIGHT (UR)
INDIVIDUAL
Experience &
Consciousness
INDIVIDUAL
Body &
Behavior
SUBJECTIVE
IT
OBJECTIVE
WE ITS
COLLECTIVE
Culture &
Relationships
COLLECTIVE
Structures &
Systems
LOWER LEFT (LL)
LOWER RIGHT (LR)

GROUP
Figure 2. The four quadrants.
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structure when Looking AS the client, their way of orienting, and their way of translating other quadrants
through their orienting one. Client and coach examples, along with a scenario where four people attend their
first meeting as a newly formed project team, help illuminate this evolution. The article then discusses the linkages between quadrants and quadrivia (see Wilber, 2006, pp. 253-255), our use of Looking AT and Looking
AS, and concludes with a discussion of what is required in an Integral Coach to be able to skillfully use the
quadrants lens in their work with their clients.
Four Quadrants Lens

Simply stated, the four quadrants lens depicts the perspectives of first-person, second-person, and third-person
realities. As described in A Theory of Everything, the Upper-Left quadrant involves I-language (or first-person accounts); the Lower-Left quadrant involves we-language (for second-person accounts); and both RightHand quadrants, since they are objective patterns, involve it-language (or third-person accounts) (Wilber,
2000, p. 52). Figure 2 provides a simplistic or rudimentary view of the four quadrants.
The four quadrants show the I (the inside of the individual), the it (the outside of the
individual), the we (the inside of the collective), and its (the outside of the collective). In other words, the four quadrantswhich are the four fundamental perspectives
on any occasionturn out to be fairly simple: they are the inside and the outside of the
individual and the collective. [emphasis in original] (Wilber, 1999, pp. 129-131)
INDIVIDUAL
UPPER LEFT (UL)
UPPER RIGHT (UR)
INDIVIDUAL
Experience & Consciousness
INDIVIDUAL
Body & Behavior
My experiences, my beliefs, my consciousness,

my values
What is meaningful to me, what I want and
long for
My interpretation of the thoughts, feelings,
sensations that arise in my body; the meaning
I attach to them
My subjective truth
Measurable part of our bodies: physical,

neurological, biological, bio-energetic,
skeletal, etc.
Behavioral, observable actions: what I do,
how I go
Measurable doings: what I get done
SUBJECTIVE
OBJECTIVE
Relationships, community, we domains,
I/Thou Domains
Being part of a shared sense of reality (cultural
subjectivity), rightness, cohesion, belonging
Cultural mores, norms, rituals, traditions
that we share
Shared language, symbols, meaning
Unspoken rules that we understand
Measurable aspects of the We Domain:

What we do, the results of our performance,
how we get things done
Frameworks and structures for planning,
designing, analyzing, organizing, monitoring
Systems, theories, processes, sciences (what,
how things work and why based on facts,
measurements and analysis)
Environment/Physical World: both man-made
structures and nature
COLLECTIVE
Culture & Relationships
COLLECTIVE
Structures & Systems
LOWER LEFT (LL)
LOWER RIGHT (LR)

GROUP
Figure 3. Descriptions of each quadrant.

24
Figure 3 provides a further detail of the distinct aspects of each quadrant, which we introduce to coaches as
they begin learning about integral theory. The Upper-Left quadrant (UL) focuses on an individuals interior experience and consciousness: what is meaningful to me, my beliefs, my experience and interpretation of sensations, my intentions, and my subjective truth. The Upper-Right quadrant (UR) focuses on the individuals body
and behavior: what is observable or measurable phenomena, my actions and words, as well as the quantities of
energy available. The Lower-Left quadrant (LL) focuses on group culture and relationships: the meaning and
resonance shared between us and the cultural norms that we share, including explicit and implicit rules. Finally, the Lower-Right quadrant (LR) focuses on the structures and systems of the collective: systems, processes,
and structures that enable such things as measurement, analysis, explanation, information, and performance.
The Evolution of Our Use of the Quadrants Lens

Looking ATCompetencies
We began using the four quadrants in the way that it is most commonly employed in coachingprimarily
as a Looking AT functionality. Specifically, we Looked AT a clients coaching topic to discern what types of
competencies the client needed in specific quadrants to become more effective in that topic. We also Looked
AT the client to assess current skill levels in those competencies. This understanding revealed where clients
needed further development such that they could realize topics that deeply mattered to them at that moment.
While Looking AT the quadrants is helpful in discerning what is here, what is missing, and what needs to be
addressed, it does not afford coaches access to the clients way of orienting, seeing, and relating to, and thereby
acting on, the topic at hand. Therefore, Looking AT is a great tool to assess what clients can and cannot do in
the context of what will help them to move forward, including what they will need to build to support a new
future.
INDIVIDUAL
UPPER LEFT (UL)
UPPER RIGHT (UR)
Remain present and open in the midst of

emotional discomfort
Stay connected to ones deeper intentions in
the face of displeasure
Grant forgiveness when mistakes occur
(self & others)
Identify actions needed and set priorities

Follow through on promises even when
energy feels low
Take risks (even not knowing how it will
turn out)
SUBJECTIVE
OBJECTIVE
See and appreciate others interests and values
Can influence the decisions and commitments
that are made
Make reasonable promises and requests of
others that are mutually shaped and
agreed upon
See the big picture so can predict

consequences related to deliverables
Can break big things down into small elements
Understands the roles each function has, and
contributions to the whole
LOWER LEFT (LL)
LOWER RIGHT (LR)
GROUP
Figure 4. Assessment of competencies.

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Above is a brief illustration of this way of working with the quadrants. In this example, a client wanted to be
able to be meet time commitments rather than procrastinate because he felt allergic to administrative stuff.
This allergy led him to wait to the last minute to complete tasks at hand. Figure 4 maps the key competencies
needed to be effective in this coaching topic across the quadrants. The competencies shaded in grey are the
ones where the clients competency level was low and needed to be addressed through coaching.
The use of the quadrants lens in this way provides a map and guidance for the clients need to address the subjective quadrants in his development focus. Using the four quadrants in this way (i.e., Looking AT) ensures that
balanced development is achieved in all four quadrants. Balanced growth positively impacts the clients ability
to more reliably deliver on the commitments he makes. It also leverages what is already strong and develops
what is missing so that the client is able to meet a given situation and respond in a way that skillfully draws
upon the capabilities representing all four quadrants (see Wilber, 1999, pp. 129-131).
Looking ATPreferred Quadrants

Over time we also noticed that something more was at play. In addition to perceiving clients as having developed certain skills over others and performing more effectively in certain quadrants but not others, we
observed an intriguing pattern. Clients seemed to privilege particular quadrants in their actions and attention.
When asked how they historically approached the challenges of their coaching topic, they used language that
indicated they acted and behaved within one or two quadrants, while efforts and actions in the other quadrants were noticeably absent or minimal. Thus, their patterned way of acting to resolve something indicated a
quadrant preference. If we take the example above, this client most privileged the LR quadrant. In his view,
the solution to his challenge was to change the system, particularly to change administrative processes and
requirements. Hence, he spent his time trying to figure out how the system needed to be modified. While continuing to Look AT clients, we added this dimension to help us appreciate the biases clients have and to guide
us in developing the means to help them change. Our work definitely provided a great deal of on the street
evidence that sustained change was indeed challenging if one or two quadrants were hemorrhaging.
This particular way of Looking AT clients informed how we worked with them, especially as they explored
their non-preferred quadrants. It also enabled us to anticipate where resistance would arise. Having preferred
quadrants is not new newswe all have them. However, we observed something different taking place.
Looking ASWay of Orienting

As we worked with Looking AT the client to understand their preferred quadrants, we began exploring what
happens when we took on the view or perspective that the client prefers. We wanted to see the topic from their
perspective, what the landscape looked like from inside the client. By asking, what is available to the clients
view from this perspective, and what is not? we endeavored to Look AS the client. The more we worked with
Looking AS to better discern clients preferred perspectives, we noticed that people tended to speak from the
position or perspective of a particular quadrant, regardless of the specific quadrant domain we were exploring.
The clients language and focus corresponded with their framing of or relating to their topic in a particular way.
We saw patterns of behavior and language that reflected this dominant quadrant perspective and focus as if it
were home base, a place from which clients would venture out to engage with the realities associated with
the other quadrants.
In other words, we found that people have a particular perspective (UL, UR, LL, or LR) from which they orient or situate themselves. Each perspective (quadrant) has a distinct view, and that distinct way of seeing and
perceiving is based upon the parameters or characteristics of that quadrant. This orienting quadrant guides a
26
persons way of relating, behaving, and checking to know how things are going. It is the first perspective a
person instinctively takes, goes to, or looks through to get situated, make sense of circumstances, or experience
and guide conclusions as well as actions. Figure 5 provides the orienting views of each quadrant, including
how a person who orients from a particular quadrant would see and relate to reality.
Figure 5 demonstrates that clients orienting primarily from the UL get situated by accessing their inner sense
of meaning and value. Their core compass is their inner knowing, experience, and criteria for meaning. Similarly, the core compass of clients who primarily orient from the UR also involves self-referencing. However,
an UR orientation is more objective and tangible. It involves tuning into and being led by action, movement,
energy, and task completion. Persons who primarily orient from the LL situate themselves by accessing the
shared meaning and values held by a group or collective. This shared resonance and understanding is their
core compass. The person who orients from the LR also has a way of orienting from the perspective of the
collective/group rather than that of the individual. Nonetheless, as with an UR orientation, the LR compass is
more objective than those found in the more subjective UL and LL quadrants. The core compass for a person
orienting from the LR is being able to see the system as a whole and how things are situated or fit together.
UL
UR
Sees and relates to everything from a place of

My personal meaning & values
My internal experience
What deeply matters to me
My views, feelings, and thoughts
Shared meaning, vision, and resonance
Belonging/membership/inclusion
Collective understanding (context)

Doing, action (words and deeds)
Value of getting things done, produced
Quantity and quality of energy available

The system, how everything fits, how it works
and how to make it work
The goals, doings (process, roles, procedures)
and results of the group
The structure, how it can support and enable
LL
LR
Figure 5. Ways of orientingthe view from each quadrant.
The language a person uses gives clues as to the quadrant from which a person orients. Language is a reflection
of the way a person sees and relates to self, others, and the world. Thus, coaches can discern a clients quadrant
orientation by listening to the focus, perspective, and emphasis of the language they use. The examples below
further illustrate this point.
In the following scenario, a group of four people have been asked to work together on a project, and it is their
first team meeting. Each starts by saying a few words about being a member of the team and working on their
shared project. Here are their opening comments:
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L. DIVINE
Person orienting from the UL

I am very excited to be working on this project, as there is an opportunity to create
something of real value. What matters most to me in working on this, and any other
project for that matter, is that what gets created is both elegant and functional.
Person orienting from the UR
I am really energized to be part of such a challenging project. So much to do and so
little time! I say lets jump right in and figure out what needs to get done, and then get
going. Im willing to create our list of actions.
Person orienting from the LL
We all come from such diverse backgrounds and talents, and I can see why the four
of us were selected for this project. It will be really important for us to be sure that we
have a shared understanding of our mandate up front so that we are all on the same
page going forward.
Person orienting from the LR
While the timeframe we have to complete this project is tight, what we will be producing could radically impact our core business infrastructure for the better. It all depends upon how well we understand the strengths and weakness of our current system
before we create something new.
These could be typical opening comments of four people in a meeting. Each is a valid and distinct expression
with an attention and attenuation that reflects the quadrant from which each member orients. This orienting
quadrant is the lens or filter through which each of these people sees. When they opened the meeting by saying
a few words, each person went to the first place they typically go to get situated and discern what to say. The
person who orients from the LR tunes into and relates to the meeting from the perspective of objective systems,
structures, and processes. The person who orients from the UR also has a tone of tangibility and concreteness.
The difference is that the person who orients from the UR is more tuned into the specific actions that need to be
taken rather than to the overall system and how everything fits. Both the people orienting from the LR and LL
get situated by tuning into the group rather than to the individual. The person orienting from the LL, however,
is tuned more to the intersubjective, shared meaning aspects of the group rather than to the objective systems,
structures, and process aspects of the LR. As with the person orienting from the LL, the person orienting from
the UL is also tuned into meaning and values, yet it is his or her own meaning and values that take precedence. While this example demonstrates what four people with different quadrant orientations would say in a
meeting, the quadrant from which a person orients is the view they rest in and see from day to day, moment to
moment. It is how they relate to self, others, and thingsindeed, to everything.
Looking ASWays of Translating

Not only did we find that individuals have a quadrant through which they primarily orient, we also found that
their way of orienting serves as a lens or filter through which they relate to the content or perspectives of the
other three quadrants, thereby turning the quadrants lens, for this application, into a type lens. In other words,
the perspective of the quadrant from which individuals orient becomes the translating quadrant through which
they make meaning (see Wilber, 1981, pp. 77-78). A person who primarily orients from the UL is going to
see and relate to the other three quadrants through the perspective of the UL. A person who primarily orients
from the LR is going to see and relate to the UL, UR, and LL through the perspective of the LR. The degree
28
to which a situation or experience evokes resonance with a persons orienting quadrants perspectives directly
influences their perception of the experience, conclusions that are drawn, and actions that are taken.
In the example of the four people in a meeting, as each person spoke, the other three listened through the filter
of their orienting quadrant. The person orienting from the UL heard what the person orienting from the UR
said through an UL lens of meaning and purpose. If the person orienting from the UL cannot find any personal
meaning in the words . . . jump right in, and figure out what needs to get done, he or she may be significantly
less interested in what the person orienting from the UR is saying. If the person orienting from the LL cannot
find shared meaning and resonance in what the person orienting from the UR is saying, then he or she, too, is
not interested. The person orienting from the LR would probably not go along with the words of the person
orienting from the UR because he or she cannot detect signs of a systematic approach when jumping straight
into action. The team is already set to face some interesting challenges!
Four Ways of Orienting and Translating

This section further clarifies the scenario of the four people in a meeting and shows how each person translates the other three quadrants. Included are four figures that provide a general description of each orienting
quadrants way of translating. Although we can all take the perspectives of others quadrants, we see, act, and
check through our own orienting quadrant. This orienting function significantly colors how each person takes
the perspective of the other quadrants. For each of the orienting quadrants (UL, UR, LL, and LR) below, we
have provided two items, a figure and a related table. The figure is a four-quadrants diagram providing the
view from one meeting members specific orienting quadrant and the questions or comments you might hear as
he or she journeys into the other quadrants. Notice how each orienting filter translates the language and focus
of the members questions and comments. The table that follows each figure consists of this same members
internal assessments or observations as he or she listened to the others speak from their own orienting-quadrant
UL
UR

My personal meaning & values
My internal experience
What deeply matters to me
My views, feelings, and thoughts
Will this relationship or conversation be

meaningful to me?
Meaningful connections inspire me.
What would be the meaning of doing this?

I would need to be clear on my inner sense of
meaning before I am willing & interested in
knowing what to do.
I understand where the things that matter to me fit.

Through understanding the larger system, I can
gain access to an even wider sense of meaning.
LL
LR
Figure 6. The view and translations from the Upper Left.
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perspective. These internal (and usually very private) voices are presented with some humor, but truth may be
found in them as well.
As depicted in the shaded box (Fig. 6), a person orienting from the UL listens for language that would resonate with the perspectives inherent in his or her orienting quadrant: personal meaning and values, what deeply
matters, and the value and guidance of ones own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. When the other members voice their perspectives from the other three quadrants, this UL-orienting person actually relates to these
expressions through his or her UL perspective. A key criterion of the UL translation is that the person can
find relevant personal meaning in what is being expressed. If that is not found, a person orienting from the
UL may not be interested and will disengage or disregard what is said. It is when this resonance occurs that a
person orienting from the UL experiences value and is most probably drawn to engage. His or her questions
differ in each quadrant from those that might be posed by the members who orient from the UR, LL, and LR,
respectively. Not only do this members observations and comments differ, but so do his or her assessments
of perceived value.
Referring to the meeting example, Table 1 indicates how a person orienting from the UL may react internally
(or verbally, depending on how the meeting goes) to the other three members introductions. The left-hand column provides the actual words said by each of the other three team members. The right-hand column provides
the internal translation that can occur for someone orienting from the UL as he or she listened to each of the
others attending the meeting.
The three other meeting attendees were genuinely speaking from their orienting quadrants; hence, a gap exists
between what each person said, including 1) how the UL-orienting person heard it and 2) what this same person needs to hear to experience value such that he or she becomes interested in engaging. The UL-orienting
What the Other Three People Said
Translation from the UL Orientation
Person orienting from the UR:
UR:
I am really energized to be part of such a challenging project.

So much to do and so little time! I say let's jump right in and
figure out what needs to get done and then get going.
There is nothing energizing to me about doing

something solely for the sake of doing it.
Person orienting from the LL:
LL:
We all come from such diverse backgrounds and talents, and I can
see why the four of us were selected. It will be really important
for us to be sure that we have a shared understanding of our
mandate up front so that we are all on the same page going forward.
Spending more time talking about what is

already obvious to me is boring.
Person orienting from the LR:
LR:
While the timeframe we have to complete this project is tight,

what we will be producing could radically impact our core business
infrastructure for the better. It all depends upon how well we
understand the strengths and weaknesses of our current system
Analyzing our current systems could really get

complicated and blur our clarity of focus
and intentions.
Table 1. Upper-Left translation of the other group members.

30
UL
UR
What do I need to do to deepen my awareness?

(Because once I try it, I'll know if it works).
How do I go about determining my purpose,
my intentions, what matters to me?
What shall we do today?

Those who get lots done are the ones I want on
my team. How are my deeds going to have an
impact here?
The connection energized me.

Doing, action (words and deeds)
Value of getting things done, produced
Quantity and quality of energy available
Seeing the larger system helps me know my part and

how my actions contribute to the whole.
Having a good environment to work in is energizing.
Finding the right fit allows me to relax and
be productive.
LL
LR
Figure 7. Translation from the Upper Right.

person translates the other three comments with an empty or flat expression because, from the UL perspective,
they lack language that conveys what is deeply meaningful to them personally. Inherent in this translation (and
in the other three, as well) is the assumption that meaningful expressions have to take a particular form in order
for them to be recognizable as such. When the person orienting from the UL hears the UR-orienting voice, he
or she misses the fact that the source of meaning for a person with an UR orientation is action.
Let us have a look at the person who orients from the UR. How does he or she hear, question, or assess the
other quadrants based on their unique orientation? Figure 7 provides this members UR orientation and the
types of questions or comments he or she might pose. Notice that this member finds meaning through doing,
or being in the midst of action, and not before.
While also having a similar individual (self-referencing) view as the person orienting from the UL, the person
orienting from the UR is more concerned with objective and tangible dimensions rather than with the subjective aspects that concern the UL. A key criterion of the UR translation is that the person can see and directly
experience tangible actions, tasks, and results. If that is not evident, a person orienting from the UR will lose
energy and interest because nothing is happening. The more opportunities for clear and tangible things on
which to take action, the more energized a person orienting from the UR becomes.
Table 2 illuminates how the UR-orienting person at the meeting may react (internally or externally) to what
each of the three other people said in their introduction. The reactions and conclusions drawn by the person
orienting from the UR are based upon the degree to which these three expressions show any indications of action, movement, and getting things done. Notice the absence of attention to the coherence of these actions in
a broader system (LR). Also, meaning is not discussed from the UR translation; meaning arises during action
and through knowing what to do next. Hence, you can readily feel into the type of responses this person had to
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Translation from the UR Orientation
Person orienting from the UL:
UL:
I am very excited to be working on this project, as there is an

opportunity to create something of real value. What matters most
to me in working on this, and any other project for that matter,
is that what gets created is both elegant and functional.
Lots of lofty talk. I'm not sure how that

translates into actually doing something.
LL:
see why the four of us were selected. It will be really important for us
to be sure that we have a shared understanding of our mandate
up front so that we are all on the same page going forward.
I hope this person isn't suggesting that we have

lengthy group discussions that go nowhere.
LR:

understand the strengths and weaknesses of our current system
Looking at the whole system first, that could

really bog us down from getting to what we
each need to do to fulfill this mandate.
Table 2. Upper-Right translation of the other group members.

the voices of the UL and LL orientations. If the meeting goes on and on without getting to tasks and actions, the
person orienting from the UR will withdraw his or her interest. Conversely, if the conversations move swiftly
and focus on the tasks at hand, this person will energetically engage and contribute in significant ways.
As evidenced in the language of the UL and UR ways of orienting and translating, both are perspectives of the
individual. Group meaning and systems are not key criteria in their translations. A person orienting from the
UL attunes to and gets oriented by accessing and being guided his or her intra-subjective sense of meaning.
The degree to which this person experiences his or her own inner sense of meaning being activated in these
meetings is the degree to which this same person will engage in the meeting. The person orienting from the UR
attunes to his or her own level of energy, direct relationship with action, and getting things done. This persons
level of engagement in the meeting is dependent upon the degree to which these factors are met.
To continue, notice in Figure 8 that, like the person orienting from the UL, a person orienting from the LL also
attunes to a sense of meaning. The distinct difference is that the LL orientation attunes to the meaning of a
collective, group, or community rather than to that of an individual. Orienting from the LL perspective means
that a person is guided by and attuned to the presence of collective understanding. With his or her core compass situated in the intersubjective field, a person orienting from the LL will be disoriented until access to this
knowing is achieved. Thus, a key criterion of the LL translation is an attenuation to intersubjective resonance.
Figure 8 illustrates questions and comments that a LL-orienting person might bring forward.
Table 3 provides insight into the internal filter through which the person orienting from the LL translates when
listening to the other three people in the meeting. The person orienting from the LL listens for the degree to
which resonance, or shared understanding, exists among those who need to work together. The voice of the
32
UL
UR
What's important to me becomes clear once I

have access to the vision of the group.
My meaning is in relation to, or emerges from,
our shared meaning.

Shared meaning, vision, and resonance
Belonging/membership/inclusion
Collective understanding (context)
My priorities are defined and motivated by the

group's priorities, and it enables me to know
what I need to do.
My energy to carry out tasks is elevated when I
can see how they make a contribution to the group.
Understanding the system, how things are organized,

the defined roles, expectations, and procedures are
of value as long as they help us have better work
relations and contributions.
System results matter if they help how we are doing.
LL
LR
Figure 8. Translation from the Lower Left.
Translation from the LL Orientation
UL:

Very self referencing. I wonder if this person

is a very good team player.
UR:
I am really energized to be part of such a challenging project. So

much to do and so little time! I say let's jump right in and figure
out what needs to get done, and then get going.
This person seems so keen to get going, but we

don't even have a shared understanding of the
purpose and intentions of the mandate; without
that we won't have the context we need to
guide our actions.
LR:

understand the strengths and weakness of our current system
But what about the people in the systems?

If we aren't about what matters to them,
then what we build won't matter.
Table 3. Lower-Left translation of the other group members.

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L. DIVINE
UL
UR
My own values and vision become clear once I can

see the larger picture: how it all hangs together
and, therefore, how that translates into my world.
I find my meaning by first seeing the whole and
then knowing my part.
Conversations or meetings are a place to discuss

how things work (or need to work) and what needs
to be done to get the results we've agreed are
important to reach.
I am interested in people when we share knowledge
that advances my understanding of things.
LL
My compass for action is in seeing how my actions

and words impact the larger system.
I need a comprehensive map that lets me know
where I am going and how it fits in the bigger
picture before I am able to act.

The system, how everything fits, how it
works, and how to make it work
The goals, doings (process, roles,
procedures), and results of the group
The structure, how it can support and
enable
LR
Figure 9. Translation from the Lower Right.

person orienting from the UL would sound overly individualistic, and the voices of the UR and LR would
sound like they lacked context. All three of these voices would elicit dissonance and concern in the person
orienting from the LL, which might prompt this person to engage the other members in conversation so as to
cultivate a more coherent context that all four team members could embrace. By responding in this way, the
LL-orienting person would derive what he or she needed to be able to contribute to the teams mandate; however ironic, this course of action is probably not one that the other three people would be interested in taking.
Lastly, Figure 9 provides a depiction of the orientation from the LR. A person who orients from the LR is
attuned to systems, processes, and structures. They need to be able to see the whole, how the parts fit in the
whole, and what that whole enables or is going to enable. This attention to results is both similar to and distinct
from the UR translation. The LR translation is interested in the impacts results have on the overall system rather than on the result itself. Meaning emanates from this tangible sense of coherence, hence, the LR translation
sees no value in talking about meaning, which, from this vantage point, offers little to no relevant contribution.
Having access to and being grounded in this sense of coherence gives a LR-orienting person the context he or
she needs to make sense (UL), take action (UR), and form collective meaning (LL).
In the team meeting, the person orienting from the LR is listening with his or her unique translation filter. A
key criterion of this translation is the degree to which the conversation is advancing the comprehension of the
system and its parts, as well as determining a coherent plan forward. Table 4 provides greater access to this
perspective and also illustrates that the person orienting from the LR listens for the degree to which the focus
of discussion is in alignment with the key criteria of that translation. The more the conversation focuses on
the mandate from the perspective of the system and associated processes, structures, and roles, the more the
LR-orienting person will experience the meeting as valuable and worth his or her time and energy. According
to the translation of the LR orientation, meetings become unproductive when they become more subjective in
34
Translation from the LR Orientation
UL:

Sounds like the criteria for success is if it fits

this person's personal vision, which may have
nothing to do with what's needed to improve
the functioning of our systems.
UR:
I am really energized to be part of such a challenging project. So

much to do and so little time! I say lets jump right in and figure
out what needs to get done, and then get going.
Unless we figure out what needs to get done by

first taking a look at the overall system that we
are going to impact, it's just a bunch of actions
that aren't horizontally and vertically linked.
LL:
see why the four of us were selected. It will be really important for
us to be sure that we have a shared understanding of our mandate
up front so that we are all on the same page going forward.
The written material we got prior to this

meeting specifies our mandate and includes
our personal bios. I don't see what more
there is to discuss about this.
Table 4. Lower-Right translation of the other group members.

focus (UL or LL), i.e., when they feel softer and less concrete. Further, while the person orienting from the LR
is interested in attaining concrete results, he or she will experience frustration if a meeting becomes circumscribed by discussions about task lists and action items without first identifying their interdependencies; the
LR translation believes that maps should inform which action to take.
Clearly, the interaction of four people, each with a different orienting quadrant, makes for an interesting meeting to say the leastand this case illustrates only one aspect of one of the six integral lenses used with great
precision in the Integral Coaching methodology! Inevitably, we have all experienced similar types of meetings, which generated substantial frustration, periodic resonance with different people at different times, and
a love-hate relationship with attending meetings altogether. It is no wonder that many perceive meetings to be
of marginal value or effectiveness. The level of value increases the more a person experiences a greater resonance with what is being said by others. This resonance is based upon the degree to which what is being said
falls inside or outside ones translation criteria. Imagine how much a meetings value and effectiveness could
increase for each member and the group if these four people were aware of their own orienting quadrants, as
well as those of their colleagues. When people are aware of the quadrant from which they orient and the associated translations of that particular type structure, they can begin to see that it is just that, a translation, and
that other perspectives have their own unique translations. In this awareness lies the potential for individuals to
realize a quantum shift in their capacity to engage every aspect of life with skillful means, in each moment.
While we had never seen the quadrants used as a translating type structure in this way, we found that it was
invaluable in helping us see through the eyes of the client. It helped answer the question that we always ask,
How does this person see and relate to the world such that they say what they say, do what they do, and check
what they check? This nuanced use of the four quadrants lens as a type structure enhanced the power of our
coaching. Not surprisingly, our clients felt even more understood and seen. The more we explored this usage,
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the more we began to see evidence of its face validity over time with our clients, ourselves, and our coaching
students. Our Integral Coaches intimately work with their own orienting quadrants to ensure that they mitigate bias as much as possible when working with clients. It remains a potent lens in the set that comprises our
AQAL Constellation.
Quadrants and Quadrivia

After a number of years of using the four quadrants lens both to Look AT and Look AS the client, we read
the following passage in Ken Wilbers recent book, Integral Spirituality (2006), that powerfully confirmed
the validity of our intuitive move towards inside out and outside in ways of working to understand our
clients:
The quadrants are the inside and the outside view (or perspective) of the individual
and the collective. More technically, with reference to these perspectives, we differentiate between the view through and the view from. All individual (or sentient)
holons HAVE or POSSESS four perspectives through which or with which they view
or touch the world, and those are the quadrants (the view through). But anything can
be looked at FROM those four perspectivesor there is a view of anything from
those perspectivesand that is technically called quadrivia. [emphasis in original]
(p. 34)
Our understanding of this quote in the context of coaching is that the inside view, the view through, describes
the coach trying to Look AS the client. Here the coach tries to get into the clients body and see the world as it
is seen through the view (or perspective) of the client. We call this Looking AS, which Wilber describes as the
view through the quadrants. The outside view, or the view from, is when the coach uses the perspectives
of the four quadrants to Look AT the client. This is technically called quadrivium when looking from one of
the four perspectives (singular) and quadrivia when looking from more than one perspective (plural). In our
coaching approach, we Look AT the client from all four perspectives, and so the appropriate term to describe
this use of the four quadrants lens is quadrivia (Fig. 10).
The View Through
The View From
Looking AS
(Quadrants)
Looking AT
(Quadrivia)
Figure 10. Quadrants and quadrivia.
36
Seeing the differentiation between the view through (quadrants) and the view from (quadrivia) was highly
validating for our discoveries in the application of this lens in the field of coaching. Using the four quadrants
model as a type lens and identifying the quadrant a client primarily orients from, views through, and translates
the other three quadrants certainly helps the coach endeavoring to Look AS, or view through, the eyes of
the client. At the same time, there is also value in being able to take an outside or objective view by using the
perspective of each quadrant to Look AT the client to learn more about them and their capacities in the context
of their topic.
By having the ways in which we take perspectives be more clearly distinguished as the view through (Looking AS) and the view from (Looking AT), this enables us, as Integral Coaches, to know the place, position, or perspective from which we are viewingan inside view or an outside view, a view through or from,
quadrants or quadrivia. Wilbers discussion of viewing through (quadrants) and viewing from (quadrivia)
reinforces that this combination of Looking AT and Looking AS the client is effective because it includes both
the view from and the view through, thereby enabling our coaches manifold ways of understanding, supporting, and serving their clients (see Wilber, 2006, pp. 253-255).
Clients vs. Coachs Orienting Quadrants

Discerning the quadrant through which a client orients and translates the other three quadrants helps coaches to
Look AS the client. The prerequisite for being able to skilfully see in this way is to first understand ones own
orienting quadrant and inherent translations. As with any other type structure, as long as we are still living at a
level of consciousness where the structures we inhabit and embody shape what we perceive as real and true, we
have a quadrant from which we primarily orient. Given that a persons quadrant orientation forms the translation structure for the way in which he or she relates to the other three quadrants, coaches will unconsciously
bring their orientations to how they see and relate to their clients world, as well as to how they will approach
the focus and design of the clients developmental practices. Knowing ones self, as the instrument through
which Integral Coaching flows, is a critical element of a coachs training journey.
A coach with an UR orientation is going to have a bias towards taking action. Odds are that the way these
coaches ask questions, offer perspectives, and design developmental practices will be rooted in this translation.
For example, being asked to do something without having any meaningful context is a recipe for disenchantment and disengagement for an UL-orienting client. While the coach is focused on figuring out the right thing
to do (UR), the client is searching for relevant meaning (UL). The coach will need to tap into and elucidate this
clients personal meaning to capture and sustain the clients interest in not only working with this coach, but
also committing to doing developmental work over time.
Alternatively, if the coach has an UL orientation and the client has an UR orientation, the coach is likely to
focus unconsciously on accessing the clients personal intentions, giving voice to personal values, and reflecting on what deeply matters. The client orienting from the UR will tend to feel uncomfortable with this focus
because what he or she is being asked to do does not sound very tangible. The client will no doubt try suggested practices, as doing is an integral part of their native orientation. However, after doing a round or two
of subjective, looking and reflecting practices, they will most likely conclude that doing them further would
be irrelevant.
In being aware of their own quadrant orientation, coaches will be sensitive to their own biases and also know
how they need to adjust their focus and language to meet their clients. For example, coaches with an UL-
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orienting client would need to talk about and make linkages between the practices recommended and the
positive impact or contribution they would have to the clients topic, given what is personally important and
meaningful to that specific client.
Coaches with a LL orientation would realize their bias in thinking that all coaching topics call for improvements in interconnection and cultivation of shared meaning. They would also be more consciously guided by
the clients quadrant translation in both word and deed. Hence, LL-orienting coaches need to be able to talk
about actions (UR) without lengthy context setting and acknowledge what is personally meaningful to the
client (UL) without trying to have it become shared. They would also need to be able to provide a concrete
and tangible map that lets clients know where they are currently situated, what is ahead, and how it is going
to work (LR).
A coach who orients from the LR is going to have a bias that concludes what the client needs is to be able to
see the fuller picture and how everything needs to fit in order for everything to work. Although this offer is
sincere, it is not Looking AS; it is Looking AT. Of course, Looking AT clients through a LR orienting translation and seeing clients and their topic as a system and what is needed for there to be greater coherence and success is important. Nonetheless, Looking AT is necessary but not sufficient for working integrally with a client.
Conversely, if a client orients from the LR, he or she will relate to whatever is offered through this quadrant
orientation and related translation. If LR resonance is lacking, then this client will experience dissonance with
what is offered and have difficulty seeing how it fits for them. Coaches will serve LR-orienting clients well if
they attenuate their language and framing of practices in light of this LR predisposition, even if the practices
are not technically designed to develop LR capacities.
The Development of the Coach to Look AS the Client

As we have stated, our Integral Coaching approach requires the coach to develop the capabilities to both Look
AT and Look AS the client. In developing Integral Coaches over time, we have found that it is much easier
for them to learn how to Look AT than it is to Look AS. The perspective one needs to take to Look AT the
client, the third-person perspective, is one with which people are readily familiar. While the coach may care
deeply for the client and have a strong relationship with him or her, the ability to Look AT the client primarily
calls for a cognitive line of development able to access wider and wider perspectives.
Being able to Look AS the client calls for a whole different level of capacities in the coach. It is not enough
to just know the orienting views and the associated translations for all four quadrants. The coach needs to be
able to have a grounded felt sense of the other persons world within the coachs own body-mind. This requires
not only being open, curious, and receptive to a client in body, heart, mind, and spirit, but also calls for having
the same level of awareness about the coachs own way of seeing and operating in the worldto be able to
let go of ones biases and perspectives and yet not lose ground, to be connected to another and the shared field
and yet also be distinct. This embodied capacity calls upon developing all six developmental lines (cognitive,
emotional, somatic, interpersonal, spiritual, and moral) rather than just an act of cognitive reframing.
Using the four quadrants to both Look AT the clients competency levels as well as to Look AS the client
through their orienting quadrant fosters this vital development. At a fundamental level, therefore, our coaches
truly develop the ability to see the world through another persons eyes and from this space of compassionate
appreciation, bring the skillful means of an Integral Coach forward in service.
38
Conclusion
This use of the four quadrants as a type structure lens provides a powerful way to see and appreciate the interpretive and complex views of the client. The four quadrants, the four perspectives, and associated translations
provide a map of the territory. It helps the coach locate the client on that map and also helps the coach learn
how to travel in the territory itself with skillful means.
While this article primarily focuses on the power of the orienting and translating functions of the four quadrants, it is important to note that Integral Coaching Canadas methodology also draws upon the traditional uses
of the quadrants lens. In our Integral Coaching method, the four quadrants lens sits in relation to five other
integral lenses that comprise a clients AQAL Constellation. This effective approach is a means to more fully
honor the complexity of working with human beings in the context of integral development.
Use of the orienting quadrants has proven to be extremely powerful and is readily grasped by people with little
to no in-depth knowledge of integral theory, by coaches and non-coaches alike. The first meeting example
rings profoundly true for those who have been in meetings in which they detected dissonance, or for anyone
who has walked out of a meeting thinking it was a waste of time while another person at that same meeting
described it as simply wonderful. The orienting translation map of this territory has immediate resonance.
Given its clarity, suffering is alleviated, as people can better understand what is actually happening within and
between them. It engenders an expanded appreciation for other perspectives and translations, which means that
an expanded capacity exists to hold multiple views and skillfully navigate in and through them in support of
ourselves and each other.
N OTES
1
When students first learn these lenses, they tend to want to see if there is a way that they can be collapsed or
consolidated. This often occurs between the orienting quadrant and Enneagram types. They want to draw correlations
such as Enneagram types 9 and 2 orient from the Lower-Left quadrant, type 4 and 6 orient from the Upper-Left
quadrant, types 3 and 8 orient from the Upper-Right quadrant, and types 1, 5, and 7 orient from the Lower-Right
quadrant. We ask people in our classes who have the same Enneagram type to show which quadrant they primarily
orient from. Inevitably they point to different quadrants. Thus, each of the quadrant orientations can be found within
each Enneagram type. After this is demonstrated in class, students often enjoy exploring the subtleties of how an
orienting quadrant has a distinct effect on a persons AQAL Constellation.
R EFERENCES
Wilber, K. (1981). Up from Eden: A transpersonal
view of human evolution. Wheaton IL: Quest
Books.
Wilber, K. (1995). Sex, ecology, spirituality. Boston,
MA: Shambhala.
Wilber, K. (1998). The eye of the spirit: An integral
vision for a world gone slightly mad. Boston,
MA: Shambhala.
Wilber, K. (1999). One taste. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Shambhala.
Wilber, K. (2000). A theory of everything: An integral vision for business, politics, science, and
spirituality. Boston, MA: Shambhala.
Wilber, K. (2006). Integral spirituality: A startling
new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world. Boston, MA: Shambhala.
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L. DIVINE
LAURA DIVINE, M.A., M.C.C., is a co-founder of Integral Coaching Canada, Inc. She is a Master Certified Coach
accredited by the International Coach Federation. She holds a masters degree in Exercise Physiology from the University
of California, Berkeley and has also completed Executive Development Programs at Harvard University and University
of California, Berkeley. She is a student and teacher of tai chi. She is the lead trainer, with Joanne Hunt, of the Integral
Coaching Certification Program offered by Integral Coaching Canada. This program is accredited by the International
Coach Federation at a Masters Level of coaching training hours. Integral Coaching Canada is the global coaching partner
of Integral Life and the Integral Institute. Laura lives in Ottawa, Canada with her wife and business partner, Joanne.
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A UNIQUE VIEW INTO YOU

Working With a Clients AQAL Constellation
Laura Divine
ABSTRACT This article provides an introduction to the set of six lenses used to support client
assessment and competency development. Integral Coaches receive in-depth training in the application of integral theory to the field of adult development. For the purpose of this article, a
particular client thread is used to enable readers to grasp each lens in a coaching application. The
six lenses used by Integral Coaching Canada are the four quadrants (competencies, orientation, and
translation), levels of consciousness (including three levels within each level), six lines of development (cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, somatic, spiritual, and moral), states of consciousness
(gross, subtle, and causal as well as productive and non-productive, high-energy and low-energy
states), gender type structures (feminine and masculine development), and Enneagram type structures. Coaches graduating from Integral Coaching Canada use all six lenses from Looking AT and
Looking AS perspectives for both client assessment and integral practice design.
Key words: human development; integral coaching; integral models; perspectives; unique self
he complexities of a human being need to be honored and included as a coach strives to profoundly
understand and appreciate how a client sees the world, walks in it, and tries to carry out what deeply
matters to him or her. This is the premise for how we work with assessment lenses. Rather than using
models to reduce a client to a simple, easy-to-use equation or category, we use a set of lenses to help the coach
see that an individual lives in and through many dimensions and perspectives. In so doing, the coach is able
to gain an appreciable sense of the vivid, multidimensional landscape of a client. This way of working with a
set of lenses also helps to minimize drawing conclusions about a client and their coaching topic based on the
coachs unconscious personal preferences and projections.
While using a set of lenses is valuable, our view is that unless there is also a way to bring what each lens reveals together to form a tapestry of the client, all that remains is a collection of pieces of information. When
woven together, however, patterns and themes arise, linkages are revealed, and the sense of the client goes
from being a cluster of puzzle pieces to being a living system, a unique assemblage or composition; we call this
a clients AQAL Constellation. As is the case with stars forming constellations in the sky, no two are alike
and they are constantly experiencing births and deaths. A clients unique AQAL Constellation is a complex
and elegant map of the current arising of a human being, as I will explore in this article.
In this article I will introduce each of the six lenses that comprise a clients AQAL Constellation, both in
terms of how each lens contributes to understanding a client and what happens when all of the lenses are
brought together. Threaded throughout the article is a client example that illustrates the actual application of
Correspondence: Laura Divine, Integral Coaching Canada, Inc., P.O. Box 74037, Ottawa, Ontario K1M 2H9, Canada.
E-mail: laura@integralcoachingcanada.com.
L. DIVINE
what is being presented. It is important to note that this article gives the reader a taste of how we work with
lenses and a clients AQAL Constellation. In our coaching certification program we provide detailed, indepth resource material, developed by Integral Coaching Canada, for each lens that comprises an AQAL Constellation. Furthermore, it takes at least two years of study and practice for students to embody the capability
set to elegantly work with a clients AQAL Constellation. For the purposes of this article, I have endeavored
to provide the reader with a working summary of each lens, alone and in combination with other lenses, applied to a professional coaching case example.
The Integral Lenses We Use

The assessment lenses we use are those included in any truly integral or AQAL approach: all quadrants, all
levels, all lines, all states, and all types. We have translated the AQAL model into a format and scale useful
for coaching, and have developed training material for coaches to learn how to use each lens whether or not
they have had previous knowledge of integral theory. In fact, the majority of our studentsin our early years
of operatinghad never heard of integral theory, the AQAL model, or Ken Wilber. The design of our coach
training program remains powerfully relevant for people new to integral theory as well as to those who have
been studying and putting it to work for an extended period of time. The way that we use the AQAL model in
coaching is like putting on a different set of glasses through which to see, appreciate, and get a felt sense of the
client; hence, we call them lenses. In our coaching training, the order in which we teach the lenses is quadrants,
lines, levels, types, and states. We introduce them in this sequence because we have found that students are able
to readily grasp the use of the quadrants and lines lenses and apply them more rapidly than the others. Once
they establish a degree of understanding and skill, students learn the remaining four lenses.
We use the four-quadrants lens in two ways: 1) to understand the clients way of orienting and translating
and 2) to understand the clients levels of competency in each quadrant. These two uses of the four-quadrants
model are discussed in detail in Looking AT and Looking AS the Client (pp. 21-40 in this issue). We use six
lines of development: cognitive, emotional, somatic, interpersonal, spiritual, and moral. We chose these lines
as they consistently proved relevant in working with clients in the professional coaching field. The levels of
consciousness lens we use is based on Wilbers use of altitude and is a compilation of developmental research
in the areas of self-identity, values, morals, and cognition (i.e., perspective taking) (Wilber, 2006). This lens
describes the view available and expressed at a given altitude or level of consciousness. We use two different
type structure lenses: the Enneagram lens and gender lens. Finally, we use a states lens that includes heightened
states (e.g., runners high, in the zone), everyday waking states (e.g., emotions, moods), and gross, subtle, and
causal state experiences and understanding.
As discussed in the Introduction to Integral Coaching (pp. 1-20 in this issue), the way in which we use each
of these lenses is to Look AT and Look AS the client. Looking AT the client provides the coach with a more
objective view of such things as their degree of competency, capacity levels, and what is within or beyond
their access or reach. These lenses also help the coach take the position and view of Looking AS the client. For
example, when using the lines lens, there is an assessment of the degree of development in a given line using
a scale of low, medium, and high. By Looking AT the client we are able to identify the tangible capacities they
have and do not have, and how this contributes to the challenges of the clients coaching topic. The same assessment of development is then used to Look AS the client. The coach steps into the shoes of the individual,
attempting to see and feel the world through the eyes of the client: what is seen and how it is seen, how the
world is related to and not, what capabilities and capacities can be drawn upon, and what is out of reach. From
just this one lens, the coach can begin to build a comprehension for both the inside and outside aspects of the
client relative to their topic. This not only offers more information through a wider, embodied way of knowing
for the coach, it also develops the coachs perspective-taking muscles in relation to the client and their topic.
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AQAL CONSTELLATION
As you can imagine, doing this for each of the six lenses and then pulling together all of the seen and sensed
information from these perspectives can provide the coach with a multi-dimensional sense of the client, like
a many-faceted jewel that is to be appreciated and beheld in its unique beauty and limits. Thus, the six lenses
combined generate an Integral Coaching matrix that allows a skilled coach to engage in embodied perspective
taking of their client. This is what we call the clients AQAL Constellation, which we will explore once we
introduce the client example that will be used in this article.
Introducing the Client Example

The following client example will provide a way to vividly demonstrate the application and contribution of
each lens as well as how these lenses come together to form a clients AQAL Constellation. This example is
based upon a client that I have coached, with some modifications to ensure that confidentiality is maintained.
In this spirit, the name Brian will be used throughout the article.
Brian had spent the previous seven years building a start-up business in the high-tech sector that had successfully weathered substantial challenges to become more stable, and was poised to pursue further expansion.
His history of experience as a leader was working with small groups of very bright and innovative people. His
challenge now was to move from being a small and nimble organization to a larger one where he would need
to lead through a leadership team rather than in the dynamic, entrepreneurial, hands-on style he had relied upon
until now. His first step was to build a team of high-performing executives that could run with him and lead in
a way that would carry on the quality and intensity of performance that the company had enjoyed.
Brian proactively sought to hire people that he thought would be the best fit. However, the turnover rate became quite high and he was consistently hiring new executives. At first he concluded that this was occurring
because of the recruiting process and that he had just not found the right people yet. But after so many attempts
he began to wonder if there were other reasons, in particular, his leadership style. It was at this time that Brian
contacted me.
I spent time learning about Brian and his coaching topic during our Intake Conversation (see the Transformational Conversations article, pp. 69-92 in this issue). The lenses were resident in the background of this
conversation both as a place to capture what I was learning about my client, as well as a source of guidance
for the focused inquiry. At the end of the Intake Conversation, Brian and I agreed that the focus of his coaching topic was to lead in a way that optimizes successful retention and performance of newly hired as well as
existing executives.
After the Intake Conversation I took more time to sink into what I had absorbed in order to more fully Look
AT and Look AS Brian in preparation for the Offer Conversation. It is during this time that I used the array
of lenses previously cited to get a feel for my clients full AQAL Constellation. This would then inform me
during the creation of metaphors for Brians Current Way of Being (CWOB) and New Way of Being (NWOB)
in relation to his topic. It would also enable me to discern what the focus of Brians development should be so
that he could make measurable progress in his topic.
As each lens of the AQAL Constellation is introduced, I provide a taste of the assessment work that I
engaged in and how this assessment work informed me as Brians coach. As a practice in taking multiple
perspectives, I encourage the reader to physically pause throughout this article and sit in the seat of the coach
while also connecting to this particular clients world (to both Look AT and Look AS the client). Try to get a
felt sense of how each lens provides another perspective or dimension through which to see, feel, and appreciate Brian as well as to discern what is needed in support of his coaching topic. As you gain more information,
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allow yourself to feel the unique contribution of each lens and feel all six of them come together as a whole,
full, and an evermore intricate expression of who Brian is and how he approaches his topic. Allow yourself to
be influenced and guided by what Brians AQAL Constellation reveals to you regarding his way of being in
his topic. Ask yourself: what is available to him, what is not, and what needs to become available to him both
in terms of awareness as well as capabilities required for him to make progress in this important topic?
Quadrants Lens
Figure 1 provides a summary of how the quadrants lens is used to Look AT key competencies needed in this
coaching topic. Items highlighted are specific topic-related competencies where Brians current capability
levels were assessed as low to medium-low and would require attention.
With just this use of the quadrants lens, we can see that there are more competencies rated low to medium-low
on the subjective side than on the objective side. Although Brian is great at figuring out structure and goals,
when it comes to the subjective quadrants, especially in the intersubjective field, Brian is not as skillful. While
he can state what he wants and expects from others (Lower Right [LR]), he lacks Lower-Left (LL) skills to effectively establish a shared understanding between himself and his executives. Given that his skill level in being conscious of his own assumptions and judgments is medium-low, Brian is repeatedly surprised and sorely
disappointed when he realizes in the next meeting with the executive that they did not get it in the previous
conversation. Brian can sincerely think that everything was clear to everyone because it was clear to him, but
in actual fact, the level of shared understanding with the newly hired executives was actually quite limited. No
wonder there were such disappointments occurring!
INDIVIDUAL
UPPER LEFT (UL)
UPPER RIGHT (UR)

Hes able to move (and speak) at varying paces
and levels of intensity
He remains present even when things are not
going according to his expectations
He knows what he personally values and

what is important
He is conscious of his intentions
Is conscious of his own expectations,
assumptions and judgements
IT
WE
ITS
SUBJECTIVE
OBJECTIVE
He can cultivate shared meaning and vision
He can see, appreciate, and work with the
perspectives of others
He can reach and sustain a shared
understanding of what needs to be done,
how, and why
He can articulate goals and expectations for the

organization and for specific functions
He provides feedback on performance
He has built an organizational structure that
supports the business goal and the capacities
of the people
LOWER LEFT (LL)
LOWER RIGHT (LR)
GROUP
Figure 1. Looking AT Brians competency levels in the four quadrants.
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AQAL CONSTELLATION
Shifting to using the quadrants lens as a type structure, Brians way of talking about his topic, how he had
been approaching it up to now, and what he thought needed to happen to make progress on the topic strongly
reflected the orienting view from the LR quadrant. The view of someone orienting from the LR is one that relates to everything from a place of the system, how everything fits, how it works, and how to make it work;
the goals, doings (process, roles, procedures) and results of the group; and the structure, in terms of how it
can support and enable. Primarily orienting from the LR, Brian would then translate the other three quadrants
based on this orienting view. Consequently he would engage in meetings as a place to discuss organizational
performance relative to organizational goals. He would want to determine what needs to specifically happen in
order to get the overall results he has deemed important, without ensuring that there is a shared understanding
of what this means. The kind of sharing that is valued by Brian is the sharing of knowledge that will advance
the understanding of things. This way of orienting from the LR sees little value or need for taking time to
ensure that there is shared and common understanding of expectations between each other. More accurately,
Brian believed that all of this had clearly occurred when he told executives their job responsibilities and the
goals of the company. What more was needed?
With the first of six lenses, we now have an appreciation of key competencies that Brian has and does not
have relative to his coaching topic. From this we can see how he will keep trying to use the same scope of
capabilities repeatedly to tackle this topic. Over and over he tried to refine the structure and the goals of the
company, tried to find the right people to fit the company, and then tried to tell them the vision, the goals, and
the expectations that they needed to meet. We also have an appreciation for his way of seeing and relating to
this topic based on his primary orientation from the LR quadrant. Brian gets his bearings by looking at everything as a system. He checks to ensure all the parts within the system are fitting together before he can feel
comfortable. He feels his internal compass align once he knows the pieces are all accounted for, including
the pieces that belong to his interior. While sometimes the quadrant a person orients from is also where their
competencies can be low, in this case, Brians skill levels in the competencies listed in the LR are medium or
higher. What this means is that not only does he orient from the LR, he is also skillful in the LR competencies
needed for his topic. This would certainly give Brian a level of confidence as he is able to skillfully perform in
the quadrant that feels like home base. And yet, his skill levels are low in the Lower Left (LL) and medium-low
in the Upper Left (UL) and Upper Right (UR). This means his lack of skill and value of these diminished areas
are contributing to Brians failure to retain newly hired executives.
By using the quadrants to Look AT and Look AS Brian we have gained some understanding about him in the
context of his coaching topic. While it may feel like that is enough information to guide the coachs work with
the client, it is just the first of six lenses that make up Brians AQAL Constellation. Take a moment to allow
this information to settle and then continue on to the next lens.
Lines of Development Lens

In Wilbers discussion of lines in Eye of the Spirit (1998), he stated:
My general thesis is this: an overall spectrum of consciousness through which more
than a dozen different developmental lines proceed, each of which may have a different architecture, dynamic, structure and functionquasi-independent of each
otherbut all loosely held together by the self-system. (pp. 216-217)
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Wilber went on to reference Howard Gardeners work on multiple intelligences:

There is increasing evidence to suggest that [development] is better thought of as
composed of a variety of domains [developmental lines], including not only logicalmathematical thought and linguistic knowledge, but also. . .visual-spatial thinking,
bodily-kinaesthetic activity, musical knowledge, and even various forms of social
understanding [including moral and interpersonal competence]. (Gardener, 1990, as
cited in Wilber, 1998, p. 217)
Wilbers (2000) study of this rich field of research found that most of these lines develop in a relatively independent fashion (p. 44). Wilber continued:
Research is still fleshing out the details of these relationships, some lines are necessary but not sufficient for others; some develop closely together. But on balance,
many of the streams (or lines) develop at their own rate, with their own dynamic in
their own way. A person can be at a relatively high level of development in some
streams, medium in others, and low in still others. (p. 44)
Wilber went on to explain in Integral Spirituality (2006), Human beings have a variety of intelligences, such
as cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, musical intelligence, kinaesthetic intelligence, and so on.
Most people excel in one or two of those, but do poorly at others (p. 8). What this speaks to is our potential
to develop and that just because we are developed in one area or intelligence doesnt mean that we are automatically developing in the same way in another. Some people have highly advanced cognitive development
(they are very smart) but poor moral development (theyre mean and ruthless). Some people excel in emotional
intelligence, but cant add 2 plus 2 (Wilber, 2006, p. 7).
With regards to the relation of these developmental lines to each other, Wilber (1998) described how the development in one particular line may be necessary but not sufficient for development in another line: Most
evidence to date suggests that, for example, physiological development is necessary but not sufficient for
cognitive development, which is necessary but not sufficient for interpersonal (and self) development, which
is necessary but not sufficient for moral development (p. 399).
Wilber (2006) calls these various intelligences developmental lines because these intelligences show growth
and development. They unfold in progressive stages (p. 8). He demonstrated this by looking at moral development with a three-stage developmental model: the preconventional stage (egocentric), the conventional
stage (ethnocentric), and the postconventional stage (worldcentric) (Wilber, 2006, p. 6). With the introduction
of the integral psychograph, Wilber provided a way to represent these intelligences or developmental lines
using major developmental stages to indicate levels of growth within a line (Wilber, 2006, p. 7, p. 56). As he
pointed out, levels or stages can apply to any developmental line: The level of a particular line simply means
the altitude of that line in terms of its growth and consciousness (Wilber, 2006, p. 35). And, as is the case in
stage development, higher stages in each line tend to build upon or incorporate the earlier stages, no stages can
be skipped, and the stages emerge in an order that cannot be altered by environmental conditioning or social
reinforcement.
In coaching, the value of having a developmental lines lens is that it helps us appreciate where we excel and
where we do not, where our greatest potentials are evidenced, and where our weaknesses may need some attention. While acknowledging that there are more than a dozen developmental lines, we drew upon our history
46
AQAL CONSTELLATION
COGNITIVE
Awareness of what is
The capacity to see from different perspectives, the value,

synergies and implications of those perspectives, and doing so
through space and time
EMOTIONAL
The spectrum of
emotions
The capacity to access, communicate, discriminate, and skillfully

be present to the emotional field of self and others
SOMATIC
Body/mind awareness
The capacity to access, include, and skillfully draw upon the

energies of the gross, subtle, and causal realms
INTERPERSONAL
How I socially relate

to others
The capacity to relate to and communicate with others in a way

that all perspectives (I, We/Thou, It) are attended to at
the appropriate level
SPIRITUAL
The ultimate concern
The capacity to explore issues of ultimate concern. Who am I?

Why am I here? What am I to do? Where to I go from here?
(from me to us to all of us to all sentient beings)
MORAL
Awareness of what
to do
The capacity to reach a moral decision involving both moral

judgment and care; attend to the moral depth and span it
encompasses (from me to us to all of us to
all sentient beings)
Figure 2. Definitions of six lines of development.

of experience in the coaching field to discern which developmental lines should be included in our lines lens.
Given that coaching services cover a wide range of topics from work related topics to those that are more personal in nature, this lens needed to include developmental lines that are most commonly relevant across this
spectrum. We also selected six lines that coaches could readily relate to, understand, and work with effectively
both with themselves and their clients. Based upon these considerations, we chose the following developmental lines: cognitive, emotional, somatic, interpersonal, spiritual, and moral. In Figure 2, I have provided the
introductory definitions for each line of development used by Integral Coaching Canada.
We have drawn upon the works of several key researchers who have specialized in specific developmental lines
to establish definitions as well as to articulate the levels of development within each line. Figure 3 provides a
Line
Key References
COGNITIVE
Jean Piaget (1971), Robert Kegan (2006)
EMOTIONAL
Daniel Goleman (1995), David R. Caruso (2004)
SOMATIC
Michael Murphy (1992), Ken Wilber (2002)
INTERPERSONAL
Daniel Goleman (1998), Robert L. Selman (2003)
SPIRITUAL
James Fowler (1981), Ken Wilber (1997, 2006)
MORAL
Carol Gilligan (1982), Lawrence Kohlberg (1981)
Figure 3. Key researchers associated with each line of development.

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list of some of the key resources we used in formulating our course materials that support the use of this lens.
From managers who want to become more capable at delegating rather than micromanaging to a person who is
looking for more joy in his life, we have found that each of these six lines has an impact (or potential impact)
on a vast range of client topics. The profile of these six lines will reveal which lines are well developed, which
are not so well developed, which the client tends to rely on, and which seem to be lacking. This enables the
focus on the managers topic of skillful delegation to become much more personal, but the same holds true
for a client who is looking for more joy in his life.
For our lines of development lens, we used the three-stage developmental model described earlier, where the
first stage is low (red altitude/egocentric), the second stage is medium (amber to low orange altitude/ ethnoand sociocentric), and the third stage is high (high orange to teal+ altitude/worldcentric). As illustrated in
Figure 4, each stage of development transcends and includes the previous stage. Thus you never lose your
ability to understand your first-person perspective as you develop the ability to understand a second-person
perspective, etc.
Figure 4. Levels of development in each developmental line.
We have found that the use of this three-stage model to discern low, medium, and high levels of development
in each of the six lines works well for the purposes of professional coaching. It gives the coach a relative sense
of the clients competency and capacity levels in the context of their coaching topic, which provides the guidance needed to discern where the focus of development should be for the client. To that end, we also found,
over time, that coaches needed additional granularity in their line assessments to give them further clarity of
focus. Therefore, we defined and added gradients of low, medium, and high within each of the three stages.
This provides the coach with the granularity needed (9 phases across 3 stages) to appreciate what that client
has access to and what they do not have access to in each line, and how this contributes to what the client is
good at and not-so good at in relation to their topic.
Although I will not go through a detailed description of what delineates low, medium, and high levels of development, Figure 5 provides a taste of how these definitions support coaching by looking at Brian. As you read
through Brians lines profile, see if you can get a feel for how his level of development in each line contributes
to his current approach to his topic and the challenges that face him.
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AQAL CONSTELLATION
Line
Low
Med
COGNITIVE
High
Comments
Brian can step back and objectively look at the merits and limits of
multiple perspectives.
He takes into consideration the effect of actions & words on systems
overall (beyond his own sphere).
He can see the cascading effects beyond self and other over
significant spans of time.
Brian can readily name what he feels or what he observes in
someone else.
EMOTIONAL
While he can name them as they arise, he wants them to go away

or be controlled.
SOMATIC
Brian can name only gross body sensations i.e., my muscles are
sore after weightlifting.
He exhibits a rather mechanical way of talking about and

responding to any body sensations that are noticed.
INTERPERSONAL
Brian only sees his own view and assumes that others surely see
what is obvious (my view is the view); conversation is seen as a
place to win or lose on behalf of getting what he wants.
His styles of interacting are either to avoid conflict at all costs

or needlessly engage in it.
SPIRITUAL
MORAL
Brians way of inquiring into or seeking answers on issues of ultimate

concern are from the scientific rationalistic view and done so as if
this view is the view, the doctrine, the ideology, and thereby relates
to any other sort of ideology as fitting or not fitting.
He is beginning to move more towards the high level where behaviors

dont come with a set of rules but from a logical application of
universal, abstract moral principles.
Figure 5. Assessment of a clients lines of development.

Looking AT Brians line development in the context of his topic, his two lowest lines are the somatic and the
interpersonal. Brians low somatic line means that his connection to the sensations and wisdoms of his somatic
capacities are quite limited. This translates into such things as not being aware of how his body gestures and
postures impact the dynamics in a meeting with his executives (he often has quite a dominating presence), not
being able to draw upon sensations in his body that could indicate such things as tension in him or in the room
(as he keeps following his stream of conversation without considering their needs), or not being able to pick
up cues when he is tired and pushing too hard (as he keeps himself running at high-output states). Brians low
interpersonal line means that his capacities to actually see, appreciate, and consider the perspectives of others
are low. At this level of development (pre-conventional/egocentric), his abilities are in the realm of knowing
what his perspective is, with the assumption that everyone else surely can see what he can see. This, of course,
limits what is possible in conversations he has with new executives. While these conversations would feel full
and complete to Brian, they are actually filled with him expounding on his view.
The two lines assessed at being medium level (i.e., conventional [ethno/sociocentric]) are the emotional and
spiritual. In the emotional line, while Brian is able to consciously experience a relatively robust array of emotions, as well as registering emotions in others, he is not yet able to get deeply intimate with the textures and
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wisdoms of these emotions. Instead, he tries to manage and contain them. At this level he is able to know,
through direct experience, emotions such as sadness, frustration, love, and joy, and he is also able to see emotions when expressed by others. How this translates into his topic is that Brian does have a certain level of
emotional connection with himself and with others. This connection is part of what enticed new executives
to come work for him. With regards to the spiritual line, at the level of medium, Brian has the capacity to explore issues associated with the ultimate concern from the dogmatic frame of scientific reasoning. Having
developed beyond the magical or mythical approaches, Brian holds tightly to his frame for understanding and
relating to these concerns. While for some people this dogmatic frame can take a religious form, for Brian it
took a shape of science and reason. How this translates into his topic is that he will strive to see and understand
how everything fits within the laws of science and nature; how he fits, how his decisions fit, how the new executives performances fit, and how whatever is occurring fits within this order.
Meanwhile, the two highest lines in Brians lines profile are the cognitive and moral lines. These are the lines
that represent Brians highest capacities and are the ones that he will draw upon the most. Brian is exceptional
in his ability to see systems at play and can cast forward (and backward) in time to anticipate and articulate
scenarios, potential challenges, and benefits with substantial dexterity. In fact, his cognitive line has hugely
contributed to the leading-edge products that he has invented and the business models he has created. Putting
this into the specifics of his topic, Brian would go to great lengths to be sure that he had everything figured
out in terms of the organizational structure needed to expand his company; he would be sure that the criteria
needed to be met by anyone applying for a job in his company was well thought through; and he would be sure
to communicate everything that he thought a new executive would need to know to be able to take a leadership role in the company. This is all very commendable and quite beautiful, but with low development in the
somatic and interpersonal lines, the potential of having his vast comprehension grasped and digested by new
executives became dependent upon the degree to which they were just like Brian! And, as Brian learned, the
likelihood of this occurring was quite low.
Brian is also well developed in the moral line. His capacities in this line are at a point where he is beginning
to be able to make decisions on courses of action that not only take into consideration the explicit and implicit
rules of conduct associated with the ethics of running a business, but also those variables that are unique to
the situation at hand. For example, when a newly hired executive did not work out, Brian did not just follow
the standard procedure for firing that person. He tailored the severance agreement to honor such things as the
impact this would have on the persons world, the amount of effort they put into trying to make it work, as well
as the impact that could possibly be felt in the world of the remaining employees. So, while staying true to his
companys human resources policies, he was also allowing these key principles to interact with the uniqueness
of each persons situation to shape the specifics of his decisions and actions. These capacities contribute to him
being flexible while still being principled.
Shifting the lines profile to Look AS Brian, we can see and feel how important it is to Brian to have a comprehensive picture of the overall system and how everything fits (cognitive line); how stressful it is when things
(and people) do not all come together as planned (emotional); how he will go to great lengths to have everything work such that he will ignore all signs of exhaustion (somatic); have everything explained from higher
principles (spiritual); while attending to the unique variables in a given situation with integrity (moral line).
By Looking AS Brian, we can appreciate his sincerity as he brings all that he has available to a challenging
and deeply meaningful topic.
Looking AT and Looking AS Brian through the lines lens added to and reinforced what we learned about
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AQAL CONSTELLATION
him through the quadrants lens. We have further refined and expanded our understanding of Brians various
capability levels in his coaching topic and have gained additional facets through which we are able to see and
appreciate the world through his eyes. And yet, there are still four more lenses to explore that constitute Brians
AQAL Constellation. These additional perspectives will continue to advance what we are able to see and
feel through Brians eyes, body, mind, heart, and spirit, and will support us in discerning where he will need to
develop to make progress in his topic.
Levels of Consciousness Lens

This lens pertains to structure-stages, levels of consciousness development, or altitude. As Wilber discussed in
Integral Spirituality (2006):
Stages of consciousness are permanent. Stages represent the actual milestones of
growth and development. Once you stably reach a stage of growth and development,
you can access the qualities of that stagesuch as greater consciousness, more embracing love, higher ethical callings, greater intelligence and awarenessvirtually
any time you want. (p. 5)
He further stated:
Stages of development are also referred to as levels of development, the idea being
that each stage represents a level of organization or a level of complexity. The word
level is not meant in a rigid or exclusionary fashion, but simply to indicate that there
are important emergent qualities that tend to come into being in a discrete or quantumlike fashion, and these developmental jumps or levels are important aspects of many
natural phenomena. (p. 5)
While the presence of levels/stages of development appears to be present in all developmental lines, Wilber
explains that what constitutes the levels/stages in one line cannot be assumed to be the same for another line/
stage. The question then becomes, what is to be used to measure the height of all these developmental lines?
The cognitive line has been considered to be such a measure because there does seem to be a way in which
the other lines relate to this line in that, Growth in the cognitive line is necessary but not sufficient for growth
in the other lines (Wilber, 2006, p. 65). The example that Wilber (2006) provides to illustrate this is, You
can be highly developed in the cognitive line and poorly developed in the moral line (very smart but not very
moral: Nazi doctors), but we dont find the reverse (low IQ, highly moral) (p. 65). This certainly does suggest
that the cognitive line could be the measure and provide the markers for levels/stage development in all lines.
Wilber (2006) offers an alternative whereby the degree of consciousness is itself the altitude. . .where all developmental lines move through the same gradientand that gradient is consciousness (p. 65). By using the
term altitude as the gradient with which to mark the degree of consciousness in a given line, there is not one
single line called level of consciousness, nor can all of the lines be collapsed or reduced into one. This gives us
a way to acknowledge the distinctness of each developmental lines structures and stages while also providing
a way to look across the lines via a common gradient.
By using the colors of the rainbow to represent ever-advancing levels of development, known as altitude-upthe-mountain, Wilber (2006) has provided a way to hold and articulate the progression of consciousness or
structure-stage development. Given that consciousness is not anything itself, just the degree of openness or
emptiness, the clearing in which the phenomena of the various lines appear, these various levels describe the
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space currently available to us at a specific structure-stage or level of consciousness (Wilber, 2006, p. 66).
This provides the opening for the depth and breadth of what we are able to see, the way in which we relate to
and interpret what we see, what is available, accessible, and therefore, possible for us at a specific moment in
time. And, as we develop and grow up as human beings, we have the potential to keep expanding this space
(our consciousness) such that greater breadth and depth can occur.
Within the context of our Integral Coaching method, a clients level of consciousness is the fundamental
backbone to their structural view of reality. This not only significantly influences the particular view that a
client has, but more importantly how they interpret and relate to that view. And as the subject of this view (the
client himself) becomes object (his ability to look at himself) in the transcend-and-include methodology, this
view also morphs to its next vantage point either through horizontal translation or vertical transformation. As
discussed in Introduction to Integral Coaching (pp. 1-20 in this issue), it is essential to have an understanding of how a client holds himselfhis particular level of awareness, his sense of self or egoic identity, what
he values, and how he determines what to do in a particular situation. How we answer the fundamental human
questions listed below composes our sense of self, identity of being, and knowing of self and other:
1.
2.
3.
4.
What am I aware of? And given that.

Who am I? Who are others?
What is significant to me? What matters to me?
What should I do? What actions? Which words?
These questions actually refer to particular lines of development that have been explored by researchers for
decades. Some of these lines and researchers are listed in Figure 6.
Line
Life's Question
Key References
COGNITIVE
What am I aware of?
Piaget (1971), Kegan (2003)
SELF
Who am I?
Loevinger (1976), Cook-Greuter (1999)
VALUES
What is significant to me?
Beck & Cowan (1996)
MORAL
What should I do?
Kohlberg (1981)
Figure 6. Lines of development explored by researchers.

Guided by the theory and principles discussed earlier, our levels lens incorporates the levels of development
in each of four lines (cognitive, self, values, moral) into a format that helps the coach discern and appreciate
the altitude at which the client tends to live from and through day-to-day. This lens articulates the following
components for each level of consciousness. (Full descriptions of each of these elements are provided in our
training materials.)
1. What is important at this level?
2. What are the perspectives available?
3. What is the basis of moral reasoning?
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AQAL CONSTELLATION
a. How is what is right determined?

b. What are the reasons for doing what is right?
c. What is the social perspective? How are self, others, things, and life
viewed at this level?
4. How is this focus carried out?
5. What are the characteristics of language?
6. What does one come to discover as one begins to feel the call to something more
(the next level)?
In trying to discern what level or altitude a client is primarily living from and through, we are interested in
discerning the view that most steadily and consistently guides the client as they move through their day. While
a person can temporarily roam all over the spectrum of consciousness, descending to lower levels when buttons are pushed or elevating to higher levels in moments of grace, there is a particular altitude or level of
consciousness that Wilber (2003) describes as the center of gravity for an individual and that the proximate
self-sense is basically identified with that level (although many other developmental lines might be at other
levels). What this means is that while a person may have cognitive access to one or maybe even two levels
higher (which is often the case), their center of gravity is the level that they most fully embody, inhabit, and
orient from as they operate in their life (Wilber, 2003).
Based upon the language Brian used, the perspectives he was able to access (and not), where he directed his
attention, how he approached and explained things, the values he expressed, and how he related to himself,
others, and his surroundings, my assessment of Brian was that his center of gravity was at a dominantly orange
altitude (see Appendix A on page 65 for a summary of orange altitude from our course material).
Let us now look at how Brians orange altitude contributes to the way in which he has approached hiring executives and expanding the size of his company. What is seen as important and guides a sense of purpose at
this level are such things as progress, independence, success, and advancement in ways that are measurable
and of value. This feeds his drive to have a successful company, hire the best and right people, and expect high
performance of his employees. The actions taken to carry out what is important at an orange center of gravity
will be done with a sensibility to sustaining the social order of things. (Unless, of course, the persons moral
line is very low, which is not the case with Brian.) He works hard to make sure that hiring (and firing) policies
are properly considered. At orange altitude, Brian is able to step back and take a reflective position on his own
views and trusts that others can do the same. In contrast with this is the predominant focus on what is observable, measurable, and rational, which is certainly the way Brian shows up. When you weave this understanding
with his quadrant orientation and solid skills in the LR, you can see what is so strongly present in his view (i.e.,
systems, structures, and what is measurableall on behalf of success) and what is not so readily available to
him (i.e., the role that shared meaning and understanding have in being successful). His low skill levels in the
LL, along with a low interpersonal line, combined with a general bias towards his own indicators of success all
limit what he is fundamentally aware of in these realms. In other words, if he cannot see it, he cannot become
skillful in it. And so, Brian continues to sincerely draw upon the capacities and competencies that he possesses
as he faces the mysterious challenges of his topic.
Through our use of the levels lens as part of a clients AQAL Constellation, we have found that not only does
a client have a center of gravity, but that there are actually distinct phases of development within a level. A
person first entering a level feels very different compared to a person who is solid and strong in that level. Different again is the person who is seeing progressively beyond what has been their center of gravity for years
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WOBBLY PHASE
A person is new in this levelin the midst of death of their old view (disidentifying
with and integrating it) and the birth of a new view (identifying with the next level)
SOLID PHASE
A person has grown into a new view of self, others, and the world and is effectively
living life from that view; it becomes so embedded that it is hard to see it when
living in it
DISINTEGRATING PHASE
A person begins to get glimpses of the limits of this level and progressively sees
that there is something more beyond the confines of this view that speak to the
persons longings
Figure 7. Phases within a level.

and is feeling their current level disintegrate in its ability to hold and make sense of all that they are now seeing.
In our coaching work, we call these three phases wobbly, solid, and disintegrating (Fig. 7).
At the wobbly phase, a person has just begun to see, move, and relate to the world from this wider view. The
ground does not yet feel solid. In fact, sometimes they are not sure there will be ground when they put their
foot down. And yet, the person cannot go back to the worldview they held previously because they have seen
and have begun to take steps into a world beyond it. Thus the term wobblylike a newborn colt standing up
shakily on new legs, yet standing nonetheless.
A person who is in the solid phase fully identifies with the views from this level and is anchored securely in
their way of perceiving. Life is working for them in the sense that there is not any kind of significant questioning or feeling the limits of this worldview. Their decisions and actions come with a certain clarity and surety.
People often do not tend to look for a coach when they are at the solid phase unless they are simply looking to
get better at what already feels steady and sure.
The third phase, which we call disintegrating, occurs when a person experiences two components. The first is
that things just are not working like they used to. Secondly, longings become stronger and stronger for something that feels just out of reach, just around the corner. This is the phase where there are many questions and
much soulful searching. As a person progresses in this phase, there is a profound sense of grief, death, and loss,
while at the same time there are glimpses of a world beyond, and it is compelling enough to draw one forward.
At some point, there is a transition from disintegrating at one level to stepping onto the ground of the new level.
At wobbly the person is stepping away from their disintegrating center of gravity as they foray into a newer,
younger, and therefore less secure worldview. Once in this new level of development, the cycle continues, as
humans keep birthing themselves anew.
In Brians case, my sense was that he was just beginning to touch the disintegrating phase of orange altitude.
The mere fact that he contacted me was one of the indicators of looking for something beyond what was in
his reach. Furthermore, while he continued to pursue a goal that had been driving him for yearsto grow the
company and to advance his financially successhe also found himself longing to build a culture where employees could thrive and he could pass along his wisdom to emerging leaders. Brians emergent longings track
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What One Comes to Discover

Often after many accomplishments have been made, many goals met, and much time and energy have been
spent, one's hope of feeling fulfilled isnt met. Rather, a sense of dissatisfaction prevails and there is a feeling
inside that something is still missing.
Begin to see that the definitions of success were limited and a search for a deeper sense of meaning and
fulfillment raises more questions than gives answers.
A deep call.an inner call.to live a life that is on behalf of fully expressing what one feels called to express.
a move from accomplishing to expressing.from mastery of to internal satisfaction.
As the questioning progresses, the view widens. One opens to see that what brings meaning to life depends upon
ones relative position....ones own personal perspective or interpretation. And that when the interpretation
shifts, meaning shifts. What was once clear and definitive in the realm of the rational and scientific now falls
away as the realm of personal interpretation becomes a mysterious realm that beckons to be explored.
Concurrently, as the view widens, what begins to show itself is a systems view. A view that reveals
interdependencies and causalities at larger scales. Something about this wider view shakes up the
assumption that its up to me, that is beyond or behind specific goals and plans. In seeing this, one
also sees that they are part of a larger system while being unique within that system.
Figure 8. Disintegrating phase of orange altitude.

with our levels of consciousness lens description regarding what a person comes to discover as they move into
the disintegrating phase of orange (see Fig. 8).
By sincerely taking in and appreciating the rich information about the content and context(s) available to a
client given their center of gravity, the coach can then calibrate their language and degrees of perspectives
brought forward in the coaching conversations to truly meet the client in their worldviewand just beyond.
As we will explore later in this article and more fully in Transformational Conversations (pp. 69-92 in this
issue), this understanding and appreciation is infused into the formation of metaphors to describe the clients
Current Way of Being in their topic as well as a New Way of Being that they could be in their topic. By relating
to and working with the client from where they are situated in their structure-stage development, the client will
feel more fully seen and more fully met. As discussed in the Introduction to Integral Coaching (pp. 1-20 in
this issue), our approach to change starts by meeting the client in their current world. By getting established
there, the coach and the client have a place to move from and through into something new that both transcends
and includes the present. While the levels lens significantly contributes, the coach needs to draw upon the clients full AQAL Constellation to discern the right calibration and attunement for a given client.
The primary focus of a clients development is not to try and get the client to the next level (vertical development). Rather, the focus is on discerning what needs to be developed so that the client can advance and expand
their perspectives and capabilities in an area that is important to them at that juncture in their life. This includes
horizontal health, vertical development, or both. Figure 9 provides a description of horizontal health and vertical development (see Wilber, 2006, pp. 137-138).
For Brian, this means continuing to fill out healthy horizontal development in his interpersonal and somatic
lines, and building competencies primarily in the LL. This also requires leveraging his UL and strong cognitive and moral lines in a way that allows development itself to further awaken and draw him into the next
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Vertical Development (transform)

1. This includes transformation (transcend & include) to another level
(i.e., from from green altitude to teal altitude)
2. This also includes attention to vertical movement within a level from
wobbly to solid to disintegrating within a level, itself enabling further
levels or structure-stage growth
Horizontal Health (translate)
1. This refers to development that occurs to enable someone to live healthily
at their particular level of consciousness, i.e., becoming healthy at orange altitude
(translating it healthily across the AQAL lenses)
2. This includes awareness of the AQAL health of this level and not just having a
goal to transcend it
3. If health is not attended to within a level, it will leave remnants of unattended
shadow issues that pop up in future vertical development (the kids in the
basement phenomena, as Wilber has referenced)
Figure 9. Horizontal health and vertical development.

level of development, known as the sensitive green altitude. As far as Looking AS Brian and meeting him
on his terms, it is important to speak in the language of orange altitude (his language vs. mine). This includes
being sensitive to his strong reactions to rules and conformity (amber altitude) as well as his disdain for the
overly sensitive and non-productive ways of consensus seeking (green altitude). While he is just beginning to
shift from the solid to the disintegrating phase, his orange altitude views are still very strong. And yet, I still
need to be sensitive to the emergent longings and dissatisfactions which will most likely grow as he continues
to awaken throughout his coaching program. And, as ever, I will hold the mystery of Brians unfolding as
emerging across his full AQAL Constellation. Assessment and inquiry at each meeting reveals new aspects
of Brian with which our Integral Coaching method can flex and flow, while attending to a robust structure of
development.
Type Lens: Enneagram

Type structure lenses help the coach get a feel for and an understanding of those aspects of a client that remain
core regardless of the growth that occurs through structure-stage and/or state-stage development. Of course,
how healthily we are living our particular type structure is influenced by our development in all the lenses that
comprise an AQAL Constellation. One of the type lenses we use is the Enneagram. The Enneagram is a system that maps out nine fundamental personality types of human nature and their core complex relationships.
Each personality type is characterized by specific patterns of thought, speaking styles, feelings, emotions, sensations, and belief systems that are universal to the type. Given that the Enneagram is a system already widely
written about and where user-friendly resources are easily accessible, we did not need to translate or synthesize
these resources into something specific to coaching, per se. Our Integral Coaching students are introduced to
the works of Helen Palmer (1988), David Daniels and Virginia Price (2000), and Don Riso and Russ Hudson
(1999, 2000) to learn about and use the Enneagram.
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Our way of working with and using this lens is not to label or categorize someone, but rather to help the coach
become more able to readily gain access to the unique view and territory of the clients way of seeing, going,
and checking. Please refer to Introduction to Integral Coaching (pp. 1-20 in this issue) for a more complete
description of seeing, going, and checking. Understanding and appreciating these nine fundamental type
structures and the specific Enneagram type of the client helps the coach see through the eyes of the client:
what they pay attention to, how it registers, how they tend to manifest in reactions and actions, and how they
can grow (integrate) and regress under stress (disintegrate). This helps the coach immensely in developing
metaphors to depict the clients Current Way of Being in their topic, as well as possible New Ways of Being
in the topic. This type lens also guides the coach in discerning which capabilities need to be developed and
how to approach the developmental cycles so that they meet clients in their worlds, through their own ways of
relating. While other type structures are also useful and relevant, we have found the Enneagram system to be
particularly helpful in filling out thematic personality aspects of the clients AQAL Constellation.
The Enneagram helps the coach get tuned into the way the world is seen and related to by the client, how he
moves through his day-to-day landscape, and what he checks to know that he and his world are okay. My sense
of Brian is that he is an Enneatype EightThe Challenger. While there are many facets to each Enneatype,
following are excerpts from a variety of resources that can provide you with an initial felt sense of The Challenger. See if you can feel Brian as you read these excerpts and my commentary:
Eights enjoy taking on challenges themselves as well as giving others opportunities that challenge them to exceed themselves in some way (Riso & Hudson, 1999,
p. 289). This contributes to some of Brians unconscious assumptions that everyone
takes on a challenge like he does.
In their direct engagement with the world, head-influenced Eights want to work out
what is going onand they do so by engaging directly with their situation: Eights
try things out, and observe the results (Hampson, 2005, p. 26). This form of direct
engagement contributes to Brians style of putting out his expectations and taking the
actions he thinks are necessary with very little receptivity or openness to others.
What causes (eights) stress, is going full-out and denying fatigue or pain (Daniels &
Price, 2000, p. 50). This tracks with Brians low somatic line for actually being sensitive to fatigue or pain that would deter him from being fully engaged and wrestling
with challenges!
This type (eight) does not naturally empathise with others. He expects others to
stand up for themselves, just as he does (Palmer, 1988, p. 138). This gives us another
glimpse into some of the beliefs, assumptions, and associated judgments Brian tends
to make about others without realizing that not everyone sees it the way he does.
As an Enneatype Eight, orienting from the LR, with strong cognitive and moral lines, and an orange altitude,
Brians way of relating to and approaching his topic will include good intentions (that he keeps to himself),
pursuing a comprehensive understanding of the system, making decisions along the way that take into account
the multidimensional impacts of those decisions, and taking charge with a focus on reaching (and exceeding)
the milestones of success. At a deeper level, there is a sense that what is unconsciously important for Brian is
that he feel securely in charge of the overall system (LR) and that things go his way (UL, low interpersonal
line, Enneatype Eight), thereby fulfilling what is important and right (orange center of gravity, moral line), and
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doing so in a way that protects him from experiencing being vulnerable or weak (Enneatype Eight, medium
emotional line).
You can also see here how important it is to take an AQAL approach and not collapse any of the lenses into
another. Separating out the lenses so that each one offers its own view of Brian (and as Brian) helps construct a
more accurate picture instead of favoring one lens or another. While this may appear fairly thorough, there are
still two more essential lenses to bring into view and include in Brians AQAL Constellation.
Type Lens: Gender

The gender type lens is not about assigning attributes based upon our biological gender (UR). Rather, it is a
lens that helps the coach to appreciate two types of gender development: 1) the specific ways of being aware
and 2) ways of knowing and of perceiving that manifest through the energies of the masculine and of the feminine. Additionally, this lens informs us that both feminine and masculine ways of perceiving have hierarchical
stages through which they can develop.
Carol Gilligans (1982) work indicates that both the masculine and feminine have very distinct stages, or levels
of development, with respect to orientation and emphasis (Fig. 10). Men tend to be guided by the values of the
masculine, which have an emphasis on autonomy, rights, justice, and agency, which contribute to their unique
way of seeing, going, and checking. Women tend to be guided by the values of the feminine, which have more
to do with care, relationships, and responsibility. Although our socio-cultural biases significantly influence
what a person pays attention to, does, and values, from a developmental perspective both men and women can
develop along the full spectrums of feminine and masculine capacities. This becomes more and more apparent
at higher levels of development, where the sphere widens to embrace the all of us. Since each of us has masculine and feminine capacities, it is helpful to think of this lens not as a general assessment and orientation of
the whole person, but of the person in their coaching topic. So: how might masculine and feminine principles
be useful in meeting Brian where he is and what would provide him traction in his topic? In using this lens, we
are not attempting to have masculine men become more feminine or feminine women develop their masculine
capabilities. Rather, we look at this lens in the context of the clients coaching topic, and their associated developmental needs. Within that context, the gender lens informs us of opportunities for growth, and therefore,
impact on the clients topic.
FEMININE
An emphasis on care,
relationship, responsibility
Fullness
STAGE of
DEVELOPMENT
MASCULINE
An emphasis on autonomy,
rights, justice, agency
Freedom
Selfish care
(me)
Pre-conventional
Selfish rights
(mine)
Our care
(us, clan)
Conventional
Our rights
(conformist rights)
Universal care
(global, all)
Post-conventional
Universal rights
(global, all)
Figure 10. Gender values and stages of development.

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Each gender also has its own versions of unhealthy or pathological development. Figure 11 lists a few examples as well as what kinds of development are needed to shift from unhealthy to healthy (Kegan, 2003;
Wilber, 2003). Note that the kinds of development needed actually draw upon some of the characteristics and
capacities inherent in the other gender.
FEMININE
Fusion with those around

Cant speak for self
Radically passive
Part of the herd
Nothing but relational
Process Queens
Needs to learn to speak own mind,

build autonomy, stand up for self and views
MASCULINE
Rigid association
Alienation
Radically assertive
Repressed from body, nature
Isolated
Power Over
Needs to be part of, to connect, to touch,

be impacted and influenced by others
Figure 11. Pathological versions and what needs to be developed.

Looking AT Brian, my sense is that he sees and relates to life from a very strong masculine perspective. I think
he is late-stage conventional as he pays attention to and tries to contribute towards people taking charge in
their jobs and in their lives. By people, I mean those with whom Brian has contact, personally and professionally. I am also aware of some hints of the radically assertive and power over pathological behaviors that
appear especially when he is under stress. My sense of his way of seeing and relating to his topic is that it is
up to him to set up the right structure and provide the goals and expectations to new employees so they can go
out and get it done. Once he has given both this structure and freedom, the rest is up to the new employees
to figure out. This lens illuminates how Brians masculine view and his masculine capacities (healthy and
unhealthy) contribute to the force of his being, as well as to his expectations that everyone else has (or should
have) the same zeal for autonomy, agency, rights, and freedom.
I would like to point out that there are many different (and sometimes competing) vantage points from which
to examine gender development (e.g., Deida, 2004; Hill, 1992; Kegan, 2003; Wilber, 1997, 2003). We are not
proposing one source only, but instead want coaches to be clear about which lens is being used and how they
are bringing forward its wisdom within the clients AQAL Constellation. All integral lenses are ever evolving. As a dynamic system, Integral Coaching remains open to the evolution of AQAL lenses. Similarly, there
are other type structures that are useful, such as Myers-Briggs (Myers & Myers, 1995), that can be used from
Looking AT and Looking AS perspectives.
States of Consciousness Lens

States of consciousness are part of our direct phenomenological experiences. They come and go in time, rise
and fall in intensity, as they are not permanent structures. As Wilber describes in Integral Spirituality (2006,
p. 73), there are natural or ordinary states (gross [waking], subtle [dreaming], causal [deep sleep]); altered or
non-ordinary states (exogenous states, brought on through drugs, and endogenous states, brought on through
training [i.e., meditation]); and heightened states, which are sometimes called peak experiences.
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While states are available to anyone at any level or stage of development, it is important to remember that all
states will be interpreted by and through a persons level of consciousness. In conjunction with this, Wilber
(2006) has found that states can have a profoundly beneficial effect on stages, The more that you experience
various states, the more quickly you develop through the stages. . . .considerable research has demonstrated
that the more you experience meditative or contemplative states of consciousness, the faster you develop
through the stages of consciousness (p. 196). Wilbers more current thinking includes a state-stage development model (horizontal) and a structure-stage or level of consciousness model (vertical).
Although we are not directly trying to advance a client in terms of stable state-stage growth, we are interested
in having a clients development include the contribution of states in a form that fits within the context of their
coaching topic and their unique AQAL Constellation. This can include experiencing heightened states to
help open up a particular line of development (e.g., emotional, somatic, spiritual), it might involve a meditative
or mindfulness practice using music or poetry as a heart-opening state experience, or it might involve using
a daily log of states to become more conscious and aware of the waking state experiences that come and go all
day long. The grounded awareness that this daily log practice cultivates could also be useful for a client who
frequently seeks state-generating or peak experiences to feel alive and who has a coaching topic that has to
do with becoming more able to live fully in the ordinariness of their day-to-day life!
Within the realm of everyday states, we have also drawn upon the work of Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
(2004), as they have worked with people interested in high-performance states in work and other environments. Figure 12 provides a summary of some of the elements of their work. Looking at high and low levels of
energy in the context of being resourceful and unresourceful provides a useful way of appreciating how a client
tends to go through their day. This, of course, is linked to all the other facets of their AQAL Constellation
and contributes to discerning what might need to be attended to developmentally.
UNRESOURCEFUL STATES
RESOURCEFUL STATES
High Energy
Angry
Fearful
Anxious
Defensive
Resentful
Disgusted
Jealous
Low Energy
Depressed
Exhausted
Defeated
Apathetic
Sad
High Energy
Invigorated
Confident
Challenged
Joyful
Connected
Surprised
Proud
Low Energy
Relaxed
Mellow
Peaceful
Tranquil
Serene
Figure 12. Resourceful and unresourceful states.
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I observed that Brian functioned mostly in the high-energy realm, vacillating between resourceful and unresourceful (i.e., defensive, angry, anxious, and at times disgusted) depending upon the level of stress he experienced. He did not access the low-energy realms as readily. Developmentally, cultivating his capacities in the
low-energy resourceful realm would contribute to him not slipping into the unresourceful high-energy realm
as frequently. He also tended to thrive on peak experiences that occurred in the context of creating solutions
to complex problems. He would pour himself into these with zeal and passion, and if there were not enough
of these happening, he would find a way to intensely create them (induce his own high states). This, combined
with his Enneagram Eight-ness, his LR orientation, and his masculine agentic style, with little interpersonal
awareness, could make him a powerful and intimidating force. It also contributed to Brian over-engaging in
aspects of the company that should have been managed by his executives.
Pulling it all Together

Six lenses, each bringing a distinct perspective through which we see, appreciate, understand, and behold a
client in the context of his coaching topic as well as in his life overall. Yet, while each lens brings to light valuable and profound dimensions of this human being and his journey, these illuminations are just glimpses of
someone and something that are beyond full comprehension. The clients AQAL Constellation informs and
guides the coach in discerning how to travel with the client through their coaching work together: what to say,
how to say it, what further awareness is needed, what capacities and capabilities are present and which need to
be developed, what is the right pace, intensity, and level of complexity for the client, and more.
Bringing these six lenses together as the clients AQAL Constellation requires that the coach wait until all
six perspectives are taken in and allowed to coalesce, forming a shape or texture through which the coach can
feel, see, hear, appreciate, and be guided. This requires the coach to set down their own automatic biases and
preferences as best they can, to suspend the download, as Otto Scharmer describes in his book Theory U
(2007). It also requires the coach to have an accurate assessment of their own AQAL Constellation in order
to be informed of how their biases tend to show up. First, the coach Looks AT the client to get a full understanding of what is and what is not available to the client in the context of their coaching topic. Looking AT the
clients orienting quadrant, their competency levels in the quadrants, the levels of development in each of their
lines, as well as the clients altitude or level of consciousness, the full range of their Enneatype, their facets of
gender development as well as which gender energy is more privileged, the resourcefulness of their everyday
states, as well as the degree to which states are part of the clients developmental processall of this enables
the coach to see leverage points for integrating the clients Current Way of Being while moving toward a New
Way of Being in their coaching topic.
If the coach stopped here, they would have a thoughtful assessment and a set of recommendations as to what
the client should do and develop. The coach would be providing the client with a map and suggestions as to
how to travel through the territory. While helpful, this alone will not necessarily enable the client to get a
glimpse of their own way of seeing and relating to the topic. They would simply take the map and carry out
recommendations with their current way of seeing, going, and checking fully intact as subject, hoping for new
results while still seeing out of the same old viewthe view of their Current Way of Being.
Taking in the clients AQAL Constellation to Look AS the client requires the coach to suspend their own
biases and digest these many facets of the client. To Look AS the client, the coach slides into the body, metabolizes the clients AQAL Constellation, and looks at the world through the eyes of the client. With an
open mind, open heart, and open will, the coach then fields questions such as: How is it that Brian is seeing
or relating to himself, to his role and to his executives sitting across the table such that he does all the talking
and believes that once he has covered what he thinks is necessary, the meeting is done? How is it that Brian is
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surprised to hear that people find him to be intimidating, leading him to feel hurt that they do not understand
his intentions even though they are so clear to him?
As outlined in Transformational Conversations (pp. 69-92 in this issue), once steeped in the clients AQAL
Constellation, the coach needs to set down the objective specifics and be open to receive whatever word,
image, or symbol arises that represents or gives voice to the clients Current Way of Being in their topic. For
Brian, what emerged as the metaphor for his Current Way of Being in his topic was the Pioneering Trailblazerthe one who leads the way into uncharted territory, the one ready to face whatever danger may come up
while passionately pushing forward towards what is ahead. The Pioneering Trailblazer moves swiftly and surely, being guided by his gut instincts and his interpretation of the terrain. The trailblazer travels only with people
who are trustworthy and know what to do without asking; the trailblazer does not stop for fear that he might
miss the great discovery; the trailblazer pushes himself to go on and feels most alive at the edge. Anything less
would leave him feeling inadequate and lifeless. The Pioneering Trailblazer birthed and built his company, a
company that formed a whole new niche in the high-tech sector, that defied naysayers, and that called for him
to pour every ounce of himself into its success.
Can you see and feel how this metaphor captures facets of Brians current AQAL Constellation in the context of his coaching topic? Return to the sentences above and see if you can attach the various components of
his AQAL Constellation to each statement. Feel into the metaphors ability to depict Brians current way of
approaching his challenging topic of trying to lead in a way that optimizes successful retention and performance of newly hired as well as existing executives. Growing the company calls for building more integrative
infrastructures, it calls for working through people versus handling things directly, it calls for stabilizing, it
calls for moving at different paces and different styles, and it calls for letting others blaze some trails. And yet,
until Brian becomes aware of the Pioneering Trailblazer, he will continue trying to tackle this challenging topic
with the perspectives and behaviors of the Pioneering Trailblazer. Thus, by offering this metaphor to Brian in
a way that enabled him to gain access to both what is great about the Pioneering Trailblazer as well as how it
limited his effectiveness in his topic, Brian began to see this particular aspect of himself more as object, and
thereby he started shifting to a New Way of Being.
The metaphor or symbol for the New Way of Being should draw upon qualities and bring forth perspectives
that are resident in those areas that are not currently available to the client. In Brians case the LL and UR
quadrants, the somatic and interpersonal lines, the integration of an Enneatype Eight into an Enneatype Two,
the capacities of the feminine to receive, the resourceful lower-energy states, and the green level of consciousness that includes the view that everyone has a unique context from which they see and relate to any given
moment. At the same time, the metaphor needs to connect deeply to the client at a fundamental level. For
Brian, he needed to be actively engaged in ways that enable movement and advancement, in progressive and
ever-improving ways. The metaphor that emerged for Brians New Way of Being in his topic was the Traveling Wise One.
As you read this description, attempt to feel how this metaphor and its description (unique to Brian) capture
what was described in the previous paragraph. The Traveling Wise One has a deep desire to voyage, to discover and learn from his treks. He also has a deep desire to pass on wisdom so that others can benefit and then
pass on what they know. The Traveling Wise One has patience that comes from knowing that everything has
its own right timingwhen to stay, when to go, when to speak, and when to listen. Therefore, he only needs to
pay attention to when the right time is arising. The Traveling Wise One is sensitive to not only right timing but
right amount, knowing that too much or too little is neither constructive nor productive and so has the capacity
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to both discern and manage how much is brought forth at any given moment. Finally, the Traveling Wise One
knows that no one knows everything and that the only way he is going to grow in wisdom is to be open, curious, and willing to be influenced by others.
This New Way of Being metaphor gave Brian a new perspective to see from and through, a new ground to stand
on, a new way to go, and a new way to discern how things developed in his life and business. It was a powerful
metaphor for Brian as it touched a deep chord in himto actually have wisdom worthy of being passed on. He
realized that underneath his current style of communicating with others, this wisdom was the contribution
he was seeking to provide. Finally, it captured his deep need to explore; life would quickly become meaningless if he were to ever abandon this passion. What he did see is that the movement of the focused Pioneer could
become the movement of the Travellerwider, more inclusive, and expanding, for him and others.
Over the course of our coaching work together, through cycles of development that spanned one year, the grip
of the Pioneering Trailblazer progressively eased and Brian grew into the body, heart, mind, and spirit of the
Traveling Wise One. In less than a 12-month period, he doubled the size of his company, his executive and
organization retention rates radically improved, and he was recognized by some of his top clients and suppliers
as having a company culture that was vibrant, innovative, hard-working, service oriented, and fun.
Conclusion
A clients AQAL Constellation intimately guides the coach at the beginning of the coaching journey for the
creation of Current Way and New Way metaphors and in the formulation of the clients developmental objectives. Just like star constellations used by travelers before the age of the compass, the coach continually refers
to and is guided by a clients unique and ever-birthing AQAL Constellation. Consistently through the cycles
of development the coach Looks AT and Looks AS the client. As the coach learns more about the client and as
the client dynamically changes, the coach updates the clients AQAL Constellation, allowing this refinement
to shift and change how the coach holds, appreciates, understands, and works with the client.
Every coach also has their own AQAL Constellation from which and through which they relate to the client and the clients topic. Not only do Integral Coaches trained through our school learn how to work with
a clients AQAL Constellation, students also intimately get to know their own. This is a crucial part of the
training as it is critical, as a coach, to be as awake as possible to your own biases, preferences, shadows, and
fears. Putting all of this together, as the coach gets to know their own AQAL Constellation (I), experiences
how the clients AQAL Constellation interacts with their own (We), and objectively understands and carries
out an Integral Coaching method on behalf of a clients topic (It), the coach becomes aware of the AQAL matrix through which both coaches and clients are co-arising. This intimate and ongoing developmental journey
of the coach serves as a catalyst for being awake in this work of service, in more conscious and responsible
ways.
The power of the AQAL Constellation comes from the lenses individually and as a whole. The quadrants
lens brings to the foreground the four perspectives always present, all the way up and all the way down, helping
the coach appreciate which perspectives a client prefers, how they translate other perspectives, and the clients
levels of skill in each of the quadrants. The levels lens enables the coach to more effectively attune to their clients homeland and meet them there. The lines lens enables the coach to appreciate the levels of capacities the
client has available to them in each of the lines, how they draw upon these skills to face the challenges of their
topic, and what capacities are in some way limiting effectiveness in their topic. The states lens helps the coach
appreciate what gross, subtle, and causal states the client has the ability to experience and the degree to which
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the clients everyday states are resourceful and supportive. The gender type lens helps the coach appreciate the
gender development that the client brings to the topic as well as the masculine and feminine capacities they are
able to draw upon. And finally, the Enneagram lens helps the coach see and appreciate the unique personality
of the client, the profoundly embodied beliefs and assumptions that are core in this precious human being. As
you can see, collapsing any one of these into the other closes down a facet of illumination that has a unique
contribution to the coachs ability to appreciate and discern how to best support a client.
A lot for a coach to hold? Absolutely. And yet, while it does not get close to touching all that makes a human
being who and what they are, allowing each lens to have its full expression and then binding them together in
the form of a clients AQAL Constellation, each star shining, while also being part of a unique shape in the
sky, becomes a step in the right direction. To achieve this takes so much more than a cognitive understanding
of the lenses. For ultimately the power of the AQAL Constellation comes from having an open mind, an
open and compassionate heart, and from there, open will. This includes the ability to receive and be informed
beyond ones own preferences and biases, so that the perspectives held and the courses of action taken have a
greater chance of being of service to another human being.
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Appendix A: Orange Level of Consciousness

What is Important
Strive for autonomy and independence

Seek out the good life and material abundance
Progress through searching out the best solutions; strive
Enhance living for many through science and technology
Play to win and enjoy competition
Learn through tried-and-true experience
Moral Reasoning: Maintaining Social Order

What is Right
Fulfilling the actual duties to which you have agreed
Laws are to be upheld except in extreme cases where they
conflict with other fixed social duties
Right is also contributing to society, the group, or institution
Reason for Doing Right
To keep the institution going as a whole, to avoid the
breakdown in the system if everyone did it, or the
imperative of conscience to meet ones defined obligations
Social Perspective
Differentiates societal point of view from interpersonal
agreement or motives
Takes the point of view of the system that defines roles and
rules
Considers individual relations in terms of place in the system
Perspective Available
See that we all have interpretations and that we interpret
differently
Three dimensional: Self, Other, and the Observer
Able to step back and reflect upon ones behavior,
expectations, standards, etc.
Characteristics of Language
Speak in terms of what one is trying to accomplish/trying to
make happen and what has been accomplished
Emphasis on how to make better use of resources (time,
money, energy, etc.) to get even better results
Conversations tend to be linked to whats important to this
person: to let others know what are doing/accomplishing;
to hear what others are doing/accomplishing; and seeing if
there is anything being said that is relevant to own sphere of
interests and objectives
There is a hierarchical orientation in terms of power, success,
authority, etc., and so conversations are approached and
conducted according to the hierarchy present
Goals, commitments, declarations, and expressions of personal
focus and will
Rational, logical, solution oriented. Question into why and
how with a focus on improvement
While goals reside within the constructs of the social system,
they are self-authored and self-directed
View of Self, Others, Things, Life

The self is seen as separate from what is observed. Thus while there is recognition of an interpretive interior, objectivity is both
desirable and believed to be achievable
Self directed, self authoring
People are seen as similar to self in that they also possess their own point of view and interior life. However, others are not viewed as
similar in the ability to achieve
Others are appreciated for having different expertise as long as they dont encroach upon my beliefs. Can agree to differ.
Time is money and the medium to accomplish things
See success in life in terms of what have accomplished or the contributions and improvements made in the world
Life is a task to be mastered (and measured). Those that are successful are rewarded with the good things in life (usually defined
materially) over the less capable
Truth lies in what is rational and logical. There are reasons for all things. Proper analysis using objective methods will eventually lead
to the discovery of how things really areand thereby come to the solution for all problems
How to Carry out This Focus

Highly motivated to figure things outroot causes and reasons are looked for. Analysis of others and self-analysis, typologies, and
theories about human behavior are of keen interest as a way of classifying, understanding, and explaining human beings
Fixation on goals and results. Preoccupied with getting things done with responsibility, conscientiousness, and expediency. Plans,
prioritizes, and optimizes procedures to achieve goals, with an attention on outcome, result, or destination. Oriented towards action
hardly slows down to look at the present moment
Knows how they are doing in life by how they are measuring up. Productivity, acquisitions, accomplishments, achievements are
some of the many ways of monitoring or measuring success. While these criteria feel very personal to the individual, they tend to be
criteria also held by a broader culture as measures of success. This evaluation occurs both personally and amongst each other, which
is another layer of knowing how one measures up. Hierarchy, economical inequality, winners/losers are part of the scene
Pursue introspective questions like: Do I live up to what I believe in? or Why do I do what I do? Begin to explore the nature of
oneself in terms of traits through more ongoing introspection. Learn to understand oneself backwards (responsibility guilt) and
forwards in time (plans, dreams) within the roles and functions provided by ones culture. Tend to be future-oriented
Able to enroll others into their goals and aspirations by understanding their world and speaking about the possibility in a way that
has relevance and value in their world
Can work with people with different values and views as long as theres alignment on the goals trying to achieve
Seek to achieve results that are thought to secure a sense of accomplishment within ones own lifetime, that make some kind of
difference, that are personally fulfilling and will also be positively recognized by others
L. DIVINE
R EFERENCES
Beck, Don, & Cowan, Christopher. (1996). Spiral
dynamics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Caruso, D. R. (2004). The emotionally intelligent
manager. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Cook-Greuter, S. R. (n.d.). A detailed description of
the development of nine action logics adapted
from ego development theory for the leadership development framework. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from http://www.cook-greuter.com.
Cook-Greuter, S. R. (1999). Postautonmous ego
development. (Unpublished dissertation, Harvard University, 1999).
Daniels, D., & Price, V. (2000). The essential Enneagram: The definitive personality test and
self-discovery guide. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Deida, D. (1997). The way of the superior man: A
spiritual guide to mastering the challenges
of women, work, and sexual desire. Boulder,
CO: Sounds True, Inc.
Fowler, J. (1981). Stages of faith: The psychology of
human development and the quest for meaning. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row.
Gardener, H. (1983). Frames of mind. New York,
NY: Basic Books.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New
York, NY: Bantam Books.
Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Hampson, M. (2005). Head versus heart and our
gut reactions: The 21st century Enneagram.
Hants, United Kingdom: O Books.
Hill, G. S. (1992). Masculine and feminine: The natural flow of opposites in the psyche. Boston
MA: Shambhala Publications.
Kegan, R. (2003). In over our heads. Cambridge,
Kohlberg, L. (1981). Essays on moral development.
San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins.
Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T. (2004). The power of full
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engagement: Managing energy, not time, is

the key to high performance and personal renewal. New York, NY: Free Press.
Loevinger, J. (1976). Ego development: Conceptions and theories. San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass.
Murphy, M. (1992). The future of the body. Los Angeles, CA: Tarcher.
Myers, I. B., & Myers, P. B. (1995). Gifts differing:
Understanding personality type. Palo Alto,
CA: Davies-Black Publishers.
Palmer, H. (1988). The Enneagram: Understanding yourself and the others in your life. New
York, NY: HarperCollins.
Piaget, J. (1971). Biology and knowledge. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Riso, D. R., & Hudson, R. (1999). The wisdom of the
Enneagram. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Riso, D. R., & Hudson, R. (2000). Understanding
the Enneagram. New York, NY: Houghton
Mifflin Company.
Scharmer, Otto C. (2007). Theory U: Leading from
the future as it emerges. Cambridge, MA: The
Society for Organizational Learning, Inc.
Selman, R. L. (2003). The promotion of social
awareness. New York, NY: Russell Sage
Foundation.
Wilber, K. (1998). The eye of the spirit: An integral
vision for a world gone slightly mad. Boston,
MA: Shambhala.
Shambhala.
Wilber, K. (2000). A theory of everything: An integral vision for business, politics, science, and
spirituality. Boston, MA: Shambhala.
Wilber, K. (2002). Excerpt G: Toward a comprehensive theory of subtle energies. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from http://wilber.shambhala.
com/html/books/kosmos/excerptG/part1.
cfm/.
Wilber, K. (2003). Kosmic consciousness (discs
1-3). Boulder, CO: Sounds True, Inc.
new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world. Boston, MA: Shambhala.
AQAL CONSTELLATION
LAURA DIVINE, M.A., M.C.C., is a co-founder of Integral Coaching Canada, Inc. She is a Master Certified Coach
accredited by the International Coach Federation. She holds a masters degree in Exercise Physiology from the University
of California, Berkeley and has also completed Executive Development Programs at Harvard University and University
of California, Berkeley. She is a student and teacher of tai chi. She is the lead trainer, with Joanne Hunt, of the Integral
Coaching Certification Program offered by Integral Coaching Canada. This program is accredited by the International
Coach Federation at a Masters Level of coaching training hours. Integral Coaching Canada is the global coaching partner
of Integral Life and the Integral Institute. Laura lives in Ottawa, Canada with her wife and business partner, Joanne.
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68
TRANSFORMATIONAL CONVERSATIONS
The Four Conversations of Integral Coaching
Joanne Hunt
ABSTRACT This article provides an introduction to the process used by Integral Coaching Canada
in working with clients over time. Four distinct types of coaching conversations are illuminated in
this article. First, the Intake Coaching Conversation is described. This conversation serves to introduce the coach and client to each other, including the client topic and related questions as they
begin their developmental journey. Next the Oer Coaching Conversation is presented. This conversation allows the coach to bring forward and explore metaphors that express the clients past and
future relationship to the topic at hand. The use of metaphors is discussed in relation to its contribution in creating new realities, interaction with subject-object theory, and provision of anchors to
clients during times of change. Then an overview of Cycles of Development Coaching Conversations
is provided. The intentions and dynamics of this developmental phase are explored in terms of capability building, practice design, and types of practices. Finally, the importance of the Completion
Coaching Conversation is discussed. Throughout the article references are made to a client case to
highlight how these conversations progress in real time.
Key words: AQAL; conversations; human development; integral coaching; transformation
his article builds on the groundwork provided in the first three articles of this issue. The first article, Introduction to Integral Coaching (pp. 1-20), provides an understanding of our coaching method and
the theory upon which it rests. The subsequent two articles, Looking AT and Looking AS the Client
(pp. 21-40) and A Unique View Into You (pp. 41-67), present the set of integral lenses used in our Integral
Coaching methodology. This article dives more fully into putting this human development model into action.
I will do this by detailing the four types of coaching conversations that occur during our Integral Coaching
process, the focus and components of each conversation, and some of the more subtle or nuanced elements
attended to throughout. The four types of conversations are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Intake Coaching Conversation

Offer Coaching Conversation
Cycles of Development Coaching Conversations
Completion Coaching Conversation
These four types of conversations can occur in long-term formal coaching relationships, in a few consultations,
or compressed into a single occurrence; the depth is scaled depending on client requirements. The process can
be offered to groups (e.g., coaching circles, peer coaching, Integral Life Practice [ILP] communities) or to
organizations, scaled appropriately, as they too have a systemic or composite way of being. Each of the four
J. HUNT
types of coaching conversations has a specific focus, outcome, and process in our Integral Coaching method,
which is rigorous in structure and dynamic in application, thus supporting both new and highly experienced
coaches.
Coaching conversations are directly impacted by the orienting quadrant(s) privileged and/or the change approach advocated by particular schools of coaching. In fact, conversations in the field of professional coaching
are typically presented as the basis of the relationship versus the vehicle through which a coaching method
occurs, and there is very little delineation between the types of conversations that can exist between coach and
client. Practitioners in the field of human development have exhibited an increased interest in conversations,
as evidenced by the best-selling books such as Crucial Conversations (2002), Fierce Conversations (2002),
Difficult Conversations (2000), and Powerful Conversations (1999).1 Our pluralistic culture is interested in
conversations that occur with impact, results, and advancement (orange altitude) as well as an effective and
sensitive meeting of equals in expression of unique views and collaboration (green altitude). Through our Integral Coaching approach, we are interested in providing guidance and structure not just in terms of conversations becoming more effective and useful, but in advancing awareness of the different types of conversations
that occur throughout a coaching engagement, their unique contributions, and their roles in serving a client
over time.
The four types of coaching conversations presented in this article illuminate the role and technical components
of each. For the purpose of this article, I will not fully explore the complex embodiment characteristics of
the Integral Coach that are necessary to carry out each of these conversations, except for illustrative purposes in specific instances. Coach development will be the subject of a future article that will examine what it
truly takes to build the somatic, emotional, cognitive, relational, moral, and spiritual capacities of an Integral
Coach. Therefore, the following four coaching conversations may feel more cognitively informed, given
their technical descriptions, but, in fact, the coach and the client have a profoundly intimate personal and professional connection.
1. Intake Coaching Conversation

The purpose of the Intake Coaching Conversation is to enable the coach and client to learn about each other,
discuss the topic that the client brings forward, and explore the possibility of a coaching relationship. It is during this initial conversation that a coach learns about the kinds of change and development that is of interest to
the client. Of course, the topic becomes more nuanced if a coach and client work together over time. However,
it is in this initial connection that the client first gives voice to what is of developmental interest and importance
at that moment in time. Topics are wide-ranging in their scope and expression. A client may speak of a yearning
or future goal: I want to be able to speak more confidently in meetings or may share his or her suffering with
how things presently are: I am so frustrated with how often I lose connection with a wider, more expansive
me and I want this to be a more stable part of my day-to-day life. Some topics arise in the workplace, such
as when a client wants to learn how to contribute within a new organization or role, whereas others concern
specific relational issues such as becoming a more inspiring team leader, patient parent, or engaged partner. In
an effective Intake Conversation, the coach gains initial access into and appreciation of how the client sees the
world, how they have approached their coaching topic up until now, what they have tried, how they see things,
and who else is involvedall of these are elements of the coach Looking AT and Looking AS the client.
During this initial conversation, the coach seeks to learn about what deeply matters to the client, relying on
embodied listening to discern hints as to the clients way of being and what excites or frustrates him. The coach
is not only receptive, but also actively engaged in asking powerful questions that are guided by the set of six
AQAL lenses that give rise to a clients AQAL Constellation. The lenses used in our Integral Coaching
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COACHING CONVERSATIONS
method include four quadrants, levels of consciousness, six lines of development, states of consciousness, and
types (gender and Enneagram). See A Unique View Into You (pp. 41-67 in this issue) for a more detailed
presentation of the full set of lenses.
Within the framework of each lens, the coach listens throughout the Intake Conversation using a Looking AS
capacity: What must it be like to see the world through this clients eyes? They also draw on Looking AT capacities: Which competencies and perspectives are present and not? What are the situations or environments
in which the topic resides? Who else is affected or involved? Looking AS and Looking AT are also described
more fully in Looking AT and Looking AS the Client (pp. 21-40 in this issue), but Figure 1 provides a depiction of the two ways of getting to know the client: 1) from the inside out and 2) from the outside in. In our
culture, we naturally build capacities for Looking AT. Our school systems, testing, and performance reviews
are all built on effective Looking AT criteria. Far less developed in our society is the ability to Look AS. This is
due, in part, to the fact that increased perspective taking is a developmental achievement. In simplistic terms,
to Look AT and Look AS requires third-person perspective-taking abilities, which generally begin at early
orange altitude. And certainly, the range of Looking AT continues to get more and more nuanced while the
ability to sensitively Look AS substantially shifts, becoming more powerfully robust through a fourth-person
perspective-taking capability that begins to become available at green altitude and beyond.
Looking AT
the Client
Looking AS
the Client
Trying to more fully

understand the client
by looking at him or
her from the Outside In
Trying to understand
how the client
Looks AT the world
from the Inside Out
Figure 1. Looking AT and Looking AS the client.

It is important to note that Looking AS is not the same as empathize with or connect to, but instead involves
being able to step into another persons shoes, to get inside their world (as best as another being can), and look
out at the world through their eyes with ones body, heart, and mind. From a perspective-taking capacity, this is
the ability to be aware of our own way of Looking AT the world (which arises from our unique AQAL Constellation) as we attempt to Look AS the client, which involves perceiving, from the inside out, how the client
Looks AT the world (see Fig. 1). This multiple level embodied perspective taking is a critical capability that is
71
J. HUNT
developed in our coaches while concurrently not losing awareness of their own self as instrumentthe current
manifestation of the coachs AQAL Constellation. In other words, when a coach is trying to Look AS their
client, they are in essence trying to feel intofrom the inside outthe clients way of Looking AT the world,
which includes the clients way of seeing, going, and checking. This requires that the coach be aware of his or
her biases associated with self as instrument as he or she interprets what is being sensed. This is an important point, for it calls for more complex integral perspective-taking capacities to be embodied in our coaches.
It requires knowing how our own biases show up in both Looking AT the client (quadrivia) and Looking AS
how the client Looks AT the world (quadrants). Figure 1 represents the two primary types of looking in our
Integral Coaching model.
The questions posed by the coach during an Intake Coaching Conversation reveal aspects of the clients full
AQAL Constellation, using six lenses to guide the coachs exploration of the territory brought forward by
the client. It is a time of connection, intimacy, powerful questioning, and embodied listening. Often clients
have major insights about themselves and their topic during this first conversation. However, the conversation
is not about trying to solve the topic as though itor the clientis a problem to be fixed. With an integral
approach and a competency-based understanding of development, the coach is probing not just the topic that
the client has raised, but how this topic has become central to themwhat has been present and not, what is
supporting them and not, what do they see and not. In essence, the coach tries to understand what has given rise
to this topic and to appreciate how the clients best efforts have not enabled them to be in their topic in ways
that are more skillful, supportive, and enlivening.
CYCLES OF
DEVELOPMENT
INTAKE
COMPLETION
Embody
Download
(realized)
(past info)
Suspending the
download to see
from the outside
(AQAL Constellation)
Redirecting attention
to sensing from
within (Intuition)
Enacting or prototyping
Moving to action with
small steps/cycles
(Practice Design)
Crystallizing what is
envisioned
(CWOB & NWOB metaphors)
Letting Come
Letting Go
(highest possible)
OFFER
Future
Figure 2. Mapping of four coaching conversations to Otto Scharmers U.

72
It is interesting to note that the process and ability to drop into a clients world parallels the intricate process
developed by Otto Scharmer for connecting to emergent futures. In Scharmers Theory U (2007), he maps a
processin great detailfor connecting to and enacting our highest possible futures. He suggests that discontinuous change requires doing more than looking to the past and acting from the wisdom garnered from
that time period. He does not propose that one is not informed by the past, but that it is just one of the places
to locate wisdom. In coaching, of course, the client sits on the fulcrum between their past and their emergent
future. There are many parallels in the Scharmer process to the steps that our coaches take to understand and
work with their clients (see Fig. 2).
The first step in dropping down the left side of Scharmers U is to suspend the historical-based download of
information. In the coachs case, this refers to suspending initial judgments, conclusions, and advice-giving.
For example, an unconscious download includes hearing about a clients difficulty with their boss while the
coach simultaneously remembers a time in her own history when a similar challenge presented itself. From that
experience, she offers to her client, Just try this when youre with him. In Theory U (2007), suspending what
has automatically been done in the past is the first step in the process. The second step is seeing with fresh eyes
(Scharmer, 2007, p. 45). This parallels our Looking AT capabilities, drawing on the full set of AQAL lenses
to better see and understand the client. As we continue dropping down the U, the third step is sensing, which
involves leaning into a larger wisdom, moving beyond cognition into wider perspectives, and more subtle
ways of sensing (Scharmer, 2007, p. 45). In coaching work, this step occurs when the coach shifts perspective
in order to feel into, sense through, and Look AS the client. What must it be like to move through the world as
this precious human being? Scharmers work is most often used to drop into our own highest possible future
and create from this place. Our coaching process involves feeling into the emergent futures with and on behalf
of our clients and co-creating from this place. It is a powerful and intimate way to begin the journey as coach
and client.
This first conversation also allows the client to get to know the coach. The client is exploring what it would
be like to work with this particular human being. How the coach engages with the client during the Intake has
a significant impact on the possibility of establishing an open, trusting, and direct coaching relationship. The
client will also want to learn about the Integral Coaching approach to development, what it requires over time,
the general schedule, length of meetings, and information about what happens between sessions. The coach
responds with an abbreviated summary about the coaching approach, including how each persons way of
seeing and being in life is the source from which we do what we do, say what we say, and get the results that
we get; how it is through becoming aware of this current way of being while simultaneously becoming aware
of new ways of seeing and relating to a topic that we can begin to bring about sustainable change. Along with
fresh awareness and insight, there will also be a need to develop new muscles/new competencies to be able to
live in expanded and more supportive ways.
The coach lets the client know that they will be engaging in new activities, practices, and exercises daily and
weekly to build the muscles needed to support the coaching topic. The client understands that he or she will be
moving through a series of cycles of development that build awareness and develop new competencies such
that the client actually realizes, manifests, and sustains their desired objectives. Meetings will be held every
two to three weeks depending on the client and the nature of their topic. Clients are often both surprised and
relieved that there is a muscle-building or capacity-building component in coaching work (vs. just conversations), and this solid foundation gives them hope (and responsibility). The coach shares with the client what the
approach includes and notper some of the areas discussed in the Introduction to Integral Coaching article
(pp. 1-20 in this issue). The client, of course, receives and responds to this information through their AQAL
Constellation. Therefore, their replies and comments provide the coach with more riches to absorb as the
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J. HUNT
coach continues to Look AT and Look AS the client until the last minute of the conversation. Acute listening
remains even when the coach and client are discussing, what could seem to be from the outside, more general
aspects of our Integral Coaching approach.
One outcome of the Intake Conversation is a decision regarding whether or not the coach and client will move
forward together in a coaching relationship. This decision is based on several factors. First, some topics are not
appropriate for coaching, such as addictions, psychological issues like severe depression or debilitating anxiety, rage or post-traumatic symptoms, and relationship concerns involving abuse or violence; in such instances,
an Integral Coach is ethically bound to refer the client to a qualified mental health professional. Secondly,
some clients may prefer and/or need interventions such as mentoring. For example, a young manager may
need mentoring guidance in order to get to know the system that they have just joined and this knowledge may
be best learned from a more experienced manager. Thirdly, clients may need other forms of learning such as
an appropriate course, strength trainer, spiritual teacher, or other professional in the ecology of support that
is available. Finally, the coach and client need to agree there is mutual resonance and shared depth in their
preliminary rapport, the client feels sufficiently met and understood in their topic, the coach is developmentally able to take the perspectives of the client (Looking AS), can understand the breadth of their topic and its
developmental needs (Looking AT), and the client is open to Integral Coaching.
If the decision is to proceed together, the coach lets the client know that the next conversation will be what we
call an Offer Coaching Conversation. The coach usually says something like,
Between now and when we get together next, I will be sitting with all that you have
shared with me today. When we get together at our next meeting, I will try to offer
you my sense of how you have been approaching your coaching topic which, I hope,
will help shine a light on why this topic may have been so challenging up until now.
Usually that has some key insights all on its own and you will have much to offer in
terms of what you see as we play with your topic. I will also bring forward a possible
new way to approach your topic that, once again, we will build together. During this
coaching work, you will be working with the strong capacities that you already bring
to the table as well as developing new competencies to support moving forward. And,
of course, we will collaborate to make sure that I am always current and clear regarding what you need at each step. I will also bring a draft of a formal coaching agreement which will detail the developmental capacities that we agree will best support
you so that we have a roadmap for our journey. We will look at it all and edit it jointly
so that we can reach a place where we are both clear on the focus of our coaching
work together.
The coach checks to see if the client has any questions and responds in kind. Ideally, the client leaves this first
meeting feeling skillfully met and is confident in moving forward. The coach has asked questions that resonated with the client and already has him pondering new vistas. The client has been inspired and usually feels
that he has learned something about himself that he had not realized before. Already the client is percolating in
the coaching container. This Intake Conversation forms the basis for the container moving forward.
Following the Intake Coaching Conversation, the coach spends time steeping in the clients AQAL Constellation, developing the parameters of the formal part of the coaching work to be done, as well as the components of the clients Current Way of Being (CWOB) and New Way of Being (NWOB) that will be offered
through metaphors to the client in the next coaching conversation. This process involves not just rigorous
74
cognitive work but deeply dropping into the clients full and complex reality through meditation, centering, somatic work, and other methods for accessing a quieter wisdom on behalf of another human being. In continuing further down the left slope of Scharmers U, the coach moves to the bottom of the U, or the apex, which
includes a substantial shifting from places and practices of connecting and seeing to places and practices
of stillness and presence (Scharmer, 2007, p. 45) (Fig. 2). From this place, the highest possible future of the
client can be tasted. Sitting in this place of vast emptiness, one can touch a clients world from a remarkably
spacious, free, full, and transformative place. As the coach emerges from the causal space, they begin the journey up the right side of the U with a glimpse into a metaphor and a subtle grasp of the clients world. The
coach proceeds further up the U to the gross realms of practice design that are deeply supportive of the client
and his or her emergent future.
As Wilber has noted, U Theory is an almost perfect enactment of the states of consciousness that starts with
the orientation to the world of the client (gross), examining what their world looks like today, then dropping
further down the U into feeling or sensing the situation and the client from a wider space (subtle) before letting
go and dropping into pure emptiness (causal to non-dual). From this stillness, the coach begins to ascend back
up the U as a creative image or metaphor arises for the client (subtle) and then further up the U, designing and
implementing in the gross realm (Ken Wilber, personal communication, December 16, 2008).
This span between the Intake and Offer Conversations is a poignant time for the coach as they sit with the reality of another human being. Coaches are called into deep service and a desire to support human development.
Our coaches have embodied a way to let the client roll around inside their own body-heart-mind-spirit. It is
through this embodiment that integral theory shows another aspect of its profound elegance. In the preparation
for the next conversation with their client, an Integral Coach experiences the set of AQAL lenses as a living
organism. It is not only a cognitive exercise. It is a deeply felt connection to see, think, and feel another humans life through these lenses. Coaches sit in silence and enable the voice of the client to be heard inside the
coachs own awareness. Often coaches are moved to tears and laughter as they connect to the lived reality of
another person. Laughing in our shared and unique joy. Crying in our shared and unique suffering.
At an event that I attended in Boulder, Colorado in 2004, Ken Wilber was asked, How do you know if youre
developing? He sat quietly for a few moments and replied, You laugh more every day and you cry more
every day. Development continues to make us more and more sensitive to the pain and suffering of the world,
especially deepened through realized experience. We can see more perspectives, so we also access more pain
and joy. These same widening developmental perspectives enable us to both hurt more and be bothered less
(Wilber, personal communication, January 9, 2009) as we enact right livelihood. It is from this place of shared
humanity and embodiment of the integral model that coaches prepare for the Offer Conversation.
2. Offer Coaching Conversation

The Offer Coaching Conversation is the backbone to the dance that the coach and client will engage in over
time. This conversation includes the coach setting the context and focus for the development steps to be taken.
The Offer Coaching Conversation will include the following components: 1) a review or check-in regarding
the clients coaching topic to ensure that the coach gained an accurate understanding of the topic during the
Intake Coaching Conversation, revisiting why this topic is so important to the client, and exploring if anything
new came up since the Intake Conversation; 2) offering the client a sense or particular view of their CWOB in
their topic and bringing it to light in a way that they have never seen before; 3) offering the client a possible
NWOB in this topic that takes them beyond any perspective that they could have come up with on their own;
4) laying out the proposed map of the focus and approach of the coaching contract; and 5) launching the agreed
upon first actions.
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J. HUNT
In the Offer Coaching Conversationat this very early stageclients feel deeply appreciated and seen. They
are usually surprised and intrigued at what an Integral Coach has been able to articulate after one short
Intake Conversation. The primary reason why our coaches can bring profound insights forward after only
one conversation is due to the comprehensive method, embodied perspective taking, and way of being that is
cultivated in the training that they have received through the Integral Coaching Certification Program. They
are able to bring forward an offer versus a solution or answer. And this offer calls for the client to be active
in the process. During the Offer Conversation, the client becomes very involved with articulating, forming,
and re-forming all offers that the coach brings forward. The offer is always the starting point and becomes the
clients to own, shape, and work with over time.
It is important to note that the choice in our coaching school of the word offer is deliberate and crucial. There
is great debate in the field of professional coaching as to whether a coach should ever offer an observation to
a client. In fact, some schools of coaching hold the opinion that offering what you see to a client can be held
as evidence of a lesser-developed coach and that a master coach is always able to keep their views, biases, and
judgments at bay. We believe that coaches, like all humans, make judgments, assessments, interpretations, and
conclusions all of the time and that our questions and assertions naturally come from this place. The view that
we do not make judgments or assessments is also a view! We feel it is important to bring these assessments
to light during coach training, actively get to know and work with the unique biases and observations that
arise in each coach, and limit the projection that can take place when interior conclusions are not attended to
consciouslylet alone mistakenly hold the view that we no longer have judgments or conclusions once we are
master coaches. Our coaches work actively with the biases and perspectives that arise from their unique AQAL
Constellations. This does not mean that an Integral Coach is without biasquite the opposite. Coaches
need to be intimately aware of their assumptions and judgments and then be awake to what they are bringing
forward through their unique way of seeing, going, and checking in order to be more skilled and discerning
while working with clients. Our rigorous method, which includes working with both a clients and coachs
AQAL Constellations, helps bring these biases into the light and leverage them on behalf of the client.
When our coaches bring forward a perspective or sense of a clients way of being, it is held, metaphorically,
like a hand extended out with an open palm. The offer sits gently on the open hand. It is not gripped tightly by
the coach. It is not asserted to the client that this is the right view or the only view. The offer remains an offer
until the client picks it up, holds it himself, shapes it, forms it, interprets it, and acts on it as his own. It is at this
fundamental juncture where we agree with many coaching schools: the client has the final say. If the offer
or any part of the offerdoes not work for the client, they do not pick it up and the coach lets it go. Together
the coach and client explore this emergent space. We have found that clients want to know the perspectives
of their coach not because they expect their coach to be right, but because they value the coachs functional
expertise and unique contributions. Clients want to be supported and challenged, held and stretched. As Kegan
summarized:
Reading of centuries of wise reflection on what is required of an environment for it
to facilitate the growth of its members, I would say this: people grow best where they
continuously experience an ingenious blend of support and challenge; the rest is commentary. (1994, p. 42)
Sharing our sense of the clients world and exploring that territory with them requires a blend of love and rigor
embodied in the skillful and compassionate presence of an Integral Coach.
76
From the coachs perspective, holding something out on your open palm is humbling and vulnerable. It lays
naked the coachs deep inquiry into their clients life. The coach practices non-attachment to any view that they
bring forward and still, it is sometimes much easier to be questioners than offerersbringing ourselves
forward into the light in a desire to be of service to another person. With this sensitive attenuation in mind, I
will now explore the elements included in the Offer Coaching Conversation.
As cited at the beginning of this section, it is important to re-establish a good connection with the client, ensure they have a solid sense of what will be covered during the Offer Coaching Conversation, and re-confirm
the coaching topic so that there is an explicit shared understanding as well as an acknowledgement as to why
this topic is so important to the client. It is crucial to confirm the coaching topic at this second meeting, for
without shared understanding and clarity in an intersubjective space, the coach and the client will spend a lot
of time each having a different picture of the focus of the coaching work based on their own perceptual maps.
For example, having a topic of wanting to cultivate patience or be more inclusive does not mean the same
thing to everyone. For one client this might involve becoming more agentic and for another it might require
becoming more receptiveit all depends on what is presented through the unique AQAL Constellation of
the client. It is critical that the coach understands the words of the topic from the clients perspective. Not only
does clarifying the topic bring increased precision, it is also the first of many occasions in this conversation
where the client feels profoundly seen, honored, and respected. Hearing back from your coach in language that
shows that she deeply understood the topic greatly advances the quality, intimacy, and trust in the coaching
relationship that began to form during the Intake Conversation.
Once the topic has been established, the next step is to look at the clients Current Way of Being (CWOB) in
this coaching topic, including their approach up until now, their views and considerations, the actions they
have taken, and the possible reasons why bringing about the desired change has not been possible or sustainable. The coach will make the first move in this dance by offering what they have sensed. In making this offer, the coach is attempting to have what is invisible or fuzzy to the client become available so that they can
see how they currently perceive and relate to their topic as well as how this view plays out. What makes this
offer so powerful is that it is not a report of a series of tests, observations, and/or evaluations that tells the client, You are this and therefore or This is how you rate on a scale of 1 to 10. Rather, the coach is offering
a sense of how the world looks through the clients eyes, how the client sees the world (self, others, things),
and therefore how this perception colors how things go in their topic. It is an intimate and personal act for the
coach to offer this seeing to a client. It requires the full embodiment of the coach and non-attachment to what
is being offered. As previously stated, it is an act requiring the coach to be courageous and vulnerable as they
share and openly receive the clients response. In almost all cases, clients are deeply moved by what an Integral
Coach has been able to pick up after a short Intake session. The response from clients is often, How did
you see me and my world so clearly after such a short first meeting together? Tears of recognition, relief, and
appreciation often arise for the client in this accurate seeing.
Coaches usually offer an image (e.g., flowing water), a metaphor (e.g., the humble gardener), or a phrase (e.g.,
a life lived fully) to portray a clients CWOB in their topic, which allows the client to access something that
feels familiar and yet behind the curtain of what normally see. In offering a metaphor of their CWOB in the
topic, the coach is serving as a catalyst for the client to freshly see himself. It is important that time and space
be available for the client to respond to, build upon, and shift what has been offered until it powerfully resonates for him and has become his own. The coach starts the process because they are able to bring something
forward outside of the clients view. But then the client has the opportunity to pick up the offer from the open
palm, extended metaphorically to him, and begin to mold it with his own hands.
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A powerful metaphor has to include the clients own views of himself, but also transcend them and provide
new seeing. (If a metaphor is too obvious or too obscure, it will not resonate.) The metaphor needs to be
something that the client relates to, but is one that also gets him seeing himself and how he has been in his
topic up until now in a fresh light. The metaphor expresses the relationship the client has with the topicit is
not just a literal depiction of how they have described their topic. Rather, it is expressed in language and form
that enables the client to see some aspect of self that had been elusive, yet once seen, feels familiar. And, if
the metaphor that is introduced does not work for the client, no big deal! The coach simply lets that offer go,
explores what components of the offer did and did not work for the client, and together they play with what
has been brought to light to the point where a new or embellished metaphor arises that more powerfully reflects
the clients CWOB in their topic.
The use of metaphor in our Integral Coaching method is central to the ability to have subject become object
on the clients developmental path. I would like to take a further look at the use of metaphors, given its role in
our work. Robert Kegan (1994) provides a helpful entry to our use of metaphor in the coaching profession:
Metaphors. . . .have a number of salutary features, especially when they are introduced
tentatively, with an ear to the clients own use of images and a readiness to abandon
the offered metaphor if the client does not incorporate it into her own discourse. A
metaphor is interpretive, but it is an interpretation made in soft clay rather than cold
analysis. It invites the client to put his hands on it and reshape it into something more
fitting to him. Especially when the therapists metaphor addresses the internal circumstances of being a maker of meaning-structures, the client may find that, drawn to put
his hands to reshaping it, he is engaged in reshaping the very way he knows. (p. 260)
This quote elucidates a number of important points that are useful to explore further in our way of using metaphors. First, it is offered tentatively to the client. As mentioned previously with our image of an open palm, this
moment in time is not jabbing a pen at the clients chest and telling them how they are, as one of our students
so aptly expressed. It is an offer on behalf of a client having a new and precious seeing of their life, a human
life. And in this precious seeing, there is relief in being witnessed. It is through this honoring and respectful
intention that a metaphor is offered to a client from a compassionate and embodied Integral Coach.
Second, the metaphor is offered by the coach versus asking the client to come up with their own metaphor for
how they have been in their topic up until now. Some clients have the perspective-taking capacities to do this
and some do not. In either instance, however, the client-developed metaphor would live inside the frame of
what they already see because the client would be coming up with a metaphor from within the perspective of
their AQAL Constellation. As noted by Gemma Corradi Fiumara in The Metaphoric Process (1995), Metaphors and models are often the last to be perceived by those who use them, so deeply embedded are they in
the system they hold together (p. 76). We live the metaphoric systems of our life. When we are living these
metaphors, they are least available to us because they are part of the structure of who we take ourselves to be.
Thus, the offer from the coach can serve as a catalyst for awakened awareness.
When the coach offers a metaphor it comes from a different set of lenses that can provide fresh seeing to the
client. It does not matter if the metaphor is perfect. There are millions of metaphors and many would suffice.
We do not expect the metaphor to represent truth, as though there is one truth. We endeavor to provide a pathway to new or fresh seeing that is outside of the clients conscious view through metaphor. The form it takes
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from the moment the client picks it up, adds to the contour of it, and makes it their own is when the metaphor
has value and relevance. As George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) pointed out:
Though questions of truth do arise for new metaphors, the more important questions
are those of appropriate action. In most cases, what is at issue is not the truth or falsity
of a metaphor but the perceptions and inferences that follow from it and the actions
that are sanctioned by it. (p. 158)
What the client does with the metaphor, how it newly informs and shapes them from this moment on, is of
keen interest to the coach.
As Lakoff and Johnson also pointed out in their now classic Metaphors We Live By (1980), metaphors are the
primary units of our language composition and are anchored in our direct embodied experience. Thus, metaphors are not just ideas or images; they have a felt sense and bodily meaning. Others have also recognized the
power of metaphors as playing a key role in slaking the thirst for meaning. . .the more we understand metaphor, the more we understand ourselves (Pink, 2005, p. 140). Metaphors create new realities, and in so doing
they enable the client to take the first step in the subject-object developmental path having their I (invisible
to me because I am subject) become Me (I can see me) or My (I can see my way of being).2 This is another
reason why the Offer Coaching Conversation is so powerful for a clientthis first developmental move is
already freeing the client to wider perspectives of who he takes himself to be. Further, it starts the process of
developing witness capacities in the client. This is necessary not solely from a spiritual- or consciousnessdevelopment perspective, but is a vital capability that will be drawn upon in the cycles of practice and development ahead.
It is important to note that the metaphor offered is representing the clients way of seeing, going, and checking
in relation to their coaching topic. The metaphor may resonate for the client in all aspects of their life as well,
but the coach focuses specifically on the topic at hand. The metaphor does not represent the all of the client.
It is a window into the clients world. It is a critical access point through which the client can look at him
or herself, now and as a future Me. Similar to how the integral map is not the territory, the metaphor is not
the whole territory of a client. The use of metaphor is central to our Integral Coaching work, but it is never
intended to represent the full human being. Similar to Wilber using metaphors of a ladder and conveyor
belt to describe level or structure-stage development, the metaphor does not do justice to the territory, but it
provides great access for understanding complex terrain. Metaphors in coaching work are also powerful tools
in enabling subject to become object, in having a persons central I-ness be made object and therefore, accessible in a whole new way. Metaphors should not be taken too far, as though they are the sole foundation of
meaning making for the client, but as a strong component of a healthy integral development system, they are
extremely powerful and eminently useful.
As the coach and client continue the discovery and mapping of the clients CWOB, the coach initiates exploring what this way of being has allowed for up to now. The clients CWOB has brought him to this point and
needs to be fully acknowledged. This is a poignant time in the conversation when the client feels fully met.
During this dialogue the client also fills in the details of how this CWOB got him here safe and sound. It is a
tender viewing of the past to present through a metaphoric lens as the coach holds an open and vast container
for the clients exploration. At some point, the client remarks, But its not all good, you know. Its not working really well anymore. It is natural for the client to progress to the elements of his way of being that are not
supporting him presentlyhence why he brought forward the coaching topic in the first place.
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At this point, the client and coach turn to look at how this CWOB is currently limiting or preventing access
to certain capacities or perspectives related to the topic and how the CWOB no longer fits, like outgrowing a
favorite shirt. Because the coach and client are working with the metaphor to describe the beauty and limits
of the clients CWOB in their topic, it begins to solidify as object while the client starts building capacities
to witness. By the end of the discussion about the clients CWOB, what was mysterious as to why their topic
has been such a challenge up until now becomes more obvious and the client begins to see that there must be
something beyond what this current view affords. Seeking to see beyond the landscape of the CWOB, a client
will often ask, But what do I do? This way of being is so ingrained in me. The desire for a NWOB (New Way
of Being) naturally emerges in this part of the Offer Conversation, when the territory of the CWOB has been
fully fleshed out and the client has taken clear and tender hold of who I have been up until now. . . whats great
about that. . . and there must be another way forward.
Before moving to the NWOB description, I would like to provide an example of a CWOB metaphor that I
developed with one of my clients. I will mark these passages using italics so the reader will be clear when I am
entering and exiting the client example.
Dave came to coaching looking for a new way to contribute to his organization as a seasoned executive with
over 35 years of experience in the telephony industry. A long-time Vice President of Technology in a fast-paced
environment, he wanted to contribute to his team more fully but he felt stuck in his ways. Further, Dave felt
that he had much wisdom to share but did not know how to do it so he got things done himself. His executive peers and subordinates found him to be gruff, unapproachable, and inflexible. However, he thought there
was plenty that they didnt get and that he doesnt suffer fools lightly. He had never sought the support of
a coach and was not sure how it would work but he was willing to give it the old college try. (Already you
can probably hear some of his ways of being in these expressions.)
I will not go into the specific and confidential details of our Intake Conversation since building and working
with a clients AQAL Constellation is more fully explored elsewhere in this issue; I will instead focus on the
metaphor that I offered to him a week later. When we got together for the Offer Conversation, I thanked him
for all that he had disclosed to me. I told Dave that it was clear that he had no one he could speak to about his
quieter need to contribute and that I appreciated his trust in me. He had been someone used to going it alone
even as he surrounded himself with many people.
As I explained in the discussion of the Offer Conversation, the details of a metaphor, what it has allowed for in
a clients life pertaining to this topic, and what it is now preventing in a clients world are filled out by the coach
and client together. For brevity, I will offer the full metaphor without delineating aspects that I offered, aspects
which he added, and those we built together. I will present it as one paragraph versus the back and forth that
takes place once the coach makes the first move. I will also identify the dimensions of ways of seeing, going,
and checking so that these elements are made explicit for the reader.
You know, Dave, as I was sitting with all that you shared with me last week, I had this image come to mind
that felt to me like your way of relating to your topic: feeling stuck regarding the ways that you contribute your
well-earned wisdom in your company. I kept thinking about how you have been in these last few years as a
senior leader and the image that came to me was the Alpha Wolf. I could picture you on the ridge of a mountain
overlooking the plains as you keep an eye on the territory. Youre part of the pack but on the periphery of it
because you are the Alpha Wolf. While the other wolves sleep, you are awake on the ridge, paying attention,
staying alert. The way that you relate to the territory is that its dangerous out there and its my job to protect
the pack (way of seeing). Its your job to protect the company (way of seeing) by making sure that you dont
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miss anything that is happening in the rapidly changing technology marketplace (way of going). So your way
of moving at work is to be vigilant, sharp, and direct (way of going). You dont waste a moment (way of going) because anything could happen (way of seeing). It is a risky market that only the wise, old Alpha Wolf
understands (way of seeing). No one else has been around as long as you. Even the President is new. No one
else knows as much about the territory as you. And as much as you try to nip at the younger wolves to get them
to see what you see, they dont have your instincts yet. At the end of the day, you are satisfied as long as there
have been no surprises, nothing missed, no emergencies (way of checking).
Dave also added as his final input, no rest for the weary in that picture. We explored being an Alpha Wolf
and he added more poignancy to the picture as he shared the Alpha Wolf characteristics that also show up at
home with his wife and three adult children. Then I moved into sharing how the Alpha Wolf has supported him
well up until now:
You know, the Alpha Wolf has the ability to sniff danger a mile away. (I raised the various dangers that he
had sniffed out and protected his company from even just in the last couple of weeks. These are proprietary
activities so I cannot disclose them, but the specifics of what I shared had significant impact as he could see
his actions through this new metaphor.) As an Alpha Wolf, my sense is that you are clear, direct, and battlescarred. People see the scars and respect them. You have been through tough battles and everyone knows that
youve had their back. As you shared with me, you are feared but you are also respected. Youre wise and the
young pups like to hang around you, wrestling you a little if they can, so they can see what they know and
dont know. My sense is that you would never have made it to Alpha if you hadnt been strong, consistent, and
reliable. People know where they stand with you. There are no games played. You are wise and wily. The pack
sleeps at night because they know if they miss something, you will catch it. You give them rest. You give your
colleagues rest. You give your family rest. How does this resonate with you?
At this point tears welled in Daves eyes at the recognition of his achievements. He looked down and said,
Im very tired. I replied, Yes, of course you are. Youre sniffing the air constantly. Each day your nose
and somatic wisdom gets more and more attuned such that you can pick up even the slightest disturbances in
the territory. With this increased sensing, my guess is that you would also be more and more alone. Not many
people can pick up the subtleties in the marketplace. Youre vigilant and, as you shared with me, not sleeping
very much. I would guess that your body gets tighter and more wound up as your senses pick up more and
more. And you probably get more aggressive with the younger wolves who are not picking up what you do. And
they, in turn, emulate you and become more aggressive themselves. As you get older and closer to retirement
five or six years from now, the young wolves start taking runs at you and you are in a constant challenge from
the stronger wolves in the pack. There is no rest. You are wise. And you are tired. You have a sense that there
is more to draw on and a different way to be in this environment, but you dont know what it is. So, you head to
the ridge. You are alone. At risk. And given the look on your face and what you told me last week, this saddens
you. Tell me, what is ringing for you as you sink into the power and challenge of this way of being?
At this point, the tears had welled up to overflowing in the Alpha Wolf. This strong, ethical, contributing,
and wise leader acknowledged that he had reached the edges of what he knew to draw upon. He nodded and
confirmed the accuracy of the offer. Dave also spoke about the pain of this way even as he recognized that
it had served him well; it no longer fit who he wanted to become. He quietly commented, There are some
things about Alpha Wolf that I want to keep, for sure. I want to be respected and reliable. And I do have that
sensing capacity that I cant quite explain to people, but its just like you said. And I want people to know they
can count on me. But this way of working isnt all of what I think I can bring at this stage in my career. And I
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am tired of the young wolves bitingnot to mention taking this home with me each day. So, how do I develop
another way and keep the good stuff? We continued to travel around with the metaphor in all the environments that Dave participates in and we agreed that the Alpha Wolf powerfully captured his CWOBand now
what? Staying here keeps both his nobility and his pain. This is the call for exploring a NWOB in his topic.
The next stage in the Offer Coaching Conversation is to offer a NWOB metaphor that opens up a possible way
of moving forward that could enable the client to make powerful progress in their topic. This new way is not a
strategy or an action plan or a new goal; it is not a new something for the client to become committed to and
drive towards. It is a new way of seeing, going, and checking in their topic. It is a new context. It is a glimpse
into an underlying emergent structure and associated views. It has new eyes and ears and a new body. This new
horizon, new seeing of a possible self supports the clients topic and it also holds the topic in a wider frame. It
does not replace the topic; nor is it simply the opposite of the CWOB, as though the CWOB could be cut out
and tossed away. It is a view that includes and goes beyond what is available through their CWOB while still
including what deeply matters. The coaching topic ends up sitting in this wider NWOB. Given that it is in
this moment that the client is opening to something more expansive, the coach needs to be sure to take time
for the client to really take it in, feel it, taste it, and know it, similar to the CWOB process, mold it to become
their very own.
As the client works with the NWOB, getting their hands into the soft clay of their future self, the coach continues to steep in their clients world. Similar to the Intake, the coach continues to receive riches regarding their
clients AQAL Constellation through the whole conversation. The coach can readily tell when the NWOB
metaphor has resonated and been fully explored by the client because it is in this moment that the client usually
says, If I was living that way of being, then my coaching topic would be easy to work with, easy to accomplish. That would be amazing. And then they follow with, I just dont know how to get there. How could
they? This NWOB is outside their current way of seeing, going, and checking; it is outside of their existing perceptual map. If a client were to pursue a NWOB on their own, how would they do it? They would do it through
their current frame: their CWOB. They would bring their current way of seeing, going, and checking to trying
to build a new way. Thus leading to the well known phrase, If you always do what youve always done, you
will always get what youve always gotten. We will pursue new ideas or thoughts through our current ways of
seeing, going, and checking. Yes, it will lead to development over time. New muscles will definitely get built.
However, in a truly transcend and include method, it does not have to be that painful, a welcome possibility for
clients accustomed to the excise/discard/implant/replace ways of developing.
So, let us now take a look at this point in the conversation with our beloved Alpha Wolf. We left off with him
asking how to develop new skills moving forward.
I offered to Dave that there could be a new way to hold the upcoming five or six years in his corporate life
before he retired. You have spoken about having more to give, more wisdom to pass on to the next technology
folks on your team. And that the way of the Alpha Wolf doesnt give you expression for the full range of what
you have to bring. Id like to offer you, at least as a starting point, a new way to perhaps hold this next period
of time as we work together. Is that of interest? It was of interest to him because he had already exhausted his
own efforts in finding new ways of moving forward, but to no avail.
I offered, You know, in everything you have said to me, there is an element of team. It is evident in the sports
you participate inhockey twice a week in the winter and your standing foursome in golf in the summer. The
activities with your friends, family, and colleagues at work are always group activities. Membership in groups
is part of who you are. And, what came to me, as I connected to your coaching topic, is that you have the op82
portunity to become the Legacy Athlete. Last week, you spoke about wanting to leave a legacy at work. The
Legacy Athlete is the experienced player/mentor. In the later years of their game, they take on very different
roles than in their younger or peak energetic days. They become the veteran that everyone wants to play on
the same line with because they elevate everyone elses game. People always wanted to be on Wayne Gretzkys
line in hockey because they scored more goals when they got to play with him. It was the same with Magic
Johnson in basketball. And in golf, in his later years, Arnold Palmer was the guy who you wanted to have on
your Ryder Cup teamnot necessarily because he was the BEST player at the time but because he was the
WISEST player.
In later years, Legacy Athletes shift their role to enabling others to perform, not just showing what they can
do themselves. They now influence the team. They see their teams as developmental opportunities to open new
horizons (way of seeing). So, the Legacy Athletes way of succeeding becomes something that occurs in quiet
one-on-one conversations, learning moments, and giving players the chance to make mistakes, but then being
there beside them letting them know it is okay (way of going). Legacy Athletes speak not just to what needs to
be DONE, but also the INTENTIONALITY behind what is being done even when there is much pressure, rapid
deadlines, and limited time (way of seeing and going). There is a shift in personal performance to legacy opportunitiesthe chance to contribute to something bigger than them alone. The focus becomes the success of
the players they support, watching them try new moves, while also being direct and forthright because theyre
still learning (way of checking). There is still the strength and wisdom of the Alpha Wolf, but it is channeled
through a new vehiclethe Legacy Athlete.
Dave found this metaphor to be extremely powerful. And unbeknownst to me, Wayne, Magic, and Arnold were
his three favorite athletes. Together we filled out the metaphor with more details and nuances, including his
family and friends in the picture, and he was very excited to get started. He said, I dont know how to become
that, but I can tell you that it is exactly what I have been trying to express.
The next step in the Offer Conversation is to examine together the formal coaching agreement that forms the
container for the longings, goals, and related developmental objectives of the client. The quality and meaning
of this discussion has a very different feel and resonance for the client after jointly developing the CWOB
and NWOB metaphors than if the conversation had started with just capturing goalsimagine starting with
developmental objectives without this rich metaphoric context. The articulation of CWOB and NWOB give
the client access to their current context and a future context in which the focus of the coaching development
work can now sit. This formal part of the conversation enables the client to clearly grasp the new muscles they
will build as they include and transcend in this developmental journey.
With my newly inspired client, we looked at the new muscles that would need to be built to move along the
continuum of including the healthy Alpha Wolf while transcending to the Legacy Athlete. I had four areas to
propose and we assembled this list:
1. To widen your range of timing, tone, delivery, and subtlety (become a finesse player).
2. To become more developmentally supportive with your young executive team so they
experience great success (less do this and more this is why and what do you
think?).
3. Widen your ability to enjoy and celebrate various players styles or ways that are
similar and dissimilar to yours (need a full range on a winning team).
4. Experience greater satisfaction not just in WHAT got done today but HOW it got done.
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Notice how these objectives would support becoming the Legacy Athlete. While I am not going to cover the
details of Daves AQAL Constellation in this article, what I can say is that these four objectives placed emphasis on the aspects of his Constellation that needed development in relation to his topic. And you would also
be able to work with each objective across all of the lenses. If we look at the first item, from the perspective of
lines and quadrants, you can see that Dave would require significant somatic, emotional, and interpersonal
work as well as focused attention to the LL and LR quadrants as shifting his role with his team is dramatic. All
six of the AQAL lenses were utilized in drawing up these four developmental objectives. The language used to
describe these objectives was informed by his altitude or level of consciousness. Can you tell what that level
is?
The coaching topic is clearly defined in the coaching agreement both in terms of what the topic is as well as
why it is important to the client. The developmental objectives specify the competencies that will need to be
built (new muscles, new capabilities) in order for the client to successfully expand from their CWOB to a
NWOB. This step in the conversation brings the depth and breadth of the two metaphors down to a practical
and tangible focus directly linked to what this is all on behalf of: the clients topic. It is at this point that the
clients question is answered about how they will grow into their NWOB, which further enables them to see
the direction their developmental journey is going to take. Inspired and grounded, the client is ready to step
into their first cycle of development.
Practices are a critical component of our developmental approach. This is the playing field to which clients
bring their new insights, learning, and widened perspective taking. Practices take place in between coaching
conversations. There is a lengthy list of experts who have spent their lives working in the field of human development, focusing on the role of practice (e.g., George Leonard, Michael Murphy, Richard Strozzi, to name
a few). In Wilber and colleagues latest book, Integral Life Practice (2008), integrated and timeless wisdom
regarding practice is brought to bear with great elegance. The opening paragraph speaks to a life of practice:
For thousands of years, in almost all parts of the globe, human beings have engaged
in practices to transform and balance their lives. From the magical rituals of ancient
shamans, to the contemplative science of the mystical traditions, to the latest scientific
breakthroughs in health, nutrition, and physical exercisewe have always sought a
way to connect with our deeper truths, to achieve well-being and harmony, and to
realize our highest potentials. (p. 1)
The practice field is critical to the development of the client. In our coaching work, we use two types of practices: focus practices and foundation practices. Focus practices are conducted by the client during the time
between meetings, which usually occur every two to three weeks. These practices tend to be more intense,
focusing on a particular muscle or aspect of the clients AQAL Constellation, and always involve a reflective component so that the client keeps developing their conscious awareness and integrating new insights.
Foundation practices are long-term practices designed to support the coaching topic and muscle-building components that will best serve the client over time. These practices are done regularly, a few times a week or
over several months (if not indefinitely), depending on the client. Some examples of foundation practices are
strength training, meditation, yoga, healthy diet, journaling, or embodied reading. The practices are selected
with a longer perspective of building the body-heart-mind-spirit of the NWOB. Foundation practices also may
have a reflective component depending on the capacities needed by the client within their topic. Together these
two types of practices support the muscle building that occurs through cycles of development over time.
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The first step for a client after the Offer Conversation involves engaging in a practice that enables them to learn
more about their CWOB by shining a light on a particular aspect of this way. They do not change anything
yet. This first practice enables them to get to know the full power and presence of their CWOB in day-to-day
life. The first foundation practice usually begins at this same moment to support the journey of developing
the new muscles needed to shift from their CWOB to their NWOB. Alternatively, the first foundation practice
may be brought forward in the second cycle of development if the first focus practice is designed to provide an
intense entry. As with every future Cycles of Development Conversation, it is important for the client to know
the purpose of each practice and how it will support them.
For this first practice, the coach explains that a critical developmental step is to get to know their CWOB more
intimately, in real time, viscerally, and cognitively. Developing an awareness of and intimacy with this CWOB
is necessary in order to enable a future that includes having conscious choice regarding its manifestation (rather than being unconsciously driven by it). We first need to be able to see ourselves more clearly. Understanding
this developmental step strongly motivates the client to engage in this first cycle, as they understand that it will
enable progress in future cycles.
The first focus practice for my client included shining the light on a couple of aspects of the Alpha Wolf to enable him to become familiar with the everyday workings of his Alpha-Wolf-ness. Daily he was to simply witness
himself in conversations with these two questions in mind:
1. What is your position in the pack at this moment? (alpha wolf, weaker wolf, nurturing wolf, belonging to the pack, solo wolf walking alongside the pack, etc.)
2. How does this position show up in your way of being in this particular conversation? (body shape, tone of voice, content shared or not)
I asked him to pick two conversations each day and record his responses in a small notebook that he carries
in his jacket pocket. At the end of each week, I asked him to read through his notes from that week and answer
these two questions:
1. What did you learn about your preferred positions in the pack?
2. What parts of you get to show up in this position and what parts remain in the dark?
This was a two-week practice. Note that with the Alpha Wolf, you could focus on any number of aspects: vigilance, tension in his body, intentions, or emotional tones. For this client, with his propensity to be with the
collective, I wanted him to get to know the various positions he takes. At this early stage, I offered a simpler
practice because I wanted to also determine his ability to self-reflect, as this is a necessary competency to build
moving forward if it is not in his current capability set. And still, even with a simple practice, much is uncovered! I decided to give him his first foundation practice at the next meeting so that he could concentrate his
first practice efforts on the detailed observation of his CWOBshining the light specifically on his preferred
Alpha Wolf positions and their effects.
Before completing the Offer Coaching Conversation, the coach makes sure that the client has written copies of
their formal coaching agreement and their initial practice(s) moving forward. Sometimes there are also notes
or drawings that capture the essence of their CWOB and NWOB that the client wants to keep and be able to
reference. The purpose of having the coaching agreement and practices in writing is so that the client continues to experience being supported by a structure that can hold them and which they can refer to once they are
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out in their day-to-day world. This is especially important at the beginning of the coaching relationship when
the clients CWOB is still in strong force, as they can tend to unconsciously modify the practices to suit the
comfort of their CWOB.
The coach takes time to confirm that the client has the support that they need until the next meeting. This is
yet another form of structure and support that the coach provides the client so that they can fully engage in this
crucible of their own development. The end of the Offer Conversation marks the beginning of the coaching
process that occurs over the many Cycles of the Development Conversations that comprise the bulk of the time
that a coach and client spend together.
3. Cycles of Development Coaching Conversations

The number of Cycles of Development Conversations depends on the clients topic and their unique rate of development. Some coaching work consists of just a few conversations; other development topics require longer
periods of time with an Integral Coach.
During the cycles of development phase, the client is growing in ways that effectively support working with
both their CWOB and NWOB. The client develops a deeper understanding of their CWOB through direct
experience of it, in real time, in real life. As this awareness and understanding grows, the client progressively
and increasingly relates to the CWOB as object. As this occurs, the unconscious grip of the CWOB loosens
and there is space for the emergence of the clients NWOB in their topic through progressive development of
necessary competencies. Cycles of development are based on the premise that there needs to be a sequence of
growth where the development of one capability gives rise to and makes possible the emergence of another. In
each cycle, there is much to learn (and, perhaps unlearn) and much to integrate. Hence the word cycle rather
than a linear action plan.
While there is a fundamental set of objectives for this type of coaching conversation, the specific tone, texture,
and focus can vary based on where the client is in their developmental process, which capabilities have begun
to arise, and what is needed next. A Cycles of Development Coaching Conversation is about richly learning
from and building upon the clients experience of having engaged in focus and foundation practices as well
as determining the next area of focus. Usually the conversation begins with a discussion regarding what happened during the clients latest practice period. If there has been a check-in with the client (phone call, email,
etc.) midway in the clients practice cycle, this information is also included. As the client shares their practice
discoveries, the coach interacts in a way that enables the client to further flesh out their observations and make
more powerful linkages with their topic, CWOB, and NWOB. These coaching conversations can often serve
as additional intake sessions as the client continues to provide the coach with a large amount of information gained through engaging in the practices. The key for the coach, as they are listening to the client, is to
continue to hear and see the patterns of the clients CWOB (including its way of seeing, going, and checking)
as well as noticing evidence of their NWOB emerging. Clients may not necessarily see these patterns initially
because the Offer Conversation gave them access or ah-ha moments regarding their ways of being, but this
access is not yet embodied knowing. It is cognitive understanding with lingering emotional resonance at this
early stage.
These conversations are usually rich with new learning for the client as they continue to see how their CWOB
remains active as a driverwhich it will for a while, as this way has been around for a long time and is still
partially effectivewhile also celebrating the progressive emergence of the NWOB. It is important, especially
in progressive cycles, to keep showing the client how their NWOB is emerging as well as to note the evidence
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of the healthy integration of their CWOB. Coaches speak to the progress and impacts using all AQAL lenses
anchored in the CWOB and NWOB metaphors.
The coach explores with the client the degree to which they are developing reliable capabilities that current
practices have been designed to build, as well as discovering what else might be developing that is beyond
what was anticipated. This involves checking in on the specifics of the practice (are they doing it fully per the
integral design?) and the results of the practice (what is happening in and around the client?). It is important
to seek evidence, as self-report can sometimes be mired in the clients current way of seeing, going, and
checking. It is also critical to link the progress being made through a specific practice with the developmental
objectives captured in the coaching agreement so that client and coach are both able to 1) see the link and 2)
register progress. Taking the time to do this significantly supports the client integrating what they are learning
and gaining from their practices. It is often difficult for a client to see progress when they are in the midst of
their own developmental process. Taking the time to step back, help them make and elaborate upon connections, register progress, and make any necessary adjustments all leave the client feeling solid and inspired to
continue. The coach attends to the container of the relationship, endeavoring to provide the right amount of
challenge and support.
The conversation readily flows into a discussion about what is next in a clients development. The next practice
is designed based on the clients AQAL Constellation, their CWOB and NWOB, the developmental objectives, and the practices they have engaged in up to now. This information is used as a compass to guide the
design. With the support of this rigorous compass in the background, the coach and client discuss the next capability that needs to be developed for a given competency to manifest. As the cycles of development continue
and the NWOB emerges more fully, the client develops a heightened ability to sense what is needed and has a
greater and greater role in co-designing their next practice. Clients are not asked to take the lead in designing
practices early in the coaching relationship as they would all be created, of course, from within the clients
CWOB, thus keeping their own frame intact. However, while the coach designs the practices, he also seeks
the clients input for adjustment or refinement to ensure that the practice works for the client. Closer to the end
of a coaching relationship, a client is more actively and creatively initiating practice designs and actions that
support their NWOB. A Cycles of Development Coaching Conversation usually ends with the coach and the
client confirming the date of the next coaching conversation and planning a check-in during the elapsed time
period, if that is needed for support.
Now that I have outlined the focus and objectives of the Cycles of Development Conversations, I will provide
additional insight into the intentions and dynamics of this developmental phase. Prior to the Cycles of Development Conversations, the client has repeatedly tried new actions using many different strategies yet falls into
old patterns. Why? Because of the strength of his CWOB. His muscles were built to support that way of being,
including his ways of seeing, going, and checking. In any topic, however new or old, the client has brought forward his current way in many forms, trying various things thinking that it is a new way, when it nearly always
is simply new activities, new doings accompanied by the same ways of perceiving and checking for how
things are going. No matter how badly he wants to see the change occur, he keeps struggling or experiencing
only periodic shifts, then seeks out the support of a coach.
Similarly, when a client has been unsuccessful in being with a practice while working with a coach, we do
not question his commitment or chastise him with comments like, You must not be committed enough or
You need to try harder and just follow through! Instead, we examine the existing competencies present and
the new muscles that are necessary to support moving forward in a whole new way. Often when a client has
not done a practice, they have not yet developed the muscle needed to carry it out. For example, giving a
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client a practice called Saying No To Requests may cause the clients body to become so agitated that it is
virtually impossible to carry out. So: the coach needs to break this practice down and work with the clients
somatic agitation as a cycle of development all on its own. New coaches often feel confused when a practice
is not done by a client: The client was so excited when we discussed it during the meeting. Again, carrying
something out involves a very different set of muscles than speaking about doing it! The excitement of a new
practice (or ah-ha moment) does not equate to competency or execution. We truly need to engage in practice
to build stable and reliable new capacities.
Another important role of the Cycles of Development Conversations is to allow a healthy integration of the
CWOB as it is included and transcended to reduce the emergence of projection and shadow reactions. During
the developmental cycles, the clients CWOB (living, seeing, perceiving life) shifts from a world of the firstperson, subjective I to an understanding of self through Me (first-person objective) or My (first-person
possessive) as the CWOB becomes seen, recognized, and integrated over time. This CWOB is worked with
during the Cycles of Development Conversations so that the subjective or blind driver of my life becomes
objectively integrated in a healthy way that enables the client to move to the next level of development. Otherwise, aspects of the CWOB can be denied, repressed, and splinter off into unhealthy aspects that do not become
integrated; which are often projected on to others. This is a move not from I to Me or My but from I
to It and represents the subject of one level becoming the shadow of the next level. This repression and unhealthy subject-to-object development contributes to flare-ups when client buttons are pushed, as these splinters have not being recognized, integrated, and translated in development. Growth by its very nature includes
subject-to-object development, which gives rise to new light and triggers new shadow work opportunities! The
CWOBs shadow elements are worked with throughout the cycles of development, thus allowing another layer
of transcendence and inclusion.
Working with their CWOB is always a monumental, eye-opening journey for a client. Without delving deep
into psychological history or therapeutic interventions, the client clearly recognizes herself with a familiarity
that usually brings equal parts grimacing and grinning at the accuracy of the metaphor or sentence or picture
of their CWOB in their topic. It is not judged as good or bad. It is simply a what is that has supported her
very well up to this day and may now be thwarting some of her new efforts. This CWOB is something she
can hold in the palm of her hands and get to know. She can see her CWOB arise during stressful interactions
at the office, running to get things done, her drive home at the end of the dayeverywhere. The all-pervasive
presence of a CWOB brings laughter and exasperation, and the force and strength of its limitations becomes
a strong motivator to want to transcend and include into a NWOB: the kind of being-in-the-world the client
longs to become.
At the beginning of the Cycles of Development Conversations, this NWOB is still an object, a concept that,
while inspiring, is nowhere near being embodied by the client as subject. As the client develops the underlying
capabilities and competencies needed to be able to live in this NWOB, the I-ness of it needs to be cultivated
and filled out during the Cycles of Development Conversations. The coach needs to help the client gain access
to looking through the eyes of this NWOB through such things as exploring the voice of this new way, the body
of this new way, or emotional access through this new way. As the client continues in their cycles of development, this cultivation of the I-ness of the NWOB begins to take root and progressively the NWOB emerges in
the clients body, heart, mind, and spirit.
It is during these Cycles of Development Conversations that the client draws on these two ways of being as anchors. Metaphorically, it is as though they hold their CWOB in one hand and their NWOB in the other hand. As
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the client works with these two selves, she becomes more discerning of when to draw on the healthy aspects of
the CWOB (further integrating them) or when to draw on the new muscles that are being developed to support
the NWOB. She also feels the more limiting aspects of the CWOB and is able to make conscious choices, over
time, about how to work with these capacities that no longer serve her. Just because a client can see a NWOB
does not mean they have the capability to make the transition easily. In fact, in Metaphors We Live By (1980),
Lakoff and Johnson found the developmental journey to be quite complex. They identified two metaphors for
two different ways to hold problems: the first way was to hold problems as puzzles to be solved and the
second way was to hold problems as precipitates of chemical reactions that give way to new precipitates and
new chemical reactionsproblems are never solved and new ones arise as a natural occurrence (p. 144). Let
us call these two ways of being puzzles and chemical. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) point out some of the challenges in trying to move from what we call a CWOB (puzzles) to a NWOB (chemical):
We see this as a clear case of the power of metaphor to create a reality rather than
simply to give us a way of conceptualizing a pre-existing reality. . .our current way
of dealing with problems is another kind of metaphorical activity. At present most of
us deal with problems according to what we might call the PUZZLE metaphor. The
PROBLEMS ARE PUZZLES metaphor characterizes our present reality. A shift to
the CHEMICAL metaphor would characterize a new reality. But it is by no means
an easy matter to change the metaphors we live by. It is one thing to be aware of the
possibilities inherent in the CHEMCIAL metaphor, but it is a very different and far
more difficult thing to live by it. . .So much of our unconscious everyday activity is
structured in terms of the PUZZLE metaphor that we could not possibly make a quick
or easy change to the CHEMICAL metaphor on the basis of a conscious decision.
[emphasis in original] (pp. 144-145)
So, our client holds puzzle in his one hand and chemical in his other hand, which is the start of a complex developmental journey. The role of practice is necessary in this alchemy as a bridge of development.
Dave and I met for eleven months through many cycles of development. I will not go into great detail regarding
the progression of each of these cycles. However, for the sake of simplicity, using one lens (lines) I can say that
many of the cycles included a focus on his somatic, interpersonal, and emotional development, which is not
surprising given his topic and AQAL Constellation. Here are the titles that we gave to some of the practices
that Dave engaged innotice the increasing complexity as the practices progressed:
The Body Position That Says,Im interested and have time for you.
Different speeds available in my mind and body (included Body Scan tapes).
Half-speed practice from my office to the boardroom (and half speed back).
Im a quadrant, shes a quadrant, and hes one too (taught him orienting quadrants
and gave him multiple practices for using it at work).
Internal equanimity: What is it and how do I get some? (UL-focused practice that was
then brought to the LL playing field).
The Legacy Athlete interviews seven possible draft picksthe body leads.
Meditation Aint For Sissies: 5 x 5 x 5 (five minutes of meditation, five times a day at
work, five days a week).
Pushing my buttonstriggers and projections.
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Each of these practices focused on multiple aspects of Daves AQAL Constellation, and as he built a greater
ability to calm the vigilant Alpha Wolf he actually discovered amazing capacities of stillness, great wisdom,
and profound questioning. Throughout the later stages of our work together, the subtle shifts from disintegrating orange altitude to wobbly green altitude were also evident in his perspective taking and embodied
responses to those around him. The practice that involved developing internal equanimity was a key fulcrum
point where the Alpha Wolf and the Legacy Athlete intersected in the transcend and include Integral Coaching model. And Dave was actively using his two metaphors every day in discerning his internal states and his
way of showing up in meetings. The metaphors enabled great ease and access into the fullness of his coaching
topic and his life.
There is grace and ease in this developmental voyage and, though it is complex in nature, it honors the multifaceted intricacy of being human. There is powerful simplicity in our Integral Coaching method once it is
embodied by a coach in the service of a clients development. We do not build an action plan for a client to
execute; we build capabilities organically through cycles of development where the focus and scale of the
practices are guided by the clients AQAL Constellation. We build competencies (new muscles) that enable
a client to stably live their CWOB, steadily work with the arising of their NWOB, and embody the developmental objectives outlined at the start of the formal coaching agreement. When this development is stable, the
work between the client and coach progresses to the final meeting. The coach and the client agree that it is time
to bring their particular coaching engagement to a close and the final meeting is scheduled.
4. Completion Coaching Conversation

The Completion Coaching Conversation has an orientation both of looking back and looking forward. The first
step is to fully register what has been accomplished. By going back and looking at the coaching topic and developmental objectives captured in the coaching agreement, the client and coach get a chance to articulate what
has been developed and what is now present in the clients life. This can also include discussing the journey
traveled to get to this place, which is often a very powerful conversation as it gives the client a chance to actually feel both where they were in the beginning and how far they have come. Because it is a process of ongoing
and progressive cycles of development, it sometimes is difficult for the client to apprehend how much they
have developed, grown, and changed. This conversation provides the client with a way to fully comprehend
how far they have traveled, how much has changed, and what was accomplished (what was hard, what was
really cool, what was surprising, and what was deeply gratifying). This Completion Conversation enables the
client to healthily experience a beginning, middle, and an end; completion is a step that often gets missed as
we simply move on to the next item in our rushed world of deadlines and deliverables. Honoring where we are
right now is often ignored or overlooked. In our Integral Coaching system, on an ongoing basis throughout
the course of a coaching contract, the client is consistently put in touch with not just where he is headed, but
what is also already here.
The second part of the Completion Conversation is about looking ahead and discussing both the possibilities
and the challenges that the client may face as they move forward without their coach. The focus of this discussion is to support the client in determining what kinds of support they may need to pursue so that their NWOB
continues to be supported and nurtured. Additionally, it enables the client to pause and see what potential lies
ahead. With the strength of their newly developed competencies and their more awakened way of moving
through their days, most clients look ahead with exuberance and optimism.
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The final part of the conversation includes taking the time to acknowledge what the coach and client have deeply appreciated about each other and to say whatever needs to be said to feel complete. Perhaps the coach will
touch base with the client in the following months. Perhaps they will agree to connect again in six months.
We recommend that coaching work is brought to a close and that a period of time passes before the client
engages in a next topic or developmental journey. We do this for two reasons. The first is to enable a client to
have a period of time when they are not supported by a coach to discern which muscles are stably present and
which ones falter or diminish without the scaffolding of the coaching relationship. It is an integrating time for
the client. Ultimately we are interested in a client becoming self-authoring and not becoming dependent on
their coach. Dependence can be great for a coachs business, but is unlikely, in fact, to be of true service to the
clients developmental journey!
The second reason that we recommend formal completion and a time period with no coaching is due to what
we call development fatigue. In these aspiring times, people can be constantly focused on the next muscle
they want to build. There needs to be time when things settle, become more fully integrated, and stabilize.
Even the most ardent and keen development-seekers (and perhaps especially) need a break to just simply live.
As Ken Wilber said (personal communication, December 2, 2008), Once they get to that place where they are
fully developed, what are they going to do? Just live. Might as well live now too. After clients take a break,
we have found that four to six months later, they return with even more insightful coaching topics, more discernment, and deeper questioning.
Conclusion
The process of Intake, Offer, Cycles of Development, and Completion can be scaled to one coaching conversation or a long-term coaching agreement. It can be scaled to coaching individuals or couples or groups
(organizations have a CWOB, too). It is applicable at all levels of consciousness, becoming ever more elegant
and nuanced along the ever-expanding ladder of development. It enables people to make significant and substantive changes towards yearned-for goals in their personal, professional, and spiritual lives. The process sits
in a powerful development frame and once the Integral Coaching methodology is embodied, our coaches do
extraordinary work in collaboration with their clients, enabling remarkably profound and sustained results.
Eleven months later the Alpha Wolf is well on the path to becoming the Legacy Athlete, producing stunning
changes that have surprised his colleagues, friends, wife, and children. He now engages in a meditative practice, body scanning, reading spiritual material, and various physical practices. He has difficult conversations
more easily and works more consistently with situations that trigger him. People on his team say that he is
more approachable and send him thank you notesnever before receivedfor how he showed up in meetings or supported them. Younger athletes are stepping up to the table and actively asking for his feedback. His
life is more in balance. He has conversations with people that have more depth and vulnerability. He is quiet
and thoughtful. He listens more. He is more at peace even amidst the harsh realities of his industry and role.
He has started to engage in many modules associated with Integral Life Practice. The card he gave me at yesterdays meeting reads, Eternal gratitude for an incredible ongoing journey.
I wish you could meet him. I wish you could meet all the clients and coaches who practice in the container of
our Integral Coaching system. You would understand the elegance and impact of integral theory in application
far better than my writing skills can represent.
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J. HUNT
N OTES
1
In addition to these titles, there are a number of others worth noting, including Leadership and the Art of
Conversation: Conversation as a Management Tool (1997); The Zen of Listening: Mindful Communication in the Age
of Distraction (2000); and How the Way we Talk can Change the Way we Work (2001). These books primarily serve
orange and green altitudes for effective conversation.
2
As George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) more fully state, New metaphors have the power to create a new reality.
This can begin to happen when we start to comprehend our experience in terms of a metaphor, and it becomes a deeper
reality when we begin to act in terms of it. If a new metaphor enters the conceptual system that we base our actions on,
it will alter that conceptual system and the perceptions and actions that the system gives rise to (p. 145).
R EFERENCES
Corradi Fiumara, G. (1995). The metaphoric process: Connections between language and life.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Harkins, P. (1999). Powerful conversations: How
high impact leaders communicate. New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill.
demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Kegan, R., & Laskow Lahey, L. (2001). How the
way we talk can change the way we work.
New York, NY: Jossey-Bass.
Krisco, K. (1997). Leadership and the art of conversation: Conversation as a management tool.
Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors we
live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Leonard, G., & Murphy, M. (1995). The life we are
given: A long-term program for realizing the
potential of body, mind, heart, and soul. New
York, NY: Penguin Putnam, Inc.
Paterson, G., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler,
A. (2002). Crucial conversations: Tools for
talking when stakes are high. New York, NY:

McGraw-Hill.
Pink, D. (2005). A whole new mind: Why rightbrainers will rule the future. New York, NY:
Penguin Group, Inc.
Scharmer, O. (2007). Theory U: Leading from the
future as it emerges. Cambridge, MA: The
Society for Organizational Learning, Inc.
Scott, S. (2002). Fierce conversations: Achieving
success at work and in life, one conversation
at a time. New York, NY: Viking Penguin.
Shafir, R. (2000). The zen of listening: Mindful communication in the age of distraction. Wheaton,
IL: Quest Books.
Stone, D., Patton, B., & Heen, S. (2000). Difficult
conversations: How to discuss what matters
most. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
Strozzi-Heckler, R. (2003). Being human at work:
Bringing somatic intelligence into your professional life. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic
Books.
Wilber, K., Patten, T., Leonard, A., & Morelli, M.
(2008). Integral life practice: A 21st-century
blueprint for physical health, emotional balance, mental clarity, and spiritual awakening.
Boston, MA: Integral Books.
JOANNE HUNT, M.S.S., M.C.C., is a co-founder of Integral Coaching Canada, Inc. She is also the Vice President,
Coach Federation. Joanne holds a Masters Degree in Management Studies and is the lead trainer, with Laura Divine, of
partner, Laura.
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INTEGRAL PERSPECTIVES ON COACHING

An Analysis of Integral Coaching Canada Across
Eight Zones and Five Methodologies
Lisa L. Frost
ABSTRACT This article provides an in-depth analysis of Integral Coaching Canadas coaching model using Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP). The author uses five primary methodologies and
the perspectives available through eight zones to evaluate what makes Integral Coaching Canadas
model unique in the field of coaching. This article is based on first-, second-, and third-person approaches to research and an original study and masters degree thesis that evaluated over 20 coaching models.
Key words: integral coaching; integral methodological pluralism; mixed methods research; zones
s integral theory has moved from the hands of theorists to the hands of those who seek to practically
apply its principles, we have begun to see many fields emerge that are naturally suited for such application. Coaching is one of those fields. Yet, how can integral theory be applied to coaching such that it
not only informs the field itself, but also provides methodological guidelines through which coaching models
and coaches may be evaluated? What follows is an analysis of one such application.
Coaching is in the unique position to aid individuals and groups in development. As a practice, coaching involves inhabiting other perspectives. At the very least, the coach must be able to take the clients perspective,
and the client is invited to take a new perspective as well and build related capacities to support this new view.
It can be said that development, or growth, is dependent upon and begins with widening ones perspective. It is
important then to understand how the use of perspective taking can help coaching models increase the efficacy
of coaches in enabling the development of their clients.
This article is an adaptation of a study that included the formal evaluation of three coaching schools and the
models they teach, with an informal evaluation of over 20 other coaching models (Frost, 2007). The following
analysis uses the AQAL model to evaluate the various coaching methods of a single school.
The Integral approach simply points out that these dimensions of reality are present in
all cultures, and therefore any truly comprehensive or integral approach would want
to touch bases with all of those important dimensions, because they are in fact operating in people in any event, and if we do not include them in our analysis, we will
have a partial, fragmented, and broken approach to any proposed solution. [emphasis
in original] (Integral Institute, 2007)
Correspondence: Lisa Frost, 4091 Garden Road, El Sobrante, CA 94803. E-mail: lisa@lisafrost.net.
L. L. FROST
Indeed, as all quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types operate within each person, there is much value to be
gained by taking them into consideration in the field of coaching. As such, the value of this analysis is in its
contribution toward a greater understanding of how any coaching model can become more integral from an
AQAL standpoint. Of the three schools that I analyzed in detail (Integral Coaching Canada, New Ventures
West, and Newfield), one stood out as being truly AQAL across every dimension of their method, process, and
training architecture: Integral Coaching Canada. This article provides in-depth insight into how this coaching
school applies integral principles.
In my original study, an integral research methodology was used and multiple levels of perspective taking
were employed to measure the degree to which coaching models addressed the perspectives of the coach and
client, and how each coaching model incorporated AQAL principles. Findings informed the coaching models
where they met, or fell short of meeting, a variety of perspectives based on the eight zones of Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP) (Wilber, 2006) (see Fig. 1). These data can be used by prospective coaches to better
understand how integral theory can be applied to the practice of coaching and to meet the needs of individual
and organizational coaching.
EXTERIOR
COLLECTIVE
INDIVIDUAL
INTERIOR
Zone 2
(outside)
Zone 6
(outside)
Zone 1
(inside)
Zone 5
(inside)
UL
UR
LL
LR
Zone 3
(inside)
Zone 4
(outside)
Zone 7
(inside)
Zone 8
(outside)
Figure 1. The eight zones. Adapted from Fuhs (2008).

The current analysis of Integral Coaching Canada and its corresponding coaching model represents a first of
its kind for the field of coaching. My evaluation uses the eight major zones of IMP and uses data from first-,
second-, and third-person approaches, thus allowing a three-dimensional picture of coaching within an integral
context to emerge. While this analysis uses IMP as the lens through which Integral Coaching Canada is investigated, I also examine how Integral Coaching Canada is situated within the context of integral theory.
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Coaching consists of at least four distinct areas that can be evaluated: the client, the coach, the intersubjective
experience or relationship out of which coaching arises, and finally the method or model that informs how
the coaching proceeds. By applying the eight major zones to these four areas, thirty-two perspectives surface
for the analysis. In the original study, each of these perspectives was assigned a corresponding question that
guided the direction of the research. The evaluation questions represented one interpretation of those perspectives and how data were analyzed. Since the completion of the study, I have gained a deeper understanding of
the zones and this article reflects that understanding.
The main concern of the aforementioned study was to practically apply IMP to the field of coaching. In other
words, what does it mean to ask questions from the eight zones? How can those questions enhance our understanding of coaching and further the field? How can data be obtained to support the answers given? For such
an undertaking it was necessary to participate in a variety of methodologies to gather data.
The research study spanned the eight-month period of January 2007 to September 2007. The research was carried out at a masters level of education within the Integral Psychology program of John F. Kennedy University
(Pleasant Hill, CA). The purpose of the concurrent mixed methods study was to better understand a research
problem by uniting both qualitative and quantitative data through the use of first-, second-, and third-person
methods. Two modes of first-person inquiry were used to investigate the coaching models: phenomenology,
by way of my personal participation with a coach from the three schools mentioned above, and structuralism,
by way of investigating my own interiority through exterior testing and outside verification in terms of developmental levels. Second-person research occurred via hermeneutic inquiry via a post-coaching interview with
each of my coaches, and ethnomethodology as I both participated in and observed coaching sessions. During
my coaching program, within each school I held the dual role of participant of the coaching and observer of
the relationship, journaling about each of the sessions from both points of view. Third-person inquiry was done
by way of empirical research into the model of each school. Research sources included any texts pertaining
specifically to the school/model, and data derived from conducting open-ended interviews with experts in the
model.
Based on my extensive research, I chose to further my professional coach training by enrolling in Integral
Coaching Canadas Integral Coaching Certification Program (ICCP) consisting of two Modules: the Foundation & Apprenticeship Module and the Embodiment & Certification Module. I became a Certified Integral
Coach in November 2008. By going through this process, I gained a deeper understanding of the model,
as well as personal experience as an Integral Coach, which has given me the additional perspective of the
clients I have coached and the many coaching sessions I have observed. One primary principle of Integral
Coaching Canadas model is that the coach is called to bring her whole self forward in the coaching relationship. In an effort to abide by that principle, I brought the fullness of my experience forward as someone who
has researched 25 coaching models, participated as a coaching client, completed the Integral Coaching Certification Program, and become a Certified Integral Coach. The following analysis is based on data gained via
five research methodologies and evaluated across eight zones for Integral Coaching Canada.
Brief Overview: Integral Coaching Canada Inc.

Integral Coaching Canada, Inc. (ICC) was founded and developed by Master Certified Coaches Joanne Hunt
and Laura Divine, who have a combined 50 years of experience in the corporate and private sectors. Both Hunt
and Divine have taught in the field of coaching, leadership, and management development programs using a
wide range of coaching approaches, developmental models, and adult learning modalities. Their frustration
with the partial approaches that they experienced led to them construct a new coaching model, methodology,
and training pedagogy grounded in integral theory. Given ICCs advanced application of integral theory, their
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model is the first to be recognized by Ken Wilbers Integral Institute and has been deemed the most sophisticated application of integral [theory] by integral theorist Sean Esbjrn-Hargens, chair of John F. Kennedy
Universitys Integral Theory Department. In fact, as my thesis advisor at John F. Kennedy University, EsbjrnHargens originally suggested that I look into ICCs approach as part of my study of integral coaching.
According to ICC (2007), Integral Coaching is a discipline that enables a client to become more aware of
their current approach to situations, to see new possibilities and then build sustainable new competencies to
achieve outcomes that deeply matter to them. This is done through direct application of integral theory.
As noted above, ICCs training includes two modules: the five-month Module 1 (Foundation & Apprenticeship) covers coaching competencies, the coaching method, and directly applies two integral lenses (quadrants
and lines) to begin to define a clients unique AQAL Constellation, which is the unique lens through which
an individual looks at the world and is based on quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types. By the end of the
first module, apprentice coaches are also able to identify, accept, and work with what they have come to know
as their own AQAL Constellation. This directly ties into the coachs knowledge of the types of clients she is
able to work with, based on her own development. The first module is designed to enable students to work with
clients using a full subject-object method (Kegan, 1994) (covered in the zone 2 section below). Regardless of
whether coaches proceed to the next module, they are considered practicing apprentice coaches at the end of
Module 1. Many people who work inside organizations who want to become more skillful in developing and
working with teams find this module to be of great assistance. At this point the coach is also clear about the
limits of her development as a coach, given that she has had only five months training, and she knows when it
is appropriate to refer someone to a certified Integral Coach.
Module 2 (Embodiment & Certification) is nine months long. During this time, apprentice coaches receive
feedback on their ability to apply the full set of AQAL lenses (quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types) and
participate in coaching both clients and peers. Each coach also receives coaching from course instructors, is
responsible for participating in a unique personal development program based on their AQAL Constellation,
and completes written assignments. Feedback occurs in short cycles of development from a variety of sources
including mentors, course instructors, peers, clients, and ongoing self-assessment.
The ICC training program is one of the few that meets the International Coach Federation (ICF) training hour
requirement for a Master Certified Coach, which is 200+ hours of training, and their program is accredited by
the ICF at this level. (ICF is the primary international governing and accreditation body in the field of coaching.) In the remainer of the article I explore the ICC approach through each of the eight zones. While I am not
attempting a comprehensive zone analysis, I hope to highlight some of the essential ways that ICCs methodology can be understood from the perspective(s) associated with each zone. After presenting each zone I will
conclude with some meta comments on what sets ICC apart from other coaching schools.
Zone 1
Zone 1 speaks to the phenomenological experience of individuals. In this case, the coach and client both have
a direct experience of the coaching. For this zone, it is useful to ask: What is the phenomenological experience
of coach and client and how does the ICC model support that experience?
While each client will have a unique experience of being coached under the ICC model, there are some elements of that experience that seem to be common to most clients, if not all. Each client is increasingly invited
to look more deeply at his behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and the way he makes meaning. He is invited toward
new awareness of his way of being in the world and in relation to his topic. This often results in a feeling of
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diving deeply into oneself. I will provide examples throughout this article of my own experience through the
capture of my journal entries during the research process when I was coached by an ICC certified Integral
Coach:
I felt like I was inquiring into my own heart and what I found most meaningful to me
in my life. My coach kept taking me deeper, though never too fast or too far for me
to adjust. I came away from the experience feeling like I had been met in the place
of my darkest interior; like someone was holding a flashlight, and my hand, as I kept
uncovering more of myself and bringing it to the surface to show to us both. (Frost,
2007, p. 295)
The above quote illustrates another common experience for clients: a feeling of ownership of the process.
Because coaching is a dialectical experience and the ICC model has particular ways of fostering that process
(covered in zone 3), the clients feedback and participation are crucial.
The model provides two functions for attending to the interiority of the client. The first is Looking AT the client, which attends to assessments made by the coach, and is covered under zone 2. The second is called Looking AS the client, which is a resonance that the coach experiences with the interior of the client.
Looking AS the client is largely an emotional resonance, but it is a resonance with
any type of prehension that you find in a persons interior so it includes resonating
with their understanding of the world, not just their feelings about the world; and it is
a transcendental awareness perspective, if thats what the client has available in their
phenomenological field; and a trans-emotional awareness. It is basically resonating
with whatever interiors are available in the client. (Ken Wilber, personal communication, February 20, 2009)
Looking AS is entering the world of the client through the clients eyes. As is implied, Looking AS the client
is a first-person experience of anothers first-person experience. This process is covered more fully in Laura
Divines article, Looking AT and Looking AS the Client (pp. 21-40 in this issue). The focus of any coaching
work is rooted in what deeply matters to that client at that point in his life. This encompasses understanding the
clients longings, desires, and vision along with hearing and feeling into the clients disappointments, frustrations, pains, and reactivity associated with their coaching topic (ICC, 2007).
The coach is asked to feel into the arising opportunities in a clients life and the pain the client brings forth
as they wrestle with their coaching topic. This is done through a process of redirecting attention away from
assessing the client and sensing what it actually feels like to be living as this client, with this particular way
of being and topic, at this particular juncture in their life. This is a profound experience for both coach and
client. ICC describes this process as becoming like soft clay, allowing the client to leave his impression in
the mind-body-heart of the coach and to do this without unhealthily merging with the client (Joanne Hunt,
personal communication, February 27, 2007). For the coach, a high degree of vulnerability and presence must
be brought forth. Each coach is taught to monitor her own interiority by feeling into how open, flexible, vulnerable, and available she is in any given moment. The coach stays aware of her own emotions, body sensations,
and thoughts while also attending to the reactions of the client. The result is often a feeling of being deeply
present to ones direct experience while simultaneously being deeply present to the direct experience of another. As this is reflected back to the client, clients often feel profoundly seen, heard, and most importantly, felt.
The client has the opportunity to feel fully met by someone, sometimes for the first time in his life.
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I felt a profound connection to my coach, and felt seen in a way that was beyond
what I expected. I felt an immediate connection to her as her tone and manner were
incredibly inviting and authentic. I found myself completely non-defensive and curious about her insights. I always felt like she was on my side. (Frost, 2007, p. 263)
As this quote illustrates, the client is asked what he is feeling, thinking, and sensing during this process, and
as that information surfaces, the coach is able to increasingly enter the clients world, and to increasingly see
as the client.
Another way that ICC coaches feel into the direct experience of clients, and reflect it back to the client, is via
the use of metaphors. Metaphors are used to describe a clients Current Way of Being (CWOB) in the topic,
including language, perceptions, behavior, and response to stimuli, and also to describe a New Way of Being
(NWOB) in the topic that represents shifts across language, perceptions, behavior, and response. Metaphors
have the capacity to evoke emotion, and there is often an emotional response to the metaphors that are initially
presented by the coach. While metaphors are, by their very nature, limited in expressing the all of a clients
way of being, Integral Coaches are skilled at continually shifting the base metaphor to encapsulate more and
more of what arises for the client in relation to their topic. The metaphors can be seen as a story that continues
to be told through the duration of the coaching relationship. Moreover, the metaphors, as story, are told by both
the coach and client. Filling out the metaphors, as a relational process, is covered in zone 3. This is also more
fully explored in the Transformational Conversations article in this issue (pp. 69-92).
The client works with the ever-deepening metaphors over the duration of the coaching relationship. Often the
clients reaction to the CWOB metaphor is a feeling of pain, vulnerability, sadness, and sometimes humor.
According to ICC, seeing your own self-organizing system is critical in the developmental path. Parts of this
seeing can be both liberating and disturbing. The pain is associated with the client seeing the limits of his
CWOB, usually within the context of his coaching topic, and relative to his deeper intention. The joy can be
related to many aspects, including acknowledging that the client has gotten to this point because of the skills
and capacities of his CWOB, being deeply seen and honored by his coach, and feeling more freedom because
he can now see his way. This includes seeing how the inherent limits, or boundaries, in ones current way of
manifesting has actually helped bring about the coaching topic (ICC, 2007).
When I first started working with my CWOB metaphor, I remember feeling a sense of
sadness and frustration that this was how I was living my life. But I also had a sense
of relief at finally feeling understood and seeing how this way of being was creating
the problems I was having in my topic. Over time I began to simply laugh as I saw my
CWOB come up over and over. What can you do but laugh? (Frost, 2007, p. 296)
Working with the CWOB metaphor can be disorienting and uncomfortable; yet, honoring the history of the
CWOB is an important step in working with it fully. This coaching method also honors history, honors who
you have been that has gotten you to this point, without us, just fine; and theres something in that thats very
powerful for the client (Hunt, personal communication, February 27, 2007). There is also an opening and
letting go that occurs as the client begins to shift from his CWOB toward a NWOB in the topic. Over time the
CWOB will evoke less pain, and more humor, as the client gains some distance from that way of being and
begins moving toward the NWOB metaphor.
The NWOB metaphor represents the greater possibility longed for by the client. As the client begins to embody
aspects of the NWOB, there are often feelings of relief, excitement, and a greater sense of personal meaning
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and fulfillment. Eventually the client shifts in his way of being in the topic, as moving from CWOB to NWOB
reaches a critical mass. As this happens, the client sometimes experiences a sense of wonder at how easily the
topic seems to resolve. This sense of ease is directly related to perspectival shifts that the client has undergone
while moving from CWOB to NWOB (covered more extensively in zone 2).
The coach also has a direct experience of working with her own way of being. The coachs way of being can
profoundly impact the client. This is one of the reasons each coach is taught how to monitor her own phenomenological experience even while feeling into anothers first-person experience. Coaches often experience
a high degree of compassion and empathy for their clients as they feel into the clients world. Each Integral
Coach has experiencedand continues to experiencethis journey first-hand.
The horizontal and vertical developmental structures, inherent in an Integral or a fully
AQAL model, provide a map to ICC coaches that allows more capacity for compassion to grow as they comprehend and sit in the wider Integral frame. It also enables
the coach to interact with a client in a way that fully meets them (body, heart, and
mind) as the coach arrives from a place of regard, love, and appreciation. The Integral
backbone allows for both profound connection and skillful navigation of the territory.
(ICC, 2007)
In ICCs training, the coach becomes accustomed to the vulnerability of offering insights as a response to what
the client has shared. This sense of vulnerability is akin to the vulnerability felt by the client as he allows more
of himself to be seen by the coach.
Zone 2
Zone 2 is an exterior view of an individuals interior experience. In this case, it is an exploration of how an
individuals interpretive structures and meaning making contribute to that individuals interior experience. For
zone 2, the guiding question is: How are the structures of development (vertical and horizontal), of both the
coach and client, attended to in the ICC model and coaching relationship? The model provides two major tenets that speak to attending to these structures: applied AQAL methodology and subject-object theory (Kegan,
1994).
The AQAL Constellation is part of ICCs applied AQAL methodology and is comprised of information
derived from six different lenses based on quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types. These six lenses assess
vertical and horizontal structures of an individual. Each coach undergoes extensive training in assessing the
AQAL Constellation of individuals (including her own) in the Looking AT function. By Looking AT the client, or applying the six lenses, coaches are provided with an integral understanding of the clients worldview,
and how the coaching topic is viewed within the wider framework of that worldview.
Using the quadrants lens, an assessment is made of the quadrant an individual generally orients from. ICC
has comprehensively defined the way an individual sees, speaks, and behaves when orienting from each quadrant, as well as how each quadrant views, experiences, and interacts with the other quadrants.1 For example,
some individuals will naturally approach a coaching topic from the space of the Lower-Left (LL) quadrant and
would therefore generally filter everything through the lens of shared meaning, belonging, and inclusion. For
example, an individual orienting from the LL quadrant would look at content associated with the Upper-Left
(UL) quadrant and inquire into what is personally important through the lens of the larger vision of the community or group. This involves being able to Look AS the client and see through their eyes. The quadrants lens
is also used to assess capabilities across lenses (Looking AT).
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The levels of consciousness lens addresses a clients center of gravityhow meaning is made, what is valued, and how the client defines himself and seeks fulfillment. ICC has mapped each level in terms of client
language, reasoning, perspectives available, behaviors, and what the individual comes to discover as he transitions from one level to the next (i.e., vertical transformation).2 In this way, there are particular criteria that the
coach looks for when making an assessment. In keeping with integral theory, developmental growth is seen as
occurring holarchically, where the previous stage is transcended yet included in the next stage of development.
The cycles or phases of development include identification with the level, developing competency in the level,
and then disidentifying with the level as it becomes too restrictive for further growth or possibilities. For ICC
this movement is identified as wobbly (early identification with the level), solid (stabilization within the level
and development of competencies), and disintegrating (disidentification and integration).
The lines of development lens addresses an individuals growth across six lines. Lines of development are
used to help assess the clients way of being, current capabilities, and challenges. Lines assessed in the ICC
model occur in the UL quadrant and include cognitive (the awareness of what is); somatic (mind/body awareness); interpersonal (awareness of how one relates to others); spiritual (awareness of connection to something
greater than oneself); moral (awareness of what to do); and emotional (being able to access and healthily work
with the full spectrum of human emotions).3 Lines are crucial in terms of the clients coaching topic and are
always assessed with the topic in mind. ICC generally uses three levels to determine line development, which
include low (egocentric, pre-conventional), medium (ethnocentric, conventional), and high (worldcentric,
post-conventional). There are specific criteria detailed in ICC course materials that match these designations,
making them a more objective evaluation.
The states of consciousness lens follows the states an individual has access to through daily life. ICC uses
states as a further way of calibrating the overall CWOB of the client, and to refer to the experience the client
may be having across any of the quadrants.4 States are generally impermanent and are not indicative of a clients
center of gravity; however, they can hold important clues about types, orienting quadrants, and general way of
being. This is because the client will interpret any state experience based on his overall level of consciousness,
the quadrant he orients from, and the type structures he is most affiliated with or defined by. Coaches assess
clients based on what states the client generally inhabits, such as high-energy resourceful states (invigorated,
confident, joyful), low-energy resourceful states (relaxed, peaceful, serene), high-energy unresourceful states
(angry, fearful, anxious), and low-energy unresourceful states (depressed, exhausted, apathetic), as these dayto-day states usually have a direct impact on the coaching work at hand. However, coaches are also aware of
and use other state experiences to enable clients to feel into and develop wider aspects of themselves. These
more extraordinary state experiences, such as meditative and contemplative states, are also part of the training
process for Integral Coaches.
In addition to using the quadrants as a type lens, ICC uses two type structure lenses: the Enneagram lens
and the gender lens. ICC has developed rigorous materials for using the Enneagram lens in coaching work.5
The Enneagram type lens is used to gain a better understanding of preferences for behaving, underlying issues, orientation to past, present, or future, coping strategies, compensating beliefs, and lost essential qualities.
The Enneagram provides useful information about personality structures and overall tendencies of behavior/
response. It also yields information on what happens when individual personality types disintegrate into unhealthy perceptions and behaviors due to increased stress as well as what happens when these particular type
structures integrate to healthy and more self-actualized behaviors with healthy development over time.
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The gender type lens speaks to ways of being aware and ways of perceiving along masculine or feminine
styles. While it is true that each individual has access to both masculine and feminine qualities, individuals
generally operate from and develop in a preferred gender type. This is not necessary aligned with sex type (UR:
male or female). ICC teaches coaches how to assess gender developmental levels and competencies available
to a client through the gender lens.
As covered in zone 1, the AQAL Constellation is a comprehensive map that promotes both Looking AS the
client (looking out to the world through the clients eyes) and Looking AT the client (as traditional assessment
tools do). The two functions of Looking AS and Looking AT are intricately entwined, as it is through the assessments of both horizontal and vertical structures that the coach can begin to directly feel into the clients
way of being. The assessments form the matrix that holds and supports the process of dropping down into a felt
sense of the clients world. This is an important point because ICC holds that coaching will only be as effective
as the coach is able to comprehend, feel into, and have a sense of the world as the client does (Looking AS),
as best as a distinct other can, while also being able to objectively see the client (Looking AT). The Looking
AT/AS approach enables the Integral Coach to work with a client both meaningfully and rigorously.
In addition, the Integral Coaching model and its use of these six lenses is brought to life through subject-object theory and a transcend and include developmental approach. ICC holds that by developing a relationship
with a clients CWOB, a client can work with that CWOB as object, which can then become integrated over
time. The CWOB manifests from a clients AQAL Constellation, which is initially invisible to the client. It
is simply the way he sees the world, oneself and/or his topic, takes action (behavior and speech), and checks
for results based on that same perception. Integral Coaching leverages the past by inquiring into the ways of
seeing, going, and checking that have served the client in his CWOB.6 Seeing, going, and checking are the
terms ICC uses to describe the primary competencies that have been built over time, given this way of being in
the world. A clients way of seeing refers to the perceptions that result from how an individual thinks, feels, and
intuits. A clients way of going indicates what an individual says and does. A clients way of checking includes
the results, outcomes, or consequences an individual looks for to determine or assess how things are going or
how he is doing. ICC uniquely honors the structures of subjective experience as a formal step in the coaching
process. Because ICC is helping the client to move from identification with his CWOB to seeing that CWOB
as object, part of the process lies in recognizing how the CWOB has been advantageous and necessary in the
clients life. In this way there is a strong emphasis on honoring the clients historical or past-based construct.
ICC contends that the reason change is often not sustained in most attempts at transformation and growth is
that the individuals structures are resilient and re-create what has always been known, even in the face of new
insights on the part of the client. In other words, a client can take on new perspectives or goals, but their way of
carrying them out will be greatly informed by the strength of the clients well-developed and reliable CWOB,
including the muscles associated with this way of seeing, going, and checking (Hunt, personal communication, February 27, 2007).
For the client, there is a tension between the past to present and the present to future as he moves from identification with his CWOB to identification with his NWOB. There is an exquisite developmental tension
between the who have I been up until now that manifests as my CWOB and the higher possibility I now
hold for myself that is evidenced by a NWOB (ICC, 2007). This developmental tension is normal and will
persist throughout the coaching relationship as the coach helps the client to integrate aspects from his CWOB,
by leveraging wisdom (integrating the past), helping the client to see new possibilities (future), and develop
capabilities in his NWOB through integrally-designed cycles of development (present). The coach has the role
of making sure this tension is kept at a level that is conducive to development for the client.
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The client tends to experience a gradual awakening to the structure of their way of being, including their way
of seeing, going, and checking. The client begins to see how his way of relating to the topic, and to the self
within the context of the topic, directly affects the coaching topic itself. Clients come to see how the topic arose
in the first place. As the client starts to see his CWOB increasingly as object, he will see the CWOB arise in
actions, thoughts, and how he relates to self, others, and the world at large.
The client is also working on building a relationship with a NWOB until it becomes subject. The metaphors
(introduced in zone 1 and further expanded in zone 3) that describe the clients CWOB and NWOB begin to
serve as two landmarks to navigate new territory. By using a metaphor, the client has the opportunity, perhaps
for the first time, to see his CWOB from the outside-in. The metaphor offers the client a tool toward gaining
objectivity. By working with a CWOB metaphor and moving toward a NWOB metaphor that truly encapsulates the essence of what the client desires, the coach helps the client transcend and include the CWOB into a
new one that fully supports the clients coaching topic.
The NWOB supports the clients topic and a healthier development of an expanded AQAL Constellation.
The NWOB includes healthier aspects of the CWOB and represents a wider view that encompasses new possibilities and competencies embodied in a wider structural lens.
The client recognizes that if they were fully manifesting this New Way of Being, their
coaching topic would be easily supported. A client can also directly see how aspects
of their Current Way of Being prevent them from moving forward and sustaining
change in the domain of their coaching topic. (ICC, 2007)
Over time, the coach supports the development of competencies associated with a NWOB (transcend) while
continuing to develop effective ways of working with the CWOB (include). This process, enabled through a
uniquely designed coaching program, contract, or agreement (covered in zone 6), is again deeply informed by
integral theory. Moving toward the NWOB expands a clients AQAL Constellation over time. Regardless
of the growth and change in a client, they will continue to have an AQAL Constellation; it has simply grown,
widened, and adapted, yet still all on behalf of what is deeply meaningful to the client (ICC, 2007). By working directly with the metaphor, the NWOB becomes subject and the cycle continues.
The same structures are applied to the coach. While there is a degree of objectivity in assessing a clients
AQAL Constellation, as the methodology provides, there is also the fact that the coach can only process that
information through her own unique lens or AQAL Constellation:
The coach develops the ability to skillfully be aware of their own pulls based on
their AQAL Constellation and to experience it as distinct from their clients so that
they stay accurately attuned to the environment. They are trained to become more
aware of their own distinct reactions to inputs and distinctions from the environment
while remaining grounded in the Integral Coaching method. (Hunt, personal communication, August 7, 2007)
The development of a coachs way of being occurs through the many interrelated paths of ICCs Integral
Coaching Certification Program (ICCP). The first critical path involves identifying and understanding the
manifestation of ones AQAL Constellation its strengths, developmental challenges, and shadow issues.
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Another related path involves being coached through various cycles of development during the training program, including an intimate and powerful transcend and include development journey for each coach. Assignments are also completed to link the coachs coaching work with their development as their CWOB grows
into a NWOB over the term of the ICCP.
Upon graduating from ICCs program, the coach has a clear understanding of her own AQAL Constellation
and how it affects her coaching from both strength and limitation perspectives (Laura Divine, personal communication, February 22, 2007). Because the coach is well-versed in how to shift from identification to disidentification, she is more readily able to help others do the same.
And, of course, the key development path is the process of becoming an Integral Coach, including all the
related competencies that coaches will need in order to enter the complex field of professional coaching. The
coach is expected to attend to their subjective experience, including a sense of openness, appreciation, integrity, sensing ability, intuition, honesty, groundedness, and compassion. Additionally, there are ICF-regulated
competencies that the coach attends to throughout the coaching process. Each of these competencies exists
across all four quadrants.7 The competencies are in alignment with ICF standards, although they have been expanded in the ICC model to reflect an integral understanding of each competency. The 11 ICF core competencies are: 1) adhering to ethical guidelines and professional standards; 2) establishing the coaching agreement;
3) establishing trust and intimacy; 4) developing coaching presence; 5) active listening; 6) powerful questioning; 7) direct communication; 8) creating awareness; 9) designing actions; 10) planning and goal setting; and
11) managing progress and accountability. These competencies will be revisited below in my discussion of
zones 4, 6, and 8 as they relate to those quadrants.
From an UL-quadrant perspective, let us briefly look at ICF competencies, each of which requires the coach
to take an exterior view of interior experience. ICC coaches are expected to understand and apply the ICF
standards of conduct and ethical guidelines, to understand the differences between coaching and other support professions, to monitor those boundaries within the coaching relationship, and to have the ability to pick
up somatic cues, including witnessing ones own sensing body. In establishing a coaching agreement, which
is simply the formal agreement between coach and client that governs the parameters of the relationship, the
coach has the responsibility of having a deep awareness of her own limitations and strengths. In establishing
trust and intimacy with the client, the coach is expected to have an intimacy and care of the self, and to develop
a deep appreciation of the human experience, including its joys and struggles, each of which call for a witnessing of interior experience.
In developing coaching presence, coaches need to access and trust intuition, or ones inner sense of knowing,
and to reflect on how that inner knowing is shaped by their AQAL Constellation. For active listening, the
coach must have a capacity for deep silence within the self in order to create space to hear others; an understanding of her own way of being so as not to confuse or merge herself with the client; and an ability to listen
to her own deepest self, which gives rise to the capability of listening for deep voices within the client.
For powerful questioning, the coach should have the ability to deeply question herself and inquire into her
own life, and an ability to access first-, second- and third-person perspectives in an effort to separate her own
perspectives from those of other. Direct communication requires that the coach have the ability to name and
work with her own strong emotions; the ability to sit with both silence and talking; and to build the internal
capacity for direct feedback, including that which occurs through being coached. Creating awareness requires
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the coach to integrate, evaluate and interpret multiple sources of information and to differentiate between
ones own awareness and awareness in others.8
In designing actions, the coach must be able to determine which types of actions she tends to prefer/not prefer
or to design/not design, and to look objectively at those preferences. The coach must understand and be aware
of her own tendencies of planning and goal setting, pushing for results, and the value of other ways. Finally,
the coach must be aware of her own reaction to feedback and accountability so as to avoid projection of that
reaction onto the client, be aware of her own tendencies toward enforcing accountability, and have the ability
to sit with strong emotions as she manages progress and accountability in others.
There is a way that a coach processes information whether they realize it or not. As an Integral Coach, each
person needs to develop insight into his current patterns while also building the ability to hold the tension of
developmental non-equilibrium in themselves and on behalf of their client. To do this healthily, coaches need
to be with the non-equilibrium that the client is experiencing without merging with it or losing distinct perspectives (Hunt, personal communication, August 7, 2007).
Divine and Hunt hold that in order to embody the capacities necessary to be a certified Integral Coach,
one must, at minimum, be able to hold a third-person perspective and have the overall level of conventional/
achiever (orange altitude), moving toward the post-conventional/individualist level (green altitude) (Divine
and Hunt, personal communication, February 22, 2007). From ICCs perspective, it is only as an individual
begins to enter post-conventional, Kegans fourth-order consciousness that enough of the integral map comes
online (i.e., embodied awareness) to be used in full, elegant service to a client.
These minimum requirements are linked to the self-reflective abilities associated with early orange altitude.
Until the coach enters orange altitude, she does not have stable access to the perspective that people interpret
situations differently, or the ability to step back and review her own behavior, interpretations, expectations,
standards, and so on. This minimum altitude requirement is what is required to begin having access to the
capacities needed to Look AS and to Look AT the client. Yet to fully comprehend a client, Looking AT their
AQAL Constellation and then Looking AS the client based upon their AQAL Constellationand doing
so with a full appreciation of what the aspects of these constellations actually look like and feel likerequires
access to a post-conventional/strategist (teal altitude) cognitive capacity. This is important because to fully see,
understand, and appreciate the client and their AQAL Constellation requires the capacity to take perspectives on perspectives on perspectives, as well as having an integral understanding of development. Therefore,
while a coach does not need to be living from a teal altitude to provide valuable coaching services, as a coachs
experience, perspectives, and capacities grow, so does their ability to serve a wider and wider first-tier and
second-tier clientele.
Lines are also addressed for the development of a coachs way of being, in much the same way that development occurs for the client.
When we look at the development of our coaches, weve defined the ways of being
associated with the mind of a coach, the heart of a coach, the body of a coach, the
relations of a coach, the spirit of a coach, and the morals of a coach. These are core
areas of embodiment in developing the way of being of an Integral Coach. (Divine
and Hunt, personal communication, February 22, 2007)
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ICC helps coaches identify lines that are noticeably low and requires a certain minimum level of acuity for certification. Additionally, the coach uses state and type lenses to clarify her AQAL Constellation and identify
the set of competencies needed to embody her NWOB as she steps into the complex field of Integral Coaching
and the coaching relationship.
For the coach, the model contains checks and balances to ensure she is frequently assessing her own interiority.
For every coaching conversation, there is a process of self-assessment that requires the coach to refer back to
her own experience. The ICC coach I worked with during my research described self-inquiry in coaching as
both demanding and difficult, but also profoundly rewarding in that it changes her way of being in the world
(ICC Coach, personal communication, February 22, 2007). She explained that during the course of coaching,
she has ample opportunity to engage in her own development by looking deeply at both her successes and
challenges. But more than anything, ICCs Integral Coaching model provides the structure from which she
can assess that growth and the structure it takes. In her opinion, the model views the coach as bringing her own
perspective, experience, talents, and shortcomings to the table, which provides a place where she can grow,
contribute, and make the desired impact while honoring the entirety of who she is.
Zone 3
Zone 3 addresses the we space between coach and client. It is the subjective experience of that space as
shared by both individuals participating in the coaching work. In other words, it is the place where the individual experience of each intersects, and is therefore true for both. For this zone the guiding question is: What
is the nature of the mutual resonance (thinking, feeling, sensing) between coach and client in regards to the
intersubjective container and coaching relationship, as supported by the ICC model? Thus the focus is on
shared meaning between coach and client and their dialogical encounter.
The coaching relationship is the primary vehicle through which the client develops. It is the place clients
bring their desires, pain, hopes, and difficulties. The shared experience between coach and client varies from
relationship to relationship, given the complex intersubjective space of two AQAL Constellation manifestations. It is a coming together of two people on behalf of the client and their coaching topic. It is the dynamic
between the two that allows the rich coaching terrain to develop. At times this terrain may be challenging,
humorous, powerful, or even silent. The relationship is an organic container that is shaped by both the client
and coach, and is informed by the experience of the client, as he progresses in the coaching work. Within that
container the client is supported by the coach during periods of discomfort, joy, worry, resistance, paradox,
opening, letting go, desire, and emergence. The client has the opportunity to experience, sometimes for the first
time, the feeling of having someone deeply resonate with their unique way of being in the world. This offers a
meaningful sense of connection to another that allows the client to feel comfortable in venturing forth with an
ever-widening sense of vulnerability. The coach also comes forward with vulnerability that is strengthened by
the shared space, as the coach offers insights and perspectives that often land powerfully with and for the client, but sometimes do not. The coach steps into the shared space and invites the client to do the same, making
the process of coaching an intricate give-and-take relationship.
While relative experience and being grounded in a particular methodology help shape a coachs way of being,
ultimately the effectiveness and power of the relationship itself will determine the success of the coaching engagement. Basic compatibility is a must for both coach and client, yet the feeling of compatibility rests within
the broader structure of the methodology. Resonating together or having a sense of compatibility is a manifestation of how the coach and clients AQAL Constellations come together and interact in a relationship.
Coaches must be able to enter the clients perspective, to feel into what it must be like to be this human being
(Looking AS the client). If the coach is unable to meet the client in this space, to see from the clients perspecJournal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1
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tive, or to generate compassion for the client, then basic coaching compatibility cannot be met. Likewise, a
coach who has an AQAL Constellation that is very similar to a clients may feel a deep connection and sense
of compatibility, but without the ability to view the client objectively (Looking AT the client), possibly biasing
the coaching. In this way compatibility between coach and client is actually based on numerous aspects, not
simply the question, Do we like each other?
A useful metaphor for the dynamic between coach and client is caving. The coach is the guide, showing the client how to navigate the descent into the cave, which is the deeper territory of the clients life, wherein the topic
rests. Yet both are connected to the same ropes and carabiners. Every pull on the rope, from either party, is felt
by the other and just the right amount of tension in the rope is desired. In the same way, the coach guides the
client into ever-deepening awareness of her way of being in the world and in the topic. In caving, it is through
ones body weight that the other is supported and held. In coaching, the coach brings his full self forward, using all of her weight, so to speak. The coach is pressing in with her presence, creating an experience of support
for the client, yet is also supported by the client as he meets the coach in the unknown. By gauging the breadth
and depth of the conversations and practice design, the coach keeps just the right amount of tension in the rope
between the past (who the client has been up until now) and the future (who the client is becoming). In the
relationship, it is as though both parties carry flashlights. Insights are not the exclusive domain of the coachit
is through the arising perspectives of both coach and client that the experience deepens, and new insights are
yielded to both. In much the same way, every conversation is a co-creation between the coach and client.
The coach is guided in every conversation toward the ultimate intention of the client. As the relationship
deepens, the bond of trust grows and the relationship is given sustenance to go even deeper. It is through the
constant give and take, the play between coach and client, that the coaching experience becomes uniquely personal. There exists the possibility for a deep sense of intimacy to arise in this give and take, as the client and
coach face the unknown together. During this journey the client is held and supported in a non-judgmental container by another, who has traveled his own unique transcend and include developmental journey. Sometimes
the coach will lead, but as the client grows into his NWOB, the client also leads. As the client begins to see
shifts in his approach to his topic, the relationship shifts to support the client in becoming more self-authoring,
in taking more of the weight of the relationship.
In caving, the right equipment can mean the difference between life and death. Similarly, a strong coaching
methodology can mean the difference between long-term sustained change and short-term behavioral shifts.
In much the same way that that the metaphor of caving describes the shared experience of coach and client
in Integral Coaching, metaphors provide a rich texture of shared language and meaning in which the coach
and client can explore the clients way of being in their coaching topic (covered in depth in the zone 7 section
below). The process of arriving at the right metaphorsthrough reshaping what is originally offered by the
coachis a profoundly dialectical process that creates a bond built on trust, intimacy, and an aura of co-created
transformation, which shapes how each experiences the other in a relationship.
I find that when [the metaphors] are a bit off, that even creates a greater sense of bond
and understanding because we have to work together to shift that, so that it feels like
its accurately getting that person. I would characterize the experienceas one of real
intimacy, in that we were to some degree at or near the essence of [the client], in this
topic. (ICC Coach, personal communication, July 5, 2007)
Getting to the essence of the client and topic can occur through the co-creation or shifting of the metaphors
that are first introduced by the coach. This process has a direct effect on the success of the engagement, which
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is why telling the story of the metaphors continues across the entire coaching relationship. Both the coach and
client enter into the rest of the coaching work with shared meaning and a shared vision for where the client is
ultimately headed. In sum, the metaphor process is both a hallmark and a demonstration of the models intelligent, sensitive, productive, and LL-supporting design (Clint Fuhs, personal communication, November 19,
2008).
Zone 4
Zone 4 looks at the outside of the relationship between a coach and client. It seeks to understand the components necessary to build that relationship. The guiding question for this zone is: What does the intersubjective
container look like from a participant-observational stance, and how is that container cultivated by the ICC
model and coaching relationship? Thus, this zone highlights the cultural context and how the coach and client
interactions are informed by social norms and dynamics. This context includes the shared cultural structures
and patterns between coach and client.
From the exterior, coaching often looks like a very intimate conversation. For ICC, there is a particular way
that intimacy is created, as well as a particular structure that enables the conversation to continue to serve the
client. ICC calls this building the container for coaching (Hunt, personal communication, August 7, 2007).
To someone who is observing coaching, it very much seems to be a container that holds the parties involved
and shuts out distractions. The coach facilitates the building of the container, which draws the client into the
shared field. There might be periods of animation, emotional expression, or even silence. There seems to be
a dance between coach and client as they negotiate the clients journey together. The coach serves as catalyst
and witness to the clients growth, supporting and mirroring the clients journey toward the change sought. As
described in zone 3, there is a distinct give and take, a co-creation of the relationship that is observable through
language, body language, and shared behavior.
Building the coaching container is dependent upon the same competencies covered in zone 2, but with a focus on the LL quadrant.9 In terms of the 11 ICF competencies, ICC coaches maintain ethical guidelines and
professional standards by attuning to when the client needs additional resources and by making the client
comfortable enough to raise difficult topics. The coaching agreement allows the client and coach to reach a
mutual understanding about what is and is not appropriate in the relationship, and outlines the responsibilities
of each. The coach should be able to monitor adherence to the agreement and speak to the agreement when
necessary. The coach establishes trust and intimacy by tuning into what is important to the client, showing
genuine concern for the clients welfare, creating a safe environment, knowing when to move forward in space
and direction, when to hold back, and by respecting the clients perceptions. Following is a brief examination
of the other ICF competencies through the lens of the intersubjective space.
Another aspect of building the container is the presence of the coach. ICC coaches remain flexible, open,
and attentive in conversations, allowing space for strong emotions, silence, humor, struggle, and anything else
that might arise for the client. Presence includes the ability to meet the client exactly where he is, with respect
to his growth, perspective, and what capacities are available in any given moment. It also includes a physical
manifestation of all those qualities in the body of the coach. Another competency that must be developed in
the coach is active and empathic listing, which includes the ability to focus completely on the clients words,
as well as the context of what is being said in relation to the overriding values, desires, and beliefs of the client.
Additionally, the coach must be able to cut through long narratives to get to the essence of what the client is
communicating, a skill some coaches have difficulty developing.
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Powerful questioning requires the coach to ask questions that ensure understanding what the client is saying;
understanding the appropriate depth and scale to question a client; and facilitating awareness beyond where the
client could go on his own. Direct communication aids the container by promoting continued inquiry, rather
than assumptions on behalf of the coach; being respectful and checking out words and meaning with the client; the ability to sit with the clients discomfort; and calibrating communication based upon the coach/client
agreement.
Creating awareness includes using inquiry to facilitate greater understanding; speaking to the clients underlying concerns, thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, emotions, moods, actions, behaviors, and body to identify factors
that contribute to his CWOB; allowing wisdom to arise from the client, rather than assuming insights from the
coach are more valuable or the only truth possible; identifying strengths and limitations of the CWOB; and
expressing insights in a way that is both meaningful and useful to the client. In designing actions, the coach
works with the client in developing practices that stretch beyond the clients normal range of actions, helps
the client to integrate new ideas and concepts, and challenges the client with new perspectives. The coach also
provides immediate support to the client, celebrates successes, and encourages self-discovery.
Planning and goal setting contribute to the container by allowing the coach to track what is meaningful to the
client. It is also a way to ensure there is shared understanding and shared meaning, and that the coach is updated when the client experiences any internal changes. In managing progress and accountability, the container
is impacted by the coachs ability to acknowledge the clients follow through, or inability to follow through, on
agreements; the ability to acknowledge what the client has learned or become aware of; the ability to stay open
to changes of direction as the client progresses; and the ability to keep the client on track during sessions. The
sum of these competencies contribute to a container that allows the coach to discern shared meaning, listen and
speak skillfully, connect to and appreciate the client, understand the roles and responsibilities of both parties,
and to determine the most meaningful and effective way to work together.
According to Divine and Hunt, ICC recognizes that Integral Coaching is a relationship between equals, in that
coach and client have equal ground; yet, each is an expert in crucial ways. The client is expert in the domain
of his own life, just as a business client is expert in the domain of his field of business. The coach, on the other
hand, has functional expertise in applying the Integral Coaching development model, building new capabilities and competencies, and contributing expertise in a particular topic or domain.
The coach and client are not mutually disclosing (like friends would be) but work from the premise that it is a
deeply intimate connection to be in development with another human being (Divine and Hunt, personal communication, August 28, 2007). The coaching relationship may arise out of other types of relationships such as
manager/employee or mentor/mentee, and it is vital that the coach is able to move between these relationship
types as cleanly as possible, communicating directly with the client about which role she is assuming in the
conversation. In ICCs coach training, coaches learn to establish clear roles, expectations, and boundaries at
the beginning of the relationship, which help to set up a context of shared meaning and understanding.
Additionally, the coach remains aware of her own experience, where the relationship is in the formal coaching
process, how she is connecting with the client, and tools to assess how she is doing as a coach, which also has
an impact on the shared space. The methodology provides the structure through which the coach and client
contribute to the shared space and relate to one another. The container, competencies, relationship parameters,
and coachs self-monitoring work to cultivate authentic, powerful we spaces between coach and client.
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Zone 5
Zone 5 addresses self-regulation and self-sustainment. A useful question for this zone in relation to coaching
is: In the ICC model, how are clients supported in developing new ways of seeing and doing such that change
can be sustained over time? In other words, clients interface with their environments in predictable patterns as
a result of their historical ways of perceiving and responding to their circumstances. So how does the structure
of the ICC processin particular its four coaching conversationsallow the client to register new realities in
their world and then sustain those insights through practices? Or to use the language of autopoiesis: how does
the ICC coaching method support a client in shifting from their current structural coupling with their world to
a new structural coupling that addresses their topic effectively?
Coaching as a system promotes a certain level of disequilibrium. The pull of development moves the individual or group from one structure with which it is identified (CWOB) to another (NWOB). The very process of
this move causes a disequilibrium state, and yet using the CWOB and NWOB as structural parameters allows
the coach and client to continue to find equilibrium at each point in their journey. The relationship serves to
support the clients journey of integrating his CWOB as object and developing the competencies necessary for
manifesting a NWOB that directly supports his coaching topic. This dual movement occurs in the context of
four types of coaching conversations that take place throughout the coaching contract. In the ICC model, the
specific structure of the coaching conversations allows the relationship to be sustained and refreshed over time
(Hunt, personal communication, August 28, 2007). The structure acts as a navigational tool, the idea being that
it allows coach and client to relax more fully into the moment that is arising. Each of the four types of conversations has a different flow and purpose (see Transformational Conversations, pp. 69-92 in this issue).
Briefly, the first conversation is the Intake Coaching Conversation. Its purpose is to establish a connection between the coach and client, to get to know one another, and to determine their level of resonance and compatibility. The client is given the opportunity to talk about his topic, what it means to him, and why it is important
at that particular time. During the Intake Conversation, the objective is to get to know the client as fully as
possible across all quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types. In each of the subsequent conversations the coach
revisits the clients AQAL Constellation to refine it over time and to further enter the clients world. In this
way, the structures of Looking AS and Looking AT contribute to sustaining change over time for the client.
The coach and client meet the second time for the Offer Coaching Conversation. This conversation tends to
cement a further intimate bond as the coach and client enter into a co-creative space with metaphors that represent the clients CWOB and NWOB in his topic. Through this exchange, the client takes ownership of the
metaphors and experiences a great degree of freedom as he works with the metaphor to accurately represent
the topic.
Once the metaphors are sufficiently filled out through this dialectical process, the coach offers an introductory
set of practices designed to build specific competencies in the client, enabling a shift to a NWOB in his topic.
The overarching competencies become the coaching developmental objectives. The client is again offered an
opportunity to provide feedback and help to shift the practice design, or the competencies, to make the coaching work powerful and unique to the client and topic. The dialectical process that represents the Offer Coaching Conversation continues throughout the coaching relationship, thus serving as another structure to help the
client sustain change and ensuring customized and dynamic coaching objectives over time.
The third type of conversation is called the Cycle of Development Coaching Conversation, which occurs every two to three weeks until the developmental objectives are sufficiently met. During each cycle the coach
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presents a new practice set that is designed for the specific place in the process the client inhabits, as he moves
toward embodiment of the NWOB. The coaching work evolves with the clients development as practices
are designed one at a time, initially by the coach. Over time, the client becomes more able to design practices
from the perspective of his NWOB, and has more influence on practice design. Near the end of the coaching
contract, the client starts to design practices from a NWOB that is beginning to stabilize.
Once the competencies are stably developed and the coaching objectives are met, the Completion Coaching
Conversation takes place. The Completion Conversation acts as a celebration of what the client has accomplished and a review of the coaching work done over the term of the agreement. The coach is always providing space for the client to come forward with feedback, new awareness, and embodiment. Because trust and
intimacy have been cultivated over time, the bond between coach and client is often quite profound and observable to others. The re-establishment of trust and intimacy over the course of every coaching session, as an
actual step in the methodology, provides an additional structure for supporting change over time.
Zone 6
Zone 6 tracks observable behaviors, or the outside of individuals. For zone 6, it is important to understand:
What are the elements of observable behavior, for both coach and client, within the structure of the coaching
relationship in the ICC model? This includes many of the practices that clients enage in as new doings as
they build new capacities. It also includes the body in numerous ways (e.g., posture, breath, energy), as working with the physical and energetic body is essential for deep, long-lasting change to occur in clients.
ICCs model supports both vertical and horizontal transformation (ICC, 2007). Growth can occur on either the
horizontal axis (e.g., in the form of developing competencies to enable a healthier expression) or the vertical
axis (as clients navigate an altitude shift). Coaches are trained to look across the full AQAL Constellation to
identify areas that need further development as well as areas that can be leveraged.
As covered in the zone 2 section, behavior (body, actions, speech) is linked to all aspects of the AQAL Constellation. An ICC coach is trained to pay particular attention to the observable behavior of the client as part of
the assessment component of the model (Looking AT). Likewise, a coach is trained to pay attention to his own
behavior and how it corresponds to his AQAL Constellation, especially in the context of coaching sessions.
As the client or coach begins to work with practices that are designed to build capacities, behavior shifts along
with the capacities being targeted, regardless of which quadrants, lines, levels, states, or types are highlighted.
Practices regularly ask the individual to work with a new way of behaving (practices) in particular situations,
and as such it is possible to change behavior while working with capacities that are located at any point within
the clients AQAL Constellation. Over time, this new behavior becomes integrated into the individuals way
of being. The coaching relationshipand related conversationsmay also provide the first location where a
client has the opportunity to practice a new behavior. Part of the process might include the coach modeling the
desired behavior for the client.
Using the lines of development, the coach may create a practice that focuses on one or several lines. For instance, a client with medium to low development in the emotional line might practice staying with strong emotions in self and in the company of others; whereas a client with medium to low development in the spiritual
line might be given a mindfulness practice as their first step in a developmental cycle. In a somatic line example, a client who has low self-esteem and experiences self-doubt can often collapse through the shoulders; if
this client also has a frail, thin body, that client may benefit greatly from upper body weight lifting. The weight
lifting would give that client a greater sense of strength, personal power, and self-possession.
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Using the gender type lens, a feminine-oriented client may need to develop the competency of agency (masculine quality) in order to ask for a raise. In combination, say, with the above example, he may need to work
on developing leg strength in his somatic development (perhaps specific yoga postures) so that he can stand
with more authority. A masculine-oriented client may need to build on connection and relationship building
(feminine qualities) in order to bring a team together toward a common goal.
ICC coaches are required to develop competencies that have a direct impact on the coachs behavior and contain particular UR nuances.10 For example, the coach is bound by ethical guidelines and professional standards
of behavior, and must behave consistently with those standards. The coach establishes the coaching agreement,
taking into account her own capabilities in the method, and what she can in fact offer the client, as well as her
level of embodiment as a coach. The coach establishes trust and intimacy by staying present for the client, and
by using appropriate speed, vocal tonality, and other abilities suited to that particular client.
The coachs developmental practices outside of the coaching relationship also directly impact the coachs
behavior within the relationship. Integral Coaches engage in practices that cultivate presence and the ability to attend to whatever arises for the client. The coach also engages in body practices that pave the way for
action and inaction, open space and movement. Coaches practice engaging the senses, sitting still in listening
and in meditation, and develop a container as part of building their coaching presence. Specific Integral Life
Practices are used for all coaches in their development through the ICCP.
In further exploring the ICF competencies through this zone, the competency of powerful questioning requires the coach to have a deep questioning practice and increase her knowledge so as to have those questions
answered either internally (through writing practice) or externally (through reading, research, etc.). Coaches
practice direct speech and skillful means in conversations and engage in somatic practices that enable one
to find words for what one senses; practices that widen the self are also enacted, including studying integral
models and getting feedback on embodiment of the method. By engaging in these practices, the coach feels
the resistance that comes up for clients, which is one way the tension between past and present shows up behaviorally, and is a natural part of the coaching process. The coach must also monitor her own accountability
and manage results with an eye toward self-correction as needed. ICC also stresses the importance of regular
exercise and proper diet.
Another aspect of observable behavior, for the coach, is that of designing practices. Coaches engage in designing practices for self and others and also engage in new actions as part of their own developmental paths. The
entire AQAL Constellation is considered in practice design, and in any reflective questions that accompany
the practice. Generally the practice includes a series of reflective questions designed to support insights, register development, and track the expansion of learning over time.
A clients level of participation directly impacts the outcome of the coaching relationship. The client participates in new actions that support new skills and learning. The client reports on successes and challenges,
within the context of practices and objectives, asks questions, makes statements of shifting perspective, and
demonstrates acquisition of new capabilities. The client co-creates the coaching relationship and metaphors
through active communication. As the client grows more skillful in carrying out practices and moving toward
a NWOB, he assumes more responsibility for practice design. The client is also responsible for adhering to the
agreement and the parameters of what is appropriate behavior between coach and client. Action by both the
coach and client is required to meet the objectives in a coaching relationship.
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Zone 7
In zone 7, the focus is on the inside of collective exteriors. For this zone it is useful to ask: In the ICC model,
how does language usage affect and determine resonance of shared action, behavior, and value expression
between the coach and client? There are three major types of language that determine shared resonance in the
ICC model: the clients language, based on his AQAL Constellation, the CWOB and NWOB metaphors,
and shared Integral Coaching vocabulary. In particular, this zone is highlighting the ways that the language
systems involved with the coaching process play a major role in what can and cannot be attended to. If there
is inadequate language or a lack of language in any of these contexts, then certain realities, distinctions, and
insights will not be registered. Language systems regulate what can be attended toso ideally a coaching approach will have a robust language system of distinctions so that they can register and include more of a client
and their topic.
As shared resonance is crucial for the success of the coaching relationship, language usage is a very important
element in Integral Coaching. In the ICC coaching method, the processes of Looking AS and Looking AT the
client enable the coach to determine what language will most lead to shared resonance. The quadrant a client
generally orients from has specific language attached to it. Adding the clients overall center of gravity, lines
profile, state access, and type structures makes for an impressive array of possibilities in terms of the language
that the client uses to address the topic and the coaching. Additionally, once the coach has determined the
clients AQAL Constellation, the coach can use language to push the edges of the clients development,
introducing terms or perspectives that continue to expand, grow, and awaken the client.
There is a balance between the rigor of the method and the intuitive dance between the coach and client. Part
of this balance includes finding language and metaphor for both what is already present and what is emerging.
Metaphor plays a significant role in the language used to help the client move from the CWOB to the NWOB.
In fact, it is through adopting the metaphors offered that the first measure of objectification takes place. The
ability to reference the metaphor occurs first in language before moving to thought and action. In the words of
Robert Kegan (1994):
Metaphorical language offers the benefit of engaging the left and the right side of
the brain simultaneously, combining the linear and the figurative, the descriptive and
participative, the concrete and the abstract...metaphor addresses the internal circumstances of being a maker of meaning-structures. The client may find that, drawn to put
his hand to reshaping it, he is engaged in reshaping the very way he knows. (p. 260)
Using metaphors this way also enables the client to hold the developmental tension of who the client has been
and who the client is longing to become, and allows self-knowing to become stronger and more enabling of development. What weve actually found is that being able to hold your CWOB in one hand and your NWOB in
your other hand enables self-awareness and access almost from the very beginning (Divine and Hunt, personal communication, February 22, 2007). In fact, as the client becomes more able to generate and own insights
and integration, the language he uses begins to take on a distinctive flavor of the NWOB, which has a wider
perspective-taking competency inherent in it. The NWOB metaphor is a tool that increases the clients ability
to observe how to change language, among other factors, in order to embrace and embody the NWOB.
In Integral Coaching, shared vocabulary and concepts actually create the possibility of shared, collaborative
action. By introducing the terms Current Way of Being and New Way of Being, both coach and client have a
beginning and ending point to work from, within the context of the coaching relationship. When speaking to
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the CWOB and NWOB, the coach might introduce the concepts of seeing, going, and checking. This further
elucidates the metaphors and provides additional shared vocabulary. The metaphors are also described in
terms of what is allowed for and what is limiting in a particular CWOB, and these insights serve to simplify
the strengths and limitations of unique ways of being. Terms like developmental objectives, competencies, and
muscles are used to describe capacities the client is building and help to align expectations. Terms like insights,
awareness, and embodiment are used to describe shifts that occur for the client. The idea of practice rather than
perfection is inherent in the term practices, which describes actions the client takes throughout the coaching
work to develop new skills and capacities. Each of these terms and concepts work to unite the coach and client
toward the shared purpose of the client realizing a NWOB in their topic. Finally, it should be mentioned that
the term AQAL Constellation, while not shared with the client per se, allows the coach to enter the coaching
relationship in a particular way that creates the space necessary for the client to show up authentically and be
appreciated as a dynamic and multidimensional being. As Sean Esbjrn-Hargens commented (personal communication, December 31, 2008), The language of the [ICC] coaching method allows the coach to see the
client in their integral fullness.
Zone 8
For zone 8, the outside of collective exteriors is introduced. This includes structures that support dynamics of
interaction. For this zone, it is useful to look at the following: In the ICC model and coaching relationship,
what structures attend to shared behavior, language, systems, and processes between the coach and client?
In other words, what are the roles occupied by the coach and client, what are the specific functions of each of
these roles, and how do they fit into the larger system of the coaching methodology?
The coach is responsible for both staying within the framework of the system as well as making the appropriate adjustments that keep that framework fluid for the client. Because the assessment of a clients AQAL
Constellation is fluid rather than fixed, coaches learn to calibrate their coaching work in terms of language,
scale, depth, breadth, and style to the clients profile over time. In this way, the systemic pattern of the method
provides for movement and change in the conversation at every turn. An important point arises when Looking
AT the model. The principles included within the model, as well as the aspects of lenses, process, method, and
structure, are applied in the same way with each client, regardless of the clients AQAL Constellation or
topic. The coaching program or agreement is uniquely designed, but the model remains stable. Inherent in the
model is the necessity to become attuned to and oriented by each clients unique worldview, level of development, and focus of development. So, while there is a customization with every client, the essential coaching
model remains intact (ICC, 2007).
By remaining intact, the model allows for the unique advantage of one coach being able to seamlessly pick up
on a clients program where another has left off. This is especially important for clients who are transferred
to new locations and want to continue their coaching work in person (vs. phone calls with the old coach).
The structure of ICCs work enables this transfer of a client to a new coach to occur without disruption for
clients.
A coachs developmental objectives serve as a shared structure within the formal coaching agreement. Both
guide the coach and client to the next step in the process. The penultimate objectives for the coaching program
are increased awareness, embodiment, and self-generation within the clients topic.
The client is now bringing forward more insight and is beginning to generate shifts
in their world. This progresses until the coaching agreement is complete: where
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the client has built the awareness needed, has embodied the new competencies and
worldview needed (CWOB transcended and included to NWOB), and is able to generate continued change and development moving forward on their own. (ICC, 2007)
Awareness speaks to the ability of the client to be self-aware, to self-assess, and to self-adjust within the frames
of their CWOB and NWOB wisdom. Embodiment means developing new capabilities that will sustain change
over time. This includes the ability to draw on talents and capabilities associated with their CWOB (include)
and the new embodiment associated with the clients NWOB (transcend). Self-generation is the ability to carry
on without being reliant on the coach. It includes an ability to sense next steps in ones development and to take
action without the need for another to design practices.
There are certain competencies the coach must develop to be effective in this zone. The coach must have the
ability to clearly communicate distinctions between coaching and other professions, as well as to refer the
client to another form of support or resource when appropriate. The coach must be able to speak to difficult
topics as they arise for the client. Clearly communicating relationship logistics (e.g., fees, scheduling, etc.) is
also part of this zone.
Determining whether there is a match between the coach and client, and discussing options if there is not a
fit, is an important capacity for the coach. The coach must consistently demonstrate honesty, sincerity, and
integrity in the coaching relationship by keeping promises, being on time, asking permission, and giving the
client space as needed. Shifting perspectives, taking risks, experimenting, and being flexible are all important
for cultivating coaching presence. Being able to choose the most effective way to work with a client among
several possibilities is also important for the coach.
The coach must attend to the clients agenda without bias, criticism, or attachment. The capability of active listening allows for mirroring back and deepening insight as to what the client has said promoting understanding,
clarity, reinforcement, and encouragement. The coach also builds on what the client offers in the sessions. By
asking open-ended questions, the coach challenges assumptions, creates greater clarity, reveals important information and allows for further discover and insight for the client. Questions can also be directional, designed
to move the client toward the NWOB. Coaches choose the best language to have positive impact, provide
feedback, illustrate a point, or reframe ideas to illustrate another perspective.
The coach also speaks to objectives, practices, and the flow of each conversation, setting client expectations.
The coach facilitates greater understanding by communicating broader perspectives, speaking to disparities,
assessing client concerns, and designing practices that support greater awareness and growth. The coach must
speak to patterns that continue to show up for the client as well as new possibilities, points of view, and actions.
Finally, the coach develops and maintains an effective coaching plan that has realistic, specific, measurable,
and timely results, making adjustments to that plan as the client follows their developmental trajectory. Each
of these competencies has the overall effect of developing structures, establishing appropriate measurements,
and monitoring the coaching environment.
Conclusion
There are many differences among coaching models. This final section synthesizes the primary differences
that ICC brings to the field of coaching in terms of: 1) the theory of development from which the model arises;
2) the way the model is used to understand the client; and 3) the formal methodology, which is based on the
aforementioned factors. This section draws on the findings of my original study and an in-depth analysis of
three coaching schools models and a review of over 20 additional models (Frost, 2007).
114
ICC takes an integral approach in their view of human development, synthesizing the research of a pool of
experts in various areas such as ego development, values development, self-identity development, moral development, cognitive development, and levels of consciousness. ICC is the only model among the models
surveyed that incorporates many different theorists across multiple disciplines of human experience in order to
create a model that is grounded in integral theory.
In terms of way of being, ICC holds that each client has a way of seeing, going, and checking. It is not simply
the way a client perceives, but rather what actions are taken, and how the client processes the consequences of
those actions or checks for results. These three elements form a tight circle that can stay intact over time. It is
only through understanding from which quadrant the client orients, which quadrant capacities are privileged
and developed, which altitude the client perceives and acts, which more or less developed lines the client
draws upon, which states are stably accessed, and what type structures exist for a particular client that a coach
can understand their AQAL Constellation. Because ICC is grounded in integral theory, the model does not
favor any particular domain of the clients experience, be it emotional, physiological, cultural, or social.
ICC uses the methods of Looking AS and Looking AT the client to establish both objective and subjective
views. Looking AT includes in-depth measurable assessments across all AQAL elements, while Looking AS is
a dropping down into an intuitive, multi-perspectival space to understand and feel the topic as the client sees
and feels. This requires the ability of coaches to Look AS and Look AT the client while also being aware of
their own ways of Looking AS and Looking AT. Among the coaching models surveyed, ICC was the only one
that offered complex perspective taking, understanding, and related competency building to support Looking
AS in their methodology.
ICC has rigorous methods of individually assessing quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types that can be duplicated with the same set of objective standards by any coach from their school. ICC also provides rigorous
self-assessment standards as one moves into a NWOB as a coach. Subject-object theory is employed as a
central means of helping the client develop competencies that will dissolve and enable his topic and alleviate
suffering. Subject-object theory is also the main vehicle through which the concept of transcend and include
is developed. As a client shifts from a CWOB to a NWOB, the client includes all of the wisdom and useful
qualities that the CWOB provided while transcending that CWOB to embody a NWOB. Insights offered to the
client are informed by subject-object theory as well, meaning that the client becomes aware of their CWOB
and opens to focus on building a NWOB rather than simply embracing new distinctions without a wider frame
of understanding. The CWOB and NWOB metaphors serve to provide the context that define the clients developmental journey, help to generate a coherent narrative that supplies the client with a way to make sense of
his life, and enable the full integral map to be brought to bear in a coaching application.
Another unique feature of ICC is the honoring of the CWOB, which is distinctly different from how most
coaching schools understand and hold the client (i.e., individuals are not flawed and there is no gap analysis).
In other words, the client is already whole and at the same time needs new competencies to embody a NWOB
that will include and transcend the CWOB. It is held that this level of honoring is crucial in allowing a client to
transcend and include the CWOB and inhabit the NWOB. This complete picture of including current and not
just introducing new is also unique to ICC, as most schools are focused on developing new and not honoring
the what is of the client up until this point in their life.
ICC does not hold that a client seeks coaching because of a breakdown, as many other models do (i.e., that
something needs to break before change is truly possible). Rather clients are seen as always existing in the
creative tension between who the person has been (past) and who that person is becoming (future). From a deJournal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1
115
L. L. FROST
velopmental perspective, this is actually a continuum, and the client may be at any point along that continuum.
ICC holds that the CWOB and the NWOB are always in place. In other words there are always two people
at play and the creative tension between who we are and who we are becoming is available with or without a
breakdown.
With ICC there is a rigorously structured methodology for how the model is used in coaching. There is a
particular way a client is worked with in order to give that client the best opportunity for horizontal health or
vertical transformation within his unique AQAL Constellation. There are comprehensive structures in place
to support how to do an Intake, how to do an Offer, how to look at competency levels from an objective view,
how to develop lines, how to design a program, how to bridge from one step to the next, and how to self-assess.
Because the structures are objective, a coach can easily and effectively work with a client who has transferred
from another coach.
ICC designs programs in a step-by-step process based on the developmental pace of the client. The focus of the
coaching work is on building a stable NWOB that includes healthy aspects of the CWOB, occurs over time,
and signifies a developmental shift, whether vertical or horizontal, using a standardized methodology. ICC
uses integral theory in its model, methodology, training, and overall structure.
In a recent public forum I was asked if Integral Coaching actually serves the client better than other methods
of coaching. I believe this question is important to answer. The primary goal of coaching is to serve the client and his topic. To me, a coaching method that seeks to include more aspects of the client (Looking AT and
Looking AS), rather than simply privileging some, and seeks to have a first-person perspective of that clients
perspective (Looking AS), to the degree that it is possible, serves that client better. In my opinion, Integral
Coaching offers a much broader perspective of the various aspects of human beings and therefore allows for
a richer coaching territory in which to play. In an increasingly complex and diverse world, it is necessary to
allow the fullness of each unique human being to be addressed in the field of coaching. Because ICC adopts
an integral model, it develops a coaching language that includes more perspectives and these perspectives allow their coaching system to include more of the client than other coaching approaches (Esbjrn-Hargens,
personal communication, December 31, 2008).
In an effort to raise the standards of the field of coaching, this article serves as a contribution based on a first-,
second-, and third-person inquiry into eight zones as they pertain to Integral Coaching Canadas coaching
model. Using Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP) to evaluate the coaching model was the most effective
means to support that end because it allows for a multi-dimensional analysis that does not, by nature, preference one zone over another. It also lends the unique advantage of requiring first-, second-, and third-person
methodologies to gather data in order to address the zones adequately, thus allowing the fullness of the model
to be appreciated. Currently, IMP offers the most comprehensive lens through which to view a subject. Similarly, as Wilber stated (personal communication, February 20, 2009), We can start to see why ICC has the
most comprehensive form of coaching available, because it has taken the most comprehensive framework
seriously. This was also my assessment upon completing my masters thesis research.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank a number of people for their contribution to this article. Joanne Hunt and Laura Divine
(Integral Coaching Canada, Inc.) graciously supplied countless hours, interviews for the original study, and
clarifications. They have also become my Integral Coaching teachers. Sean Esbjrn-Hargens (John F. Kennedy University, Integral Institute) contributed a great deal of feedback as my thesis advisor for both the origi-
116
nal study and for this article. Jordan Luftig (John F. Kennedy University) extended valuable feedback on both
the original study and during the peer-review process. Clint Fuhs (Integral Institute and Integral Life) offered
extensive feedback on this article, clarification of Integral Methodological Pluralism, and challenged me to
take my analysis both wider and deeper. This article uses Integral Coaching Canadas trademarked terminology (with permission from Integral Coaching Canada, Inc.).
N OTES
1
Integral Coaching Canada, Module 1: Foundation & Apprenticeship (2004a), section 6, pp. 1-32.
Integral Coaching Canada, Module 2: Embodiment & Certification (2004b), section 12, pp. 1-36.
3
Ibid. 1, section 7, pp. 1-28.
4
5
Ibid., section 11, pp. 1-26.
6
Ibid., section 11-2, pp. 1-10.
7
8
Ibid., section 8, p. 12.
9
Ibid., section 8, pp. 1-19.
10
Ibid.
2
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BUILDING INTEGRAL COACHING CANADA

A Practice Journey
Joanne Hunt
ABSTRACT This article provides a glimpse into some of the practices and teachings fundamental
to the founders of Integral Coaching Canada, Inc. These practices form the backbone for the structure and design of their coaching method and coach training programs. This article will provide an
opportunity to Look AS the founders from a more personal perspective through memoir, with integral insights. Laura Divines Zen and tai chi practices and Joanne Hunts Zen and writing practices are
explored as deep sources of their work in the world. This article speaks to their separate and now
co-mingled lives of practice, and the lineages that sourced their building of a coaching school that is
more like a martial arts academy than traditional learning program. Some of the stories and principles taught to them by their teachersLenzie Williams and Natalie Goldbergare also shared. The
guiding influence of integral theory in their lives of practice is also illuminated. The article concludes
with the story of how Joanne and Laura met and came to build their company.
Key words: integral coaching; integral life practice; tai chi; writing practice; Zen Buddhism
Change is the basis of human life, so dont attach yourself to birth or death, continuation or discontinuation. Just live right in the middle of the flow of change, where there
is nothing to hold on to. How do you do this? Just be present and devote yourself to
doing something.
Katagiri Roshi1
hat does it mean to live a life of practice? What happens when you start to connect to each moment
arising in each day as part of your practice field? You start becoming more and more awake in your
life. You cannot help it. Each moment fresh, a new state. Another chance to be presentanother
opportunity to wake up, as states uniquely provide. As you swing your legs over the side of the bed and head
to the bathroom, or to the kitchen to put the coffee on, you are already in the practice field. Sometimes we call
them habits. But if we are awake to the moment, we can hold them as part of a practice life. Am I present in my
body as I head to the kitchen? As I scoop out spoonfuls of coffee into the container of my stove-top espresso
maker, am I actually there for the activity? Am I aware of the tightness in my belly or sleep in my eyes? Or
does coffee somehow get made without me being truly present? Driving your car over a familiar route and all
of a sudden you arrive at Loblaws, grocery list written on the back of an envelope next to you on the passenger
seat, and you realize that you were thinking about other things and were not really present for the drive. Five
traffic lights ago, where did you disappear?
Being in practice calls for waking up (horizontal state-stage development). The awakening of states is the portal to waking up itselfthe opportunity to be embodied, present to the present, awake to the what is of this
J. HUNT
moment. The making coffee parts and the hour of tai chi form correction parts, the being present to your wife
as she speaks to you parts, and the twenty minutes of focus intensity training parts. All of these can be practices
in an awakened life. Every moment offers a fresh opportunity to practice, to work with your awareness, to
wake up to your unique self, to the people twinkling around you, and to the shimmering world giving birth to
you, to itself, right now.
Being in practice calls for growing up (vertical structure-stage development). The opportunity to see each
moment through ever-increasing numbers of perspectives, to view what is through ever-expanding knowledge of consciousness living itself; to understand through greater perspectival capacities what is happening
as we awaken; to know that the great chain of being is unfolding and recognizing the patterns as they emerge;
to know through our subtle and causal minds, through our expanded capacities to Look AS one another, and
through the seeing of more and more truths as they become available to each of us that evolution is occurring
all around us, in us, and through us. And as we grow up there are wider and wider vistas through which we
apprehend this incredible unfolding. A dedicated life of practice strengthens and enables our waking up and
our growing up.
Our Integral Coaching Certification Program (ICCP) calls for and cultivates this awakening and development
in a coachs life and on behalf of an othera clientand their life of practice. At the beginning of the ICCP,
students often ask us how many hours outside of class will be required for their coach training. Our response
is, All of them. We can spell out the approximate number of hours of Integral Life Practice (ILP) required, or
hours of study to support assignments that are part of the curriculum, or coaching hours necessary with clients.
But that does not begin to tell the story of starting down this road, of becoming part of the Integral Coaching
lineage. Why? Because you could actually spend 30 minutes in meditation and the quality of it could range
from, I wasnt there at all; I was daydreaming, composing emails in my head, and checking my watch until
the time was up to I fully dropped in and attended to my practice as completely as I could, returning to my
breath a 100 times, committing and recommitting to being awake to this arising moment, and then this one, and
then this one. From the outside you could look at two people sitting, facing the wall, butts on zafus (meditation cushion), legs crossed on zabutons (meditation mat), eyes downcast, and you could watch those same two
people get up after 30 minutes. They do not look dissimilar from afar, but if you were to be in conversation
with each of them over time, you would feel the distinctly different nature of their practices.
The person who puts in the required sitting time, but is not actually there for it has not started to stabilize their
discursive mind. So, engaging in sitting in this way can be an activity, not a mindful practice. It is a task like
other items on a to do listit has a start and a finish. Next. Next. However, the person who is actively engaged
in being awake for their sitting, intent on returning their wild mind again and again to rest on the breath has
started to cultivate a way to work with the mind.
This engaged practice impacts neurobiology, starts to create and carve new pathways of being and knowing
and relating to body, self, spirit, space, and time. This awakened practice enables bodies and minds to draw
on that sitting practice during the rest of the day, not in a way that tries to continually connect back to the 30
minutes in order to be spacious during a particularly tough meeting or when someone cuts you off on the
highway. It does not work like that exactly. In engaged practice, you find that the space or equanimity starts to
rise up unannounced throughout the day. It starts appearing here and there. That is what happens when you are
engaged in a deliberate practice of trying to be present. Ultimately you find that presence itself is a spontaneous event, a sort of quieted energy, clear and reliable. Stable. A spaciousness that is not sought or grasped at,
but naturally occurs. And then you notice that it is presentyou do not have to chase it down. In fact, chasing
122
is fruitless. If you practice diligently over time, the effects show up. As my teacher, Natalie Goldberg, loves to
quote from Zen Master Dogen, When you walk in the mist, you get wet.
The person who has put in their 30 minutes of sitting daydreamingwhich I highly recommend as a practice, but not during sittingdoes not have a body-mind that has built the neural pathways to know of this stable
ground of being, so the appearance of it during the rest of their day is not noticed or accessed. The body is
not awake to this place. The mind does not know of this place. As T.S. Eliot (1943) aptly stated, Not known,
because not looked for (p. 59). Embodiment of the capacities built in an active and awake sitting practice is
noticeable in coaches who take on being fully awake in their lives.
We often say, You cant cram for the final test of becoming an Integral Coach. Either you are embodied or
you are not. This requires fundamental shifts in a way of being; it is not a way of tips, tools, and techniques.
This way of life requires expanding on all fronts: ways of seeing, perceiving, being, enacting, experiencing,
interpreting, translating, and transforming. There is no cramming for a martial arts black belt test the night
before. You have to have done the practice, put in the hours. Repeatedly. Over time. With ongoing form correction, deepening your ways of perceiving and being, the night before the black belt test, there is only resting
well, being in your practice, and showing up the next day. Nothing extra.
This is the space from which we developed Integral Coaching Canada Inc., a place of practice and embodiment; a place of freedom and fullness; a place of science and soul; a place of compassion and decisive action;
a place to learn how to more effectively alleviate suffering in the world. And all of this from a space or altitude
that could hold and understand increasing levels of complexity, perspectives, causes, and conditions. This
space included our internal demand for an integrated system and our requirement for holism, not just being
present to a form or structure, but being present to as many as possible, and finally, translating what we had
come to understand so that it could be useful to coaches in service of future clients.
In this article, I will explore Laura Divines and my journey of integrating dedicated study, practice, and development into the field of coaching. This includes how we built more of a martial arts academy for coaches than
a traditional school or conventional form of training. I will speak to this practice field in terms of the deeper
development associated with being able to work with the complexity of our Integral Coaching model. I will
reflect on Lauras Zen practice and profound practice of tai chi; the coming together of my Zen practice and
intense writing practice; and how all of these practices informed the development of our curriculum through an
integral lens of understanding. I will also speak about deathbecause that is what I doand about how Laura
and I met and came to build our school.
This article is more of a memoir than a scholarly article, more of a story than an analysis, more personal than
professional, more musing than asserting. In the other articles in this issue you were Looking AT our Integral
Coaching work. You will have already seen in these Looking AT articles that the structure-stage capacities
required to take in complex perspectivesincluding being able to Look AS how another person Looks AT the
worldis required in our coach training programs. In this article you can wander into our interiors, Looking
AS one of us (Joanne) as I attempt to represent both of us (Laura and Joanne). You will look out through these
eyes in snapshotsthe way that looking often occurs. There is no chronological order. The following pages
hold a structure that is closer to Zen Mind, Beginners Mind (Suzuki, 1970), with some sections standing alone
as contributing threads to our practice lives and other sections serving to bring various elements together.
There is space for your own thoughts and ruminations. I will not explicitly draw all the connections between
how each sections topic directly relates to our work, our coaches, and our clients. As in the Zen tradition, an-
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swers are very rarely directly provided or explained. What is your experience? How is your practice? What are
you noticing? There is time for you to form your own thoughts in the cracks and crevices of this article, peruse
your own linkages, and fall in love with the wild mind. May you find yourself and be served well as you peek
in the window of this lineage of coaches, which aims to support the integral unfolding of ourselves and each
other, alleviating suffering as we grow up and wake up together.
Integral Coaching Canada, Inc.: A Martial Arts Academy

We built our training programs using a martial arts model based on practice, lineage, sinking into form, form
correction, and embodiment assessment versus academic testing. And, of course, part of this training is about
understanding the form, the structures, and the map that underlies Integral Coaching. Our work calls to
people who want to drop deeply into their lives and the lives of their clients. To those who do not just want to
do unto others with their coaching, but want to profoundly explore their own lives, perceptions of self and
others, and related shadows.
Over the years, as our training program has become well known in terms of its developmental rigor and embodiment requirements, we have attracted very skilled practitioners and people already living lives of profound
practice. We often get calls from coaches certified through other coaching schools asking, I am already a
certified coach from another school; cant I get advanced standing and take a short course with you? Im sure I
could just apply whatever materials you have. That would be like walking into a Shaolin Kung Fu Monastery
as a long-time tai chi practitioner and making a request of the senior teacher in a lineage that you have not yet
known, Can I join the advanced class because I am sure Ill catch on and I want to start teaching your Kung
Fu method within the year? Uh, no.
Every person who enters our program starts at the beginning. As in development, we all start at square one
you cannot skip stages, as Ken Wilber so often reminds us. Enrolled in our programs are certified coaches, psychologists, black belt quantum jujitsu teachers, spiritual teachers, yoga teachers, rolfers, therapists, executives,
managers, assistant deputy ministers, professors, and graduate students. They all start at the beginning. As a
matter of fact, when we first started our partnership with the Integral Institute, there were a few people who
said, Im sure we already know Integral Coaching since we have studied the theory and have been applying
it in our lives. We should be able to read all your binders and then teach your program. Uh, no.
There are many ways of knowing. What we have developed in Integral Coaching Canada requires not just
knowing about but knowing asintegrating it, making it come alive, making it present and real. This is
embodiment. In order to embody the form of Integral Coaching, you need to engage in deep practice with it
every day. You need to immerse your whole self and drop into the middle of your life, birth, break, rage, and
rail against change, against that which has been longed for in all your waking moments. You need to do the
practice for five months in the Foundation & Apprenticeship Module, then you need to drop all the way down
in the nine month Embodiment & Certification Module. You need to commit to your life and to your development through daily practice. Being awake and in skillful service to self and others requires all of you and ends
up costing not less than everything (Eliot, 1943, p. 59).
Thich Nhat Hanhs poem I Will Say I Want It All (1999, p. 177) poignantly illustrates what it takes to adeptly
contribute to anothers development. This kind of transformationin small and large waysis what Integral
Coaching Canada is called to in support of students and clients. And, as we transcend and include, growing
up from our current ways of being to our new ways of seeing and walking in the world, we stand next to each
others birthing and know that we will be there to contemplate his new being.
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I Will Say I Want It All

If you ask how much do I want,
Ill tell you that I want it all.
This morning, you and I
and all men
are flowing into the marvelous stream
of oneness.
Small pieces of imagination as we are,
we have come a long way to find ourselves
and for ourselves, in the dark, the illusion
of emancipation.
This morning, my brother is back from his
long adventure.
He kneels before the altar,
his eyes full of tears.
His soul is longing for a shore to set anchor at
(a yearning I once had).
Let him kneel there and weep.
Let him cry his heart out.
Let him have his refuge there for a thousand years,
enough to dry all his tears.
One night, I will come
and set fire to his shelter,
the small cottage on the hill.
My fire will destroy everything
and remove his only life raft after a shipwreck.
In the utmost anguish of his soul,
the shell will break.
The light of the burning hut will witness
his glorious deliverance.
I will wait for him beside the burning cottage.
Tears will run down my cheeks.
I will be there to contemplate his new being.
And as I hold his hands in mine
and ask him how much he wants,
he will smile and say that he wants it all
just as I did.
When you come to our school, we want it allfor you, for your clients, for all of us. From the moment you
enter the door, from the first song that reaches in and plucks open your heart, you join or re-commit to the
practice journey. At the beginning, you are doing the practices and coaching and staying true to the form. And
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by the end, it is doing you. Embodiment is the black belt test of an Integral Coach embodying our growing
up capacities to take greater and greater perspectives and expanding our skills in being with ourselves and each
other through this expanded knowing, and embodying our waking up capacities to be with the present moment,
aware, mindful, and not separate from ourselves, each other, or source. From this place of full embodiment
of the form, all previous expertise comes flooding into a container that is big enough to hold it all, yet porous
enough to enable the all of who you are to pour through. All degrees and certificates and wisdoms find their
way through the flow of this embodied form. It moves from being stiff and new, as any new form is when it is
fresh and just being learned, to being flowing and free and full. This is what integral offersit holds it all.
We have just finished training the first cohort of a specially selected group of integral experts, practitioners,
elders, and exemplars associated with the Integral Institute. They studied with us from square one, wrestling
with their own understanding and embodiment, letting go and letting come, and slowly relaxed into their journey. This was a unique and highly informed integral group selected by Laura and me to be part of this cohort.
Below I have provided a small sample of their moving words to us about our Integral Coaching method, and
what they came to know and understand as they entered our classroom with a knowledge or expectation of
what Integral Coaching would be, only to have their perceptions altered, expanded, and cracked wide open
into the space of fullness, freedom, deep love, and embodiment. Why do I share these? Because even those of
us who know about integral may not have yet found a way to know as or live into the profound opportunity that
integral application offers to us at this moment in time. The words from the extraordinary students in this particular cohort were offered to Laura and me prior to their black belt tests at the end of the Integral Coaching
Embodiment & Certification Module. Their expressions touched Laura and me deeply. With humility, I share a
few excerpts from this gifted community of coaches as they described a bit of their journey with us:2
Graduate #1
I was given a hyper-drive ticket to a land of immense possibility. The emerging potential of what is possible via Integral Coaching reflects the bountiful, seamless design
of the method. I rest in my heart-filled truth when I say that I feel Integral Coaching is
the flagship for embodied integral evolution on this planet. I stand solid in saying that
Integral Coaching provides the most embodied, encapsulating means to integrate
and bring to fruition the endless variations of Eros yearning to emerge. As a glue for
development, Integral Coaching provides the exact amount of tension and release.
As a spark for transformation, Integral Coaching can provide the heat of a tealight to
that of an inferno. As an invitation to becoming, Integral Coaching allows the Divine
to arrive in every form possible.
Graduate #2
I see Integral Coaching as a lineage that transmits the most advanced integral application in existence. (As Ken [Wilber] would say, not to be too grandiose, but) I see
this application as a technology of growth that is used to relieve suffering and catalyze development. I also see Integral Coaching as a killer app that can leverage the
work done through the Integral Institute and Integral Life to take integral to a wider
audience and actually help people to embody the ideas that have been so inspiring to
them.
Graduate #3
I always told people, Coaching helps you get from where you are to where you want
to be in your life. That still holds true, but I implied right-hand quadrant results.
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Now, Im forced to reckon with the hard questions. Who am I in this moment? What
grace can I find right now? How do I show up in this life to capture the fullness of being? Youre gonna die, she would say and we all laugh. Its truebut how quickly
we pass over thatthis precious little thing called life. I want to live for this impossible moment whose grandeur will never be captured. I want to be moved to tears by
walking outside into the rain. I want to be willing to let my heart break 10,000 more
times to find love. Integral Coaching makes this possible. I need my cognitive maps,
but I need them to go beyond them. I needed to know what all this map making was
for. It was to set the human spirit free. Ken (Wilber) always said that, wrote that. You
two finally showed me how to break out of jail. You are integrals grandmothers. You
have birthed the future. You deserve so much. You have my undying support.
Integrals grandmothers? Okay, just to be clear, neither of us is old enough to beoh, I guess, maybe we are.
In offering our ICCP to a select group of highly skilled and accomplished integral practitioners, we could not
ignore what we had developed because they repeatedly held mirrors up and forced us to clearly see what we
had created. They continuously challenged us to take full responsibility for what our unique lives of practice
had enabled us to understand and express. No small feat, their enabling of us to see ourselves in a way that we
had not. We continue to adjust, learn, reflect, and modify. Always fine-tuning, always including more, as more
emerges. We are fully aware that this life is as long as a cup of coffee and we are a blip on the horizon of human
adventure. And we are grateful for the mirror that they refused to let us ignore, while also readily acknowledge
that there is always more for us to know and embody in the integral landscape.
Laura and I entered this work with the intention to create a training system that was true to Ken Wilbers incredible work, that had an architecture as elegant and poetic as integral theory and praxis, that was good, true,
and beautiful, and that enabled lasting development in all clients quickly and skillfully. And all of these actions
were on behalf of one thing that rested in the foreground of our efforts: alleviating suffering in as many forms
and through as many perspectives as Integral Coaching possibly could. We wanted to develop a martial arts
approach to learning a transcend and include horizontal and vertical development form, deep practice, form
correction, more practice, more form correction, and embodiment. Practices addressed not only becoming an
Integral Coach, but becoming the kind of person who could embody and exemplify this complex work. This
included working on self and shadow across all of the AQAL lenses.
Building the muscles of a coach is the same as building new muscles with a client. First you must understand
the muscles that need to be developed, then you need to design practices, exercises, experiences, and assignments that step-by-step build the body, mind, heart, spirit, relations, and morals of an Integral Coach. This
includes drawing on quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types in all designs. Then you need to build a rigorous
and loving practice container for their development, a place where coaches can try all their new moves, practice the form, and receive form correction; a place where they can be inspired through watching their teachers
ability to coach, and then having the teacher break down every step so that it is accessible; a place where they
can meditate, taste gross, subtle, and causal states, awaken to their lives, with wider perceiving, and become
sangha for and with each other.
As a teacher, this means consistently modeling the competencies that you are attempting to build in each
coach. One of my friends at the Generative Leadership Group called this ontological hygiene, referring to a
hygienic way of being in the world where do as I say and do as I do are congruent. Am I walking the talk?
Ontological hygiene invites me to pay attention to my own being in the world, taking my daily ontological
shower, addressing my shadow issues, and being active in practice in my own life. I always liked how those
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words sounded: ontological hygiene. Go ahead. Say it out loud. Try it out at a cocktail party: Hey Bob, hows
your ontological hygiene these days?
Tai Chi Practice

There are many principles of tai chi used in our school, enough to fill a book on their own. Since early 1994,
Laura has been a tai chi student of Lenzie Williams.3 She first started studying with Lenzie when she lived
in Berkeley, California. Since moving to Canada, she has had monthly lessons with himwith her wireless
headset onand has been able to work effectively, even in form correction, from a distance. She attends two
to four advanced tai chi camps or workshops each year. During these times Laura engages in deep form work,
practice in push hands (the martial aspect of tai chi), and receives private instruction that sets the direction and
focus of her development for the ensuing months. It is a penetrating practice and fundamental to who she is
and how she moves in the world.
Yin and Yang

The principles of yin and yang are brought to bear in Lauras way of being and in how our coaches ways of
being are cultivated throughout our training program. The principles of yin soft receptivity (a quality called
insubstantialopen, empty, and predisposed to receive) and yang direct action (a quality called substantial
open, full, and predisposed to express) are evident in our ways of receiving clients and our offers to thema
seamless flow of feminine and masculine, of listening and speaking. Cheng Man Chings (1982) words capture the interplay of yin and yang. Although his words were spoken in reference to tai chi, the application to
coaching, and indeed, our lives is far reaching:
Tai chi is the mother of yin and yang and is all embracing in its scope. The I Ching
states that tai chi gives birth to the two aspects: yin and yang. When yin reaches its
peak, it produces yang; when yang reaches its peak, it produces yin. The dynamic
processes of hard and soft, movement and stasis, are all based on these peaksThe
peak of yang is the extreme of hardness. The height of softness and stillness is the
peak of yin. When the peak of yang encounters the peak of yin, the yang is invariably
defeated. This is what Lao Tzu referred to as softness and weakness overcoming hardness and strength. (p. 7)
Both Laura and her teacher have similar demeanorsincredible softness with great strength. It is a palpable
combination. Our students are deeply held by her and she wields her sword with skill and precision. No extra
effort. Coaches in our school cultivate both yin and yang capacities, engaging in required Integral Life Practices such as different forms of study, meditation, and attending to the care and health of their bodies. They
also develop deep compassion for their own developmental journeyssome of them stepping bravely up to
their own unique lives actively and consciously for the first time. One young man, who has been a long-time
student of integral theory, recently sent Laura this e-mail at about the halfway point in the Embodiment &
Certification Module:
I have long known about my perfectionism and the critical voice that comes with it.
But today I saw how it completes my Way as the Tree, how I neutralize experience in
order to keep it dull and safe. More importantly, I felt it. I really allowed myself to feel
it. And I felt genuine recognition. I felt, with Laura, a sense that I am unconditionally
loved, that I am okay, that I am good. I really took in the compliments. Maybe for
the first time in my life they actually snuck through a crack in the bark, and my heart
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ached from being seen and seeing myself. Ive been hit by wave after wave of very
deep, very core emotion as the reverberations shake me. It is raw emotion; I dont
even know what kind. There is grief, sadness, relief, joy all blended into something
foreign, something for me, as if for the first time I have allowed myself to feel for me.
Looking around me, this insight into my bark of criticism, perfection, and neutralized
meaning has implications in every corner of my life.4
His yin receptivity to self is arising as he develops the ability to sit gently in the fullness of himself, yielding
to his tremendous gifts, and holding with compassion the shadow elements that are also now in the light. And,
the height of his yin softness naturally gives rise to yang strength, including his willingness to move into the
world with more clarity, substantiality, and skillful means. As Lao Tzu noted, this is the natural working of yin
and yang.
Flow, Postures, and Transition Moves

Tai chi also has a distinct choreography and fundamental principles. By following both meticulously, the bodymind-heart develops in ways that would not normally occur if practitioners simply followed their own preferred habitsOh, Ill just do tai chi my way. There are truths and core principles that are not yet accessible
to the students that are available to the teacher. Most people know the flow of tai chi from watching groups
or individuals practicing in local parks or seeing it in movies. Those of us who have taken lessons probably
learned the flow or sections of it, depending on the tai chi lineage that we had knowingly or unknowingly
selected. Most of us, however, have not dropped deeply into the practice to advance to the stages of breaking
down the flow to its postures and transition moves. But if you were to break down each element of the
graceful flow that we can all bring to mind, it is the unending and natural flow of transition moves and postures. To the untrained eye, it is just flow. Most of us do not know that in tai chi development, once you start
becoming a serious practitioner, you will start to engage in classes that focus on posture work so that you can
adjustin minute detailyour body, and thereby the flow of energy.
I have seen Laura hold single leg postures for lengths of time that boggle my mind, as sweat drips off her body,
then her little Timex watch beeps signaling the three minutes are complete, and she slowly transitions with
great focus to the next posture, hits the Timex on her left wrist, and holds again. Legs and arms shaking, she
holds this posture, adjusting internally, paying attention to core principles, taking their various perspectives,
ever more delicately opening, opening, opening. Fine-tuning with unwavering attention. She gets to know the
subtle capacities of holding postures, receptive to the energetic flow, strong in her stance and commitment to
staying with. Yin and yang.
Similarly, Integral Coaching Canada has a distinct method, developmental principles, and flow that are taught
in some of the same ways as tai chi. The flow of a particular coaching conversation is practiced and practiced
like the flow in tai chi is practiced and practiced. Postures and transition moves are learned. Form correction
occurs. Bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits are adjusted meticulously, and through more dimensions than is done
in tai chi as we include structure-stage knowledge in our fine-tuning. We enable coaches to see what they are
seeing, the altitude through which they Look AT and Look AS the form or flow. There are greater and greater
nuances available in our Integral Coaching form at each progressive level of consciousness. A tai chi practitioner comprehends the flow through a different lens at an orange altitude than a turquoise altitude. Same form,
same flow, same postures, same transitions. Different understanding and embodiment.
There is always a gapin tai chi or coachingbetween how the form should flow and the students abilities
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to carry it out while they are immersed in learning. There is no problem in the form being off as long as the
student knows that there is a gap. This is important. I will say it again: the gap between the elegant form and
what you are able to embody is never a problem; it is a what is and we can attend to it. The only problem
is thinking that there is no gap, when the gap is evident to your teachers and other practitioners. Our students
become very capable of working with what is. We, as teachers, also have absolutely no problem working
with that known and acknowledged gap. Coaches are able to let themselves become very vulnerable right from
the beginning of the training program because it is no big deal to be working with what is currently known and
embodied.
This seems to be unusual in learning environments, given the number of student comments we have received
over the years about the safety of our classroom. Indeed, many of us have become timid learners through harsh
experience. It is crucial to provide a safe place to wobble, to grow from, and attend to what is, loosening the
chokehold of the ego. For some, it is the only time in their lives that they have experienced a container that
works with such deep acceptance, while at the exact same time practicing intently to lessen the acknowledged
gaps in every aspect of the necessary embodiment. This is also a tai chi principle: being aware of the gap
between the position you think your body is taking versus the one that is actually showing up! Mirrors help,
teachers help, sangha (i.e., other students in the course) helps. You become more and more aware of the gap
yourself and you attend, as fully as possible.
Our students learn to hold the postures of our coaching method. They learn to hold postures that allow them to
become more awake to and stay with strong emotions, strong resistance, strong pulls to relax into old habits,
strong desires to maintain their old forms. They learn to stay with great gentleness and great strength. Not
only do students learn the postures of the coaching choreography, they gain access to what underlies the dance
itself; they hold postures by stretching their minds capacities to understand complex perspectives in useful and
skillful ways, holding each element separately and as part of a whole. They conduct assessments, constantly
looking for new evidence of changing AQAL Constellations, develop and write out integral practices to support their clients, and actively engage in their own practices as Integral Coaches. All of these forms of posture work enable the coach to show up embodied, deeply aware, and fully engaged. They take their seat. They
take a shape. And then they hold it until the time comes to transition to the next shape. In practicing posture
work day in and day out, the flow or coaching choreography shows up in ever more elegant and unlimited
expression. Did you think that the group of tai chi practitioners in the park ever held postures, sweating it out
moment to moment, on behalf of increased intimacy and energetic access that looks so soft, so effortless, and
so easy? They did. They do. And so do our coaches.
Laura and I were doing timed writing practices one day and I gave her this topic, Outside of tai chi, tell me
about a time that you held a posture. Go. Ten minutes. This is what she wrote:
Holding a posture is about keeping the body in a specific form and then cultivating the
interior, while also encountering the challenges of muscular pain and emotions that
may arise. It is a stance of integrity and it is a practice not only of technical accuracy,
but of the way of beingthe spirit of practice: Wu Wei.
The image that first comes to me was when Joanne went in the hospital and ended up
having emergency surgery due to a large mass in her abdomen. In the middle of the
night when I returned home after a very long and frightening experience waiting for
her to come out of the operating room to see if she would be okay, I found myself both
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relieved and devastated. For as I forecasted ahead in time, I saw that we were to teach
the Certification Module in three weeks. It was late August. Our new school year was
upon us. The idea of going it alone, when it truly takes two to run this program, was
overwhelming.
And then something arose in me. It was like standing in a ward-off posture. I took a
stance of, I will find a way to make this work for everyone involved. Over those
three weeks I attended to every detail. I stayed in the fray of everything that needed
to be done. I attended to Joanne with calm and tender care as she recovered in the
hospital and then at home. I contacted highly skilled graduate coaches to help me out
and through it all, I felt where I was tight and tried to relax and open. Holding my
posture. Opening, opening, opening. I would breathe from my tantien and fully move
through my days and my nights. Students, without consulting us, contacted our office
manager Linda to find out our favorite foods and they delivered meals twice a week
for six weeks. They held a new posture.
When it came time to teach the class, everything was ready and the five days were excellent. At the end of the fifth day, I stepped out of the posture feeling both exhilarated
and physically exhausted. Like the end of five days of tai chi camp. I had held the
form and worked with the arising conditions and experiences. And from it, something
inside of me had grown stronger and fuller.
It is from this place of engaged practice that Laura contributes to Integral Coaching Canada. It breaks my heart
open wide, slays me in ways that I cannot describe, as I connect to the deep integrity of her practice such that
this posture was so cleanly held, so stably carried out, that I recuperated without ever knowing of its form. She
was a calm, wise, and spacious center in the midst of a battle zonejust like how I imagine each of those tai
chi practitioners must feel in the flow, in perfect unison with traffic on all sides of their tiny enclave of green
grass. A composed, grounded, and present center in the middle of the messiness of life.
Push Hands and Adherence

Another advanced practice in tai chi is called push hands. This is the martial part of the practice where you
work in close proximity to another, holding your form, becoming softer and softer to receive, while perceiving
any tightening in another and letting their energy push them out. It can seem paradoxicalyou get softer and
softer, developing your ability to receive, then yield, and in this receptivity, your opponents own energy can be
neutralized, and responded to with very little force. Laura has said:
In push hands, you feel the persons center in the push. You pick up direction and timing of where the opponents center goes. If they yield such that you can no longer feel
their center, then let it go. If they shift right, you adjust. You follow by feeling into the
other person through your own soft attention.
In our method, the coach is trying to feel into the clients center, their way of seeing, going, and checking such
that they have this coaching topic right now. It is from feeling into this center that an offer arises. To be
clear, the term feeling into is not just about feelings, as it includes how the client perceives, thinks, sees, feels,
understands, and makes sense of themselves, others, and the world. It is about feeling into a clients center, not
your own. No feeling into, no offer. In push hands, it is co-creative. Each partner is different, each partner has
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a way, a certain style, and you need to adjust accordingly versus insisting on just one way of being in the push
hands form. The same is true in our Integral Coaching approach. As the coach, you need to adjust to meet the
client wherever they are, while still bringing forward your flexible coaching offer.
So, through Lauras tai chi practice and our understanding of the additional vertical elements, we have included in our school the principles of yin and yang, receptivity and softness, strength and action. We have attention
to form and form correction that leads to elegant and seamless flow. We have posture holding and conscious
attending that enables a coach to adjust at any given moment, holding the posture while opening, opening.
We have push hands, feeling into, and adhering to clients at any level or altitude, with an ever-expanding and
unique AQAL Constellation (yours and theirs), making whatever adjustments are necessary to meet them
where they are again and again and again.
Lauras contribution to this work brings tears to my eyes as I connect to the vastness of her wisdom, the
gentleness of her way of being, and the strength of her clarity. This is embodied in her. I bow to her lineage of
Cheng Man-ching to Ben Lo to Lenzie Williams to Laura Divine. She teaches tai chi in this unbroken line and
is additionallyand profoundlyinformed by what Ken Wilbers integral map brings to her practice. I am
incredibly grateful to Laura on behalf of all the students who strive to bring the same level of integrity to this
tai chi lineage and to our Integral Coaching lineage.
Writing Practice
I have been studying with Natalie Goldberg since 2003. She teaches writing practice through the window
of her 30-year Zen practice, including studying directly with Dainin Katagiri Roshi until his death. She has
brought her life on the zafu together with her life of pen and notebook. The practice forms are similar. Zen
practice. Writing practice. I have done 10 one-week silent writing retreats (sesshins) with Natalie over the past
five years, sitting (zazen), walking (kinhin), writing, eating, doing samu (work practice) in a zendo at Mabel
Dodge Luhan House in New Mexico. I am a founding teacher in our Integral Coaching school, but I am first
a writer. I have written and kept a daily journal since I was 13-years-old. Studying with Natalie as my Zen and
writing teacher has enabled me to bring my practice home, to taste the ground of being. Beyond the study of
integral theory, my writing practice has served to influence my contribution to our coaching work more than
any other source. What I have discovered in my writing practice has great similarities to what I have discovered in my Zen practice, or any other practice that supports waking up.
The Gap
I sometimes wonder if most practices are about closing the gapgetting closer to essence in the myriad of
forms that we choose, whether we sign up to become a certified coach or author or Zen practitioner. No separation between us and ourselves, between my thoughts and this present moment, between wandering, seeking
mind and pure Presence, between time and the timeless now. I wonder if all longingspiritual or otherwise
comes from this gap. I wrote the following reflective piece for the Perspectives section of our web site after
another retreat in Taos, New Mexico. It touches on this longing, this gap:
Summer 2008 is a vague memory. We didnt take time off so it feels as though I
missed it. September has been a sunny blessing and I hear that August was rainy while
I was away from Ottawa. I was in Berkeley and Sonoma and Walnut Creek and Taos
and Emeryville. It was gorgeous, but I was tired and mostly working or sleeping lousy
due to jet leg coming from one direction or another.
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My brief time in Taos felt like summer. For five days, I was in stillness and sunshine
assisting Natalie at another silent writing retreat. Blindingly bright days. Crisp, coyote howling nights. The magnificence of the vast New Mexico sky overwhelming my
tiny body. I left the Integral Conference early and caught a before-dawn flight from
Oakland to Albuquerque. As I drove from the Albuquerque Airport, bleary-eyed from
a lack of sleep, I felt a deep quiet well up from the depths of my writers soul. Cobalt
sky, pion dotted rolling red hills, mesas looming long and still. Tears welled to overflowing and a profound familiarity arose. Is it the land? The sky? This vastness? What
is this familiarity that gently quiets my discursive mind?
I touch a well of longing. Human longing. Not just mine. The longing of all these writers wanting there to be no gap between them and their words, between their life and
the page. The longings of writers are not so different from the longings expressed by
twenty students who started our Integral Coaching Certification Module last week.
The coaching topics they brought forward curved around a common resonance:
I want to more fully show up in my life.
I dont want any separation between me out in the world and me inside.
I want more intimacy in all aspects of my life.
I dont want to perform or have to be something anymore.
I want to stably live from this vast space.
I want to feel more peace, stillness in my life.
I want to be more emotionally available to others (and myself).
I dont want to lie on my death bed saying that I didnt live my one wild and
precious life.
All of these topics bubbling up from the depths of human desire. This deep longing to
be more closely connected to human fullness and freedom. To close the gap. Just like
writing practice closes the gap.
This human longing for connection: no separation between you and this very moment,
you and this single person, you and yourself when no one else is around, you and God
or Buddha or Allah. Is that what I touch when I drive out of Albuquerque and head
north on highway I-25 towards Taos?
Human longing.
It hangs in the air of New Mexico.
It drips off of each cottonwood and catches in the throats of crows.5
What is this gap and when is it closed? There are many answers from a spiritual perspective: nondual reality,
touching the face of God, experiencing the ever-present Such-ness, the ground of being, Big Mind, Big Heart,
being time. There are answers from a writing practice perspective: when I am out of the way, when the mind is
flowing through the pen and I am not trying to turn it into something, cause something, be something, become
something, other than what it is, in this very moment, with no separation. Lapses from this place of no gap
produce writing that is contrived, boring, without a vital life force. You can hear it when the words are read
aloud.
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You can hear the gap in the early stages of writing practice. As a beginner, when you start to learn the basics of
writing practice as a form, with structure and principles of engagement, you are doing writing. And with much
writing practice under your belt, writing does you. It has taken years of study and practice to touch the place
where wild mind writes through this unique self called Joanne. There have been moments when reading my
words aloud have caught in my throat, my chest, my belly and, in so doing, have shown me again and again
this space of no gap. I left a note for Natalie at one retreat, saying, As writers, we practice to narrow the gap,
get closer to looking at the truth of our lives, of life itself: with no gap, we are time. Yes! Natalie exclaimed
in her note back to me, and we dont exist separate and there is no time.
What does this mean and why is it relevant? It is relevant because it is the ground from which I write, teach,
and work with coaches. With writing practice, you write for years and years in a structure of sit, walk, write
until you have let the ink of your life run clear. Writing practice is the same as sitting practice, in that regard.
You show up, you pick up the pen, the notebook, you face the blank page, and you start writing. Topic: death.
Go. Ten minutes. Topic: what it will take to write the truth? Go. Ten minutes. Get up. Walk slowly around your
office, anchoring your mind in the bottom of your feetwalking meditation. Then take your seat again. Pick
up your pen. Topic: the next muscle I most need to develop is... Go. Thirty minutes. Keep your hand moving.
No daydreaming. Wake up! Writing practice meets Zen practice and takes no prisoners. It is kick-ass. It does
not pay attention to whining. It is not for the faint of heart. It narrows the gap.
Stories or Perspectives?
The first years, especially in memoir writing, include much moaning about life, childhood, the dad you wish
you had had, all the same old stories, again and again, until even you are sick of the same old narrative. At
that point, you drop into a whole other level of writingsimply being with what your life has been composed
of and built from without embellishment. There are fewer adjectives, less single-mindedness, less attachment
to only one story or identity. In my early writing practice years, this was one of my familiar story lines: My
father was a cruel, angry, selfish, drunken S.O.B. This was expressed in an infinite number of variations over
the years until the ink ran clear. But the later years of writing practice also came to include things like:
There was a time when I was little in his arms. He kissed my cheek once and stroked
my newborn dark hair and pronounced me his little black Jo. At some moment in
time, in my infant consciousness, I must have felt his tenderness and his heart breaking open for his precious daughter. Safe from the car crash that precipitated an emergency C-section. He held his tiny, premature, first-born child in his hands. And at that
one moment in time, he became mine. And I became his. All the way down.
Does it mean I had to let go of the former story? No. But that was never the whole story; it was the part of the
story that was available to me then. And that part of the story was included and transcended through writing
practicewaking up and growing upover time. Staying with my practice, even when new perspectives disrupted my preferences. Covering all of the territory, not just the prevailing stories, all the way up, all the way
down.
This is relevant for training coaches. As they get to know their own stories over time, they get to know their
familiar refrains, illusions of permanence, and patterns of who they take themselves to be. Within months they
are laughing at themselves, being playful with their own ways of being, seeing their stories through wider
lensesthe dark shadows of the territory brought to light through the direct experience of being seen. The
drama queen. The Lower-Right systems guy. I am no one. I am the center of the universe. So busy, so impor-
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tant, I believe my own press releases, and we laugh and laugh at ourselves. Somehow, in this coaching work,
we no longer take ourselves so seriously. This does not mean that we are not serious about our work. We are.
It means that we have seen ourselves again and again and our ink has run clear as we hit the wider truths. It
is from this place that our graduates move into the world to do this coaching work with other human beings.
They, like writers, have seen their stories written again and again and again, until they too are tired of the same
old refrain. It never meant that the story was not true. It was. It is. And it was partial.
Coaches meet clients from a deep place of equanimity, able to be with the story of this client, and with who
they take themselves to be. Let me be clear: when I use the word story, I do not do so pejoratively. They are
necessary for our development. Our stories expand in scope, depth, breadth, and complexity as we grow. Stories tend to live on the relative side of the street. Through ongoing practice, stories can also include aspects
of self from the absolute realm. In fact, developing a story that is informed by our true self, our timeless
self is an important part of waking up (Ken Wilber, personal communication, February 17, 2009). In my
conversation with Ken on the topic of stories, he reminded me that, The title of Katagiri Roshis first book
was called, Returning to Silenceso, this is about getting rid of all the stories, nothing happening. Katagiris
second book was called, You Have to Say Somethingso, whats your story? Only tell me a more interesting
story: tell me a story about how mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers! (Wilber,
personal communication, February 17, 2009). We both laughedour stories can radically change as we grow
up and wake up!
We all carry these storiesever evolvingabout ourselves, our friends, families, and lives up until now. These
are our meaning-making words and they are how we share who we take ourselves to be at any given moment.
As a writer, I deeply respect the words that we speak or write. I will also say that once we connect to stories
that go beyond the ones we have taken to be truth, we become liberated. And, from this place, of course, we
develop new stories! You have to smile at that. We are story tellers. We tell compelling narratives. And as we
grow, our stories reveal more and more perspectives, including Truths that we could never have imagined.
Stories can also change in a moment. It is all up for grabs! I know this through writing practice. I know this
through Zen practice. I know this in our coaching school. Structure and practice contribute to this painful
and freeing wisdom. It continues to inform me, and it continues to challenge me and my own practice. I am
no different from our coaches. I wrestle with resistance to my own practices and partial stories in their everincreasing subtler forms of freedom and torment:
Sit. Walk. Write. Sit. Walk. Write.
Sit. Walk. Coach. Sit. Walk. Coach.
Writing, not Zen

There are also vertical (structure-stage) perspective-taking capacities that you build in writing practice that are
not built in horizontal (state-stage) meditative practices that cultivate greater awareness, presence, and waking
up. Writing practice gives you the ongoing opportunity to take the perspectives of others, to represent or present the perspectives of others (especially evident in fiction writing), and to find language for different perspectives. The perspective-taking muscle is built and strengthened in daily writing practice, which is something
that is not really focused on in meditation. You do not tend to sit down to meditate, butt on cushion, and say,
Today I am going to take the perspective of my father holding me when I was born. Wilber commented:
Writing actually has a vertical transformative capacity when it is combined with presence and awareness. I think that is why Aurobindo said that he only did writingthat
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writing was much more powerful than meditation because he was doing both. Writing
allowed him to do vertical perspective practice as well as horizontal presence or state
training. Zen aims for unmanifest emptiness. Writing does not aim for that. (personal
communication, February 17, 2009)
Taking perspectives is something that is unique to using writing as a practice. As Laura and I brought our Integral Coaching principles to form, writing was a critical practice that enabled us to articulate structure, course
materials, worksheets, and resource articles. Constantly, we would place ourselves in the perspectives of our
students to determine how to present complex work that would be accessible, powerful, and elegant. Consistently and accurately taking the perspectives of students who had never heard of integral theory and students
who knew integral theory intimately enabled us to build the comprehensive system now in place.
Practice and Structure

We introduce significant structure and practices in our Integral Coaching work. And, of course, it is met with
varying degrees of enthusiasm. There will always be those students who love the clear intensity of practice, the
hardcore, crusty old Zen, full lotus posture, bring it on attitudes. These folks respond well to the martial arts
nature of our work. And then there are thosethe large majoritywho experience all the forms of resistance
and sleepiness that arise: I am too tired. This is too much. Why do I have to fill out these assessment sheets? I
would rather just go with my intuition. We are calling students to be fully awake in their lives. Many of us
and let me tell you, I continue to be one of themthink, man, it would be so much easier to be sleeping. Can
I do my meditation lying in bed before I go to sleep? Does that count? We long for more time for solitude,
more time to reflect, more time to be in stillness with nothing to deliver, but when someone requires this of us,
repeatedly, day to day, we moan about it. As though it is restricting us somehow, our freedom, our wants, our
desires, our I dont feel like it. You cant make me. So we long for it, but when someone puts a structure on
it, calls it a practice, and asks us to step forward, what arises? Resistance.
It reminds me of a Zen story Natalie shared with us two days into a particularly intense retreat. It was about
placing a snake in a bamboo pole. The snake, as it moved in its curvy way, kept hitting the edge of the bamboo. It kept feeling itself, bumping up against itself repeatedly in each movement. It is necessary to have these
edges, this structure, so that we too can bump up against ourselves. It is painful and frustrating as hell. Many
of us have opinions, much previous training, and ways of being that we will bump up against. Much of the
stuff that we have learned may need to be let go of as we move towards our longed-for futures. These ingrained
ways of being have hardened, calcified, and the heat of the structure burns through it all. Zen structure is like
that. On the outside, it may look rigid, but the structure actually gives you a chance to feel safety, to feel the
hugeness of yourself inside the safety. There is tremendous wildness inside our human selves, but many of
us have made ourselves smaller to get by. In structure, we can sink into and feel safe enough to allow the full
energy to emerge. The pressure builds and we get to feel the force of ourselves flowing out. It is a vast force,
concentrated, pressurized, and wild. Structure enables us to feel the full power of life living itself.
The structure allows us to become that which was beyond our wildest human imaginings. We are so much
more. Structure. Form. Practice. Resistance. Practice. Form. Structure. In the bamboo pole of our Integral
Coaching work, we bump up against ourselves again and again. And it is all okay, all of it: the tears flowing
down your face, pee your pants kind of laughter; the tears flowing down your face, dead weight crushing your
lungs kind of sorrow. The bamboo pole is plenty strong enough. You are, too.
Being in practice closes the gap between the relative constructions of who I take myself to be and the absolute knowing of a much wider fullness and freedom. There is a profound knowing that in any given moment
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both are available to me. That I have the responsibility to manifest this unique self into the world, to manifest
Buddha-nature, God, spirit, source through me in all my current and new ways of being. That I will develop
and, therefore, continue to find and work with new shadows. They go hand in hand.
I ask myself, how do I engage in a practice that has me become more awake to the light and dark? Awake to
my own calcified parts? Awake to my own unique forms of resistance? The same way our students do. Sit.
Walk. Write. Zen Practice. Writing Practice. Coaching Practice. Learning from and supporting my teacher in
any way that I can, bowing to you, Natalie, and to Katagiri, your teacher. I bow to Ken, my integral teacher. I
bow to our students, also my great teachers. And I endeavor to have my full self show up in the ongoing evolution of Integral Coaching Canada, a vow to alleviate suffering. As instructed, I start with my own: put my own
oxygen mask on first, keep my pen moving on the page, butt on cushion, face the wall, enter the bamboo pole.
Save all beings.
Being With What Is

I am not sure how to express how the beauty and paradox of Zen principles are the foundation of our coaching
work. Laura and I both came to Zen for similar reasons. It was a spiritual practice that would enable each of us
to be in the direct experience of life. In sitting practice, we would face ourselves through structure, form, and
discipline. From this place, we each found profound freedom, equanimity, and insight into the human condition. The practice itself cultivated our capacities to be with whatever arose, at any time, as best we could. This
is what we brought to our coaching school, not only to support students through this process of becoming a
coach, but to enable them to develop capacities to sit with their own and their clients realities, or, as we call
it, a clients what is.
This capacity to sit with a clients reality is built by students opening up to and being with the direct experience of the what is of their own lives. Our training program is designed to build these capacities, and as
these muscles grow so do the levels of intensity, rawness, and freedom in which coaches can see and experience what is. Their cognitive, emotional, somatic, spiritual subtle bodies are able to sit with so much pain
and joy. They can work with their energetic capacities in wider and ever-deepening levels of awareness and
embodiment. And, as wider perspectives become available to them, they are more and more able to Look AS
how another human being Looks AT the world. They are able to feel, think, and sense the what is of a client
at orange altitude or green altitude. In this expanding fullness of perspective-taking there exists the possibility
of meeting a client fully and with deep respect for their unique journey.
We ask a lot of our students. They, in turn, luxuriate in and wrestle with their development through their years
of practice with us. We just finished teaching session two of the Certification Module last week, the halfway
point in this program. Developmentally, each student walks through such different fire. Some of them entered
the program feeling very sure of themselves, their expression, their careers, possessing a strong sense of success (substantial). Other students entered the training program feeling a little empty and open, with a less
solid sense of self or form, wondering about a shape that could emerge for them (insubstantial). As we left the
classroom on Saturday evening, the shifts were painfully and joyfully palpable. Many of those who had the
world by the tail five months ago were deeply questioning, feeling somewhat lost, and less substantial. With
less self substance, some felt empty for the first time in their lives and did not enjoy the experience, whereas
others connected this emptiness to a liberated sense of no-self, positively radiant as the world poured through
themtwo different perspective-taking capacities and related ways of being with insubstantiality. On the flip
side, some students had shifted in the other direction, feeling mightily substantial, like they had touched a
sense of their unique self manifesting in the world, and were stepping up to the responsibility of living their full
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lives, awake, alive, here. Substantial. Insubstantial. Both are elements of what is. The shifts we go through
as we connect to the both/and of the relative and absolute. It can be unsettling.
Still more unnerving, at times, is that their teachers are okay with wherever each student finds himself at this
pointor any other pointin his training. The key for us is that the students are awake to where they are versus asleep to where they arestate training provides this increasing capacity of awake-ness. As anyone who
has designed and taught lengthy programsespecially after hundreds of students have walked through the
doorswe too rest in the knowledge that things are unfolding with just the right amount of tension and release.
We know the stability of the container, the structure, and the form. We too rest in it. Being awake to whether
a student is disintegrating or integrating, and understanding the role and structure of a transcend and include
developmental model is critical. Disintegrating and integrating are necessary, simultaneous, and impermanent.
Resting in this place or being okay with where students are at any given moment does not mean that we do not
actively intervene, challenge, or disrupt at the same time as we support and love them deeply. We do. Compassion requires the full spectrum of right action, and we do our best to be skillful.
Lauras and my Zen practice enables us to continue to become more awake to what is arising. Our study of
integral theory allows us to understand the technicolor picture. Waking up and growing up. Seeing the conditions and causes without become attached to any of them, as best we can. Watching, without thinking that this
is all we are or all that is. And regardless of our flailing emotions as we grow and stretch and reach, we stay
with our practice. Me here in this moment, typing to meet a deadline (that I am seriously resisting). You over
there, doing what you are doing. And still, I sit myself down. Go. Two hours. Start typing. Yes, I can rationalize
all I want about how I could work on this article later, when hopefully I will feel like it. Or I can sit my butt
down on the chair, slide out the keyboard, and go. I calm my body and mind, as Katagiri Roshi (2007) says,
and take my seat:
Zen Buddhism focuses on day-to-day life because no matter how long you try to understand
life and death intellectually, you will never understand by using only your intellect you cannot feel how deep your life is. Life is really vast, and you can never get a definite solution. I
dont mean you should ignore intellectual understanding. You can take care of your intellect
by patting it on the head, calming your body and mind, and letting yourself go deeply into the
human world that is beyond the intellectual world. This is our practice. (p. 219)
Fundamentally, Katagiris words capture what Laura and I longed to do: to go deeply into the human world,
and our way was through coaching. Even as young teenagers, Laura coached swim teams and I coached soccer
teams. Always working with the what is of people in development, always trying to bring new forms into
being by breaking things down to discrete elements, understanding the muscles needed, and then putting the
whole system back together anew. This is and has been our simple striving, our particular human striving. It
calls on everythingour minds, hearts, bodies, and spirits. Sometimes, when we are really tired, we wonder
what the hell we are doing. But then we find ourselves wrestling with and figuring out some new part of the
Integral Coaching map and eureka, we look at each other in astonishment and it all falls into place at another
level of elegance. Or we find ourselves talking about a student and what they just realized, the liberation they
just tasted, and we come back. Again and again, we come back. Like in sitting practice. I think that the mother
of all practices is the practice of returning to your practicerepeatedly. We return to our students, our classroom, our coaching school, and all of our other practices that same way each time, the same way we all do.
Nothing special.
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Investing In Loss
Tai Chi
Laura has been attending a three-day tai chi advanced workshop in Berkeley with her beloved teacher, Lenzie
Williams. Each evening she returns to our rented B&B with a tired body from a full day of standing meditation, flow, form correction, posture work, and push hands. Each evening we compare notes from our day, mine
filled with writing practice, kinhin (slow walking practice), zazen (meditation practice), study, solitude, and
some afternoon wandering; hers filled with body work, most of it done standing up, interactions with other
practitioners, and a free lunch period. Each of us investing in our practices in so many different ways.
Lenzie often speaks about the principle of investing in loss as tai chi practitioners are about to begin engaging in push hands. There are many ways to be in the practice of push hands. On one end of the spectrum, one
can be focused on winning (i.e., pushing your partner out before getting pushed out). This way of being in push
hands calls for executing the moves already embodied, reliable, and resident in your body-mind. This way calls
for getting the opponent out quickly before there is any chance of being pushed out. When people engage in
push hands from this way of being, they have the same moves every time and beyond those well known choreographies, they feel vulnerable and unstable. Their arsenal is powerful, but small. In the short term, such a
push hands practitioner can feel confident, superior even. And yet, the potential to expand and be open to the
limitless possibilities available is capped and held firm to protect what is already here in order to win.
Cheng Man Ching (1985) stated, To learn tai chi chuan, it is first necessary to learn to invest in loss (p. 22).
What does investing in loss look like as a way of being in push hands? Lenzie describes it as leaving yourself
open to being pushed out by your opponent, to see the degree to which you are able to yield and neutralize the
push, to locate your own edge or limit. This way of being creates an opening for the practitioner to discover
what is available beyond their identified edgeto relax the lower back, sink into the hip, suspend the spine.
Ah, now the practitioner has expanded their capacities. It is called investing in loss because it calls for allowing your opponent to possibly push you out. It calls for openness, humility, curiosity, experimentation, and
going past the known into the unknown. Over time, this way of being in practice builds capacities that will
surpass the push hands practitioner who engages with a limited range of strong moves focused on winning.
When coaches take our training, we ask them to invest in loss. Experienced practitioners, especially those who
come from related fields of human development, need to let go of old and familiar ways of being in coaching.
The patterns are deep and it is easy to rely on historical muscles, safe and predictable ways of being. However,
that does not open up pathways for wider experiences, ones that will in the long run create new muscles that
are ever opening, ever expanding. Those of us who have been in coaching for many years are always looking
for the next developmental edge, as Lenzie calls itto not ever get settled in, even in the midst of a strong
form. And, to keep coming back to the form with the beginners mind. What do I see now from this new vantage point, level, or new way of being? This is very difficult to do. Our culture does not celebrate investing in
loss. So, there is much in us and around us that wants to push with all our old moves. In the short run, we may
get the desired result. But in the long run, we are not cultivating the ability to expand our gross, subtle, and
causal capacities. Forever.
Perspective-Taking
The principle of invest in loss holds true in perspective-taking. Each day we have the opportunity to take
more perspectives, see wider vistas, and understand greater territory. By investing in the loss of my old or
current perspective, I gain the capacity to see third-person and fourth-person and fifth-person until I can see
an infinite number of perspectives. Investing in loss contributes to this structure-stage development. Fullness
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tends to come from the vertical perspectives. How many perspectives can you inhabit? Are you going to be
fully awake at red altitude with one perspective or fully awake at turquoise altitude and therefore inhabiting
five? How will you interpret a moment of nondual reality, non-separation at amber altitude versus at green
altitude? (Wilber, personal communication, February 17, 2009).
In the integral community, as in many developmental cohorts, there is a focus on vertical development, but we
can lose touch with the reasons for this striving. Why would we want to invest in loss in this way, repeatedly,
over time? With each successive rung that we have climbed on the ladder of vertical development, we have
had to let go of something. We have had to let go of a shared community of like-thinkers as we, often solitarily,
venture out searching for another; we have had to let go of the sense of sureness or simplicity that we had in
a previous level of consciousness; and we have had to repeatedly let go of thought patterns that, although narrower than the ones to which we were headed, were familiar and well-known. We have headed to places of
greater complexity, views, and depth, and with this wider seeing came more choice-making, as we could not
possibly act on everything we now perceived. It is a curse faced by integral leaders, I believe, for now, I can
now see so much more, but I only have the resources to act on half of it, so I continually have to let go of at
least half of what I think could be done to be of benefit. I have to let go of the previous notions that all will be
served. It is challenging to do, and weirdly easier too, and even harder to explain.
And so, integral takes a perfect lesson from the Tao, from the east, and we invest in losswe lose our present
perspective to take greater perspectives. We include and transcend from our current ways of being to our new
ways of being. Letting go and becoming fuller, at the same time.
Writing
In writing practice, investing in loss is also necessary. As writers, winning is often equated with published
work, pages written, words counted, deadlines met, or number of writing days squeezed in between work commitments. This single-minded pursuit of words written as the only measure of writing success does not build
the capacities that enable writers over time to draw from a wider source. Writers need to hold their writing
time as something beyond just the number of written wordsthe winning score in writing push hands, me
against the page! Writers also need to explore wider dimensions of a writing life. Much is sourced from the
interior as a writer and yet, we do not often pay attention to nurturing and developing this interior space. Forcing myself to write all day does not replenish my body, mind, heart, and spirit. And yet, time away from the
page or computer screen can be held as lost hours. But are they?
When I am perusing bookstores, hanging out with the lineage of writers instead of typing more words, I am
investing in loss. When I am going for a long run, pages are not being written, and I can end up feeling unproductive. More loss. But something new opens in me when I get back to my computer or notebook. It is an
active and awake investment as a writer to wander, to be loose, and to let things roll around. Not, of course,
if that is all I do. I need to be in my writing practice, too, consistently working with the resistance of writing
and editing and re-writing. But to be fully in my writing practice, it is important to be able to invest in loss and
this does not include just lost hours of book-writing time, but also a lost sense of self, purpose, and location.
Investing in the dreamer, investing in the unknown, investing in the loss of the productive, task-oriented seeker
of my next completed writing project.
I am investing in a lithe mind. I am investing in a rested body. I am investing in the development of a wandering, acutely observant, and curious nature. I am getting intimate with my mind, my body, my behaviors, and
my emotions in a way that is mostly unnerving to me because in my life, I have always called it wasting time
or being unproductive. I have not held these times as an investmentthey have been precious writing hours
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lost. Strength training? Loss, if I am not writing my 6,000 words today. Reading a great book? More loss. One
hour preparing a delicious, healthy meal? More loss.
Failure and Success

Investing in loss is part of the practice field. Loss happens with every choice. When we train students, we also
speak of investing in loss from the perspective of letting go of who we hold ourselves to be as though it is a
fixed and defined identity. Yes, structure and form fight to maintain existence in their current state, so we need
to invest in the loss of who we take ourselves to be. Invest in being vulnerable, in failing, in losing, in being
the first to crack. In our culture, we lead with success stories. We speak about how we overcame hardship only
after the healing was done. But if you were to find any of us in the heat of the fire, brought to our knees, in the
midst of loss, you would find that which binds us to each other, that which cracks our hearts open, and leaves
us exposed. Great failures, all of us. Happily. And, of course, great successes too. That is the koan, is it not?
And as we reach for the fruits of horizontal and vertical development, we can be with each other in more ways,
with greater degrees of understanding and awakened capacities, stand in the midst of loss and gain, failure and
success, and get healthier together.
Natalie Goldberg wrote a book titled The Great Failure (2004), and she spoke to a group of us about how the
book did not meet the culture where it was at the time of the books publishing. The culture did not want to
hear about failure. The possibility that loss is the foundation of all true winning is unheard of in our Western
scientific-rational tradition where loss means losingflat out. Readers did not want books about failure; they
wanted books about overcoming failure. When Natalie wrote Writing Down the Bones (1986), it was a huge
success because she said, It met the culture where it was at that moment in time.6 Bones, as it has been referred to, tapped into people looking for ways to capture in writing their wild lives, their individuality, their
unique manifesting. The desire to record our individual expressions of unfolding drew people in and Bones
sold over one million copies. But in 2004, the world wanted to hear about success, even though none of us
succeed in everything. None of us. I have been brought to my knees and did not know if I would live to see
another day. Laura, too. You, too. It is what binds us together, as does laughter and victory, of course. But at a
cocktail party, what do we lead with when asked, So, whats up with you these days? I highly recommend
responding with, I have been thinking about all the times in my life when Ive failed. You know, really failed.
Things get real quickly. Be warned, people may move to the bar quickly! But some people will stay. Alleviating suffering sometimes includes a little suffering, right up front. That includes investing in loss on behalf of a
wider, ever-expanding territory as a writer, a tai chi practitioner, a coach, a human.
Ignorance
There is a word in Sanskrit, avidya, which loosely translates as ignorance. Rigden Shikpo (2007) offers words
that provide a lens to understand form and a sense of self:
Avidya is not some vagueness that descends upon us. It is actually a volition that precedes any structured sense of self. With ignorance comes a sense of form. Form provides us with something to latch onto, something we can use to pull us up and away
from the sense of non-existence. And from this arises the desire for experience: the
desire to work in the world; to smell, taste, touch, move, and breathe; and the sense of
an I that does all this. (p. 70)
Form gives rise to experiencing the world through smell and touch and taste and breath. We can lose our connection to the absolute as we engage through a relative knowing of I. This is necessary in many ways, for
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before there can be a self that can be let go of, there needs to be an awakening to the fact that we have created a self that we take to be me. We tend to be asleep to this reality as we go about our days, carrying out
the plans and actions and dreams of this self. This self is subject, as we are blind to the notion that it exists.
We are it.
Through Integral Coaching, as is explored in other articles in this issue, we can learn about this sense of
self. In essence, as we take subject and have it become object, we exclaim, Oh, there I am! We can see our
self as object and we can look closely, with a magnifying glass. We can gain understanding into the causes
and conditions that give rise to this particular self through the examination of our AQAL Constellation: the
unique combination of interdependent variables that give rise to a sense of me. We can start to understand
our conditioning more and more. My Enneagram four-ness giving rise to my desire to be unique, with all the
shadow and beauty inherent in that. My Upper-Left orienting quadrant sending me deeper into introspection,
dreaming, and my own internal experience. And the remaining four AQAL lenses enable me to see a self
and to hold myself as object. First, I need to see me. Then I can look for a more compassionate understanding
of my unique nature dancing in the relative world.
The witness develops through this objective looking at who I take myself to be. Until at some point I see that if
I can take myself to be this or that, how fixed is that sense of self? I start seeing that my mind can get attached
to time and a solid sense of a me that arises. And it is from this sense of a solid me that I start building
stories about why I am the way I am or providing explanations for why things go as they dothe great construction and illusion.
Laura and I often joke that we are going to offer a masters degree in Integral Coaching, the title of which will
be: You Do Not Arise From An AQAL Constellation. You Do Not Exist. Everything That We Have Taught
You Up Until Now Has Been An Illusion. There is no Current Way of Being. There is no New Way of Being.
The application process to get into this masters program will consist of one essay entitled, How I know for
sure that I do not exist Ken has often said that AQAL is a map of samsara, a map of illusion, a map of what
is not there, and the map of the prison floor, but the better the map you have of the prison floor, the greater the
chance you have of getting out of it.
Knowledge of our own AQAL Constellation can become one of the keys to freedom and fullness. For I must
first start seeing the conditions from which I think that I arise so that I can start building the witness capacities
to see the illusions and gifts of the relative world. Then, I can start to see that my AQAL Constellation is
not a solid form that I can hang my hat on. It too is a constructed and changeable structure. It too enables me
to escape from nondual reality as I solidly define my boundaries. But it is through knowing my AQAL Constellation that I start building the ability to make the last move, the move from knowing the relative to the
absolute, the move from ignorance to truththe both/and nature of our human lives, the ground of being. As
Katagiri (2007) wrote, Full aliveness that exists at the pivot of nothingness before your conceptual thinking
creates an imaginary world through human consciousness (p. 77). From this place of seeing, there is no attachment to involvements and entanglements. There is no attachment to a particular current way or new way.
There is only this moment. What interdependent conditions are giving rise to this moment?
I read a bumper sticker two weeks ago that stated, You are always free to have a happy childhood. I laughed
out loud. I dont think that slogan means looking back and declaring through rose-colored glasses that it
wasnt so bad or it allowed me to become everything I am today or everything happens for a reason. What
I think that quote means is that this moment is arising here and now as a unique individual moment in its own
right, independent of other moments. What is the frame of who I take myself to be in this moment? And given
142
that, how am I looking back on my childhood? Through which set of lenses am I viewing yesterday today? I
am free, in any moment, to be with this looking back through a new pair of expanded glasses. Fresh. Not to
make it better or, quite frankly, to make it anything at all. Just to look at it. It is the current what is of my way
of Looking AS and Looking AT.
Try this when you in the middle of being pissed off about something. You just got cut off on the Queensway
by an idiot driving a black Porsche Cabriolet (the car you have always secretly wanted). She is traveling 30
kilometres an hour over the speed limit and you almost lost control of your new Prius veering to get out of
the way. You slam the steering wheel with the palm of your right hand while muttering profanities, which is,
of course, completely indicative of you not being integral at all, if anyone were to hear you! Try, right in that
enraged moment to say, I am completely free in this moment to not be totally pissed. Try to do that, to really
connect to how attached you are to that emotion arising, that particular sense of self called justifiably pissed
off. May you be better at this practice than me! In the midst of strong emotions, we want to stay attached to
angry or sad or joyful. We take that to be all of who we are in that moment. But is that true? Yesand no. I
am totally pissed off right now. And, at that same moment, I am also so much more.
The last thing we want to connect to in that moment is that we do not exist separate from time and space, that
there is another way or view or perspective, that our fixed sense of self, as most of us take it, is also an illusion. The moment of being cut off on the Queensway is long gone, but I am still hanging out back there, even
in this new moment. At any given time, I am free to be a whole new incarnation of me. But do I jump on that
opportunity, ever-present, as I am fuming on the Queensway? Hell no! But then my cell phone rings and I have
won the Lotto 649 and I completely forget about being angry. Anger gone, just like that! So, which me am I?
And why is it all so transient?
Using the Integral Coaching transcend and include approach to development, a coach going through our training can experience moments of greater and greater awakeningsome profoundly and for the first timein
progressive stages of perceiving as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
I am who I am (subject) and I do not realize that there is any other way.
I am arising from my particular AQAL Constellations current way (object).
I am developing into a newer, healthier, wider, fuller, freer me: new way (object).
This new way of seeing, going, and checking becomes me (subject).
Cycles repeat again and again and again until I come to see that this is the nature of
ignorance (thinking there is only a fixed me in any of these cycles).
6. Deeper cycles of realization that different mes are available at any time, all the
time.
7. Touching the absolute knowing of non-separation, of no separate I-ness.
8. Freedom and fullnessplaying in life with the illusion of I as a more stably lived
way of being, which includes the fullness of taking many perspectives and a freedom
from being attached to any one of them, substantial and insubstantial. Both.
As a cognitive understanding alone, this integral knowledge lives in the realm of theory. And that is fine and
beautifully whole for cognitive debate, but as deep practice is added, enabling integrated and embodied knowing, ah, now you enter the realm of the Jedi Integral Coach. You know who you are. Ignorance is not bliss.
May the force be with you.
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J. HUNT
The Great Matter

Great is the matter of birth and death
Life flows quickly by
Time waits for no one
Wake up! Wake up!
Do not waste this precious life
Buddha
I often speak of death. In our classes, there is a running joke at the start of each new program to see how long it
takes into the first day before I mention, Youre going to die. Wake up! Dont waste time. I think my fastest
record was on day one of the Certification Module this past September when I got into the topic of dying within
seven minutes of the class starting. Our graduates claimed this as a record. I plan to beat it this May. It helps
that my favorite colorand the vast majority of my wardrobeis black. As I tell our students, I am always
ready for a funeral. There are many kinds of death.
What does death and dying have to do with coaching? Only everything. Not just that you are going to die and
therefore, wake up before your one and only life is over. And not just that your clients are also going to die,
so dont waste timebe of service and help to alleviate their suffering sooner rather than later. Death, by its
very nature, is speaking directly to the living of a full and free life. Both sides of the same coin. Death. Life. I
speak about death because I too want to awaken to the true nature of living fully.
At a recent writing retreat, Natalie Goldberg read a poem by Csar Vallejo. It was a poem about painthe excruciating nature of aching and loss and suffering. It is a beautiful poem because it poignantly sits right in the
middle of the agony. It does not try to alleviate the suffering or drown it out in a Guinness (or three). His poem
just pulls up a chair and sits with the pain, in its vivid and bone-crushing anguish. It is Vallejos what is at
that particular moment. He does not make it worse or better. There is no drama or sentimentality. He gets up
close to it with a magnifying glass and looks. After reading the poem aloud, Natalie, with eyes flashing, slyly
asked, So, studentswhat do you think is the title of the poem? Death, we answered, Pain and Misery,
someone called out, Living Through Agony, another student offered. Nope, she responded to each proffered title, This poem is called I am going to talk about hope.7 We sat there stunned. What does hope have
to do with agony? Only everything.
In this same way, death has everything to do with living an awake and happy life. We will die a million deaths
in a lifetime. We will suffer loss of possessions, love, homes, work, livelihood, self-respect, friends, and lovers.
And, we will give life to a million births. We will awaken, live with joy, fall in love, have children, see wider
and fuller vistas, have ah-ha moments, and experience exhilaration. But when we look into each others eyes
rimmed with tears in our mutual brokenness, we see each other. Somehow, I am not sure why, we see each
other and all that is common between us. You will die. I will die. What shall we do between now and then?
My all-time favourite book is one I was given as a little girl, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Bach, 1970). In one
part of the book, about midway through, Jonathan tells his best friend, Sully, that he (Jonathan) needs to leave
heaven and go back to earth to work with the struggling gullsjust in case there are any lonely gull outcasts
on earth, stretching the limits of what they understand to be possible in flight. Sully, saddened and heart aching,
tells Jonathan that he is going to be so missed. And Jonathan replies, Overcome space, and all we have left is
Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, dont you think that we
might see each other once or twice? (Bach, 1970, p. 63). I wrote that quote next to my picture in high school
144
graduation yearbooks in 1980. It has come to mean more and more to me in the decades that have passed. In the
exact moment of death, there is also birth. In the death of parents, there is birthed a parentless son or daughter.
In the moment of a new childs birth, there no longer exists a pregnant mother. Such is dying and birthing as
part of our lived experience.
In a coaching practice, you face yourself and your own birthing and dying every day. And you face the same
process in your clients. In our school, you grow up and wake up more fully to your already perfect, unfolding
life. And you will know more profoundly that you too will die. And in that knowing, all of our practices are
joined together. One practice.
From Elke Drive to Borealis Crescent

Laura and I did not meet at an integral event or coaching conference or even a lesbian bar! We met as neighbors in 1998. Laura moved into a house on Elke Drive, four doors down from where I was living. When I first
walked into her home office after a long, cold Canadian winter, I was amazed to discover that we had almost
identical little libraries. We both had Wilbers books, Zen Buddhism books, existential and philosophy books,
corporate change management books, and in true green altitude fashion, many self-help books on various topics from yoga to mindfulness to discovering your true purpose. The black zafu and zabuton next to her desk
were the same as mine. I looked at Laura in amazement as though I had discovered a twin from a parallel
universe.
Laura had moved to Ottawa, Ontario from Walnut Creek, California and had just started her own coaching
practice. I was working full-time for Nortel Networks managing a group of behavioral psychologists researching human communication desires, patterns, and technology requirements for the future. We were inventing
little iPhone-like devices and researching them globally to determine the kinds of communication infrastructures that would be required in a decade or more. I was a researcher by degrees and trade, but I was most
interested in developing my team wherever I went. I had been in corporate life for almost 15 years in various
research capacities: market research with Dun & Bradstreet, medical/surgical research with Johnson & Johnson, and I was currently in communications research with Nortel Networks.
Laura had recently left a 15-year corporate career as a senior executive with Pacific Bell in California, where
she too had led complex initiatives, developed comprehensive change management programs (the days of the
Total Quality Management were fresh in both of our experiences), and directed large operations. Laura had
brought coaching practices into her work and I was in the middle of doing the same at Nortel. We both had
participated in many development programs, coaching courses from various organizations, deep human development inquiry, and our own practice lives.
During our separate corporate careers, although neither of us ever worked in human resource functions, we
were most interested in what it took to develop people and what it took to actually grow and sustain new capabilities. Why did New Years resolutions only last as long as willpower even with the best of intentions? We
were both intrigued by the integral map in its various phases updated by Wilber over the years and had been
trying to apply integral principles in our own searches for meaning and development.
We met in the front yard of my house. I was wearing red Adidas shorts and a white tank top and had just finished a 15-kilometer run. Laura was in gardening garb and had been digging in the dirt. We talked for hours
standing there on my lawn. Coaching. Integral. Human development. Spiritual seeking. Each of us was already
deep into Zen practice. Laura was a senior student at the White Wind Zen Monastery in Ottawa. I had a substantial, consistent sitting practice and had been studying Zen texts for many years. She joked that I should
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J. HUNT
leave Nortel so that we could start our own business. Six months later, we did. Over a decade later, here we are
with Integral Coaching Canada. And, in the interim, we also fell in love and got married. Go figure.
During our corporate days, development was often pursued by sending someone on a course to develop a
particular managerial skill or interpersonal capacity. The human resource development plan consisted of 1)
attend a course and 2) apply what you learn. The course would finish on a Friday and the manager would be
all keen and fired up to implement the new learning on Monday when back at the office. However, by Tuesday
she would be overwhelmed with e-mails from having been gone for five days. By Wednesday, she would have
applied one-tenth of what she learned the week before. By Thursday, she would be back to doing things how
she had always done them, with a few moments here and there of remembering the process that she learned
for giving feedback, i.e., Say something complimentary, then deliver constructive feedback, and then say
something supportive. With no sense of how to change her current way of working, which had the most traction in her life, and with no ongoing support, the course was left behind as a wonderful developmental week,
but long forgottena wistful memory of an inspiring five days with great trainers and keen participants. Great
intentionality and little integration.
Laura and I agreed that the critical and incorrect assumption in this send someone on a course model was
that the person had the capabilities to implement new learning, which is very different than the capabilities
to understand new ways and means. Similarly, as we rise in consciousness, we can possess the capacity to
understand wider and more complex perspectives, but our ability to enact and eventually embody them in our
stressful lives is a different capability set. Wider integral perspectives can be brought forward (even in integral
communities), but this alone is not sufficient if it does not also include what to do with this new perspective,
how it impacts our current way of moving through the world, interacting with our sense of self, others, the
environment, and spirit. Without embodiment, we can still deceive ourselves through, as Jiddu Krishnamurti
stated, our mask of ideas:
Do not repeat after me words
that you do not understand.
Do not merely put on a mask
of my ideas, for it will be an
illusion and you will thereby
deceive yourself.8
Wider perspective taking alone does not bring about change. Cognitive understanding alone does not equal
embodiment. Laura and I had each been deeply questioning this development conundrum while trying different things out with our teams. We both had studied integral theory, and although we loved its elegant cognitive map, we were most interested in how it worked on the ground in application. There is a great difference
between theoretical understanding and understanding that includes praxis, or the ability to live the theory. One
thing that makes Ken Wilbers work different from other theoretical work is his insistence that even theoria
have a praxis component (i.e., even the parts of Kens writing that appear merely abstract carry a demand for
embodiment). This is evident not just in Kens research and writing, but in his own practice life.
Lauras and my way of coming at human development was through practice, which we would then try to understand, map, and break down into components through various theoretical and developmental frameworks.
The circle was ever-present for us, linking what we were observing, seeing, learning in our practices, and in
our work with clients and students, and then trying to understand more deeply, asking each other, What is
really going on here? How do you think they see such that they asked that question? What do they see and not
146
see? What would have been a more skilful and compassionate response? We have spent our lives in interactions with human beings trying to understand the development structures shining through. Awake praxis supported well by comprehensive theoria.
Laura and I had both been through many training programs during and following our corporate careers. What
we had experienced through other coaching schools, programs, courses, and workshops was that once the
taste ended, so did most of the integration. That even with the best intentions and most profound of desires,
the abilities for programs to enable sustained change were limited. We taught and/or learned from excellent
strategic change, leadership, and coaching programs offered by a variety of companies. I had been drawn to
the Generative Leadership Group (GLG) and their excellent work in designing systemic change. Mel Toomey
was my first coach; he enabled me to see that I could play my guitar and write songs at 6:00 A.M.and I hated
him for that practice! It messed with my story that song-writing was a late night, glass of wine, candlelight sort
of practice. I introduced GLGs work to Laura and we are both still very supportive of the coherent systemic
work that they do in the corporate marketplace. Laura had originally studied with New Ventures West (NVW)
before moving to Ottawa. We taught their one-year coaching program once together before deciding to develop
a fully sourced integral program rather than deliver one that is partially integral-informed. Although we remain
grateful for our experience with NVW, it was actually through our relationship with them that we came to
realize that the more fully we were going to dedicate ourselves to something, the greater was the need for that
something to have clean, clear coherence, all the way down, not just in terms of being true to integral theory
but also in being integrally coherent in all aspects of the business, program design, teacher capacities, and relationships with students. While their offering had solid coherence for them, it did not for us. I do not state this
lightly. Objective research conducted by a third party came to the same conclusion as three self-claimed integral coaching schools (Integral Coaching Canada, New Ventures West, and Newfield) were subjected to the
full scrutiny of Lisa Frosts masters thesis research (see Integral Perspectives on Coaching, pp. 93-120 in
this issue). Her finding was that Integral Coaching Canada has developed the only coach training program being offered today that is fully and accurately sourced by integral theory in the foundation, fabric, and weave of
our coaching method, process, and training program design. Lisa subsequently enrolled in our school. Through
a separate assessment, the Integral Institute came to the same conclusion and our partnership was formed.
We wanted to build an integral adult development system grounded in integral theory and focused on alleviating suffering. Deciding to build an Integral Coaching school had significant consequences for Laura and me.
We took almost a year offwhich was extremely difficultclosed our client business, contracts, completed
in-process course offerings, and ate up much of our savings to sink deeply into root sources: integral theory,
Zen, the Tao, tai chi, writing practice, subject-object theory, U theory, adult development models, change
management theory, martial arts, systems theory, the work of Ken Wilber, Robert Kegan, Otto Scharmer, Jane
Loevinger, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Carol Gilligan, Suzuki Roshi, Katagiri Roshi, Sri Aurobindo, Zenji Dgen
Kigen, Mary Oliver, Rainer Maria Rilke, William Carlos Williams, Jalal ad-Din Rumi, T. S. Eliot, and hundreds of other authors whose books line our library shelves. Body. Mind. Emotions. Spirit. We built a zendo,
practice studio, and fitness room in the basement of our house on Borealis Crescent. And we settled down to
a monastic 10 months of practice, deep inquiry, writing, articulating our experiences of working in human
development over these decades, widening our perspectives and comprehending more of the integral territory,
debating, drawing and redrawing, and we began giving voice to what we had come to understand. Our individual ways of being had always grounded each of our practices in a developmental context. Neither of us had
ever stopped with just practicewe constantly wanted to know how our practices fit, and where, and why, and
what else. These capacities served us well during this intense retreat period together. Our practice was deep
and relentless. Formless became form. We called it Integral Coaching Canada. We wanted it to be good, true,
and beautiful.
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J. HUNT
The materials would need to meet that high bar of excellence in quality, elegance, and integral design. The
courses would need to match that in quality, elegance, and integral design. The practices to build coaches
would need to match that in quality, elegance, and integral design.
Our school is not perfect. We are not perfect. We are flawed and messy and doing our very best. We confront
shadow and face each other each dayit is not easy to be married and running an integral company even on
our good days! We are still learning from every source, Ken Wilbers latest thoughts, and integrals ongoing
evolution and global discourse. Our coach training program improves with each new offering as deeply realized integral practitioners join this lineage and add their voices. Thank you for your generosity and offerings
to Laura and me. We are humbled by your trust.
When we started building our company, we wanted it to stay small. We had done big things in our corporate
careers. Our school would live in Ottawa, Ontario. It would have just two of us and a small number of dedicated studentsnimble, easy to adjust, fluid and flexible, flowing with demand and inspiration. Integral. No
one needed to know about it. We could die happy and unknown. It would, hopefully, be of service to those who
came into contact with it and that would be enough.
And here I am writing this memoir on behalf of both of us for the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice.
Here we are, the global coaching partner of the Integral Institute and Integral Life, our program included as
independent credit offerings in John F. Kennedy Universitys masters degree program in California, and we
have been the primary trainer of internal coaches for the Canadian Government. Now we are expanding to
other cities, other countries. We did not plan on this. We could not have known. And we did not get here alone.
The wildness of life fills the bamboo pole and overflows into all time and space.
Laura and I bow to the lineage of pandits and gurus, teachers, and guides who brought their wisdom to bear
through spoken word and written word to every aspect of our work. We deeply thank you, Ken, especially
for the tears that welled in your eyes when we first met at your loft years ago, as you looked tenderly into
our eyesalso brimming with tearsand softly said, Im sorry that you have been so alone in this integral
work. May you feel honored by our efforts to accurately translate and elegantly apply integral theory to Integral Coaching.
We offer these writings to a wider audience knowing that we are only two out of many, many people doing
extraordinary work in the world in ways that have much greater impact than ours. We look forward to what
becomes of this shared vocation of consciousness development in the global community uniquely expressed
by each of us, for all of us. May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
By your full devotion, the phenomenal world and unknown time and space come
together and work together in your liferight here, right now. At that time you are
calmly, stably walking on Buddhas path, and you live freely in peace and harmony.
The beauty of existence appears in your life as the functioning of wisdom, and your
action is right because it is manifesting the truth. The human form called Buddha or
bodhisattva arises as time and space, and that form really helps people. So lets walk
together with hope and make our life mature. Then, by compassionate action based
on wisdom, we can help all sentient beings move one step toward the future. Thats
pretty good for us.
Katagiri Roshi9
148
N OTES
From Katagiri, Each Moment is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time (2007), pp. 43-44.
These excerpts have been printed with permission.
3
Lenzie Williams school, located in Berkeley, California, is called Tai Chi Berkeley.
4
This message has been reprinted with permission from the author.
5
See www.integralcoachingcanada.com, Resources/Perspectives (September 17, 2008).
6
These comments were offered during a writing retreat with Natalie Goldberg in April, 2006.
7
I Am Going To Talk About Hope was written by Cesar Vallejo and translated by Robert Bly in the poetry collection,
Neruda & Vallejo: Selected Poems (1971), p. 240.
8
Excerpted from a speech by Krishnamurti called Formless Creation, given at the closing of Camp K in 1928.
9
Ibid. 1, p. 172.
1
2
R EFERENCES
Bach, R. (1970). Jonathon Livingston Seagull: A
story. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing
Co., Inc.
Bly, R. (1971). Neruda & Vallejo: Selected poems.
Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Cheng, M. (1982). Master Chengs thirteen chapters on tai chi chuan. Brooklyn, NY: Sweet
Chi Press.
Eliot, T. S. (1943). Four quartets. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace & Company.
Goldberg, N. (1986). Writing down the bones: Freeing the writer within. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Goldberg, N. (2004). The great failure: A bartender,
a monk, and my unlikely path to truth. New
York, NY: Harper Collins.
Katagiri, D. (1988). Returning to silence: Zen prac-
tice in daily life. Boston, MA: Shambhala

Publications, Inc.
Katagiri, D. (1998). You have to say something:
Manifesting Zen insight. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Katagiri, D. (2007). Each moment is the universe:
Zen and the way of being time. Boston, MA:
Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Lo, B., & Inn, M. (1985). Cheng Tzus thirteen treatises on tai chi chuan. Berkeley, CA: North
Atlantic Books.
Nhat Hanh, T. (1999). Call me by my true names.
Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press.
Shikpo, R. (2007). Never turn away: The Buddhist
path beyond hope and fear. Somerville, MA:
Wisdom Publications, Inc.
Suzuki, S. (1970). Zen mind, beginners mind: Informal talks on Zen meditation and practice.
New York, NY: Weatherhill.
JOANNE HUNT, M.M.S, M.C.C., is a co-founder of Integral Coaching Canada, Inc. She is also the Vice President,
Coach Federation. Joanne holds a masters degree in Management Studies and is the lead trainer, with Laura Divine, of
partner, Laura.
149
Erratum
The figure captions were reversed in Vivian Baruchs article, Promoting Thriving for Therapists: An Integral
Perspective (Vol. 3, No. 4., p. 108 and p. 111). The captions should have read: Figure 1. The five modules
of a comprehensive approach to self-care. Figure 2. AQAL model for self-care, based on the four quadrants
of Wilbers integral model. Adapted from Wilber (2000). JITP regrets the error.
150

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Editor-in-Chief:

Angie Hinickle, Brad Reynolds

Heather Larkin, Ph.D.

Simon Senzon, M.A., D.C.

Andre Marquis, Ph.D., L.P.C.

Elizabeth Smith, DSW, LICSW

Randy Martin, Ph.D.

Jeffrey Soulen, M.D.

Cynthia McEwen, MBA, M.A.

Elliott Ingersoll, Ph.D., P.C.C.

John Records, J.D.

Karen Wyatt, M.D.

Paul Landraitis, M.A.

Michael Schwartz, Ph.D.

Michael Zimmerman, Ph.D.

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

Guest Editors Introduction

Transcending and Including our Current Way of Being: An Introduction to

A Unique View Into You: Working With a Clients AQAL Constellation

Transformational Conversations: The Four Conversations of Integral Coaching

Integral Perspectives on Coaching: An Analysis of Integral Coaching Canada Across

Building Integral Coaching Canada: A Practice Journey

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

EXECUTIVE EDITORS NOTE

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

EXECUTIVE EDITORS NOTE

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

GUEST EDITORS INTRODUCTION

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

GUEST EDITORS INTRODUCTION

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

GUEST EDITORS INTRODUCTION

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

TRANSCENDING AND INCLUDING

Evolution of the Field of Coaching

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

Belief Structures Underlying Human Change

UPPER RIGHT (UR)

Change occurs through insights from inside

Change occurs through new doings and

Change occurs through conversation with

Change occurs through the optimization of

LOWER LEFT (LL)

LOWER RIGHT (LR)

Figure 1. Common belief structures for change.

Journal of Integral Theory and PracticeVol. 4, No. 1

UPPER RIGHT (UR)

Client becomes aware of their current way of

Client engages in integrally- designed exercises

Client gains new insights and understanding

Client more objectively sees how they fit in

LOWER LEFT (LL)

LOWER RIGHT (LR)

Figure 2. Integral Coaching approach to change.