Integral Journeys

In their most recent book, Immunity to Change (2009), Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey demonstrate that each of us has a psychological and behavioral “immune system” that resists specific change—even and especially change we feel committed to—much the same way our physiological immune systems resist specific change in our bodies. Briefly, we behave in ways that obstruct our conscious commitments to change because we have hidden competing commitments that are deeply important to our sense of safety. If we’re willing to do some work, we can uncover some big assumptions we hold (also hidden) that underlie the hidden commitments that lead to the bewildering behaviors that thwart our attempts change.

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In “Slow Learner,” the introduction to his most recent book, Washington Rules (2010), Andrew Bacevich shares with us his own two-decade-plus assumption-testing journey.  No small act, and while not overtly engaged in Kegan and Lahey’s process, Professor Bacevich’s courageous disclosures evince a level of deepening self-awareness and complexity that speak to his own, each of our, and our country’s immunity to, and prospects for, change.

Bacevich, a West Point and Princeton educated, retired U.S. Army Colonel, Vietnam veteran, Boston University professor, author, and father of four—including First Lieutenant Andrew John Bacevich, killed in action in Iraq, May 13, 2007, begins: “Worldly ambition inhibits true learning. Ask me, I know. A young man in a hurry is nearly uneducable….Only as ambition wanes does education become a possibility” (1).

He continues:
By temperament and upbringing, I had always taken comfort in orthodoxy. In a life spent subject to authority, deference had become a deeply ingrained habit. I found assurance in conventional wisdom. Now I started, however hesitantly, to suspect that orthodoxy might be a sham. I began to appreciate that authentic truth is never simple…. The powerful, I came to see, reveal truth only to the extent that it suits them….

I came to these obvious points embarrassingly late in life….And so, at age forty-one, I set out, in halting and haphazard fashion, to acquire a genuine education.

Twenty years later I’ve made only modest progress. (3-4)

My reading is that the author’s “genuine education” calls for a relentless and inevitably discomfiting examination of current worldview (i.e. assumptions) and consequent behaviors; holding them up alongside observable events in the manifest world; discerning among worldviews that are factual, ideological, and assumptive; and doing the ongoing work required to bring and keep one’s way of seeing and being in the world into alignment with “authentic truth”—observable events in any given moment and set of circumstances. No easy task, but an invaluable one.

Bacevich’s writing, in this volume and in his earlier work, embodies an evenhanded, fierce wisdom, a continually deepening self-awareness, and an increasingly comprehensive perspective that exposes and deconstructs the foreign, military and economic policy posturings of both political parties in the United States since the end of World War II.

As he continues to challenge assumptions—his own, his government’s, and ours, his personal story is an exemplar for change, and his historical-political voice is essential in the national and global conversations on sustainability.  

Often, when we’re stuck, our current field of view may be limiting what we can see, and therefore, what we can do. At other times, what we currently (habitually) do limits our field of view.

When we’re held hostage by our worldview and our behavior, it’s sometimes tempting and occasionally appropriate to learn a new set of skills or technical competencies. More often, we need to develop a new way of seeing and behaving–we need to develop ourselves in a way that expands what we’re aware of and consequently able to do, rather than adding to our technical skills. Instead of our inventory getting larger, our field of view does.

I am currently working with leaders who are committed to working with a sense of “stuckness” as a developmental opportunity.

For another way to express this, see the poem immediately below.

THE SNIPER
-for Anne Marie Marra, 1953-2009, and for the
promise of ever-deepening and broadening fields
of view for the hostage taker, hostage, sniper and
solution each of us is from moment to moment.

breathes deep,
slow,
squints through the
scope,
truth
in the cross-hairs,
the solution,
precisely committed
to freeing the hostage.

Last resort,
attainable horizon, not
a solution, but

the

solution when
negotiation or
hard work             fails
or        takes
too
long.

If only it were that easy,
held hostage as we are—
bliss and rage, reason
and myth,
memory,

all of them,
always them, without
which
we might see
clearly
find freedom.

Who was the
sniper for the pain
that held you hostage?

What did she see,
or not, through
that narrow scope
before she squeezed the
trigger—

another option
perhaps, just outside
her field of view,
a hair away from
your final
solution.

We all
play each role—
taker, hostage, sniper—
moment-to moment holding,
held, setting free.
Problem and solution.

We love the
scope, the crosshair’s
promise, at times
too          slow,
or quick
to squeeze
the trigger,

release

the solution’s
allure and
terror.

Copyright © 2011 by Reggie Marra

Despite your formidable drive and iron will, rough spots and late-day fades are par for the course. You get hooked, find yourself wedged in traps and often left holding the bag.

Decades ago your family, along with the community, marketplace and culture-at-large, replaced your authentic game with a substitute so you’d play their game on the course they built. They did this with the best of intentions—to protect you and help you succeed in the way that they knew. They broke down every nuance of your stance, grip, swing and attitude, and influenced everything from your shoes and clubs to your rain gear and balls. You responded by repressing or acting out your emotions—or both, closing down parts of your game, building barriers, and enacting strategies to defend the little authenticity you had left.

You now excel at the substitute game and yearn for what you lost. The good news is that though your authentic game is hidden, it’s not lost, and you can reclaim it. It’s buried amid a maze of words, images, secrets, opinions, habits, worldviews, lists, best practices, only-things, how-to’s, to-do’s, videos and voodoos that promise to iron out every wrinkle and eliminate every bogey man in your particular slice of life. As you know, nothing in the maze ever truly makes the final cut. 

It is your responsibility alone to recover your authentic game. No one can do this for you. You’ll have to work skillfully, drop conditioned defenses, remove barriers, and see the substitute game for what it is—someone else’s. Recovering your authenticity requires rigorous, gentle attention to every course and hole you play, every club you choose and every shot you take—as well as your deepest response to each of these, on and off the course, in each and every moment.

Recovery may call you to explore your spirituality or a deeper awareness of your physical body. It might inquire into your core beliefs and values, your emotions, moral strategies, or relationships. Rigorous, gentle attention will guide and serve you well wherever you are—within the realms of art, business, teaching, service, laughter, nature, family, and governance, among many, many others.  Who knows where your authentic game might emerge? It’s yours: no one-size-fits-all is available.

You play your authentic game in that space in which you unconditionally accept every shot you take, while wholeheartedly and deeply immersed within each shot’s every nuance. You play in the paradox of letting the ball land where it lands—completely free from any desire for it to be elsewhere, while your mind and heart break wide open—with joy as it drops into the cup, or with disbelief when it sinks to sleep with Luca Brasi and the fishes. Neither of these—wisdom’s infinite freedom nor compassion’s deep fullness—suffices. You need both. Your authentic game requires that you play every hole with and as this paradox—wisdom and compassion, freedom and fullness.

Integral Coaching® and the programs I offer provide a framework that will help you see your current game. We’ll honor and keep what works, release what no longer serves, and develop the muscles you need for sustainable growth. You’ll practice accountability and forgiveness, especially with yourself. You’ll engage your stance, grip, swing and shot with fierce gentleness. You’ll embrace paradox and catch yourself in both games—substitute and authentic—especially with those you love. You’ll definitely laugh and probably cry. You’ll keep paying attention. You’ll expand your awareness and transform your intentions.

Copyright © 2011 by Reggie Marra
All rights reserved.

Integral Coaching® is a registered trade-mark in Canada owned by Integral Coaching Canada, Inc. and licensed to Reggie Marra.

This past Thursday, February 24th, I completed a training begun in June 2009 and received certification as an Integral Coach™ with Integral Coaching Canada (ICC).

I am deeply grateful to Laura Divine and Joanne Hunt, founders of ICC, and my instructors for the final 9 months of the program, and to Leslie Williams and Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, who led me through the first 5 months back in 2009.

Deep bows as well to Kevin Snorf and James Baye, who coached me during the initial and final training modules, respectively. Their insights, support and leading by example remain invaluable sources of both inspiration and motivation.

Thanks too to the 19 souls who moved through these last 9 months with me, especially my estimable study group, Steve, Almu and Erich, and our courageous and patient mentor, Jill Malleck. I’m tempted here to start naming everyone else, but won’t–I love you all, you know that, so stop your whining and get to work.

Almost finally, thanks to RO, LA, DP, JL and RG for their courage working with me for months as official volunteer clients during this training, especially RO, who was first in 2009 and survived, and to MM, MT, MS, and MS who helped me hone my skills as unofficial volunteers. What’s up with the M’s?

To my eight “speed coaching” friends–MM, JC, SD, BB.1, DD,  BB.2, FV and KO, who helped me prepare for certification week’s live coaching session, I’m glad the windburn and whiplash have subsided, and to PW in Ottawa, for your courage in a room full of strangers.

Finally, as always, deepest love and thanks to the incomparable  Marianela Medrano-Marra–esposa, compañera, amante y amiga.

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Integral Coaching® is a registered trade-mark in Canada owned by Integral Coaching Canada, Inc. and licensed to Reggie Marra.

Thanks for finding your way here. Whether you’re here to look into coaching, workshops/retreats, poetry, or fundraisers, this page provides a good introductory overview.

Integral Journeys is not a travel agency in any literal sense, but a journey for sure—through identity, perspective, behavior, relationship and environment, and that’s just for starters.

My overt and covert intention is to alleviate unnecessary suffering—my own and yours, if that sounds attractive to you. Toward that end, I offer coaching and workshops that explore the relationships among identity—who you think you are, perspective—how you view the world, behavior—what you do, relationship—with whom you interact, and environment—everything “out there” that affects you (and that you affect, and perhaps even effect from time to time).

So, when you’re wrapping your arms (mind, heart, soul and spirit) around a currently unwieldy issue, task, “opportunity,” or (gulp) person, I believe that your attention needs to be with the individual who’s always at the scene of your unwieldy experiences.  That would be you.

Not that you would ignore the issue, task, opportunity or other person(s), but the evidence is in: until you truly see, feel and hear your own perspective on, role in, and approach to the unwieldiness—until you own your modus operandi—you may be carrying the flaming torch of passion into the gasoline convention (or offering potable water to a drowning woman or man).

Transformation begins with self awareness. Once you’re aware of your mode of operation, you can operate on it. Until then, it operates you—or at the very least, on you. 

My tool kit carries a variety of lenses that will bring into focus your current way of negotiating what’s unwieldy for you, and then offer a new way, along with practices designed to help you embody it.

For information on fundraising for not-for-profits, check out Take Half My Income.

Thanks for stopping by, and please contact me if you have any questions.

reggie@integraljourneys.com
203.723.1421
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Integral Journeys is a member of the Waterbury Regional Chamber of Commerce.

At the invitation of NYC Vistage Chair, Mark Taylor, I presented Who Do You Think You Are, and What (in the World) Are You Doing? to a group of key executives on Thursday December 2.

Designed to be an introduction to integral theory and application–with a focus on “the self”–what each of us is aware or unaware of–the program focused on the influences of intention, behavior, relationship and environment on our moment-to-moment awareness. 

In response to the presentation, Mark posted this insightful reflection on his blog.

Thanks again to Alex Havriliak, who hosted the meeting at the offices of Volunteers of America of Greater New York.

I’ll be reading at Silas Bronson Library in Waterbury, CT on November 3 at 6:30 PM as part of the Calling All Poets series, hosted by Victoria Muñoz. The evening includes my reading, a Q & A session, and an open mic.

The library is located at 267 Grand Street in Waterbury. I’d love to see some familiar faces–whether celebrating or mourning election results.

On Thursday, September 30 at 6:30 PM, I will be the featured poet at the Underwood Café as the Riverwood Poetry Series kicks off its Fall 2010 program. The Café takes place at Wood Memorial Library in South Windsor, CT.

Friend and poet Faith Vicinanza will feature on Saturday, September 25 at the Buttonwood Tree in Middletown, CT, also at 6:30 PM.

We would love to see you there.

Both readings include an open mic.

Visit http://www.riverwoodpoetry.org/ to find out more.