Spirituality has the potential to connect us all, to let us know what it means to be human, but how can we unbundle it from religious traditions? Katherine Long presents the Refraction model, and the dynamic dance at its core that could give us all a glimpse of an elusive Oneness
In spite of an increased openness generally, the words ‘spiritual’ and ‘spirituality’ still carry baggage for many of us. One of the first issues that emerge when I have a dialogue with coaches is the relationship between spirituality and religion. The challenge (or opportunity) here, is how we find ways of unbundling spirituality from specific traditions (or no traditions) and find expressions which connect us all, rather than divide us.
A biological perspective can be helpful here. Putting aside the maps and compasses of the different traditions, spirituality can be seen as a function of what it means to be human, wired into our physiology, and supporting our capacity to experience transcendence and connectedness.
Being human
Dungen [1] speaks of “a temporal-limbic ‘root’ spirituality, involving a direct, emotional, awe-stricken, passionate, profound spiritual experience and a prefrontal cortex ‘symbolic’ spirituality, allowing for the computation of artistic, ‘initiatoric’, theological and abstract cultural superstructures (mediations, stabilisations) of such experiences”.
The editor of New Scientist [2] recognises the same phenomenon, but less welcomingly: “Religion is deeply etched in human nature and cannot be dismissed as a product of ignorance, indoctrination or stupidity. Until secularists recognise that, they are fighting a losing battle.”
But this dim view is not represented in other parts of the scientific community. In a TED talk on ‘Science and Spirituality’, Leibermann[3] ponders what would happen if we allowed quantum perspectives, inherent in many traditions, to renew our minds: “What would the whole world look like if every single one of us felt complete, felt whole and felt interconnected? When you let go of individual survival, all of your priorities change because you actually see the entire world as your body. You see the suffering of others as your own suffering and you want to help… Maybe the one thing that keeps us from solving all of the other problems in the world is this persistent flawed thought that we are separate from the world. And maybe it’s time we change our minds.”
Handle-makers
But it can feel challenging to know where to begin, in the face of this ‘something’ with the qualities of “the unbroken wholeness of the totality of existence as an undivided flowing movement without borders” (Bohm[4]).
Thankfully, there are ‘handle-makers’ out there. Wilber’s integral spirituality framework[5] describes developmental stages of spiritual consciousness to reflect on and to understand our own stages of growth.
Zohar and Marshall[6] suggest that our brain’s synchronous neural oscillations provide a “fulcrum for growth and transformation” and posit 12 facets of what they call Spiritual Intelligence.
Walsh[7] has researched core spiritual practices from a range of traditions, with potentially interesting work for us to translate these into business practices.
Researching the ‘Spirit at Work’ movement, Howard and Welbourn[8] simplify their findings into four connections (connecting with Self, Others, Nature and Higher Power), which provide great lenses to explore the dimension of connectedness – a defining quality of spirituality.
Common denominator
My own thinking has drawn from these, but has taken me down a different trail. In sifting through philosophies and traditions that have influenced the coaching profession (mindfulness, quantum perspectives, existentialism, meditation, the Rogerian legacy, heart-based and somatic practices to name a few), I wondered if I could view the profession as a fractal of a wider whole. And, looked at this way, which highest common denominators might emerge?
I landed on the metaphor of the refraction of light. While you have been reading this article, how aware have you been of the light around you? It’s not something we think about much (unless it’s very bright, or dark). But when refracted, we see the component colours, which we recognise and give names to. So if we ‘refract’ spirituality, what might we see?
The Oneness
Each part of the spectrum can be developed in relationship to the four connections mentioned earlier (Self, Others, Nature, Higher Power), and we can learn to embody them through spiritual practices that attend to each of them.
The representation in Figure 1 is linear (for the sake of explanation), but each part is really overlapping – when different coloured lights come together they merge back into white.
There is a dynamic dance at play between the core elements – and when we experience them together, we can glimpse the deep Oneness.
Do you want to be involved in further research? Or continue the discussion? Then contact Katherine at: mail@katherinelong.co.uk
Using the Refraction model
The Refraction model presents lenses to help focus our intention, but the real work is in embodying these qualities in the person of the coach. Rachel (see case study, page 49), could not have achieved what she did without being able to embody presence and reconciliation.
The model is not a ‘technique’, but it can provide a set of lenses to look at ourselves and the situations we encounter in our work.
Adopting a spiritual perspective may be accompanied by a physical experience of ‘floating’ – we are expanding our horizons and perceptions – which takes us out of the purely rational or even intuitive and into a wider, more compassionate state.
The model doesn’t exclude the use of other tools and techniques, but imbues them with a spiritual meaning, so, for example, doing an MBTI profiling with a client is more than just defining personality type, it’s a window into understanding what she or he can uniquely contribute and provide clues as to how they are living out their life’s purpose.
Case study: Joan and Rachel
The issue
Rachel is a director of a healthcare social enterprise, and also acts as an internal coach. The issue she brought to supervision related to her board of directors. The previous MD, highly respected and extremely effective in engaging staff across the organisation, had recently resigned. The board decided to recruit a new MD internally, but their preferred candidate had declined the post. The new MD, Joan, was not a popular choice but was seen as technically competent. Her appointment coincided with new mandatory regulations that were widely perceived as diminishing the level of care offered to clients. A number of key staff members had threatened to resign, with a risk that client care would be compromised. Joan seemed unable or unwilling to tackle the issue, which was starting to spiral out of control, and create rifts among the board.
How we used the Refraction model
Rachel was familiar with the Refraction model and agreed to use it in our session.
Our exploration flowed around the four key areas, which gradually built a deeper understanding of the spiritual dynamics of the situation. Below is a summary, but it also feels important to emphasise the quality of the supervision session. We both sensed ourselves entering a greater level of empathy and compassion for the individuals involved, less anxious to find a solution, and more focused on uncovering the means by which the situation might find its own resolution from within.
The lack of unity and cohesion (Oneness) seemed to stem mainly from the fact that the values and integrity of the organisation (Meaning) were perceived as being compromised. This was having an impact on relationships and communication (Love), with a great deal of anger being directed at Joan, who was becoming increasingly isolated. Rather than pulling together to understand and resolve issues, the board members were behaving reactively, throwing themselves into operational activities (Presence – or rather lack of).
In exploring the Presence dimension, we sensed this was where the opportunity for change lay. We explored the possibility of Rachel bringing the board together – without agenda – to simply reflect mindfully and compassionately on their experiences.
The outcome – in Rachel’s words
Joan and I agreed that the board would have a meeting without her to consider how best to work together, and then feed back the response of the team. The meeting was without an agenda but with a clear purpose – to improve how we worked together and how to support Joan in her new and challenging role.
We began with a ‘checking in’ process, which was cathartic – lots of interpersonal conflicts surfaced and were somehow put into perspective.
Overall, we felt the board needed to act in a much more ‘emotionally intelligent’ way – rather than ‘cross off onerous tasks’, and instead explore issues in search of the optimum solution.
Nine months later the team is working much better together, the meetings are less tense affairs, boardroom morale is much improved and there are signs that the rest of the organisation is noticing that Joan is now ‘getting it’. The new work procedures have now been fully communicated and trained in and the resignations were limited to two individuals who actually changed role rather than leave the organisation.
References
1 W van den Dungen, ‘Neurophilosophical inquiries’: http://neuro.sofiatopia.org/index.htm
2 ‘Know your Enemy’, Editorial, New Scientist (17 March, 2012)
3 ‘Science and Spirituality’ TED Talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0–_R6xThs
4 D Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, London: Routledge, 1980
5 K Wilber, Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World, Shambhala Publications Inc., USA, 2007
6 D Zohar and I Marshall, SQ: Connecting with our Spiritual Intelligence, Bloomsbury USA, 2001
7 R Walsh, Essential Spirituality, New York: Wiley, 1999
8 S Howard and D Welbourn, The Spirit at Work Phenomenon, London: Azure, 2004
Coaching at Work, volume 8, issue 2