Integration

Imagine your favorite lake. Picture it sparkling with morning light, or covered by fog looking mysterious. Watch the sun rise or set over the water, notice the fish jump and the dragonflies buzz past you. Envision your lake both calm and stormy, and notice the life, aliveness and movement of its waters. Your lake, with all it holds, is a wonderful metaphor for the entire Co-Active model.

Your lake started as a depression in the ground, carved by glaciers or erosion or the shifting restlessness of earth herself. The lakebed, made of bedrock, covered by sand, weeds or dirt, represents the cornerstones of the Co-Active model. The cornerstones are always there, holding everything steady and secure.

Now picture the shore, the beaches, the rocks and trees, the way the water laps up and is contained. This represents the designed alliance of the Co-Active model, which defines the boundaries, shape, and even the purpose of your lake.

And now look at the water itself. Notice its depth and color. In this metaphor, the water represents what we call the contexts of the Co-Active model, which, in this case, we are also calling the “keys to integration.” These are:

Like the water in your lake, these contexts are fluid. They blend into each other, work together, and can happen at the same time with no discernable edge or boundary: Listening flows into Intuition, requiring both Self-Management and Curiosity, as we focus on the interplay of Forwarding the Action and Deepening the Learning.

And, just as in a lake there are often cooler spots or places where it becomes shallower and the light reflects differently, one of the contexts may move into sharper focus for a time. We may consciously choose to heighten our Curiosity, or decide we’ve Deepened the Learning and need to Forward the Action now. Ultimately, though, the five contexts are blended and inseparable. Swimming in them, letting them shape and lift us, creates integration in ourselves, our relationships and our world.

Thus, the lake is held by its bedrock, the cornerstones, defined by the shore, a designed alliance, and full of water in which to play, the contexts. Let’s dive into the water and see what’s there.

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.

~Karl Menninger

As Menninger so beautifully puts it, truly being listened to allows us to “unfold and expand.” So the first water in our lake is the context of Listening. We all know it is important to listen, just as we know how much we value those relationships where it is present. We are naturally aware of subtle distinctions in listening, and we say things like “I just love my new friend Rachel. She really listens.” Given the fact that we talk and (presumably) listen all the time, why is it such a big deal to be actually, authentically listened to? In other words, what’s the difference between listening as most people do in day-to-day life, and the kind of listening that has us unfold and expand?

The truth is, we all have the capacity to listen at many levels, from automatic self-referential responses (known as Level One in the Co-Active model), to an intense focus on what the other person is saying (what we call Level Two) to the ability to hear at a broader level, including what is not being said and even what is present in what we might call “the energetic field” (Level Three).

These levels are fascinating not only intuitively, but also from a neuroscience perspective. To begin with, the evolving understanding of the brain indicates we never get completely away from what we know as Level One. If we did, we might not understand anyone at all. This has to do with the fact that many of the neurons in our brain are “multi-modal”—that is, the same ones fire if we do something (like lift a pen), if we watch someone doing something (even if we’re not doing it ourselves, the same motor neurons in our own brains fire if someone else lifts a pen), if we imagine something (visualizing ourselves lifting a pen), and if we remember something (recalling when we lifted a pen).

As neuroscientist Jerome Feldman, an expert on how the brain understands language, puts it: “If you cannot imagine someone picking up a glass, you can’t understand the meaning of ‘someone picked up a glass.’” We have to run an idea through our own experience, effectively “simulating” things in our own brains in order to make them meaningful. In the process, we latch on to places in our experience that connect with what we are being told.

For example, when someone says, “I went to Yellowstone National Park on vacation last week,” our brains automatically sort through data to find a connection, a way to make this information personally meaningful. We think of vacations, of mountains, of the geyser “Old Faithful,” etc. Without consciously doing so, we are, in effect, asking ourselves, “How can I know this person? How can I understand her experience?”

The challenge with this is that far too often we get stuck in the simulation, in our own “Level One” processing and response. While this is important for a baseline understanding, it only provides our own take on things, and thus keeps us living in assumptions and not really hearing the other person.

In other words, for most people, as Fran Lebowitz once remarked, the opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. Generally we wait for our turn to talk and respond automatically rather than thoughtfully. Our brains give us about 17 seconds to take in information before we need to make it personally meaningful (if you time 17 seconds, you’ll find it is about ten words in normal conversation). After that, our brains are looking for their own connection to the topic. Wait, what did you say?

This is compounded by sheer busy-ness and pace of modern life. All manner of information is readily available at our fingertips, so we tend to stay on the surface, not paying full attention to who we are with because we’re paying attention to something else, from smart phones to the ubiquitous overhead TVs in public spaces, to our internal to-do lists.

Far too often, our conversations come from an exclusively Level One place and therefore sound like ping-pong matches, with each person simply waiting to hit the conversational ball:

A: I went to Yellowstone last week on vacation.

B: You did? I was there many years ago. It’s beautiful. My kids loved Old Faithful.

A: Yeah, well, it’s changed a lot in the past few years. You can’t even find a place to park by most of the main attractions.

B: We went off-season in the fall. That’s the time to go, if you ask me. We always go to the National Parks off-season.

A: Yeah, well, we’re stuck to the school schedule, you know.

B: That’s why we homeschool. Best way to do it.

And so on. A conversation of sorts (or perhaps two separate conversations!), but when both people are in Level One, not much in the way of connection or understanding is actually happening. Ironically, understanding is most likely what the brain is, on some level, attempting to do by imposing its own meaning and reference points onto the other’s experience.

In the Co-Active model, there are additional levels of listening available once we can become aware of our own “Level One” thoughts and reactions and move to a more present, thoughtful engagement with the other person. By adding Levels Two and Three to our listening, our “Level One” provides helpful information and potential insight, a way of understanding while allowing the focus to be, for a time, on the other person.

Level Two and Level Three listening could be thought of as ways to intentionally engage the dual hemispheres of the brain for maximum connection and understanding. Ideally, they operate in concert: Level Two listening providing focused, precise (more left-hemisphere) listening, with Level Three broadening the awareness to a holistic, inclusive, intuitive (more right-hemisphere) way of taking in the information. Skilled Co-Active Coaches dance smoothly between these levels, listening not only to the specific words and ideas, but taking in the emotional content and desires beneath the words, which are sometimes not fully realized by the client themselves. (And here we begin to see how the contexts interrelate. Listening at Levels Two and Three requires, at a minimum, bringing in Self-Management to stop our automatic “me too” reactions and Curiosity to find out more about what the other person is saying. More on those to come!)

Listening at Levels Two and Three is a powerful key to integration, which, as you will recall from Chapter Three, we are defining as the linkage of differentiated parts. When we are able to differentiate our own “Level One” thoughts and desires and shift attention to another, we can move “over there” to the other person’s world and link with them authentically. And we have an impact that is more than emotional—as we mentioned in the chapter on the Cornerstones, the process of having what Dan Siegel calls “collaborative, contingent conversations,” which are emotionally attuned and non-directive, builds positive neural connections in the brain.

In other words, when we can differentiate our own experience of Yellowstone National Park, and be aware of our “Level One” opinions and judgments about someone else’s trip (and whether they are doing it right or wrong), we can set these opinions and judgments aside and truly seek to understand the other’s experience. And thus, we are practicing integration. What’s magical about this is that our own world expands as a result. Our own experience of Yellowstone takes on new color because we can also see it through someone else’s eyes. Through the integration that occurs as a result of this multilevel listening, each person’s experience is expanded.

True listening in the way we are referencing it points ultimately to listening to the person, not just the content. There is a great example of this in the delightful 2003 movie Love Actually. One of the main characters meets a woman who only speaks Portuguese, while he only speaks English. They manage to connect, and even fall in love, without ever speaking words the other understands until the end. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you are saying.” When we truly pay attention, the person shines through.

Mary was a practical, determined teacher with a huge heart. She came to a coaching skills class a few years ago determined to learn the “next new thing” that would enable her to sharpen her skills. What she found changed her life. “I never ever realized that I was living almost completely in Level One!” she told us. “I had no idea there was another way. I must have driven everyone around me crazy, but I had no idea. I went home after the first day of class with the homework to listen at Levels Two and Three and be aware of my own Level One. Wow. That night at dinner my family had the first real conversation we’ve had in years. It felt magical! I kept thinking, ‘Oh dear, this won’t last,’ until I realized that I have the power to bring it back at any time by just toning down my own darn Level One a bit!”

The self-development teacher Werner Erhard once said, “What most people do is to ignore people’s quality and deal with their garbage. Actually, you should do it the other way around. Deal with who they are and let go of their garbage. Keep interacting with them as if they are God. And every time you get garbage from them, ignore the garbage and go back and interact with them as if they were God.” In other words, don’t just listen, listen.

It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It’s my partner.

~Jonas Salk

The second context is Intuition, our ability to know or sense what is going on without directly being told, or without logical analysis. Intuition enables us to hear what’s below the surface and guide the conversation to deeper, more resonant places. It helps us know quickly what needs to happen, whether a person is trustworthy or not, and if an idea “has legs.”

Intuition helps us know more deeply what is going on for ourselves and others, what is needed in the moment, and how to get beyond surface conversations to the real heart of the matter. As a key to integration, it helps us know when to make boundaries (differentiate) and how to connect (link). Without intuition, the waters of our lake would be shallow indeed.

But what, exactly, is intuition? While most people would probably agree that it exists, intuition has tended to live in a sort of shadowy netherworld, undefined and mysterious. Psychologist Carl Jung defined it as perception via the unconscious, and made a distinction between those who primarily use intuition versus those who primarily think. This is the polarity view we tend toward as human beings, holding someone as either intuitive or rational, but generally not both.

So why then do we have this as a context, as part of the water of our Co-Active lake, if it is something only some people can do? Well, we hold that intuition isn’t just the realm of those individuals who walk more on the “woo-woo” side of things. It’s actually rational, explainable, and available to everyone.

The truth is, we all use intuition, although there tends to be little agreement about what it actually is. But without a clear understanding, it’s difficult to understand exactly how to develop, refine and attune it. Perhaps the problem lies in trying to understand intuition as a thing, as one aspect of our brain or being. What we have seen instead is that intuition is actually a highly complex and interrelated system of processes in the brain and body, a system that is fully accessible—and one that can be further developed and explored—by everyone.

This sophisticated system of below-conscious-awareness consists of at least these aspects, and probably more:

1) Context. A participant in a coaching-skills training that one of us led several years ago was convinced she had no intuition. We challenged her to go home to practice anyway. When she came back the next day, she said, “I went home with no interest in doing my homework, so I worked on a grant proposal instead. In the middle of it, as I found myself effortlessly slotting in numbers and responding to outcome questions, I realized that what you are calling intuition, I just call common sense.”

This is understandable from a brain perspective. One aspect of intuition, it turns out, is contextual, or domain-specific; i.e., contingent on how much experience we have in a certain area. For example, we both have been coaching and teaching for years and have thousands of hours of experience with human beings. Relationships, leadership, growth, misery, joy—we have truly heard it all. This is part of each of our coaching intuition systems, data sets we draw on unconsciously. Our brains map patterns and look for connections automatically, and because there is so much to draw on, they tend to provide insight with tremendous subtlety and accuracy.

But if you asked either of us to predict what new fashion trends will emerge next year, we’d be at a loss, because neither one of us has much experience in that arena. If we had to buy a clothing line for a department store, we’d have to rely almost completely on rational analysis—a slow and painful process. On the other hand, if you assigned the same task to one of our friends, who worked as a retail buyer for 20 years, he’d make his selections immediately and intuitively, based on his understanding of which items would and wouldn’t sell.

What’s interesting about this sort of intuition is that the rational-processing part of the brain looks for reasons to justify its instincts, but subtle research using brain scans shows that we actually decide first, and then look for evidence that we are right. Intuition rules!

Not surprisingly, this aspect of intuition strengthens as an individual’s experience increases. In his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell explores research around the achievement of mastery—namely, the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to develop to a standard of “expert performance.” (Just a note that more recent research has explored this claim in greater complexity, arguing that there are many additional variables that also impact our ability to achieve expert performance, including receiving consistent, expert feedback and the level of the individual’s intelligence and memory.)

Although some would argue that this proves there is no such thing as intuition—only expertise—we believe this is just one aspect of a much more complicated system.

2) Mirror Neurons. Another key part of our intuition system is our ability to understand one another via mirror neurons. Mirror neurons fire both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another, an action with an intention behind it (it doesn’t work with random, chaotic actions). Thus, the neuron “mirrors” the behavior of the other, as though the observer themselves were acting. For example, if someone takes a coffee cup and lifts it to their mouth to take a sip, an observer’s mirror neurons will fire because the action can be understood as intentionally drinking. However, if the same observer simply waves the coffee cup around, no mirror neurons will fire, because it’s not clear what the intention actually is.

Discovered in the 1990s, the function and extent of mirror neurons is still the subject of much speculation and debate. However, many researchers believe that the mirror neuron systems in the human brain may serve as the neural basis of emotions such as empathy and intuition, and are critical to our ability to learn from each other.

Mirror neurons function below conscious processing. In other words, we aren’t generally aware that we’re mirroring someone else, nor is it volitional. We see our friend about to bump his head on a doorway, and we instinctually duck ourselves. We watch someone eating a luscious piece of gooey chocolate cake on television and our own mouths water. These neurons fire quickly, providing information that might help us understand others’ actions and intentions.

Often, we also physically mirror things we aren’t consciously aware of, such as a fleeting body posture, a subtle tone of voice or even micro-movements in the face. All of this also provides information for our intuition system.

What is happening can occur so quickly we can’t make any conscious sense of it, but our mirror neurons are tracking right along, cueing our own biochemistry to respond. This gives us that below-conscious-processing “gut” feeling or “hard-to-put-a-finger-on” sense of rightness or wrongness. Which brings us to…

3) The Vagus Nerve (and the body brain). From the Latin for “vague” or “wandering,” the vagus nerve has branches that connect to most of the body’s major organs. It conveys information about the body’s state to the central nervous system: In fact, 80 to 90 percent of information traveling along the vagus nerve is flowing from the body to the brain, instead of vice versa. There are neurons in our heart and in our gut, and the information they gather flows back to the brain through the vagus nerve. Nearly every substance that helps run and control the brain has turned up in the gut, including major neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, norepinephrine and nitric oxide. The heart contains a well-developed independent nervous system with over 40,000 neurons and a complex and dense network of neurotransmitters, proteins and support cells. Thanks to these very elaborate circuits, it seems that the heart can make decisions and take action independently of the brain, and can learn, remember and even perceive. (It should come as no surprise that so many languages contain phrases that relate knowledge to the physical body, from having “a gut instinct” to learning something “by heart.”)

We can intentionally access this part of the intuition system by checking in on our own physical reactions and body sensations—this includes the information we are picking up about others through our own mirror neurons.

It’s also possible to strengthen the vagus nerve by increasing our capacity for “interoception,” which is the awareness of our internal physical state. Sending a sort of antenna or feeler down our core from throat to gut and simply noticing the sensations there literally develops this key player in our intuition system. (The vagus nerve is also critical to emotional regulation, so doing this practice of interoception is very helpful in terms of becoming calmer and more able to recover when upset as well.)

4) The Right Hemisphere and the Default Mode Network.

Some information from our body comes into this side of our brain through the Right Vagus Nerve. And while the right hemisphere is connected to many aspects of meaning and understanding, it does not have access to symbolic language and linear processes, largely the domain of the left hemisphere. The language of the right hemisphere is images, music, colors, emotions and metaphor. It’s vague, unfocused, imprecise and broad. Thus it’s up to us to take these amorphous feelings, images and “gut reactions” and find a way to talk about and understand them. When we say, “I have a sense of something, but I don’t know how to describe it,” we actually may be saying, “I have knowing in my right hemisphere, but I have not yet brought it into my left hemisphere through language so that it can be looked at specifically.”

Using metaphor to get at our deeper knowing can be particularly helpful, in that it plays to the strengths of both hemispheres, from the vague sense or something that converts to an image, which then is described and sorted through language.

Another reason that there has been a tendency to label some people as intuitive and others as not is that our Default Mode Network (discussed in Chapter Four) also tends to provide meaning, interesting connections, insight, and “aha’s.” Tuning in to this network requires a relaxed, calm and open mind. Focus, drive, and analysis (more associated with the Task Positive Network) are a very different brain state, one in which this softer connection gets lost.

5) Our Senses. We have all heard that dogs can smell fear. In fact, humans can as well. As we noted in Chapter Three, studies ranging from the US Department of Defense to more than one major university in the US and Europe have found that we react to fear-induced sweat differently than exercise-induced sweat, even when it is not possible to actively identify a difference in odor.

Through smell, our own bodies experience the emotions of those around us, usually without any awareness. It’s rare to use this as a conscious tool, although again, we use smell and other senses as metaphors for knowing, saying things like “it just doesn’t smell right,” or “that conversation left a bad taste in my mouth.” And some people do seem to have particular gifts in this area. One of our friends recently mentioned that she knows what is going on with her teenagers based on how they smell. And perhaps we all have the capacity to use this skill more consciously. For example, we are often aware that we are attracted or repelled by someone’s scent.

In addition to smell, other senses play into intuition in subtle, below conscious processing ways. For example, we may hear small tonal variations in someone’s voice and just know something is wrong. (By the way, the ability to hear more subtlety in tone is linked to having a well-developed vagus nerve, which controls the muscles of the inner ear.) We may see something “off” and not even be fully aware we saw it, but again, just know something isn’t as it should be. Even taste and touch can be part of this system, bringing in key information that may not be understood by the rational brain.

6) The Collective Consciousness. Any discussion of the intuition system would be incomplete without at least a nod to those things that we sometimes know are not in any way related to other aspects of the system. In other words, what we have no business knowing by any explainable means. Many people have some sort of example of this kind of intuition from thinking of someone just before that person calls to having a sense of foreboding about a trip.

Sometimes this happens when people are emotionally particularly close. Ann experienced a remarkable set of connections with her business partner and closest friend a few years ago when she was living in Costa Rica and her partner was in Florida. “Ursula called me one day to tell me she had woken up with a strange eye infection in her right eye. I had just that moment come home from a trip to the clinic where I had been diagnosed with a bad eye infection in my right eye. Another time, I woke up and couldn’t move my shoulder without a great deal of pain. Ursula called me later that day and told me she had torn her rotator cuff.”

This sort of connection and knowing is not actually that unusual. In fact, it is common enough that the United States Central Intelligence Agency has devoted millions of dollars studying various aspects of psychic phenomenon and has concluded that some rare individuals can indeed “read minds.” And scientist Rupert Sheldrake, in his exploration of “morphic fields,” has shown over and over that there are forces outside our immediate understanding. (Part of his research is the fascinating work on psychic bonds between animals and their owners.)

Many factors seem to contribute to a mastery of this area of intuition, but perhaps the most important is a calm, peaceful mind. Just as is the case with accessing our Default Mode Network, stress and busy-ness shut down what seems to be an innate and perhaps even universal ability to reach into the collective consciousness and “know.”

Thus we would argue that intuition is a system, made up of at least six (if not more) interrelated aspects. As we have explained this and talked with people about it, we have found that everyone recognizes strengths and weaknesses in their own system. Understanding the systemic nature of intuition seems to help people value it and learn to develop their own innate abilities more fully.

The context of intuition helps us integrate ourselves by releasing our attachment to what we know (and can prove) strictly through conscious analysis to become larger, more expansive, and in effect, use more of our brains. It also expands our capacity for integration with others as we recognize that everything is not always apparent on the surface, or fixed and fixable. Intuition offers us a way to know the fullness of what’s really going on, with ourselves, with others, with our world.

Einstein, it was said, was deeply intuitive, as was the prolific 19^th and early 20^th century inventor Nikola Tesla, and arguably, every great innovator we admire. Without intuition, there is little room for the broader conversation or for reaching into what’s possible. Less of everything is available and life feels flat, stale and one-dimensional. When we bring intuition to the conversation, it becomes interesting, lively, multidimensional and deeply human.

The key with the context of intuition is that this kind of knowing—as powerful as it is—is imprecise. Thus, it is important to hold it lightly. In training, Co-Active coaches learn to recognize intuitive information and take a chance with it. They discover that their intuition is incredibly valuable for the coaching conversation, even if their own interpretation of what it means may or may not be accurate for the client. They are encouraged to offer what they are sensing without attachment, asking the client what, if anything, it might mean in the client’s life or situation. In other words, they are trained to access the contexts of Curiosity and Self-Management in order to use their intuition most effectively.

I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

The next context is Curiosity, the space of not knowing, of staying open and being non-judgmental. This context calls for embracing a fascination with everything, a way of being with each other as sponges of observation and learning. This is somewhat countercultural in the West, as rewards tend to come to us for knowing and certainty, not for what the German poet Rainer Rilke called the ability to “live the question.”

Without curiosity about ourselves and each other, we are limited and alone. If someone is not curious about you, it’s like you’re not really there for them, not a full, living breathing human being. As Oprah Winfrey said on the famous final episode of her long-running talk show, “I’ve talked to nearly 30,000 people on this show, and all 30,000 had one thing in common—they all wanted validation… They want to know, do you hear me? Do you see me? Does what I say mean anything to you?”

Human beings are complex, diverse, and unique. How can we know someone—really know them—if we think we have them all figured out before they even open their mouths? The paradox is, if you’re not curious, not fully present with another, well, then they’re not really there either. Nobody’s home. The interaction has gone on autopilot.

Contrast this with the delicious interactions we have when we authentically want to know, want to explore, want to understand. Think about being on a first date, or perhaps having the chance to interview someone fascinating and unusual. There is often the experience of being in a sort of bubble of connection, where time ceases to have meaning and everything they say brings up multiple new questions. People often describe this as a “flow” state, and it simply isn’t possible without curiosity.

That having been said, it’s normal to not be curious about everything, and sometimes it’s even helpful. The human brain is designed to move things into assumptions as a way of conserving energy. And it makes sense. We can generally assume the refrigerator is running when it is plugged in and therefore we don’t need to waste energy worrying about whether or not our food is safe. We can assume that we will continue to receive payment for our work and therefore don’t waste energy stressing about whether the rent or mortgage will be paid. We tend to assume our partner will continue to love us and don’t need to obsess that each little mistake we make is the end of the relationship.

In each of these instances, we can easily imagine the opposite, and can see that if there were a power outage or erratic power surges, we would expend energy worrying about our frozen food. Or if our company were in a shaky financial situation, we would be very focused on wondering about our paycheck and ongoing security. Not to mention if things were not going well with our partner, we might become more inclined to stress about smaller things than we usually were. When we can’t assume it simply takes energy, and our brains have an energy conservation default setting.

In many cases operating from some level of assumption helps us lead a more peaceful life. We don’t want to go through our days wondering about our refrigerators, paychecks and partners, and those people who do may in fact have a brain pattern (for example, obsessive-compulsive disorder) which can profoundly disrupt their lives.

Neuroscience is showing us the critical importance of curiosity, however. Research using fMRI scans shows enhanced activity in brain areas associated with learning and behavioral change when the person is dealt with in an open, compassionate way. This activity is not present when the focus is on a person’s failings and an answer is provided for them, which is all too often the way we deal with each other, our children, our employees or coworkers, etc. It’s largely a default setting in many of our interactions, and we notice in our coach training that one of the most difficult things for many new Co-Active coaches is to let go of knowing, of having the answer, and simply become curious. For many of us, not knowing calls us out of a well-developed comfort zone.

Curious, powerful, open-ended questions have the impact of making us think and not just go onto autopilot. They engage our higher brains, including the prefrontal cortex, moving us out of the lower brain (which uses less energy) and into a place where reflection and inspiration become possible. This helps to anchor in learning, develop new neural pathways, and produce lasting growth.

Recent research at the University of California, Davis, has also shown that curiosity triggers dopamine, one of the reward chemicals in the brain, and this in turn stimulates memory. “There are times when people feel they can take in a lot of new information, and other times when they feel their memories are terrible,” said Charan Ranganath, one of the study’s authors. “This work suggests that once you light that fire of curiosity, you put the brain in a state that’s more conducive to learning. Once you get this ramp-up of dopamine, the brain becomes more like a sponge that’s ready to soak up whatever is happening.”

Curiosity requires openness and a willingness to step into the unknown, which we might think of as being more the domain of the right hemisphere of the brain (judgment, certainty and closure being much more on the left). This is perhaps one of the reasons curiosity is not more prevalent in the Western world today. We tend to be rewarded for a left hemisphere view of things, with its tempting—though flawed and incomplete—tendency to certainty and absolutes. Contrast this with the way the right hemisphere experiences the world: as messy, unsure, complex and emergent. It takes patience to approach the world with curiosity at the slower pace of the right hemisphere, and we all too often simply don’t take the time to do so.

So what role does curiosity play in the process of integration—the linkage of differentiated parts? Curiosity is deeply implicated in the process of differentiation, which is, as we have seen, crucial to linkage. If we are not curious about ourselves, others and the world, we can’t find and know the parts we want to link.

Bernadetta was an example of this. A talented coach, she was in demand and very busy, and when asked how things were going, she’d smile and say, “It’s all good!” But when she turned 50 she went on a yoga and meditation retreat in Spain. In that stillness, she found herself wondering if she was really happy. “I was meditating and the question sort of bubbled to the surface. I was surprised by how emotional I became as I realized I didn’t know how to answer it. I loved my busy life, but it seemed there was something else my heart wanted as well.” Bernadetta spent the next five days being curious about what happiness really meant to her. “By the end of the retreat, I realized I actually wanted it all. I didn’t want to stop what I was doing, but I also wanted more space, more time like I had in Spain. So I went home and began a messy and imperfect process of new discovery. I’m still learning what my balance point is, but I am definitely happier now. And if you had asked me before Spain if I was happy, I would have said I couldn’t be any happier!”

By being curious, Bernadetta discovered more differentiation within herself: the need for peace and stillness and engagement and busy-ness She was then able to work towards linking these elements, thus leading to far more integration (and resulting happiness) in her life.

Curiosity is also key in our ability to integrate with each other. When we think we already “know” who someone is, when we operate from assumptions rather than curiosity, we can’t link with the real person in front of us. When we try to connect with who we think they are, nothing really sticks.

The truth is, we change all the time. In the play Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw, the character Jack has this to say of how he was treated as he grew from boy to man: “The only person who behaved sensibly was my tailor. He took my measure anew each time he saw me.” In other words, the tailor was the only person in his life who was curious and didn’t assume.

There is an honoring of each other when we bring our full curiosity to the relationship. This isn’t always easy, and it also creates some paradox. Part of the delight of long-term relationships is how well we know and are known. And yet, powerful relationships also allow for ongoing curiosity. For example, Ben and George have been business partners for many years, traveling the world consulting and training. They know what each other likes to eat, how much relaxation time the other needs, and what each brings in terms of strengths and weaknesses. They often finish each other’s sentences and are known for the give and take in their connection.

“Still,” Ben says, “we don’t take each other for granted. And a big part of this is that we’ve learned to stay curious about the important things. Unless George tells me he’s changing his diet, I know we’re going for steak the first night we’re on a trip. But what he thinks of a difficult client, or what new idea is turning in his head—that’s another story. He never fails to fascinate me in terms of how his brain works, and I’m lucky that he seems to feel the same way about me. I know curiosity is a key part of our effectiveness with our clients. We are constantly turning everything over to see what might be there and what we can learn. After ten years of spending as much time with this guy as I probably do with my wife, I never get bored with him, and I never stop learning about him and from him.”

Curiosity brings color to our life. Remember the Harry Chapin song about the young boy who goes to school and is corrected for drawing things the wrong way? “Flowers are red, young man,” the teacher tells him. “And green leaves are green.” The boy replies, “There are so many colors in the rainbow, so many colors in the morning sun. So many flowers in the garden, and I see every one.” But he learns to please the teacher, and do things “the way they always have been done.” Later, he meets a new teacher, who encourages him to break free and express himself again.

It’s magical when we meet those who help restore our curiosity, and with it an innate and powerful sense of wonder. Curiosity helps us uncover the color and expression of a fulfilling life.

The act of calculating and getting answers is not a reflective activity… it does not generate understanding.

~James Zull

The fourth context is Forward and Deepen, the commitment to moving things forward while we also deepen our learning. This context reminds us that we are human beings, not human doings, and yet at the same time we all long for accomplishment and movement in our lives. You might say this is the height of integration, in that it honors both stillness and motion, pondering and achievement, “co” and “active.”

Embracing this context gives dimension and meaning to our lives. On the one hand, if we just learn and don’t apply, we can’t lock in and make meaning of what we’ve learned. The learning makes no contribution because it is not engaged with our lives. When we don’t use our learning, it is just data and doesn’t touch or shape our lives.

On the other hand, if we just do-do-do, never stopping to reflect, we’re just moving through the world with no growth or higher purpose. We may get a lot “done,” but for the sake of what? We can’t possibly become more effective without integrating the lessons available in our actions.

In order to change and become more integrated, we need both learning and action, and it doesn’t matter where we start in the dance. We might start with an action, then reflect on its meaning, then use this awareness to take another action and so on. Or we might spend some time in reflection, from which an action arises. Then we might try that action, pause to reflect again, and so on. It makes no difference which comes first; the combination of the two becomes a virtuous cycle of learning, growth and accomplishment.

This is a place where we sometimes encounter some “either/or” polarity thinking. For example, academia has traditionally valued the learning side, without as much emphasis on application. Ann recalls speaking with her undergraduate advisor about what do with her philosophy degree. “He looked at me like I had two heads when I told him I wanted to apply the principles I had been learning in the world somehow. I was astonished when he asked me, why would you want to do that? I told him I thought philosophy had great potential to help people and he told me this was not the point of the discipline. The point was, to discover truth. That’s it.”

Then there is the corporate world, where the focus is on doing, doing, doing. More! Better! Faster! It’s not uncommon for people in many companies to run from meeting to meeting all day long, only able to catch up on e-mails and paperwork when they are at home in the evenings. There are many reasons this kind of culture isn’t effective, including the fact that it allows little time for reflection or learning. Thus, people and organizations run the risk of making the same mistakes over and over again, dramatically reducing efficiency.

The context of Forward the Action/Deepen the Learning helps us balance between the extremes of processing endlessly versus moving from one thing to the next as if life were an assembly line. Instead it points us towards integration: doing things that move our lives forward while also reflecting and making meaning of what we have attempted and accomplished.

According to biology professor James Zull, there is a positive upward cycle of learning in the brain. Zull explains that when we act, our motor cortex carries out the plan of action. When we recall the experience, the sensory cortex receives the input from the five senses, and when we reflect, the back integrative cortex makes sense of the input. The frontal cortex (in charge of strategic thinking and planning) then uses the information from the back integrative cortex (which plays a role in locking in memory and reassembling sensory data) to develop or revise a plan of action for going forward.

To leave any of these steps out cheats us of potential development and growth, thus the critical importance of this context to our development and overall effectiveness. Additionally, holding the commitment to forward and deepen is important personally, in our one to one relationships, and with groups and organizations.

Laurie is a wonderful example of this. She spent endless hours thinking about and researching options and markets for her new coaching practice, finding it almost impossible to nail anything down. In working with her own coach, she realized that more thinking (as tempting as it was) was not going to get her anywhere on its own. So she began to try different things, bringing her experiences back to her coach for dissection and analysis.

In the process of trying out working with job seekers, students, and people wanting a change in their health, she found out much more about what she truly cared about. “I never would have realized my niche if I hadn’t gotten out and tried,” she reflected. “It simply wasn’t possible to think it all through on its own, but as I worked with different people, I noticed where my energy was highest, and realized I don’t care so much about who I coach. What I care about is how I do it.” Laurie now “takes it to the streets” as a walking coach, which fits her passion for health and her own high energy. She also finds that when coach and client walk, new creativity and understanding emerge.

Even with the best of intentions, it’s very easy to get caught up in the mode of do-do-do in today’s fast-paced Western world. Ann has found this with her own business partner, Ursula. “Like many people, we’re really good at action and moving things forward, but when we forget to stop and reflect, it’s like the heart goes out of the enterprise. So we’ve developed a habit over the years of looking back in celebration on a regular basis to see where we’ve come and what we’ve learned. It’s so easy to focus forward—there is always a next critically important thing to do. And when we also stop and look back, it gives us information and energy to continue on. We’ve learned it doesn’t have to be a big thing—even playing the ‘remember when’ game is often enough, as long as we also noodle around with what we learned and where we’ve come to as a result.”

The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain.

~Daniel Goleman

The final context is Self-Management. As we saw in the discussion above about Level One listening, it is natural for human beings to relate to others’ experiences through their own filters. In fact, if someone tells us they are working on an exciting new project to “maxiloop” the performance appraisal process in their company, we would probably give them a blank stare (or tune out all together). But if they stop and say, “Oh, sorry, in our company we have this funny word for maximizing the connections between groups,” we can connect and relate. This is because subconsciously, without any effort or intention, we’ve gone into our own experience with “maxilooping” and therefore are able to sense what it might be like.

This is, of course, where Self-Management comes in. Without Self-Management—the capacity to set aside our own biases and reactions—it’s difficult to move our listening to Levels Two and Three, remain curious, and use intuition for the sake of learning and growth.

There is an important distinction needed here, which is that Self-Management is different than suppression. Shutting down how we really feel, “going along to get along,” etc, are all fear-based strategies. Self-Management is the ability to notice our own Level One and emotional reactions, and choose what to use or share for the sake of the relationship, the designed alliance, and the stake.

Because we are so programmed to understand each other through our own experiences, this context is absolutely critical. We can learn to distinguish our own Level One listening, use it for information, but ultimately put the focus back on another person or group.

Self-Management is not just something we need in relationship with each other; it’s also an important key in terms of our relationship with ourselves. We need the capacity to manage our own very quick “emotional brains” not only when someone else provides a trigger, but also in terms of our Level One listening within and about ourselves—Self-Management helps us stay open and curious about our own patterns and habitual reactions.

When we look at Self-Management from the perspective of integration, we see that it helps us to differentiate our own experience, understanding what parts are informative and helpful in the situation or relationship, leaving out the rest. And then, we are able to link with others by bringing in only what is most helpful (self-managing to leave the rest behind). If we think back to the Designed Alliance (the shoreline of our lake), self-management gives us the agility to bring different parts of ourselves forth in service of the alliance, in service of the stake.

The more of yourself you can access and bring forward, the more effective you can be in a wide range of situations. For example, Luis is a business leader, a warm and friendly person with a natural gift for seeing possibilities. However, he realized at one point in his career that his passion sometimes made him run off at the mouth. “I used to have a problem getting carried away with myself. I would talk and talk and talk about my vision and never notice that people’s eyes were glazing over.” He wondered why he wasn’t able to infuse others with his enthusiasm, and often blamed them for lacking imagination.

In a leadership program, he became aware that his energy could be overwhelming to some people. “I began doing a better job of managing my impact,” he reported. “I used to think I had to share everything so that people would understand a project on the level that I did. And I thought if they understood it like me, they would jump in a thousand percent. I could never figure out why they didn’t!” Luis learned the important lesson of “less is more” in his sharing, and in the process also saw that, in the act of talking, he had not been listening. “I was often so excited there was simply no space for anyone else. Someone told me, ‘I really love and respect you, Luis, but you have a way of taking up all the air in the room.’ That was one of those life-changing moments. I didn’t want to hear it, but it was true. When I slowed down, gave more space, I learned a lot.”

Luis found Self-Management critical to his ability to have integration with others, as well as with himself. There was not only room for other ideas and enthusiasm, his own understanding of his vision went even deeper and he was far more at peace with himself.

In a group, when people are practicing Self-Management, there is an overall sense of emotional intelligence and a palpable feeling that things can be moved forward easily and effectively. As we have explored elsewhere in this book, we have a very strong tendency towards “fight or flight,” and according to neuroscience research, one of the things that can really set us off is the feeling that our status has been threatened. (Brain imaging technology has even found that the pain of social rejection is felt in places in the brain that are very near to the places we feel physical pain. Being left out hurts.)

It’s easy to see why Self-Management would be so crucial to the high functioning of a group. The skill of noticing emotional reactions, and then choosing a response rather than reacting is key to a truly high-functioning, healthy team. For example, being challenged in a meeting can initially feel like a threat and a potential loss of status. But if, instead of reacting, we take a deep breath and stay present and curious by self-managing our immediate emotional reaction, something more productive may occur. The same is true if we are the challenger. Self-Management, being aware of our defaults and again, staying present, may help us to say things in a more open and engaging manner and tone. This keeps connection, relationship and, ultimately, productivity intact.

A leader and a group who are aware of Self-Management can create the kind of relationship where roles move fluidly around the group and there is an ease and flow of communication. Sandra is a great example of this. She read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and was struck by the importance of one of the agreements: not taking things personally. “I immediately saw how much I did this (took things personally) without thinking. And then, of course, I noticed it in everyone around me as well. As a leader, I saw that people on my team were reacting to things that often were in no way meant to be about them. So I brought in the idea that maybe things weren’t as personal as we were often making them. I had to kind of harp on it at first, but it worked. After I had said ‘hold on, let’s just look at this impersonally’ enough, I noticed that people started to do it on their own. Meetings calmed down and there were fewer ‘water cooler’ conversations. You know, the meeting after the meeting!” Sandra helped her team self-manage their own reactions and stay more present to the bigger issue and purpose, thus increasing their overall effectiveness.

A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable.

~William Wordsworth

And so, in looking at these five keys to integration, we have navigated the waters of the Co-Active lake:

Perhaps, as we have moved from one context to another, we’ve noticed that rather than being clear and distinct, they meld and merge together: