Part 1: The Journey of Awakening and Transformation

Chapter One: The Deep Coaching Potential

Evocation
The Purpose of This Book
The Rise of Coaching
A New Paradigm of Coaching for a New Paradigm of Living

Chapter Two: Coaching Continuum

What Is Transactional Coaching?
What Is Transformational Coaching?
The Middle Realm: Developmental Coaching
Four Levels of Engagement
Deep Coaching in a Nutshell

Chapter Three: Understanding the Journey of Transformation

In Transformation, What Is Transforming?
Self-Concept and the Ego
Transforming the Self-Concept
Coaching and the Self-Concept
A Lesson from the Caterpillar
The Inner Earthquake
The Perfect Functionality of Dysfunction
The Impulse to Transform
Transformation Has Its Own Volition

Chapter Four: Transformational Models 1: Six Stages of Personal Power

Six Stages of Personal Power
Coaching Transformationally vs. Coaching Transformation

Chapter Five: Transformational Models 2: The Hero’s Journey

Stages of the Hero’s Journey

1. Departure
2. Initiation
3. Return

Be the Hero so You Can Become the Coach

Chapter Six: The Dual Dynamics of Transformation

What it Means to Heal
The Dual Dynamics of Transformation
Personal Gravity
Our Propulsion System: Six Engines
Coaching as a Healing Modality
Living Between the No Longer and Not Yet
And the Paradigm Shifts

Chapter Seven: Recognizing the Readiness - Five Key Signals

Normalize Their Experience
It Can’t Be Your Agenda
Signal #1: A Sense of Uncertainty, Confusion and Doubt around What's Happening and the Direction of Their Life
Signal #2: Increasing Awareness of One's Personal Gravity and Its Effect
Signal #3: A Request for Healing
Signal #4:  A Willingness to Talk Openly about Spirit, Soul, and Spirituality
Signal #5: An Emerging Vision of Life Purpose

Part II: The Art and Practices of Deep Coaching 

Chapter Eight: The Deep Coaching Approach

The Three Tenets of Deep Coaching
Key Roles of the Deep Coach
Creating the Conditions: What It Takes to Be a Deep Coach
The Nine Transformative Deep Coaching Practices

Chapter Nine: Practice 1 - Slow It All Down and Sync with the Rhythm of Life and Spirit

The Rhythm of Life and Spirit
Intention of the Practice
The Challenge to Slowing Down
When the Awareness Arises

Chapter Ten: Practice 2 - Release Your Agendas; Live Your Spiritual Values

 Your Agenda Influences Transformation
Developing Your Coaching Presence
Spiritual, Religious, and Philosophical Beliefs Impact Transformation
Identify Your Core Spiritual, Religious, and Philosophical Beliefs
Identify Your Core Spiritual Values
Turning Spiritual Values into Spiritual Energy

Chapter Eleven: Practice 3 - Nurture a Healing Space

What Is a Healing Space?
Cultivating a Healing Space

Chapter Twelve: Practice 4 - Let There Be Silence

Silence and Transformation
Silence Busters
Introducing Silence into the Coaching Space
Passive and Active Silence
Breaking Silence

Chapter Thirteen: Practice 5 - Coach More from the Heart, Less from the Head

The Head Thinks
The Heart Knows
Accessing the Heart’s Intelligence
Working with the Self-Concept
Exploring Core Limiting Beliefs in a Session
Arriving at the Gateway

Chapter Fourteen: Practice 6 - Attune to Your Client’s Deeper Sense of Self and Let That Lead

Agendas Are the Shadow Side of Caring
Four Levels of Listening
We Are Like Radios
Begin Attuning to Yourself
Attune to Your Client’s Deeper Sense of Self
What Are You Listening For?
A Gateway Practice

Chapter Fifteen: Practice 7 - Expand Your Capacity to Be with Pain and Allow Healing Moments
Part 1: Expand Your Capacity to Be with Pain

What Is Pain?
Pain Thresholds
Discomfort with Pain
Pain Is a Call for Love
Be Like the Palm Tree
In What Are You Grounded?
Heal Your Own Pain First

Chapter Sixteen: Practice 7 - Expand Your Capacity to Be with Pain and Allow Healing Moments
Part 2: Allow Healing Moments

Clarifying the Role of the Coach in Healing
The Limits of Inquiry
Listen for the Desired Experience
Facilitating Healing Experiences
A Final Word on Grief Work

Chapter Seventeen: Practice 8 - Foster the Emergence of What Wants to Happen

The Objective Is the Experience
The Generative Potential
Experiencing the Great I Am
Listen for the Readiness
Fostering the Experience in a Session
Experience the Experience

Chapter Eighteen: Practice 9 - Cultivate Trust in the Mystery and Magic of Transformation

A Lesson from Zorba the Greek
The Mystery and Magic
It’s Hard for People to Trust
You Will Be Presented with Lessons
The Need to See Progress
All Is Well

Chapter Nineteen: Structure of a Deep Coaching Session

Deep Coaching Overlays Conventional Coaching
Structure of a Conventional Coaching Session
Structure of a Deep Coaching Session
A Final Word: Make It Your Own

Chapter One: The Deep Coaching Potential

Evocation

Around the world, across cultures and religions, people are awakening to the potentials and realities of higher consciousness. More and more people are sensing and desiring a connection with their deeper essence, and feel compelled by an inexplicable life force to understand the greater nature and meaning of existence.

What does it mean to awaken?

Awakening is a rich and complex experience that defies a narrow definition, but the essence of awakening is the new-found awareness and experience of one’s spiritual reality. It’s not an event, it’s a process—a process in which spiritual consciousness flows into the mind, reorienting the mind to a reality that lies beyond the ‘veil’ of superficial definitions and material boundaries. The veil then begins to lift and the awakened mind becomes aware of living in a distorted perceptual reality, a dream of self-imposed limitations, where what was thought to be true is in fact a shadow dance masking an expansive and encompassing Truth.

While awakening is not by any means the end of our evolutionary adventure, it is a significant transition point from one state of consciousness to another. When we awaken, we find ourselves at the beginning of an extraordinary journey of transformation, one that invites us to explore the depths and edges of our existence, to know more of who we are—the ‘true Self,’ the ‘I’ at the core of our being—and of our relationship to the divine life essence, the one consciousness or presence alive in every life form.

One of the benefits of awakening is a slow disassociation from the world of form combined with a deeper knowledge and appreciation of our spiritual nature. Discovering who we are at this level drives the experiences that shape our life and gives meaning, value, and purpose to our existence. Once we discover this reality within, we begin to view life very differently, and can make great progress in all areas—not so that we feel ‘successful,’ ‘accepted,’ or ‘worthy’ in the eyes of the world, but because we recognize that our life exists for a much higher purpose.

Another benefit is that we become increasingly adept at determining where we must grow in order to experience more of our true Self, our eternal spiritual nature. The courageous among us decide to heal by facing the darker aspects of our personalities, replacing them with spiritual attributes that nurture our evolving soul. Genuine healing requires complete honesty with oneself, and it is hard to acknowledge our deepest fears, our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities, and to abandon what we have long held to be necessary or true, even when it holds out the promise of a better life.

Awakening invites us to spend more time at the level of being and in the company of our true Self, and to observe how our life changes when we do. Those who progress along the transformational path become more intuitive and creative when facing the problems of daily living; they seem to find solutions with greater ease than do others, and they feel the impulses of inspiration more frequently. There is more energy available, as well as greater joy, peace, vitality, and connection with others and the natural world. This is the result of having a mind that now pays attention to those vital aspects of the inner realm that were always there but remained unnoticed due to the veil of egoic thought.

The journey of transformation takes us to a rich and rewarding discovery of the vast potential contained within ourselves and others, yet the discovery requires each of us to undertake that grand transformation. And many people who have awakened hesitate at this point; they hold themselves back from committing fully to their own transformation, from diving deep and getting to essence, from exploring the edges of their existence. Why do they hesitate? Because the unknowns of the journey trip their alarm bells. Deep down they question:

• Am I ready to take this journey?
• What will I gain? What will I lose?
• What will people think of me?
• What will become of me?
• Will I be safe?

They fear they don’t have what it takes; they fear what they will find if they do; they fear because they do not understand what is happening and why they experience what they are experiencing; they fear the unknown, the uncertainty of what it all means; and most of all they fear they will lose themselves (which they will).

This is where transformational coaching steps in.

It’s an exciting time to be a coach (or a facilitator of transformation, in any form), as we are participating in the beginning of a sweeping shift in personal and collective consciousness. And although this shift naturally engenders fear and trepidation, it can not only be supported, it can be accelerated.

If you desire to deepen your participation in this process, this book is for you. It’s time to reveal and understand the dynamics, beauty, and potentials of the ‘way of transformation,’ the path of our personal and collective evolution that we all are invited to travel, and to learn how we can support this process for ourselves and all those with whom we work.

The Purpose of This Book

Every day I have the privilege of working with people from all corners and cultures of the world who feel a powerful inner call to participate in the flowering of human consciousness. They seek to know more about who they are, to bring meaning and value to their lives, to heal and to grow into more complete, radiant expressions of selfhood, and they desire to support others to do the same. These people label their work differently—they may call themselves anything from coaches, healers, facilitators, to teachers, leaders, storytellers—but what they all share is that they are becoming exceptional facilitators of transformation and guides to a greater reality.

Although this book is about Deep Transformational Coaching (or Deep Coaching, for short), it is written to address some pertinent questions: questions that, when answered, equip people, regardless of their work, to become facilitators of awakening and transformation:

• What does transformation actually mean?
• What does the human transformational journey look like?
• What are the optimal conditions in which transformation unfolds?
• How do we accelerate shifts in being and consciousness?
• What is the role of Spirit and spirituality?

These and many other such questions will be answered in this book. And as much as this knowledge and information will enable you to support the growth of others, this book is first and foremost for your growth. Its primary intention is to bring about a shift in your own consciousness, to help you experience more of the truth of Who You Are: your essential Self and nature. When accessed in the right way, this material and the practices will act as a catalyst for your own transformation.

What this book is not is a collection of tools and techniques to pick through and apply in your coaching sessions (or into your chosen field of service). You can read it in that way, but you would be missing out because it offers you so much more. This is a book about awakening and transformation—the most profound, sacred, and mysterious of human experiences—and how we optimally position ourselves to support it. This work begins and ends with your own consciousness. And your capacity to support others in their transformation is proportionate to the degree that you bring your own consciousness to the recognition of your own Reality. My request is that you allow yourself plenty of time to reflect on and assimilate what you will learn here, applying it to your own life before applying it to the lives of others.

Most importantly, the ideas and concepts presented in this book are intended to give rise to an experience, as they themselves are the product of the new consciousness. Concepts are wonderful, and tickle the intellect’s desire for knowledge and understanding; however when it comes to deep transformation, experience is the best teacher. A question you can ask yourself at any time is:

What is the inner experience that is desiring to happen in me?

As you assimilate the lessons, a shift will take place within you, and you will experience yourself as more complete, more real, more whole, more awake, and more alive. If your readiness is high, you may even experience a profound sense of who you are at your most essential level, as ‘I Am.’ A glimpse of this state of being is enough to act as a mighty accelerator of transformation, for any visceral experience of your essential nature fuels your ongoing efforts to expand your awakening mind.

Your unawakened mind will also be stirred as you read this book; it is a necessary part of the transformation of consciousness to recognize those aspects of the mind which are in need of attention and healing—how the unawakened mind thinks, speaks, and acts. We cannot grow into the fullness of our enlightened Self if we do not shine a light onto the shadowy aspects of our unawakened self. For most people, this part of the transformational process causes discomfort and dis-ease. I encourage you to stay with it and recognize it for what it is: your egoic consciousness fighting for its survival in the face of the emerging light of a new consciousness. And if you desire to support others in their transformation, it is important that you have experienced for yourself the process of facing and healing the shadows of the unawakened you.

As you work with the nine transformative practices that form the foundation of Deep Coaching, as you apply them to all the situations and circumstances of your life, you will become a transformational presence. One of life’s great truths is that your transformation enables transformation. The more you allow the light of your awakened self to become your ‘way of being’ in this world, the more your presence will enable others to awaken and grow into their highest potential. What you call yourself or the kind of work you do is far less important to supporting transformation than the quality of your being. The light of your consciousness weaves the space in which transformation unfolds. Be that light and bear witness to what becomes possible.

The Rise of Coaching

You do not need to have any coaching background or experience in order to gain tremendously from reading this book, nor have plans to become a Deep Coaching practitioner in the future. At its essence, this book is about learning to hold space for transformation, a space in which ways of being and consciousness shift naturally and organically. And it is written for all those who desire to understand and support the journey of awakening and transformation, for themselves or for others.

If you are not a coach it may be helpful to let go of the ‘coach’ moniker used throughout the book and replace it with a label of your choosing. I am, however, a professional coach, and this book is written from a coaching perspective. From years of experience, I have come to trust that, as an approach to human development, coaching has enormous potential. I recognize how clichéd the notion of ‘changing the world’ can sound, yet when coaching is done well it does a world of good. No matter your profession, you will benefit from an understanding of the transformative coaching principles and practices presented here.

In comparison with other professions which explore the human experience, such as psychiatry, psychology, or therapy, coaching is a newbie, having come into existence as a profession as recently as the 1980s. Yet within this short timeframe there has been a remarkable global surge of interest. Coach training schools are flourishing, more and more universities are offering coaching as a course of study, and progressive organizations are increasingly making it part of leadership training. Professional coaches abound.

Why is there such an extraordinary level of interest in coaching?

It may have something to do with the fact that in an awakening world many people are hearing an inner call to live purposefully: to set and achieve goals and aspirations, to realize more of their innate potential, to create meaningful, fulfilling lives, and to take ownership and responsibility when doing so. Coaching, through the process of inquiry and dialog, invites us to explore our beliefs and perceptions, often revealing those to be distorted ideas and images we have somehow bought into. Coaching simply enables people to move beyond such limitations into a space of clarity and expanded possibility.

My extensive experience mentoring student and professional coaches has shown me that people who study coaching share a desire to change lives for the better, including their own. I’m not speaking about just any kind of change, or change for change’s sake (there is plenty of that happening, and it is not necessarily for our betterment), but rather the kind of change that we so badly need, change that invites in a higher order of life experience: vibrant, optimistic, intentional, and possibility-oriented.

In the Deep Coaching program, I like to ask participants the question: “What attracted you to coaching?” Invariably the response is something like, “Coaching is my calling. I don’t know why it is exactly, but I know that I want to help people reach their goals and potential, and to support their personal growth. Coaching speaks to me as a way to do that.” When I inquire further into the nature of the calling the response is usually along the lines of: “I’ve been going through a period of significant growth myself for a while now, and I’ve decided to make some changes in my life. I can no longer do the work I was doing or living as I was living, as it is not aligned to who I am. I see coaching as an avenue to realizing my own goals, dreams, and potential as well.”

Perhaps you recognize some of this in yourself.

Is it a coincidence that the coaching profession has risen to global prominence at the same time that our world is moving through a period of collective awakening? Perhaps. But my interpretation is that we have somehow birthed a process that perfectly serves the needs of an awakening mind. At its core, coaching is about self-awareness and what happens when self-awareness expands beyond its current boundaries.

With its eye on the future yet tuned into the present, coaching is a force for good, seeking to bring out the best in each of us. When adopted by legions of practitioners, it becomes a collective force for global change because coaching embodies a mindset that chooses to see and enable the very best within each person, despite the limitations of our human condition. Coaching recognizes there is always some aspect of ourselves that is unseen, unexplored, untapped, and unrealized and which, when revealed, helps us to grow into more of our innate potential.

This is why I became a coach.

A New Paradigm of Coaching for a New Paradigm of Living

Coaching offered me the opportunity to sit with another person and draw from the well of life. These were soul-nourishing experiences through which I learned what it takes to support others to recognize and move beyond identity masks and layers of perceived limitation, and to connect with what was really going on. The deeper the conversation went, the more real we became: authentic, vulnerable, open, revealed, and truthful. Not only my clients, but myself as well. In the most powerful coaching conversations the experience is like an upward spiraling dance: both parties are elevated into higher levels of awareness, with a shared sense of profound connection to each other and the whole.

Deep Coaching can be, as this book aims to show, an exceptional means for fostering enlightened levels of being, thought, and action, enabling people to rise far above their daily thought processes and connect with a higher flow of consciousness where more truth, peace, understanding, and wisdom is available. As far as I’m aware, there are few approaches like it, and it is what makes this work a powerful facilitator for the ongoing awakening of our world. Yet what I have noticed from my years working in the coaching industry is that this potential has yet to be realized by the majority of coaching approaches and coaches.

Conventional coach training programs do not teach how to create the conditions in which a person can connect with the deepest part of themselves. So much coaching is issue-based, solution-focused, often process-driven, and with a strong emphasis on taking action to ‘get there’ as quickly as possible. Such coaching approaches generally access information that is readily available at the surface, and create little space for accessing a level of mind that is more than a slight deviation from one’s predominant way of thinking and perceiving. Change and growth can and do happen, but the potentials of coaching to engender enlightened thought, action and ultimately transformation are the result of a set of conditions which enable connection with a higher flow of consciousness.

Deep Coaching, with its nine transformative practices, is about that set of conditions: an optimal set of conditions designed to create a coaching space where people can dive below the surface and connect with their most essential source of self-understanding and wisdom. Many people today are sensing that a new paradigm of living is possible, one which unfolds from the awakened mind and is grounded in spirituality, yet what that means and how to live into it with all the busyness and responsibilities of daily life remains a mystery.

Conventional coaching, with its emphasis on ‘doing’ over ‘being,’ simply cannot support a depth of personal exploration that takes people into that new paradigm. But Deep Coaching can and does. Here we are swimming at the deep end, bathing in the essence of life, and connecting with that which supports us into the embodiment of our vast, transcendental potential. It is possible, through Deep Coaching, to come into the fullness of your Self: to know Who You Are, your purpose and place in this world, and to recognize your relationship with All That Is. It is possible to live joyfully, peacefully, lovingly, and to express those enlightened aspects of being into all that you do and create.

Awakening is the starting point. Beyond awakening lies a journey of transformation that takes us into the heart of the new paradigm where we can experience what it means to become the living embodiment of our greatest human possibility. It is a journey each of us must consciously choose to take, and it is not for the faint of heart. The work of Deep Coaching is to foster connection, inquiry, reflection, dialogue, and ultimately healing so that the transformation that is a possibility for each of us can become a reality for those who have chosen to embark on the heroic journey of self-actualization.