12 Sessions Recommended
In Transformative Dialogue, we step into a safe space of resonance to discover intersections and explore what emerges. It is a space that invites the entirety of the human experience. Through guiding questions, we dive deeply and learn to trust emergence.
In order to structure a trajectory of development we’ll occasionally draw from Ken Wilber’s AQAL framework. The AQAL is a developmental framework which considers your Level of individual consciousness, the behaviors within particular Lines of learning, the States you’ve experienced, and how you use the Quadrants to relate to reality. By examining your experiences through these different lenses and understanding the various levels of consciousness, we can identify patterns, uncover hidden insights, and facilitate deeper understanding and growth. This process includes four key aspects of growth:
- Cleaning up
- Cultivate emotional intelligence by understanding and integrating the unconscious patterns that influence one’s worldview and create disharmony.This involves drawing from attachment theory to explore the emotional resonances stored within the psyche.
- Waking up
- Learn practical methods to access states of awakened consciousness and consistently integrate them into your daily life to cultivate new, stable character traits.
- Growing up
- Engage in honest self-reflection and dialogue to understand your own developmental journey, clarifying where you are and where you want to go.
- Showing up
- Learn to bring lucidity into everyday life and encourage growth in all your relationships through deep listening and a commitment to collective awakening.
Insight Dialogue
I remember collaborating with a colleague on an idea for a festival, wherein he set up a meeting with a prospective investor at the local tea cafe. We met a bright-eyed man with a silver-streaked beard and a calm, humble presence. As we sat down, my colleague immediately began to pitch the festival idea to the man he perceived as a potential investor. The man listened intently. When my colleague finished he let the silence settle into the space between us. He then began slowly, “You know, in my life, I’ve learned that most people have long forgotten how to listen. They listen to reply, their minds busy conjuring a response, rather than truly listening to learn and absorb.” His words landed deep in my bones, perhaps because my colleague took the statement as a personal affront, given it followed a rapid-fire flurry of information that preceded any true dialogue. It was an immediate epiphany that made me question where I had ever truly listened in the way this man spoke of. This moment was a turning point in my understanding.
A couple years later, I attended a five-day retreat in the Insight Dialogue tradition with Phyllis Hicks, where the transformative power of dialogue became clear. The six-step process of pause, relax, open, attune to emergence, listen deeply, and speak the truth was a doorway to meaningful dialogue. It activated empathy, invited creativity, catalyzed personal insights, and began to transform my psyche. Applying this framework can take any dialogue deeper.
My curiosity about psychological development began during my yoga teacher training. A friend who shared this interest suggested I read Ken Wilber’s A Theory of Everything. The framework’s historical origins and precise explanations, culminating in the All Quadrants All Lines (AQAL) model, found fertile ground in my background in neuroscience and yogic studies. I was able to connect my pre-existing understanding of human psychology to the AQAL. My curiosity led me to explore the framework in more depth, learning about its origins in Spiral Dynamics, a system created by Clare Graves. Once I began to see through the lens of the AQAL, I found it provided consistent explanatory value for my interactions and helped me recognize blind spots that had created challenges in my life. The AQAL has helped me grow, and I hope it can do the same for you
Insight Dialogue and models of Ego Development will serve as the tools we use to guide our inquiry together.
