On practice, integration, and grace
One theme keeps showing up in all of my conversations lately.
In my coaching, workshops, and networking, accomplished executives, successful entrepreneurs, and leadership coaches with thriving practices are all expressing the same exact thing: spiritual curiosity.
Wait, that’s not strong enough. It’s spiritual hunger.
For some leaders, it’s because they’ve outgrown their religious background—they’re longing for more. For others, this spiritual hunger has been sparked by the emerging science around consciousness that is entering the mainstream through podcasts like Ky Dickens’
The Telepathy Tapes and books like Dan Brown’s bestseller The Secret of Secrets.
Still others are arriving here because of an experience with psychedelics.
There are practical reasons that have brought people to this place, too. Evolving leaders who have been feasting on a steady diet of frameworks such as emotional intelligence, conscious leadership, Internal Family Systems, and Polyvagal Theory – and know their Enneagram number too – are realizing they’re still hungry.
They’re longing for contact with something deeper.
They crave connection with what’s really real.
Perhaps even more so because of the rise of AI.
In other words, so many leaders are awakening to the reality that their most important growth area – to help them serve their clients and colleagues, navigate change and complexity, and thrive in their work and life – is spiritual intelligence.
There are many ways to talk about this domain:
Expanding consciousness
Accessing inner wisdom
Cultivating intuition
Exploring the mystical
But they’re all describing the same thing – the journey from the head to the heart.
Yet as people are beginning or deepening this journey, so many are running into the same three problems.
First, there’s the question of practices.
Spiritual growth requires spiritual practices. But with so many modalities on offer – meditation styles, breathwork, plant medicine ceremonies, intuitive readings – people are overwhelmed (“Where do I start?”).
Perhaps an even greater barrier to growth, their spirituality is scattered. They’re caught in a loop of endless experimentation (trying everything at the buffet) without devoting themselves to specific practices that will foster the inner growth they seek.
Meanwhile, others go all-in on particular practices (and they love to tell you all about it!), but the practices themselves become an obsession and, sadly, they mistake the tools for the transformation.
Second, there’s the matter of integration.
People get a taste of the transcendent, but it doesn’t land in the real world. So they keep chasing after spiritual highs. They engage in spiritual bypassing, explaining everything away in spiritual terms without self-examination or accountability.
As author Ken Wilber puts it, they may be waking up, but that doesn’t mean they’re growing up (psychological maturation), cleaning up (shadow work), or showing up (embodiment).
Third, there’s the issue of approach.
As I mentioned at the top, many people are exploring spirituality on the heels of success. This dynamic isn’t a surprise to ancient wisdom traditions, which are chock full of stories of accomplished, powerful, and wealthy individuals still seeking fulfillment.
But there’s something that needs to be named: the temptation to employ the same approach in spirituality that one previously brought to their career. However, striving doesn’t work on the spiritual path. Instead, it calls for surrender, patience, unknowing. It calls for grace.
As someone who’s spent over 20 years leading at the intersection of spirituality/inner life, community/belonging, and social healing/social impact, I’m thrilled about this rise in spiritual hunger.
But I also know that if we really want to harness the transformative power of spiritual intelligence in our lives and relationships, our communities and workplaces, and our hurting, divided world, then it is going to take a lot more than listening to podcasts and reading books, taste-testing spiritual practices, and acquiring spiritual experiences.
It’s going to require practice.
It’s going to demand integration.
It’s going to involve grace, too.
I know this all too well from the starts and stops on my own journey, as well as from the experiences of countless others I’ve had the privilege of supporting on the spiritual path, the consciousness quest, the way of wisdom – or as I like to call it, the journey within.
That’s why practice, integration, and grace are foundational aspects of all of my work, which I’ve developed from my own spiritual journey – my decade-plus as a pastor, five-year soul journey, six-year exploration and practice of eastern philosophy, and experience as a meditation teacher and hospice chaplain.
If you’ve been trying to navigate life’s transitions – career, relationship, identity, faith, health, midlife, and more – and keep finding yourself stuck, it may be because you’re being called to go deeper, because you’re spiritually hungry.
If this is you…
Know that you’re not alone.
Remember: practice, integration, and grace.
And please let me know if I can support you on your journey within!
The next session of Ben’s Awakening Wisdom workshop is in Santa Fe this May. Recent alumni say you can feel his presence right away – steady, kind, and grounded – creating a space where openness and meaningful dialogue come easily.
We’re offering 10% off this workshop for anyone who registers early – before March 18.