Betz Ann - Integration: the power of being co-active in work and life

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT

INTEGRATION: THE POWER OF BEING CO-ACTIVE IN WORK AND LIFE

Ann and Karen, thank you for this wonderful example of integration, the hallmark of a healthy brain and the guiding principle for healthy relationships, workplaces, and communities. Because you incorporate your own personal experiences, we readers dont have to set aside our human interest in order to benefit from the neuroscience. Karens experience in developing Co-Active Coaching, a cornerstone of coaching practice, and Anns ability to put brain research into practice incorporate both what to do and how it works. This is integration at its best: stimulation for our thinking, doing AND being to make a difference in the world.

Linda J. Page, Ph.D., President of Adler Coaching and co-author (with David Rock) of Coaching with the Brain in Mind

An important book, filled with clarity and insight, which diagnoses separation as the essential malady human beings suffer from, and offers a practical and detailed path beyond it, towards harmony and wholeness.

Steve Taylor, Ph.D., author of Back to Sanity and The Fall

We have worked very closely with both Karen and Ann for a number of years now and have seen firsthand the tremendous impact they have had on both the coaching profession and the clients of the coaches who utilize their insights.

Karen has had a profound impact on the coaching industry, driving the coaching industry forward since early on in its inception and Anns work on neuroscience is very much at the cutting edge. The book Integration draws deeply on their expertise and offers very practical tools, which can be used in both a business and life context. They effectively and persuasively explore current scientific research that illustrates how using the Co-Active Model will lead to both a more integrated work and life. The book delves deep into the Co-Active model and readers really gain a sense of the power of the model. Bravo to Ann and Karen for super insights from two true masters.

Ben Croft, President, World Business and Executive Coach Summit

Betz and Kimsey-House extend CTIs pioneering Co-Active work into the deeply personal and urgent human question of how we become more fully ourselves while joining with others in creative relationship. Business and personal examples abound, as do tools and tips for application to development. Drawing from wellsprings as diverse as neuroscience, evolution, and developmental psychology, this book on integration is in itself a work of integration.

Doug Silsbee, author, Presence-Based Coaching

Integration is outrageously compelling. Betz and Kimsey-House explore Co-Activity by inviting us to stand in the hyphen of connectivity. Interconnectedness, they show us, is both creative and neural, both/and, never either/or; whether tracing and exploring the vagus nerve and/or taking us into the simile of navigating lifes chaotic waters as though responding to aquatic turbulences in a canoe, the authors teach us gently, simply, elegantly about living life transformatively.

Poignant real-life stories inclusive of their own very vulnerable truths of experience emerge from the authors worlds of coaching and leadership. In the same vein of heart-connection, the book renders quotations that burst with meaning. Betz and Kimsey-House see humanity at the cusp of the Great Turning an opportunity to step into the power of interconnectedness, away from the silos of existence to which we have become accustomed. Who do I and who do we want to be, they ask in so many different ways. Most importantly, they offer us a process for integration through learning about, trying out, and living from many aspects of the Co-Active Model, a solid footing from which to make the Great Turn. Early in the book, Betz and Kimsey-House express their fervent hope that readers find the book intriguing, provocative, and inspiring and I believe readers will find it just that and so much more.

Dr. Don Morrow, CPCC, PCC, Co-owner of The Monarch System

First published by Changemakers Books, 2015

Changemakers Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach, Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK

www.johnhuntpublishing.com

www.changemakers-books.com

For distributor details and how to order please visit the Ordering section on our website.

Text copyright: Karen Kimsey-House and Ann Betz 2014

ISBN: 978 1 78279 865 1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014957341

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of Karen Kimsey-House and Ann Betz as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design: Lee Nash

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK

We operate a distinctive and ethical publishing philosophy in all areas of our business, from our global network of authors to production and worldwide distribution.

Integration

were not

accustomed

to holding

both

the this

and the that

our internal rivers

overflow their banks

or dry up

completely

as we are

pulled wildly

to chaos

or bound tightly

by rigidity

some of us spread

our energy

out past

the shore

creating marshes

and murky swamps

losing the

propelling current

in our desire

to touch

everything

and avoid

constraint

others pull back

measuring

the flow

with numbers

and spreadsheets

certain it can

be understood

controlled

and mastered

never noticing

the pulsating rush

dwindling

as we go

but when we

tend our waters

carefully

providing enough

in the way of borders

to contain

their power

without

restricting

the leaping waves

that carry us

through a

passionate life

we flow

we dance

we soar

~Ann Betz

Anns Story and Karens Story

Anns Story

When I was seventeen I lost my hair. Id had an autoimmune disease called alopecia almost my whole life, with small circular bald spots appearing and disappearing in my thick hair since I was three, so at first I assumed the ever-increasing patches would fill back in like they always had. Except this time they didnt, and within about six months I was almost completely bald.

I had been a theater brat, loving the stage and the limelight since Id starred in the sixth-grade Christmas play. I practically lived in the high school theater, took acting classes at a nearby college, and performed everything from Shakespeare to Anne Frank on local community stages. I was pretty and vivacious, and invariably cast as the ingnue. My dream was to study serious theater in college, and act in a reparatory company or even perform on Broadway.