Coaching Through iPEC’s COR.E Dynamics: Connection

This episode includes our interpretations of copyrighted works done by the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching or iPEC. 

Alex Cullimore: Even if they're trying to convince themselves of it, we can just tell there's some disingenuous about it. That gives us a pause and makes us wonder where that gap is. And that's a great way of visualizing and remembering what it feels like to feel that disconnection.

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives. 

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that's with our families, co-workers or even ourselves. 

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni. 

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore. Let’s dive in.

Cristina Amigoni: Let’s dive in. 

“Authenticity means freedom.”

“Authenticity means going with your gut.”

“Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.”

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.”

“It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.”

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.”

“It's transparency, relatability. No frills. No makeup. Just being.”

[EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. Today, it's just Cristina and I as we continue our series exploring the iPEC COR.E Dynamic Series. We are on I think the 8th of 10 disciplines today. We are on connection.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Almost there.

Alex Cullimore: And, ironically, you've been struggling with a fading internet connection all day. That's been good.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Yeah. Nothing like wanting to record a podcast episode on connection and getting your internet connection disconnected at 7:45am most of the day. Or we'll see if we can get through this recording before they shut it down again.

Alex Cullimore: Internet providers, always fun.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Yeah. I love how we have all these great tools. Technology has gone through so much progression and just things that they have put out there, everything we can use. And then the cloud came about, which had some great advantages. Love everything on the cloud. The problem is that it all relies on internet connection. And so, when you don't have it, you cannot do anything. There's very little you can actually do.

Alex Cullimore: And that's when the world shuts down.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes. All we need is a solar flare or some sort of global hack and then the world will stand still and we'll all move back into caves. 

Alex Cullimore: It's like when Slack goes down, the entire world has to stop for a second and be like, "Oh, I didn't realize I used that for everything." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Oh, I remember that. I think that happened to us in our old company. That one day, Slack shut down and it was like, "Wait. We're done. That's it. Close the doors." 

Alex Cullimore: "Everybody, pack it in. We're over now," which is a pretty good metaphor for how important connection is actually for our general modern age. That's not only the internet connection. But just, generally, the connection to ourselves, to others, to life, to our higher self. Every piece of this. This is an interesting one, because it goes into what feels almost hard to describe. And, yet, they are actually making pretty strong advances in things like quantum physics and quantum mechanics to understand things like entanglement and how everything is truly connected, and everything all at once, and on a physical quantum sense. There's a lot of interesting pieces to this. Where do we want to start?

Cristina Amigoni: There's so much. This is my favorite discipline. I'm pretty sure I said that about a couple of other ones. But this is definitely my favorite one. It is, because it's a very natural one for me. It speaks to my top core value, which is human connection and connection in general. And I feel it. It's one of those I can't describe it, but I know when it's there. And I definitely know when it's not. And so, exploring all the different facets of the discipline and how they describe everything. I remember going through it and thinking like, "Yes, I know exactly what that is." I don't need an explanation. I don't need to understand it. I fully just in my core understand it. 

Alex Cullimore: That's interesting. I come across this one kind of the other way. I found a lot of understanding through reading about this and then found more connection to what that really feel feels like. I was coming at the opposite.

Cristina Amigoni: Excellent. This will be fun. 

Alex Cullimore: I think it's a super powerful one. There's a lot of interesting pieces of connection. And I like how they define it kind of in connection to both body, mind and spirit, which is a good dichotomy, because I think you have to have realistically all three to really feel connected to yourself as well as have that. If you are more connected to yourself, I think that's one of the only ways you can really reach out, and enjoy, and understand connection with others as well.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Definitely. At the beginning, the core part of going through the discipline really delineates what it's like to understand connection. What are we talking about when we're talking about connections? And you mentioned, in quantum physics, there's proof that we are all made of energy. And so, we're all connected. Everything around us and with everybody. People that we know. People that we don't know. There's no separation the only thing. That separates us is our ego and our sense of thinking that there is a separation and assuming that there is a separation. And we need to compare ourselves to others. And we need to win, because there's a loss. Once we get to that state of feeling the connections, we realize that none of that really matters. We don't exist without the others. We don't exist without the environment. We don't exist without everything that's around us because of that really strong connection and unwavering connection. 

And so, even my favorite quote, which is on my LinkedIn profile, "I am what –" it's the Ubuntu concept of, "I am what I am because we are." And that's at the core of that. What I love is the fact that I can't exist without others. Others can't exist without me. It's a we. It's never an I. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I've definitely come to appreciate that one much more over the years. But think, partially, just it is somewhat reinforced I think in American culture to be fairly into rugged individualism. And there's that idea of like almost societally reinforcing that ego that does that disconnect that is the, "This is a competition." "There's zero-sum games to be played." "We are not other people. We are ourselves." And we have to potentially offend for ourselves. And, occasionally, we can have other people around. But that's not actually a boon to our life.

And so, this is an interesting contradiction to that. And once I started to like let go of preconceived notions that I had, some of the kind of default behaviors that would have been informed by a lot of what I learned growing up, this was much more easier to connect to. And once I started to see the power of that and understand that there really is no difference, that everybody does rely on each other. That's evolutionarily necessary for humans especially, not only on the just physic sense, but on the biological sense, and in the ecology of how we live. We live in groups. We need each other. We cannot do everything alone. And we never really do anything alone. No matter how separated we believe we are, there's something that has been influenced by decades and generations of other people. 

And there's so many other people that went into being able to do anything. You could draw with crayons alone in your room. And that is reliance on somebody having produced all that paper. And that's a giant path of things that had to be connected to bring that paper to you. And same with all the crayons, and the colors, and the dyes, and every piece of that that got put together is reliant on other people. There's so much that goes into anything that we do that is always inevitably connected to others. And the more we can accept that or understand that, we can use that for our advantage rather than feeling like it is a burden. And it can feel very vulnerable. And that I think is one of the reasons. It's easy to step away from and hard to step into. But it's incredibly powerful for that reason too. 

Cristina Amigoni: It is. Yes. And I'm glad you brought up the vulnerability, because it is. It takes courage and it is very vulnerable. Especially in those moments – which I think ironically enough, there are the moments where we feel disconnected to ourselves, to others, to what's happening, what's around us, to our visions toward expectations. You name it. There's something disconnected. And those are the moments where it's sometimes easier or it seems easier to then disconnect from everything else. 

Take the one thing that got disconnected and spread it all around 360 in a sphere and close ourselves in, which then causes a lot more catabolic energy. It causes more pain. It causes more energy needed to then reconnect and refine that state of flow, that state of being, and the state of just content and joy where you're not swimming upstream. Even worse, you're not a fish trying to hike up a mountain outside of water. That's how this connection can feel. And for some reason, we do tend to take one little tiny crack and make it a huge Grand Canyon and disconnect from everything.

Alex Cullimore: Oh, man. 10,000 reactions piling up on each other to make sure that we step away and to make it harder to do the one thing that we know at some level we need to do or will be the connection back. More of a flow state. I'm glad you mentioned flow states too, because that's a huge portion of connection, is not only connected to others ourselves. It's also to the present moment. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in the next discipline. But there is so much that is about connection. You are connected to what you're doing. You're only in the present moment. You're really experiencing what you're experiencing. Rather than living half in the present, half in the future, half in the past. And purposefully overloading that with 150%, because you can't do it. You can't realistically do any of those. But we do it so often. We kind of flitter between what are we worried about the future. What are we regretting about the past? What are we thinking about the past? What do we hope for the future? 

And so, there's only so many times where we get to be in that connected flow state in the present. And so much of that comes back to being able to accept that connection with everything that's happening around you. Yourself, your life, spiritually, physically, others, the environments, all of that plays into how connected we are to ourselves and the real, true present moment.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. And the flow state, we talk about flow state quite a bit even in our leadership programs, because it's such a key state to recognize. And we usually recognize it – if we train ourselves, we can recognize it when we're in it, because we now know what to look for. But we mostly recognize it after the fact. If being in the zone, being in flow with whatever we're doing or whoever we're around, it's when time doesn't exist. Like you said, there's no past. There's no future. There's just a present. Time almost stops and also goes super-fast. There's no concept of time the way we normally feel it when we are not in flow. And, typically, we realize that we have been in flow afterwards when we've done something that was hours and it felt like minutes or seconds.

Alex Cullimore: Those are always fun. Do you have an example of like maybe a recent time you felt like you were in flow? 

Cristina Amigoni: So many. So many examples.

Alex Cullimore: Oh, great. Well. That's all I was curious about that for. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. No. It's interesting. I say, thankfully, sometimes I feel like luckily. But we have created this. It's not all luck. A lot of the work we do and the times that we are doing, whether it's podcasting, brainstorming, creating. Maybe not tenacity work. But the rest of the part. Working with others, facilitating, helping create space, listening. There's so many examples where the only sense of time that I have is because I have a clock in front of me. But other than that, I actually don't feel the time. I feel like that's flow. 

I would say like one great example is when we go to our in-person facilitation programs that we've had, I know from a calendar perspective and from a logic head perspective, I know it's three days or four days of being there and doing everything. And, yet, it feels like there's no time. I'm always shocked at realizing that I've been awake from 7am or 7:30 with everybody around us and going to bed at midnight and it felt like it was one minute. It feels like it was two minutes. My body feels the tiredness, but my spirit and my mind don't. My spirit and my mind actually turn around, like, "Okay, let's do it again tomorrow. Okay, let's do it again tomorrow." 

Alex Cullimore: I totally agree. The number of times that we've been like land at an airport, go deliver things for a week. And then I feel like when we get back to the airport, I'm like, "Weren't we just here? Isn't this what we did? Just start here?" 

Cristina Amigoni: I know. Didn't I just came off this escalator or went down it?"

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Did I forget a bag? Is this why I'm here again? 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It's amazing. I always look up and I'm like, "How was that four days? How was that five days?" 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. It's interesting that there is so much needs to be connected to both body, mand spirit. Because, often, in those states of flow I feel like I really don't realize until after that any time has passed and it's really only in my body that I'm like, "Okay. But I am tired." It is actually midnight somewhere. And there's some part of me that recognizes that. And circadian rhythms are kicking in and whatever. But that's the one time where suddenly there's a catch up on what the physical feeling has been.

Cristina Amigoni: Definitely. Yeah. And those are the moments. The only reason why I don't feel the time. My mind knows the time, because I look at the clock. Because there's a clock I'm looking at. Because if I eliminated all clocks in those moments, I probably would never sleep actually. Because it would just be like, "I'm not done yet. Why would I go to bed?" 

Alex Cullimore: There's more to do. There's more I want to do.

Cristina Amigoni: There more to do. There's more connection to be felt. Why would I sever this? I want to sever this for sleep? Who needs sleep? 

Alex Cullimore: It turns out we do.

Cristina Amigoni: We do. Yes. 

Alex Cullimore: But only after painful examination. That's a great example of it, because connection can be that powerful state that gets us out of that. Not almost out of the present moment, but it's actually all those moments you feel so present that it all becomes squished into one. It feels like it's all one minute over the course of 18 hours. It's an incredible state to be in. And so, there's some ideas we can consider around that then about how do we get back into that? What might have caused that for us? What do we really connect to? And this is where I think things like spiritual influencers and authenticity come in. Because you can't really be in flow unless you've let go of a lot of armor. It's hard to hang on to armor while you're trying to be in flow. And it's hard to be in flow if you're not spiritually like connected to what you want to be doing. And that the spiritual influencer sense of are you connected to your personal values and purpose? Do you feel like this is an expression of that? I think that is an incredibly important part of being able to feel any level of connection.

Cristina Amigoni: The other thing that I really like when I'm in that state, especially for prolonged time, like a week, is that I find myself to be very agile to change. You let go of a lot of things. Y ou let go of the armor. But I also think you let go of expectations. You let go of plans. Certainly, I mean, for facilitating a leadership program, there are plans clearly that we're following. But it's easy to like go of everything else outside of that almost. 

And even within the program, it's like there's an idea of how to use the time. But then you let go of the expectations on how that's actually going to work minute-by-minute. And the expectations on how you expect people to show up. And would you expect them to share? To not share? To feel? To not feel? 

There's an incredible sense of, pun intended, connection to something much greater ourselves. At least in myself. I always feel like it's not just me. It's a greater self. It's a greater web that's now all one. Even little things like where should we eat? Or where should we go for happy hour? It's like there's all those things. And whatever feels like at the moment. There's really none of that, which I feel it's not quite as smooth. It's not quite as easy when there isn't that sense of flow. When there isn't that sense of deeper connection as the foundation of it all. There's definitely a little more of like, "Oh, no. We got to figure out this plan, and that plan, and this minute, and that minute. And when do we do this? And when do we do that?" 

And the sense of also disappointment if it doesn't work exactly how it happened in our heads. And I find that when there's a deeper foundational connection, there's no plan in the head. So it doesn't really matter if it happens that way or not, because there is no plan. The plan is connection. The plan is not connection in this restaurant with this meal, with this seating, with these people talking about these things at this time. And I go to bed at that time. That's not connection.

Alex Cullimore: But it sounds so joyful when you say it that way.

Cristina Amigoni: And o, that's the other thing that I realize. It's the difference. It's when I rely on the planning when I know that the connection is actually not the foundation. What's there? 

Alex Cullimore: That's a great way of describing it. So much of what is the flow, especially during facilitation, is about connection to the room. It's listening for where people are at and what people – because the whole point is that connection. And, yes, we're putting information out there and we're giving people the space to go interact with it. But you have to then be really connected to how people are interacting. How they are able to? That's the only thing that keeps me on a clock at all during facilitation time is like, "Okay, if I can see people are drifting, or it's time for lunch, or def – I'm feeling hungry or they're feeling hungry. They need a break." Whatever it is. Those are the things that bring back like, "Okay, so what do we need to do?" Then it can be back to logistics. 

But to your point, it doesn't ever feel like a foiled expectations. It's just, "Okay, here's where we're at. Here's what we'd like to be able to do. How do we fit that in?" And then you just reassess again later. And none of it feels like it's friction, or frustrating, or, "Man, I can't believe – this didn't go how we planned it at minute one." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. There's really no frustration. There's a lot of releasing of the judgment. There's no winning – all those things that it's known to happen when you're in flow is in connection. There's no winning or losing. There's no comparison. There's just the being and the realizing that being is so powerful that it can fill everything. I feel like there's no gap. There's no hole to fill. There's no, "Oh, but this." And that's missing. Or this is missing. Or that piece. None of that exists.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I think one really cool concept that helped me connect to this and, hopefully, it will help others if it's hard to kind of connect to some of these ideas of connection, is the idea of entrainment. Entrainment is the physics term about when two energetic systems are interacting, they tend to move towards whatever the dominant energy system is. They will both entrain to that wavelength for lack of a better term. 

And we use that term sometimes when we're talking to people where we're on the same wavelength now. Your actual physical brain waves happening, that could very well be that you actually will sync up on a wavelength. And that same thing happens with energetic systems. I think one of the easiest ways to connect to that is thinking about how emotions change when certain people are in a room. If somebody comes in in a violently bad mood or they've had a really bad day, it's going to inherently affect everybody else around. Maybe if it's strong enough, everybody starts tiptoeing around and making sure they're a little more cautious of that. Or maybe somebody enters in a lower mood, but everybody else is feeling energetically helpful. Or to use iPEC terms, like a level four or something. Now they're going to jump in and help that person. And now there's that entrainment. 

And so, we can move and we move towards some of the larger moods naturally because we are social beings and because there's just kind of a free-flowing connection of energy that goes between for how people are interacting with each other. And so, that concept helped me a lot to understand that. And, also, it gives you a leg up on if you'd like to – however steady you can make your energy, you can help and train others to that as well. 

In the middle of a crisis, we look to the people who are staying calm and finding those decision points. In the middle of excitement, we can connect to those who are particularly excited. Or we want to be around those that are – it'll sound goofy, but vibrating at that other level of energy that are excited about that.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It reminds me of something we heard one of our clients actually say when describing what it's like to work with us, which is when he said that we're calm in the center of a storm. And so, them as clients and as teams are just storming and all over the place. And we're just in the center in a calm way just watching and creating the space. 

And so, my hope is that, with that comment, it meant that in the internment, we released some calmness. We provided some sense of stability in the middle of all the chaos when they're feeling they're in. 

Alex Cullimore: And this is a huge place where things like acknowledgement and validation can help out too. Because if somebody's in a different spot and they might want to see that reflected in other people, and we've all probably had that experience where somebody in a bad mood is on a path to try and spread it essentially, because just that feeling is overwhelming. And some things like acknowledging and validating can help really alleviate the need to have others entrained to that and alleviate some of the current stress that is maybe inhabiting that person's kind of mind space.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It's incredible. I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately and reading up again on connection and getting ready for the session, it made me realize how – because a lot of it is intangible. And it really is more with getting very clear with the feeling of connection and disconnection is so that you can distinguish it. And, also, what the power of connection does. 

And so, one of the things that I noticed I've shifted is when I feel the disconnection, which is overall pretty painful experience, when I feel disconnection, is rather than looking at judgment, rather than looking at right or wrong, winning or losing, or immediately going into some sort of logical explanation for that, I try to tap into the energy. Trying to feel what's the energy telling me here? Is the energy telling me that something's off with me that's causing the disconnection? Or that something's off with others that are causing the disconnection? How is that entrainment and synchronicity impacting each other? 

How is it that if my energy is off, it's now causing disconnection, different type of energy that I feel I'm receiving from the people around me because my energy is off because of something? It really helps with processing difficult times or processing times of confusion where you know something is off but you don't know what it is. And our autopilot is to go to judgment. Our autopilot is to just feed the gremlins and go immediately to, "I'm not good enough." "They did something." Or, "They don't want me around." Or something. Something that's an inner critic. 

And so, acknowledging that and then going to the energy and trying to figure out like where has the energy disconnected? How can I look at it from a non-blaming point of view? The connection needs to be reestablished point of view. It doesn't matter who caused it or where it started. But it's more of a do I have the desire to reestablish the connection or not? 

Alex Cullimore: I think that's a great way of describing it. And that's a good way of connecting to what it feels like. Times where we feel like something's off and we can't quite put our finger on it. Or the times when people will say things that sound like the right words, but we're just not convinced to actually feel them or believe them. There's something that's slightly just different and off. 

And even if they're trying to convince themselves of it, we can just tell there's some disingenuous about it. That gives us a pause and makes us wonder where that gap is. And that's a great way of visualizing and remembering what it feels like to feel that disconnection. 

And I found that that's also an incredibly helpful way to reconnect during coaching. If I find myself getting to wrapped up into somebody's story or what they're experiencing, I'm suddenly flooded with different experiences I've had that relate to that person's experience. And when I can let go of that and reconnect, "Okay, what's this person coming across with? And how are they engaging with it that takes me out of the box?" And it's much easier to engage with, "Okay, here's what they're feeling." It seems like that's really important to them. Or, "Oh, there's something that really isn't being addressed here. It seems like they're dancing around this." Suddenly, you can re-engage on that. Where's that energy coming from? And you get curious about that. You can reconnect to that and still hold on to your own. And then there can be a different entrainment where you can still hold on to some higher – hopefully, especially if you're coaching, you're in a higher anabolic space at the time and can help all people towards that. Not a forcing them sense. But in a here's a calm. When you're feeling ready, you'll also be able to resonate with the call.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It's a great example. And great way to recognize that. And what to do with it? 

Alex Cullimore: It happens at other conversations too. To your point, that's when you feel that disconnection is just, "Wait. How do we get back to it?" 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. The example you brought up is really important. We feel the energy way more than our mind lets us to. Our mind is a very powerful deceiver. It creates all sorts of story. In that sense, when we are in touch with what connection feels like, when we're in touch with what energy connection feels like, we can fairly easily detect when somebody's saying something. And your response wants to be like, "Are you saying that to convince yourself or me?" What you're saying is disconnected with yourself. I can feel it and see it pretty clearly. Sometimes we can say that out loud. Sometimes we can't. And we have to wait until the person experiences that or goes through the motions of realizing like that's actually not how I felt. I was convincing myself that that needed to happen that way. 

Alex Cullimore: And sometimes we can get things like verbal cues. People using should, or I need to, or I have to a little too much. We've highlighted that a few times in some of the coaching sessions we've done earlier in this series. But there not always – sometimes we're such good deceivers. We will come out with the language that sounds right. And the only way to really parse when that's like that doesn't seem quite right is if you're really kind of tuned into, "They don't seem like they're really connected to what they're saying." And it sounds – if you haven't felt it or if you're aren't used to using the language, it sounds weird to say like the energy is off. But it's also something we use frequently when we're just like, "Something doesn't feel right here." Or just in a social setting, we're like this is not – something's off. That's feeling and noticing that energy. And the more you can get into that, the more you can use that for your own understanding and better connection with yourself and others.

Cristina Amigoni: That doesn't mean that our own mind doesn't deceive us. Our own mind deceives us too. 

Alex Cullimore: All the time. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's much easier to see it in others. That's one of the frustrating things, is like you see it in others. You can get to the point where you can see it very clearly. Whether it's using shoulds, and need to, have to. Or even one of my favorites is when somebody says I'm going to do things. And then they give you 15 justifications of why they're doing it. I'm like, "You know what? If you just want to do something, just do it." If you need to explain to people here's the reason, "It's because of this, and this, and this, and this, and this. And this happened. And then I thought this." And I'm like, "Again, are you convincing yourself or me?" Because I don't need to be convinced. It's not my experience. If you're convinced, why don't you just do it? Why do you have to have a full story on why you're doing it? 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. There's some other block there. This is why coaches also get coaches, because you can see that in others, it’s helpful to have others. And there are things we are so ingrained in that we will be able to deceive ourselves and very convincingly deceive ourselves of for a long time. Even as you get more consciousness of what other things that might be influencing you of general understandings, there's always going to be things that you can hide from yourself exceptionally well.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't explain the why behind things. But there's so many whys. And just can tell. You can tell the energy. Okay. And for ourselves though, we're very good at not recognizing that. That is a huge trap for ourselves, which is why, as you said, we need coaches too. And we need somebody else to put the mirror up and sometimes say those words, "Are you convincing yourself or me with this?" Because I don't need all the explanation.

Alex Cullimore: Connection is fun. Should we do some coaching on it? 

Cristina Amigoni: Let's do some coaching.

Alex Cullimore: All right. The age-old question.

Cristina Amigoni: I will be the client. I was the coach the last time first.

Alex Cullimore: Okay. All right.

Cristina Amigoni: And I'm sure we'll get in in about two and a half seconds. 

Alex Cullimore: Let's start on a – 

Cristina Amigoni: If you're going to say light, we know where we're going with that.

Alex Cullimore: We'll start on a light one and we'll see where the holes come up.

Cristina Amigoni: Great. 

Alex Cullimore: How can you practice connection during your day-to-day activities?

Cristina Amigoni: Okay. Well, that one is actually pretty – 

Alex Cullimore: Spoiled. You had so much dread built up.

Cristina Amigoni: I did. I was like, "God." Okay. In my day-to-day activities. Well, I have learned now four years in that I do need to meditate first thing in the morning. I don't need to wake up. Get the kids ready for school. Whatever needs to be done. And then meditate before I start the day. That is a must practice. The only times when I don't do that is when I have to travel first thing in the morning. 

And it's interesting, because by about 11am or 10am, I feel off. And then I realize like, "Oh, wait. I didn't meditate. Because I actually wanted to sleep 20 more minutes before going to the airport." And so, it catches up. If I do a fairly quick, I'll be okay. But it does influence me quite a bit. That is definitely a big practice. 

How else can I practice connection in my day-to-day activities? I say pausing. Pausing and reflecting when I feel there is disconnection. And that could happen every day. And every day could be different. And it could be every minute of the day. But not discarding that feeling. Not minimizing and just be like, "Oh, something fell off. That's okay. I don't have time." 

Especially if it's something that's – well, if something feels off, it's typically rooted in something bigger. And it's usually core value rooted, which means it's going to creep up. That crack is going to turn into a Grand Canyon. Acknowledging that when it's actually the first whisper. Like Oprah says, when the universe is whispering, listen. Don't wait for the brick wall to knock you over the head.

Alex Cullimore: Sorry. Your connection broke up slightly there. 

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, there we go. 

Alex Cullimore: The Oprah portion. Our connection is ironically down. 

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, wonderful. 

Alex Cullimore: Oh, to paraphrase that you're talking about. When there's moments that start to sneak up, you know that that can build up into something much larger. And you're talking about how meditation can be a great way to connect early on. And then if you don't have that, you start to feel off. Taking pauses also sounds like almost like a lighter meditation as well as a moment to raise awareness. There's kind of awareness in both of those practices. Can you elaborate a little bit on what it means to feel off? If you haven't meditated and it's getting to 11am or so? 

Cristina Amigoni: Physically, speaking there's actually a physical reaction. It's one of those interesting things that we were told when we went through transcendental meditation class. Call it a class. But it's more of an explanation. And they did say, once you do this for a while, you'll start actually – your body will physically tell you that it's time to do it if you've missed your typical time. 

And so, that's my first cue. My physical cue. I usually get not necessarily a headache. Sometimes I get a headache. But sometimes it will be more like foggy. My brain will fog up. I noticed that I can't focus well. My body will start feeling – again, it's not not lethargic. It's almost as is it's telling me to do something that I'm not doing, which is sit down and meditate. 

And so there's just a physical sensation of just what's disturbing. There's a disturbance. There's a disturbance in the force. That's how it feels. And then if I ignore it for too long and I don't recognize it, then it could turn into the headache. And literally want to just sit down and close my eyes. The body will actually tell me like, "This is what you need to do right now." 

And at first, if I'm not aware and I forget if I'm running around and I forget that I didn't meditate, at first it will be like, "Why am I so tired at 1pm?" And so, it'll get frustrating because I don't understand why my body is not keeping up with where it should be given the time of the day and the routine and the energy that I usually have. But then I'll get the clue, "Oh, wait. I haven't meditated yet. Go do that as soon as possible or this is going to be a very difficult day."
 Alex Cullimore: That's really interesting. It's such a built-in practice that it actually has got its own alarm bells. That's a well-scaffolded practice. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It used to happen on Fridays, because we used to have an 8am client meeting on Fridays. And so, I get up at 4:30 to meditate or 5 o'clock to meditate, I dit want to sleep in the extra half hour. Almost every Friday, I would get – and then I would always say like, "Okay, at 9am, I'm going to go meditate." But then we would either get into meetings or into doing other things. And then I would get to about 2pm and I'll be like, "Why am I so tired?" And that's when it would hit me. I'm like, "Good. Because it's Friday. And I headed the meeting. And I didn't meditate." So go do that.

Alex Cullimore: That's cool. That's great awareness for, one, obviously understanding that full cycle of that. And there's sounds like already built-in cues to like, "Hey, let's bring it back. Let's bring it back down to this." How do you think meditation connects to connection for you?

Cristina Amigoni: I think it's huge. I would say that besides coaching, coach training, and coaching others, and receiving coaching for the last four years, I guess? It's 2023. Yes. Four and a half years. I would say that I started meditation almost at the same time, because I started coach training in March of 2019. And I started meditation in May of 2019. Clearly, it was a big year of transitions. Between '18 and '19. And I needed a lot of external help, which I found.

What meditation gave me was the inner. The connection to the self and the connection to the world almost. Coaching gave me the connection to others. A deeper connection to others. And understanding on how to connect to others. Meditation gave me the deeper connection to myself, mind, spirit, body. But, also, to the environment, the world, the universe. The higher self. Because in those moments, especially with the practice, I'm able to release the judgment of all the noise in my head and just kind of watch it and let it pass by. Let all the thoughts happen as they need to happen, which is very much of a transcendental meditation theology, which is to say like don't try to clear your mind. You can't. It's just not humanly possible. The mind is not going to stop thinking. How about you stop forcing to do it? Because it's not going to happen.

And so, instead, you get to the state of your thoughts being the waves of the ocean at the top of the ocean and you're at the bottom of the ocean. And so, in meditation, the more you do it and the more you get used to that feeling of just watching you're at the bottom of the ocean, and you're watching up, and you're looking at all the waves, and you're like, "Oh, there's that thought. And there it goes. And there's another thought. And there it goes. And there's thought. And it crashes and there it goes." But you're not the thought. You're just watching them. 

That has helped me then, when I'm not in meditation, feeling that energy, that quantum physics energy that everybody talks about with the world around me. And trust it. Rather than having my mind take over and try to logic itself out of trusting what it feels, just feel it and be like, "This is what I feel. And that's it. I don't need justifications. I don't need proof. I don't need data. This is the feeling." And I am just going to go with the feeling and I'm going to trust it as Truth. Capital T.

Alex Cullimore: It makes sense. And it goes back to what you talked about about ego and judgment being some of the stepping stones to get in the way of feeling some of that connection. And so, letting go of some of that and just feeling that connection allows you to be in not just with yourself, but with the rest of what's going on around you. 

What are some areas of life currently where you feel like your mind and or ego might be getting in the way of that connection? 

Cristina Amigoni: There's a few of them I would say. The struggle with that – it's interesting. Because I was just thinking about the struggle with that is when the data doesn't match the energy. That's where I struggle the most. Because I know how to trust the energy. I know that energy is the truth. But the data that the world is giving me is telling me the opposite. That causes a lot of turbulence for me. 

Fairly recently, it happened with some of our work where we had some changes with our client engagement, but yet my energy was telling me the opposite. My energy was saying, "No. That's not going to happen." Why is the data telling me that that's happening? My inner energy, my inner connection is telling me and we will continue. And that connection with our clients with what we're doing is not going to be severed. That was huge disturbance.

And then as it turned out, the energy was right. That's the biggest struggle, is when I feel something and yet the data and what's happening around me, it's the opposite. I'm like, "I don't get." It it's like when is my energy going to be proven right? When is this going to go away and not be disconnected? 

Alex Cullimore: Obviously makes sense. That would be some significant cognitive dissonance worthy. And that's not just happens to be societal reinforcing. We don't have a contract past this. The data would be fairly seemingly very black and white on there's not a continuance here. There's not something to go for. That would make sense that that would be particularly jarring and feel like the reality you feel and the reality you're seeing are not lining up. 

If you're in a space where there's some of that kind of distance, where you're feeling that gap between reality and energy, how can you step into trusting the process on that? 

Cristina Amigoni: It's a good question. It's definitely a situation where I have to tap into all the disciplines and all the influencers. Or at least spiritual influencers. I have to definitely step into trusting my instinct and trusting that – and not start questioning the energy and the connections I feel. Because if I do, then I put that into questions for everything. It's not just it doesn't go into question for this one situation. It goes into questions about every situation. Hopefully, it stays contained with the specific people or situation involved. But sometimes they will go and question all connections everywhere. 

And so, I have to be very careful to not let it do that. And so, there's a lot of going back to the values and understanding that going back to trusting my instinct. And a lot of letting go, accepting that this is the data now. That doesn't mean that this is the situation forever. That doesn't mean that this is the end of the story. It's not the end of the book. It's just part of the story. It may be just a chapter. It may be just a page. 

And even though my expectations are to move fast through it or not even go through this, because it's pointless. If the instinct and the energy is correct and the connection tells me that there is a connection there that's not going to be severed, then why go through this? But, also, trusting that there is a reason why this is happening that's allowing for something else. In our case, when we had our bump in the road. And it maybe it wasn't a bump. But when we had that incident of disconnection between data and instinct, it did allow us to then look inwards and figure out what we wanted to do as a company, which we needed to do. It did put us on a path of defining our offerings, and our solutions, and who we wanted to work with in a much more conscious way. And start work that needed to be done. 

There's always a reason. Trusting that. That's a lot of the trust in the process. Trusting that there is a reason why this is happening this way. There's a reason why the path is not straight. And, eventually, it will also be clear if the connection is severed or not. This is not the moment that that clarity is going to come in. 

Alex Cullimore: That makes sense. It makes sense there would be natural impatience about, "Hey, I want this situation to resolve. I think this will resolve one way." It makes sense that you can find opportunities when in that space that there might be chances to go do the internal stuff that we needed to do on that. There's moments where there's something else that is a necessary part of the journey and would not have happened minus this blip. And so, you consider – and this didn't happen on this one. It came back. The connection was there. But if there was a time in which the energy ended up being off, how would you want to react? 

Cristina Amigoni: Well, interestingly enough – and this is going to sound woo-woo and cuckoo. But the way I tap into my instinct and that connection is I try to imagine future situations. For example, when the client blip was happening, the reason why I could hold on to my instinct to say like, "This is not the end of the story. I knew it wasn't the end of the story." was because I could actually picture us in Chicago. And it was a very clear picture. And so, I couldn't get past that picture. I'm like, "I see it. It's there. It's clear. It's going to happen." That was it. 

And so, on the other side of that, the opposite coin of that is whether I'm resisting it or not. But when my instinct knows that the connection is complete, then there's no future picture that I can actually see. There's no peaceful, energetic connection to something that hasn't happened yet. There's actually darkness or nothing. There's nothing. 

Alex Cullimore: Feeling like there's a connection to enough of understanding of what is happening to be able to propagate that into the future and assume what will happen. And then when that is clear, it feels like there's an evident path forward. And when there's not something there, that path is not there. 

Knowing that, knowing that there's some spaces that you might find yourself, and you will inevitably find yourself in future blips where there'll be moments where there's gaps before clarity and resolution, advice would you give yourself? Live that space and let that space breathe without maybe taking some of your energy. 

Cristina Amigoni: Well, this will come as a shocker for anybody who heard all the other COR.E Dynamics coaching sessions with me. Patience. It goes back to patience. It goes back to patience and curiosity actually. Looking for the curiosity of what is the blip? What's the opportunity that the blip is providing? There is an opportunity. It's going to be obvious eventually. What's the opportunity that the blip is providing? 

Alex Cullimore: How do you tie that feeling with that question? The feeling of the blip with getting yourself into that moment where you ask yourself up that question?

Cristina Amigoni: I have to repeat it over and over. There's a lot of repetition. A lot of not just saying there's a reason for this, but feeling that. Uh, not just saying mantras like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. But feeling it. And also looking for the opportunities and then having that open mind. It's like what am I missing? If I am stuck on this door wanting to open and it's shut in my face, what am I not seeing behind me or beside me.

Alex Cullimore: How, if it all, might you lean on your social connections and the Ubuntu feeling you have to navigate that gap? 

Cristina Amigoni: Definitely reach out and share whatever door I'm expecting to open that's not opening or that they just got shot temporarily. Or maybe it just turned into a brick wall and it's shut forever. Definitely share that. Whether with a coach or with friends that can help me process. Yeah. And just also get somebody else's opinion.

I mean, I know that some things, just say like, "Hey, I need an objective view on the situation. This is the situation. This is what my Gremlin is telling me. This is what my instinct is telling me. What do you see? What's the objective story?" Always think about if there's always three sides of a story between two people, my version, your version, and the actual story. Well, I also think that there's three sides of a story even with ourselves. My mind's version. My heart's version. My soul's version and the actual story. 

And so, being able to share with somebody else and getting their side, that has helped a lot, with getting to see the opportunities with getting to see motivated to turn around and look at maybe there's three doors open behind me and I'm not even looking. Or even knowing like, "Hey, there's a door. It's closed. It'll open again. This is not it." 

And whether that happens or not that validation that I'm – I guess that validation that I'm not crazy. That when I know that there's a door that will open again and I feel it open again, but it's not at the moment, like just hearing that somebody else sees that by hearing the story and what's going on helps me release it and helps me release the closure of it. And know like, "Yeah, whatever. Let me just go get a snack. Let's go do something else until the door opens again." 

Alex Cullimore: Aggregating all of these observations is a great awareness of what connection can mean. What it means to you? Where you can find some solace? Where it might be lacking and where it might especially start to drop out. But knowing there's paths out of there. And knowing that you've been facing down, hey, you've got 5 months in Italy and you want to be able to maintain connections. What is one practice you'd like to take over with you and try out when you make the leap across the pond? 

Cristina Amigoni: That's a whole other podcast episode. The fear of the disconnection that's about to face. I would say definitely have some consistent connections built into the daily routines. Besides meditation, besides the connection to the self, whether it's meditation, walking, both. Journaling. I started journaling. I said I was going to do it after our last one. Actually, well, I journaled one day. That's a whole other podcast on what came out of that journaling. Yes. 

Let's just say that it was effective. But, also, there's a lot that came out and I'm like, "I am not sure I'm ready to keep doing this yet." Given that human connections is my top core value for a reason, as in it survival mode for me, is having that planned and not just hope that it just happens. Because that's where all the other disciplines that we've just gone through go out the door. If I just hope it happens and then I see it doesn't happen, that's when the constant disturbance of, "Well, my instinct is saying this. But my mind is telling me data is like, "Oh, these people don't want to talk to me. They've moved on because I'm across the pond." And so, that can really influence everything. Authenticity, confidence. Everything just goes down the drain.

Alex Cullimore: That makes sense. Makes sense that that would be draining, especially given the core value of connection. And just general worry about that makes sense to be concerned whether or not that feels accurate or not. Or whether or not that feels – so just a one last question then. If you got a story in your head and you've got a vision of what it looks like, what is a – if you're to tap into that, what is the vision of being in Italy look like in terms of connection? 

Cristina Amigoni: Right now, it's a Titanic being driven by Gremlin into an iceberg in the North Pole. 

Alex Cullimore: There's your heart story. Your soul story. Your gremlin story. 

Cristina Amigoni: That's what connection – yes. That's my picture of connection. What's going to happen to connection? Yes. Bottom of the Arctic sea. Frozen. 

Alex Cullimore: Sounds fun. 

Cristina Amigoni: Alone in the dark. 

Alex Cullimore: That sounds just welcoming, warm, connected, everything. Just screaming – that's a good topic. We'll continue to talk about that. And there will be a lot of opportunity for connection. What accountability, if any, can I provide on helping with connection? 

Cristina Amigoni: I would say just not let the connection disappear. Proactively manage the connection. 

Alex Cullimore: Deal. 

Cristina Amigoni: That will help a lot. 

Alex Cullimore: That, I can do. It's also the occasional picture of a Titanic just to really sink that one in. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Are you there yet? How's the temperature? 

Alex Cullimore: How's things going? How's the Subarctic cave? 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. I see icicles down your ears.

Alex Cullimore: Well, thanks for the reflections on this. I know there's plenty more we can dig into. But that may be an entirely other podcast.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. That's definitely a whole other podcast. Yeah. Thank you. Do you have time for you to be coached? 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I think I have about 10 minutes.

Cristina Amigoni: All right. Let's see if we can make this quick. Let's see. How might lack of connection be holding you back currently? 

Alex Cullimore: Diving right in. 

Cristina Amigoni: We don't have time. So get in and out in 10 minutes.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Actually, I've been feeling pretty well-connected lately. I think the one area that actually I have not done as much in recently, and it hasn't felt like a big lack yet. Actually, very much relate to what you were saying about, at some point, you start to feel that mental fog if you haven't done things like meditating. For me, it's usually journaling. And if I haven't journaled in a long time, I'll end up in that space of a lot of mental fog. 

I've actually been feeling pretty well-connected lately. And even though I haven't been nearly so consistent as I would normally be with journaling, I haven't felt any of that fog creeping in. But for that reason though, I know that probably the area I could benefit from would be doing some of that more self-connection. I think that's the one place that – and usually, traditionally, this is actually a wonderful – the split for me, usually, that would have been the opposite. I've have some amount of connection to self and I wouldn't have felt that connection out externally. This is a really good place to be. Honestly, I think it could probably just pull some fruit and I don't even know what it would be off of reconnecting with self a little bit. 

Cristina Amigoni: That's very good awareness. Especially, because journaling for you is very important. And it is a lot like a meditation. That helps you quite a bit. What are some ways that you can reconnect with yourself? 

Alex Cullimore: I think I'd probably have to just really set some time aside for journaling. We sent back our fosters in Monday. Now we have our regular six cats. And it's surprising how much even though they were pretty lightweight on care, how much time that ends up freeing up. And so, I have some more time in the mornings. And so, if I'm more diligent about going to bed a little bit earlier, I'll have more time and energy in the morning, which is something I want to do anyway, because I think that will naturally – there's a lot I have to do in the mornings. And I want to do in the mornings coming in the next few months. I'm training for a triathlon. I need the space and time to work after for that. 

And that has – last year when I was doing this for the half marathon, the morning was a really great time to do that. It just kind of level-sets the day. But I'm going to need to really carve out that time. And that to back that all the way up requires going to bed a little bit more diligently, a little bit more earlier. And so, training that sleep schedule is going to be an important first step in unlocking both of those, which will be a better connection to both body and mind for journaling in the morning and then working out in the morning would be kind of going to bed earlier. Walking that all the way back.

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, it sounds like you've done your own coaching to figure out what prevents you from getting to the point of journaling, and working out, and doing that morning routine that helps you connect with yourself. And it goes back to going to bed early, which we have talked about in the past. And so, what's preventing you from setting a bedtime routine? 

Alex Cullimore: The current major block is that that's the time that Rachel I get to really spend together. She's much more of a night owl. And she takes a lot of time to do work in the late mornings, to the early afternoon, all the way into the evening. And so, by the time we both have a chance to kind of sit down and connect, it's later into the 6 or 7:00 generally in the evening. It's hard to cut that time short. It tends to be very refilling and recharging for, in a different level, just getting to connect there. 

And so, it's hard to put a stop on that and put a finish line on that one earlier than just kind of eventually getting tired and then heading to bed. That's I think the main stopping point. That one's why it's difficult to get into going to bed earlier, because I'm not doing it to avoid something. I'm doing it to not miss out on that time.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Makes sense. That makes sense, especially if it's energizing time. 

Alex Cullimore: Hard to let that go.

Cristina Amigoni: It's very hard to let that go. How could you still create a bedtime routine without missing out or finding some sort of way that you get what's a level five or six look like? 

Alex Cullimore: Actually, a really interesting one would be to schedule in and actually take basically an afternoon nap. Because I start my work day generally like 8 or 9. And so, I'll be pretty much mentally done by 3:34. If I just take that time and that hour and a half whatever as to maybe sleep ahead of time and see what it's like just to see if it's possible to have a somewhat more interrupted but still actual full eight hours. At some point, even if it's got a break in between, maybe it's about trying out a 90-minute nap in the afternoon there. That opportunity. And that's actually going to work out well for our next five months while you're at a time zone that's eight hours away. That'll be around midnight for you.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I'll be in bed. I'll be in my bed time routine.

Alex Cullimore: There's not going to be a lot of work things that have to be around other people. Maybe it's just allowing that permission to take that time and reinvest in some sleep and then be able to kind of have both there. See how that feels, I guess, is really the question that comes out.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Sounds like you have a good alternative plan to not have to go one way or the other.

Alex Cullimore: I hadn't thought about that. Just split this up. Instead of seeing a nap as luxury, just make that part of the sleep routine. 

Cristina Amigoni: When would you like to start that? 

Alex Cullimore: Probably going to start next week this time. I'll be back in town. And that's when I have some training around there. And that's only a week until you're heading out. That's probably about the time to start playing with that. And there's not going to be almost any calls at that point. It's all right to the holiday. That's probably a decent time to start training that cycle.

Cristina Amigoni: All right. And what kind of support would you need for that? 

Alex Cullimore: Just a gift that says go the fuck to sleep. 

Cristina Amigoni: A very loud alarm clock? A horn to go to sleep? 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Nothing like a peaceful, calming, blaring reminder to pass out. No. I think it's mostly just a check-in I think on whether I'm starting that. Because I think it's going to be important. I think that is one way I can reserve energy and space out enough time to both recover and – 

Cristina Amigoni: All right. Sounds good. Right. And what kind of accountability would help you? 

Alex Cullimore: Just check it every once in a while. Maybe once a week to begin with. And probably more like once a month afterwards once we get to the New Year. 

Cristina Amigoni: Sounds good. Okay. Now that you've got the bedtime routine so that will give you the energy to then focus on yourself, what are you going to do to focus on yourself in this all extra energy that your afternoon nap is going to give you? 

Alex Cullimore: O one thing I've done is taken away – I found this book about just like a training for triathlons. If I have it here, 80/20 triathlon. About training at low-intensity and the benefits of that. And how to – and so, it's got a whole workout plan that goes for 16 weeks. I'm going to take all the decision-making point that. Today, it's literally already laid out in a calendar on my phone. It just loaded it all up. Today, you're biking. Today you're swimming. Whatever. That decision point is gone. And I already have a reminder on Sundays to go slot in exactly when that will happen. 

As I get more used to whatever the morning wake up time will become, then it's just about scheduling that in at a time that makes sense based on the client meetings and then scheduling the other half of that, like a two-hour chunk for journaling. And so, those are the moments.

Cristina Amigoni: And what kind of support would you need? You have your calendar reminders. You got your book.

Alex Cullimore: That one's just a matter of starting it. I've been doing it fairly casually right now. But it's been all in service of getting ready to start this much more rigid training. And that starts in a week. 

Cristina Amigoni: Well, let me know how I can support you.

Alex Cullimore: Will do. 

Cristina Amigoni: What else would help you? 

Alex Cullimore: I just need to kind of remember that there's – rather than just seeing the day as – I think it's remembering, reminding myself that taking a nap and having sleep is important. And it doesn't have to come at the designated hours that people would usually do. Work doesn't have to happen between 9 and 5. It doesn't have to be that every single day. If there's days where that – if it shifts earlier and that's easier to do, why not lean into that? And let go of the expectation that it has to be how people commonly do it. 

Cristina Amigoni: Well, in the US. I was going to say, everybody else on other side. Yes. 

Alex Cullimore: They already have [inaudible 00:54:15].

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. Plenty of countries on the other side of the pond have figured out centuries and millennials ago that afternoon nap is needed.

Alex Cullimore: Oh, God. That's depressing. Another relic of American thinking. 

Cristina Amigoni: All right. Well, good luck. Okay. I think we actually made it in 10 minutes. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. We made it. 

Cristina Amigoni: It was a light one.

Alex Cullimore: That was a good choice though. That one I needed to consciously choose. That was good. That was necessary.

Cristina Amigoni: Good. All right. Two more disciplines left.

Alex Cullimore: Two more to go. Catch us next time for what'd be presence in the moment. 

Cristina Amigoni: Presence in the moment. Yes. Thanks for listening.

Alex Cullimore: Thanks.

[OUTRO]

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you for listening to Uncover the Human, a Siamo podcast. 

Alex Cullimore: Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard, Jake Lara; and our score creator, Rachel Sherwood. 

Cristina Amigoni: If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Alex Cullimore: We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas or questions. You can reach us at podcast@wearesiamo.com, or at our website, wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. We Are Siamo is spelled W-E A-R-E S-I-A-M-O.

Cristina Amigoni: Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others and always uncover the human.

[END]