A proportion of what I do in coaching, in discussion with the people I work with, is in the area of fulfilling dharma, or purpose. The why of existence. I call it Dharma Time.
And, of course this can be very broad. And is unique in potential for each individual, workplace and business.
In order to organise that broadness, simply, as a guide for my coachees, I manage and prioritise dharma discussions using a holistic and integrated process. I call it the Loving Psyche Mandala of Wholeness.
Using four key areas, or quadrants, in the wheel, or mandala, of their life. For defining and refining, purpose, and fulfillment.
I intuitively work around their mandala, or circle of influence, with them. This helps them with whatever is presenting as important, in the moment. It’s solution focused. And person-centred. A therapeutic coaching process. And it is relevant, because each of the areas are interdependent to holistic and integrated leadership wellness.
The key areas, or quadrants, for focus are Self, Family, Work and Surroundings.
Self
This is the core. It covers areas such as self-awareness, self-care and appreciation, health and well-being. Taking responsibility personally so that coachees can lead themselves and others with integrity and authenticity. Delving into soul sensing, life story, and personality. Exploring personal desires, preferences, life events, attitudes, and patterns. Refining health, success, and abundance, for fulfillment. Actualising.
Family
This encompasses the provision of meeting family obligations, to the primary people around them, their households, and to those to whom they have made a commitment. Children, partners, wider family members, friends, work colleagues, and the people daily around them. Those people important to them. Primary relationships. That bring connection, and a healthy collective.
Work
This incorporates career, professional development, and excellence in the sphere of work they do, including occupation, and business. The choices to make, around what they do and wish to do, where their skills and talents thrive and come alive. And areas of further development, training, behaviour, values, progression, change, leadership, teamwork, clients and services. Their business or work leadership footprint.
Surroundings
The fourth covers the wider environment, neighbourhood, and community. How they are affected by it. And how they contribute to it. The legacy they wish to leave with customers, industry, business and the collective. What inspires them globally, creatively, communally, neighbourly. The hobbies, pastimes and causes important to them that enhance the world for them and around them.
While it is always a useful checklist, I find it particularly important when clients are confronted by life events and transitions, in any of the quadrants. It is at those times particularly that factors in each, or several areas, of their personal mandala of wholeness can change. And have a concomitant impact on other areas. Affecting their holistic nature of self-management, and influence.
The Loving Psyche Mandala of Wholeness offers a dynamic, personalised, approach to a coachee’s whole life experience at different points of change and development. It helps them refine themselves in changing times.
Balancing the quadrants of their Loving Psyche, and making decisions, that improve each element for fulfillment, is the focus. Taking stock of what’s working, where changes are needed, and re-setting, is a perpetual process. Sorting through it for leadership and wellness becomes a priority for ongoing development.
The Loving Psyche Mandala of Wholeness offers a process of walking a personal mandala of influence like a labyrinth into the centre, making observations, inviting realisations, defining decisions, integrating, and returning, more wholesomely in each session and through coaching programs. It keeps an eye on how elements in all of the quadrants are doing, for maintaining healthy fulfillment, and progress, for each individual. And that’s always good.
SaraSwati Shakti