Easing the Crisis of Meaning: The Role of Spirituality in Coaching
Tony Zampella
Wisdom Coach/Speaker, Teacher, and Strategist to cultivate conscious leadership.
About 10 years ago, I noticed a pattern in my coaching practice: Clients arrived at sessions more drained, exhausted, fragmented, and increasingly distracted. As I inquired about this, I uncovered how our seduction with technology had enabled a series of issues such as cognitive load, sensory overload, decision fatigue, hyper-consumption, and navigating through misinformation.
I’ve explored some underlying causes of our confused state in a few blogs (here, here, and here) as we seek connections and happiness in fleeting “likes,” fame, fortune, or hyper-consumption. This techno-media-scaling ethos has upended the values that ground and nourish the human spirit.
These conditions place many in a position where they are overwhelmed and experiencing a nihilistic numbness—a sense that they cannot care about one … more … thing. People are numb from being too full. They find themselves ungrounded, disconnected, and exhausted.
When working with individuals and reviewing the literature, it is clear that people are experiencing a crisis of meaning. This existential state is characterized by a perceived lack of meaning in life, a vacuum where people feel their lives are empty and pointless.
Supporting this collective crisis of meaning requires more than tools, techniques, and strategies to increase performance or develop skills: It requires a new context.
Crises of Meaning
A crisis of meaning is not new.
Viktor Frankl, a world-renowned psychiatrist, and Nazi concentration camp survivor explored this phenomenon in his book?Man’s Search for Meaning, where he warned of an “unheard cry for meaning.”
Similarly, sociologist Emile Durkheim identified the concept of “anomie”—a state of normlessness or loss of meaning—in his works The Division of Labour in Society (1895) and Suicide (1897). Durkheim noted that anomie occurs when people lose connection with societal norms that foster social solidarity, particularly during times of abrupt transitions or crises.
Today, the volatile pace of change, compounded by constant media consumption, exacerbates the loss of meaning, identity, and belonging. Two primary tensions drive this struggle for meaning:
This sense of futility often manifests in coaching sessions as feelings of being ungrounded, disoriented, anxious, overextended, or overwhelmed. Frankl observed similar tensions manifesting as depression, aggression, and addiction.
A Spiritual Context
Before diagnosing this “crisis of meaning,” it’s crucial to understand some of the root causes. As Frankl states, humans need meaning and purpose to fuel their lives. In our push to secularize, we’ve developed vast knowledge and technology, yet these advances fall short of replenishing the human spirit.
The human spirit is essential for deriving meaning, connection, and purpose. Only a deeper understanding of reality —a context or commitment bigger than ourselves—can break our hyper-individualized conditioning and keep us from overconsuming, overpromising, and overextending.
At least three times in life—early adulthood, mid-life, and elder years—we seek greater meaning during transitions.
During these breaks, we require deeper meaning and understanding with greater clarity to confront questions, identity, and emerging possibilities.
Unfortunately, we often turn to a secular, empirically driven society for solutions, consuming more or numbing or medicating ourselves. But without a deep well of wisdom and meaning, we become lost.
The spiritual context is missing.
Although spirituality may feel like a belief or emotion, it is actually a state of awareness or consciousness developed through study and practice.
Many conflate religion with spirituality. They are distinct:
Pew reports that 70% of Americans consider themselves as “spiritual,” reflecting a deep need. More people are turning to classics like stoicism or older spiritual traditions to cultivate meaning.
Coaching can also help cultivate this awareness and development.
Coaching and Spirituality
Today, all age groups experience greater levels of anxiety. Yet all of our technology, science, and knowledge cannot resolve this problem.
What is required is another kind of intervention—one with a spiritual context.
A- Our Turn to Spirituality
In late 2018, our firm rebranded as Bhavana Learning Group to address what we perceived as a deeper need going beyond tools, strategies, or skills. The new name aligns with our evolving focus on “the process of cultivation” or “cultivating being”—the very meaning of the Sanskrit word “Bhavana.” This shift deepened our work by incorporating Eastern traditions and practices.
In 2019, we introduced a weekly “Practice Field” for clients to engage in group practice and discussions. We also began coaching sessions with a brief breathing exercise, providing a moment of stillness in a hectic world.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted people’s isolation and disconnection, leading us to enhance our support by helping clients develop their own practices and rituals.
In 2022, we revamped our onboarding process to include a two-part Meditation Training Workshop with expert guidance; this ensures every client receives guidance on developing a daily practice—even if only for 5 minutes.
On the eve of our 25th anniversary in January, we’ve just launched a?NEW WEBSITE, refining brand and commitment by pulling from the wisdom traditions. We’ve added the “spiritual awareness” category and integrated its practices into our business and coaching services to enhance personal and leadership mastery. By publishing this on our website, we’ve openly embraced “spiritual awareness” as a core aspect of our work.
B- Spiritual Awareness
For the past six years, our colleagues have expanded our services to include the study, practices, and support that invite spiritual awareness. This turn has been driven by the nature of this crisis of meaning as experienced through work with our clients.
To be clear, we are distinguishing spiritual awareness from spiritual intelligence and spiritual experience as follows:
These three concepts are interconnected. Spiritual awareness often leads to spiritual intelligence, and both can set the stage for deeper spiritual experiences.
Spiritual awareness and practice result in realizing ultimate freedom, peace, and bliss. The union with the interconnected web of existence transcends the limitations of ego, suffering, and duality.
C- Three Spiritual Mindsets
Any spiritual experience results from a journey that coaching can and should be a part of. Many areas of coaching can practically and meaningfully support some of the mindsets along this path.
Our work at Bhavana Learning Group has identified three of these mindsets, each with its own focus and set of practices.
1- Mindset: Grounded. Grounding through Awareness
Stage: From Ignorance to Awakening and Recognition
Description: This stage fosters clarity by recognizing dissatisfaction and disconnection caused by desires and attachments.
Focus: Individuals set boundaries to break automatic habits and conditioning, cultivating curiosity and openness. The result is a grounding practice that develops the courage to live within one’s limits and let go of obstacles.
2- Mindset: Reflective. Direction through Commitment
Stage: Inquiry and Transformation
Description: After grounding, individuals gain resoluteness, applying reflective awareness and insights to their daily lives. They confront and release ingrained habits and beliefs to develop their authentic voice and commitments.
Focus: Through self-reflection and practice, individuals develop confidence and deepen understanding to gain authenticity. This leads to greater self-awareness and connection with their true nature.
3- Mindset: Wholeness. Clarity through Service
Stage: Embodiment and Integration
Description: Individuals embody insights in their actions, living in alignment with their purpose. As they begin understanding interdependence, they experience an interconnectedness and naturally feel called to serve others.
Focus: With a sense of wholeness and purpose, individuals positively contribute to society, finding fulfillment and connection through compassion and wisdom.
People enter this path to address the needs in their lives, either to be grounded, to develop a deeper commitment, or to be of service. Each mindset offers a spiritual context to support an expanded view of oneself and reality with timeless wisdom and practices.
Finally…
The pattern I began observing in clients a decade ago relates to a crisis of meaning. How we grow to understand and support this crisis is an open question needing further discussion and research. I’ll devote several blogs to fleshing out these in a coaching context.
For now, it is important to understand that our work as coaches, mentors, and guides points inward, beyond any goal, competency, or strategy. As coaches, we can support increasing awareness to cultivate a spiritual dimension that impacts the human condition and spirit.
We can support our clients in getting off the hamster wheel, becoming grounded, and remembering who they are so that they can reclaim their true nature.
We invite you to share your practices and experiences as we move in this direction.
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Tony Zampella is a consultant and practitioner at Bhavana Learning Group, a learning community serving coaches, educators, and entrepreneurs. His work integrates ontological inquiries, Buddhist psychology, and Integral meta-theory to develop learning cultures that cultivate conscious leadership.
(Authentic) Personal Brand Marketing, (Mindful) Neuroscience Coach, (Visionary)Talent Manager. DCT Principal/Owner. Bloomsbury author.
3 个月You clearly put a great deal of mindful thought into this. Thank you for sharing
The demands on leadership are changing. I help you change with them.
3 个月Tony, thank you! An important topic, well addressed!