A rough clay bowl filled with water resting on a stone ledge, with a wide valley and distant hills at sunrise beyond it.

Are You Thirsty?

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The last morning of the Academy session, Dr. Heidi A. Miller opened by saying the ground we stand on is shaking. On a blessing of the senses borrowed from the fourth century, rest as something you owe your neighbor rather than something you earn, the question Jim carried home — who is not allowed to rest in our culture — and a librarian who changed one word. Part 3 of 3.
An older man sits at a wooden table with his chin resting on his hand, looking at a large window covered with children's handprints, morning sun coming through the trees outside.

I Would Have Cleaned the Window

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Dr. Heidi A. Miller gave a room full of us three minutes and a body awareness prayer, and what Jim found there sent him off gluten and sugar. On the grandmother who refused to wipe the fingerprints off her window, why presence is the one thing an achiever cannot achieve, and what thirty-eight years of wiping the glass actually cost. Part 2 of 3.
The SEQ model: a triangle with Insight at the top, Awareness at the lower left and Belonging at the lower right, and Direction, Service and Balance along its three sides, with SEQ at the center.

I Show Up

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A poem by Lynette Vaive on the SEQ Tiles in the Belonging domain — authenticity, serenity and stability, and what it costs to keep showing up.
The SEQ model: a triangle with Insight at the top, Awareness at the lower left and Belonging at the lower right, and Direction, Service and Balance along its three sides, with SEQ at the center.

Summary of SEQ for Life and Peace

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Spiritual Emotional Intelligence is all about connection — with ourselves, with those closest to us, and with a shared humanity larger than any of us.

The Pitcher We Are Becoming

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At the Academy for Spiritual Formation, Dr. Heidi A. Miller took the word just — the word we use to diminish — and traced it back to a pitcher used to measure an honest pour. Jim on what that did to a man who spent thirty years believing he was a just businessman, and on the difference between a spiritual life and a religious one he could never name until that week.

The Problem Was Never Being Right

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Five studies, over a thousand people: when a group believes itself morally superior, it starts seeing the other group as less than human — and it happened even with groups invented minutes earlier. But the fifth study found the hinge. Being right is not the problem. The problem is when being right buys you a higher place in the room. Jim on what that means for people who do inner work for a living.
Two empty chairs turned slightly toward each other in a quiet room, warm lamplight between them, a window beyond showing early morning — the shared space of coaching and spiritual direction.© 2026 spirit of EQ.

Spiritual Direction or Coaching Which Is Right?

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Jim and Lynette offer both coaching and spiritual direction, and they get asked the difference more than almost anything else. Coaching is future-oriented — where do you want to go, and what is in the way. Spiritual direction is present-oriented — where are you, and what is already stirring. Here is how to tell which one fits the season you are in.
A single empty chair facing a window at dusk, warm lamplight behind it, the room quiet and the light going.© 2026 spirit of EQ

The Voice You’ll Use on Everyone Else

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“Love your neighbor as yourself” is not a sequence — it is a measure. Whatever you say to yourself when you fail is the voice you will use on someone else when you are tired and out of patience. Jim on what he refused himself for twenty years, what the self-compassion research actually shows, and why each Enneagram type exports its own accusation.
An open doorway in a service building at dusk, warm light spilling out onto concrete, a long shadow stretching from the threshold toward the viewer.© 2026 spirit of EQ

The Shadow Nobody Wants to Lead With

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Jim had “Failure is not an option” painted above the door at Varment Guard, and it built a company. It also built a ceiling. On the shadow in leadership — the strength that keeps running past the point where it was useful, what it cost the people in the room, and why the Enneagram is a more practical tool for it than most leaders expect.
An abstract painting of concentric rings in gold and amber, radiating outward from a darker centre.

The Circles You Didn’t Know You Were Drawing

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People tell me they’re an open book, and then tell me how badly it went. The problem is almost never honesty. It’s proportion — and after twenty-five years I draw it as a set of circles.