In this episode, Amy Elizabeth Fox explores how healing trauma and deepening consciousness can transform the way we lead, relate, and respond to an increasingly complex world. Together, we explore vertical development, embodiment, spiritual transformation, and what it means to become an “instrument of repair” in our families, organizations, and communities.
What if many of the challenges we face in our organizations and our world are fundamentally problems of consciousness?
In this episode of The Deep Coach, Jonathan sits down with Amy Elizabeth Fox, co-founder and CEO of Mobius Executive Leadership and co-author of Leading in Chaos, for a deeply personal conversation about healing, leadership, trauma, spirituality, and human transformation.
Amy shares how fear and difficult experiences in childhood sparked an early spiritual search, how music became a portal into experiences of the divine, and how facing cancer in her twenties brought profound clarity to the purpose of her life.
From there, they explore Amy’s journey into leadership development and her pioneering work bringing deeper healing into organizational settings. Amy explains why changing behaviors and mindsets alone often isn’t enough, how unresolved trauma can shape the way executives lead and relate, and what becomes possible when leaders begin addressing the deeper material they carry.
They also explore vertical development, embodiment and somatic practice, collective trauma, the importance of integration after transformational experiences, and the surprising kinds of organizations embracing this work.
Ultimately, the conversation widens beyond leadership itself into what this moment in history may be asking of us: greater interdependence, surrender, service, and a willingness to become what Amy calls an “instrument of repair.”
Jonathan: [00:00:00] Amy, it is such a gift to be here with you today. I like to start these conversations by understanding who you were prior to the onset of your own transformational journey. So who would you say Amy Fox was prior to the onset of your own transformational journey?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Well, I'm not sure where we w- how young we would start the notion of a transformational journey, but if I go in conventional terms and I talk about in my childhood, I was, um, the oldest of four girls, and in-- when I was in kindergarten, there was a game where all the kids would write e- each kid's name at the top of the page, and they would add adjectives that they thought described that child, and mine always came back bossy, bossy, bossy, bossy.
It was like the only word people could come up with. So happily, that matured into something of a leadership orientation, but I think I was really, um, I think I was scared as a kid, and I was very controlling and, um, yeah, and a lot of things about my perceptions of the world and my perceptions of how [00:01:00] trustworthy and safe the world was were really shaped by a lot of, um, early experiences that weren't so easy.
And I think the transformational journey, if we wanna s- use your beautiful phrase, it has just done a huge amount of clearing, healing, metabolizing that experience so that it just lowered the level of fear and, and precaution and sort of vigilance in my system. Maybe I would say that.
Jonathan: Mm-hmm. Mm. So, you know, you do a lot of work in trauma-informed, leadership, trauma-informed coaching.
Uh, it sounds like there was some trauma involved in your childhood. When, when... You don't have to go into anything that you don't feel comfortable with, but when was the first moment that you discovered, uh, an opening in the light, a, a different way of seeing yourself and the world from the darkness perhaps that you experienced early on?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: That's a precious question. Gosh, Jonathan, I, I guess, um, I went to [00:02:00] a, a summer camp, a Jewish summer camp, where every Friday night we went up the mountain into a chapel, an outdoor chapel, and we sang hymns. And I can remember, like, the whole week was o- for me was only about getting back into that chapel and back into that song.
And singing in general, you know, Hindu chanting, gospel music, um, a lot of very, uh, political music. Um, the-- music is a very big influence on my heart and, um, I think that I, I would point to that moment actually as a first moment of feeling a, a really direct communion with the heavenly realms and the presence of the divine in my field in such a kinesthetic, overwhelming, exquisite way.
Um, yeah.
Jonathan: Mm-hmm. What would you- In one way What would I have said for myself?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah. You know, the-- I think we spoke when we spoke one-on-one around the... There was an argument that I had with a friend, a [00:03:00] breakup with a close friend, and that was a catalyst for whatever reason, to open up the floodgates inside of me and to see that there was something that needed to be looked at and healed.
And I was confronted, with a lot of pain, a lot of, anger, rage, sadness, grief, And so that was, uh... I needed to contend with that.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: And, and my experience, and you referenced trauma-informed leadership, my experience is that all of us, under very different circumstances and for very different reasons, carry a degree of rage and shame and guilt and self-loathing.
And, uh, it's just sort of hardwired into the jour- human journey, regardless of the specific family and collective circumstances in which it, uh, is born in your heart. Um, and so I think the journey is really a transformational one, as you said, to, to sort of host and hold and cradle all those dimensions of our psyche until they're really metabolized and integrated.
Jonathan: Yeah. I [00:04:00] use the word grace a lot for my own journey in terms of how I even was inclined to begin searching in the way that I was. What role did grace play in your life early on?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Well, I, I think in some ways, since my life now is devoted to the process of really healing trauma and ex- and, and sort of opening spiritual possibilities for people, you could say even the trauma was a grace because it put me on a path, I would say.
You know, it put me on a path of, uh, urgency to get to the divine and understanding a lot about the grit and darkness of the world. I wasn't somebody who, through privilege, was gonna look away. Um, so there was a really, I think, a destined kind of sh- shaping and polishing of my orientation that came out of my early life experience, and I got lots of other grace in my family.
It was by no means any one thing, as no family is. Um, uh, but since then, there's been literally endless grace. My, my friends tell [00:05:00] me if I tell a story of grace, they're like: "Oh, that's such an Amy story." I'll give you o- I'll give you two examples. Um, uh, I was-- had the privilege to go, uh, be sent really by my employer, which was at the time the Cathedral of St.
John the Divine in New York, to meet Ram Dass in July of 1989, and the encounter with him and through him with the Indian saint Neem Karoli Baba, which I was 22 years old, um, profoundly reshaped my world and opened up a practice of sort of a devotional path of service to me that felt really resonant and felt really true and, um, has been the guiding light of my life since then.
And I've had the privilege of just being in- introduced to and drawn to numerous very awakened, very enlightened, um, teachers in, uh, throughout my life. And, and I think of my life in the chapters of the teachers and healers who were accompanying me and initiating me at that [00:06:00] time, and I honestly believe that one of the reasons we have such a fragmented society is that we have some kind of a inbuilt allergy to granting authority to someone to guide us, and to that quality of surrender and that quality of, um, willingness.
Um, and in part, I think because we get too defensive, like there's a way in which a real teacher will hold up a mirror, and it's not easy. It's hard work. It's hard inner work. Um, but because I, I, I was graced not to have that, I, I, I actually gravitate to teachers, and I feel like unbelievably blessed every time one of them agrees to spend some time with me.
Um, that's been just an enormous outpouring, constant outpouring of, of, uh, benevolence from the divine.
Jonathan: Yeah. When would you say that urgency to seek the divine, as you mentioned, which is such a beautiful phrase, when did that really kickstart for you? how young were you when that happened?[00:07:00]
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Super young. I mean- You know, six, seven years old. Like very young Wow Because, because I was scared. I mean, it, it, it sounds very lovely that you would have a spiritual impetus very early in your life, but it, it came out of, of, of genuine hardship. Um, and, you know, uh, the presence of the, the balm, that angelic presence, or that a sense of being in touch with the perfume of the divine and of the celestial realms and of the peace of God, um, was an antidote to my heart and that I desperately needed and cr- clung onto.
Uh, there's a Hebrew term called davka, which means clinging to God, and I was such a seeker that I, I just had to find that, find that water and, and pursue it at all costs, I think.
Jonathan: Yeah. You shared with me that, uh, you were diagnosed with cancer in your early 20s and had to contend with that. For-- What wa- what was it [00:08:00] like to receive the news that you had cancer, and how was that journey of healing- Oh
from there?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Thank you for that question. Um, well to, uh, as anyone would imagine, to receive the news is, uh, a complicated thing. Uh, one-- I, I had one response, which was, "This is my hero's journey. This is, you know, what life is presenting me, and I'm gonna have to dig very deep in order to take myself through that process."
It was a year-long process of chemotherapy and radiation that was, you know, in the early '80s, very, very aggressive and hard. Um, and at the same time, I felt unbelievably graced that my prognosis was really very positive. There wasn't a likelihood that I would have lost my life at that time, and many people hit diagnoses that are much more harsh than mine.
Um, but I think the thing we talked about when we talked earlier, Jonathan, which is really poignant to this dialogue, is that, I don't know if it was the exact moment of the [00:09:00] diagnosis, but very shortly after, I felt an sort of an indwelling of love, let's say, surrounding me in non li- non-material terms, like as a presence, and it stayed with me very palpably, very forcefully, all the way through the year of my treatment.
And one of the things that happens when you're that sick anytime, but certainly young, um, is that the hollowness of worldly accomplishment reveals itself very early, because you're not sitting in a CAT scan machine saying, "Oh gee, let me live so I can have a Porsche," or, "Let me live so someday I'm a CEO."
The things that move you and that stir your soul in that moment are the privilege of helping your parents to die, or the joy of watching your pa- sisters get married, or the beauty of making a real contribution to the world, or just cherishing the people that you love. Um, it's all about love. And, um, I think that [00:10:00] was a, that was also a grace.
That was also a gift to just be super clear that my life was about awakening and making a difference and loving boldly. Um, yeah. I, I, and that, that really got very refined during that time. And happily, I've been, thank God, very well since then. And, um I think it also, it made me interested in healing. I don't know that I would've so early been so captivated by what are the psychological, relational, communal, ritual, spiritual, mystical processes of healing the heart, healing the body, hear- healing the spirit.
But I've devoted my whole life to that now, um, I think in part because I was on the precipice of being so unwell.
Jonathan: Hmm. It's interesting, you absolutely devote your whole life to that, and the track that you ended up taking was one, uh, an organizational track, you can say, a leadership track, which is interesting in the realm [00:11:00] of healing and spirituality.
How did you enter into the world of leadership and professional development?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Well, keep in mind that I was very bossy, very young, and I think- Me too. ... I was, uh, probably in some way destined to create a initiative, a project, something of scale, because my 10 years at the cathedral in New York were really an incredible apprenticeship.
I had the privilege to meet some of the great consciousness thinkers and teachers of our time. I worked with Carl Sagan and Al Gore and Paul Gorman to jumpstart a religious response to the climate crisis. We ran Wild 5,000-person events in the cathedral for all kinds of sacred occasions. So I, I was very, um, expansive in my dreaming, let's put it that way, as a result of having had that incubation and seen all of that creativity and incredible liturgy.
Um, and Mobius came out of a dream that my sister and I had. My sister's a longtime lecturer at Harvard Law School and has devoted her life to, [00:12:00] uh, really the public sector and the social sector and conflict resolution and leadership development, and she was writing a book, which is now a wonderful New York Times bestseller called "Winning From Within."
And I was interested in trying to deepen the field of executive development, um, which was really at the time becoming really quite commoditized. And the work that I was already teaching, um, the client would say, "The two-day program's great, but what can you do in a day?" And, "The one-day program is great, but what could you do over a brown bag lunch?"
And to me it was, it was in a way a moral question. Like I, I really felt God had spared my life for something meaningful, and that wasn't a brown bag lunch of entertainment for a group of corporate executives. But it could be trying to push the boundary of bringing real healing work into adult development and executive development and making the workplace a sanctuary.
And I've seen many, many companies in the last 20 years embrace that possibility and take their people through [00:13:00] a deeply transformational process, um, and watch them flourish, watch them lead in new and, and, and disruptive ways, watch their ambition level, uh, get broader. Um, so it does seem like an odd context, but I've had the real privilege of taking thousands of executives through a very purposeful, well-crafted, immersive leadership program that does a lot to address-- give them a whole other level of self-awareness and invite them to look back at their lives in much the poignant way you're asking me to, um, and make meaning of the journey really and, and to share some of the stories that maybe they've never told before, to have them be witnessed, to have them be received, to have them be honored, and to have them go to rest.
Jonathan: we're gonna spend most of our conversation in this realm, and I have so many questions related to it. There's something you shared earlier that I wanna double-click into. You were working with, Al Gore and Carl Sagan on the [00:14:00] religious response to the climate crisis.
What does that mean? What did that look like?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Well, Carl was, of course, a very visionary person, and in, uh, January of 1990, he gathered 34 scientists, Nobel laureate scientists, the guy who create- uh, found the hole in the ozone layer, the world's expert on deforestation and species depletion, uh, the world's expert on global warming, warning-- warming, excuse me, uh, the Union of Concerned Scientists.
He gathered a group of scientists, and they wrote an appeal to religious leaders in America saying, "We can give the facts and information, but we can't-"
commensurate with this level of threat to creation. And then we started really a, a two-year process largely facilitated by Dr. Sagan and, and then Senator Gore to have religious leaders dialogue with one another about what the emotional impact was of learning the science, of really understanding the level of threat and peril that w- the planet was under, and what was, what were [00:15:00] they called to do in response.
And the impetus for the project in the first place was seeing how ineffective it was to argue in the Congress on economic terms for the necessary measures and changes that, uh, the scientists were recommending. And the hope was that by having religious leaders start to testify in Congress by, uh, congregations getting involved in various, uh, uh, local issues of sustainability and sustainable agriculture by standing with environmental justice activists who were fighting disproportionate placement of toxic sites in, um, low-income communities, um, that we would really rise up to be a, a new voice in the environmental movement.
And, um, to that, to some degree, that's still true, uh, although in a much more painful context.
Jonathan: Yeah. Where would you say we are 30 plus years later in regard to the climate crisis and the response to it?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: I think we still do not know how to [00:16:00] hold the ecological world with the proper reverence and devotion. Um, we just spoil it and use it, and it's a scarce resource. It's a, it's a gorgeous expression of the implicate order, but we don't-- we're not in right relationship to it. That's the first thing. And the second thing I would say is that the science has already told us what's necessary.
There's, there's no confusion about what's happening or what's needed. There's just a lack of human willpower to make those changes and those perceived sacrifices
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah, especially with where we're at now, it just feels like everybody's banking on technology to save us, and that being the final hope because it seems like the slow and pa- the difficult decision-making process that each individual and companies and governments need to make doesn't seem like that's moving the needle ultimately.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Yeah, and, and I think, uh, just to add to what you're saying, [00:17:00] every social issue, including the climate crisis that we are currently facing, is fundamentally a problem of consciousness.
Jonathan: Hmm.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: So if we were to e-elevate and expand our consciousness, if our hearts were more open and we could feel the consequences of our actions, if we were more devotional and we were inspired by, in a constant way, the beauty that's around us, and if we were slow enough to actually feel and think through what a wise course of action would be, um, all of those things are natural byproducts of a consciousness that's present, that's coherent, that's emotionally available and fluid, that's in touch with their values and their, uh, you know, sort of ethical alignment.
We would make different choices. So I, I don't orient myself towards political advocacy or policy per se. I'm deeply interested in what are the things by which we can raise our consciousness.
Jonathan: Yeah, we're gonna talk about that now. what did your leadership look like, your leadership [00:18:00] development trainings and programs, what did that look like early on?
What were you focused on early on?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Oh, really early on, we were very focused on some very practical things that would help people. We were t-teaching some of Harvard Law School's work on negotiation, on difficult conversations, on how to give effective feedback so you could have a coaching culture and a developmental orientation, how to run a good meeting.
It was, it was very behavioral. And then I think as a field, not just me, but as a field, we started to understand that you can't get sustained behavioral change unless you start operating at a deeper level. So Chris Argyris, my c-colleague at Harvard Graduate School of Education, called that your frame.
McKinsey called that your mindsets. Um, you could think of that as Peter Senge called it mental models, paradigms. You had to think about the beliefs that were shaping the choices behaviorally, and if you could shift or widen somebody's perceptive field to be not so entrenched in their belief, then you might get a sustained change in behavior.
And as Mobius has been journeying with [00:19:00] executives through the terrain of trauma and early hurt, um, we came to realize that it actually the work needs even a much deeper holding and, um, if people really wanna meaningfully change the way they perceive the world, their inner state of coherence and safety, their trust and, uh, and, and authenticity and vulnerability with other people, the intimacy with which they build and sustain relations, and the degree to which they can dream, um, you actually can't-- you can't unlock all of that, um- jewel-like leadership qualities unless you help people to go back for what's being repressed or suppressed in their psyche that is keeping them from the natural waterfall of the future singing through them.
Jonathan: How did you go about bringing even terms like trauma-informed dot, dot, dot into the corporate space? what were you feeling inside? What-- Did it feel like a risk? How did people respond?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Well, 20 years ago, I [00:20:00] certainly wouldn't have talked about any of these things, and, and I really wanna credit, um, my teacher, Thomas Hubl, who's the, the world expert on healing ancestral and collective trauma, and came into my life 15 years ago and massively, you know, shook my understanding of the level of trauma we're talking about.
And especially if you widen your lens past personal and family trauma to start looking at the collective dynamics of colonialization or racism or poverty or violence, you start to get generational stories of unhealed trauma. And once I saw and felt the enormity of what's true, which is everyone is walking around with a lot of unhealed content, um, it became a sort of passion of mine to try to create programs where people could really, um, have a catalytic experience of liberatory energy, of freedom, of more degrees of, uh, open-heartedness and love.
I really don't talk to clients explicitly about [00:21:00] trauma-informed work per se. I talk to them about the business imperatives that really matter to them. How are you gonna get teams to be able to raise, um, dissent and to disagree and, and have robust conflict so that you can really get, you know, the best of everybody's thinking, real, real synergistic thinking?
How are you gonna create a, an environment where people can experiment and fail and learn so that people can innovate in a chaotic environment? How are you gonna provide people some orientation when the change adaptive demands are so overwhelming? Um, a- and strategy will not be enough because strategy requires a kind of predictable world, and we're in a very unpredictable world.
So you have to give people more of a narrative, um, to orient towards, a story that they can feel themselves to be part of and where they know the destination, if not all the steps to get there. So I mostly talk about the qualities of transformational capability, cognitive fluid- fluidity. How do I have openness to be influenced?
How do [00:22:00] I constantly learn? How do I look, um, in adjacent context to find information and reconnaissance I can bring back to my context? How do I make sense in a deep way? How do I listen at a whole other level so I can hear the music underneath the words? When I talk about those things, most organizations now realize that the kinds of leadership training people have had up until now will not keep them centered and c- and capable and productive in this kind of a crazy world.
Um, people are walking in with the pain of the world to the workplace. They're not inured to that during the workday. So you have contexts where people are literally at their office worried about their cousin who's being bombed. We have to pay attention to that. We can't expect people to operate as if they are robots.
They're not. And so how does the workplace become a, a, you know, a nesting place, a place that accompanies people through their personal experiences, their private experiences, their family challenges, et cetera? Um, and I think, I [00:23:00] think I'm just so convinced that this is urgent that I don't feel a lot of fear.
I, I'm very well aware that it will not resonate with everybody, and that's okay with me. Um, you know, I don't, I, I don't... This has to be something people choose. Um, this can't be something, you know, much like you said earlier in a, in a beautiful, vulnerable way about your own journey, people come to the path because they're in a lot of pain and they hit a wall and they realize they have to look, or they come to the path because something-- they yearn for something or they long for something.
And both of those are equally beautiful and equally, uh Work, you know, serviceable for getting people to start walking. And, and I think of my leadership programs really as just pointing to the door to the path. That, that, that's what they're intended to do. They're intended to take a group of leaders who have spent most of their life pursuing prestige and accomplishment and giving and taking care of people, and, you know, most of these executives were heroes in their early family.
They [00:24:00] early on took on the parental role, taking care of their parents, their household, the other siblings. They started running when they were three, and they haven't stopped. I had an executive in a program last week say to me, "I introspect for an hour a year." But I think it was true.
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: You know, I think that they're, they're, they, they don't spend a lot of time really cultivating an awareness of what's going on with them, what they need, what they feel, what they hope for, what worries them.
Um, and we just give them a little time to ask those very important questions. What's theirs to do? What are they called to? What'd they come here for?
Jonathan: What do you notice ends up being the result of all of that inquiry? Because I would imagine that for many of these executives, especially the ones that are really carrying heavy trauma, a lot of their motivation to even-- that even got them to where they're at was heavily influenced by the trauma that they have inside, and they were motivated by, not wanting to feel [00:25:00] worthless and wanting to matter and, all the things that one might carry.
So if they begin healing that, w-what have you noticed... I gue- it, it, it varies, I'm sure, with many leaders, but what do you notice then changes in them? And d-do any then decide, like, "Wow, this is actually not for me," like doing this work is actually, you know, jump ship and go whatever it might be.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: I mean, one thing that's really important to say is that it does not take a lot of time to go from frozen, disconnected, disembodied to open-hearted love for yourself or humanity.
Um, it takes a very conscious container. It takes very skillful facilitation, but it only takes a few days, and I find that incredibly hopeful. Um, and of course, as you said, um, for many of them, the, the trauma was the driver, and it's unconsciously so. When you do a trauma screening and you ask them, you know, a, a systematic trauma survey, many of them will say, "I had a very happy [00:26:00] childhood."
And then when they get in the program and they start unpacking it and we look at it really more meticulously, it's really just a statement of their resilience because they lived through a lot of impingement and a lot of absencing. Um, so some trauma happens in the form of events that happen to you that are ov- emotionally overwhelming at the time, but some trauma is the absence of love and attunement and encouragement and home and safety and an ecosystem of support.
Um, so we look at all of that. Um, there are some universal benefits, I think I would say, and I, I have the benefit of having done the programs for 20 years and also being in active touch with many, many alumni who tell me years later that it was a turning point in their lives. Um- There's an unlock of, of joy.
When you're holding a lot of hurt, you can't help but be in a little bit of distance from everybody 'cause you don't want them to touch your hurt, a little bit of distance from life because you don't wanna open [00:27:00] up the lockbox of your heart. Um, and, and we do an exercise, for example, where everybody lists the p- the processes by which they numb themselves, and you get an incredibly long list and very diverse, but things that society would look away from and not see as problematic.
You know, I drink too much, I work too much, I caretake too much, I'm exhausted, systematically keep myself exhausted. I go for a run, I go for extreme sports, I go f- you know, go for a drink, w- whatever it is. Um, and there's an unnumbing, there's an unfreezing. Um, and if trauma is frozen past, then re- resting the trauma is an, a, a window to emergent future.
Um, so they also get much more creative. They get much more ambitious for things that really matter to them. They often will go back and start whole new initiatives or whole new orientations in their line of business. Um, they very often go back and repair their marriage or encourage them, [00:28:00] their spouse, to turn to their teenage kid who often has a mental health crisis and get the kid some help.
Um, it's a family healing process, and I, I think one of the radicalities that Mobius holds is that we don't think of the client as the company that hired us, and we don't even think of the client as the executive in our program. We think of the client as the book of life. So that means everybody in that executive's world, their family, their parents, their children, their, you know, community, their parish, all of that matters.
Um, and when they go back, they have the possibility to really provide a lot of love in all those places, and I think people do. And, um, it's also not unusual for the group to stay very bonded. Uh, I love New Year's Eve, not because I like to go to a party, but on New Year's Eve, I'm just flooded with these WhatsApp groups sending pictures from all over the world to each other, even people that were in a program 10 years ago, um, stopping to wish everybody well and to [00:29:00] celebrate and show a little glimpse of their world and, uh, it's very touching.
Jonathan: Hmm. That's beautiful. How do you think of integration? 'Cause they have this transformative experience perhaps of, touching the frozen trauma, then going into an open heart, which in a weekend, it-- that's a in- incredible transformation, an incredible shift. W- how then do you either support them or how do the leaders then seek to in- really integrate that so that that heart stays open and the old reflexes to self-preserve and protect don't come back?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Well, I often say at the end of a program that, um, there's a first test in transformation, which is your willingness to change. And what Thomas Hubl calls the second test is when you go back to an environment that's gonna send you signals that it liked the old you better than it likes the new you, or it feels a little bit threatened by the changes that you've been in, or habit kicks in.
Um, can you recommit and double down [00:30:00] on the changes that you, uh, affirmed in the program? And, um, of course, it isn't a straight line. There's two steps forward, one step back. There's behavioral recidivism. There's gonna be loneliness. There's gonna be some time where you suddenly close up and seal up. But it isn't a permanent stuck pose anymore They know the alternative, and if they want, they can recommit to the alternative.
And what gets you back to an open heart could be very different for different people. For somebody, it might be baking food for your family. For somebody, it might be going to church. For somebody, it's a walk by a creek. For somebody, it's a call with a friend. For somebody, it's gonna be reading scripture.
For somebody, it's gonna be dancing. For somebody else, it's gonna be listening to poetry. I, uh, there's so many ways to feed the soul once you have that commitment. Um, and I, I, I really think we leave it up to each person. Um, but what we are trying to encourage is this is not an epiphany moment in time.
This is a beginning of a lifelong journey [00:31:00] of inner development, and the possibilities are literally infinite for how far one can expand one's embodiment, one's emotional resonance and attunement, and one's intuition and communion. So it's a, it's a long path. It's a, it's a glorious path. And, and I also think, you know the famous saying, "When a teacher-- When a student's ready, the teacher will appear."
I also have had the experience and have seen the experience that when somebody wants to keep their heart open, like you were describing, Jonathan, very often they will get synchronized invitations, opportunities, attend a workshop, be at a cocktail party and somebody will tell them about a therapist or a coach or a w- you know, an opportunity at a retreat center or a meditation silent retreat.
Uh, there's many, many ways, and we're very fortunate we live in a generation where seeking is, uh, uh, possible, and there are many institutions that have risen up in the last 30 years to help people on a daily basis. Um, [00:32:00] 12-step programs would be another example to stay close to what really matters to them and stay sober in whatever sense that is.
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You know, when a heart opens, it... You almost enter into another frequency and are li- now listening and seeing things that perhaps were always there but you weren't tuned into, right? Because you were, you were ex- your, your consciousness was at another level or in another place.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Yeah. And you're, you're bringing in another dimension of transformation or alchemy, which we haven't talked about, which is when you do this kind of healing work in the context of a, a ver- a psychospiritual context like I'm describing Your frequency does go up. Um, you know, on Tuesday, if the participants are standing with each other, they won't even really look at each other, and they certainly won't stand close to each other, and they're definitely not gonna hug.
But by Thursday night, the group is dancing and crying in front of each other and holding each other when they're done with their turn, and like there's such a natural uprising of mutual generosity and [00:33:00] solidarity and nurturing and care. Um, and as I said, you don't have to teach that. You just have to systematically remove the barriers that inhibit the natural overflow of our hearts to one another.
And it's deeply, um, meaningful to me that our programs also include people sharing stories two generations back in their families. So that, that unleashed joy is not without grit. It's not a spiritual bypass of the depth with which most of us have walked our lives. It's the natural, um, uprising of a sense of, mm, trust, uh, maybe.
Trust and, and, and open-heartedness that comes when you have done some of your own healing work.
Jonathan: Yeah. You use the word vertical development in your work- Mm ... quite a bit. How, how would you define what vertical development means and what it is?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: It's a whole field. Um, but to say simply, I think that horizontal development is some of [00:34:00] the skills work that I-- we were talking about earlier, learning effective interpersonal things.
Um, vertical development is all interoceptive. It's all about the inner life, and it's, um, and it's shadow work. It's being willing to ask people and accompany them and support them, uh, to look back at, uh, early life, which is so seminal and so formative and so shaping of people's consciousness and attitudes and emotions and perceptions, and to look back at what was hard to handle at the time, and to have the courage to be witnessed in some of that.
Um, and that, you know, real vertical development says it's not enough to have an insight intellectually. You have to have an embodied emotional and relational experience to bring something to peace.
Jonathan: Hmm. What are some ways that you help leaders get more embodied? 'Cause that, that might, that might be the biggest challenge, right?
'Cause so many of, of these leaders are very heady intellectual, [00:35:00] and this work requires us to be very firmly rooted in our, in our bodies, you know? And, and a lot of the trauma that we experience, um, uh, has us kind of disembody because it's too, um, it's almost too violent to be in our own body sometimes. It feels too scary.
Um, how do you walk somebody back into their body?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Thomas has this beautiful phrase. He says, "I am where you left." So I think our job as healers and facilitators is to be waiting in the room where the child found the experience too painful to receive them, and to accompany the person to also receive them in their own heart, whether you do that through a gestalt process or a psychodramatic process or a narrative process or, uh, a symbolic process.
Um, that's one part of it. I think the second thing is to [00:36:00] actually move and unlock and unleash your energetic, uh, intuition and your body's gut sense and your sense of ground. So we do a lot of martial arts in our programs. Um, we do every day an hour of, uh, Jo Kata that Richard Strozzi Heckler created that's-- he's passed on to a number of facilitators, and it's fantastic because people, first of all, are so dormant and we're so asleep physically, um, that just to see them move is-- uh, people laugh, and it gets very playful and very light and, and very, um, fun.
It's, uh, like it's really-- it's fun. Um, but it also teaches things like how do you get rooted? How do you regulate your own emotions and calm yourself down? How do you manage when you feel thrown off balance because you're in a novel field and a novel experience? How do you synchronize your own movements with others and do a coherent teaming?
There's a lot of business relevance to the lessons of the Jo Kata above and beyond somatic intelligence or just basic [00:37:00] embodiment. Uh, we also at Mobius have a wonderful, glorious energy teacher named Linda Cesaro, who does a 10-day course for our facilitators each year, uh, in which she teaches practices for how you clear your energy.
If you've, you know, done a deep day of work with, with participants and you're holding a lot in your field, she can help you to clear it. Um, and she also does beautiful process work about how you balance the masculine energy of confrontation and, um, uh, driving and, um, evoking and with the feminine energy of nurturing and belonging and, and carrying.
Um, so I think each of us try to balance those facets in our own facilitation as a way to role model what an integrated presence really looks like.
Jonathan: What does an integrated organization look like? So the, the t- better said, what, what are the types of organizations that you've noticed? What are the characteristics of the organizations that are most open and willing to bring in this kind of work into a [00:38:00] company-wide sort of cultural shift?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Well, my clients would want me to be anonymous, but I can tell you they would surprise you. They're not the obvious players that have, um, necessarily been known for, uh, soft skills as their driver. But they're companies-- Well, first of all, they're organizations where, um, they're making life and death decisions, and they know the value of, uh, after action reviews and developmental orientation and giving feedback 'cause they need to be in a cycle of continuous improvement.
So that's hospitals, it's fire departments, it's departments of defense, it's, uh, departments of federal aid. Um, any of those organizations where they're on the ground having to deal with life and death circumstances are much more oriented towards how vital and business relevant it is to cultivate equanimity or emergence or responsiveness or inner a- attunement and sensing.
I would say organizations [00:39:00] that have a de- deep care for their customers, so pharmaceuticals, biotechs, um, some retail organizations where customer intimacy is part of the magic secret sauce of how they deal with customers have been really interested in this work. Um, and I would say the third thing is, uh, in any organization which has a CEO who can see into the future and has an understanding of, um, how complex the world is gonna get and how much pressure people are gonna be under, the level of anxiety is rising and, and precipitously so.
So if you start to see that, then you understand that your culture is gonna be your competitive advantage. And what you need in your culture isn't more expertise, it's more presence.
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting 'cause we-- we're becoming more, um, artificial through, through the, through the, through the technology that's emergent, but, but it's also asking us to be more human as well.[00:40:00]
You know, and so there's this weird paradox and dichotomy happening right now in this moment in time, it seems.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Yeah. And, you know, maybe I'm naive, but my hope is that exactly as you said it, that as we embrace AI transformation and take advantage of all the gifts that technology is bringing us, we simultaneously understand and hold precious the unique human dimension of the workplace and, and the workforce.
And I think places that don't do that will discover two years into their AI adaptation that they've missed the boat.
Jonathan: Unlike many authors, you shared with me that writing the book that you wrote, Leading in Chaos, was actually quite easy and it happened quite quickly. Mm-hmm. Can you share a little bit about how that came to be and, and sort of- Yeah ... the process of writing that book?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Yeah, it's a sweet story. It's a story of grace, really.
Um, so my sister is an author and a, a, as I said, a lecturer at the law school and has been writing her next book, which we're [00:41:00] all very excited about. I don't consider myself an author. I'm a... You know, I love to teach, I love to heal, I love to talk to people about the work. Um, so last July, I, I was meditating and I heard the title Leading in Chaos, and I thought, "Oh, that's a great title.
That's a, that's a bestselling title right now. Somebody should write that book." I, I literally assumed it had nothing to do with me 'cause I, I wasn't thinking of writing a book And then a week later, it came a second time, like a whisper from above. And I thought, "Is God asking me to write a book?" And then I thought, "When would I write a book?
I mean, I'm traveling internationally all the time. My programs are five days long. I'm running a business on top of that. I'm spending time with my teachers." Like, there is not a time where I would sit down and write a year of a book. So again, I just thought, "Really, this isn't for me." But it came a third time, and I'm not so stubborn that I could possibly resist a call to action three times.
So in the third time, I thought, "Okay, well, I guess the question has to become: how could I write this book?" And I had [00:42:00] no clue. Uh, in fact, I was pretty despondent about it 'cause I then felt like I had to do it, but I had no idea how to do it. And later that day, as life would be so kind, I was talking to my co-author, Nicholas Yani.
Uh, we were just catching up, and while I was talking to him, it dawned on me that if we took my last two years of LinkedIn blogs, which are written right after the programs, like they're fresh with my insights, my wisdom, my, my takeaways, the things that moved me when I'm doing live work. Um, and Nicholas also is a glorious writer, and he's been writing for, uh, the same two years.
Both of us are, are doing a lot of work with Thomas Hubl and with another teacher, Patrick Connor. So there-- our writings as well as our coaching is very informed by their work. And I thought, "Oh, there might be a nice dovetail." And I asked Nicholas if he would be interested in that, and the process was extraordinary.
We had a generous offer from his publisher, Lid Publishing, the next day. Uh, we had a manuscript the following week. Uh, my wonderful friend, Natalie Hourihan, [00:43:00] edited it for a few weeks just to make sure it was, you know, polished and refined and not redundant between us and that the, the different essays, it's all short essays from the LinkedIn posts, that the essays fit together in a harmonious way, in a way that amplifies each other.
And that was it. It was published six months later, and, um, it was the most seamless, effortless, enchanted process of producing a book anyone could ever have. And what's nice about that is I, I don't have any expectations for the book. It's-- I think, uh, Nicholas and I both feel that it's an important contribution of our, um, takeaways from the last 20 years of teaching and leading senior leaders through this kind of process and coaching and top teamwork, and we hope that it's a, an invitation for people to start exploring their inner life at a time when things are really difficult and globally heartbreaking and cruel.
Uh, and we hope that in some ways it's a clarion call for all of us to realize that we have to lead in a different way, and there's healing to be [00:44:00] done, there's awakening to be done, and there's great deal of repair that has to be happening.
Jonathan: Yeah. Well, what does that repair process begin to look like? I guess you've already answered it, right?
It's the inner work. I- and the clarion call, I suppose, is to leaders to wake up and do the work essentially. Yeah?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Yes. That- that's a part of it, but I think in terms of the societal level we've been alluding to, there are often processes that need to happen at the local level where collective trauma has happened and where collective violence has been done.
And, um, Thomas has a gorgeous process for collective trauma healing, which is a whole group coming together and sharing their stories and, and being in live process with each other. And I've had the privilege to participate in that a number of times, and that's a whole other dimension where people are carrying and talking about the burdens of their ancestry and the violence and damage that has been done [00:45:00] between peoples.
Um, but if it's held in the proper container, um, something very extraordinary can happen. There's a, um, Christian teaching that says, um, one is supposed to forgive, I, I hope I'm not butchering this, seven times 70. Endless forgiveness. Infinite forgiveness. And when I think about collective trauma healing, I think we all have to do everything we can to elevate ourselves to the capacity to grant endless forgiveness
Jonathan: It's so beautiful.
Uh, another, uh, there's a quote that you, that I read of yours. I'm gonna read it here 'cause it's really beautiful and I, and I'm curious about some aspects of it. "All of us are gonna be asked deeper questions of our lives and the meaning of our lives and how we can contribute, and I think that there's a quality of surrender and service that's gonna be asked of coaches, facilitators, leaders, everybody who wants to contribute.
There's gonna be a collective bowing down that is required because the next steps won't be so obvious." Can you share more [00:46:00] about that collective bowing down? That, that is... There's some strong imagery there, and it's really beautiful, and I'm curious what you mean by it.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: In Western society, we have become so self-oriented and so ego-protected that we are living our lives as if we were the director and authority with which we should be making choices. But I think that as you mature, you come to realize that you're part of an interdependent whole, and you have to place yourself in a posture of bowing to life itself and ask to be guided and ask to be in a peaceful movement with other facets of the ecosystem of life or the fabric of life.
And the arrogance with which many of us operate in our lives also creates a kind of isolation and sense of separation that is our source, our fundamental [00:47:00] source of hopelessness and helplessness. The separate sense of self feels very overwhelmed and, and isolated because it's a distorted understanding of who we really are.
We're part of a unified field, and so the bowing down is an illustration of what it means to take your seat at the table of that unified field in, in essence.
Jonathan: That is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. You know, and because it also speaks to part of the challenge of the world that we live in is folks are living on either side of the spectrum, on the other sides of interdependence, meaning the ultra-depend- dependence, meaning I, I, I need others to, to help me through all things.
And of course, there's circumstances and situations that, of course, we want, um... It's just true. There are people that are in those situations, and we, we are here to help them. On the other side, there's the ultra, ultra-independent, you know, those that, you know, "I'm, you know, I'm the, the, the driver of my ship.
I'm the, the, the decision-maker of my life. I do [00:48:00] all things on my own." And on both of those, it creates a bit, a, a, a disbalance, you know, like we're seeing in the world. And it's even if, if those on either side of that spectrum can embody more of that interdependence, how-- Yes, I, one, I can't do this on my own, and two, I, I can contribute.
What is, what is mine to contribute? Right there, it can transform the entire world if more
Amy Elizabeth Fox: people- Yeah. It's ab- it's absolutely beautiful what you said, and I think the reason I'm more focused on the interdependence, the pull of y- what you described, is that our businesses have put such a primacy on self-reliance and- Yes
autonomous workloads, and they spend almost no attention on relational needs and who in the company is really caring for you. So I'm trying to-- It's like I'm, uh, trying to bring a homeopathic dose to the disproportionate focus on autonomy. But of course, what you said is true, and, and as a facilitator, I have to know at what stage of ego development is somebody.
If [00:49:00] somebody has still so shaky a sense of self-esteem or core inside themselves, I'm not gonna tell that person to dissolve into the unified field. I'm gonna help prop them up, help them understand their gifts, help them find their sense of meaning, help them have enough embodiment to make good choices for themselves, help, help them h- develop boundaries, help them s- develop a kind of self-sufficient nurturing system.
Um, a- it's only in a later stage where somebody is already has all those things that you would even suggest the other thing is possible. The other thing when you were talking, Jonathan, I th- thought of this incredible story that my friend David White told this summer when I was teaching with him at the Modern Elders Academy that Chip Conley, who's one of my heroes, created in New Mexico, and David told this story.
He said he was working with a Wall Street firm, and he, he's a wonderful poet who does some workshops in Mobius programs and other corporate settings. He was working with a Wall Street firm, and he had done the whole mor- day on, you know, on poetic [00:50:00] dimensions of life, like what really matters, what's really raw, what's really potent, what's really, uh, precious.
And he couldn't tell if anyone was moved, and then at the end of the day, one of the participants, one of the leaders, came up to him and was in tears, and he thought to himself, "Oh, I got to one of them." And then the guy, um, wound up confiding in him that the reason he was crying and wanted to talk to David was because his year-end bonus was less than he had hoped.
And David said something really courageous and true to him. He said, "I want you to know that there are people crying all around the world because you are crying about that And I just, when I heard that story, I had goose- I have it again, goosebumps, 'cause it's true. You know, there's a certain level of privilege, privilege that allows people to look away for where, from where the pain is, and I think we are being asked to be the generation that runs in, not runs away.[00:51:00]
Jonathan: Yeah. What did you... G- there's, it's so true, and, and there's an endless amount of things to run to and to support around. How do you, how do you have, uh, folks not be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity, uh, and the sheer amount of pain that is out in the world, recognizing that, you know, we really can only control what's in front of us?
How, how do you communicate that to the leader that really wants to, wants to do it all versus, you know, just recognizing that we can only do the work that we're here to do, whatever that might be?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Um, Francis Weller talks about this time as the long dark, uh, and says, you know, "In a time of darkness, we may not see the fruits of our labor, but we may be planting seeds for a future still to come."
So the first thing I would do is to say to somebody, "Don't worry about the efficacy of what you're doing, whether you can see its fruits in your lifetime. Do the things that you think will matter 100 [00:52:00] years from now or 200 years from now, and don't think about short-term success." That's the first thing.
The second thing is I, I love Thomas's im- image of an orchestra. We're not asked to do the whole thing. That's God's job. We're asked to play our instrument of the orchestra in, in harmony with other instruments as impeccably as we can. So the impulse to refine ourselves so that the quality of our being is, itself a transmission of depolarization and unfragmentation and connection.
Um, so you cultivate yourself as an instrument of repair. That's the second thing. I think the third thing is it all counts. Small things, large things. Tomorrow you do something different than today. Two years from now you have a brilliant vision, and you do that-- you pivot and do that. Don't be so worried about what it is.
Um, if you feel you're in alignment with your gifts, you're in alignment with your context, you're in alignment with what's being asked of you, [00:53:00] then savor that and trust the rest. Um, and I guess the last thing I would say is that I think for those of us that are running towards, it's a time of urgent self-care.
Um, I've been increasing the amount of time that I spend on retreats, spend with my teachers, spend in healing contexts, because the pain is more, and it's crushing, and there are many things happening that are hurting life at the moment and hurting people and communities. And you can't let the pain overtake you or then you can't be helpful.
Um, so to have a systematic practice of disproportionately attending to sources of joy, sources of faith, sources of love, um, uh, i- is actually part of the actual work. It's not the vacation you take a week in the summer. The work includes refining yourself, being in supervision, taking trainings, being in communities of practice.
It includes making an offering that's [00:54:00] commensurate with your territory or sphere of influence, and it definitely includes continuing to fill your tank, I think.
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah, 'cause rather than taking in... Well, it's being able to take these things in rather than taking them on- That's right ... you know?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Great distinction
Jonathan: Because it is important.
You know, there, there's friends that I have that, you know, they're like, "I don't wanna, I don't wanna read about that. I don't wanna look at that." And, and we-- I get it, and there's aspects, you know, we can't just, you know, be a fire hose to the news every day, uh, and it's, it's a lot to take in. And at the same time, we, we also can't look away because there's just, uh, th-this-- we l- we do live in this interdependent world, and we, we do have more influence than we think.
We both... It's the, the paradox. We have less, uh, we're, we're less influential and we're more influential than we imagine, you know? And- They're both, they're both
Amy Elizabeth Fox: true. And, and you can start a simple practice, like go through a day and see if there's one moment where you felt somebody in pain or grief or sadness or [00:55:00] loneliness, and normally you would have turned away and instead you took one more beat to say, "What's really going on?"
Jonathan: Yeah.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Just that. Yeah. Just that will debunk the habit of denial and deflection. Um, so I, I don't think, I don't wanna make it sound like you, you know, have to join the Peace Corps. It's, it's not like go change every facet of your life, but it is what you said really beautifully. It's just s- understand yourself to be part of a web of life that needs you.
Jonathan: And it's more simple than we think because, you know, the executive that leaves your program and goes back home and is open-hearted versus, you know, rigid and, and, and, uh, expressing their trauma. I mean, think about all the lives, all, the, the m- the conversations that just transform from there. Yeah. The harm is not being caused anymore, and therefore, what does that mean for the children?
What does that mean for the spouse? What does that mean for all the people that person is interacting with? These are rip- real ripples that [00:56:00] impact real lives and spread into eternity.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: That's exquisitely said, and that- Mm-hmm ... is my deep belief, and I feel, I really am so touched to be part of that process.
It's an amazing privilege.
Jonathan: And what I would say to anybody listening is we're all part of the process, whether you're doing official work or not.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: That's true.
Jonathan: It, you know, it's wh- what is the quality of your interactions with people? How are you seeing the interdependence among our, uh, all of us? How, what, what role...
You know, what do you feel called to do in this world in whatever way, big or small? And it really can be the smallest of things, you know, lending a hand, having a conversation, you know?
Amy Elizabeth Fox: Having a conversation. I had somebody in a program the other day who had been estranged from their parent for a very long time, and in the program they came to wanna reconnect.
And they sent a letter, and it turned out that their brother answered the letter and they were-- the father was in hospice. And they left my program a day early to fly to the hospice and say goodbye before [00:57:00] he died, and they wrote me, of course, afterwards, and I thought that's the whole thing. Like, the grace of arriving in time to say the true goodbye.
Yeah. And that's, that's the bowing down. Yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah, I have, I have, you know, tears in my eyes 'cause, uh, the, the image that I had, you know, when I, when I think of hospice, I always go back to my mom and her passing away from cancer. And, you know, the, the amount of trauma that she lived her entire life with, uh, same with my father.
And, uh, I, I then think of my children, you know, and the work that I've done, and, and I, I, I'm living the reality of healing generational trauma where, where I see it. I see these ki- You know, my, my two children are growing up in an environment that is so foreign to me, that is so foreign to me in terms of a household that I've never experienced before.
You know, and, and, um, I, I'm so grateful. Yeah.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: I just wanna pause you and honor how much inner work it [00:58:00] requi- is required to have that level of violence and chaos end with your generation, and to not pass it down to your children. It's, it's such a restoration. It's such a gift of love, and yeah, God bless you.
Jonathan: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And, and it's, uh, a testament to all those ripples of other teachers and other people that laid the groundwork-
Amy Elizabeth Fox: For sure ...
Jonathan: left the breadcrumbs.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: For sure. You
Jonathan: know, and, and, and, um, you know, and then the grace, the grace of life for my eyes to be open enough to see those breadcrumbs and pick 'em up one by one.
Amy Elizabeth Fox: I hope this conversation is a breadcrumb.
Jonathan: It so is. It so is. And may it be that for others as well. Amy, as we wind down this conversation, uh, for those that are listening and they're on their own healing journey, their own transformational journey, what, what would you share with them as just anything that you feel called to share that might help support them on their own journeys?[00:59:00]
Amy Elizabeth Fox: I deeply believe that everything can be healed, so please hear this as a message of hope. I believe that healing happens in relation, so don't try to walk the walk alone. However you find fellowship, spiritual friends, teachers, healers, therapists, guides, body workers, make sure you ask for help. Um, and, uh, don't d- don't get too despondent about the circumstances immediately before you.
There's a beautiful prayer in Hebrew that's, I th- uh, Sheviti Hu Vayal and Agdi Tamid, which says, "Let me not let worldly circumstances occlude my knowledge of you." And I think that's a really important reminder that our faith can live as an eternal flame inside us independent of what we see around us.
Jonathan: Beautiful. Amy, you are someone who people I love and, and mean a lot to me [01:00:00] love and mean a lot too. You know, and so that, that is how I was put onto your work. And the moment I had the first conversation with you, and in fact the moment I r- I'd watched your first video, read your first words, I, I felt your presence.
I, I see why they see you in the way they do. I mean, you are a, a, an immense light in this world, and you walk the walk, you talk the talk. And, uh, I am just so grateful that you have stepped into this in the way that you have and, and that you're doing the work that you're doing because the world needs it.
And so thank you. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself here and, um, I'll share everything about you in the show notes so people can check out your book, check out your website, check out your work. So thank you. Thank
Amy Elizabeth Fox: you so much, Jonathan, for hosting such an expanded conversation. And everybody, thank you for listening.
It's a pleasure to share this with you.