Intentional Human Coaching

Intentional Human Coaching James Barfoot, Health and Wellness Coach and Clinical Hypnotherapist While working there until April 2017 I was always in search of ways to improve my skills.

I graduated from Bennett/Stellar University in 2008 with certifications as a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Master NLP practitioner. Immediately establishing a practice as a Hypnotist/Coach I was hired in Feb 2009 by Positive Changes Hypnosis in Spokane, WA. I received additional training with Stephen Gilligan PhD who studied with Milton Erickson M.D. the father of modern Hypnotherapy. I have been registered in Washington state as a Hypnotherapist since 2008.

Four weeks. Four archetypes. The container, the stages, the formative Core, the mature Core — the shape of a practice.Th...
08/14/2026

Four weeks. Four archetypes. The container, the stages, the formative Core, the mature Core — the shape of a practice.

The Seeker with her lantern at the threshold. The Warrior with his shield on the high grassland. The Architect with her stone at the arch. The Creator with his drum at the river.

They are not four different people. They are four ways of being one person, at different depths of the same practice. Most of us have stood in each of them at some point, and we still move between them. That is not a failure of arrival. It is what the practice looks like.

Ten Bears used a phrase for the destination — one of the people. Not superior, not enlightened, not arrived. Just present, offering what is yours to offer, in the company of others doing the same.

Every one of us was born knowing this. Most of us have forgotten. The practice is the slow, patient labor of remembering.

If you would like to meet the four Archetypes yourself — and see which one your Belonging Signature is standing in today — the Snapshot is free, five minutes, yours to keep.

→ belongingsignature.com

Two weeks ago I named the formative Intentional Core — Duty, Devotion, Purpose. Today, what those three become when they...
08/12/2026

Two weeks ago I named the formative Intentional Core — Duty, Devotion, Purpose. Today, what those three become when they are practiced long enough to be tested and wielded.

Courage. The ability to stand up or face danger, fear, or intimidation at risk of pain or loss. It has a moral component too — the capacity to stand in your truth and defend it in speech or action. Ten Bears named this the "requiredness of the situation." Not bravery in the abstract. What the moment in front of you is asking for.

Conviction. Standing with and acting from a certainty or belief that ensures our actions align with our truth. This is the source of resolute action. It is what remains when the loud voices have moved on and the practice is still there in the morning.

Strength. The image I have always held for this is a Samurai sword — high-carbon and low-carbon steel folded together, welded, cooled rapidly. The tensile quality that emerges is neither brittle nor soft. It bends and returns. It is strength forged through repeated testing.

These are the mature attributes because they cannot be adopted. They can only be grown into. Duty becomes Courage when you face what the moment requires. Devotion becomes Conviction when your certainty no longer needs an audience. Purpose becomes Strength when you have been folded and tested enough times to bend and return.

This is the Intentional Core, fully formed. It is what the Architect carries, and what the Creator gives from.

Meet the Creator.He stands at the river at golden hour, a drum in his hands, playing something primeval remembered. He d...
08/10/2026

Meet the Creator.

He stands at the river at golden hour, a drum in his hands, playing something primeval remembered. He does not force his rhythm on the water; he listens for what is already moving and offers his voice into it.

The Creator is the fourth of the four Archetypes in Our Belonging Signature™. His attributes are the embodied triad: Dependability · Durability · Trust. These are not attributes you strive for. They are what remains after long practice — a reliability that others can feel, a durability tested by seasons, a trust in yourself and in the people around you that no longer requires proof.

If the Seeker asks what am I looking for, the Warrior what am I willing to stand for, and the Architect what am I here to build — the Creator asks what am I here to give.

He speaks the language of the fourth stage. What began, in earlier stages, as "my life sucks," then "I'm great," has now matured into "life is good." Not because everything is easy. Because he has become the kind of person who can meet what comes and offer back into it.

If any of this feels familiar, meet him — and see if this is the mirror your Belonging Signature is standing in today.

→ Take the free Snapshot: belongingsignature.com

"Meeting the requiredness of the situation" shapes us!A reflection from twenty years of working with people.The people w...
08/07/2026

"Meeting the requiredness of the situation" shapes us!

A reflection from twenty years of working with people.

The people who transform their lives are not the ones with the most dramatic breakthroughs. They are the ones who, day by day, keep saying yes to what the moment requires. Small conversations. Kept boundaries. Consistent presence. The unglamorous ground.

In my tradition this is called "meeting the requiredness of the situation."

It is not a story that trends. It is the quiet architecture of a life lived with Conscious Intention.

If any of this speaks to you, there is a small practice on my website.

→ belongingsignature.com/the-practice.html

At the heart of the practice is what I call the Intentional Core. It has two levels — formative and mature — and today I...
08/05/2026

At the heart of the practice is what I call the Intentional Core. It has two levels — formative and mature — and today I want to name the formative three.

Duty. A moral commitment that results in action directed toward a cause beyond limited self-interest. Duty is not a burden. It is an offering — the gift of ourselves given freely to a family, a tribe, a community. It is a debt we owe ourselves as human beings.

Devotion. Consistent action over time. Not the loud, one-time gesture, but the quiet, unglamorous return — the daily practice, the sustained showing up, whether or not anyone notices. Devotion contains duration.

Purpose. That which gives meaning to our actions. The intentional offering of our gifts that in return actualizes them. This is what generates joy in the being — not the acquisition of something, but the offering of what is ours to offer.

These three are the formative attributes because they are how the Intentional Core first forms in us. They are the Warrior's terrain — the ground he walks daily. Without them there is no maturation ahead. With them, we begin the slow shift toward what comes next: Courage, Conviction, Strength.

But those are for another day.

Meet the Architect.She stands at the arch on the terraces, a shaped stone in her hand, looking at what she is building. ...
08/03/2026

Meet the Architect.

She stands at the arch on the terraces, a shaped stone in her hand, looking at what she is building. She has walked the Warrior's road long enough that the practice is no longer effort — it is form.

The Architect is the third of the four Archetypes in Our Belonging Signature™. Her attributes are the mature Intentional Core: Courage · Conviction · Strength. Where the Warrior stood for Duty, the Architect walks with Courage — the ability, as Ten Bears called it, to meet the "requiredness of the situation." Where the Warrior practiced Devotion, the Architect embodies Conviction — action that flows from certainty rather than obligation. Where the Warrior served Purpose, the Architect wields Strength — the tensile kind, forged and tested and no longer surprised by weight.

If the Seeker asks what am I looking for, and the Warrior asks what am I willing to stand for, the Architect asks what am I here to build.

She is not louder than the Warrior. Often she is quieter. But everything she touches now bears her hand — a household, a practice, a body of work, a way of being with people. She has become the container that others can build inside of.

If any of this feels familiar, meet her — and see if this is the mirror your Belonging Signature is standing in today.

→ Take the free Snapshot: belongingsignature.com

My teacher, Bart Anderson — "Ten Bears" — used to say that duty is a debt we owe ourselves as human beings.I did not und...
07/31/2026

My teacher, Bart Anderson — "Ten Bears" — used to say that duty is a debt we owe ourselves as human beings.

I did not understand this for a long time. I had come to him as a thirty-two-year-old with a strong desire to be someone special, and I heard "duty" as a burden. A drag. Something to be minimized when possible and avoided when I could get away with it.

It took years of sitting with him for the reframe to land. What he was pointing at was this: duty is not what you owe the world. Duty is what you owe the fullest version of yourself — the one that shows up when you offer your gifts freely to a family, a tribe, a community.

Withholding those gifts, it turns out, is the actual burden. The debt was never to anyone else. It was always to me.

To be one of the people is to remember this.

Last week I shared the Zen circle. Today, what happens inside it.In my model there are four stages of awareness. All of ...
07/29/2026

Last week I shared the Zen circle. Today, what happens inside it.

In my model there are four stages of awareness. All of us move through them, and back and forth, on the journey home.

The four-stage structure is adapted from the Skill Sets Model in adult learning theory, and shaped further by teachers whose work I have been sitting with for decades. My spiritual mentor Bart Anderson — "Ten Bears" — gave me the understanding of the first stage: not as a competence gap, but as the country of the "accidental liver," a way of being at the effect of life rather than affecting it. The language of what each stage sounds like from within — "life sucks," "my life sucks," "I'm great," "we're great," "life is good" — I adapted for my own four-stage model from the tribal-stage research of Logan, King, and Fischer-Wright in Tribal Leadership, whose work I cite in the Resources of my book.

Stage One — Unconscious Incompetence. Outside the circle. Entitlement, blame, the sense that life is happening to you. Language: "life sucks."

Stage Two — Conscious Incompetence. You step into the circle. You start to see the consequences of your choices. The retreat is tempting. Language: "my life sucks." The hardest stage.

Stage Three — Conscious Competence. The new limits are becoming a practice. Self-responsibility begins to feel like freedom, not restriction. Language: "I'm great."

Stage Four — Unconscious Competence. The new way is now natural. You act from your Intentional Core without thinking about it. Language begins as "we're great" and matures into "life is good."

I wrote about all of this in my 2014 book Tribalize Now, as a tool for behavior change. What has evolved since — and what Our Belonging Signature™ carries forward — is the recognition that the four stages were always reaching for something the original model did not name: belonging. That is the axis the Archetypes now hold.

Nobody stays in one stage forever. The practice is not arriving. It is noticing where you are, and choosing to move.

Meet the Warrior.He stands on the high grassland, shield down, staff planted, the wind moving through him. He has crosse...
07/27/2026

Meet the Warrior.

He stands on the high grassland, shield down, staff planted, the wind moving through him. He has crossed the threshold the Seeker only glimpsed. He knows now what he is here to protect.

The Warrior is the second of the four Archetypes in Our Belonging Signature™. His attributes are the formative core: Duty · Devotion · Purpose. Duty — a moral commitment beyond limited self-interest. Devotion — consistent action over time, whether or not anyone is watching. Purpose — the thing that gives meaning to the action itself.

If the Seeker's question is what am I looking for, the Warrior's is what am I willing to stand for.

Not every stand is dramatic. Most days it is quiet: showing up for the practice, honoring the commitment, doing the boring right thing when the flashy wrong thing would be easier.

If any of this feels familiar, meet him — and see if this is the mirror your Belonging Signature is standing in today.

→ Take the free Snapshot: belongingsignature.com

Listen to → belongingsignature.com/the-magic-tortoise.html I wrote this story before I had a name for what I was teachin...
07/24/2026

Listen to → belongingsignature.com/the-magic-tortoise.html I wrote this story before I had a name for what I was teaching.

It began years ago as a tale for young children — a tortoise, a fire, a circle deep in an evergreen forest. Over time, quietly, it became the taproot of the practice I now call Our Belonging Signature™. Everything on that site is the working out of what the tortoise says in this story.

Chapter One is called Welcome Home. It is finally recorded — read aloud in my own voice, about twelve minutes. It reads as complete on its own. More chapters will follow when they are ready.

Nothing is asked of you to listen. Sit down, press play, and be with it.

→ belongingsignature.com/the-magic-tortoise.html

Address

827 W 1st Avenue Ste 203
Spokane, WA
99201

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 6pm
Tuesday 9am - 6pm
Wednesday 9am - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 6pm
Friday 9am - 6pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Intentional Human Coaching posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share