What is Harmonized Growth™?

Harmonized growth is an integrative approach to change - one that works with the nature of humans. It's a paradigm shift from relying on ‘coping’ and ‘quick fixes’. It goes beyond growth mindset and works with and through the resistance that comes with the nature of humans.

Download the Intro to Harmonized Growth ebook

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better"
- Albert Einstein

butterfly on a blade of grass with dew drops

Harmonized growth is an integrative approach to change that works with the nature of humans.

Nature that is both primal and transformational. To sustain healthy and growing changes, we have to loosen the tethers to the past and reset the feedback in the present that pulls us back. We identify how the changes we want – for ourselves, in our families, at our workplaces, in whatever level of society is your context – are connected to us so we see our paths of strongest influence. This is where the rational linear thinking mind can trip us up! Humans, like all nature, are not linear.

Harmonized growth is a paradigm shift from relying on ‘coping’ and ‘quick fixes’.

It flips ‘command and control’ to ‘collaborate and innovate’. We balance long term and short needs so you can have lasting results rather than the domino effect of creating a new and bigger problems. It’s inclusive of medical model of care and not constrained by it. It’s inclusive of change management models and not limited by them.

Harmonized growth goes beyond growth mindset.

It includes the whole human, the system within and around. Quick fix solutions can be evidence based – a patterned outcome of the ‘average response’ across people. Yet none of us is the average! Following harmonized growth, we use all the great evidence and expertise out there. With one addition. You are the expert of you. You understand the potential for you in your system, as it’s functioning now. You observe and adapt as you grow forward. You are not a failure when a change doesn’t work; you are a self leader, learning more about your system and modifying the experiment using the new information.

Harmonized growth works with and through the resistance that comes with the nature of humans.

It’s natural to encounter resistance from within yourself as well as around you. For each target of change there is a system that supports it being the way it is. Most of which we don’t pay attention to. It doesn’t matter if you’re targeting an undesired habit, a health problem, your child’s behavior, the politics at work, industries that stay stuck in old paradigms despite new information. They are all subject to human nature; the full experience that is to be expected as humans.

Start Growing Now

COMMON CHALLENGES

Although the model of change can be applied broadly, here are the most common entry points. If you, like many ISG clients, are looking for a fresh approach to persistent challenges, let’s get connected.

An increasing number of physical symptoms and disorders have no medical explanation. Yet the distress and symptoms are real! By understanding the interconnections between physiology and psychology, new paths to resolution are apparent and effective. Emotional health is an often overlooked contributing factor, as is understanding root causes such as nervous system functioning and energetic imbalances.
Similarly, there’s messaging of a ‘mental health crisis’. Which is confusing as we come out of an unprecedented experience of a global pandemic, not to mention the inconsistency and fear-focused approach to managing it. Our inner systems navigated an extended period of time in a natural threat response. It is natural that we are dysregulated and struggle to settle into a new equilibrium! It’s an opportunity to restore the wounds and experience life changing growth.

When is the last time you wanted to make a change for the better? Eat healthier. Stop drinking. Or overworking. Start exercising. Do yoga. It’s natural that it is easier said than done. Or maybe you stopped the ‘bad habit’, only to pick up an alternative. Now instead of needing a drink, you have to get to the gym. It may be a better habit, yet it may not have resolved the root ailment. Let’s not forget the influence of others that pull you back into their status quo – your change is a threat to their sense of security. Or, you stop drinking and then get labeled and shamed for ‘falling off the wagon’ when you drink again.
There are always interpersonal dynamics involved with habits, in the present or from the past. Without understanding the role of your habit in the broader system (friends, family, profession), you will continually battle the hidden resistance.
On the inside, we can become dependent on a substance / activity / behavior to feel regulated. It serves a protective purpose to avoid difficult feelings, settle a restless mind, or simply avoid feeling. Detangling the interconnections between thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and the felt sense of security allows ease with change that comes with ups and downs for yourself and others.
Lastly, let’s not forget our relational habits – our patterns of protection that keep us from the connection we desire. The person that we so fluidly fell into step with now steps on our toes. Or we avoid the dance. Either way, relational habits keep us from developing healthy, differentiated, loving connection.

It doesn’t take long as a parent to realize there’s a lot of stuff to figure out! And there’s a lot of advice out there. Some of it you seek and much of it just gets thrown at you. Despite all the information, what matters most are the dynamics that lie in our own habits and upbringing. How we attune, mirror, and respond to their distress and cries for help, regardless of their age, develops self-worth or self-loathing. Going beyond teaching and fixing behaviors, parenting is about developing children to be confident and secure in who they are. They are naturally dependent on the adults for regulation and wellbeing. With the attunement and regulation of adults, they develop, physiologically and psychologically, to pick up the responsibility.
This starts with feeling confident and secure in who you are, an imperfect growing parent! The dynamics between parent and child are the foundation of their sense of security. Your ability to come alongside them and understand challenges is the platform for their neurodevelopment. By understanding the contributing factors underneath a child’s problem behavior, you can grow together.

Burnout is the stand-out modern challenge of professionals and leaders. All those ‘rules’ you’ve been working by, mostly implicit, are no longer serving you well. All the reasons you thought you went into your profession are blurred. Exhaustion and confusion have taken their place. It’s natural to attribute the horrible feelings to work. Yet, if it was that easy, you’d quit. Right?! The challenge is that everything is interconnected. You just want to feel better. By stepping back and mapping the dynamics within you and the dynamics around you, you can discover the root of your distress and identify steps towards to grow forward.

For decades we’ve been hearing that the rate of change will increase – not only more changes, but also more changes of larger significance more frequently. This may be known, yet organizations have to bring people along with changes in operating models, work processes, and technology systems. These can pose an unspoken threat to the employees being asked to embrace the changes. Conversely, many industries are facing an abundance of new information and evidence that antiquates their business proposition, creates larger societal problems, or exposes their negative contribution to wellbeing of people and planet.

To effectively navigate the personal transitions of organizational change in today’s world, leaders must first understand and resolve their inner dysfunction and implicit personal risks of the changes. At the same time, creating space for diverse perspectives so that biases and assumptions can surface. Harmonized growth is an effective model to equip organizations for ongoing development from individual to organizational growth.

BENEFITS OF HARMONIZED GROWTH

THE PARADIGM

Stress and challenges are a natural part of living, providing stimulus for growth in yourself and others.

You are not broken. You, your kids, your partner, your team do not need fixing. Your anxiety, overwhelm, exhaustion, desire to hide and whatever else you are experiencing is a natural artifact of living in your world. A world full of messages of fears and inadequacies, compounding distress of unknowns, and intensifying expectations of contradictory societal norms.

Timelines, goal-setting, and old-fashioned ‘sucking it up’ don’t work like they used to. In fact, we’re experiencing the domino effects of decades of systems working against human nature.

And there’s a path to you feeling better, being a leader in growth for yourself and those that matter most to you, while the world stays tumultuous.

THE VIEW

SEE THE SYSTEM

Regardless of if the target system is individual health, child development, stability in our communities, business success, or health of the planet. The commonality is that they are human systems.

See the parts of the human system within and around the challenge and the whole. Nothing and no one is isolation. Even if you have cut-off or withdrawn from others, they continue to influence. In human nature, absence matters as much as presence.

See the parts and the whole, as it is; not as it ‘should be’. Remove blinders, judgment, and filters. It can be difficult – counter to your current mental models. It’s like seeing the forest AND the trees. See the garden AND the flowers, weeds, soil, and sunshine that all matter. Dandelions can be a nuisance or a source of nutrition, depending on your systemic view.

SEE THE DYNAMICS

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More important than who and what are in the systemic view, what happens between them matters most. See the dynamics between and within the key elements of the system.

Sure, flowers need soil. Yet there’s a dynamic…not all flowers grow in all soil. We take these things for granted in the nature around us yet miss the same nature is within us. A primary difference is that humans also have, as part of our nature, creativity and problem solving abilities, that can intentionally foster transformation and growing. When we’re not stuck.

Individuals: thinking-feeling-acting, external stimulus and internal stimulus, physiological and psychological

Relationships: dynamic exchange between people and the dynamics within each person

SET PRACTICAL EDGES

Naturally we can’t take on the whole of the whole! Confidently identify the edges of the system for the identified challenge. AND maintain awareness of what’s beyond the edges...

it may matter more than you think which you’ll be open to learning. Anyone who has meticulously cared for their yard knows the interconnection to how a neighbor cares for theirs.

Understand how to expand and contract for each challenge. Continual learning is your guide. You have not failed with something doesn’t work. There’s a natural reason it went the way it did. Follow the trail and accept change is a process.

PRINCIPLES

To effectively solve a challenge, first understand it. This includes the implicit aspects of the situation – the feedback loops within and around you.
The dynamics that hold you in unhealth (individually, relationally, or in your work) hide in plain sight. What’s within and around both matter.
You are the expert of you.
You can understand you better than anyone else can. There are things about your inner functioning that only you can know. A base challenge: You’ve lost trust in you.
Others know stuff too. They are just not the expert of you.
What others know is helpful to you. Some have expertise from studying and learning about a subject. Others have access to their inner wisdom (just like you have to yours) and learning about this is invaluable to change that involves them. Others see you through a lens you may not have from within you. A base challenge: discerning what to trust from whom, when.
Humans are complex, not complicated. Going beyond cause-effect thinking, is do-able and game-changing. ISG makes it easier.
Work with human nature rather than against it.
Bringing change to others is first an inside job. You affect others and others affect you in ways you do not realize. It takes more than telling others what to do. The first step towards all the wellness you envision around you is to instill harmonized growth within you.

THE HARMONIZED GROWTH PROCESS

The core harmonized growth process has four steps, conducted iteratively until resolution is attained. Yet the perspective is that there will always be a next challenge and we use everything that’s been learned to apply to the next one.

ISG provides offerings to support you through the initial learning curve, the ongoing application, as well as providing deeper root cause solutions to inner growth.

Harmonized Growth Roadmap Institute of Systemic Growth

Discover

Orient to harmonized growth™ and it’s potential to simplify and improve your approach to the challenges in your work and life.

Free video introduction to the Harmonized Growth Primer course.
Complete the HG Primer course.
Learn more about the principles of Harmonized Growth in this ebook.
Check out the Resource Library for articles and case studies.
To stay informed about future short courses, sign up for newsletter.

Iterate

Coaching Circles to Cultivate Growth are fully live and support you on your change challenge(s) by providing additional education on how humans work as well as diverse thinking to expand your exploration and solution finding. They include the use of tools that resolve restrictions to growth at the roots of human functioning in a supportive social environment.

Iterations, through the approach of harmonized growth, are not recycle or repetitive. You are always learning, always adding to your understanding of the system and adapting to grow forward in wellness and vitality.

Expand

As the paradigm becomes natural, you may follow intentions to go deeper on resolving conflict in your inner dynamics. Individual Coaching or seeking therapeutic services can be natural approaches.

Or your passions may stir you to extend outward to relationships and organizations that matter to you. Be the spark that stimulates their growth. Additional Leadership Programs for Harmonized Growth and Coaching Circles to Cultivate Growth in Others develop your capabilities to be an active partner in harmonized growth with peers and employees.

Apply

Bring a current challenge in your life to our experiential learning programs to cultivate inner growth. Our Learning Labs guide you to understand the challenge through the lens of human nature, mapping the aspects in the system and dynamics between them. Go deeper in learning how humans work, emerging with a model for self-leadership and an action plan to resolve the root cause and learning as you experiment. ISG uses a hybrid educational model includes pre-recorded modules to educate and describe steps as well as live video sessions for Q&A.

Once you see the potential and have gained benefit from the paradigm, it’s time to put the approach to work for you by completing a cycle or growth:

Learn to use all your thinking. Although logic is held in high regard, it is not the only cognitive function that matters. Critical thinking is logical and emotionally-informed, intuitive and evidence-based. Clarity comes through skepticism. Creativity opens up win/win/win.
Explore the power of including emotions intentionally rather than having them hijack you. Strategies of emotional regulation have resulted in suppression, constriction, and emotions as a contributor to physical and relational distress. Reconnect to the information and energy of emotions so they can be the inner compass and assessment of wellbeing they were designed to be.
Learning Labs are organized around the target system of change:
Personal Health – Cultivating Growth & Vitality
Personal Habits – Change that Sticks
Parenting for Family Growth
Executive Leadership for Organizational Wellness & Growth

THE ORIGIN OF HARMONIZED GROWTH

Harmonized growth™ is an assimilation of evidence-based methods and decades of practical applications within human systems from mental health services to global organizational change. Human nature is human nature. Let’s start appreciating it and working with it to grow forward.

Through research reviews and synthesis of foundational theories and methods, ISG founder, Shelly Melroe, has systematized an approach to make the best of the best of our understanding and potential of human systems accessible for everyday use.

“Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.”

~ George Box, Pioneer of Statistical Methods

THE FOUNDATIONAL PILLARS

Harmonized Growth™

Systems Thinking

Creative Problem Solving

Family Systems Theory

Polyvagal Theory

Internal Family Systems

Integral Somatic Psychology

Energy Psychophysiology

Learn more about each foundational pillar by clicking on the pillars or visiting our Foundations of Harmonized Growth page.

Harmonized Growth™ is an approach grounded in seven evidence-based pioneering concepts. They are not necessarily new chronologically, but each served and serves to provide a new perspective, a new paradigm of understanding. They are rooted in the observation of phenomena that did not fit the prevailing framework in it’s discipline. Harmonized Growth ™ is an integration of these and a continuation of the spirit of discovery and synthesis.

By staying open to new understanding, we accelerate the growth of human systems. When we are threatened by new information and different perspectives, we constrain it. Both are natural. Only growth moves us forward, towards wellness and vitality.