The Practice of the Orientations
How Practicing the Four Orientations is Fundamental to Coherence
Coherence begins with presence — with how we meet life as it is.
The four Orientations for Coherence - Truth, Connection, Freedom, and Adventure - are not ideals but natural ways of being that strengthen our capacity to stay whole in a fragmented world.
Over our evolutionary history, these orientations guided how we lived, learned, and evolved as a species - anchors of presence. They help us see clearly, relate deeply, and act with integrity in uncertain times. Yet today, many of us find ourselves depleted of these ways of being — some might say, a little lost.
The Living Compass provides the understanding and framework for practice of the Orientations in an integrated and accessible way.
Why These Four Orientations?
Truth
Truth invites clear seeing—acknowledging what is real, even when it challenges comfort or identity. Across Domains of Relation, it asks us to meet life honestly: within ourselves (self-awareness), with others (transparency), and with nature (reality of consequence).
Freedom
Freedom awakens agency. It is the capacity to move with awareness and choice, to create from integrity rather than compulsion. Across domains, it calls us to align our actions and intentions so they serve life coherently.
Connection
Connection restores our felt sense of belonging. It deepens emotional and relational coherence, allowing us to sense interdependence and respond with empathy and care—within our bodies, our communities, and the living world.
Adventure
Adventure opens the field of possibility. It is our evolutionary impulse—the curiosity to explore, to adapt, and to learn through experience. Practiced consciously, it transforms uncertainty into vitality and renewal.
The Living Compass
The Living Compass shows how coherence lives through practice.
Each orientation is supported by awareness within the fields of movement and relationship. Movement includes the experience of each moment across Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual dimensions. Relationship includes the present engagement within the Domains of Self, Others, and Nature.
​
Together, these define where and how we engage with life - our existence. How we think and feel, how we move and relate, how we make meaning, and how we act in alignment.
​
At the center are the Core Capacities—Trusting, Interbeing, Vitality, Resilience, and Aligning—each one a readiness condition that enables the Orientations to stabilize in experience.
The Presence of Practice
Each orientation becomes real through lived experience.
They are the movements within the dimensions of our existence in the domains of our relationships. They are the awareness that reflexively understands the importance of our presence within them.
As we practice them through awareness our existence and capacities for living integrate naturally.
Coherence isn’t about perfection; it’s about participation.
It begins here, now, in how we meet this moment—and how we move within it.
For more on The Living Compass and The Life Framework.
The Practice of the Orientations
Coherence isn’t simply an idea — it’s a way of being.
At its essence, coherence is a living practice — a way of being that helps us stay clear, connected, and responsive in an uncertain world.
It’s grounded in four natural human orientations that once guided how we sensed reality, related to one another, adapted, explored, learned, and evolved:
​​
-
Truth
-
Connection
-
Freedom
-
Adventure
Each orientation is enabled through practices of presence and awareness that form the fundamentals of The Life Framework for both individuals and collectives. Together, they strengthen our capacity for coherence — within ourselves and with the natural and social environments we inhabit.
Learn more -> The Practice of the Orientations
