(W)alter ego: a journey of rediscovering my self

In this dissertation the author has explored how courage and compassion support personal change by encouraging the conditions to make new meaning and transform ways of being in the world, thereby developing capacity towards later stages of vertical development. Through courage, gently stepping into development edges and opening the possibility of something new emerging. And with self-compassion, staying longer with this emergence, prevailing through difficulties and failures, and growing in and with the anxiety this causes.

The inquiry comprises cycles of action, writing narratives and reflection in order to understand and explore experiences in the midst of significant moments of change. This journey develops a living inquiry into an as-yet-unknown, but fuller self, (re)discovering unrealised potential, personified as 'Walter'. This personification enables the inquirer to stand back and gain a second-person view of himself - a subject-object shift that enabled him to see, reflect and act on this more expansive perspective.

Through this inquiry the author explored working definitions of courage and self-compassion and how these supported his own vertical development; and how encouraging and having compassion with and for others could support their development also.

The dissertation aims to both 'show' (through excerpts of narrative writing, transcripts and other media) and ́tell' (through reflection and interpretation, linking to theory and meaning making). Through excerpts of narratives the dissertation tells the story of a changing ontology and epistemology, illustrates the methods used and demonstrates some of the changes that resulted.