Spiritual Intelligence: 21 Skills for Wisdom, Compassion, and Love in Action

“Spiritual intelligence is the ability to behave with wisdom and compassion while maintaining inner and outer peace regardless of the situation.”Cindy Wigglesworth

Cindy Wigglesworth, trailblazer in the field of spiritual intelligence, has created an assessment tool that identifies our spiritual strengths and weaknesses — qualities that fall outside the traditional IQ or emotional intelligence (EQ) parameters — in order to provide a guide for determining which skills we as individuals need to develop in order to show up in the world as love in action. Early on, Cindy recognized the profound benefits that both spiritual practice and EQ assessments had in her leadership development work, wishing only there was a map similar to what EQ offers but going one step higher, to lead people in the realm of spiritual development. So she created a multidimensional self-assessment tool to do just that, wrote the book SQ21: The 21 Skills of Spiritual Intelligence, and founded the global leadership development network Deep Change.

Cindy’s dedication, brilliant intellect, integral understanding, and the effects of a lifetime of spiritual motivation and practice are abundantly evident in this warmly personal, articulate, and inspiring conversation about spirituality and how we can come to embody the values we aspire to. It’s easy to love people in the abstract, Cindy points out, but how we actually behave is what’s critical. What would love see? she asks, when talking about the practice of reframing. As co-host John Dupuy said, this conversation is like “an infusion of spiritual vitamins.” It’s also very timely—Cindy reflects that spiritual intelligence skills and learning how to sustain faith are more important than ever in these times of polarization and crisis.

Recorded July 18, 2024.
Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Heidi Mitchell

Topics & Timestamps

Introducing Cindy Wigglesworth, world authority on spirituality, creator of the SQ21 assessment that measures spiritual intelligence (01:25)
How did Cindy come to focus on the field of spiritual intelligence? (04:18)
Cindy’s existential quest began with moving to India at the age of six (05:59)
Leadership development skills benefit directly from spiritual practice (10:08)
Discovering Goleman & Boyatzis’ work on emotional intelligence (EQ)—where was the equivalent on spiritual intelligence? (11:58)
Defining the terms spirituality and spiritual intelligence (15:21)
Spiritual intelligence = love in action (18:21)
State experiences are not sufficient for showing up as love in the world (20:35)
Exemplars of spiritual intelligence and the quality of equanimity (21:53)
The road to a pluralistic understanding of Christianity (24:49)
Inheriting both strengths & weaknesses of her parents (29:40)
Cindy’s SQ model emulates the EQ model with 4 quadrants (31:05)
How Cindy developed the 21 skills and survey for her SQ assessment (32:56)
A positive age correlation for skills, which grow over time, is essential (36:00)
What strikes Cindy having given this test to so many? The 3 levels of value (37:06)
The SQ test can uncover weak foundations under skills people thought they had down (39:59)
How has Cindy’s understanding of spirituality changed during this process? (41:26)
Spiral Dynamics’ stages of development: we are all playing chords of a melody of colors (42:43)
SQ assessment levels’ relationship with developmental stages (46:35)
Do certain practices help with building these skills? Reframing skills are Cindy’s favorite: What would love see? (49:32)
Exchanging self with other: practicing with Trump and the current political situation (54:45)
Cindy’s website and resources (59:04)
How does religion factor into this and the importance of sustaining faith in these difficult times (1:00:19)

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About the Deep Transformation series

We are clearly in a new era, facing world-threatening challenges and graced with barely conceivable opportunities. In this mind-boggling new world, we all face two crucial questions:

First, the ever-present conundrum of how to best live fully, deeply, wisely, and well.
Second, the new question unique to our times, how to best understand and heal our endangered world.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear responses to these questions from some of the great consciousness pioneers—the outstanding thinkers, sages, scientists, and activists—of our time? These are the people and conversations that Deep Transformation offers.

Deep Transformation: Self-Society-Spirit draws on diverse ideas from around the world. It goes beyond traditional positions and polarities—beyond left and right, material and spiritual—to seek syntheses of deep wisdom and practical know-how that integrate the best of all positions.

Click here to learn more about Deep Transformation!

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About Cindy Wigglesworth

Cindy Wigglesworth, MA is the author of SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence (SelectBooks, Oct.2012) and is the creator of the SQ21™ Spiritual Intelligence self-assessment. Cindy founded her business, now called Deep Change, in 2000 after working at ExxonMobil for 20 years in Human Resources management. She teaches leadership development and focuses on the multiple intelligences required for success in our personal and professional lives. She trains executive and life coaches, therapists and spiritual directors to use her SQ21 tool in their practices.

About John Dupuy

John Dupuy is co-founder and CEO of iAwake Technologies, a company that creates cutting-edge, high-tech brainwave entrainment soundtracks that support the healing of emotional/shadow issues, deepen meditation, mental focus, creativity, and flow states, and enhance a daily integral transformative practice. John has been working personally and professionally with brainwave entrainment technology since 2004, and travels internationally to teach and inspire on the subjects of Integral Transformative Practice and Integral Recovery®. John is also the author of Integral Recovery: A Revolutionary Approach to the Treatment of Alcoholism and Addiction (SUNY Press, 2013), winner of the 2013 USA Best Book Award, and co-host of the popular Journey of Integral Recovery podcast. John also hosts the online series Spiritual Tech Talks 2.0, in which he converses with leaders, pioneers, and inventors on the current wave of emerging spiritual technologies.

About Roger Walsh

Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., has spent nearly a quarter century researching and practicing in the world's great spiritual traditions. His critically acclaimed book, Essential Spirituality, is a summary of that wisdom, outlining the seven spiritual practices common to the world's major religions.