ILP and Men's Shadow Work: A Powerful Combination

The men's Integral Life Practice (ILP) group that I organized moves into its third meeting on Monday, and we're holding our first open meeting to open the doors to new members. I've been speaking with several prospective new members about the sort of experience they would find, and learning about the gifts offered by ILP to men's work, and vice versa. Nobody that I've talked to has been in an ILP group before, though they are all experienced in Integration Groups sponsored by The ManKind Project, a men's organization that conducts weekend experiential retreats called the New Warrior Training Adventure.

MKP's I-Groups for men are not ILP groups, and all of us involved in this venture are sorting through the differences and common ground. Men's groups today sponsored by organizations such as MKP are designed around the principles of the mythopoetic men's movement, and many of the protocols have been inspired by the poetry of Robert Bly, the mythic archetypal studies of Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, and the foundational handbook A Circle of Men by Bill Kauth, one of the founders of MKP.

The groups have served men from all ages, races, and walks of life, but in practice have attracted mainly white middle-class men over 40, many of whom are motivated to become more in touch with feelings and control their anger. Like some other groups arising from the human potential movement, they combine Jungian psychology, Gestalt therapy, Twelve Step principles, feminist consciousness raising circles, and rituals adapted from Native American sources.

They offer powerful gifts to men, benefits that I have received time and again for many years; yet they are not containers designed for truly Integral work.

Men's work focuses almost entirely on the ethos of "eating the shadow" (to use Bly's memorable phrase). The basic idea is that men's unconscious impulses imperil emotionally mature behavior and sabatoge good intentions, and that men can grow by receiving non-shaming but strong feedback from other men show help him to spot his shadow. They create a safe emotional space for men to become vulnerable and intimate with each other, practice emotionally balanced and healthy communications, and support each other in living accountably in the world.

As containers for shadow work, they very often succeed. But the focus on the dark side--unearthing buried wounds and healing/reframing the traumas from childhood and early adolescence in a new light--is a limited methodology. That's where ILP offers a rejuvenating and liberating perspective for a men's group.

Our group will begin every meeting with about 10 minutes of exercises to energize the causal, subtle, and gross bodies and dedicate our work to the service of all sentient beings. We will continue to build intimacy and trust by allowing space and time for communicating feelings, highlighting the issues that arise for men in our daily lives, and processing disputes and emotionally charged reactions some men have with other men. From there, we will devote part of the evening to applying the AQAL Framework to our daily life: exploring how it illuminates the "spiritual cross-training" that forms the core of our Practice. Next, we will devote part of the meeting to shadow work, marrying traditional men's work methodologies with supplemental technologies formulated by Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute. Finally, we will close each meeting by reengaging our causal bodies through group meditation.

Just as ILP makes men's work better by making it a more comprehensive vehicle for personal and spiritual development, men's work strengthens the ILP. Our group will utilize some of the mythic archetypes (Warrior, King, Magician, Lover) that men have come to embrace and find useful. Also we will benefit from the men's movement emphasis on mission, integrity, service, and accountability. Too often integrally informed groups come up short in recognizing the important place for making promises to one's self and others and living truly to them. In these ways and others, men's work and ILP can create a powerful vehicle for development.

Joe Perez is a Seattle-based writer and CEO of Writing Wolf, an editorial consulting firm.