ALL-INCLUSIVE FRAMEWORK FOR (MY LIFE and THEIRS) IN 21ST CENTURY

 Just read this detailed description of Integral Theory - even more convinced that this provides  a most intelligent framework for organizing my life and for helping friends who have been psychologically handicapped develop a plan for organizing theirs.  Part of its value: because it involves learning new ideas it will stimulate them intellectually; because it involves examination of the Self, society, etc. from their own perspectives it will remove their attention, temporarily, from their immediate emotional states and past traumas while affirming the value of all personal experiences including the traumatic ones; it will encourage them to create an integral life practice using body work, meditation and emotional discharge, journaling, and reading.

For myself, this has helped me resolve a dilemma: although I've eliminated sundry behavior patterns that interfered with my ability to accurately perceive reality, deal with the demands of life (I live with and provide loving assistance to a friend who suffers from Parkinson's disease which, for her, includes dementia), and form loving friendships and relationships, I have not yet developed the self-discipline and will to abandon a food addiction or to eliminate my immediate response to any non-emergency task: procrastination.  THIS pattern alone can cause damage to self and to others.  The solution to the dilemma is to recognize the fact that I, like my friends, must practice some objectification of my experience.  Emotional discharge brings relief from tension, raises my spirits and energizes me, and helps me recognize solutions to problems but it hasn't yet helped me with the aforementioned problems.  Therefore, I must do more self-distancing than I normally do and I can do this using the IL community as a distractor (think about the community and what others are accomplishing) while I practice body work (have done it only intermittently), meditation, reading, and journaling.

And journaling will be a "big deal" for me.  I journaled from 1968 - when I fell apart 23) to about 1989 when regular emotional discharge practice and psychotherapy with a loving individual who practiced social work and respected emotional discharge, seemed to complete my recovery.  (Wasn't "complete" but what the heck - I could handle reality well.)  So, back then I journaled until I was able to truly communicate with others and then I abandoned it because finally I could experience loneliness and journaling reminded me that I'd been lonely since birth having been born premature, resided in an incubator, gone home with my mom who was suffering from post partum depression, and soon lost the ability to feel empathy which meant I could not feel the love of others for me.

 So, although I associate journalizing with isolation and inability to communicate with others, I will remove my "fear" of it by journaling online as a part of our community.  The knowledge that I am in relationship with a body of individuals who intend to live full and meaningful lives using Integral Theory and Practice as a lynchpin, will help me use journaling as relationship rather than as withdrawal.  No one will have to read the journaling because of the "field effect" which to me simply means, "I know that I work with others to thrive and share the banquet of life as best I can with those in my own 'world' and I am therefore not alone."

I have no idea how IL stores all this data but fear that I'll use up so much "space" won't stop me.