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The Four Steps of Creative Ecstasy

Posted January 17th, 2012 | 27 Comments

 
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Dear friends:

On behalf of Ken and the entire Integral Life and Integral Institute staff I’d like to wish you the very best in this New Year. As ever, we are grateful to you for your love and support of the integral movement and the many ways you’re exemplifying wholeness for a world in transition.

As you take on new things this year I’d like to offer you what I learned in 2011 about how to integrate one’s work in the world with the stillness of a spiritual practice, a question that was raised frequently a few weeks ago at ISE 3: Kosmic Creativity. The question always boiled down to this: How do I help to change the world while also not needing to change it? How do I integrate my creative passion while also cultivating my spiritual peace?

These two ends of the spectrum—deep passionate engagement to something larger than ourselves and enough detachment to not become part of the problem—often seem to be at odds with each other. And yet they are profoundly important questions at a time when the world’s prevailing systems—from economic to education to healthcare—are disintegrating because their current stage of operating is neither complex enough nor conscious enough to meet the life conditions of the 21st century. At ISE 3 I briefly mentioned “four rules of creative ecstasy” and below I offer you a specific praxis of how I achieve this balance (haha, on my good days).

The Four Steps of Creative Ecstasy


Here is a brief summary of the steps, after which I’ll describe how they are also a deep spiritual map of working both in and on a world in transition:

  • Be unflinchingly honest with yourself and others about who you are and what you are called to do. It is unique and valuable, and at its core will be driven by love as all creativity is.
  • Take radical responsibility for that vision and never rely on validation from others in order to execute it; your vision is fully your responsibility.
  • Tap the self-emptying courage required when the terror of that responsibility meets you face to face and forces you to surrender your ego into that fear.
  • Cultivate the affectionate detachment to the results of your actions that will sustain your presence and courage and ultimately keep your vision fresh, alive and unstoppable.


These four steps represent a cycle that compels an ongoing integration between emptiness and form, between the peace of resting in stillness (no mind) and the passion of executing one’s uniqueness (my mind).


Here is the cycle in greater detail. As you read notice the movement into stillness and out to motion. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Let’s start by bringing motion to rest.

Step 1: Unflinching Honesty

Rest in emptiness in order to cultivate unflinching honesty.


Let go of who you think you are or want to be in order for the truth of who you really are to emerge. You are timeless, spacious and ever-present. From here there is no fear, nothing to be achieved, nothing to be gained. Nothing ever happens. As Junpo Roshi says, “now we’re getting nowhere.” The ability to be absolutely honest arises from a deep practice of emptiness because deception cannot survive without duality.


When you start to differentiate the stories your ego tells you about what you want and the truth of what lies deeper beneath, a funny thing begins to happen: you start to get unflinchingly honest about who you are and what you really are called to do. Not as a clinging, grasping or needy desire to become something different, but a deep and mature recognition that you have a unique vision and to admit merely that it is so. This move brings you into a powerful and grounded posture of responsibility to the world as we know it, that of evolutionary form. We shift from Nirguna Brahman here to Saguna Brahman, next.

Step 2: Radical Responsibility

Embrace form in order to take responsibility.


If you don’t know what you’ll die for, you won’t know what you’re alive for. You will feel fully alive when you’ve told the truth about who you are (step 1) and you’ve taken complete responsibility for your unique vision (step 2). Getting out there on the edge of your own capability and daring to say to yourself exactly why you live is simply the most powerful and sure proof way to feel fulfilled. Said simply, it’s easy to take responsibility when there’s no risk or fear; this step is about seeking responsibility precisely where it becomes it’s scariest and hardest to do so. It will be irresistibly exciting.

Really you have no choice than to be that which you are. You have a unique vision and when it derives from a place of stillness it will, in its essence, be love by any other name. You might call it your unique self. Take full responsibility for it. No one needs to validate your uniqueness or your vision. The more powerfully situated in love that it is—consider Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi here—the more people will feel called towards it. (But be careful not to mistake your individual responsibility with social regard from others, an instant ego trap that will make step 3 very hard.)

In my experience, when done properly there should be the onset of a feeling of terror. Not a “Nightmare on Elm Street” kind of terror but an awesome, exciting terror that you have found your edge: you are staring into the abyss being called to do something you have no guarantee you can do or whether you’ll succeed. Unfortunately, with that excitement usually comes an over-attachment to a new story of yourself and a new self-identity. Now the hard part … you have to let it go. It’s time to move back to Nirguna Brahman.

Step 3: Self-Emptying Courage

Rest again in emptiness to tap courage beyond self.


There is only one way through the terror of taking full, personal responsibility for your deepest vision, which is to tap the inexhaustible courage that comes from letting go of the results of your actions. Which means letting go, again, of who you think you are. It is counter-intuitive that it takes courage in order to act fully with affectionate detachment (coming in step 4). But this is the proverbial leap of faith: the decision, sourced quietly in the stillness of your heart (for it is rooted there), to let go of your story, your vision and your need to be anything other than what you already are. Done properly, this will bring another kind of terror: “I won’t amount to anything.” “How can I be happy if I let go?” “Won’t I just fall into a mush of nothingness?” “Will I be bored?” “What about my damn vision!?” and a hundred other terrifying prospects.

This third step is the hard part. It’s where many of us get stuck and where the ego loves to keep us stuck. As we know, it’s easy to be passionate about something if we’re curious. It’s even easier to be indifferent about everything if we’re cynical. The magic, the real tricky bit of a life in practice, is to be so wildly passionate about something that you’re indifferent about nothing and in turn not attached to anything. Give that some thought. Then let the thoughts go, because it’s time to get busy.

Step 4: Affectionate Detachment

Embrace form while resting in emptiness to act with affectionate detachment.


You’re now ready to act. Acting without being attached to the result is the height of artistry and creative flow. Affectionate detachment will sustain your presence and courage and keep your vision fresh, alive and unstoppable. Here is the mantra: Expend energy, not effort. The real giveaway when you’re attached to your actions as downstream outcomes is when you are struggling with effort. By my usage, effort implies psychological and emotional strain. Expending energy can be intense, even physically taxing, but it need not be hard. If you find your energy is becoming effort, reexamine where you’re attached to outcomes and go back to practice in step 3.

For some real practice, see if you can generate real, genuine passion about a complete failure of your vision. How might your failure lead to a more profound success for the next effort of its kind? How can you possibly know? We love to imagine that if we achieve what is in our mind’s eye all will be well. What fools we are! We simply do not have the wisdom or the prescience to know what a certain happy future looks like. We only ever know what causes suffering in the present, and it always is when we hijack the present with our imaginative future fantasies or our retrospective memories. By acting from a place founded in the first three steps, our actions, vision and determination remain fresh, centered and alive. And because we’re not fatigued by the slings and arrows of disappointed expectations, our energy remains abundant.

Many people will think that this step is very hard, but I contend that if you stay deep in practice in step 3, you’re already partly home for step 4. Step 4 is about acting fully and forcefully from emptiness. It is not weak, soft or limp. It is focused, passionate and engaged. And yet it also allows what will come and lets go moment by moment. It allows a deeper intelligence in the fabric of reality to work how it will. It is humble yet strong and the power one can feel from someone in this space is JUST…PLAIN…AWESOME.

(The video to watch here is Jill Bolte Taylor’s presentation at TED. Watch how she led an audience that was still largely afraid of tapping stillness and the way in which it moved them beyond themselves with her courage.)

I’d like to think that in the 22nd century an embodiment of this cycle will be minimally required of a future “President of the United Nations.” Indeed it is pivotal to how power and leadership is crafting the world we know and so far the record is very mixed. Just imagine if the leaders of the 20 largest nations and the 20 largest companies in the world were able to articulate a compelling vision in service to love, have the courage to stand up for it against all odds, and most importantly encourage it to find its healthy expression through an example of non-grasping, non-attached leadership that inspired others to do the same. The result might be a natural upwelling of “right action,” selfless and loving service that acted with discernment and precision in the moment but then allowed the next moment to be encountered afresh.

So let me close with a provocative idea: these leaders need their own leaders to look up to and follow. I’d invite you to consider the very real possibility that one of these people, the person who these CEOs, world leaders, and even community leaders can look up to—a person who is setting a groundbreaking example of leading from love, a person who is integrating passion and peace in a serious and focused way, a person who is moving the needle for a world in transition, that this person, this unique individual leading from creative ecsasty, is none other than you. And that 2012 is the year in which you tap the courage and engage the practice to do so.

Here is wishing you a terribly exciting 2012. Go get on the edge and stay there.

Warm new year regards,

Robb Smith

*Photograph taken by Mathias Weitbrecht at Integral Spiritual Experience 3

 

 
     
 

Robb Smith

Robb Smith is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Integral Life, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer of Integral Institute, Inc. Previously, Robb pioneered Nevada's technology economy by founding Nevada Ventures, the state's first venture capital fund. He was a director of Alere Medical, a three-time "Inc. 500" awardee and was Nevada's Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

  
     
 

 

 

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Where I Stand

Posted September 13th, 2011 | 120 Comments

 
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Dear friends:

I found out about Bill Harryman’s allegations against Marc Gafni about 3 weeks ago. Though I was surprised that, like those of 5 years ago, they involved the intersection of sex and manipulation, at Integral Life we have for the past year been separating our activities from those of Marc. Our separation over the past year obviously did not derive from this recent scandal; long ago it became clear to us that we moved through the world in very different ways. Integral Life and Integral Institute have discontinued support of Center for World Spirituality and almost a year ago we decided to make ISE 3 our last year as a partnership with I-Evolve.

After talking directly to Tami Simon about the recent situation, it was clear to me that Integral Life was a bystander to the recent allegations and couldn’t make a preemptive or unilateral statement involving a situation in which we weren’t involved. But, as I described to Tami, I am tired of running to the scene of a fire and finding a spiritual teacher holding matches. I will not stand by and let Integral Life’s community (and integral theory’s reputation in the world) die of smoke inhalation. I just will not let our organizations be associated with this kind of reckless controversy. We aren’t big on wielding power unnecessarily but we will keep fire starters away from our home.

In a conversation with Diane Hamilton yesterday she pointed out that perspectives are limitless but that action is singular and concrete. So although the Integral Life team has taken many perspectives on this situation, we stand by our actions. They include the following.

  • By mutual agreement with I-Evolve, Integral Life has assumed full control and responsibility for ISE 3 as of last week. We’ve already established an awesome new event leadership team and will be announcing the new design in coming weeks. (Suffice it to say that everyone on the team is ecstatic that the event will refocus on Ken Wilber’s unique architecture of creativity as a living praxis in our lives.)
  • We have removed Marc’s contributor pages on Integral Life as we prepare to migrate the site to its new design in coming months.
  • I have asked that a formal “Policy of Ethics” be put in place for all contributors to Integral Life by end of Q1 2012.


When I wrote on Facebook this morning that I appreciate Bill Harryman’s contribution to this community I really meant it. I think Bill is right to call me to account for my rationale of inviting Marc Gafni back into the community 3 years ago. I see his point and believe that I understand it. As of right now I don’t hold tightly the idea that it was the right call. But I think it was. Just as the justice system is designed to let ten guilty men go free rather than allow one innocent man go wrongly sentenced, I insist on first-hand experience that I can stand by in my judgment of someone's character. I have it, and have acted on it.

What I appreciate about these situations, as painful as they might be for some to go through, is that they allow us as a community to engage in a process of learning and making an object of whatever lessons are to be learned. Unlike some I don’t think these issues, for the most part, are shadow for the integral community. On the contrary, I’m impressed that we see them in a relatively clear way and can talk about them as freely and with as much ethical nuance as they probably deserve. That’s a big deal. And as many have pointed out, these issues are not confined to the integral community, they occur absolutely everywhere. But I think we can rise to the challenge and do an exemplary job of exploring them in a transparent way. It is in this vein that I have asked the Integral Life team to identify a panel of expert contributors who can lead a recorded public discussion to be published on Integral Life next year about sex and spirituality.

I’ll close by stating that my intention is not now, nor ever has been, to cause more suffering for Marc Gafni or the women involved. He is possessed of a brilliant mind and a powerful capacity for 2nd person transmission. I have enjoyed him as a person and have called him a friend. But I have told him directly that I do not support him in a leadership capacity and will not associate Integral Life or Integral Institute with any organization that does. Nevertheless, it remains my hope that he find what will serve him most deeply.

Loving regards,

Robb Smith

 

 
     
 

Robb Smith

Robb Smith is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Integral Life, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer of Integral Institute, Inc. Previously, Robb pioneered Nevada's technology economy by founding Nevada Ventures, the state's first venture capital fund. He was a director of Alere Medical, a three-time "Inc. 500" awardee and was Nevada's Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

  
     
 

 

 

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Wishing You a Happy Holiday and a Very Happy New Year

Posted December 25th, 2010 | 7 Comments

Dear friends,

On behalf of the entire team at Integral Life and Integral Institute, we want to wish you a very warm holiday and a happy New Year.  Thank you for your support, commitment and love as together we continue to build a global community dedicated to the wholeness and fullness of human life.
 

We live in exciting, volatile and challenging times.  It seems that with every passing month we encounter the schisms of a civilization that is confronting the limitations of its present modes of understanding and operating.  And yet we also know that within every challenge and constraint hides a deep transformative impulse to new ways of being.  In short, yet another year has passed that is challenging a globalizing and increasingly connected human family to learn how to love and share a precious and finite world.  
 

We think that integral knowledge and practices can offer simple yet profound lessons on how to facilitate this growth process, and we are deeply grateful that you are with us for the journey. We continue to learn and grow ourselves, and we’re thrilled that in 2011 we will be bringing some major changes to the IntegralLife.com community. (More on that soon!)
 

As you bring your year to a close, we invite you to reflect on the great blessings of your life.  Every day fill your heart with gratitude.  Every day construct your actions of kindness. Every day practice love.  And remember that every day, every moment, the Simple Feeling of Wholeness is always-already our greatest inheritance, that nothing you can do now or ever will make you more whole.  
 

Let us stoke this radiant way of being in ourselves and in each other.  Let us light the world as we welcome the New Year.
 

Warm holiday wishes,

               

Ken Wilber                     Robb Smith

 

P.S. If you’d like to engage in a New Year practice of intention-setting for the coming year, download this practice.

 

 



My Shadow at the In-formation Frontier

Posted December 19th, 2010 | 12 Comments

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Hey friends,

 "Where am I resisting reality right now? That is my in-formation frontier. I listen as if my life depends on it."

That was the question posed in my tweet sent yesterday, and the reply on my Facebook thread from Natalie Lamb asked how I structure my practice to handle the "fight or flight" reaction that arises when I get really triggered by the answer.

For context, here is the tweet and the lead-up to my reply:

"Where am I resisting reality right now? That is my in-formation frontier. I listen as if my life depends on it."

In reply, Natalie Lamb and I then exchanged the following:

NL: And when you've heard?


RS:  Natalie, the very act of noticing/listening turns the subject-ive information into object-ive information, which in turn creates the transformative moment of in-formation. The practice then becomes repeating this, over and over and over. It ends up in a hacked version of a non-dual mantra: I and reality are one, I am the in-formation that reality is up to in this moment.


Of course when it taps into a deep seated well of previously rejected in-formation, aka shadow, than the conditioning is to resist, reject and fight or flight. Then I move into a practice that seeks to expand the boundary of the self while reintegrating what's been left behind.


Finally, often the result is that the in-formation is that there is a good reason for the resistance, that I have some significant objection to what's afoot. Then my practice is to become the evolutionary force that changes reality, but, importantly, not getting stuck in last moment's prescription. Always staying open to new in-formation. Hopefully laughing all the way.


NL: Robb - in your fight/flight/freeze what's your practice to expand the boundary, and the practice for embracing and integrating?


What follows is my reply to Natalie's last question.


I suspect for all of us this is among the trickiest territory of our lives, when we've been triggered and now we've dropped into the resist, reject or flight or fight mode.  It certainly is for me.  The practices that I engage are nothing new, just things that I find helpful.  I lay them out in order from the moment the state is coming on.


First, awareness.  The first thing that I do, and it's been a a constant practice to develop this skill, is to catch the state when it's coming on.  I don't try to stop it, I just notice when my body is enacting in-formation that is challenging.  (I like the image of my body literally being in formation to a new state that is trying to tell me something if I would just shut up and listen.  It is literally life saving information for reasons I outline next.)  The physiology is obvious if we weren't so conditioned to it: breathing gets shallow and quicker; the adrenal glands start pumping small injections of adrenaline to prepare the body for fight or flight; the mind starts to race; the limbic system takes over and strong emotions become the dominant mode of being (as opposed to stillness, contemplation, thoughtfulness etc.).  I also know that my cortisol levels are going up, which will increase long-term heart cardiovascular risks and propensity to obesity, and my oxytocin levels are going down, decreasing my biological capacity for compassion, empathy and ability to relate to others.

PRACTICE: I simply try to notice the state arriving and to be mindful of the breath.  I purposely try to slow and deepen the breath.  My mantra at this moment is: "Wow, what a fascinating reaction. What am I resisting about the future in this very moment?" I also purposely look around at my environment, which instantly forces me to widen my view of reality.  I notice my surroundings, perhaps look outside.  This draws my mind outward from the natural egocentricity of the state.


Next, openness.  After I've stabilized a modicum of equanimity within the turmoil (which by no means is gone at this point, I've merely blunted its razor sharp edge a bit), I work to open to the in-formation I'm being given.  Let me repeat from above: 

the very act of noticing/listening turns the subject-ive information into object-ive information, which in turn creates the transformative moment of in-formation. The practice then ... ends up in a hacked version of a non-dual mantra: I and reality are one, I am the in-formation that reality is up to in this moment.  


So I'm tweaked and my body is telling me so.  I now just remind myself that this pain is my friend and I welcome it.  This is not some new age tripe.  It is a fact that I either pay now or pay bigger later: my body doesn't like this present experience and I'm suffering because of it.  If it's due to undigested past experience (shadow) then I better not create more right now.  The things we get tweaked about compound over time, in my experience (they do seem to mellow as we forget about them, but then they pop up in even larger strange ways later).  As a financial investor I believe in the time value of money and compounding returns through the years; as an investor in my own well-being I believe the same.  So I welcome the fact that in my suffering right now is some information my body wants me to work on and that will benefit me over the coming years.

PRACTICE: The first practice at this point is to come back to the breath and identify where I'm feeling the pain.  For me it's often a clinching in the deep upper belly accompanied by adrenaline that continues to recur when I picture the triggering event.  I just sit with it for a moment and am grateful that I can be with this horrible feeling right now.  Yes, it sucks, and wow isn't it cool that I'm alive and can experience anything at all? 


PRACTICE: The next practice I engage at this point may only make sense to me, but it really helps to settle my mind.  I call this my "Simple Feeling of Wholeness" practice.  I remind myself that I am suffering right now because in my mind-projection I am not feeling whole. I am feeling incomplete.  I remind myself of something that at other times I know and is my normal state of being: that in this moment and all moments I am whole. It is a simple statement that I say to myself:


"Nothing I can do now or ever will make me more whole."  


I don't precisely know why, but this always calms my mind.  I believe it has something to do with the way our practice life has to be custom-fitted, like a great pair of ski boots or a knee brace or a tailored suit, to our particular AQAL Constellation and personal history.  To some degree I believe we have to tailor our mantras and practices to those unique triggers that for whatever reason just have a unique effect on us.  I'll get into the A/C in a bit.


(Technically, I might increase the scope of the whole over time, that is increase the scope of reality with which I can identify, but never can I become more whole.  Of course, if someone has not had a realization then this is not "true" from their reference frame as they haven't awakened to their innate wholeness.)


Finally, integration. OK, so now I'm aware of the state, and I've identified its place in my body and welcomed it.  That whole process took about 1 minute so far.  It was really just the ante to be in the game of processing what's really going on, which is where we integrate the experience.


I should start here by saying that there are dozens of practices people can use to actually make sense of and integrate painful experience.  People use journaling, body work, fitness and exercise, creative endeavors, therapy and many other domains of practice to get at this part.  What I do is perhaps sort of a feeble process compared to most of these, and again I am only sharing what I do.  (I'd suggest that a good use of the comments field on this post is a discussion of what your favorite methods are.)


When it comes to integrating my in-formation state, I have to come to a nuanced but important conclusion before I can proceed: is my reaction, say to fight or flee, based on 1) a real harm that has befallen me or 2) on undigested past in-formation (shadow)?  And in what ways is my unique AQAL Constellation coloring that conclusion and the dynamic?  I say more about each of these below.


1. Let me start with whether I'm encountering real harm.  


Real harm, short of actual physical injury and pain, is always simply boundary violation.  Now it's popular to remind ourselves that an ego-less way of being doesn't have boundaries to violate and therefore we should work to do away with the ego, but that's something that Ken Wilber and others have pretty well demolished.  We all have egos and I think the work is to make the boundary both really subtle and really so expansive that we are able to identify with and beyond most transgressions.  H.H. Dalai Lama's position on Tibet is really about as profound as it gets on this point, from what I can tell.  And as Krishnamurti summarized: "I don't mind what happens." (I'm not equating the two views, by the way.)  Due to many years of practicing the way I'm outlining in this post, I have become capable of forgiving people for a huge amount of boundary violation.  

PRACTICE: The practice for me here is the one from part 2: I remind myself that I am not less whole when people act out because they haven't realized their own and act out of their perceived sense of isolation.  


This is all about compassion. All people feel some version of lack, loneliness, scared, isolation, confusion, terror and impermanence.  Through a life of practice we can grow out of most of these to the point where they are virtually gone, and certainly where they don't dictate our behavior, but most people have not.  Reality is terrifying.  In its overwhelming majesty, in its incalculable mystery.  Yeah, compassion is good.


AND, some people are consistently problematic.  Their particular game to play out is that they will crash through boundaries of civility, convention, agency, personal space, etc.  They need and deserve compassion.  But they may also need isolation, rejection from the community, hard and direct communication, behavior modification, and many other prescriptions.  So the discernment that has to be exercised in thinking about the harm I'm going through is to what extent it is being caused by another person's willful boundary violations.  If they are willful and harmful, I may still do the work on expanding my own ego boundary but I have no problem with moving into a very firm mode of conflict resolution. (That's really a whole new topic that I'll leave to another day but gets at the heart of the problem of integral leadership in a post-conventional worldspace, where convention by definition means boundary.)


2. Next I proceed to my shadow.  


I know what my shadow is and have remembered feeling it since I was 6 years old.  Or, perhaps more accurately, I know what it has been.  And yet I am always discovering the more and more subtle ways it manifests next even as I bring yesterday's version into the light.  It's a lifelong relationship, and I've learned to love the ways my shadow helps to cultivates my uniqueness.  This doesn't mean I'm always proud of it, pretty much never so, but I appreciate what it's doing in the real texture of my life and my contribution to the world. 

PRACTICE: The practice I engage in to discover how my shadow may be showing up in my fight or flee reaction is a hacked version of voice dialogue grafted on a lifeline archaeology.  Because I have identified where in my body the reaction resides, I quickly check-in with what voice is dominant around that pain.  It may be the voice of envy, the voice of lack, the voice of loneliness etc.  Mine is almost always the voice of lack. (I'll come back to my AQAL Constellation, which bears on this, in a moment.)  So I do a quick archaeology of my personal history and check-in with the experiences where I have also felt that voice strongly.  I sit in the space of those prior events and really feel where that voice has gotten its validation throughout my life.  I go back as far as I can and try to "look as" my younger self caught in that voice.  I really sit with the pain and frustration of those experiences.


Then I switch perspectives to a much older and wiser version of me, right here and now, and "look at" those same moments.  I breathe all the compassion and love and wisdom of my present self into my memories of a younger self until the gap between my "looking as" self and "looking at" self begins to close.  My younger self gets wholer, wiser, and less hurt.  The painful voice diminishes in volume and intensity, even sincerity. Present state wholeness begins to infuse my former stage partialness.  Healing is underway.


There are a lot variations on this practice but it always comes back to bringing my present power to a past partiality and re-full-filling my past.

META-PRACTICE: A deep inner-sangha is also critical for working with my shadow.  I have a trusted group of friends and advisers who I can share anything with who will give me honest and very informed perspectives on what I'm seeing, what I'm missing, and where my responsibility lies.  Even though they each have their own their shadow, I know and they know enough about their own shadow that it doesn't color or prejudice the feedback they give me.  Therefore, there are no interpersonal games of power and a precious foundation of trust is deepened over time.  This is my community of the adequate, and it includes 4 people who are all turquoise or indigo in their stabilized self-construction.  This is also important in my experience in creating an inner sangha: having people who are peers in terms of meaning-making structure as well as a person or two who can see and enact beyond where I am now.


3. Finally, I'll finish with how my AQAL Constellation might color my prejudices and reactions to all of the above.  


I think knowledge of one's AQAL Constellation is critical to being to able to "look at" one's own current unique way of being.  It sheds a lot of light on what I will be naturally inclined to see or miss and what actions and reactions will come instinctually to me in any given situation.  I have discovered mine over time by working with the Integral Life team, our Certified Integral Coaches and by working with developmental testing support services (like Theo Dawson's DTS or Bill Torbert's Harthill Consulting).  Please understand that this is meant just to be a very brief snapshot, as a full treatment could be a book-length project.


Native perspective: My "home base" perspective: Lower-right "systems" view as primary, and upper-left "subjective" view as secondary.  I am aware that I have a natural facility to see the big picture quickly.  But when big picture combines with a subjective bias I am also aware that I have a blind spot in considering how my own actions (UR) might have promulgated the situation I'm in and also the views and experience of others in the process (LL).
 

PRACTICE: Because of these natural blindspots my practice tends to be to consciously remind myself to take broader responsibility for when I get triggered.  Not responsibility for the mere fact of being triggered, but responsibility for how I may have blindly created the conditions for the situation in the first place by not analyzing thoroughly enough the impact of my actions on the perspectives and action-logics of others.


States: I have a strong bias towards cognitive thinking states and also observer witness states.  Like Huy Lam pointed out here about himself, I can always hang out in empty awareness if the going gets rough.

PRACTICE: Because of these natural tendencies my practice tends to try to come forward emotionally and take deeper responsibility for the emotional space I'm helping to create.  This can be as simple, and as frequent, as me taking responsibility (in a fun way) for trying to brighten the space of the Starbuck's barista who serves me my vanilla-soy chai tea misto (yes, I am that lame). 


Typology: I am an Enneagram 8 with a 7 wing.  I have a powerful throw weight in terms of setting the emotional climate of a room (something I really had no idea about until the past few years when people pointed this out to me) and am able to set and maintain very powerful boundaries.  I have a love for variety and need a high degree of stimulation in my life.  I also believe that DNA must have something to it, because as a descendant of Martin Luther, I am also naturally inclined to creating and leading personal and social disruption. (This doesn't mean I'm good at it, just that I don't really notice some of the things that other types might find fearful.)  Referencing the above, I am not inclined to take personal offense when people break through my boundaries, in part because I've learned to hold my boundaries as very flexible.  As an 8, the only way one can grow is to learn to relax boundaries, otherwise you end up as either an asshole or arrogant (mine was arrogance).

PRACTICE: Because of these natural tendencies my practice has emphasized letting others take the lead role in projects and trying to play more of a background role myself.


(Levels and lines: Perhaps one of the juicier parts of the A/C for this community, I will leave this to another day.)


I'll conclude where I started:


"Where am I resisting reality right now? That is my in-formation frontier. I listen as if my life depends on it." 

I do take the process I've outlined above very seriously, because it is my belief that the total quality of my life does in fact depend directly on it.  I hope you can find something useful or stimulating in this brief walkthrough, and hopefully we'll hear about your most effective practices in the discussion thread to this post.


Warm regards,
Robb

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My Daily Insights - God Help You!

Posted December 3rd, 2010 | 6 Comments

Hey all,

Even though I've had a Twitter feed since Twitter got started in 2006 I never published it because I wasn't very active.  Now that I've started to crank it up I thought I'd share it in case you wanted to subject yourself to the punishment of my daily insights and outsights. Some of it is pure drivel but my 3 year old says some of it is even worse.

http://twitter.com/RobbSmith

If you join, well, welcome to the pleasure dome.

Love,

Robb 



Sarah Palin & Larry King on Integral Politics

Posted November 1st, 2010 | 4 Comments

This is my contribution to the integral blogosphere this election season  

Best,

Robb



In Over My Head

Posted August 31st, 2010 | 42 Comments

[This month’s letter comes from an excerpted transcript of Robb’s speech at Integral Theory Conference last month.]

 
“Good evening.  I keep wondering: How do I address this group?  You are all way too smart.  My hobbies are cooking and weightlifting and playing with my toddlers.  What can I offer you?  
 
Well I’m not sure, so I decided instead to just invite you to share your notes with mine.  Here are a few things I’ve learned in this role that I’ve held for the past three-and-a-half years, and perhaps there will be resonance in our mutual journey.  
 
I very much believe that everyone in this room is an integral leader.  And I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m in over my head.  On that note, I’d like to appreciate Bob Kegan, a dear friend of the integral vision, for being here tonight and graciously sharing his wisdom with us.  Thank you Bob.
 
What makes our calling unique, among other things, is that Integral leadership requires that we bring our innate joy of being into the commitment to alleviate suffering.  At the core of each and every person in this room is a deep, profound and unwavering commitment to alleviate suffering wherever we tread.  That we bring forward others’ suffering in our hearts in order to feel our commitment more deeply only makes ours the more so.  
 
We peer far and wide into the inter-workings of humankind and what we see leaves us breathless: so much beauty, and much pain.  
 
We roam instantly over our beautiful planet in our minds, imagining the water shortage in Zambia and the slave in Bangkok, the deforestation in the Amazon and the political strife in Gaza, the hunger throughout the world and the poverty down the street.  
 
We conjure the absolute miracle that we are here at all, alive and full of majesty, full of joy and light, and capable of transforming this very moment into a divine spark that lights the world.  
 
And we take this responsibility seriously.  
 
We are blessed with an audacity to know that we alone can change much.  We see a broader tapestry at work, up and down the spiral of human consciousness, up and down the spectrum of human capacity, and we peer into darkness where we find it and we know that we can turn on a light.  
 
We can see leverage, we can see hope, and on our quiet days we can see evolution as she makes her way forward.  And yet we feel pain, deeply, because our horizons are vast and we can envision greater possibilities than at any time in human history. 
 
And yet we have only one life to live. One life to give.
 
In the past 3 years I have suffered deeply.  And I have known the deepest joys.  Their names are Sevyn and Emerson, by the way.
 
From this paradox of joy and suffering, from the immensity of my insignificance, and from the mystery of a reality that remains ever elusive, I have learned, again, what it means to have nothing to say, to be completely open to what we are handed in this moment.  I have been broken, torn open, and left asunder.  I am reminded that despite our calling to heal fragmentation where we find it, that our wholeness is not to be gained.  
 
There is no world to be saved.  I am whole.  You are whole.  This integral unfolding is whole.  Right here. Right now.  This is what wholeness feels like.
 
And this brings me to my first, and perhaps only important, observation of the evening: I believe that it is your radiant way of being that will always and everywhere be your greatest contribution to the world.  I submit that it won’t be your life’s work, the companies you build, the papers or books you write, or the teachings you give.  It will be in the simple example you set for others to follow.  And that is the real task of leadership ahead for us.  
 
I am reminded of the daunting simplicity of profound leadership with the example of Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years in a tiny four foot cell off the coast of South Africa.  When he was finally released and assumed the mantle of President of South Africa, he spoke these words in his inaugural address:
 
“The time for healing of the wounds has come.  The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us.  We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom. We must therefore act together as a united people for the birth of a new world. Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all.”
 
A loving, healing, radiant way of being.  If our greatest impulse is to love, and that is the target of our efforts, than his is an example we can all aspire to.
 
Now of course we know that our ways of being mature and expand as we grow up.  But in my experience an integral understanding both accelerates and complicates this process.  At its most difficult it shifts the ethical goalposts in every context.  Like many of you, my typical week can see me writing payroll for my own team on Monday and talking about evolutionary forms of capitalism with corporate leaders on Wednesday and discussing ontological pluralism on Friday.  There is no integrity, no integral, in my life and being if I can’t enact wholeness in each of these contexts.  And when it comes to actual social and leadership action in the world, not just in theory or on paper, this is a recursive challenge because every action can readily be seen in its partiality.  Yet we have to act, and do, surrendering to the fact that we can only ever be whole in this moment, and can never be so when we dwell in the mind-constructed world of psychological time.  
 
So for me I’ve had to get simpler in what I know.  I’ve learned to practice every day the basics of being a decent human being: meditation in the morning so throughout the day I’m not resisting what is naturally arising in my life; eye gazing with my infant daughter Emerson so I can be swept away by the infinite joy that our children can uniquely inspire; ending each email with love so as not to let my communication become mechanized and rote; every week reading something from the great minds of history to deepen my humility and my capacity for reflection; actively looking for ways to extend a generous surprise to someone who wasn’t expecting it; investing time every day doing nothing but wasting it, which reminds me that my grand plans are magnificent temples in my mind.  All of these activities and dozens more produce joy, abundance, freedom and love, and in my view cultivate radiant leadership as a way of being.  And I know each of you have your own list.
 
In addition to practices that cultivate this radiant way of being there is something else that brings it forth also.  I think of it as a secret skill of integral awareness.  
 
I have been involved in hundreds of conversations where I have had to describe integral philosophy in dozens of different contexts, from the performing arts to education, from the boardroom to the bedroom.  As you know this can be a very difficult thing to do.
 
“I’m sorry I asked” and blank stares is the standard reply when I try to describe AQAL.  And I only keep saying “metatheory” because I’m slow and I never learn.   So working with integral is a bit like knowing a secret handshake everyone else might want to know but not being able to actually show people how to do it.  In their book Made to Stick, Dan and Chip Heath call this “the curse of knowledge.”  And most of us have it in spades.  (By the way, Made to Stick should be required reading for everyone in this room.)
 
Which brings me to this secret skill of integral.  What is actually going on when we describe the profound freedom, fullness and expansiveness that our first deeply integral encounter brings?  Now I don’t presume to answer that question on your behalf; we all have our own version of that story, and lord knows I’ve tried many of them in my conversations.  But the way I explain it now is that Integral teaches me how to listen more deeply to reality.  
 
It’s as if Reality is broadcasting on a frequency, and the process of growing up and waking up is a gradual process of being able to tune into that frequency with ever greater precision, clarity, and the stillness to hear.  This is central to a radiant way of being and integral leadership.
 
Now if reality is too big a concept we might just call it our life situation.  But it always comes down to one very essential point: integral teaches us how to listen to what is.  
It does this in two very clever moves that we call states and stages, or presence and perspective if you will.  States teach us to listen.  Stages teach us to hear.  Presence teaches us to listen.  Perspective teaches us to hear.  And both, when cultivated over time, seem to teach us to live more intrinsically as the natural arising of reality itself.  We become more and more seamless, as it were, with the kosmic grain of the universe.    And because our seamlessness is a radiant way of being that can transform suffering, awaken possibilities, and make deeper realities obvious, it is a natural wellspring of the joy that every human, in every context, is seeking.  Thus integral awareness helps us to be more joyful leaders.
 
But we have to be careful not to encourage seeking for this seamless, radiant way of being.  We understand that seeking inhibits being.  We only get out of this loop with our own surrender to the what is of this moment.  We learn to listen by cultivating deep states of presence.  Incidentally, when I tune in to this moment, it is hard for me to be as light-hearted, joyful and humorous as usual in a crowd of this size.  It’s beyond my personal comfort zone.  So in this format I cannot convey a good sense of my normal state of joy.  So rather than resisting it or trying to hide it, stating the what is makes the suffering far less.  Perhaps this is the more sophisticated version of hiding?
 
In any case, this is why I maintain that your integral way of being, a way of being that has cultivated the deep capacity to listen and hear what is, will always be your greatest true contribution to the waking up and growing up of humankind.
 
There is also a very important characteristic of listening, which is we can’t listen if we’re talking.  Whether actually moving our mouths or just shouting in our own heads, we can’t truly listen if we’re simultaneously telling our own story.  In that case I’m listening to you but I’m hearing me.  As we know this describes 99% of human interaction.  And I’m guilty of it probably half the time even if I’m being generous.
 
Krishnamurti states it this way: 
 
“Why are we clever and ambitious? Is not ambition an urge to avoid what is? Why are we so frightened of what is? What is the good of running away if whatever we are is always there? ... Is it possible to listen without any prejudice, without any conclusion, without interpretation?   We are conditioned ... and whatever we listen to is always apprehended through the screen of this conditioning.  That is why it is very important to know how to listen.  Conflict is the denial of what is; there is no conflict other than that.  There is no complexity in what is, but only in the many escapes that we seek.”
 
Ladies and gentlemen, integral is the mother of all escapes.  
 
It is a hazard of integral that the more we learn to hear, the more perspectives we think we can take, the greater the risk is that we stop listening.  You see, quadrants and holons, levels and validity claims, states and fulcrums, typologies and practices, lines and skills: these are immensely sophisticated tools for hearing what reality is offering us in a rich and varied vocabulary.  This conference is a blazing testament of the Olympian heights to which our models can teach us to hear and interpret reality.  We have extraordinary and valuable capacities for perspective.  And yet we always have to remember that real listening starts with silence.  We come from silence, and we return to silence. And sometimes the more we hear the less we’re listening.
 
Now, we should be forgiven for our own immaturity in this affair.
 
It bears emphasis that the integral movement, if there is such a thing, is still so very young.  It is immature. It is unorganized. It is finding its way.  And in many ways it doesn’t know what it is to become as it grows up.  As Roger Walsh pointed out a few years ago on this stage, we are a “cognitive minority.”  But the lesson I think we can help teach the world, not primarily through more sophisticated cognition but through more embodied and radiant ways of being, is how to truly listen to each other.   And that is something that can become easily lost if we reach too hard, or grasp too tightly the transformation that we believe we can see for others.  Let us start at home, shall we?  Let us not fall into the trap of some ideologies, defined by magnificent feats of hearing their own voices while tuning out all others.
 
Because from religious strife to global warming, from the meltdown of financial markets to the problems of poverty and slavery, we know the world faces adaptive problems where the complexity of the problem evolves in real-time as a result of interacting psychological, social, values and behavioral dynamics.  These situations are a bit like brawling cage matches in a pitch-black room.  Lots of energy, excitement, fear and punching, but no one can see a damn thing.  And the result is lots of bruises.
 
These are complex situations but the leadership I’m asking each of us to consider - predicated on a radiant way of being while exercising a capacity for deep listening - allows us to act as flood lights in this darkness.  We can and should model wholeness no matter where we go.
 
I’d like to close where I started.  I am in over my head.  But I can feel each of you holding me as I stand on your shoulders.  And it is as a community where we hold each other that the great possibilities ahead become open to all of us.  Each of us is a teacher.  We are helping to light each other’s way.  I read much of the work that this room produces and at every step it guides and informs, heartens and supports.  Yes, the task in front of us is hard.  We have chosen a hard path.  But if any of you follow Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s work on growth-oriented mindsets, you’ll know that when it gets hard is when it gets fun.  That’s what growth is about. That’s what we’re about.  
 
Folks, we’re practicing hard for a happy death.
 
You are vital and important, and from my heart to yours, I honor you for the contribution you are making to the betterment and wholeness of the entire human family.  And on that note I’d like to express how deeply grateful I am every day for my own family, my loving and unconditionally supportive wife Tiffany, my beautiful little Buddha daughter Emerson and my total hellraiser of a son Sevyn.  If they are the only ones I set an example for as a leader, then I’ll have done my job. 
 
Thank you and good night.”


ITC 2010 Update

Posted July 30th, 2010 | 17 Comments

Dear friends,

Thank you for your interest in what we’ve been up to at Integral Institute and Integral Life since my last update at Integral Theory Conference 2008.  We are humbled that we can continue to serve as a hub in this community of leaders. We hope to continue to earn your trust and respect and we work hard everyday to contribute in whatever small ways we can to the evolution of our young, global integral effort.

The past two years have been trying given the extent and breadth of the economic downturn. It is no secret that donor giving is dramatically down for non-profits worldwide and many have had to close their doors. And most commercial enterprises have cut capacity and slashed growth plans as they have stockpiled cash reserves for the long harsh economic winter ahead that most are forecasting. We have seen these results across the integral field as various efforts have stalled for lack of funding and idealism has been forfeited in the face of brutal economic realities; indeed, 83% of Integral Life community members cite economic security and more material prosperity as their top concern in 2010.

Though we didn't fully anticipate the depth and scope of this economic downturn, we were prepared. We have structured the Institute with high-leverage partnerships with academic partners and by shifting the capital requirement of Institute-supporting overhead on to Integral Life as a commercial entity.  By doing so our team was able to structure the Integral Institute with a high degree of resilience in its operating and overhead structure to withstand this kind of downturn. We have done so first so that the Institute is not economically reliant at all on outside donor support and second in order to provide as much leverage as possible to the donor support that we do get. We want our donors to be thrilled at our results for every dollar they invest with us.

Therefore I am very pleased to report significant progress and activities across the Integral Life + Institute ecosystem the past 24 months:

  • Established the first international chapter of Integral Institute. Integral Institute Australia is conducting an in-country research effort to gauge the needs and desires of stakeholders in Australia and New Zealand on their way to what we hope is a full formal chapter approval starting January 1, 2012
     
  • At Integral Life, investing several hundred thousand dollars in the complete rebuilding of the Integral Life content and community platform to broaden and deepen the member experience
     
  • In the past 24 months, tripled the size of the Integral Life community, which before year-end will exceed 100,000 people from over 30 countries
     
  • At Integral Institute, established a new academic book series in partnership with SUNY Press which over the next 12 months will publish 5 academic books applying Integral Philosophy, including several released today including Integral Education and Integral Psychotherapy
     
  • Moved the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice to SUNY Press, which is now distributing the journal worldwide through academic libraries and is experiencing double-digit month-over-month subscriber growth
     
  • Established “Integral Without Borders” as a new center housed within Integral Institute to focus on integral international aid and development with Paul Schaik, Emine Kiray and Gail Hochachka as directors
     
  • Published and promoted key integral experts’ work through Integral Life, including dedicated series like the free “Future of Love” teleseries featuring Deepak Chopra and Ken Wilber; Integral Spiritual Experience Media Collection featuring Marc Gafni and Diane Hamilton; free “Home for the Holidays” teleseries featuring Integral Coaches
     
  • Developing web training courses with featured integral teachers like the upcoming “Future of Being Christian” web course featuring Leslie Hershberger and the upcoming “Spiritual Intelligence” course featuring Cindy Wigglesworth
     
  • Exposed integral experts’ work and dialogues through Integral Life to a much broader non-integral audience of almost 50,000 unique visitors monthly (targeted to hit 150,000 unique monthly visitors within 18 months) fostering the economic sustainability of the wider integral teachers’ community
     
  • Started fundraising and pre-production work in partnership with Director Steve Brill and Screenwriter Stuart Davis on a major integrally-informed Hollywood motion picture
     
  • In partnership with JFK University, tripled enrollment in the graduate degree programs over the past 3 years and held two full-capacity integral academic conferences with 500+ attendees
     
  • In partnership with iEvolve, established a flagship spiritual celebration with the multi-year Integral Spiritual Experience at full-capacity of 500 attendees
     
  • Released innovative new offerings to deepen the at-home integral theory learning experience with Core Integral’s Essential Integral course and to deepen integral aesthetic appreciation with featured integral artist walkthroughs on Integral Life by Aesthetics Editor Michael Schwartz
     
  • Worked with global leaders to cultivate leadership skills and integral meta-perspectives and methods across domains and organizations, including Fortune 500 and Inc. 500 executives, Conscious Capitalism and State of the World Forum organizations, the United Nations and the Obama Administration, Wall Street investment fund managers and others
     
  • Continued to actively support, promote and evolve various communities of practice across the integral field

As you can see it's been a busy time for us despite the general economic downturn.  We're committed to continuing to build the Integral Life + Institute ecosystem for supporting the integral field globally.  Thank you so much for your ongoing support as members of Integral Life, teachers and scholars in the integral field, and friends and colleagues along the way.

Warm loving regards,

Robb Smith



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