Integral is Amazing. Now What Do I do With It?

Frickin awesome post Rob. Whole heartedly agree. Having gone through the Integral Coaching methodology with ICC, I'd add too that when it comes to application and method, there's a big difference between taking an integral perspective and engaging integral development and embodiment. This is a distinction that seems crucially missed in a lot of Integral conversation. What I see in discussion forums on this sites varies quite a bit from what I see on calls with my clients and within myself and colleagues engaged in Integral Coaching. For those uninitiated, it seems a lackluster comparison. To someone like myself, it's night and day.

If I may ramble and hope it makes sense... Integral critique is far easier that Integral engagement. In my eyes, the beauty of the Integral framework is that it offers a chance not necessarily just to include all perspectives, but to keep an eye on ourselves and those perspectives which we habitually do and do not include by default in our own Way of being in the world. Getting to Wilber's comment about "free a claim by limiting it," we all have specializations - tendencies and perspectives which we privelege (and don't always realize) as well as those that are often left in shadow or unseen. It's not about being All Quadrant all the time but instead knowing all quadrants are there and seeing where you might best engage within that. And simply doing shadow work doesn't cut it I have found.

True Integral Development and application needs someone on the outside to help you get a perspective on yourself and where the true developmental markers are for your own next personal evolution. So in the conversation of "what do I do with Integral," I would add, "What do I do with Integral in myself and my own engagement of this realm"? Obviously I'm biased towards Integral Coaching being an ICC coach and a proponent for their work. But no one is going to see outside their own grace and grit. Which is why we get spiritual teachers, therapists, coaches, good friends, etc to reflect what we can't see in our own subjectiveness and to call us on our own BS and limitations. I like Ken's Divine Pride. But I fear an Integral Pride, I occasionally see arising, of being AQAL and thus all knowing, which might forget the noble curiosity and inquiry on which Teal is based on. 

I think your post captures a beautiful crucible we all sit in in this time. Troubled times. Great perspectives that can liberate. Where shall the two meet? I think the question is the cutting edge of our collective evolution. And I think the answer is in each of ours own individual Integral development and unfolding. Only if we each choose to engage ourselves though... 

Hey Robb,

Great post.  I think you've done a great job in articulating the current situation of the integral movement, its still in its infancy; and the wide range of disciplines that it could be applied to are just beginning to be planted.  That being said though; what I do really like about the integral movement; is its ability to find and work with other great organizations and movements.  Such as people like Genpo Roshi and his Big Mind Process (I've actually just returned from his Spring Retreat at Salt Lake City today) and recruiting ppl the likes of Deepak Chopra to speak at ISE 2.

I just hope that under the integral banner or not; that our world is able to face the problems of today with wisdom and compassion (ie. situations such as the Oil spill in the gulf)

Cheers!

- Julius

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JuliusKo.com
"Let's CHANGE the world TOGETHER..."

Great Post....answers some crucial questions that I have had for quite a while.  

At our church (a Unity Church with a predominantly post-modern oriented congregation) we have tried starting a Great Leap Group that studies Integral and Spiral Dynamics.  It has been a challenge to maintain its focus and has recently began studying books that relate to the spiritual journey and that seem to include some SDI perspectives ... Deepak Chopra's newest book.

But, maybe more important is that our church has engaged in a 5 year cultural change initiative using an Integral approach as a basic way to view and measure our effectiveness in ministry.   I've posted a blog here "Integral Ministry" that gives a brief explanation of our plan, our AQAL map and our progress.  

Barry Vennard

 Rob, Thanks for that honest evaluation of the difficulties in applying the integral metatheory in daily life. I like the marinate method, in that thorough assimilation of the new view can lead to natural, automatic, means of applying the new view. But I also think there may need to be another tool - seeking the essence of the metatheory. 

 To me, the essence is suggested by the word "integration". Wilber learned from the field of psychology that true integration is not the same as an undifferentiated whole or simple unity, but requires the co-action of differentiation and unity. To be integrated is to have many parts that act in unison. To act integrally hinges on the ability to be integrated as a whole and complex human being.

 I think many, if not most, modern people have a sense of integrated vs. non-integrated. Just go to the doctor, and you experience a fairly non-integrated medical system. The endrocinonogist does his or her thing, the cardiologist does her or his thing, and the bone specialist (forgot the name) does another thing. If you or a family member need them to get on the same page, due to a multiple diagnosis condition, you and your family pretty much have to do the integrating of the medical services. There are few interdisciplinary teams for folks outside of inpatient institutions. The lack of integration in the medical services area carries with it some sense of how the services might be more integrated. You yearn for, and sense, the possible integration that painfully is not there. 

  The word integrity really means that my various human "parts" are working consistently - in concert - with one another. It does not mean that I force myself to act consistently, squelching the "voices" of my parts. Instead, it means that I let my parts find a way to work together without squelching the diversity of the "voices" of those parts/aspects.

  As a male, one simple way to be integrated is to let my feminine, receptive, functions be heard by my tendency to act and think like an action-oriented, focalizing, male. To allow androgeny to voice itself in the midst of my manhood is to allow myself a more differentiated feild.

  True integrety, then requires a fairly high level of tolerance of ambiguity. Lack of tolerence of ambiguity leads to forced assimilation of my parts (whether personality aspects or actual body/brain parts), and leads to false integration. Tolerance goes hand in hand with willing to be integrated and to have true (rather than reductionistic) "integrity."

   And tolerance matches the idea of patience and of letting something marinate the self. If I properly understand "integration," and will myself to be "integrated" (all the while understanding that I mean evolving to higher and higher levels of integration - to be whole with more and more differentiation in my field of being), then my self system will find a way to integrate the 4 major perspectives as I enact this thing I call my life.

  I may not know at the time exactly how I managed to integrate two or more quadrants, but it will happen. Since I don't act by merely piecing things together, I don't have to identify the four (or eight) things/perspectives that are being woven together. As an person who wills to be "integrated," the 4 or 8 pieces can be analyzed after I act in an integrated mode of tolerant action, or of non-grasping action. 

  Act, but hear the inner voices. The inner voices will direct me to the outer correlates of those parts of my whole mind/spirit. All I have to really do is to will myself to be truly integrated (in the manner of a highly integrated field consisting of many parts). 

  Forget the quads. Be integrated. Then look at how you integrated the quadrants after allowing yourself to adopt the mode of being integrated.

  To start with the quads would be to make a quilt - not an integrated self. Or, as Lang said, a "false self".

  Actions that flow from a real and integrated self must come from the base of the"tree"(or flare, or fountain) and work themselves upward to where self and mind branch into 4 perspectives and/or 8 zones. To sense the essence of being integrated and to then act from there will allow consciousness to find the branches as they are being interconnected.

  To work from the branches backward would create a false, forced, assimilation of the parts. At the level of authentic application or action, the mind must always flow from whole to part. And "whole" means "integrated" as Ken uses it, and as I am using it here. 

  Understand and appreciate the essence of "integrated", or of "highly integrated", and you can enact a well integrated 4 quad and/or 8 zone life for yourself, and for yourself to share effectively with others. 

  That's my take on it, anyway. 

  Thanks for this thought provoking and heart provoking post.

   Darrell