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In Over My Head

Posted August 31st, 2010 by Robb Smith

[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.”

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Beautiful

Posted August 31st, 2010 by Allan Hall

Inspiring thanks Rob


Namaste

Al

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Great stuff

Posted September 1st, 2010 by Steve Blake

Hi Robb

Your commitment and willingness to be open about where you are in yourself is inspiring and moving. Your clarity of thought and ability to articulate things that have been in my own awareness for a while, without fully coming into focus, is a great gift.

This is a really good piece; it sheds light.

Thank you

Steve

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Made to Stick, Coconut Oil

Posted September 16th, 2010 by Allan Hall

I got the audio  book  Made to Stick, Dan and Chip Heath  a good listen so far.  Thanks Rob.

LOL.... if it was not so sick and the damage that it probably cause to a generation of movie goers arteries in the USA .

The irony of the first example about the coconut oil and the campgain that stopped the movie popcorn being popped in it.   They could have used an Integral approach as it may have caused more harm than they can possibly imagine.

Evidence seems to be emerging  that coconut oil is in fact one of the healthiest on the market is mounting. 

This requires opt-in but from the page

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/03/24/coconut-oil-part-one.aspx  ( search the site there is a lot of information on it) 

"Coconut oil does not form dangerous trans fatty acids that even olive oil does, and it is far healthier than the other vegetable oils out there "

Unless of course the cooking process hydrogenated  the coconut oil, as it is one oil that can withstand high  temperatures this might not be the case.

http://www.coconut-connections.com/healthiest_oil.htm

Namaste

Al

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thank you

Posted August 31st, 2010 by Christine McDougall

Robb this is beautiful, heartfelt, connecting, inspiring, moving and filled with grace.

Thankyou for sharing you,

 

love christine--

 Christine McDougall, MCC

www.positive-deviant.com

Challenge Thinking, Inspire Action, Create Change

www.syzergy.biz

Dare to Care

 
 

 

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Yay!!

Posted August 31st, 2010 by Jennifer Grove

Thank you, Robb. This says alot! 

This confirms a suspicion that just came to me today or yesterday that one of the causes of so much of the drama around here right now might be a State/Stage confusion. I couldn't figure out how to describe it tho. The words "Presence" and "Perspective" help alot. Let me just get it straight for myself, here, okay?

  • State = Presence = Listening
  • Stage = Perspective = Hearing

Do I have that right? This totally corresponds with what I've been seeing in the territory in regards to "Seeing" and "Judging". So if I were to add my words to your map - which I'm going to assume is correct - it would look like this:

  • State = Presence = Listening = Seeing
  • Stage = Perspective = Hearing = Judging

"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.”"

The Krishnamurti quote is also a confirmation because he is quoted on that same topic and to a similar end in the book, "Non-Violent Communication". The difference is that K is equating "complexity" with lack of enlightenment, when really it's just corresponding to Stages. Same with Rosenburg (NVC). Conflict is present in Stages and he wants to eliminate it using States. They are not opposites, but parallel. "What is" exists in all realms. Resting with what is begins in States, but moves to Stages as it becomes integrated by cognition. Complexity and conflict are present in Stages and therefore in Enlightenment. 

This is our sticking point. And this is what Alan Combs was talking about in the last installment of the Wilber-Combs conversation put up recently. This is the new Hot-Spot in the Lower Left. What did he say they called it? "Tuning the Frame". 

There is a unified and Communal Body that holds the various tensions and complexities in the Other or the Object in question. If the Other/Object is a person or people group, it can be a religious body. If it is a non-human, it can be a religious idea or practice. Either way, the Communal Body that holds it should be what they called, "tuned" before they ever go near that Other/Object. 

This is not being done. At all. 

I recognize that we have great diversity within Integral and within the community here who participates in the Forums. But we're not making any attempt at figuring out how to make that an asset. Right now it's just a liability. 

When will there be some attempt at tuning? Why are we only insisting on Hearing and not Listening to Others and Objects that we dislike or don't practice. The review of Bro. Steindl-Rast's book was all Hearing and no Listening. When can we begin to bring this online? 

--

For just $14.95 a month, YOU TOO can reduce your Karma Footprint by becoming a Member of Integral Life!

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a bright light in my day - thanks

Posted September 15th, 2010 by Layne Cutright
Hi Robb,
 
I’m new here at Integral Life.
 
I was deeply touched by what you wrote here, touched on many levels. My eyes got teary, I grinned, I laughed out loud, re-read it and then reflected on exactly what it was that touched me so deeply.
 
At first glance it was what you said about “I have been broken, torn open and left asunder.”  I have felt that very same thing over this past year.
 
I started my evolutionary journey in 1976 so, I’m no stranger to the transformational tremors that pepper the trail of intentional evolution, but this time I had moved beyond any concept that could help me understand or make peace with the deep undoing that was occurring.
 
Not having someone further along than I, who could help me understand it has made it more difficult to bear.
 
The second thing that got me was, this “radiant state of being.” Ahhh, I remember that feeling. Yet, it has not been as accessible lately. It seems more difficult when I am a walking “dissipative structure.” Are you familiar with Ilya Prigogine’s Dissipative Structure Theory?
 
Any way, long story short, you touched my heart and it helped me. It’s nice that you are very smart, know a lot of things and still lead with your heart. It builds trust and affinity.
 
Do you mind sharing what got you through your “broken, torn open and left asunder?”  I’m guessing it had something to do with love. But perhaps there is more.
 
Thank you for being a bright light in my day.
 
With love,
Layne

Layne Cutright, Relationship Educator

"Turn your computer into an Evolutionary Relationship  Learning Center.

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Thank you Rob

Posted September 1st, 2010 by Federico Parra

I find your text as brillant and luminous as something can be.

Thank you very much.

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the awakening of this delicate, delicious emergence of integral consciousness,...

Posted September 1st, 2010 by woodie

Dear Robb- thanks for your beautiful sentiments- a truly mature context setting for an emerging, and immature community that still needs to find its sense of real purpose and power in the world. Here at the Renaissance2 Foundation we are inspired by the direction you are heading in, and look forward to working with you to realise the awakening of this delicate, delicious emergence of integral consciousness, culture and systems at a global level.

Moving beyond ego toward a collective realisation of integral capability and action is a commitment I and all our members are making to make this real on a daily basis in the lives of those we serve.

With loving regards

Robin

Dr Robin Wood

President Renaissance2- www.renaissance2.eu

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Repeat

Posted September 1st, 2010 by Gregor Bingham

 Robb, thank you, I felt connected again to my purpose aftrr reading your speech. It brought everything to light about the sticking points in our Integral struggle, so I think if you just repeat that speech every year it will help keep us all on track. Because we will be here next year, on this very same track!

G

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Inspired to enact wholeness

Posted September 1st, 2010 by Julie Gabrielli

Dear Robb -- 

Thank you for your wise and inspiring words. A very clear-eyed look at the brilliance of Integral and a reminder to take care in its application.

I totally agree w/ you -- "Made to Stick" is a must-read.

Thank you for this precious gift of perspective.

Warmly,

Julie

Julie E. Gabrielli, NCARB, LEED AP

www.goforchange.com

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Amazing message!

Posted September 1st, 2010 by Gummi

This was so beautiful and inspiring talk you gave there Rob, I wished I'd been there to hear it (and really heared from the place of silence). Godspeed my friend.

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masculine and feminine value spheres

Posted September 1st, 2010 by David Marshall

Robb, that is an amazing speech/letter. I greatly admire your many talents. You enfolded so much into that and hit so many levels, lines, quadrants, states, and types it is amazing. I aspire toward that kind of wholeness and integration. It was very inspiring as well.

I want to point something out, however. And no doubt you know this, but it is something I have gotten interested in particularly from reading Pelle Billing's blog, whose work I think is very important and whom you might have seen at the conference.

This is what caught my eye at the end:

My beautiful little Buddha daughter Emerson and my total hellraiser of a son Sevyn.

Now, as I said, no doubt you understand this perspective, and maybe your daughter Emerson is some advanced soul while Sevyn is enjoying one of his first human lives and lucky to have a father like you, but this is kind of how men and women, boys and girls are viewed in our culture these days: Females tend to be viewed as spiritual and inherently good and valuable, and males are commonly viewed as perhaps aspiring to those levels and often a long ways from it (quite a switch from the past and still many cultures around the world today).

Now and then we hear women say things like, "Women are here to teach men to be more spiritual," and teachers like Eckhart Tolle have even said that women are closer to enlightenment. It's amazing how many men are willing to buy into this story (I know you are not one of them) and help promote it. Michael Moore is happy to promote it in an episode of "Politically Incorrect" with Bill Maher, which also included Christina Hoff Sommers, author of the The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men. Here is part one, and here is part two.

"Women are from Venus, and men are from hell," says Sommers on the show. "That's the philosophy. . . . Men can handle it; little boys cannot."

It can get serious sometimes--just today I read an article in the New York Times about psychosis medication and children that noted, "Boys are far more likely to be medicated than girls," which I think is something we already knew, right? There was a great Frontline episode about this as well.

I think it's funny to say things like that, and it's good to the degree that girls and women need our support, and I know you didn't mean it, but I also think it's something integral needs to take a close look at. I think some of the things that are happening to boys in school these days (in the "The War Against Boys") are quite awful.

Medicating when there are other possibilities is probably the worst, but it is not the only thing happening. The male value sphere tends to get criticized, belittled, even pathologized or outlawed. It could have something to do with boys not doing as well these days in school and not moving on to college in as great a number as girls. Even if they don't get medicated (which may harm their development in itself, according to the New York Times article), these attitudes could still harm their development and society as a whole. Some Scandinavian men told Elizabeth Debold about their experience with this phenomenon in this issue of EnlightenNext, and some other articles touch on it, especially  the "Guru and Pandit" discussion with Ken Wilber.

Well, your letter was just so close to perfect I had to mention this and try to make it 100% perfect.  :) I am really not writing this because I think you need someone to point it out for you but simply because I think it is an issue that needs more attention and widespread acknowledgment and that integral is uniquely suited to address it.

Blessings,

David

PS. By the way, I think the discussion between Federico and some others on this thread is related to this and is largely a clash between the masculine value sphere (of agency or progress) and the feminine value sphere (of communion). (Integral Spirituality, pp. 11-15, as well as the guru-and-pandit discussion.)

 

 

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Deeply Felt!

Posted September 2nd, 2010 by Mary Linda Landauer

Robb I listened to every word you wrote. May I embody this messge through acts of kindness, love and joy in every moment that life gives me. Thank you.

With much love,

Mary Linda