What is integral development
This blog has been coming for a long time.
I have to admit, I’m still learning the discipline of writing on a regular basis. I didn’t want to commit to writing a blog before I got good at it. But I am now taking on the advice I often give to other people - to just dive in and let life mould me through the experience itself. You see, I’m all about being open, authentic and human and expressing myself as such in all of life, including this blog. And that’s a really scary thing for me in the current moment of my own development. I’ll write more on that some other time. I’ll start with something more comfortable. :)
The most common questions I get about my work are around a purpose driven career, or vocation, and what integral development coaching is. I decided to start this blog with a series of posts on the latter.
Mind you, English is not my first language and sometimes I write on pretty deep topics. So, when something you read here looks a bit strange in your mind, it could be that the way I put words together is not a way you’d put them naturally in your interpretation through language. And I like to play with words, meanings and interpretations. So, it might also be that I’m playing with you.
Stay open and curious. And join in. :)
Two ways of living
We’re born into this world not knowing who we are and what we’re supposed to do. In fact, we can’t actually even do anything on our own. We’re cut off from the nurturing experience of a womb and suddenly find ourselves in this vast unfamiliar space. We need to learn what it is and who we are now, in that space. There are some people whom we recognise as safe and sources of nurturing, although it’s not quite the same as what we had before. We’re learning new things about them as well: their voices sound different than from the inside of the womb, we slowly begin to see their faces too, we see them interacting with the world.
As the days and months pass, we discover that we have hands and oh, we can move them. We can then sit, crawl, walk. Speak. And others can understand what we’re saying! We can get them to do things that we want or we can do some of those things by ourselves. First, with their support, and later on our own. Life gets more and more exciting.
We’re playing, exploring, engaging with life in a natural, flowing way. We are not familiar with such concepts as time and space. We just are. In the moment. And as the moment shifts, we let go of what just passed and move on into what’s unfolding right here and right now.
Time, space, experiences all blend into one never-ending process of unfolding. We’re curious and alive. It seems that all happens effortlessly and naturally.
Somewhere along that journey, others, mostly these people we learn to call the grown ups and in what they teach us about the meaning of that word - it means the people we are supposed to learn from because they know better than us how to live since they’ve been here longer, start imposing limitations on our experience of the world. They start affecting how we engage with it and meddling with how we interpret our experience of it. They tell us in what forms (not) to express our emotions, they (don’t) teach us how to name them and be with them, they (don’t) show us how to behave. They start expecting us to be a certain way that is (not) natural for us. And they attach these expectations to the ways they relate to us. This is where our experience of life starts becoming conditioned. We start to lose touch with our natural unfolding.
It seems that all happens in a programmed way and we begin to strive to understand and apply this program so that we can belong, and be accepted, met and loved.
We’re not yet capable of making sense of our experience, let alone consciously choose how we want to respond to life - and we’re conditioned into something others believe we should be. So, from then on, we go about our lives being more or less successful and happy. But how aware are we, truly, of what exactly that means, for us?
By the time we can make sense and choose, we mostly forget there was something to make sense of or that we indeed have agency in how we live our lives.
And while we’re living like this, we’re affecting others the same way. We’re all inter-affecting each other and by that, we keep on living and perpetuating the same, I’ll say this boldly: fake experience of life.
Even those of us who think and feel we’re the free spirit that survived.
If you don’t believe me, try this.
An experiment of self-reflection
Ask yourself this question:
What do I know about myself and life?
Really, sit down and write the answers that come to you. Write as long as you have something to write. Let it pour out of you, all those things you want to say to yourself and maybe never have before.
For each statement you just wrote, answer this:
How do I know that?
Inquire into whether you learned that from someone somewhere along the line or it was your unique experience of life. Be honest. You’re writing this for your own inquiry. Nobody else is going to judge it. If you want to see the truth, open yourself up fully to it.
You’ll probably see a few surprises there already. Be courageous. Keep going.
For each statement that you said was your own experience of life, answer this:
What did I believe in prior to that experience of life, deep down inside?
The difference between our natural unfoldment and conditioned life is in what we subconsciously believe in and therefor attract as life experiences (what some call self-fulfilling prophecies). These are easier to discern retroactively unless you have a long practice of self-observation in real time and a friend who helps you see your blind spots as they appear. Again, stay open, true and willing to be in the discomfort that may arise at this point.
Do you see it now?
I’m not saying that we are running the show. I am saying that the show is running us and we have far more potential to be free from it.
We have far more potential for an authentic life and that potential is true human nature that we have forgotten.
So, what is integral development?
Integral development is a process of unlearning all that we don’t know so that we can remember what we do know and start engaging with life from our true nature, where the potential is and putting that potential into the service of life.
What that is, for each of us, is different. How that is for each of us is also different.
How do we do it?
Well, if you honestly answered those questions above and illuminated something you were not aware of before - you’ve already started. Self-reflection is one of the key practices of the conscious integral development. You can choose to do it daily. See what else it opens for you.
Here’s another question that you can take on:
What am I choosing to believe in now?
And by choosing to believe I mean shifting the deep seated learned beliefs into fresh ones that you feel are true right now and training yourself to think and act from them.
Do this one situation, one step, one breath at a time. Let life mould you through the experience itself. ;)
If you want, share in the comments your thoughts and feelings about this article.
What has just awakened in you as you read this? What’s present in you right now?
What’s your experience of life? How much conditioning do you see and how much do you believe you’re free of it? What is it that you believe makes the difference between the two, in your life experience? What is it that do you believe about this right now?
Next time, I will write more about what usually propels us into searching for new strategies of life and why it’s a good thing when we discover that we can figure out none. Breakdowns are actually the most welcome events in our life’s journey, through the lenses of integral development. We call them openings. Stay tuned.
With love, peace and joy
Jasmina
