(unedited, stream of conscious, and rambling. enjoy!)
1) Might integral awareness actually been a hindrance to growth?
I think for a lot of people the ‘path’ to integral is lead by the cognitive, or an understanding of the systems of AQAL and integral consciousness. this intensely developed cognitive map, at least for myself, actually helped me to increasingly hold my distance from the parts of myself that needed the most work. locating these issues on a map became a substitution for me actually visiting and dealing with them. Thus, I think an awareness of the map can actually sometimes do more harm than good. So perhaps cognitively learning the map too early before the physical and emotional body are ready to ‘get’ integral actually makes it harder to grow than if one naturally arrived there intuitively.
Similarly, I’m also not so sure ILP is the best thing for everyone. At least for myself, I’m starting to feel that an integral life practice, (practices working mind, body, spirit, and shadow) might only really be useful once a certain stage has been reached in one specific line.
For whatever reason, I’m thinking one has to be really highly developed in one particular line before an awareness of, and exercising of, other lines becomes really potent. Up until a certain point, I think practicing ‘a little bit of everything’ actually dilutes acceleration. Too few eggs in too many baskets. However, when one really commits to one practice specifically, be it meditation, a martial art, yoga, dance, singing, or painting, I think a certain type of growth occurs that one just can’t get from an ILP. Fully committing to one thing means practicing it THROUGH states: good days, bad days, huge leaps, long periods of no growth, to the point that you become incredibly intimate with how that practice feels inside and out. A kind of home base develops. And maybe it’s only from that intimacy/home base that one can really FEEL and see the relative merits and benefits of working other lines, instead of just cognitively grasping the reasons for doing so.
In my own case, I think ILP was used for avoidance (in some ways like certain polyamorous relationships could be) As soon as things start to get painful or sour in with one practice or partner, we’ll just move on to the next! Partner one is being bitchy today, and rather than confront that and really work with whats going on (in both myself and the partner) I’ll just move on to the next!
Similarly, I might do a little strength training, but as soon as it gets REALLY difficult, like the times when you wonder why the hell you’re even doing it (and likely the times ripe for the most growth) I’ll just move on to meditation or the 3-2-1 process…
For me personally, this was a good solid year in IL of trying to do too much, running, lifting, trying to meditate (and beating myself up when I didn’t), and reading reading reading as much as I could. Truth be told, one year of just lifting for an hour 3 times a week in the mornings caused me to grow far more as a person that that whole year of ilping did. I saw more results, felt more focused, and naturally find myself growing in other areas as well.
Anyway, that’s just a theory but one I think might be worth exploring. Lines of development and ILP are incredible insights, but ones sometimes used for bypass, not growth. I think ILP might be really effective when one is pathological in an area/line, or highly developed in another. But not in the middle.
2) is the move from green to teal (yellow/integral) the biggest bottleneck of the spiral right now?
really feeling into it, I’d say no. having lived in two really green towns (santa cruz and now boulder) I actually see plenty of people moving towards ‘integral’. what I don’t see as much of is people moving to green! it’s just a hunch, but my guess would be that the greatest ‘clogged’ point on the spiral is obviously in the amber(blue) - orange - green zone. I think pushing more people into green would pop more people into integral that trying to change those in green would.
that’s all. just random thoughts I had waiting to get some car tires changed.
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a 7 minute sample of the talk between Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, presented by the new incarnation of my former employer: Integral Life
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Ever since November and everything that went down when I left my job, myself and many in my close community have had a bit of a charge around the word integral. I’ve found myself trying to avoid saying it or discussing it when possible. This morning I decided fuck that, that word’s mine. Integral refers to a specific brand of the next wave of consciousness, one that I’ve chosen to leave behind. However, integral, the word itself, refers not to a brand identity, but to a way of being open to the world. That’s all the integral movement is I think, if nothing else it comes back to simply feeling how open you are to the moment. How many “I’s” can you take the perspective of in the moment? The framework and the minutia of the theory are very important and crucial things, but I think they’re really just like training wheels. They’re rigid and well defined because at first you need a little structure and guidance to point you on your way and keep you from tipping over. But at some point, that system becomes internalized, and you can take off those training wheels and start cruising on your own. Once you’ve had a taste of that, there’s no reason to ever really use training wheels again. Now that doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t use them, as they’re a damn good learning tool, nor does that mean that people should stop trying to make better and more efficient training wheels that reduce the learning curve so more people can start riding on their own faster and with less learning pains.
I think I’ve personally hit that point where I’ve left the training wheels behind, and am no longer so concerned with their structure or rigidity. I’d rather cruise along on my own two wheels, wiping out every now and then for sure, but riding along on my own, learning what works and doesn’t work first hand.
So yeah, fuck that, I won’t let the word integral be tainted, I won’t let the brand have it. integral is my word, its our word, and its our movement. It’s a felt body sense, its debate and theory that’s open to challenge and discussion, its welcoming to people at all walks of life no matter what stage of development they’re at. It’d rather see people reach healthier states of being exactly where they already are before hammering into their heads that they need to change and become this vague thing called 2nd tier. It tries to work not only from the top down, but from the bottom up; it focuses on both depth and span, not just the former.
At least that’s what I think the integral movement is.
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