An Integrated Life

Ever Integrating

I started this blog with the idea of exploring and learning how to create and live an integrated life.  I took the concept, loosely, from Carl Jung’s sense of integrating the various parts of the personality, envisioning a goal of “getting it all together!”

 

I have done plenty of integrating in my life, with positive results.  But I’m beginning to see the integrating as an ongoing process rather than a goal to be accomplished.  In fact, I am noticing that life, itself, is constant motion.  I am both part of this and aware of this at the same time. 

 

In order to manage such an amazing feat, we all create categories of entities, identities, and concepts of how they all relate in our experience.  Life becomes a cascading kaleidoscope of perceptions, shifting not only as the situation changes, but also as our beliefs about the situation change.

 

I admit, this is getting into rather abstract philosophy, but I find that when I come from this perspective (which is only occasionally, but meditation helps!), how I experience my life tends to be different.  I am less at the mercy of my reactions.

 

For example, now that I am taking care of my 91 year old father, I can easily slip into old patterns and responses.  When I find myself getting angry or frustrated or depressed, I can step out, just a little, to look at what is happening, how it mirrors the past, how the beliefs about myself and about him in relationship came from understandings I created long ago from the very limited perspective of the child.

 

This way,  I can see how his understanding and mine are based on interpretations of what is going on now and what was going on long ago.  Interpretations are not the reality.  Remembering this, I am free to explore and compare and find new interpretations.

 

Such is not to say I just make the anger go away in that moment.  But the greater my perspective becomes (which means what I think about who I am, who he is, and what our respective lives mean), the greater my sense of being grounded and sane in the present.  I can forgive him, and just as importantly, forgive myself.

Perspectives Later in Life

As I realized writing my last post, life is a continuum.  My particular perspective on that continuum is constantly changing - moment to moment, year to year, decade to decade.  One gift of aging is the expansion of perspective. Not only does who I am keep changing, but so does my understanding of who I am.  I may face similar situations now to those of my youth, but I respond from a new stance.  I may have had more energy before, but I am now more generous.  Where I once would have wanted to "fix," I now offer compassion and understanding.

In the second half of life, we all face new challenges.  Bodies are changing.  Aches and pains become a problem, We don't sleep as well, recall is not what it was.  Relationships are changing.  I have lost one parent, cherish the time that is left with the other.  I have grandchildren, one still in transit, each one new and fascinating.  I have lost track of old friends, made new ones.  Meanwhile, the world continues to change in sometimes frightening ways, as the latest economic disasters attest.  I'm probably OK in that regard (although one never knows!), but I worry about my kids and their kids.

I ponder more than ever just what it means to be human.  I feel a strong need to find a meaning for my own life and for that life that extends in all directions.  I want to know all my shortcomings - not to change them, just to be aware, to extend some compassion to myself.  I want to remember gratefulness, to make of it a daily practice.  I want to learn to give.  This last seems especially important, for what else gives my life meaning?

I know many of you share some of these desires, concerns and issues.  I believe we all stand to gain the most through dialogue, so I welcome comments.  

I am also offering a telecourse through my life coaching business on these questions.    This will run for 5 weeks on Tuesday evenings from 7 to 8 Mountain time  starting November 4, and will cost $125.  Send me an email (see sidebar) for more information or to register.

Integration: Goal or Part of the Process?

I used to assume (as recently as when I started this blog) that an integrated life was a goal to achieve (if one was not there, yet) in order to be healthy and wise and ready to go forth. That fits the old Western paradigm of mechanistic thought (we're not working, we get fixed, then we're OK). It just doesn't fit reality. Integration is part of a process of growth, which is the unfolding of life, itself. That unfolding ends, so far as we know, only with the end of one's life. One can, however, get waylaid, sidetracked or just plain stuck along the way.

More on ultimate integration

I've been working on this idea of "ultimate integration." I find I can call up the experience of pure awareness for a time. But soon my mind is back to playing out the various dramas in my life, and the ultimate dimension is history. Or is it? Of course since the ultimate and the manifest are but two sides of the same reality, it hasn't gone anywhere. My mind is all that leaves - to replay the past or anticipate the future, neither of which is happening now!

The Ultimate Integration

I started this blog in order to explore what it means to have (or be) an integrated life. Where I once thought of it as a goal, I’ve come to see it as a process. A life is never static, and as it evolves there are always new aspects to be integrated into whatever one thinks of as one’s self.

Recently, though, I have been thinking of a slightly different perspective on all this. There are not only the countless aspects and possibilities of this life, there is that other dimension of reality which is absolute. I haven’t addressed that, because the two dimensions, being totally different, cannot be compared. Language, being analytical and objective, cannot describe what is none of this. It can only point, as in myth or poetry. (The Tao which can be named is not the true Tao.)

But since my mother’s death last Spring, I have had a need to find for myself some meaning for life faced with death (always there, but we don’t always think about it). I have meditated more on what I experience as changeless behind the unending changes of sensory data, and I have come to see that this is the ultimate integration: to really understand, in mind and body, that the unchanging, absolute dimension of reality and the temporal ever-changing phenomena are the same reality. My body will die, but the unchanging dimension of who I am never dies, is never born, it just is.

I have long believed this, but my task now is to integrate this knowledge fully, so that I live with it. Just as I need to embrace shadow elements I haven’t owned, even more must I embrace this dimension of myself, which I cannot objectively know, but which I can intuit and experience.

Questioning Makes Room for Answers

One problem with talking about an integrated life is that it can lead to the assumption that there is such a thing. By that, I mean in the sense of something finished, complete, done, unchanging. (This may come with death, but I hope not!) A life is not a thing, it is perpetual motion (though sometimes stuck). What I write as answers are never THE answer (sometimes not even the answer I had in mind). An answer is a sometime thing. Questions, on the other hand, are vital. How much we grow depends on the questions we are able to ask.

Two ways to integrate

I'm thinking integration plays a part in the growth process in more than one way. First, of course, it's important to pull all the parts of yourself together in order to move forward as a whole person, not leave any pieces behind. (Sort of like if that contraption in Star Trek malfunctioned and beamed you down to some planet minus an arm. You wouldn't be functioning too well down there.)

But once you make that shift, gain that insight or flash of understanding, the new knowledge must be integrated into your life. You have seen that planet, but you haven't fully arrived yet. It's a process that takes time, commitment and work.

Take for instance, acquiring a new habit, say an exercise program. At first it's exciting, and fairly easy. Then it becomes old hat. Sooner or later we make some exceptions, stop paying attention, and before we realize, the old behavior patterns have returned to displace the new. It takes lots and lots of repetition, i.e., practice.

Some related concepts

I've been looking at some of the variations on this word "integrate."

1. "Integral" - This has been used to describe a new stage of consciousness, or new worldview, which includes and transcends all previous stages. It is an understanding that can integrate what we could only see as separate before (such as mind and body), and sees that all perspectives interrelate, so no one can be the final word (though some will have more utility than others).

2. " Integrity" - What I have learned in my own life and from clients is that if there is harmony between who you are and what you do, you will be more successful at what you do, and happier about who you are.

3. Another concept I've been looking at lately is that of "collective intelligence." When a group gets together and talks openly and sincerely about a subject that matters to all, the resulting ideas are greater than the sum of all the group members' ideas. Something new can be created through the sharing. (Sort of a mind communion!)

What I am hoping for, from all this meandering, is something useful for others. Which is why I need you - yes, you - friend or total stranger, to tell me what makes sense, what seems totally irrelevant, or however these words strike you. Just click on the Comment button below.

Being Fully Present IS the Integral Path

I've been asking myself "What is my intention for this blog (or for my life, for that matter)?" I somehow feel called to connect with and affirm others. It feels very good when I really ATTEND to people, find their inner beauty, and manage to mirror some of that back. We all need the gift of someone's being present for us. It gives us a glimpse of our own value.

We also need to give this gift to ourselves. Being present (with mindfulness) really IS the integral path. It means being open to all the parts (including what Thich Nhat Hanh calls the "ultimate dimension"), embracing the shadows, calling back the projections, noticing and accepting everything without judgement.

This is hard. This is often painful. Since we are naturally inclined to avoid pain, why do it? For one thing, to find out that we are so much more than our worries or fears or frustrations or irritations is to have those things shrink and fall away. Life becomes much easier (not to mention joyful!) There are more possibilities, and more energy for realizing them.

This is true for all levels, body, mind, soul and spirit. If, for example, I notice, pay attention to and respect the increasing stiffness and small pains in my joints, signalling the presence of arthritis, I can slow down and take care. Then I find I can do everything I used to do (well, almost!) without hurting myself. And if I pay attention to thoughts and feelings, without judging, I can choose what to act on and what to let go.

So who's "integrated"?

What is this "integrated life," anyway, and how many of us really have one? To be fully integrated would be to fully realize who you are, at your very essence. Now we're talking enlightenment, and some folks claim to be there. I don't think it's very common, though, for anyone to have it "all together," as they say, all the time. Maybe the Buddha and Jesus.

But it is something that can be experienced. Each time we experience ourselves as just a little bit bigger that we thought we were is a step on the way. These steps can add up, until, over time, transformation occurs.

Sometimes a bigger experience crashes in on us, often at times of crisis - loss or illness - and nothing is ever quite the same. That happened to me when my mother-in-law (and best friend/second mother) was diagnosed with terminal cancer. One night I gave in to despair as I had never done in my life. Instantly I experienced a peace I had never known before. I knew then that death was not what I had thought. I wasn't sure what to make of all this, but it changed the direction of my life and started me looking at who and why I was (and ultimately brought me to writing this today!)