Broken and Whole: Integral Attracts Its Opposite

One challenge we should always be mindful of as we are growing into these integral stages is the actual source of our attraction to this material in the first place. To many of us, Integral represents a new kind of wholeness — many kinds of wholeness, actually, as Ken and I talked about in our previous episode. And many of us are deeply attracted to this idea and possibility of wholeness – largely because of an innate sense of brokenness that we feel, either in the world around us, or more often, in ourselves.

Integral, as a vision of wholeness, often attracts its opposite.

And this is a critical thing for us to keep an eye on. We are all wounded healers in our own way, and it’s often a race to see who will win — our wounds, or our healing. We’ve seen more than a few casualities in this space over the years, including everything from suicides to borderline personalities to full-on psychotic breaks in the middle of integral conferences.

Which is why the paths of waking up and cleaning up are so critical, because both of them can help keep our own sense of “brokenness” in check. Cleaning Up reminds us to keep a careful eye on our own sense of brokenness, real or imagined — especially those broken parts we cannot yet see within ourselves. Meanwhile, Waking Up exposes us to the timeless wholeness that we always already are, whether we consciously know it or not, which not only connects us with this timeless Absolute awareness, but also helps us tap into a Ground of Being that becomes an inexhaustible source of radical acceptance, forgiveness, mindfulness, and anti-fragility in the relative world, which in turn helps assist our efforts to heal the various wounds we may still be carrying in our separate selves.

Watch as Ken and Corey discuss the different ways we can project our own brokenness — and our own wholeness — and how we can bring more healing and integration as we make the momentous leap into Integral stages of development.

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Thank you, Ken & Corey for this portion of the episode! We always could use a reminder of the nature of shadow and how tricky and sticky its dynamics can be.

Best,

Brian

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