It's lonely at the top

#1

Greetings fellow integralists!

First of all I just want to say that I am incredibly excited that this forum exists and am incredibly excited to see how this can contribute to my personal growth. So thank you all.

I have a few issues that I wanted to get some outside perspective on.

It’s actually funny but as I’m writing this I have this voice in the back of my head saying that I should stop writing and that my ideas aren’t worth spreading and that I have nothing of worth to share. As I notice this I’m aware that this is a part of my shadow that probably is contributing to all the issues I’m going to talk about but it seems that just being aware of it hasn’t yet given me any insight in what action to take.

But I digress, my main question is as follows: I currently reside in Melbourne, Australia and even though I know of a few groups that do discuss integral ideas I’m not able to meet up with them very often so I have a very hard time keeping my center of gravity at a 2nd tier level. Most of my friends/relatives that I am around a lot of the time don’t seem to care about integral ideas (I do try bringing bit and pieces up from time to time). The hardest thing about this isn’t that they don’t care but that from my perspective I can completely understand why they wouldn’t care. I feel like at any other level I might try and fight for my ideas a bit more but from a 2nd tier perspective I know I can’t force anyone to see past their line of sight. It just won’t work. So I don’t talk about it much. But this sees me getting very bored with conversations and then I can’t stop thinking that I should try more but when I do I just don’t care. Then I feel bad and try more and it’s just an endless cycle. I am aware that I should try to find some other way of talking through integral ideas (hence my love of integral life and this forum) but i just wish I could find more. I realize that I’ve been ranting a bit here so I’ll get to the point. Have any of you lovely people ever had a similar experience? And if so how have you dealt with it? At the moment I am feeling very lonely being an integralist…

#2

Yep big time wluby and thankyou for your share.

Your whole paragraph about the vioce saying your ideas and voice have nothing of worth is something I’ve really been considering lately. I find generally the integral height of my perceptions is lost on people or ruffles feathers. I can generally, meet most people where they’re at, appreciate the grain of truth they have and it’s a slow learning process of realising that they can’t step out of their more limited view. It’s also made confusing by what I would call peak state understanding. Where some of my integral views gets grocked, and I think they can then understand more than they can, but it’s a peak state, so there’s a limit there but it’s a funny thing to gauge how big or small that limit is.

An example of me feeling my voice is of less value lately - I do alot of zoom calls on Authentic World, deep relating culture that actually comes from the integral center but is dominated by green types. There’s alot of it that has value, but of late was realising there is an edge to my perceptions that’s not understood or appreciated. I’m becoming more accepting of that and learning to more skilfully limit or shift the way I talk to people depending on who they are, what their views are, skills etc. It’s great to integrate good green values but as anyone around integral knows ‘mean’ green can be maddening. Not enough discernment, truth claims are taboo at times, smothered in relativism, and my suspicion from my experience that certain emotional depths or expression greens either can’t handle or is unpalatable to them. I suspect things around very strong boundaries, because it goes against the over egalitarian, overly tolerant mantra of green, so it feels like there is a limit to the depth and breadth of emotional shares. And as I said above, people can seem to have peak states where they seem to genuinely grock what I am saying, so I think they can understand me more than they do and build more trust but then there is an inevitable regression and or triggering which takes a while to map out and can leave one burned a little at times.

I’ve actually been wondering if folks on the forum would like to set up some zoom chats. Is great to share through text but through voice and or video is alot more personal, dynamic and swift. And given integral folks are a smaller section of the population I would think it a pretty common thing to not have people in their physical lives to talk to.

#3

That’s actually what I was going to propose. I love to talk with people but not so much writing back and forth. I had my husband to talk through integral considerations of life, but he died a few months ago and now I am really missing people to go together through what is happening in us and in the world from an integral perspective, or better inquiry.

My experience in Zoom groups is also in the ways you describe: the fundamentalist green people stop the discussion from going ahead and the orange people are what they are. I am getting bored by that.

I am already having interesting talks in a women’s group https://thewisdomfactory.net/women-matters-january-2019/, but this is only once a month. I would like to have some more buddies to talk to more often!

If you and whoever reads this, are interested, let me know.
Heidi

#4

Hi Folks,

I am happy to see this thread. As some of you know, I started interviewing people on Zoom to share with the community (let me know if your interested in that).

I also have three friends that I Zoom with on Sundays, every other week. We talk for about an hour and a half about anything that is Integrally inspiring to us, and discuss various topics spontaneously. We have been discussing the idea of expanding the calls to include more people. In other words, I would be totally down to start Zooming regularly with folks (doesn’t have to be Sundays), and like Heidi, i’m actually not a fan of writing back and forth. I was going to float this idea as an independent thread, so I’m happy to see others are interested.

Is anyone down?

#5

Definitely interested Heidi :).

I remember a few years ago when I did various calls with loosely defined ‘integral’ types, I always found it to be fantastic. I recognise Elizabeth Debold on your women’s call from Enligtennext, was one of the calls I used to attend actually, feels like too long ago.

#6

Great stuff.

I’m in the UK so UTC. Generally prefer evenings but I’m also pretty flexible where I work for myself.

#7

So let’s find a date and hour where we could meet and just chat a little on Zoom.
I am in Central Europe time UTC+1. So, for to meet with Australians it would need to be my mornings, your evenings. Where are you others based?

#8

I’m in Austin, TX, and have been looking for opportunities to chat with other integralists. My main integral outlet is listening to Jeff on the Daily Evolver. Would be awesome to actually chat with folks.

Thanks

UTC-6

#9

So lets try to connect. I have set up a Doodle to find a possible time, I inserted days and time which would be possible for me. Please add your availability and then we see…

#10

Awesome, thanks so much for doing this Heidi. Should we create a new thread and post this so more people can see it?

#11

Go ahead and do what you think is best.

#12

Thanks so much for the responses everyone! It’s nice to know I’m not the only one feeling this way! I’m definitely keen to be involved in some convos. Forgive my ignorance but what is ZOOM?

#13

Zoom is a video Platform. You need a webcam and a mic and then click on the link at the right time, follow the instructions, then you are in the video room.

#14

Hey everyone, The Doodle said most of us are available this Saturday. So lets meet at 5pm UTC +1 (Central Europe) and come in in my zoom room: https://zoom.us/j/8640405576.
See you then!
Heidi

#15

Welcome and thank you for being honest and sharing your feelings and thoughts! One thing I’ve been doing more recently is learning how to let people be what they are to be and adjusting my language to fit their structural stage of development and once in awhile plant seeds. I have many friends that are very educated but are at orange and green and they accept me for what I am and find me entertaining yet deep and intelligent. I used to be more reactive to their cynicism but I’ve learned to let things role off me more. I used to be more righteous about things and that left me feeling alienated and lonely. Like Ken said, “let green be green and red be red.” It’s not always easy and if I encounter a toxic, pathological person at any stage I can get pretty uppity. That’s my challenge and it’s my responsibility to let that shit go!

Anyway, best wishes to you! :heart::call_me_hand:

#16

Awesome will be there.

#17

Think I’m with you there Brian is a growth edge of late. Seems to benefit both me and them if I can gear my language more to them or I end up feeling like my voice is of less worth or as you say just getting reactive and a little righteous. Some of that I don’t think is entirely bad, it’s hard to gauge exactly where someone is at, and the pathological expression is always something tougher to sit with. For me it’s often a two way edge, as in what’s my edge and there’s and what kind of relationship can that bring.

#18

Hello everybody. I have opened the Zoom room now and who wants to come in is very welcome

#19

Hi everyone,
Ryan and I were in the zoom room waiting for you and after half hour we left it.

I imagine that you might have problems with the timezones? Anyways, We have agreed upon setting up a different thread for Zoom meetings and, if you are interested to join, please respond there and tell us your timezone so that we can set up meetings where everyone can participate, maybe different meetings at different times in order that people in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii have also a chance to be there.

In the past I hosted INTEGRAL CHATS in our Wisdom Factory. I would love to continue that together with you. See here: https://thewisdomfactory.net/integral-chats/

#20

Heidi, just had a reminder voice in my head suggest that I look for our Doodle results and found that you guys just closed the initial Zoom meeting. Last time I checked in a few days ago there was no consensus for when we would meet, then forgot to check again, so my bad.

Thanks for your efforts to bring us together. I will try to be more consistent about checking in.