When I first created the working title for this essay in parallel with a mini course on the topic, the subtitle I used was “Transforming Ourselves, Transforming our World.” However, when asked to shorten the description for the announcement, I returned it with the subtitle, “Healing Ourselves…” Once I discovered my “error” I quickly made a note to send an email to correct it. However, upon reflection, I realized that “healing” was a more fitting term for this initial essay on spiritual activism, because as I have learned from study of various models of the spiritual journey and my life experience, this journey, a life-long endeavor, typically begins with some phase of inner healing.
For the last eight months, I have been studying Dante’s Divine Comedy. Thanks to a brilliant teacher and guide, Mark Vernon, author of the book, “Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey,” the treasure of Dante’s masterpiece has become accessible to me for the first time (I highly encourage you to check out Vernon’s book and/or his YouTube Channel). In the Divine Comedy, Dante used the classical Christian “3-Fold Way” of purgation (Inferno), illumination (Purgatorio), and union(Paradiso) to illuminate the spiritual journey.
For this essay series on the topic of spiritual activism, I will use the modern terms healing, maturation, and transformation in place of these traditional terms. In addition, I would like to emphasize that this 3-Fold Way stage model of the spiritual journey is one of multiple models that attempt to provide a conceptual framework for spiritual life. In addition, as cautioned by various spiritual teachers I have read (e.g., Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr), these stages are not neatly linear but more interwoven and “spirally” like a strand of DNA and make up an ineffable adventure of a lifetime. In addition, it is also important to note that if one engages the body, mind, and emotions along with intentional practices (e.g., self-observation, meditation, prayer, fasting, etc.) to heal, mature, and transform spiritually, the process can be deepened and accelerated (see Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory writings or my blog essays on Wilber’s work).
Interestingly, I recently heard a teaching by American psychologist, mystic, author, and former monk, James Finley stating that we humans like to jump to transformation and the mystical and avoid healing and the ordinary because the latter are painful, but we cannot. He further added that we need to understand that God is in the healing and ordinary as much as the transformative and mystical.
Reflection on these topics and the need to prepare for the mini-course I agreed to offer on this topic, inspired me to commit to creating a series of essays on being and becoming a spiritual activist. These two decisions were heavily influenced by over 20 years of activism and my longtime study of religious and non-religious systems of self-transformation to include but not limited to Contemplative Christianity, Buddhism, the 12-Steps, Integral Theory (Ken Wilber), and the Fourth Way.
Before I move into discussing the healing stage of the spiritual journey, I would like to offer my working definition of the concept of spiritual activism. By spiritual activism, I am referring to intentional reforming words and actions for greater harmony, justice, or the common good, inspired by a growing understanding (and possibly direct experience) of the ultimate unity or oneness of all life coupled with an intensifying love for others, life, and the Source (i.e., God, Ground of Being, Allah, Divine Light, Eternal Love, etc.) fostered and deepened, in part, by regular spiritual practices. I will return to the topic of spiritual practices and disciplines in a future essay.
So, where to begin the healing phase of this spiritual journey? As American Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, teaches, “you start where you are” which for most of us is in a state that spiritual teachers often call “lostness” or simply being “asleep.” Of course, we usually do not know we are spiritually asleep until something happens (e.g., COVID, a divorce, employment loss, a terminal diagnosis, a death of a loved one, etc.), and our world falls apart or our life reaches a point of unmanageability due to an addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, etc. While these are extremely difficult life circumstances, these periods can propel us into a spiritual awakening by shaking and shattering our world (internal and external) to allow the light of a new perspective in and to ignite a spark of hope for a new way of living.
Most leaders, especially those of us interested in contributing to the “Great Transition” desire to be in “right relationship” with our family, friends, loved ones, coworkers, and hopefully, the entire Earth Community. However, many of us may find that as simple as it sounds, it is not always easy to consistently actualize. Furthermore, many of us may find that WE are our biggest obstacles! In other words, unconscious internal barriers may be hurting our relationships and hindering our capacity to fulfill our deepest desires to contribute to a better world.
These internal barriers or scripts are unconscious feeling-sensation-thought-action loops that can be activated by difficult people or circumstances (i.e., triggers). Bodily sensations and emotional responses to “triggers” happen much faster than mental responses or thoughts. In such difficult circumstances, our thoughts tend to lag behind our bodily sensations and emotional responses, and we are in danger of slipping into “automatic pilot” with our thoughts racing to catch up with justifications.
While these habitual patterns differ, there are four common scripts that leaders may recognize:
self-absorption,
fault-finding,
parental-childlike patterns, and
overidentification with ego defense
Self-absorption is an internal pattern with full attention on ME as THE reference point. Thus, my desires, thoughts, feelings, wants, comforts, etc., are all that matter. And, in this state, I will say and do anything that satisfies ME and my wants. I imagine most of us realize (when not stuck in autopilot) how destructive and hurtful this pattern can be in our lives. We can contrast this self-absorption pattern with the more desirable and helpful pattern of seeing oneself as A reference point while also considering the wants and needs of others and our world.
Fault-finding or critical mind is an internal pattern that places full attention on the faults or shortcomings of a person, place, circumstance, or space. Again, I imagine most of us can see the potential for unproductive and destructive outcomes of this script. A constructive alternative to this seductive pattern is the practice of “seeing the good” in a person, circumstance or space. This is similar to the practice of Appreciate Inquiry at group and organizational levels.
Parental and childlike states arise from collective memories or permanent recordings of unprocessed life experiences primarily from one to five years of age. The parental state is often recognizable by absolutes of “should,” “ought,” “must,” “never,” and “always.” While our childlike state is often recognizable by strong feelings of both delight and despair. While there can be positive expressions of these states and styles, Adult: Adult relationships are the aim in many professional environments (for more on this topic, please see my essay, “Using Transactional Analysis for Self-Awareness and Self-Management”).
An ego defense pattern typically arises out of an overidentification with a cherished self-identity associated with a belief, personality, role, or demographic (e.g., race, gender or political affiliation). Indications of being in a state of overidentification include feelings of defensiveness, anger, resentment, self-pity, and self-indignation.
The good news about these unhelpful and potentially hurtful internal patterns is that thanks to the neuroplasticity of our brains, we can reprogram them with constructive alternatives using practices such as the five Rs!
The five Rs to reprogram internal barriers that can hurt relationships and hinder efficacy are–recognizing, refraining, releasing, reorienting, and replacing.
Recognizing: Recognize your internal signals of a trigger person or event which may include a tightening sensation in and around the heart or stomach, an increase in heart rate, or a rush of bodily heat.
Refraining: Refrain from speaking or acting. Allow your internal signals to be while you mentally note them with compassion and nonjudgment.
Releasing: Release the energy or charge with a few deep breaths while you gently shift your attention to your hands or feet. If on your hands, gently open and close them while you take your deep breaths. If on your feet, gently press them into the floor as take your deep breaths. If you can take a walk, do so while placing light attention on your feet as they make contact with the ground.
Reorienting: Reorient your intention and attention on something or someone constructive and centering. This may be an affirmation, mantra, or value statement (e.g., May love guide me.)
Replacing: Replace an automatic reaction with a constructive response.
However, as many of us well know (I sure do!), in a difficult moment or exchange, the Five Rs or any other tool for more constructive relating is frequently overtaken by the force of long-standing habitual patterns (i.e., the amygdala response). Thus, for this type of inner development, it is imperative to integrate highly supportive or “transformative” practices into one’s life such as concentration and mindfulness meditation . Over time, these meditation techniques help cultivate the inner witness or observer self. They also help calm the typical human “monkey mind” such that inner mental space starts to grow and offer the practitioner more time to activate the Five Rs and begin dismantling our internal barriers to right-relationship and personal efficacy.
Psychosynthesis is a holistic approach to psychology, developed
by Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974) that incorporates psychoanalysis, but
significant transcends it by emphasizing health, development, and spirituality.
Assagioli illustrated his view of the human psyche in his “egg-diagram” (see
Figure) with seven elements:
The lower unconscious, according to Assagioli, contains the basic
psychological activities that conduct the operative and intelligent
coordination of the body and bodily functions. This dimension of the psyche
also holds one’s foundational drives and animalistic urges, as well as
emotionally intense established thematic patterns (i.e., psychological
complexes), dark dreams and fantasies, and some pathological disturbances such
as paranoid delusions, uncontrollable urges, obsessions, and phobias.
2. The Middle
Unconscious
The middle unconscious, according to Assagioli, includes
psychological dimensions comparable to waking consciousness with ready access
to it. Life experiences are integrated, and standard cognitive and creative
intelligence activated in a type of psychological incubation before entering the
field of conscious awareness.
3. The Higher
Unconscious or Superconscious
The higher unconscious or superconscious is the region that holds
our highest inspirations, aspirations, and intuitions for ourselves, humanity,
and our world. This realm is also the source of our higher emotions such
unconditional love and higher intelligences. It also holds the deeper
experiences of insight, contemplation, and bliss, as well as potentials for
higher spiritual experiences and psychic abilities.
4. The Field of
Consciousness
For Assagioli, the field of consciousness, a term he thought
useful but not quite precise, referred to the part of our personality of which
we are conscious, including the thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, desires,
and impulses we are able to see and evaluate.
5. The Conscious
Self or “I”
The conscious self or “I” is the term Assagioli used to refer to
the “the point of pure-awareness,” not to be confused with the field of
consciousness highlighted above, which refers to the content of experience. The
conscious self or “I” refers to the experiencer. He compared the “I” to a
projector light and field of consciousness to a screen onto which images are
projected.
6. The Higher Self
Unlike Freud’s psychoanalysis, which only includes a lower
unconscious, Assagioli’s psychosynthesis includes the Higher Self or soul
depicted above the conscious self in the egg diagram. According to Assagioli,
one can experience the Higher Self through the use of psycho-spiritual practices
such as meditation.
7. The Collective
Unconscious
Assagioli’s collective unconscious, similar to Jung’s
conceptualization of the term, refers to universal, nonpersonal common forms or
archetypes that surround and influence us on a collective level. Assagioli
distinguished between primitive, archaic forms and higher, progressive forces
of a more spiritual nature.
Although not depicted in Assagioli’s original egg diagram (though
some contemporary illustrations do include it), another key element of
psychosynthesis is the concept of subpersonalities. Subpersonalities, similar
to Jung’s persona, refers to parts or formed habit patterns in the human
psyche, conscious and unconscious, that we repeatedly express in our lives. For
the healthy person, subpersonalities are conscious and in the field of
self-awareness and self-regulation. In psychosynthesis, subpersonalities may
reside in the lower, middle, or higher unconscious, unlike Jung’s persona or
false self. Additional fundamental concepts of psychosynthesis, which highlight
stages of Self-realization, include self-knowledge, self-control,
disidentification, unifying center, and psychosynthesis, as the peak stage in
his model.
Disidentification refers to the necessity of separating oneself
(the conscious I) from overidentification with everything outside or beyond
oneself. Overidentification can happen any time we identify with an aspect of
our life experiences such as a subpersonality, our ethnicity, fear, anxiety, or
a role to such an extent that it dominates our lives. Thus, healing and growth
opportunities lie in seeing when and where one overidentifies and, with the
help of exercises and practices, severing the control of the overidentification
on oneself or “I.”
Over time, former objects of overidentification can be healthily
integrated into the middle unconscious and accessed more intentionally. The
unifying center refers to the discovery or creation of an ideal around which
one can reach or reorganize one’s life. Psychosynthesis, in addition to
referring to Assagioli’s entire approach to psychotherapy, refers to the peak
of the developmental process that establishes a new personality around a
primary unifying center: one that is “coherent, organized and unified” (2000,
p. 23).
Consequently, personal will (the Will) is a highly significant
concept in psychosynthesis such that Assagioli dedicated a book on the topic
entitled, The Act of Will. The will
is an element of Assagioli’s Star Diagram of Six Psychological Functions (see
Figure 5-2/Not included in this essay), which he developed later in his life to
complement the egg diagram of the psyche. Lamenting the state of psychology in
1958, Assagioli is quoted as stating, “After losing its soul, psychology lost
its will, and only then its mind and senses” (2007, Foreword).
Furthermore, Assagioli held the view of the existence of a
transpersonal will, which he viewed as a dormant potentiality for most people.
Assagioli’s transpersonal will aligns with what Maslow referred to as “higher
needs” and the growing field of transpersonal psychology refers to using a
variety of terms that include Christ consciousness, unitive consciousness, peak
experiences, mystical experiences, spirit, oneness, and other such similar
concepts.
As mentioned above, psychosynthesis proposes a dynamic five-stage
healing and realization process (see Table—Not included in this essay). Stage
zero highlights the predominate stage of humanity, characterized by what
Assagioli called, the “fundamental infirmity of man.” John Firman (?–2008)
referred to this human condition as “primal wounding”; wounding resulting from
not being seen and heard for who we truly are by significant others in our
lives. Stage 1 relates to the tuning in of one’s inner experience and the
cultivation of greater self-awareness. Self-awareness is the foundation of all
growth and development. Without self-awareness, we tend to react out of instinct
and habitual responses or what Firman referred to as, the survival personality. As self-awareness expands, we start to
see our tendencies, preferences, and shortcomings.
Eventually, we (often with the help of supportive practices or a
skilled guide) begin to free ourselves or disidentify
from our habitual thoughts, feelings, reactions, and roles, thereby cultivating
the witness or individual observer “I” (Stage 2). Over time, we may start
sensing a more expansive identity or connectedness to life and begin to feel
new vocational urges, creative impulses, or directive promptings (Stage 3).
From a psychosynthesis perspective, this involves surrendering and inviting a
more intimate, conscious relationship with the Highest Self or soul. The fourth
stage of psychosynthesis corresponds to a period in which we are formally
responding to the invitations of the Highest Self (in contrast to the personal
self or ego in its contemporary usage) and developing more spiritually.
Survival of wounding, exploration of the personality, the
emergence of I, contact with the Highest Self, and response to the Highest Self
represent the five stages of psychosynthesis. However, Assagioli and others
(e.g., Firman & Gila, 2002 and Brown, 2009) cautioned that these stages do
not represent a set developmental sequence, but potential responses to the
human condition that can occur at any age.
It is important to note that Assagioli presented psychosynthesis
in two subcategories: personal psychosynthesis and transpersonal
psychosynthesis. The emphases of personal psychosynthesis are self-awareness
and self-regulation. The foci of transpersonal psychosynthesis are on the
realization of one’s Highest Self/soul and the actual psychosynthesis, the
reformation of the personality around a new unifying center or ideal.
Numerous practices and exercises align with psychosynthesis
overall and in these two categories. Thus, to identify a narrow set of core
practices is inconsistent with this reality. However, it is fair to say that
visualization, drawing, self-observation, and meditation are common practices
among psychosynthesis-oriented counselors, therapists, and coaches. In
addition, as highlighted above, disidentification is a core concept of
psychosynthesis and activities aimed at freeing oneself from overidentifying
with a dimension of our being or life other than the center of pure awareness
or “I.”
Given today’s pressing global challenges and the subsequent
demands on human beings, psychosynthesis offers a holistic and hope-filled
paradigm for the journey toward healing, well-being, self-actualization, and Self-realization.
Greetings! I am excited to share that excerpts from the new audiobook version of Ten Developmental Themes of Mindful Leaders are now available on my new YouTube Channel. I invite you to check one of my first offerings:
Denise Frizzell 