INTEGRAL ENGAGEMENT

The practice of Integral Engagement is about cultivating a fuller and more fulfilling engagement with Life. 

Integral Engagement interweaves the three essential types of perspective taking that are embedded in almost all human languages: 1st person, 2nd person, and 3rd person perspective taking.

• 1st person perspective taking is the perspective of 'I'. This aspect of Integral Engagement includes psychological shadow practices to relate more fully to all of oneself including unwanted emotions.
  
• 2nd person perspective taking is the perspective of 'you' and/or 'we'.  This type of perspective taking evokes relational and group-level practices to deepen capacity to relate more fully with others.
• 3rd person perspective taking corresponds with the perspective of "it".  The gift of this type of perspective taking includes practices from management science to relate more fully and effectively with the world of objects and things for the purpose of becoming better at getting things done.

The practical benefit of fuller engagement with your self, others, and life in general is that you will be able to get more traction to move your life in whatever direction you choose.  

Beyond its practical benefits, Integral Engagement contributes fullness of experience and greater intimacy with life.

While effectiveness, success and fulfillment are important, there is a deeper possibility sleeping in the heart of this practice:

For most of us, our consciousness tends to be dominated by our mental process which sees things - as if from the outside.  Seeing things from the outside is useful - but is a very limited mode of perception.  

Those of us who consciously or unconsciously believe seeing things from the outside is the one correct way to see them will not be able to attune to the deep heart of this practice.

If we want to experience life in a full and rich way then we need to cultivate capacities to see, feel and know ourselves and the world in new ways.

To experience the potential of Integral Engagement we need to learn to feel around in the darkness of our own direct experience.  As we start to learn to do this, at first we feel lost and aren't able to do much beside stumble around.  From the outside - to other people who don't understand the newfound freedom and fullness of experience that we are bewildered by - we may even appear confused and clumsy.  Thankfully at this point we are less reliant on social approval - so we usually aren't too bothered by what others think.

If we continue to practice, we slowly break our deeply rooted habit of colonizing the wild aliveness of our direct experience with flat and relatively lifeless concepts.  And gradually we learn to orient ourselves and navigate with less reliance on mental maps.

It is not that mental models and maps are never useful.  In many cases they are.  But for those of us interested in the later reaches of adult psychological development, a consciousness that is dominated by thinking and mental maps can be understood as training wheels for a toddler learning to ride a bike.  Training wheels may help for a while, but later they get in the way of further growth.

As we deepen in the inner skill of Integral Engagement, we become comfortable with the rich and nuanced aliveness that is going on beneath our cognitive process.  We become acclimatized to a much more intimate way of being with ourselves.  A way of being that is not based in mental models (which tend to deaden our experience of life), but is instead rooted in our direct experience - which is Life.

"If you understand real practice, then archery or anything else can be Zen.  If you don't understand how to practice, then even though you practice very hard, what you acquire is just technique.  Perhaps you can hit the mark without trying, but without a bow and arrow you cannot do anything.  If you understand the point of practice, then even without a bow and arrow the archery will help you.  How you get that kind of power or ability is only through right practice."  ― Shunryu Suzuki

At some point in our journey the practice of Integral Engagement fades into the background and disappears.  At that point there is nothing more than Life happening: fully aware of and intimate with itself.