Of late, I’ve been questioning my spiritual practice, feeling anxious and emotional, tearful, and I don't know why? Could this be "the dark night of the soul"?

Thank you for this question.

Unfortunately, like many physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual challenges, it is nearly impossible to “diagnose” what is going on without a lot more information — and it is questionable whether online discussions can provide an adequate back-and-forth to get to the bottom of something. Then there is the issue of getting multiple opinions…some of which are informed and experienced, and some of which are not.

That said, what you are describing could be any of the following:

1. A consequence of emotional stress (at work, in close relationships, etc.).

2. A consequence of changes to habits of diet, sleep, exercise.

3. A lack of adequate exposure to sunlight that has induced Seasonally Affective Disorder.

4. A vitamin D or vitamin B12 deficiency.

5. A temporary and natural “blip” in one’s confidence or faith regarding past assumptions and experiences in spiritual matters.

6. A consequence of some two years of COVID-related disruption to collective and interpersonal well-being.

7. A genetic predisposition to depression that is just now manifesting itself.

8. Unresolved childhood trauma that is percolating up after years of being repressed/denied.

9. A consequence of too much alcohol or other substance (or of ending a dependency on a substance — like quitting smoking).

10. The side effects of a chronic infection or inflammatory disorder.

And we could easily explore another dozen possibilities. Hopefully you see the problem here in terms of there not being enough information to make even a guess about what is going on.

So…I would recommend first seeing a primary care physician and getting a standard physical and blood tests (a standard metabolic panel, for example, will indicate certain deficiencies, infections, etc.). If that doesn’t prove useful, I would then see a well-recommended therapist. And, if none of those produce any fruit, then yes, there may possibly be a spiritual component to what you are going through.

However, the dark night of the soul is generally a bit more extreme than the symptoms you describe. It is also rarely (if ever, from my observation) a spontaneous or uninvited experience. The dark night is almost always the consequence of disciplined and sustained spiritual practices over time.

I hope this was helpful.

How is wearing a mask a political matter?

It’s not. At all. The politicization of mask-wearing was manufactured by politicians and other folks in power who want to manipulate people into fear-based reasoning. And it has absolutely nothing to do with “freedom.”

The reasoning is pretty simple: If you don’t wear a mask, you can infect other people. Not because you become sick, or have a fever, or have any sign of COVID-19, but because “asymptomatic” carriers of COVID-19 — and even those who’ve just been infected within the last few days but aren’t showing symptoms yet — can infect everyone around them really easily. Contrary to the misrepresentations posted in some of the answers in this thread, ALL of the science confirms that mask-wearing slows or stops the spread of COVID. That is in fact how other countries have successfully reduced community spread (sometimes down to zero!): mandatory mask-wearing in public.

So in this context, wearing a mask is pretty much identical to not constantly spraying machine gun fire into the air while walking around in a crowd. It doesn’t matter that the person spraying bullets doesn’t “intend harm” to others, because there is a very high likelihood they will harm someone by behaving this way. It’s really a simple cause-and-effect relationship: spraying bullets in the air in crowded areas is going to kill some people. What solidifies this comparison is the fact that, by not wearing a mask, it is also LOT more likely that the mask-rebel themselves will contract COVID and become a spreader — making the risk exponentially higher to everyone around them.

Here are some other things that are reasonably unlawful and highly dangerous, and are in the same category as not wearing a mask in public during COVID:

- Driving a vehicle at high speed down a street crowded with pedestrians.

- Having lots of unprotected sex with strangers every day against their will, when there is an increasing likelihood (from this very behavior) that we are transmitting a lethal STD.

- Being the driver of a school bus full of children who parks the bus across a busy train track several times a day because we insist we deserve to have a nap anywhere we want (and nobody can tell us we can’t nap anywhere we want to!)

- Inviting our friends over for a fun-filled evening at our home and feeding them carcinogenic foods for dinner (because hey, WE don’t think carcinogens cause cancer, and we don’t believe the scientists who do!).

Again, though, this is really about politicians creating divisions, polarization, and “Us vs Them” rhetoric, so that their followers can be easily manipulated to feel angry, afraid, and be lured into lockstep loyalty with deceptive groupthink.

I suppose the easiest way to summarize this idea is to say that folks who refuse to wear a mask during the COVID pandemic are basically unwilling or unable to question propaganda and indoctrination, and seemingly would rather kill people than offend their peers or educate themselves about doing the right thing.

My 2 cents.

How do political ideologies negatively affect us?

Most political ideology is focused on achieving desired outcomes that align with what are perceived to be shared values, beliefs, social norms, and qualities of “rightness” and virtue for society. However, there is a spectrum of approaches to reifying such shared values, where at one extreme the features of a political ideology are caustic, destructive, and ultimately self-defeating, and at the other extreme the features facilitate and support those values in enduring ways. Another way of stating this is that one end of the spectrum cultivates the seeds of dissonance, conflict, and turmoil that lead to its undoing, while the other end of the spectrum nurtures self-supporting harmony, stability, and peace. The following chart contrasts and compares features of these different ends of the spectrum:

What is your stance on people with mental illness, that are a danger to themselves and others, refusing to take their medication?

First, I think this speaks directly to the fundamental failures of both a medical system focused on profit, and the diseases of consumerist society that externalizes is agency and happiness into commercialized dependencies (on technology, pharmaceuticals, titillating self-distractions, self-medicating behaviors, etc.). Not only can we lay the epidemic levels of unhappiness at the feet of these causes, but also the horrific mishandling and counterproductive treatment of both serious and debilitating genetic or epigenetic psychological disorders (bipolar disorder, various personality disorders, schizophrenia, etc.) and what we could describe as more environmentally exacerbated or triggered conditions (PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc.). For-profit medicine and a culture of commoditized well-being have been disastrous amplifiers of mental illness in the modern world. To understand these impacts, check out:

1) Reviewing the Evidence for Mental Illness Being Epigenetic,

2) Epigenetics, Stress, and Their Potential Impact on Brain Network Function: A Focus on the Schizophrenia Diatheses, and

3) Consumerism and Well-Being in India and the UK: Identity Projection and Emotion Regulation as Underlying Psychological Processes.

So part of the answer to this question is addressing those underlying amplifiers: if we attenuate or eliminate these causal factors, there will be less mental illness in society — both in terms of stress-induced phenotypical expression of genetic disease, and crippling cognitive behavioral responses to stress. The principles of what is basically a preventative approach to mental illness have been demonstrated by a number of success stories. Check out 'Care BnB'- the town where mentally ill people lodge with locals and Soteria (psychiatric treatment) - Wikipedia, both of which essentially replace a transactional, commercialized model of treatment with a relational, community-centric one.

In addition, in my own L e v e l - 7 proposals, access to mental health resources is treated the same way as access to physical health resources: it’s integral to civil society and part of a “Universal Social Backbone” available to everyone without cost.

This is similar to a left-libertarian approach to criminality in society: by reducing the incentives to criminal activity, diffusing and reversing dysfunctional cultural norms that promote violence and coercion (including, and perhaps most especially, the concept of private property — see Private Property as Violence: Why Proprietarian Systems are Incompatible with the Non-Aggression Principle), and strengthening community-centric civil society at the same time, we may not be able to eliminate criminal behavior altogether, but we can greatly reduce it to the point where enduring interpersonal relationships and strong expectations of prosociality have a greater regulatory effect than policing ever could.

That said, the issues of personal agency and selfhood are also at the center of this question. I lean in the direction of personal agency trumping societal or institutional impositions of will. At the same time, I have a right-libertarian friend who was institutionalized and medicated under a 5150 (involuntary psychiatric commitment here in California), after planning and nearly executing his own suicide. I helped him through that time and afterward, and he has been thriving ever since and has been very grateful that others intervened as they did. He had been on the wrong medication (another consequence of a profit-driven medical system) that worsened his depression, but during his 5150 stay he received much more competent assessment and a much better treatment plan. Even as a lifelong libertarian, he has no problem with his involuntary commitment, because he knows he was not in his right mind at that time. In such cases, sanity is a more critical standard than agency, even (by most accounts) according to the perspective of the personal deemed “insane.”

My 2 cents.

How does one reason for themselves and use critical thinking to interpret what they see and hear about COVID-19 at this time?

The sad reality right now (April 22, 2020) is that we just have be patient and wait. Careful, considered, critical reasoning won’t do much good without sufficient and accurate data — and that is really what we’re all lacking right now. Too many news, data, and information sources that are usually reliable have been propagating incomplete, inaccurate, lr even dangerous information from the very beginning of the pandemic. Many political leaders are of course even worse about conveying a nuanced and carefully considered understanding of COVID-19. And even medically savvy folks are struggling with what information they feel they can trust. As a consequence, a lot of people remain bewildered, afraid, and confused…and will likely have to remain in that state until we have more data. A lot more data. In perhaps two months’ time, we will hopefully have a much better picture of the COVID-19 pandemic, including how to manage it. For now…we must simply be prudent, and patient.

That said, I will offer a few resources that have been “better than average” IMO at conveying the evolving picture of COVID-19:

1) NBC Nightly News has done better than many other networks in the U.S. in providing carefully vetted, “cautiously accurate” information around COVID-19 in a very condensed format each night.

2) Science | AAAS and Science News Magazine are pretty reliable sources for ongoing developments, and delve into much greater depth.

3) STAT has been better than most at delivering accurate breaking scientific and medical news.

4) To get a very helpful picture of the global data on COVID-19, Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) - Statistics and Research at Our World In Data seems to be a great resource.

5) And of course the Coronavirus section of the W.H.O. website is…well…slightly better than mediocre, though sometimes slow to catch up on the latest developments.

And…well…that’s about it, unfortunately. I’ve been pretty appalled at the wild inaccuracy of many other news and information sources — including ones I have relied upon for many years. They are truly terrible right now.

Lastly, I’ll offer my own web page on COVID-19, which attempts to keep up-to-date on the latest information and provides resources for further research: COVID-19 Overview | Integral Lifework

Of course…this answer must itself be taken with a grain of salt, as I’m just clawing my way through a twilight of understanding like everyone else.

I hope this was helpful.

Why do people oppose opening the economy with social distancing guidelines?

It’s pretty simple: physical distancing isn’t enough to stop an explosive spread of coronavirus. In order to open the economy back up at all, we need to be able to contain, track and treat COVID-19 so that overall disruption and fatalities can be reduced. To do that will require:

1) Better, faster, more widely available testing of COVID-19 infection and antibodies.

2) Adequate supplies of effective masks for everyone who is out in public.

3) Financial support for folks who are at high risk and aren’t able to do their job.

4) A treatment that reduces lethality and permanent injury from infection.

5) And, ultimately, both a vaccine that works and broader herd immunity.

Right now, we have NONE of these things. So this is simply going to take time.

However, folks are also increasingly realizing that there is a larger issue in play: that we may not really want to “go back” to what we had before, and instead have an opportunity to address some pretty nasty systemic problems. Here is a great article about this:

We Are Living in a Failed State

My 2 cents.

Is it just to scuttle the livelihoods of 10's of millions to save the lives of thousands?

This is a false choice.

The impact on jobs and the economy is temporary, not permanent. Also the numbers used aren’t even close to correct. The question would be much more accurately stated: “Should tens of millions of people experience a temporary loss of income — for perhaps a few months — so that a few million people’s lives will be saved?”

That is a bit closer to the mark in terms of tradeoffs. As to whether that is “just” or not, I suppose it comes down to the morality you are operating on — whether temporary economic suffering somehow trumps careless and avoidable death in your worldview. In reality, the economic impact of COVID-19 is much worse because we have structured our society to funnel all the wealth to a few people, while leaving the majority of the working population in debt and without much savings or assets. So the bigger question really is:

“Is it just that tens of millions of millions of people are so vulnerable to COVID-19’s economic impacts, mainly because a few thousands have accumulated all the wealth in society?”

My 2 cents.

What are the differences between competition and cooperation?


They don’t need to be different. Friendly competition with the mutually agreed-upon goal of creating excellence and innovation is, in effect, “cooperation.” What has happened in some cultures — most notably here in the U.S. — is that “competition” takes on hostile, winner-take-all, zero-sum game characteristics. At the same time, “cooperation” is seen by these same hostile competitors as a weakness — an opportunity to exploit or gain advantage. To some degree, the profit motive combined with monopoly and expectations of scarcity (i.e. fear) tends to encourage this non-cooperative competitiveness. It seems to be a sort of malady of being culturally immature.

My 2 cents.

Why are people still thinking political even in this Covid-19 situation, instead of uniting all forces to overcome it?

Thanks for the question. My take is that there are many different reasons why COVID-19 is still being politicized and a unified effort is so challenging here in the U.S. — some of the reasons are more obvious, some more subtle. Here are a few that come to mind:

1) The profound political polarization of the country perpetuates partisan polemics — about everything. Nothing, really, can escape this gravity well right now.

2) Lots of folks are benefitting from politicization of COVID-19 — politicians taking a political stance to help them stay in office, companies and media outlets rushing to fulfill the latest priorities of the current political agenda, and so on.

3) There is a paucity of trustworthy leadership, competence and appropriate knowledge at both the national and state levels of government. This is true for both the legislative and executive branches. And, without these qualities, all the really remains is rhetoric, persuasion, and “Us vs. Them” jockeying to move the policy needle in any direction. It’s a sad situation.

4) The American electorate has an unfortunate habit of “going with their gut” instead of really thinking things through carefully. This is a gross overgeneralization of course — there are plenty of thoughtful voters out there — but, on the whole, I think this has been a pervasive problem. And one of the consequences is that these people’s opinions are not usually shaped by facts or logic, but by emotional appeals, groupthink, and the magnetism of their chosen “authority” on a given subject. It is, essentially, the perfect environment for political propaganda and maneuvering to shape all public discourse and narratives around something like COVID-19.

5) Most politicians — especially those who have survived a pretty hostile environment and remained in office for years — reflexively act on political instinct first, and everything else second. It’s behavioral conditioning because of an antagonistic status quo.

My 2 cents.

When is a conservatorship necessary?

This is a very difficult topic. I resisted conservatorship for my own mom when she began to show signs of dementia. I wanted to respect her independence and agency. Unfortunately, over the course of two years, she was victimized by numerous scams that depleted all of her supplemental income, and ran up a large amount of debt. She then began to have difficulty caring for herself physically. Initially, I took the route of adding some in-home support for her (she was still living in her own house at the time) — help with errands, nurse visits to monitor her medications and blood sugar, help with bathing, and so on. But those in-home resources began to report increasing concern about my mom’s behaviors and risk (leaving the stove on, leaving the front door open in winter, hostile outbursts, eating foods that made her conditions worse, poor personal hygiene, and so on). My mom did not seem to be “losing it,” she seemed okay to me. But I was in denial.

Then she had a stroke — one that was very likely caused by her poor compliance with diabetes treatment and diet.

After initial hospitalization and rehab, my mom returned home. Her stroke still wasn’t enough to convince me she couldn’t be independent, and she was still very high functioning. In discussing the situation with my mom she also made it clear the she wanted to “die at home” and didn’t want to move into assisted living or have more controls put on her life. She had always lived as a free spirit, and so this all made sense to me.

Then I discovered the scams, debt, and loss of resources — but only when my mom started to ask me for money. She had elaborate excuses about what had happened to her income, but eventually admitted that, in addition to clearing out all of her reverse mortgage, she was cashing her Social Security check each month and giving that to the scammers (in its entirety) as well. She didn’t see anything wrong with any of this, because….

She was told she had won two million dollars and a Mercedes, and that she needed to pay taxes on the prizes in order to receive her money and new car.

No matter how I tried to convince her that this was obviously a scam, she couldn’t be reasoned with. She was sure she had won a prize. She had even gone down to a local police station to show them the letter and complain about not receiving her winnings. And although the police then became aware of the fact she was being scammed, they could do nothing. When I spoke with them, they said “she is a willing party…unless she files a complaint herself, we can’t go after these scammers.” Apparently, this sort of scam on the elderly is reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S.A.

So, finally, the critical mass of red flags got through my denial, as my mom was now:

1. Not managing her chronic health conditions at all, and putting herself at risk.

2. Not managing her money at all, and not able to pay bills or buy food.

3. Not able to keep herself or her house clean.

4. Giving her money away — anytime she received any income (including from selling her beloved jewelry and collected art at a pawn shop!), she would call the scammers immediately to pay them. The scammers would then send a cab to pick up the money, sometimes even driving my mom to the bank or a Walmart to cash a check. It was insidious and constant. And if my mom wasn’t delivering, the scammers would call my mom ten or fifteen times each day to bully her into giving them more money.

So I called adult services (the “elder abuse” department) for the state and asked what I could do. The social worker there was amazing. She helped me jump through all of the hoops necessary to get my mom into conservatorship. Thankfully, my mom still trusted me enough that she agreed to one voluntarily. However, working with a local senior center in town, I was also able to have her assessed by a psychiatrist who confirmed the dementia diagnosis and evidence of incapacity to manage her financial affairs. This was a key step, and would have been even more necessary if my mom had not voluntarily entered conservatorship.

At first, I tried a third party conservator who lived in my mom’s town — I live on the other side of the U.S. so this seemed to make good sense. Unfortunately, the conservator, a former law enforcement officer, was almost as bad as the scammers and provided no services at all in exchange for high fees. This included not paying my mother’s bills, which sent everything into a deeper downward spiral.
Eventually, I had to become my mom’s conservator myself. This involved yet another trip to probate court and another authorization for me to become “conservator of person and estate” for my mom. Again, this was voluntary. It would have been much more difficult had my mom not allowed it voluntarily.

I then embarked on a year of daily management of my mom’s health and finances. If I had not become her conservator, she would have ended up on the street or worse…and I likely wouldn’t have found out until it was too late to help. Now she is in a dementia care facility and doing fairly well — and that transition, too, would likely not have happened had I not been involved in her care. As her dementia progressed, my mom’s confusion and aggressive behaviors were putting her at substantial risk. She needed 24/7 care.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t feel guilty about “putting her in a nursing home,” which was exactly what she said she didn’t want. I felt terrible, especially because in her first few weeks all she could do was beg to be taken home. You could say the final vindication for the decision to move her into care came when she had a serious cardiac event that required bypass surgery. Had she not been in care, she would have died two years ago. Right now, she is doing well, and I can visit her via video chat. She doesn’t know who I am anymore, but she always smiles and is delighted to see a face she at least knows is familiar and kind to her. Her old friends who all live nearby occasionally come to visit her, too, and that always brings her joy in-the-moment as well. And, a bit surprisingly, she loves the food at the facility and some of the activities there, like bowling.

So, via this not-easy-and-simple answer, I hope I have conveyed how difficult the conservatorship decision — and process — can be. There have been lots of other hiccups, too, such as making sure my mom’s financial resources continue to be managed so that her care can be paid for. There have been other medical crises. There have been psychiatric crises. There have been challenges dealing with Social Security, Medicare Part B insurance, and so on. It really never ends, and it is never easy. But my mom could not have navigated any of this herself.

I hope this was helpful.

COVID Easter 2020



My sanity is bound by hope
That after this entombed stillness
Of prescribed isolation
We will resurrect ourselves
Casting away the layered dressings
Of our self-wrought calamity
And breathe fresh morning air
Thoughtfully renewed
In the garden of Earth

What will this new life be?
What will define the yearning brightness
That penetrates our darkest hour?
What clarion lures us forth
From this uneasy sleep?
What, really, is the point
Of our return?

Is it a soaring stock market?
Feverish consuming of endless stuff?
A disregard for every living thing –
Even our own young?
Perpetual striving and toiling
To create another shiny lie
To summit in the dark?
Another hollow victory
Of affluent self-importance?

No…that is the chiseled rock
– An obsessive labor of futility –
That formed the cold and rigid damp
Of our own negation
That is the old way
Of unresurrected self
Blinded into foolishness
By a fixed and narcissistic gaze

To believe in the power
Of rebirth
Is to let go of childish things
And cleave to larger loves
A love of Others
In service and kindness
A love of Nature’s gifts
In respecting and protecting
A love of Beauty
In creating and enjoying
A love of Justice
In championing and obeying
A love of Sharing
In generosity and humility
And a love of Love itself
In remembering, and honoring, the Sacred

Without such reconsideration
We emerge from our tomb
Confused, rudderless, and distraught
Stumbling numbly
Backwards to Golgatha
Eager for the familiar comfort
Of being nailed up on a cross

Without grasping
This moment of renewal
We return to taunted suffering
Pierced by spears of debt
Where greed casts lots
For our lives and our possessions
Where all thirst is quenched
By vile distractions
And our soul cries out:
“Why have you abandoned me?”

This, now, is our chance
To ascend beyond the pettiness
Of “me” and “mine”
To roll away the stone
Of callous indifference
To shed the suffocating mask
Of fearful ignorance
This, now, is the Easter
Of humanity
The lush and fertile change
That delivers us
From ourselves

[Audio version: https://soundcloud.com/user-701150728/covid-19-easter-2020v2]

Today, Donald Trump said the COVID-19 lockdown in America could be in effect until July or August. What will happen to the people who are forced to stay home from work and can’t pay rent or bills?

First I would encourage everyone not to listen to anything Trump says…ever. Any sensible person with an average IQ can observe that Trump can’t stop lying and contradicting himself. At every turn, he has downplayed the severity of COVID-19 and its impacts. Trump is, by almost any measure, an incompetent idiot. So instead, we should all become a bit more educated about the details of the novel coronavirus ourselves. Here is a page with helpful links and a frequently-updated overview: COVID-19 Overview

As to the impact on those under a “stay-at-home” order….

The potential negative impacts are both economic and psychological. Some people (like me, to be honest) are natural hermits who are perfectly happy spending time alone, and can keep themselves occupied and entertained without a lot of social interaction. Others are wired to be much more social, engaged, and entertained through interactions and activities that involve many people. This latter group will undoubtedly suffer a great deal during this period of social distancing — in particular I’m thinking of young people whose entire self-concept and self-esteem may be grounded in their social interactions. So having online activities and ways to connect virtually may be very important, and it seems as though there is already recognition of this and attempts to increase such online activity options. Nevertheless, depression and anxiety may be real battles for large numbers of highly social people right now. To address that challenge, I recommend folks take a look at the thirteen dimensions of nourishment (there is a free overview and self-assessment on the Integral Lifework website), and see if they can add some activities that nourish parts of themselves they may be neglected.

On the economic side of things, the situation could get very dire for those who have lost all of their income. There are several efforts at the state and federal levels to help people — from direct monetary payouts, to temporary debt and recurring bills forgiveness, to free medical care for COVID-19 tests and treatment. The benefits of these efforts will become clearer in the coming weeks, and they will certainly help cushion the blow. But they will only be effective for the short-term. The more permanent solution will be a) a COVID-19 vaccine, which is likely 12–18 months away; or b) a more successful and reliable COVID-19 treatment than anything tried so far — which could arrive much more quickly than a vaccine. Once either or both of these are in place, then economic recovery can begin in earnest. At the same time, this may also be a helpful moment in human history to reevaluate whether neoliberal crony capitalism — with all of its inherent resource depletion, worker exploitation, negative externalities (like climate change), and economic inequalities — should remain our primary global political economy. It just might be time for a change that would help us be better prepared for future crises like COVID-19. To that end, here is a link to an alternative political economy that is more equitable, sane and sustainable: L e v e l - 7 Overview.

My 2 cents.

What is the relationship between trauma and the formation of rigid ideological stances?

This is a great question - thanks.

I’ll offer two avenues for consideration:

1. My own experiences and observations. Without exception, every single person I have ever known — and every author or thinker I have ever read — who has held extreme ideological views has, at some point, experienced pronounced or prolonged trauma prior to age 25. There also seems to be a strong correlation between the severity, duration, nature of trauma, and the age in which it occurred, and the types of ideological and emotional distortions that manifest later on. In a fairly concrete sense, I would say that extreme trauma, combined with a lack of opportunity and/or willingness to heal, the weaknesses of a person’s innate psychological constitution, and early exposure to extreme ideologies, nearly always result in fanaticism of some kind. This is also a fairly predictable formula for the triggering of genetic dispositions toward mental illness. We might even roughly generalize that extreme ideological stances are forms of mental illness.

In attempting to understand this pattern, observed so consistently over many years, I’ve hypothesized that trauma encourages “exclusionary bias;” that is, denying some forms of information and experience (that are internally or externally generated) to have any influence over our perception-cognition. The chart in this article outlines some of these relationships: Sector Theory 1.0 – Todd's Take on Epistemology

2. More formal research. An increasing body of research seems to indicate that childhood trauma and non-supportive environments retards development and cripples judgement and ideation in adulthood. The predictable consequence is that ideologies that capitalize on fear, make negative assumptions about people and outcomes, are disconnected from reality and concrete evidence, offer formulaic responses to risk, distort (attenuate or exaggerate) compassionate consideration of others, suppress flexible emotional/empathetic responses in favor of detached analytical judgement, perpetuate self-victimization identities, or appeal to an immature or juvenile mindset of rebellion and nonconformism, will all be more attractive to someone whose development has been affected by trauma. I’ve offered some resources on this research below.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3731065/
http://resources.css.edu/academics/med/2015conferenceresources/children-and-trauma.pdf

Understanding the Impact of Trauma

Assessing and addressing the impact of childhood trauma: Understanding why childhood trauma leads to an increased risk for psychosis

https://www.ohiocasa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/F07.pdf

Child Trauma Effects Often Last Into 50s and Beyond

I hope this was helpful.

Which is the more complicated: for a right-wing person to understand a left-wing person or for a left-wing person to understand a right-wing person?

Thanks for the question, but I think that not only is it difficult to generalize in this area, but that it’s a moving target — the landscape is constantly changing. With that said, here is how I would approach some relevant characteristics:

1. My experience is that, on an interpersonal level, left-leaning and right-leaning people who have an honest, intimate and open friendship can come to understand each others’ position quite easily over time. Why? Because they build trust through friendship, and the politics are secondary.

2. It might be fairly easy to say that, the dumber and more ignorant two people are — and the more extreme their opposing political positions — the more challenging it will be for them to come to fruitful insight of each other’s POV. But, more importantly, if they already feel hostile and alienated towards each other, and are isolated from each other in terms of any interpersonal connection or shared experience, it might be pretty impossible for them to bridge the distance between their positions…ever.

3. Empathy is a powerful perceiver and communicator. If folks of opposing views have “strong empathy muscles,” they probably can achieve a basic understanding of each other’s perspectives with some concerted effort.

4. With all of these caveats, I would still have to say that I encounter more people with what we might call “identical, lockstep, reflexively regurgitated groupthink” on the right-leaning end of the spectrum than on the left-leaning end — and part of that groupthink is to deliberately distort and misunderstand left-leaning positions. That is not to say this same phenomenon doesn’t exist on the Left…it does…it’s just a lot more rare.

We can see a parallel example in media: if you compare the extreme bias and low factuality (or conspiracy-mongering) of media outlets on a site like Media Bias/Fact Check - Search and Learn the Bias of News Media (http://mediabiasfactcheck.com), the ratio of really “out there” right-wing media outlets to left-wing ones is about 10 to 1. That is, there are roughly ten times the number of right-wing media sources that are basically promoting yellow journalism, counterfactual reporting and conspiracy propaganda. In my experience, that’s about the same ratio of right-wing folks who can’t understand the other side vs. left-wing folks who can’t understand the other side.

My 2 cents.

Why do people dislike people with borderline personality disorder? Why are people mean to them?

This is a tough question to answer — mainly because I don’t know the questioner's situation or why they are asking this question. However, if they have been diagnosed with BPD and are observing this reaction from others, then I would offer the following, based on several years living with folks with BPD, attending BPD support groups and therapy, and studying up on BPD….

1. Part of the problem is perception and lack of education. If someone doesn’t understand the Borderline diagnosis, they will tend to make incorrect assumptions about what “looks like” sabotaging, manipulative, deceptive, or destructive behavior…but which is really just an overwhelming self-preservation response from someone with BPD. Borderline’s aren’t intending to act they way they sometimes do, they are coping with a powerful flood of heightened emotions with a primal and reflexive panic. These self-preservation responses can override all rational attempts to manage them differently (on the part of the person who has BPD) — and all rational attempts a friend or loved one might make to mitigate them. Imagine being so flooded by, for example, fear or anxiety that the only actions that seems available are to lash out, or lie, or run away, or try to desperately force the situation into a different condition. So the friends, coworkers, loved ones, relatives, etc. may simply not understand the immensely strong emotions the person with BPD is feeling in these instances…and so the Borderline’s actions seem inexplicable or inexcusable.

2. BPD can be extremely difficult to treat. One of very few effective options available is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), which provides a set of tools (practices, habits, thought patterns, etc.) that help Borderlines manage the intense emotional turmoil they experience — and help manage the negative impacts of common BPD behaviors on others. If a Borderline hasn’t ever engaged in DBT training and support groups, then it’s possible whatever therapy they try will have very limited effect. And this can be incredibly frustrating for everyone involved — for the Borderline and for everyone else in their life who is placing hope that therapy (or medications, etc.) will result in healing or constructive change. And if multiple therapeutic techniques are attempted — and fail to help — that can lead to everyone involved feeling more mistrust, exasperation, frustration, antagonism, etc.

3. Of course there are people who are mean to others and dislike them simply because they themselves are immature, and don’t care about trying to understand the other person — or to have compassion for them. This is often just a hallmark of immaturity and selfishness, in my experience. It wouldn’t matter if the person being disliked had BPD or red hair…the self-centered nasty person would be mean because that’s just who they are. Or — ironically — perhaps they themselves have a personality, emotional or mental disorder that is causing them to be mean…?

4. Just as with some other personality disorders (and some other mental illness diagnoses), someone suffering from BPD can feel sad, angry, depressed, paranoid, or judged by others in various situations, even when the other people involved aren’t actually trying to be mean — and don’t actually dislike them, aren’t judging them, aren’t angry, etc. This is one of the saddest situations that anyone trying to befriend or support a Borderline can experience: *to be suspected or accused of being mean, or of disliking their friend or loved one with BPD, when they really don’t feel that way at all. *It can be heartbreaking until everyone involved (including the Borderline) can eventually learn that these suspicions and fears are manifestations of a mental illness, and not actually real. It’s very hard to arrive at this place of neutral, non-judgmental awareness of these strong negative emotions, but that is what anyone with BPD — or anyone who is in a relationship with someone with BPD — must learn to do. Again, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy training and ongoing support groups can be incredibly helpful in this regard.

5. Lastly I would like to share one of the foundational pillars of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: radical acceptance. Radical acceptance is available for everyone involved in these situations — for the Borderline themselves, and for the people in their life who wish to support them. And it’s just what it sounds like: acceptance without judgement, without expecting or forcing a change, without retaliating or punishing, without feeling shame. Just acceptance…and letting go. In my experience radical acceptance is extraordinarily liberating, and healing, for everyone involved. In fact can be a necessary and constructive first step in mending any tumultuous relationship.

I hope this was helpful info.

Regenerative Mindset, Habits & Economies



A Critical Shift Away from an Extractive Downward Spiral

We can no longer maintain an opportunistic, ever-expanding extractive mindset toward planet Earth’s ecosystems and resources, toward human labor and creativity, toward the cooperative infrastructure of civil society, or in the “taking for granted” of life itself. Our extractive habits are unsustainable in economic terms, but more critically they are destroying everything around us at an accelerating pace. To fully appreciate both our extractivist habits and their consequences, please consult the following resources:

“Deep Adaptation: A Map for Avoiding Climate Tragedy” by Professor Jem Bendell (full paper available here; editorial article available here)

UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’ (Detailed report overview with many key statistics here; full “advanced unedited” IPBES report here)

“Capitalism is destroying the Earth. We need a new human right for future generations” — Guardian article by George Monbiot here.

“Extractivism and neoextractivism: two sides of the same curse” by Alberto Acosta (full essay available here)

The only solution is to shift as rapidly and all-inclusively as possible to regenerative solutions — and a regenerative state of mind. Collectively and individually, there is really no other choice. Why? Because hopes that global capitalism can be reigned in or civilized are naive and Pollyannish — as all such efforts are routinely undermined by enormously well-funded and fanatical neoliberal investment in the extractive status quo. Because trust that human innovation will address the most serious consequences of extractivism with new technologies is contradicted by the enormous complexities of natural ecosystems, the stunning scale and current momentum of the problems we must address, and the dismal track record of a majority previous technologies that created unanticipated negative externalities. Our only reasonable option is to implement regenerative systems and vigorously restrain and extinguish extractive systems.

And again, these changes are not restricted to how humanity views and utilizes natural resources — that is really just the tip of the iceberg. Equally important are how we view people — human creativity, labor, economic behavior, social behavior, spirituality, etc. — as well as how we view the institutions of civil society, and how we view both the wonder of Nature and the miracle of life itself. Does everything exist merely to be used up and exploited? Or does everything in this amazing reality have intrinsic value apart from any utilization by humanity? This is the fundamental question we must answer in order to guide effective transformations of our old, self-destructive habits into new, sustainable and thriving ones.


If These Concerns Are the Primary Drivers of Reform, How Can We Change?

What do “regenerative solutions” look like, then? Certainly there are many proposed frameworks for sustainability that have already proven themselves on various scales — many of which are described in proposals on my Level 7 website, or would easily dovetail with those proposals. Successful recycling programs and materials sourcing, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture have demonstrated genuine promise in their workability and scalability — even using capitalist metrics, they have increasingly been able to compete with traditional extractive models in terms of productivity and efficiency. As for human exploitation, worker-owned and managed cooperatives, Open Source production, P2P models, and commons-centric governance likewise have an established a meaningful track record of self-sustaining success — again even when using capitalist metrics to evaluate them, they often exceed the productivity and efficiency of traditional exploitative models.

Apart from the understandable resistance of established power and wealth to what will inevitably be a self-sacrificial change, what is the barrier, then, to transitioning away from extraction and exploitation? What is stopping us, and how can we overcome that barrier? Is there something more deeply rooted in our psyche that prevents us from moving forward. . .?

This is my intuition: that we need to fall in love again — with everything that our hectic, worried, materialistic, technological lifestyle has distanced us from. We need to re-invoke some of the mystery and wonder that once existed for us as we beheld the magnificence of Nature on a daily basis. We need to reconnect with each other in more personal ways — as neighbors, as community members, as citizens and fellow travelers of a rich cultural heritage. We need to cultivate more gratitude regarding the stunning gift our very existence. We must abandon a mechanistic, individualistic, reductionist and profit-centric view of ourselves and the world around us, and reacquaint ourselves with the felt experience of community and mystery. And we must not only grudgingly allow the possibility that life on Earth has intrinsic value, but actually celebrate it as we honor all species, all ecosystems, all habitats, all beings — including each other. In other words: we must return to more authentic, intimate and wonder-filled relationship with All That Is.

This is not a new concern, or a new remedy. Writers, activists, leaders, organizations and movements since capitalism first clawed its way to prominence have warned us of its dangers. However, this re-invocation of mystery has often been framed as an individual journey or choice — sometimes mystical, sometimes psychological, sometimes inviting methodological holism or integralism — but I would contend that this individualistic framing is itself destined to fail. A disproportionate emphasis on individual transformation and development is, in fact, just a new manifestation of the underlying error, confining the solution to the same atomistic, alienated, disconnected separateness that is causing the problem. The re-invocation of mystery must therefore be deeper, more encompassing, and more pervasive and participatory for any enduring, systemic transformation to take effect. It cannot be restricted to “me,” or “my tribe,” or “our community,” or even “our species” or “our planet,” for the egotism of individualism is too easily converted into the arrogance of anthropocentrism.

No, the smallest scope of this shift in relationship must, of necessity, be “All Life,” and then cascade through all other strata of being from there. To love all of life itself, to cherish it and commit ourselves to its thriving a a whole, is the beginning of cultivating kind, compassionate, caring relationships with everything else. And humanity must, as a whole, participate in this renewed relationship. We must all collectively revive a worshipful passion for the sacredness of life — certainly here on Earth, but really all of its forms wherever they may be found. And we must operationalize that passion within every system, every institution, every mutual agreement, every law, every collaboration and competition, every collective act. We must all live this truth together as if our lives depend on it — because, in light of the cataclysm we have created, our lives do in fact depend on it.

Yes, there will always be outliers, rebels, egoists and psychopaths, some of whom will continue to attain positions of power and influence. And there will be plutocratic pushback against all reforms challenge the supremacy of greed. But despite corporate capitalism’s endless efforts to reenforce, elevate and amplify such antisocial aberrations — through its heartless obsession with transactional relationships, commodification, externalized dependencies, self-indulgent hedonism, and the almighty dollar — that is not who we human beings are in our heart-of-hearts. Instead, we want to belong, we want to contribute, we want to care and be cared for, we want to love and be loved, and we long to have our intrinsic value and worth acknowledged. That is the basis of society itself — and family, friendship, and lasting romance — rather than the will-to-profit. So it follows that if we can, altogether, remember who we really are, then all the wonder and mystery of our relationship with life itself can be restored.

First Steps

In many ways what we are aiming for here is recovering a long-abandoned faith. Not faith in the sense of a blindly adherent belief system — and not the faith of any particular religious tradition — but faith as an intentional quality of character that trusts in certain fundamental realities: realities like the interdependence of all living things; the true miracle of existence; the joy of connectedness and belonging available to all; the power of lovingkindness; and the awe that we can be conscious of any of this. A faith that leads us to conclude with gratitude that, because the Universe has conspired in favor of our consciousness, our consciousness can now conspire in favor of the Universe. A faith that inspires us to celebrate rather than exploit, to regenerate rather than extract, to create rather than destroy. A felt experience of trust in the triumph of love over fear. A faith in life itself.

If such an intuition is correct, it demands that any reformation or revolution begin with this shift in focus, however that can be accomplished. As a small first step in this direction, consider the following short exercise with one or more friends and loved ones, and — if it feels helpful and right to you — practice and share it with others. And if it doesn’t work for you, perhaps you can come up with your own participatory practice that inspires a similar result.

In a quiet space, free of technological interruptions, have everyone join hands, and describe the following steps:

1) With heads bowed and eyes closed, take three deep, slow and even breaths to calm and center the body and mind.

2) Then, take three more slow and even breaths, and silently say to yourselves “May our faith reawaken” as you exhale each time. Focus on the meaning of those words.

3) After three repetitions, open your eyes and look at each other.

4) Breathe in slowly together, and then, as you all exhale, speak aloud in unison: “May our faith reawaken.”

5) Listen to each other, see each other, and again feel the meaning of those words in that moment.

6) Repeat the slow intake of breath and speaking the phrase aloud together two more times ― as an affirmation and encouragement.

7) Afterwards, pause for a few moments to allow this experience to settle and sink in.

We can of course make this exercise more specific by adding to the phrase: “May our faith in each other reawaken,” or in humanity, or in the power of compassion, or in life itself, and so on. But if we were all to consecrate our day, our actions, our relationships, our intentions, and our purpose with this kind of mutual affirmation and opening up — with a clear understanding of what it invokes regarding a sacred relationship with all of life — could such a small spark make a difference? Could it ignite a unity of compassionate restoration, and energize a critical transformation? Could it reawaken a quality of relationship with ourselves and everything around us that will restore balance and harmony?

In my teaching and coaching, I am always amazed at the power that connectedness and shared intention can create in small groups. That observation is what inspires this exercise, and the entire framework of Community Coregroups that I discuss in much of my writing.

What does everyone misunderstand about mental illnesses like depression and anxiety?

Thanks for the question. In my own work and experience — as a client, health advocate, coach, etc. — my observation is that neither anxiety nor depression have a single cause, that neither can be mitigated or treated exactly the same way in two different people, and that there is no “silver bullet” that eliminates them entirely from our experience. Unfortunately, there are a lot of clinicians and practitioners who sincerely believe that this or that method, this or that medication, this or that treatment, etc. will be THE SINGLE THING THAT HELPS. But this is almost always a case of partial reenforcement: sure, a given approach does help some people some of the time (thought often only temporarily) — but not everyone. That is why, in my own discipline of Integral Lifework, it is so important to identify which dimensions of well-being are under-nurtured, and to develop long-term strategies and habits to heal those deficiencies.

My 2 cents.

Why do people seem so surprised about inequality of wealth, the 10% having holdings, when so few save, even those that could?

Thanks for the question.

I think mainly it’s a matter of scale. The gap between that upper 10% and everyone else is almost too vast to comprehend.

Then there is the issue of what “savings” can actually accomplish. Even though I learned about the miracle of compound interest in my early 20s, the most outrageous predictions about my own potential wealth after 40 years of saving could never come close to what the upper 10% have amassed individually today. A couple of million maybe. But 200 Billion…?

People can intuitively grasp that not saving has consequences — especially if they’re going into debt at the same time in order to consume conspicuously. Almost everyone I know who is over 60 has looked back on their lives with chagrin regarding how they spent everything they earned. At the same time, many would not have made different choices. They don’t regret traveling in Europe in their 20s and meeting the love of their life overseas. They don’t regret buying expensive instruments and making music with friends. They don’t regret paying off their college loans, or buying their dream house on some wooded acreage. So what quality of life is anyone really willing to sacrifice in order to amass more wealth…? But the conspicuous consumption issue…or not budgeting…or not planning financially at all…well, that’s probably an issue of education more than anything else. I was very conscious about what I was sacrificing (over the longer term) by traveling, eating well, going to concerts, etc. But I don’t think most people are all that aware…until it’s too late.

And that brings us to what the “surprise” is really all about: an awakening to an unpleasant situation that was truly unexpected. I am currently helping manage the finances and healthcare of family members with dementia. Some of those family members had saved quite a bit. Some saved nothing. In both cases, they weren’t at all prepared for what was coming. ALL of their resources will be exhausted LONG BEFORE they arrive at the final stages of care. ALL OF THEM. And so for the ones who saved, it really didn’t matter that much — they are still suffering and will continue to suffer, and there will very likely be nothing left to pass on to their beneficiaries…little safety or comfort for themselves, and no legacy for their loved ones, despite all that careful saving and planning.

So even the objective of amassing wealth loses its allure in the face of such circumstances. If things are going to end like that regardless, then why NOT spend everything now to enjoy life?

And this speaks to a much more fundamental problem IMO: the reliance on individual or familial wealth to navigate well-being, instead of developing a more compassionate civil society with supportive institutions. It points, I think, to the fundamental flaw in the materialist/individualist mindset.

My 2 cents.

In what ways could restorative justice improve America?

Sadly restorative justice could improve America by re-introducing a basic sense of community and connection between individuals. I say “sadly” because I believe it is the disconnection and isolation in these relationships that leads to a culture of criminality in the first place. Let’s take drug subculture as just one example. Why does it exist? Because too many folks can’t see any way out of their poverty and pain, and feel isolated, hopeless, and desperate…and drugs are a way out. Not an easy way out…just one of very few ways out they believe is available. How much violence intersects with illegal drug use? A lot. How much crime? A lot. How much destruction to families and friendships? A lot. So if we model healing of crime itself around restoring a sense of belonging, relationship, family, community, intimacy and so on…well, then we’re really just addressing the malady that led to the crime itself. We are removing a cause — one incentive — for criminality by relieving what reinforced a need for drugs. The accountability is secondary…it is the healthy, mutually supportive relationships are primary. How many other crimes (or patterns of criminality and criminal subculture) are a consequence of the breakdown of community, a loss of the sense of belonging, and a paucity of nourishing interpersonal relationships in modern society…? I’d bet that when you take severe psychopathology and cycles of abuse out of the mix, that this breakdown is responsible for nearly all of the remaining serious crime.

My 2 cents.

How could "Medicare for all" succeed when the program spends 3% of GDP to cover only 15% of the population (3/.15=20% of GDP)?

First, from CMS.gov: “Per person personal health care spending for the 65 and older population was $18,988 in 2012, over 5 times higher than spending per child ($3,552) and approximately 3 times the spending per working-age person ($6,632).”

With a more granular distribution curve you’re going to see the 20% GDP for everyone droping to around .42/.15 = 2.8% GDP. So that’s the first correction to your math.

Second, if Medicare is the only game in town for most healthcare coverage (aside from boutique stuff) then the leverage Medicare will have to negotiate prices is going to be TREMENDOUS. This is why Canada and the UK pay a lot less for the same drugs used in the U.S. — about 1/6 to 1/3 of U.S. prices. Although the margins aren’t as great for medical devices, we could see 50% reductions there as well. And of course removing the bloated private insurers (with much higher admin overhead, and of course impatient shareholders) from the equation means that services will be roughly 40% lower too (this is based on how much less Medicare pays for the same procedures already, compared to private insurers). Even by conservative estimates, this means that overall healthcare costs will be reduced, on average, by AT LEAST 50%. Which brings the total coverage number down to at least 1.4% GDP.

If what has happened in other countries is any indication, all of this will also have the effect of INCREASING the total number of healthcare consumers over time, while REDUCING the per capita outlays over time — especially since every $1 spent on preventative care saves about $6 in lifetime costs. I’d predict, then, that this last bit will result in a wash (i.e. more healthcare consumers at net lower lifetime outlays). And, as preventative care and predictive diagnostics (via genetic testing, etc.) become more refined, I think we’ll see those costs drop even further.

Which means that fee-for-service models are going to eventually become unprofitable anyway…so why not abandon them now?! :-)

My 2 cents.

Is there such thing as a rich man or poor man mentality? I read someone that suggested one could be stuck in a poor man mentality and had to change

Thanks for the question Richard. Well let’s see….

Both rich and poor can feel entitled — a poor person might feel entitled to justice or recompense from the rich because their family has been exploited by plutocrats for generations, and a rich person might feel entitled to keep all of their money regardless of how it was earned, and resentful that they should pay any of it in taxes to help poor people.

Both rich and poor can feel like victims — of prejudice, persecution, false accusations, exclusion, etc. merely for the state of being rich or poor.

Both rich and poor can arrive at their condition without much choice or effort, but still feel responsible for it — a poor person may feel guilty and reprimand themselves for not going to college or not earning a decent wage, and a rich person may feel proud of the social status their inherited wealth has provided them. But, in both cases, circumstances entirely out of their control — which they were born into — may have been the single greatest influence on their current state.

Both rich and poor can be deluded about how success actually occurs — Consider that 50% of all small businesses fail after their first five years, and that most people’s dreams or passions are not valued by society at all (i.e. no one will pay for those people to “follow their dream”). Taken together, there is no guaranteed formula for ending up wealthy or in poverty. People often do everything right, and end up with nothing. Others do everything wrong, and are wildly successful. Sure, there are a very tiny few who come out on top, and that leads everyone else to speculate about how it happened. The fact that it is essentially arbitrary just doesn’t sit well with the meaning-making human psyche.

I could go on, but my point is that the “mentality” of rich and poor has more in common than not. It’s just human mentality. So the real question then becomes about living one’s life. What style of thinking will bring the most happiness, contentment, and positive sense of purpose — regardless of income or material accumulations? Hint: it has nothing to do with money.

My 2 cents.

What is compassion?

Thanks for the question Avishek. I would say authentic compassion has four primary components — ideally all of these are present as a reflexive and unselfconscious orientation to others, but sometimes they require additional, more conscious cultivation:

1) A felt experience of affection, concern, caring and kindness that is informed by empathy and a deep respect for the other’s being.

2) The felt experience is amplified by a generous and unconditional intentionality: a desire to aid, comfort, nurture, encourage and support the other’s being, with no expectation of reciprocation or reward.

3) These feelings and intentions are then skillfully operationalized as love-in-action, within the context of the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the greatest duration.

4) Efficacy in this operationalization requires discernment, insight, wisdom, humility, and a willingness to continually observe outcomes and adjust methods to improve skillfulness.

The question of how to measure outcomes also becomes important over time. For example, authentic compassion tends to relieve dissonance, ignorance, confusion, suffering and pain for all involved — while at the same time nudging joy, harmony, peace, excellence and truth into the foreground. Authentic compassion also propagates and enlarges itself: compassion begets compassion, becoming a strong force or field that unifies and harmonizes everything it embraces.

Lastly, because these ideas about compassion are so specific, I will often use the term agape instead.

My 2 cents.

If spiritual counselors, teachers, and mystics all tell me that “suffering” is a catalyst for a spiritual “awakening”, then why isn’t it comfortable for these experts to re-frame this as a spiritual “

Some possibilities (as pure speculation):

1) Perhaps they’ve overstated their case. Suffering ***may*** be an opportunity for growth. It also may be just plain old run-of-the-mill suffering that every human being has to deal with as a feature of life on Earth, or it may indicate some underlying condition that requires conventional medical treatment, or it may simply indicate situational conditions that can and should be remedied, or it may be the consequence of arbitrary events that have no intrinsic meaning at all. But shoehorning ALL suffering into the context of being an “awakening catalyst” is a bit…well…presumptuous IMO. Thus assigning some external spiritual agency to such conditions or events would, I think, be uncomfortable…since it wouldn’t make a lot of sense in these other instances.

2) They may not have specific discernment into your situation, but are instead stating a general principle, and are trying to avoid influencing you to externalize your own agency. In Western commercialized cultures, it has become second nature to give away our own agency in favor of external solutions. “The Devil made me do it” is really no different than believing wearing a particular brand of clothing or cologne/perfume will result in finding the perfect romantic partner. In the context of healing arts (inclusive of conventional medicine), when a client refuses to take responsibility for their own well-being and prefers to project healing power onto their physician, practitioner, drug, supplement, magical object or whatever…then the healing process has been sabotaged. No real healing will take place (other than the placebo that results from the client’s investment in the external solution). This is a real problem right now in capitalist society. So perhaps — consciously or unconsciously — the folks you are consulting are trying to steer you away from this particular addiction to externalization.

3) In the U.S. at least, one of the consequences of the widespread abuse of “New Age” approaches to wellness has been a mistrust of externalized spiritual agency of any kind. There have been too many abuses by gurus, mediums, psychics and the like asserting knowledge of spiritual causality purely for personal profit or celebrity. Thus attributing anything to a conscious spiritual intervention smacks of “woo-woo” in a bad way for most people who have either been conned or deceived…or who are aware of these deceptive practices that have occurred in the past. Personally, I don’t have a problem framing things this way when it is warranted, though I am still very cautious about leaping to that conclusion too quickly.

4) You and the folks you are consulting with may just be misunderstanding each other.

My 2 cents.

Are addictions a byproduct of evolution, or do they serve a purpose? Things like opiates, caffeine, and sugar seem to have both good and bad effects.

Addiction is, IMO, woefully misunderstood by both modern science and mainstream folklore. Of the ten answers so far in this thread, all of them miss the mark. Biochemistry can help us understand mechanisms of physiological response, but not the causality of addiction itself. Not by a long shot.

In Integral Lifework, most addiction is the consequence what I call “substitution nourishment.” This is when some dimension of our being isn’t being nurtured or nourished, and we attempt to compensate for that deficit in other areas. The areas can be completely unrelated — and there are thirteen I have identified so far, which makes for some odd remedies. For example, one of my clients with OCD who was addicted to caffeine and certain sexual fetishes lost both his compulsions and his cravings when he began to create real intimacy with people — both romantically and in friendships. The caffeine and fetishes were no longer required to “offset” his loneliness, isolation and intimacy starvation. And I’ve seen a similar pattern repeated many time in many other clients.

Is there good data to back up this assertion? Not really. The Rat Park study points in a helpful direction, but the study was poorly constructed IMO. But this is the direction we need to look in in order to understand addiction.

Now I did say “most” addiction, and that is because some addictions are more structural in nature, and there is a growing understanding around genetic markers for certain sensitivities/vulnerabilities. That is a separate topic. But even in such “structural” instances, if all thirteen dimensions of our being are attended to and in harmony with each other, then even those vulnerabilities have less pull on a whole and healthy human being.

My 2 cents.

Does capitalism have a negative affect on people’s sanity?

The evidence keeps accumulating that conditions which are amplified by capitalist values, work environments and economic systems do seem to have a negative impact on human well-being overall — and yes, specifically on human mental health. Some of this appears to be direct causality, and some of it more indirect. For example:

1) Accelerating (technological and societal) change driven by rapid product cycles and growth-dependent production induces stress, which in turn increases stress-related mental illness and dysfunction (depression, anxiety, etc.) to clinical levels. Would this still occur if there wasn’t so much pressure, created by the profit motive, to constantly produce and consume “bigger, better, faster, cheaper, easier” products? Possibly, but likely not at the same pace, or with such a precipitous impact.

2) Many products are designed to become addictive — or at least to create a dependent consumer — again in service to the profit motive. Everything from cigarettes to fast food to social media to video games have been designed from the ground up to “hook” consumers into ever-increasing and prolonged use. This, in turn, has led to some fairly serious mental health impacts, such as ADHD, cognitive impairments and distortions linked with prolonged sleep deprivation, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, emotional dysregulation, and so forth.

3) Capitalist work environments create some of the most emotionally and mentally antagonistic conditions humanity has ever seen. Humans performing highly repetitive tasks for excessively long work-days and work-weeks, while under constant stress of losing their job if they don’t perform; high-pressure sales environments where employees are likewise subject to constant fear of not meeting quotas, and viciously compete with each other for sales; corporate culture that constantly lies to employees to extract the tiniest bit more productivity from them, and encourages them to lie to customers to maintain profits and avoid losses. These environments create stressed, fearful, reactive, deceitful human beings who, in turn, are rewarded for essentially harming each other and the customers they serve. This is a pretty pathological situation, and shapes pretty pathological people.

4) The more indirect consequences of capitalism on mental health are a result of negative externalities. Chemical pollutants from “rush to market” mass production, poor nutrition from foods designed to maximize profit, disregard for electromagnetic pollution, and other environmental impacts almost certainly have a deleterious effect on human mental health. In fact, these may be impacting the human genome itself, as we have seen a marked rise in things like autism spectrum disorder.

These are just a few examples, but the real issue is the epigenetic impact of these capitalist pressures on the human species. Our children are now inheriting the mental illnesses induced by capitalist environments and culture…which means that, even if we counter the causes, the negative impacts will still be passed on to future generations. It’s a pretty bad situation. I liken it to Colony Collapse Disorder among bee populations: eventually, capitalism will so thoroughly undermine human well-being that our entire society will simply fail. It’s just a matter of time.

My 2 cents.

Comment from Isaac Armstrong: "I wish I could upvote this, as I agree with most points made, but autism spectrum disorder’s rise is probably a consequence of expanding the range of diagnosis, for example the documents that resulted in me being diagnosed with developmental delays with autism like symptoms on review based on newer diagnostic requirements consistently results in a diagnosis of autism - something about a vital symptom for diagnosis that is no longer required.

I remember reading somewhere that even earlier than that, it was defined only in the exact form that the guy who gave it the name autism saw it, most definitely not including aspergers in the autism spectrum disorders.
This is a bit of a long comment so thanks for reading it and in summary autism spectrum disorder is not a good measure as it has been broadened."


Thanks Isaac. I have read about the diagnosis issue before and agree that this is a huge variable that must be accounted for — especially in epidemiological analysis of ASD going back any number of decades (as reinforced by studies like this one: Diagnostic change and the increased prevalence of autism | International Journal of Epidemiology | Oxford Academic). However, even though genetics alone does account for some 50% of ASD, there is increasing evidence that environmental triggers (including some we can squarely place at the feet of capitalism) play a significant role in ASD’s phenotypical expression. You may be interested in this article regarding environmental factors: Environmental factors influencing the risk of autism As well as this one regarding genome-wide analysis: The Role of Epigenetic Change in Autism Spectrum Disorders. There is growing evidence (in studies that control for the very diagnostic variables you allude to) that the etiology of ASD is linked to risk factors that are indeed increasing, and that ASD itself is indeed increasing among the population. For more about this: The prevalence puzzle: Autism counts and Socioeconomic Status and the Increased Prevalence of Autism in California. I think the most definitive research is yet to be completed…but it IS underway. Take a look at CRAIG NEWSCHAFFER’s work and this: EARLI Study - Research Into Early Causes of Autism.

I hope this is helpful info.

How should I go about thinking for myself and not just regurgitating ideas I learn from other people?

Without knowing more about your personality, experiences, aptitudes and interests, it is difficult to offer anything but the most generic advice. Keeping that in mind, here is what I would encourage you to do to help formulate your own opinions about things:

1) Drastically reduce social media immersion, 24/7 mass media stimulation, and entertainment media immersion. In other words, limit your interaction with these media to an hour or two each day…max. Maybe even take a “media vacation” 1–2 days each week (on weekends, etc.). This also includes music and podcast consumption (even as “background” noise). The objective here is to give your mind a rest…and some spaciousness.

2) Wean yourself off of regular MJ use. It’s going to interfere mightily with your ideation, introspection and reflection capacities, as well as your ability to emotionally mature. Occasional recreation is not what I would be concerned about — it’s daily use (or several times a week) of the latest high-THC varieties that tends to create serious problems over time.

3) Learn to meditate. This takes time and discipline — and experimentation with different techniques — but it will help you focus inward and gain more internal reliance, rather than orienting all thoughts and emotions to external inputs. It will also help you manage anxiety and depression. If you can develop a healthy, regular habit of daily mediation, this will vastly enhance your abilities to navigate ideas, formulate your own thoughts, and intuit what is most important to you.

4) Consume carefully. What you eat, what you read, what you watch, what you listen to (music, podcasts, whatever), whom you spend time around…even what you spend time thinking or fantasizing about. Garbage in, garbage out. What you reinforce with constant exposure and focus will become your mind’s primary orientation, locus of energy, and interest…but you get to control this if you choose.

5) Spend regular time alone in Nature. Here again, this is about spaciousness. Creating space and time for different aspects of your being to expand, find their own level, and prompt you into an authentic relationship with your own interiority.

I hope this was helpful! :-)

When we fail to grow spiritually for one of many reasons, is it because of the lure of the world?

Thanks for the question.

As with many activities that aim for positive outcomes, distraction is probably the biggest hindrance — a distraction that redirects our energies away from spiritual growth into something else. The subtlety, however, is in just how many forms of distraction there are. Some examples:

1) Gratifying our own ego to feel more important, ethical, disciplined…or indeed “spiritual.”

2) Worrying and obsessing over our spiritual purity, progress, efficacy, etc., to a degree where anxiety and guilt are our predominant emotions.

3) Becoming inflexible, legalistic and black-and-white regarding our certainties: not allowing for nuance, subjective differences, alternate explanations, gradations of truth, etc.

4) Looking for external signs and affirmation that we are “on the right path;” things like synchronicity, affluence, open doors, manifestations of personal will, etc.

5) Becoming preoccupied with future outcomes instead of experiencing the joy of the present moment.

6) Grounding all reasoning, emotions, choices, activities and imagination in an “I/Me/Mine” orientation of self-absorption…with only a veneer of consideration for anyone or anything else.

7) Resisting a felt reality of authentic compassion for self and others, and instead just going through the motions of what generosity, caring and kindness are “supposed” to look like.

8-) Looking outward, instead of inward, for answers.

9) Getting caught up in what everyone else is doing in order to feel comforted and accepted — then rationalizing that it serves a noble end.

10) Operating in “head time” rather than “heart time” or “spirit time;” that is, confusing busyness with carefully considered action, or quickly consuming mass media with gaining wisdom, or rushing to protest injustice with more discerning activism.

11) Forgetting our Divine purpose, and substituting it with the convenient passions-of-the-moment.

So we could attribute some number of these distractions to “the lure of the world,” sure. But would that be an accurate description? Would it really get at the heart of the impedance to what we believe to be spiritual progress…? I think you can probably see the trap here. Our conceptions of what spirituality is “supposed” to look like are just as problematic as other distractions that we attribute to an external cause. Everything that hinders us is a distraction…it is simply a matter of identifying the distractions for what they are, and moving beyond them…letting them go.

Along these lines, I would encourage you to read C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. He dances neatly through many subtleties of distraction that we often overlook.

My 2 cents.

How can I become more tolerant of people who are different than me?

Thanks for the question.

I think the answer is dependent on a) the issues you are intolerant of, and why; b) how that intolerance expresses itself; and c) your level of self-awareness and well-being. For example:

1) If your intolerance issues from a place of personal pain, and you are lashing out at others who “touch a raw nerve” in your own struggles, then addressing that pain and struggling within yourself is going to be quite helpful in reducing your judgement and increasing your tolerance.

2) If your intolerance issues from a place of arrogance and condescension, then appreciating your own limitations, areas you’ve made mistakes, and potentially unjustified self-confidence will be helpful in reducing judgement and increasing tolerance.

3) If you find it really hard to forgive others for harms they commit — against yourself or anyone else — then you may be holding some harsh judgments against your own past failings or be more insecure than you realize in some area or other. So, in this instance, you’ll want to learn how to have compassion for yourself, so that you can in turn have more compassion for others.

4) If your intolerance stems from ignorance — from a lack of experiences and exposure to folks who are different — then befriending them and immersing yourself in their world will be quite helpful.
If your intolerance is highly reactive, and seems to be uncontrollable or reflexive, then there may be an underlying mental illness, neurochemical issues, or cognitive and/or emotional deficit. In this case, seeking help from medical doctors and psychotherapists may be your best bet.

5) Intolerance, impatience, irritability, and black-and-white emotional responses can also be the consequence of not nourishing one or more aspects of your being. Consider taking this free self-assessment to see what those areas might be, and then try to address them: https://www.integrallifework.com...

As you can see, there could be a lot of different influences at play — and the ones I’ve covered don’t come close to all the different factors that could be energizing this dynamic. It’s great that you’ve observed it…I recommend patience with yourself and continuing to reach out for help in order to heal and grow.

My 2 cents.

What are the top 10 words of wisdom you can give to a man at the age of 30?

A fun challenge, thanks for the question. Here’s my 10-word offering:

“You aren’t what you feel/think, but what you do.”

My 2 cents.

How do you get people out of denial?

This takes time, and the avenues available to you will depend both on the quality of your relationship with the person, as well as on their mental capacity and emotional health. For example, if you are a very close friends, you might consider gently and lovingly confronting them about the issue, and asking if they are receptive to your observations and feedback. If you have a history of “telling each other straight” (i.e. being brutally honest with each other), then you could also just confront without the gentle, compassionate preamble, and just speak your mind. If you are in an intimate romantic relationship, you can appeal to your desire to deepen that relationship and your need to express concern about something that you feel is interfering with honesty and intimacy. If the relationship isn’t that deep, or has been rocky, or is relatively superficial (neighbor, coworker, person you see at the bus stop each day, etc.), then you probably don’t have the relational standing to effectively comment on the denial you are observing. I mean…you could…especially if you like being confrontational…but it’s probably not going to have much effect other than their becoming defensive and not trusting you anymore. But if you already have a longstanding trust with someone, then you can, in a spirit of genuine concern, offer your observation. Even here, though, wording and context is everything. Are they drunk? Are they surrounded by peers that agree with their POV? Are they expressing an openness to you about a problem they are dealing with? Are they angry or sad? Choosing the right timing for such a conversation is just as important as choosing the right words…which should affirm their emotions and your understanding of their POV prior to you offering anything that sounds like criticism or advice. Then again, if they aren’t that bright, or have a lot of emotional baggage they haven’t worked through, or are suffering from a mental illness, then you may not be able to penetrate a belief or untruth that this person has latched onto for a sense of belonging, security or identity.

My 2 cents.

In instances of abandonment issues and consequences towards other people not desiring your compassion and courtesy in life, how do you overcome not getting reciprocated by another persons love, admira

Thanks for the question.

This is a broad, deep, muddy puddle of a question. Without knowing you or the specifics of your situation, it is almost impossible to recommend a specific course of action. However, here are some options to explore — some or all of which may be helpful to you:

1) Consider asking yourself why you feel you need (or expect) reciprocity, and why you feel abandoned or disappointed by its absence. Perhaps you could employ the downward arrow technique from CBT to explore your thought patterns around these emotions…and what is really at the root of them (in terms of beliefs, assumptions, past experiences, etc.).

2) There is a possibility that you are choosing the wrong people to love, admire and adore. You may, in fact, be setting yourself up for disappointment and feelings of abandonment because you are attracted to people who are emotionally unavailable, or inherently subdued or unexpressive. This can happen when, for example, one of our parents was detached and undemonstrative, and we are forever trying to “fix” that experience — and our own feelings of inadequacy that are still evoked by it — by seeking out people that are just like that parent, and trying to “get them to love us.” To break this cycle, we need to address and heal the family relationship — and/or the persisting personal narrative within — that has modeled this dynamic.

3) You may be misinterpreting signals, perpetuating an exaggerated assessment of your affection and the clarity of your communication, or have unrealistic standards of reciprocity. In other words, you may think that the quid-pro-quo is obvious and reasonable, when it’s actually not. People get into all sorts of trouble when they think, “Hey, isn’t it obvious that I’m expressing affection and compassion here? And isn’t it obvious that you should be reciprocating…?” In reality the other person may have no clear idea of what is going on, or how to respond — even if you try to express it to them directly. At the same time, you yourself may not be accurately reading signals the other person is sending your way — both positive and negative. Lastly, have you actually asked for what you want? If not, that could contribute to a simple remedy. All of these issues of accurate awareness, expectation and communication are in fact what a LOT (perhaps most) of couples counseling ends up working through.

4) One of the most liberating spiritual practices I have learned during my life is giving without expectation of reciprocation. Giving of yourself, in any form, can be its own reward…with the right frame of mind. And when “the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing” (in terms of charitable feelings and actions), this can remove a lot of potential frustration and disappointment from the interpersonal equation. Learning how best to be a Blessing Presence to others is of course a lifelong task, but inherent to that is a mindset that a cup that overflows with love generated from within does not need to be refilled from without.

5) The quickest path to burnout is not loving ourselves first. Do you cherish the person you are? Do you honor and have compassion for that person in all of your choices? For most folks, identifying and addressing barriers to this basic level of self-respect and self-care is the beginning of healing necessary to love others effectively and freely.

My 2 cents.

What tears a culture apart?

Thanks for the question Michelle. In answer to “What tears a culture apart?” As a single overarching concept, I would say The Spectacle is a massively influential component. However, I would identify a number of factors — some inherent to The Spectacle itself, and some that are separate but ancillary to it — that have contributed to our current disintegration:

1) Culturally reinforced atomistic individualism, coupled with willfulness.

2) Commodification of everything (as a consequence of our current form of political economy), which in turn shifts reliance on interpersonal relationships and trust to a dependence on money, contracts, social status, and inherent mistrust.

3) Cultural conditions that disrupt or sabotage moral development, so that a majority of folks remain “stuck” in childish and egotistical stages.

4) Deceptive manipulation that turns one group of people against another (tribalism, Us vs. Them, ingroup vs. outgoup, etc.), and perpetuates the lies and deception via causal forcing (see http://www.tcollinslogan.com/res...).

5) Increasing concentrations of wealth and power in a very small number of people — generally at the expense of everyone else (i.e. plutocracy via crony capitalism).

6) The Dunning–Kruger effect as amplified by subcultures that enshrine ignorance and arrogance; in other words: ongoing poor self-awareness.

7) A growing unease, confusion and lack of agency in the face of exponential complexity and rapid cycles of change.

8-) Promoting multiculturalism instead of interculturalism.

9) Postmodern skepticism and abandonment of cultural traditions…without replacing them with anything.

10) Fairly primitive primates playing with very sophisticated technological toys that they do not understand, but on which they then become almost entirely dependent.

My 2 cents.

How can individual stop being too responsive to the social inputs from the outside?

Being “too responsive to social inputs from the outside” is sometimes the result of innate codependent or compulsive proclivities, but more often it is the consequence of years of familial and/or cultural conditioning. The former is what in Integral Lifework I call a “structural barrier,” and the second is learned and therefore a bit more malleable/changeable. In either case changing the behavior as an almost automatic response can be extremely difficult — especially in contexts where there is already investment in the relationships involved (family, romantic, close friends, neighbors, etc.), or if we have a career or daily routine with high social exposure and interraction. This leaves us with a limited array of choices to mitigate our “overly responsive” reflexes, some of which include:

1) Self-isolation, rigid personal boundaries, and avoidance of human and media contact (not particularly healthy in the long run, but sometimes may be necessary in the short run to regain personal space and equilibrium).

2) Concentrating on a personal discipline of self-care and selective responses. For example, committing to regular, uncompromising routines that focus on various aspects of personal well-being, and reserving specific times/days to interact with others socially, to interact with or consume media, to communicate with friends and family, etc. In other words, to compartmentalize our time so that we can filter the level of exposure and interaction with “inputs from the outside.”

3) Doing cognitive work on our internal reactivity — addressing the patterns of thought and emotion around our responses to external inputs. This might include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and various forms of daily meditation.

These are just a few examples, but it is possible to begin reshaping our habits and responses, and to become “less porous” to external programming, and less reactive/responsive in a more managed way. Personally, I find I require a lot of time alone in Nature, regular meditation, and very careful selection of friends to support a trajectory that leans away from my natural propensity to be reflexively responsive to external inputs.

I hope this was helpful.

Can spiritual awakening lead to success in business?

Maybe sometimes, at which point most of that person’s awakening will dissipate or retreat, mainly because of the demands of our current political economy and business culture. In other words, success in business generally leads to spiritual regression.

It is a bit like asking: “Will my spiritual awakening make me a better salesman?”

Well, let’s take that example. Awakening generally leads to greater compassion for self and others, more insight into skillful healing and wholeness, and less attachment to material possessions and ego accomplishments. So how would an “awakened” salesman act? They probably would try to help people — to do what is authentically best for their customers, without considering their own self-enrichment. Consider these scenarios:

“Is this a good TV?”

“Well, not really, but it’s the only one we have in stock.”

or

“Can your alternative therapy heal my cancer?”

“Actually no. You are going to die. But I can be a compassionate presence for you as you die….”

And so on. If what is genuinely beneficial to a customer just happens to coincide with what a business has to offer, then there is a possibility of awakening facilitating temporary success. Otherwise, it just runs counter to capitalist instincts.

You see the problem? Being a kind, compassionate, insightful and healing presence can bless others with well-being and skillful aid…but it doesn’t fit into the better bottom line landscape very well. Add to this that most people really don’t know how to handle affluence and material success without becoming corrupted by it (see Paul Piff’s research on this), and tying business acumen to spiritual awakening is sort of a fundamentally unwise idea.

My 2 cents.

How should I accept harsh truths about my situation and stop living in denial and fantasy?


In answer to “How should I accept harsh truths about my situation and stop living in denial and fantasy?”

I think this is one of the most difficult and persistent challenges of the human condition, and requires a lifelong effort of learning, careful perception, patience, introspection and cultivation of wisdom. Let’s examine why this may be the case:

1. Some “harsh truths” are situational, conditional or contextual…they may not be what we first assume them to be, or as persistent or as pervasive as they first appear. For example, I seemed to be really bad at math early on in my schooling — mainly because I didn’t attend school in any regular way until I was about eleven years old (and thus didn’t learn many basic math concepts), but also I didn’t have much patience or aptitude for algebraic structures and abstractions. In fact I flunked out of my second year of algebra twice. Then I encountered geometry, and it was like coming home to a long lost friend. I ate it up. When I applied it to some real-world challenges (calculating arcs in a centrifugal fan blades I was making for a hovercraft model), I discovered the spatial relationships and correlations to have particular meaning and satisfaction for me as mathematical representations. And guess what? I even ended up using algebra in my solutions. All along, I had just required a real-world application for these abstract concepts…and that was actually the real “harsh truth” that I had to learn — not that I was “bad at math,” but that I needed to apply math concepts I learned (right away) for them to make sense to me.

2. Some “fantasies” have inspired works of great creativity, compassion, genius or insight. To invest in a dream is to reach beyond the mundanity of our current circumstances, and imagine a different way. If you examine the lives of any of history’s greatest figures, their efforts can appear deluded, nonsensical or even insane…because they did not restrict themselves to what other people believed could or couldn’t be done; they defied convention. Of course, for every person who succeeded in reifying their fantasies, there are many who failed. Even someone who succeeds with one fantasy may fail countless times with other efforts. But it is a uniquely human trait to keep trying…to resist giving up in the face seemingly incredible or impossible odds.

3. Some levels of acceptance may take a lifetime to cultivate. To truly let go of harmful egotistical delusions may require years of therapy and concerted effort. To fully embrace difficult truths about ourselves — about who we are, or how we are, our own limitations, etc, — may likewise require a very slow arc of maturation over many years. Even if we intellectually grasp the letting go, to emotionally feel it will likely take time. And so we just have to keep working at it, recognizing there is no “silver bullet” that will transform our self-concept or self-awareness as quickly as we might like.

With that said…how can we differentiate between a situational or contextual limitation or setback — or a mere lack of imagination or paucity of faith in ourselves — and a fundamentally structural impedance or innate pattern that is problematic? This is where wisdom comes in handy, and yet…most wisdom is gained through life experience, right? A catch twenty-two — like needing to get a job to gain more experience, but needing more experience to get a job. Sometimes we can consult others who have personal experience in a given area to help guide our own efforts, but even in those instances…they’re approach, aptitudes and circumstances are going to be different from our own. So what can we do?

This very conundrum is what led me to begin meditating with more discipline and focus on a daily basis — to look within for answers for the best applications of my time and effort, and to guide my own course through life. And this, in turn, led me to discover the many different forms of meditation that can be helpful in this regard…there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution here either. To be able to differentiate between what is true for me, what is true for someone else, what is true in this moment, and what is the wisest course of action in a given situation have been indispensable to my own well-being — and to being the best person possible for those I care about. And the beginning of that journey was learning how to listen carefully within my inner silence, and start accepting that I had access to all the wisdom I required within that space.

My 2 cents.

Is it ethical to provide guidance and counseling (in a professional setting) if you yourself suffer from the same conditions and have not surpassed them?

In answer to the question “Is it ethical to provide guidance and counseling (in a professional setting) if you yourself suffer from the same conditions and have not surpassed them?”

Surpassed? I’m not sure what is meant by this term. I don’t know of anyone who has “surpassed” anything. Sure, they’ve learned to manage, self-monitor, develop alternate habits, become more disciplined, heal deep and chronic wounds to varying degrees, become incrementally more whole, etc. But “surpassed?” I think that’s probably an ego-based term for a particular flavor of narcissistic delusion, and has no place in any therapeutic or mentoring relationship.

That said, if we replace “surpassed” with “learned to constructively manage,” then I would say it depends — on many different factors, including the nature and severity of your condition, where you are in your own healing/wholeness journey, and the functional level of self-management you have been able to maintain over time.

So for instance:

1. A therapeutic relationship dealing with out-of-control addictions (of any kind) should probably not be entered into by a professional suffering from an out-of-control addiction. Even when, as some of the other answers indicate, that condition can be helpful to empathy and informed therapeutic or mentoring techniques, it can also be extremely destructive to the relationship, and likely to the person you are trying to help. So in that case…a firm “not ethical” IMO (again, if it is still unmanaged). I think the same would be true of unmanaged depression, unmanaged severe personality disorders, unmanaged schizophrenia, unmanaged self-destructive behaviors, unmanaged anger and hostility, unmanaged anxiety, unmanaged compulsions, unmanaged relationship dynamics, etc.

2. On the other hand, if you have demonstrated a high level of efficacy in managing a particular area, are maintaining genuine intentions to continue that course, and have become more high-functioning over time (i.e. can have a modicum of confidence about a given technique or process), then why not share your experiences in the therapeutic or mentoring relationship? Again, mastery is not really the issue…rather, it’s about ongoing integrity around your own intentions, and regarding your efficacy in “walking the walk” in your own life. In such a case, a conditional “ethical” IMO.

3. A very common pattern in folks who become healers, teachers, mentors, therapists, counselors, etc. is that they are initially drawn to the field because of their own struggles. This can be both helpful and unhelpful. On the one hand, they can understand and inhabit the perspective of the people they are trying to help, because they’ve been through it themselves. On the other hand, they may fall into a pattern of projecting their own desire for self-healing onto their clients, students or patients. In other words, they may perpetually be externalizing their own issues. At some point, a good teacher/mentor/therapist/healer will recognize this pattern in themselves, and address it. They may need to take a break from practice to do so. Or they may feel they need to give up the field entirely. This is a reality/integrity check that everyone I’ve known — across many different fields — eventually has to confront. Perhaps that’s where you are now, but the answer is going to be different for every person, and at different stages of their life. It’s a process where we must measure our own strengths and weaknesses against the effectiveness of our work…and when we must finally learn to check our ego at the door — and let go of our own issues — every time we engage with the person we are trying to help.

My 2 cents.

What are the flaws of modern psychotherapy and why do so many people (myself included) feel so disappointed with it?

Great question. My take on some common flaws in modern psychotherapy:

1. Consumer model. Both clients and therapists often (consciously or unconsciously) fall back on the producer/consumer model, where the therapist is there to “provide” a solution that a client pays for and “consumes.” This ends up emphasizing external resources vs. internal solutions for both client and therapist, and creates an unhealthy, disempowering dynamic — even despite client-centered intentions and protocols — which often results in a lack of willingness to “do the work” that is required.

2. Incompetence or poor training. I often use the analogy of a violinist when describing good therapists: How many virtuoso violinists are there in the world? How many first and second chair violinists? And how many folks squeak away in their basement until a position opens up in the local community orchestra string section? Virtuosos are rare, and hacks are plentiful…so it can take a lot of effort, persistence and luck to find a really good therapist.

3. Lack of cultural integration/acceptance. Psychotherapy should be considered a normal, healthy, even prophylactic resource for well-being…like going to the gym, or going to an MD for a checkup. Unfortunately, it has been polluted with social stigma so that people who could benefit often don’t seek it out — or feel ashamed when they do. This leads to a disproportionate volume of psychotherapy engaging in: a) court-mandated treatment; b) “last ditch effort,” extremely acute, crisis intervention conditions; c) self-help hobbyists. This is not a great group of folks to work with, generally — not in terms of process, or in terms of outcomes — and IMO often results in excessive “lowest common denominator” practices.

4. **The profit motive. **Evidenced-based methods are great — but what if the latest “proven” approach for a given condition isn’t working for a particular client? Well, insurance companies don’t allow such variability; everything must be cookie-clutter compliant with their actuarial tables (i.e. clear diagnosis = rigid treatment protocol). At the other extreme, a provider receiving (uninsured) private pay may not be motivated to use some provenly efficacious, short-term approach, but instead be motivated to create a longer-term income stream. “Perverse incentives” all around….

5. Lack of holism/multidimensionality, and reliance on “silver bullet” modalities. Modern medicine is struggling to reverse over a century of hyperspecialization, where only the separate systems and components of a patient are considered, and not the whole. There are efforts to integrate different disciplines, engage in group consults and assessments across departments, and change this paradigm…but it has been slow, and frequently ineffective. And so modern medicine tends to treat symptoms, and ignore underlying causes. Psychotherapy has fallen into this habit as well — people are complex, and solutions to their problems may also require complexity. This takes time, and multiple perspectives, and acknowledgement that there is no “one size fits all” treatment that is appropriate for a given set of conditions.

FYI I have a guide intended to help folks find a good therapist, here: https://www.integrallifework.com/resources/How-to-Select-Mentor-Coach-Therapist.pdf

Also here is a free assessment process for a more holistic approach to well-being: https://www.integrallifework.com/resources/NourishmentAssessmentV2.pdf

My 2 cents.

Can an enlightened being feel pride?

LOL. Not if they want to remain enlightened, engage the world around them from an awakened state…or operationalize their insight. Pride indicates regression. I suppose it can and does arise in some vulnerable context (beings being beings), but it won’t have any staying power — there is nothing for it to latch onto. The moment the ego is invoked to be deliberately fed with pride, the I/Me/Mine rises up to obscure the unadorned reality that initially attenuated it. So perhaps we could say this is a case of greater/lesser, rather than either/or. But the lessening can be fairly complete, as a matter of consequential maturation. We might even say that experiencing pride is a good barometer of that maturation process.

My 2 cents.

From Quora post: https://www.quora.com/Can-an-enlightened-being-feel-pride/answer/T-Collins-Logan

I am currently in emotional pain, but feel forced into silence about explaining why to anyone in fear of visceral reactions they may have on what I have to say. How can I reveal my thoughts w/out fear

Great question. Here are some initial thoughts after reflecting on your question and on the interactions you and I have had on Quora…I’m happy to dialogue further about this as well via messaging. First I would like to validate your emotional reaction — I think you are correct that many people feel this way around your age (I certainly did), and I think it is a normal, healthy response to what is arguably a pretty shitty situation. “Adulthood” seems to almost entirely equate a number of different forms of slavery, all descending upon us at once…enslavement to a job or career path, to expected patterns of consumption (house, car, debt, etc.), to a set of fixed relationships (spouse, children), and to a general sacrifice of qualities and characteristics that really make life worth living (creativity, curiosity, playfulness, etc.).

And now onto some potential mitigations and safe ways or environments to communicate how you are feeling….

1. Without hesitation, I would encourage you to hold onto your perspective as long as possible, so that you aren’t reflexively adopting “status quo” expectations about your life. Why should you? At the same time, it may be that there is a way forward into a new phase of growth without all of the downsides you have described — i.e. one that does take on more independence, responsibility and maturity without crushing the child-like qualities that you cherish, or embracing enslavement of some kind. Being open to such a possibility, while not “giving in” to the status quo, can at least allow a sliver of hope into an otherwise oppressive darkness.

2. A key element to sharing our journey with others is finding folks whose values, experiences, perspectives and goals align with our own. In Integral Lifework (http://www.integrallifework.com), I call this the “Supportive Community” dimension of well-being, and I strongly believe that finding or creating such community is an essential component of being well and whole. In my own life, I found this in many places — in spiritual communities, in joining a theatre troupe, in playing music at open mikes, in hiking and outdoor clubs, in volunteering at environmental organizations, in attending “salons” at people’s houses, in joining writing groups, in political activism and so on. I also was lucky enough to find supportive community in a job at a University for a couple of years. In nearly all of these environments, I found folks I could discuss things I cared about, and whose values and interests resonated with my own.

3. Further, I would also say that the creative efforts I engaged in were often a very helpful avenue of expressing deep and turbulent emotions to others in an “abstracted” way that opened doors into deeper conversations (i.e. attracted the right kinds of folks to engage with). This is actually part of another dimension of Integral Lifework, called “Playful Heart,” and it can be a powerful avenue of connecting with both self and others.

4. More intensive and structured support can also be very helpful — and I certainly sought that out at your age as well. A good therapist (and again one whose values intersected or resonated with my own) became an indispensable part of my own journey then, and over many years that followed. This was especially true when it came to processing strong emotions like pain, fear, anger, guilt, and anxiety.

So these are some initial considerations, with the aim of attenuating “visceral reactions” and potential judgement. At the same time, all such efforts still require courage and a certain tolerance for risk…as there are no guaranteed outcomes in the school of life. And there will certainly be folks — perhaps even the people you care most about — who won’t “get it” or understand you at all, and with whom communication will simply be impossible for a time. This happened with my father, who really couldn’t grok me, my goals and values, my experiences, or even my personality — at least not until we were both much older (in fact, it only began to happen just three years before his death). So some relationships will not fit easily into this process of personal unveiling and growth — and that is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of “growing up.” In fact I think it reflects a principle that is much more the herald of true adulthood than anything society broadcasts or conditions us to believe: learning to let go of things we can’t control.

I hope this helps!

Is it possible to love everyone?


This is a challenging question, IMO, mainly because there is such a diversity of conceptions and attitudes about “love” in modern culture. In ancient Greece, they used several different words for love in different contexts, but in modern English our distinctions get a bit muddied. I have spent the past thirty years or so meditating on this issue and writing about it — and still find it difficult to reduce down to simplified definitions. Which means that answering this question will require laying some groundwork first….

What spiritual traditions are talking about when they use the phrase “loving everyone” is really three distinctly different components:

1) The first is having a certain perspective about all human beings (including ourselves) that recognizes human frailty, bad choices, imperfections and weaknesses in everyone, and nevertheless accepts, forgives and is kind to all. This is really more of a behavioral and intellectual discipline that is grounded in humility and functional compassion regarding the well-being of ourselves and others.

2) The second is a felt experience of affection that occurs through spiritual practice; this is difficult to describe without personally encountering it, but imagine feeling the same depth of love you might feel for your own child, a favorite sibling or your closest friend, but for everyone and everything at once. This is a profound apprehension that can happen spontaneously in peak experiences of consciousness, or as the result of disciplined mystical activation practices (see my book Essential Mysticism for elaboration of this process, online for free here: Essential Mysticism); in fact that is what many spiritual practices in various traditions seek to induce.

3) The third aspect of “loving everyone” is inherent to the ideas of discernment, skillfulness, and understanding the relationship dynamics in play. In other words, whether we are exercising disciplined humility (#1), or experiencing an aha moment of universal love (#2), we will want to know whether our behavior and decisions have efficacy with respect to loving others — that is, that they have the desired trajectory, interplay and consequences. This also means developing some metrics around this objective, and understanding what “unskillful” love (such as codependence) looks like.

In the highest order of what I call the unitive principle — that is, a mature and skillful universal loving kindness — all three of these facets of “loving everyone” are developed and refined. In fact, that process never ends…it is a dynamic and fluid interaction within and without. But there is an important conditionality to this journey: it is dependent on our level of moral development (or ego development, if you will). We will not be able to operate beyond our level of moral maturity — at least not for sustained periods of time without the possibility of burn-out. This is because love-consciousness has everything to do with our personal identity and attachment to that identity, as well as how expansive or inclusive our identity becomes. This is a much more complicated topic, but here is a chart that shows the progression of moral development and its correlation to both identity and our ability to “love everyone” in skillful and sustainable ways:

Integral Lifework Developmental Correlations

I hope this was helpful.

What could enlightenment mean, for a collective?

I think “collective enlightenment” (or enlightenment across a collective) would involve the following elements or characteristics:

1. Compassion, mutual concern and agape (love-in-action) as the primary driver for all intra- and inter-collective action, with ego taking a distant backseat (where it is present at all).

2. A celebratory cooperation around sustaining the greatest good, for the greatest number for the greatest duration (i.e. the profoundly inclusive good of All).

3. A fairly thorough letting go of judgmental and/or hierarchical differentiation between members.

4. A pronounced attenuation of individual and collective emphasis on ownership, personal status, social capital, economic materialism, self-serving achievement and other I/Me/Mine-orientations.

5. A felt reality of internal and external unity of identity and purpose.

6. A fluid expounding and acceptance of iterative, multiperspectival truth - both in terms of cultural norms and personal beliefs.

7. A marked absence of tribalism, dualistic tension, and Us. vs. Them polemics.

8. A relaxation of acquisitiveness across all arenas (knowledge, wealth, political influence, beauty, abilities, experiences, accomplishments, accolades, etc.)

9. An explosion of individual and collective creative self-expression.

10. Improved skillfulness in actualizing/reifying all-of-the-above.

My 2 cents.

From Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-could-enlightenment-mean-for-a-collective

Comment from Jeff Wright: "Regarding (7), it’s worth thinking about what “consciousness raising” (i.e. a path towards enlightenment) would look like for a specific collective identity / tribe, such as working class conservatives. How could this be formulated as a Quora question?"

Jeff I’m a big proponent of “creating space” for growth — I think the impulse to evolve (individually and collectively) is present in all of us. In fits and starts and easily derailed, to be sure, but it’s there. What happens to undermine it’s natural unfolding is distraction, substitution nourishment, dependencies and addictions — I use an expanded description of The Spectacle to describe this. Once this interference is removed or attenuated, then the door can open to positive growth and change. But unless and until such barriers are removed, humanity will devolve rather than evolve (or at least be held back) in terms of mature moral orientation and unitive/collective thinking. Their moral creativity will be stunted. So disrupting the status quo and alleviating the collective self-medication and deliberate deceptions must — IMO —happen first, before there is any hope of remedy for the group you allude to. Why first (and not just concurrently)? Because higher-order evolutionary memes are too subtle, too gentle, too nuanced and ambiguous to compete with I/Me/Mine or tribalistic fear. They are just too easy to ignore, dismiss or trample as billions is being spent on creating loud, angry, insistent distractions. It’s like a child in a war zone quietly saying “we should just love each other” as bombs are going off all around her. We need to end the war that has been engineered to keep us from hearing that small, delicate voice of compassionate truth. When folks are relieved of fear, crisis and propaganda, they tend to open up to their own higher Selves. So the question then becomes: how can we end the plutocratic, mostly neoliberal choke-hold on media, the political narrative, religion, conceptions of freedom, economics and so on. I think that is the first step in the process.

What is the difference between liking and loving?


I have what I think is a bit of a different take on this, which has informed my work in couples coaching, individual coaching and in my own spiritual practice and relationships.

First, please have a look at this chart, which I call the Relationship Matrix:



(from: https://www.integrallifework.com/resources/Integral_Lifework_Concepts_Tools.pdf)

When we examine the characteristics of our relationships with other people using the Relationship Matrix, two things usually become increasingly clear:

1. In any given relationship, there may be a different emphasis in each of the four quadrants when relating to the other person.

2. There is a spectrum of combined characteristics from these quadrants that informs our subjectively felt experience of affection and compassion towards other people, and which helps define and differentiate “like” vs. “love.”

For example, couples who fall deeply in love with each other often find a strong intersection in ALL four quadrants. Over time, their relationship will continue to grow and deepen when those intersections persist - even as the emphasis might change and vary. Relationships falter - both initially and over longer periods - when these intersections “get out of sync;” that is, when one party is operating with different assumptions about each quadrant, or is experiencing the relationship differently from the other person in each quadrant.

Lastly, I would say that as we mature (spiritually, morally and relationally), the arena of our affectionate compassion expands outward. We “fall in love” with a larger and larger circle of inclusion beyond our familial and romantic relationships. We first come to care more inclusively - even about things (and people) we don’t particularly “like” - and then we find ourselves wanting what is best for them…and ultimately what does the greatest good, for the greatest number for the greatest duration (i.e. “the good of All”). But what is interesting to me is that, when we are young and immature, we are generally drawn mainly to things and people that we “like” (i.e. have low-level intersections with in one or more quadrants); but when we grow wiser, with more experience and insight, we let go of “liking” as a prerequisite for our interest and concern, and ground our actions and intentions in a deeper, more abiding stream of love.

My 2 cents.

From Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-liking-and-loving-1

A Healthcare System for California That Could Work



This is doable. To get there, here are what I believe to be the primary considerations for making an affordable healthcare system a reality - in California, or anywhere else in the U.S. for that matter:

1. Controlling runaway administrative overhead.

2. Mandating the negotiation of uniform fees for all medical products, services and procedures.

3. Incentivizing positive health outcomes and preventative care, instead of perpetuating a fee-for-service model that maximizes profit instead.

4. Providing a secondary insurance market for boutique or elective medical products and services.

5. Ending direct advertising of healthcare products and services to consumers, and providing better vetted and participatory data for patients to make decisions about their own care.

6. Identifying a reliable source of revenue to pay for the new system.


What we are aiming for here is a way to maintain quality and choice for everyone who needs healthcare and wants to preserve options that are important to them, while containing costs and disrupting perverse incentives. Right now the opposite is increasingly true: choices can be limited, costs excessive, and both care providers and medical product suppliers are incentivized primarily by profit. Here is how we might address these core considerations, one at a time....


1) Controlling Runaway Administrative Overhead

Right now the administrative overhead of private, for-profit health insurers runs upwards of 20%, whereas, in contrast, Medicare administration costs are under 2%. Insurers currently have no incentive to lower these costs - which is likely why they have continued to rise, which has contributed to escalating premiums. Containing such runaway administrative costs does not, however, require us to create a single-payer system. In Switzerland, private (but non-profit) health insurers compete with each other for customers, under government regulations that - among other things - guarantee certain levels of coverage and cap administrative overhead. The focus, of course, is to shift healthcare itself from a for-profit enterprise to a non-profit enterprise. Why? Because illness and poor health actually increase profits in the current U.S. healthcare system, thus creating self-perpetuating perverse incentives.


2) Mandating Negotiation of Uniform Fees

To contain costs, there is no reason that healthcare providers and medical manufacturers should not submit to fixed price negotiations in order to participate in the California healthcare market. Fees can be indexed using a number of factors, such as the necessity for everyone's basic care, production costs plus a fixed profit margin, cost-saving innovations, and so forth. In other words, products and services that lower overall costs while healing chronic conditions and improving long-term health outcomes could be rewarded with higher profit margins, while the more specialized and expensive products and services that simply mitigate chronic symptoms in the short term, and are less curative overall, would be provided much smaller profit margins. The goal here would be to incentivize actual healing and wellness rather than a gravy train of ever-increasing profits. As just one example, pharmaceuticals are subject to price controls in every other developed country, so that U.S. consumer pay between 30% and 300% higher drug prices than everyone else.


3) Incentivizing Positive Health Outcomes

Along the same lines, why could healthcare providers and medical manufacturers be rewarded for improving patient health outcomes (say, above an established baseline)? For example, a primary care doctor who sees more patients and keeps all of them more healthy than his fellow practitioners with a similar patient demographic should receive a nice fat bonus, don't you think? Why should doctors be rewarded for seeing patients more often, or ordering more tests, or prescribing more drugs, if their approaches do not improve the health and well-being of their patients? Again, the system we have now is upside down in terms of incentives. In fact, there should probably also be mechanisms for disciplining doctors, service providers and medical product manufacturers who are either contributing to poor health outcomes, are ignoring proven curative but low-cost approaches, or are otherwise operating in a profit-centric, rather than wellness-centric, orientation.


4) Secondary Boutique Insurance

There will be folks who want special advanced treatments, alternative treatments with as-yet-unproven efficacy, more expensive pharmaceuticals, elective surgeries and so forth - so why should they not have access to those options? This is where the traditional model of health insurance could operate similarly to how it always has - except of course that the insurance would be targeted to inherently more expensive products and procedures. There will be a market for this - even if it is expensive and its related costs continue to rise - so it might be worth the experiment. At the same time, any patient should also be able to obtain a desired form of treatment as an out-of-pocket expense.


5) Ending Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Advertising, & Providing Better Data

The U.S. is the only developed country on the planet that permits pharmaceuticals to advertise directly to consumers. This is, frankly, a ridiculous practice, and has led to countless problems in treating all manner of conditions - both real and imagined. Shouldn't a patient be made aware of all of the options available, including which are most effective, which are most costly, which have been in use the longest, etc.? Of course - but this is not what for-profit advertising offers consumers. Instead, a web-based information clearinghouse that is overseen by doctors and other medical professionals can provide educational information on the efficacy of all manner of treatments and technologies. In addition, patients could also weigh-in with their own experiences, ask questions, etc. It would then be incumbent upon California regulatory mechanisms to make sure the data was accurate, and that contributors are real and not just medical industry advertising bots.


6) A Reliable Revenue Stream for the New Healthcare System

Prop 13 Reform

I think a main component of the solution is obvious and straightforward - because we can fix a gaping hole in California's tax landscape at the same time. Article XIII of the California Constitution needs to be amended to eliminate Prop 13 benefits for corporations, commercial property owners and developers, while retaining Prop 13 tax increase limits for residential homeowners. Since this initiative was intentionally deceptive when first proposed and passed - being sold as protection for retired homeowners with a fixed income, when really it was a huge windfall for corporations - it's long overdue to be amended. And of course the fact that commercial property ownership changes hands more slowly (or more deceptively, thanks to some sly legal maneuvering) than residential property just adds insult to injury - making those same vulnerable homeowners liable for a larger and larger share of the tax burden. The solution? A split-roll tax initiative (or legislative amendment) that keeps the protections for residential homeowners, but returns commercial property taxes to current values. One estimate (see http://www.makeitfairca.com/) puts the annual revenue increase from such reform at $9 Billion.


Closing Other CA Corporate Tax Loopholes


According to a recent review performed by State Auditor Elanie Howle
of California's six largest corporate tax incentives, there is approximately $2.6 Billion in tax breaks that have either never been reviewed to determine whether they are actually fulfilling their intended purpose. One of them, for "research and development," is $1.5 Billion all on its own. And, unlike most other states, California has no regular review process for these tax breaks!

And...well...the rest is math. Let's start with the estimated $400 Billion for the current single-payer proposal (SB-562). If $200 Billion can be reallocated from existing Federal, State and local healthcare funds, that leaves $200 Billion. And if administrative overhead can be reduced by 90% (as proposed above in item #1), then the rest of the funding required could be generated by some combination of: closing California's gaping corporate tax loopholes (#6); proposed pricing controls (#2); the transfer of high-cost or ineffective treatments and technologies to boutique supplemental insurance (#4); a reduction in advertising-generated demand (#5); and incentivizing lower-cost, more highly effective healthcare overall (#3). Whatever costs can't be met by these efforts could conceivably be covered through a variable, progressively tiered tax on all Californians. Also, the proposals I've offered here do not require a single-payer system - though that is certainly one framework that could integrate all of these variables.


Conclusion


There are a number of different scenarios that can successfully provide higher quality, lower-cost healthcare to Californians. The major barrier to such solutions has traditionally been the lobbying of medical service providers, insurers and product manufacturers who profit most when patients either a) don't get well, or b) otherwise require expensive specialties, drugs, medical devices or procedures in an ongoing way. But the current, corporate-controlled environment turns the priorities of healthcare upside down. Lobbyists should not be able to override a common sense approach to fixing these problems in California and other places in the U.S. To date, even well-meaning initiatives and State assembly bills have fallen woefully short of addressing some of these longstanding. If elected politicians cannot be swayed to do what's right for Californians, perhaps we need to approach this issue via the initiative process.


References

This approach to CA healthcare was inspired by the Level 7 philosophy and approaches: see http://www.level-7.org

Also, here is a thoughtful overview of how the current single-payer proposal could work, with some caveats: https://rantt.com/honest-thoughts-on-californias-single-payer-healthcare-proposal-c82c2d0b5d39

http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-first-fiscal-analysis-of-single-payer-1495475434-htmlstory.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-drug-prices/

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/proposition-13-tax-breaks-big-boys

https://www.thenation.com/article/have-california-voters-finally-had-enough-of-prop-13/

https://www.laprogressive.com/make-it-fair/

https://www.couragecampaign.org/press-releases/courage-campaign-slams-passage-ab-2372-smokescreen-fails-address-major-problem

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/dan-walters/article148716959.html

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Fund%20Report/2010/Jun/1417_Squires_Intl_Profiles_622.pdf






Are you a spiritual hypocrite?


LOL.

I got a good laugh from this one, because OF COURSE I am a hypocrite - on spiritual and countless other levels in nearly all of my habits. I think it is part of being human. For example:

1. I detest conspicuous consumerism and rail against it constantly…while also consuming beyond what I really need (that is, for the pleasure of consuming).

2. I believe that compassion is the truest expression of spiritual development - and that I have cultivated manifestations of my spiritual Self - but I make choices that are not compassionate all the time.

3. I decry the irrational stupidity of conservative Americans for their self-contradictory choices and reflexive groupthink…while at the same time I will sometimes defend contradictory progressive values without carefully thinking them through.

4. I encourage my clients and students (in meditation, coaching, etc.) to let go of animalistic reflexes in favor of conscious, skillful self-nourishment…but I feed my inner primitive wolf quite often with my own reptilian frustration and impatience.

5. I am confident that the Universe advances along its given trajectory with or without the involvement of my will…but I can still be willful or try to control outcomes in a way that contradicts that belief.

At the same time, I also do TRY to overcome this rampant hypocrisy by adjusting my thoughts, behaviors and responses to align more with my professed values, and avoid situations that would entice me to undermine them more easily. And of course this is like a game of Whac-A-Mole. Ha. But really I think this should flow effortlessly out of my way of being, not in response to conscious discipline. And so for now I must just accept that I haven’t progressed as far as I sometimes wish that I have…and try not to judge myself (or anyone else) too harshly for being a raging hypocrite.

My 2 cents.

From Quora post: https://www.quora.com/Are-you-a-spiritual-hypocrite/answer/T-Collins-Logan

How does one cope with a spiritual crisis or a dark night of the soul?

Some thoughts:

1. Make sure all other dimensions of your being are fully nourished - relationships, learning, creativity and self-expression, healing from past trauma, physical exercise and a good diet, intimacy, affinity groups that share your other interests and passions, and so forth.

2. Read St. John of the Cross’ exploration of THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL. Read both Book I and Book II. Meditate on them. Re-read them. Meditate some more.

3. Have compassion for yourself - be patient, forgiving, and accepting.

4. Let go. Relinquish any clinging to both what you have been and what you expect to become.

5. Read Lao Tzu’s Te-Tao Ching (I like the Robert Hendricks translation)

6. Find support and refuge in a like-minded spiritual community, keeping in mind that the community may not be where, who or what you expect. It may be Sufi or Baha’i; it may be a Buddhist sangha; it may be a Hindu temple; it may be a Christian congregation of an unfamiliar denomination; it may be a Wiccan discussion group; it may be some secular humanists at a Unitarian Universalist church…Be open, check stuff out, and abandon your prejudices.

7. Spend some time with Daniel Ladinsky’s renderings of Hafez.

8. Find an authentic, client-centered spiritual mentor, coach or therapist to help walk you through your experience and provide nonjudgmental support. However…don’t become dependent on them for guidance, but continue to look within.

9. Be careful not to push yourself too far, too quickly. Take a break from spiritual work if necessary; give yourself space and time to process and integrate new insights and information.

10. Read the Bhagavad Gita.

11. Begin to actualize the change in direction you now perceive to be most spiritually authentic. This also doesn’t need to be rushed…but it very likely does need to happen. The most fruitful and facilitative changes in circumstances will arise of their own accord…if we open the door to that process.

12. Disruption of routine is a normal consequence of spiritual crisis…but it is also important to watch out for distractions, old defenses, denial and destructive impulses, any of which can derail positive consequences.
13. Read Lex Hixon’s Mother of the Buddhas.

14. Allow yourself to grieve. There is real loss along this path.

15. Remember that we are never fully aware of where we are in our spiritual journey - and in any case we aren’t where we think we are. However, two helpful metrics I have found are these: How sincere is my felt experience of compassionate affection right now? How sincere and present is my expression of that compassionate affection - towards my own being, in my interactions with those around me, and in consideration of All That Is?

My 2 cents.


From Quora post: https://www.quora.com/How-does-one-cope-with-a-spiritual-crisis-or-a-dark-night-of-the-soul/answer/T-Collins-Logan

How do I turn myself from a negative to a positive thinker?


My thoughts on this:

Get plenty of physical exercise, high quality sleep, and healthy nutrition.

Address unresolved issues from your childhood via psychotherapy.

Have at least five meaningful relationships (including friends, family, lover) in your life at any given time, and make sure to remain regularly engaged in all of them.

Stay away from alcohol altogether, or drink very moderately (one or two drinks a week).

Avoid stress - especially a stressful job.

Stop judging, start loving.

Let go of trying to control things.

Forgive yourself.

Take responsibility for your own mistakes, but do not take responsibility for anyone else’s.

Do something you really enjoy at least three times each week.

My 2 cents.


From Quora post: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-turn-myself-from-a-negative-to-a-positive-thinker/answer/T-Collins-Logan

What do you consider to be the limits of your responsibilities both personal and social?

Personally I don’t believe there are any limits to my responsibilities other than pragmatically; that is, what I can realistically accomplish. Fundamentally, I owe everything I have, am and will ever be to my society, and likewise am deeply indebted to every personal relationship in my life for nourishing and nurturing me and inspiring me to grow. What mitigates my responsibilities - that is, the quality and extent of my “response” to these incredible gifts - is my time, energy, accessible resources, life-balance, integrity in adhering to my own values hierarchy, and the priorities, agreements and contracts I have already committed to. In other words: where one area of indebtedness competes with another area of indebtedness, I am forced to prioritize and of necessity exclude some actions. There is only so much time in a day. However, if I had unlimited time, unlimited resources, and unlimited personal energy, then my responses from a place of affectionate compassion (on a good day) or dutiful obligation (on a baseline day) would be equally limitless.

My 2 cents.

From Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-consider-to-be-the-limits-of-your-responsibilities-both-personal-and-social/answer/T-Collins-Logan

San Diego's Dirty, Not-So-Little Secret

[Please note: this article was updated on Jan 12, 2017 with new and corrected information]

San Diego Smog circa 1974 - Photo Credit Don Taylor, Creative Commons License 2.0


Really Bad Air

Did you know that San Diegans breathe some of the most polluted air in the country? And that the closer you live to one of our many highways, the worse your health risks will be?

Anyone who has lived in San Diego over the last decade has probably experienced this more than once: Waking up at 3:00 a.m. to an acrid, eye-watering, lung-burning stench; coughing and wheezing while rushing around to close all the windows in the vain attempt to keep the bad air outside; then burrowing back under the blankets in an equally vain attempt to escape the worst effects. Since I moved to San Diego in 2002, the frequency of these pollution events seems to be increasing. Of course, it also depends on where in San Diego you happen to live. When I had an apartment in Pacific Beach, the bad air was present almost every morning on weekdays, but quickly dissipated with the rising sun. Now, living in East County, the "home invasion" of wicked smells occurs just once or twice a week, usually in the middle of the night. Again, though, the frequency does seem to be increasing...and the intensity of the stench is getting worse.

So what is going on? Is this just a natural consequence of living in a single-driver car-addicted society? That has been a frequent criticism of neighboring Los Angeles and its surrounds, where smog events and air quality health alerts are much more prevalent. And there is data to back up the assertion that most of the smog comes from cars - along with plentiful jokes and anecdotes about Angelinos driving two blocks from their house to purchase a bottle of water. And although there are similar statistics for San Diego's increasing traffic, I think the "car culture" argument is really a massive red herring.

And here's why. Anyone who grew up in the U.S. will remember the days before emission standards, testing and control technologies. That high, almost fruity and acidic aroma from the back of a running vehicle was just a fact of life in the fifties and sixties. Cars stank. So let's call that "classic old exhaust" - or C.O.E. for short. Then, in the 1970s, health concerns prompted Clean Air legislation, and catalytic converters were required in U.S. passenger vehicles. Over time, as older cars aged out of what was driving on our streets, car exhaust smells began to change. Occasionally we would encounter the rotten egg plume of a failing catalytic converter, and there might still be an occasional 1960s VW Bug or restored Mustang that would blast us with a reminder of the good old days, but for the most part the worst offenders were being removed from the roads.

Or so I thought.

After I moved to San Diego and was assaulted by high concentrations of pre-1970s C.O.E., I just didn't understand what was happening. In Seattle I had lived right next to two major highways for years, and never had to breathe air this acrid and toxic. What was was causing this? I wrote emails to different researchers at universities in San Diego, asking what they thought the reason could be. I received no response. I called them and left messages. Still no response. I then emailed the San Diego Air Pollution Control District with the same question. I received no response. I called the San Diego APCD and left messages - twice. No response.

So I began to speculate. What could be the source of all this nasty air? Were there a growing number of cars on the road that were somehow evading emission controls? As if to confirm this suspicion, I began to notice that, while driving behind certain newer vehicles in slow traffic, I picked up on the pre-1970s C.O.E. odor. I would then look at the plates of these newer vehicles to see where the cars were from, and discovered that, most of the time, they had Baja plates from Mexico. Most of the time...but not always. Sometimes the vehicles had current California registrations. When I asked around regarding these observations, San Diego natives confirmed that not only did most Mexico vehicles not require the same emission controls as here in the U.S. (not even catalytic converters), but that many people would buy the cheaper Mexico models, bring them into the U.S., and then work out various ways to get around emissions testing and other requirements when they registered them in California. It was also not unheard of, they said, for vehicles made in the U.S. to be sold across the border, only to have their catalytic converters removed and emissions controls deactivated before being driven back into the U.S. The converters weren't needed in Mexico, after all, and were worth upwards of $100 each.

What? Seriously? Was this really that common...? And as if in answer to my incredulity, within the next couple of months I witnessed the San Diego Police Department performing "spot checks" of vehicle emissions on the side of the road. These looked like the setups police use to funnel potential DUIs into a checkpoint - with the cones, flashing lights and multiple police cars. But instead of having drivers take a breathalyzer, the police tested the exhaust. Here is more on these random "Mobile Smog Checks:"

http://www.mercurynews.com/2013/05/10/surprise-bay-area-drivers-have-cars-examined-at-random-smog-checkpoints/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoTCSRgvPaM

http://www.policestateusa.com/2013/routine-smog-checkpoints-impede-california-roads/

Apparently, these random checks could become more sophisticated and widespread in the near future:

http://www.smogtips.com/remote_sensing.cfm

According to a California Highway Patrol contact that I spoke with, the mobile smog checkpoints the CHP facilitates are an effort of the California DMV and BAR to ensure that local Smog Check stations and technicians are not circumventing good practices for emissions testing. As such, the mobile testing stations are a potential source of revenue for the State, as expanded by AB 2289 (see https://smogcheck.ca.gov/pdf/Citations_Penalties_AB2289_2_13_13.pdf). In addition, one vehicle testing resource I spoke with also indicated that some mobile stations are set up specifically in areas where local communities have expressed concern about potential violators. In both cases, the ongoing investment in technology and human resources makes it clear that uncorrected emissions violations and re-failures of corrected issues are a real problem. Here are some charts from the BAR's 2016 Smog Check Performance Report that use this roadside data to illustrate the long-term and ongoing problem:





That said, I didn't think much more about this until a few more years had passed, and the C.O.E. events became worse and more frequent. Eventually, after my wife Mollie began to suffer serious health effects from the bad night air - and I myself was getting headaches and interrupted sleep when the stench woke me up - I filed a formal complaint with e APCD. At long last I received a call from an inspector at that agency. And you know what he said? Unless I could pinpoint the source of the pollution, and the exact times it regularly occurred, his agency could do nothing. I explained that I thought it was from cars without emission controls, and was the most extreme around 3 a.m., though at irregular intervals of days or weeks. Apologizing, he indicated that "general vehicle traffic" was not under his agency's jurisdiction. He apologized, but said there was nothing he could do.

I then contacted the Ombudsman's office of the California Air Resources Board, where I was invited to make public comment at a Sacramento Board meeting. As I live in San Diego that's not something I can easily do, so I was then referred to an emissions researcher at a private company. He was extremely helpful, and clarified many of the moving parts involved in regulating emissions here in California. His recommendation was that I contact the Bureau of Automotive Repairs, as they are the agency who would be most involved with end-user violations here in San Diego County. I then filed a complaint with the BAR, so...we shall see how that pans out. However, BAR can't do anything about polluting vehicles with Mexican registrations that are driving across the border....


So, apart from moving away from the horrific San Diego air for the sake of our health, what are the options?

First, here are some points of research to consider:

1) According to https://transborder.bts.gov, as of July 2016 a combined total of about 100,000 trucks and 2.5 Million passenger vehicles were entering California from Mexico every month on average, and these numbers remained fairly constant throughout the previous year as well. From the known profile of commuting and commercial activity between U.S. and Mexico, we can also be fairly certain that the majority of these vehicles do not meet U.S. vehicle emission standards, and that many if not most do not have catalytic converters.

2) The only substantive consideration of pollution impacts from Mexico's vehicles was triggered by some NAFTA-related laws and court rulings about truck transport - and only truck transport. These allowed more trucks to enter the U.S. - and travel further into the U.S. - without complying with U.S. emissions standards (see https://www.arb.ca.gov/enf/hdvip/bip/naftamextrk.pdf). At one point, the EPA stepped in to provide Mexican truck-drivers at some border crossings with upgrade grants for their vehicles to bring them up U.S. standards (see http://archive.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/04/11/20110411arizona-mexico-truck-pollution-regulation.html). In a somewhat ironic development, however, Mexico then loosened restrictions on pre-2007 U.S. truck sales in Mexico, so that any U.S. fleets that weren't compliant with 2007 emissions standards could be unloaded by U.S. companies there. This, in combination with the NAFTA-related increase in Mexican manufacturing and exports, meant that a large number of pre-2007 trucks were snapped up by Mexican transporters...and driven right back across the border to either pollute U.S. air...or receive taxpayer-funded EPA upgrades (see http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/nafta_blowback_fueling_used_truck_boom_south_of_border_in_mexico). Again, however, this is only attempting to address commercial trucking, not passenger vehicles.

4) According to the EPA, transportation is responsible for some 50% of nitrogen oxide, 30% of VOCs, and 20% of particulate pollution (see https://www.epa.gov/air-pollution-transportation). Although non-road sources (trains, boats, planes, etc.) do contribute to these numbers, the most acutely felt impacts of pollution in urban areas are from on-road vehicles (cars, trucks, etc.). And the denser the traffic and closer the proximity of residences to major traffic routes, the greater the health risk to those residents (see http://now.tufts.edu/articles/big-road-blues-pollution-highways).

5) The American Lung Association has consistently rated air quality in San Diego with an "F," their worst rating. This is mainly the result of ozone pollution, which is of course a consequence of fuel combustion - roughly half of which can be linked to on-road transportation for most of the year. However, historically and currently, nearly all other pollutants (particulates, CO, NO2, etc.) have also sustained higher averages in San Diego and the rest of Southern California (see http://www.usa.com/san-diego-ca-air-quality.htm).

6) Health impacts from this level of pollution are severe. Many researchers have made the comparison between living beside a highway and smoking. And even living in a town with moderate vehicle pollution levels can effect health over time - in particular, ozone and particulates increase risks for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, as well as risks for cancer, reproductive harm, developmental harm and premature death (see https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/air-pollution/ and http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/).

7) Catalytic converters reduce emissions of CO, hydrocarbons, VOCs and NOx, which in combination with sunlight create ozone. ("Ozone formation is driven by two major classes of directly emitted precursors: nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC). The relation between O3, NOx and VOC is driven by complex nonlinear photochemistry" - see http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sillman/ozone.htm). In combination with other, now standard emission control technologies in U.S. vehicles, catalytic converters reduce these emissions by up to 90%.


The 72% Solution

Taken altogether, where does all of this data lead us? Well, we have a good approximation of how many vehicles are crossing the California border each day, to drive through and around San Diego County without catalytic converters. We don't have exact figures on how many vehicles registered on this side of the border are trying to cheat on smog tests, but from my informal records of the routine assaults on my olfactory I've experienced while driving in San Diego over the past decade, I think that number would have to be at least 10%. Without exact numbers or AADT data that is user-friendly from California DOT, can we come up with a rough guestimate of what percentage of vehicles are driving around San Diego County each day that might be categorized as "gross emitters," or contributing directly to unhealthy levels of pollution? Sure. Just using AADT for I-5, I-8 and I-15 to propose a baseline (from http://www.interstate-guide.com/), then subtracting the in-bound cross-border traffic from Mexico in combination with an estimate of local smog-cheaters, how about:

(87,000 + 65,000 [10% of 739K-87K]) of 739,000 total vehicles = 20.57%

If we then adjust for trucks (which average just 3.7% of total traffic, but contribute 11% of on-road emission volumes), we arrive at a possible number of 22.83% of total vehicles on the road daily. But that isn't an accurate percentage of the pollutants those vehicles contribute, since we haven't adjusted for the lack of catalytic converters. Being generous, we could say that this 22.83% actually contributes eight times the ozone precursor pollution (per vehicle) compared to vehicles with catalyzed emissions. Which is how we can arrive at roughly 72% of the ozone-precursor pollution from on-road vehicles being produced by vehicles without catalytic converters. If my guestimates are correct, then just over half of these are vehicles driving legally across the border, and just under half are being operated illegally by folks who circumvent smog checks.

72%. And we wonder why, despite such rigorous smog enforcements on California drivers, Southern California has such crappy air....

Even if these numbers aren't exact, we're still talking about an enormous volume of PREVENTABLE pollution here. If I'm only half-right, addressing vehicular polluters from Mexico - and intercepting smog cheaters and re-fails of smog-checked vehicles that reside in San Diego County - would have a huge impact on quality of life and health in San Diego.

It would sure be nifty if this unhealthy problem could be addressed soon - before my wife and I are compelled to leave San Diego for good.



For more info:

U.S. Air Pollution Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_the_United_States

California Traffic Census:
http://dot.ca.gov/trafficops/census/

San Diego GHG Emission Data for On-Road Vehicles:
http://catcher.sandiego.edu/items/epic/GHG-On-Road1.pdf.pdf

Would a psychologist understand enlightenment experience in a patient or would it be perceived as irrelevant garden variety delusion?

First and foremost in any therapeutic relationship is pursuing what is most beneficial for the client. The therapist’s spiritual beliefs and practices are separate from this - though of course they may influence therapeutic choices. What is more relevant is whether the client’s beliefs and practices are beneficial to them, or causing distress. And even if they are causing distress, the objective would be to alleviate that distress rather than reform a client’s entire belief system or dismiss it as delusion. That would be pretty irresponsible. A skilled therapist can even utilize the spiritual convictions of a client (along with other techniques that have proved efficacious) to help a client through what they perceive as a spiritual crisis - and this can happen whether the therapist shares those beliefs or not. Again, this is about what is beneficial to the client. Now of course this would also be true of delusion…but again the delusion need not be contradicted or dismissed out-of-hand, and only requires attention if it is interfering with well-being or day-to-day functioning. To give an example let’s say a client says, “I’m totally in love with this person but because they don’t want anything to do with me I just want to kill myself.” Okay well their earnest emotional conviction has everything to do with why they are suffering, but a solution has a lot more to do with how to manage emotional impulses and suicidal ideation than negating that belief (or treating it as unreal, delusional or suspect). In fact, for some personality and cognitive disorders, if a therapist betrays even the slightest skepticism about the validity of a client’s emotional state - if they so much as hint that it isn’t real or important, and that the client needs to accept this - then the therapeutic relationship will be finished. Kaput.

So I suppose my point is that it doesn’t matter - at all - if a psychologist understands, appreciates or recognizes an enlightenment experience in someone they are treating. What matter are outcomes. And so all that a therapist should be concerned with is how the enlightenment experience is impacting their client. Is it having a positive, constructive and enriching effect? That’s great! Is it having a debilitating, paralyzing, depressive or anxiety-producing effect? That’s not great, and the question becomes how to help a client manage their responses to the experience. It’s really that simple.

Now in my own work I of course have encountered this issue often. I have taught courses in meditation, helped people through spiritual crises, and generally encourage a deepening of spiritual experience. But what if a person’s spiritual journey is destroying their relationships, their health, their happiness, their means of support, etc.? Unless such destruction was the deliberate objective the client expressed when they sought my help, then my job is to help restore balance. That is one reason why the emphasis in Integral Lifework (what I teach and coach) is nurturing all thirteen dimensions of self. Spirituality is only one dimension, and all dimensions need to support and harmonize with all the others. Overemphasizing one or more of these is just as injurious as neglecting one or more.

My 2 cents.

(From Quora question: https://www.quora.com/Would-a-psychologist-understand-enlightenment-experience-in-a-patient-or-would-it-be-perceived-as-irrelevant-garden-variety-delusion)

Revolutionary Integrity: Chaotic Transitions vs. Compassionate Transformation



There is a potent mythology circulating within our modern Zeitgeist that revolutionary transitions must be chaotic, disruptive and destructive. I think this is a mistaken assumption, but it is grounded in reliable observations and experiences that permeate history, psychology, biology, spirituality, politics and personal growth. First we can take a look at those evidences, and then some alternative examples from which we can discern a more sensible course for constructive change.

Where did this investment in chaotic transitions come from? Here are a few of the enduring memes circulating today:

• From ancient times, the Greek, Judeo-Christian, Hindu and other mythological metaphors of violent destruction and rebirth: the fiery rebirth of the Phoenix; the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (and other “dying-and-rising God” narratives – see Dying-and-Rising-God); the Great Flood myths; and the trials and temptations of the Hero’s Journey (Campbell); the chaotic End Times scenarios from various spiritual traditions, etc.

• Milton Friedman’s theory that, in order to implement a new policy or system, one must engineer an economic and/or political crises, accelerate a nascent crisis, or simply take advantage of a crisis in process at a regional, national or international level. Friedman demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach in different countries during his lifetime in order to promote a neoliberal ideology. Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism explores this process in vivid detail.

• Clear evidence that, in natural ecosystems, death is a necessary component of ongoing viability: one species will routinely consume another; parents must die for their offspring to flourish; evolutionary adaptation generally follows a fitness advantage passed on and refined in subsequent generations; and so on.

• The belief embodied in many spiritual traditions that each individual must relinquish a sense of self-importance or ego-identity in order to grow spiritually; a “death-to-self,” obliteration of individual ego, or realization of “no-self” is a necessary component of spiritual maturity.

• “Hitting bottom” in the Twelve-Step tradition. In this view of addiction and recovery, a person’s self-destructive behaviors must first produce substantive and irrefutable damage in their lives before they will consider seeking help or beginning the road to recovery.

• The observations of historians, philosophers and economists that cultural revolutions and societal advancements throughout history have been facilitated by highly volatile historical circumstances, rebellious grass-roots movements, new information or disruptive technologies. From religious wars to new economic systems to new forms of government to advances in individual and collective freedoms, turmoil seems to have been a reliable precursor for change.



However, I think this widespread assumption that chaotic transitions are inevitable is no longer as reliable as it perhaps once was. There are a number of reasons for this, and here are what I believe to be the most important ones:

• Superagency – Individually and collectively, humanity has exponentially increased its power through communication, transportation, industrialization, militarization and other technology. This has an amplifying effect on both deliberate outcomes and unanticipated ones, so that each personal, regional and cultural choice produces an enormous cascade of enduring consequences. In this context, previous patterns of death and rebirth cannot apply; the scope and reach of human will have now obliterated any Phoenix opportunity. And as our technology and population footprint expands, compassionate transformation must replace chaotic transitions as our standard of change – or the human species and possibly even the Earth itself are not likely to survive.

Exponential Complexity – This is close kin to superagency in terms of its impact on change. The level of complexity with which the modern world operates – and upon which an ever-increasing number of human beings rely for existence – has surpassed the level of any of the take-down-and-rebuild upheaval witnessed by previous eras. Our systems of commerce, resource distribution, healthcare, global transportation, energy, food production, education, research, innovation and just about everything else require extraordinary coordination, standards-based planning and specialized skillsets to implement and maintain. Rebuilding such complexity in a new form from the ashes of chaotic collapse is simply unrealistic and naïve.

Strong Evidence for Alternative Approaches – For me this begins at the individual level, witnessing how client-based psychotherapy grounded in trusting relationships are so much more successful than confrontation groups or highly directive approaches; because empowering the client allows them to heal themselves and keep using tools to maintain their own well-being. In organizations, I have witnessed firsthand the constructive impact of shifting from top-down management styles to more inclusive, bottom-up decision-making as the result of a voluntary choice to empower workers – and of course this has been documented in many places (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_democracy). Elinor Ostrom’s research on Common Pool Resource Management schemas arising organically around the globe also has demonstrated the viability of bottom-up, collective decision-making. On larger scales, throughout recorded history we have successful nonviolent movements in many countries (see Nonviolent Resistance and Nonviolent Revolution). Although the outcomes often involve compromise, nonviolent approaches have provided a more fluid avenue to healing and reconciliation among opposing viewpoints (for more information on nonviolent action, visit http://www.aeinstein.org/). And finally we have the evidence of state initiatives and referenda in the U.S., and of a more pervasive direct democracy in Switzerland at all levels of government, which came about without a single riot or drop of blood.


In my own efforts to envision and reify positive change on many different levels, I have sought to explore and embody transformative practices and ideals that are fundamentally constructive, additive and synergistic – a multidialectical synthesis rather than an inherently dominating or destructive process. Which is why I am calling this compassionate transformation. It involves these primary components, the details of which are discussed in more detail throughout my writings about Integral Lifework:

• An acknowledgement of personal responsibility, consciousness and planning to bring about constructive change; a commitment to personal agency must supersede reliance on institutional agency or externalized dependence – which ultimately lead to disconnection, apathy and self-disempowerment.

• The persistent guiding intentionality to work toward outcomes that provide the greatest good, for the greatest number of people, for the greatest duration – doing so skillfully, in ways that acknowledge and support both obvious and obscured interdependence.

• A focus on nourishing, nurturing and strengthening all dimensions of being in ourselves and others, with the primary aim of exercising compassionate affection, but also to encourage moral maturity and higher altitudes of individual and collective moral function. Our core strengths, resilience and creativity will issue from these mutually supportive relationships.

• A profound investment in understanding, respecting, including, honoring and celebrating diverse experiences, perspectives, cultural traditions and levels of understanding in all participatory mechanisms, while at the same time integrating them (in the sense of interculturalism), rather than encouraging isolation or separateness. Here we appreciate our togetherness, necessary interdependence, and uniqueness all-at-once.

• Patience and acceptance with the process of healing, educating and transforming self, family, community and civil society. This will be a difficult challenge. There will be setbacks. All of us are likely to stumble through confusion, loss, distractions and emotional turmoil; there will be internal chaos in the midst of liberation. And the only meaningful answer to this pain is self-directed compassion - a stubbornly enduring love-consciousness.


At the same time, I recognize that some things do pass away in the process; the synthesis may sometimes be subtractive regarding previous perspectives, memes, values systems or ideologies. For example, regarding the state of our current political economy, we do need to disrupt the status quo’s glamorous spectacle of excess and distraction, built as it is on unsustainable overconsumption and self-absorbed materialism. Together, we must prompt an awakening of conscious participation from our fellow worker-consumers, and definitively end the exploitative reign of owner-shareholders. And yes, this will likely involve attenuation of individualism, acquisitiveness and ego. But it is not necessary to drag “the man behind the curtain” out into the public square and flog him to death, or burn his palace to the ground. We can wreak havoc on the illusion, overturn the banksters’ tables, and eliminate complacency and dependency among our fellow citizens…without inducing chaos or a complete breakdown of society. Instead we can remove the curtain, throw open the palace gates, inspire and educate mass movements, and demand pervasive change – all without rancor, murder or rage. The more profound difference between compassionate transformation and chaotic transition in this regard is that our grounding attitude is a letting go – a careful, caring and tempered relinquishment of previous patterns, rather than their violent or aggressive destruction, oppression or repression. Passion with compassion; activism with humility. This is not passive by any means, but accepting, supportive, nonjudgmental and active from a place of loving kindness; it just invites the same collective participation it designs into reforms, and doesn’t excuse itself to lord it over others “for their own good.”

This combination of reasoning is what led me to promote what I call revolutionary integrity. Many throughout recent history, from Gandhi to Friere to Martin Luther King, have expressed the intuitive logic of embodying the values one desires for the future in the current modes of revolutionary action. Carl Boggs, Wini Breines and others wrote extensively about this idea with respect to sociopolitical movements of the sixties and seventies, describing it as prefigurative politics. Many years earlier, Ralph W. Sockman said this about the issue: "Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats." And long before this, a rebel from Nazarus told his overzealous disciple: “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” So this is really the core of what revolutionary integrity is about: we are just amplifying the assumption that, if we don’t embody our values in a transformational process, we will in fact sabotage the outcome. The means must embody the ends. There will be re-synthesis and adjustment along the way – that is obvious, as ideological and methodological purity almost always obstruct common sense solutions – but this does not mean that our quality of dialogue, standards of ethics, the vision towards which our incremental steps lead, the intensity of compassion with which we regard all participants, or the humility by which we relinquish personal opportunities at power for the common good will ever be compromised in any way. But if we insist that crisis is a necessary precondition for change, we will be inviting crisis to be an integral part of whatever new systems we invent.

In a very real sense, our lingering attachment to the idea of chaotic transitions is a substantive impediment to collective progress. It is a sign of our vestigial attachment to patterns of behavior which probably made sense when ancient tribes found themselves under constant threat of conflict, resource scarcity, existential uncertainty and violent power struggles. It is much like an abusive family’s expectation that all their communication and emotion be mired in excessive drama; or how a codependently enmeshed couple might catastrophize all disagreements and disconnections; or how someone with a personality disorder might threaten to commit suicide if someone doesn’t return their phone call. And perhaps it will take a generation or two of promoting holistic, multidimensional nourishment, healing from trauma, breaking familial cycles of abuse, and relaxing PTSD-like cultural reflexes in order to fully open ourselves up to more complete and effective ways of compassionately being. But I sincerely believe that is exactly what we need to do to both envision an egalitarian, thriving future for humanity, and to actualize it.

My 2 cents.