Know, Grow, and Show Thyself
Excerpt from my E-book eXp3-
Explore, Expand, Express Yourself
Know, Grow, Show
(This is the intellectual property of Mary Lazier Smith)
Prologue
She sat quietly, reflecting on her 50 years of life. It hadn’t been anything extraordinary – really quite average for a lower middle-class White girl from the suburbs of Chicago. How could the astrologer have been right? But, he had been so spot on about her past. He knew the names of her mom and dad, the number, gender, and ages of her children, and what type of work she had previously done and was now aspiring toward. All she had given him was her name and birthdate. His words, translated from Tamil into English, were: “At 73, you will believe, ‘I have lived enough,’ and you will reach heaven like you’ve been taken away – mixed with the light of the Lord. You will become a bright light, and your life will give light to many people.” She remembered how the first time she heard these words, she cried uncontrollably with tears of joy and hope. “Really? Can this beautiful end be mine?” “How can this be me?” She stared with disbelief at the astrologer priest and then at her dear friend, who was interpreting his words. She blinked and shook her head, thinking, “I haven’t been to church in over a year; I haven’t performed puja at any of the temples I have visited here in India. I don’t pray five times a day or meditate regularly. How can I, living this very ordinary, un-spiritual life, possibly become and unite with the light of God?”
Now, reflecting on that experience, having learned so much about herself these past few years, she smiled and realized that not only she but all humans are the light. We all shine brightly when we discover and live our True Self in loving compassion for ourselves and others.
You may have surmised that the experience shared above is mine. You are correct. I intend that this book will show you how extraordinary your “ordinary” life is. I hope you can see the light and truth within yourself, let that shine, and learn how to draw it out of others. I hope that this book can help readers be the Wisdom, Compassion, and Peace they wish to see in this world.
It may be helpful for you to know a bit about me and my very ordinary life. I’m a White, almost senior-aged woman currently living in Colorado. I grew up in a predominantly “White” suburb of Chicago. We were considered middle class or, more likely, lower middle class. We attended the Methodist Church pretty regularly. My three siblings and I went to the nearest public schools. My dad died from his fourth heart attack when I was only eight years old. I saw the devastated look on my mother’s face when she walked into our house, trying to find a way to tell her four kids they would never see their daddy again. In the coming days, weeks, months, and years, I watched her do what she always does – pick up the bootstraps, tie them tight, and dig in, finding ways to keep the family together. Because of her natural independence, she never remarried. She carried the heavy load herself with support from family and friends. The loss of her true love and partner violently pushed her into another life level where she had to rely on her strengths – incredible will, self-reliance, independence, and unstoppable desire to see her children succeed in life. Watching her raise our family had a tremendous effect on who I became.
The Midwestern and suburban culture had an effect on who I am and what I value. I have two college degrees and several graduate courses under my belt. My degrees are in communication, but I have also studied musical theater, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Dao de Ching, multiculturalism, and the effects of media in the USA, just to name a few. Recently, I taught and trained personal development courses concentrating on emotional intelligence, Crucial Conversations and Conversational IQ, Leadership and Self Deception, and The Empowerment Dynamic. I have received certificates in Integral Theory, Spiritual Intelligence (SQ), and Cultural Intelligence (CQ). I taught Communications classes and Introduction to World Religions for several years at a community college turned four-year college in South Florida. I tell you this not to brag but to show you the unique background that has shaped my perspective. By following my interests and talents, understanding my childhood background, including the local, state, and national systems or environments where I have lived, as well as knowing the strengths and limitations of my own physical body and mind, I know I bring a very unique energy and perspective to the world. I feel I’ve lived an ordinary life, one an average White girl from the suburbs of Chicago was able to accomplish. This life isn’t that much different from the hundreds of other lives that have touched mine along the way. However, my past, my parents, my siblings, my friends, my schooling, my travels, the various places I’ve lived, my personal triumphs and failures, and so on, all combine in a very unique perspective – mine. Once I discovered my unique voice, I knew I needed to share it. In sharing, I might be able to help others find theirs. That, I believe, is my calling.
From what you have read so far, it may seem that this book is about me, but it isn’t – it’s about you. It’s always all about you, isn’t it? (Wink).
I will share theories and wisdom from the scientific, psychological, mystical, and social fields of study. The authors/educators I refer to are all established experts in their fields, and it is my intention to bring them together for you in the same way I “brought them together” for myself. It is my intent that you first use this book for your personal growth. Then, as a parent, teacher, or leader, you use the exercises at the end of the chapters to coach, teach, or train the individuals or groups with whom you work.
The coagulating agent bringing all this wisdom together is the AQAL (pronounced AK kwul) model, matrix, and map, which is the birth child of Ken Wilber. At first glance, learning about and understanding how to use AQAL may seem insurmountable, but it isn’t. You will learn that the components of the AQAL map (all quadrants, all lines, all levels, all states, and all types) cannot really be separated as they all arise at one time and work together. But, for the purpose of decreasing any overwhelm, this text will explore each component one at a time. Why should we take the time to use this map/matrix? Using this map is the most comprehensive way to learn about yourself and understand how you can be your most effective and affective self. In my opinion, it is the best tool available for uncovering and dealing with the complexity of life (including yours) and situations we all deal with daily.
This book is a work of passion combining the work and thoughts of Stephen Covey (awesome), Ken Wilber (brilliant), Cindy Wigglesworth (amazing), and many others I have studied over the past ten to twenty years, who have delved into the developmental theories of humanity. I draw primarily from those theories that support the incredible potential with which each human is born. The person reading this book has tremendous gifts and needed value, and I hope to help you discover and unleash them.
Introduction
Think how amazing it is that billions of uniquely different humans are on this planet and that we are a social species, meaning we survive and thrive as a group. In fact, if we had machines feed us and take care of our physiological needs but deny us interaction and communication, we would cease to exist. We all share the capacity to understand the basic features and functions that make us human. We can also understand how different we all are. The problem is that we often do not honor the differences while holding the similarities; we assume that when we interact with others, they are just like us because we are human. I am here to tell you that they are not, and as you dig deeper into this text, I hope you see, as I do, that communicating, interacting, and producing shared meaning with one another is nothing short of a miracle. Why is this a miracle? Because we are such complex beings living in complex times, so many things influence each of our lives that nobody else has experienced life in quite the same way. For instance, I can only explain something to you by using my knowledge, which I have filtered through my life experiences, culture, education, etc. I then express through language, shaped by my life experiences, culture, education, etc., the concepts and ideas I am trying to share with you.
You have not experienced any of that through my filters, nor would you express the same knowledge with my language. You have a completely different set of experiences and filters, and yet you still understand me. So, the fact that we can actually share meaning is a miracle. Ken Wilber describes this shared communication or communion with another as the “we” space, he calls it the miracle of “we” (Ch. 7, Integral Spirituality). This “we” space is the very ingredient needed to solve the problems that humanity faces in the 21st century because the more we deny its importance and role for our survival, the more we will all remain ineffective at solving the ever-mounting complex global issues. We are a global social species and need each other to solve our problems. It is absolutely necessary for our survival to connect and commune with each other, to respect and value each other, in the midst of our dizzying, necessary, and valuable differences. No small or easy task, right? Let’s face it - the new Me is We, and we must learn how to be this new Me.
As mentioned earlier, we will discuss Wilber’s theories further in this text, and you will be introduced to his meta-theory and map, which is called AQAL. We will use this map to discover ourselves and our worlds. We will see how our perspectives become our modus operandi subconsciously running our lives. Integral theory and AQAL are much more complex than this application will get into, but it’s my hope that this book will provide a tangible and understandable gateway for “newbies” to this approach so they will desire to take a deeper dive into the heart and mind-expanding world of Integral. The integral approach is, by its nature, comprehensive and, therefore, the best method for unveiling some of the complexity of human existence.
In addition to being introduced to Wilber’s work, I would also like to introduce you to another author who has influenced my life greatly. Several years ago (almost 20), I read a book that changed my life. It was the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey. I saw then that what I think I believe about something, or what I believe I think about something, shapes the very thing I perceive. I began a long journey into self-discovery and knowledge. I started to learn not everyone experiences life the way I do. My reality, my truth, is only mine. (Nobody else has it - nobody) OMG! That really is a life-changing thought. If you have not read it, I highly suggest it along with his other book, The Eighth Habit. In The Eighth Habit, Covey explains our birth gifts. Our first gift is our freedom and power to choose; our second gift is the universal natural laws or principles that never change; and our third gift is our four intelligences or capacities. These are physical/economic, emotional/social, mental, and spiritual. The four intelligences or capacities correspond to the four parts of our human nature: the body, heart, mind, and spirit (or consciousness). Both books suggest that “our paradigms, correct or incorrect, are the sources of our attitudes and behaviors, and ultimately our relationship with others” (p. 30, Eighth Habit). Covey believes that your perspective (sometimes called a paradigm, vision, or view) is both a result of and limited by your basic character. The good news is we have the birth gift or ability to adjust or change our perspectives and character. I hope my book will show you how to understand your view, how it both helps and hinders you and how adjusting it will strengthen your character and skills, giving you the advantage and abilities you will need to be happy and succeed in the 21st century.
Another author that I have found to be extremely helpful as a new voice, a pioneer in the realm of spiritual intelligence, is Cindy Wigglesworth (author of SQ21: The 21 Skills of Spiritual Intelligence). I hope you are not letting the word spirit or spiritual upset you. For those of you with religious background and beliefs, by all means the word spiritual could be substituted by the divine language of your choosing. For those of you who are not religious, perhaps the word spiritual may best be substituted by the word consciousness or conscience. I like Covey’s definition, “spiritual is best defined as the human quest for connectedness with something larger (deeper) and more trustworthy than our egos” (Eighth Habit, p.53). Wigglesworth defines spirituality as “the innate human need to be connected to something larger than ourselves, something we consider to be divine or of exceptional nobility” (SQ21, p. 8). Wigglesworth has reviewed countless studies on intelligence and spirituality and concludes with leaders in intelligence theory that spiritual intelligence is real. She has spent much of her life creating a spiritual intelligence assessment tool. Upon completion, she provides the participant with a report and guidelines that indicate areas and ways in which the person can grow. Fantastic! Talk about helpful – this is a great way to gain insight into your well-being AND get the next steps for becoming your best person. Her assessment is modeled after the emotional intelligence (EQ) assessments that have become popular in recent decades. (For information about and access to her assessment and best-selling book, go to www.deepchange.com).
Wigglesworth, Covey, and Wilber all agree that not only is spiritual intelligence (the innate quest or drive for something more, bigger, better, higher than our small selves) a line of intelligence (one component of the AQAL map we will explore later), it is also an all-encompassing capstone of the human experience. The nature of a capstone is to unify and strengthen all that is “under” it. The idea of spiritual intelligence as a capstone is essential for this book because I have realized that the most critical work for a human being is to ‘know and grow thyself,’ thus enabling you to know your higher purpose. Reading this book of self-exploration, you will discover that you are much more than flesh and bone and cognitive computing machines. Discovering your paradigms (your framework and what’s driving you) leads you to a greater understanding of how powerful and valuable you and your contributions are and can continue to be. The process of self-discovery frees one from the once-unseen blocks to grow and keep the blocks from recurring. Covey calls this “a transition person… one who stops unworthy tendencies from being passed on from prior generations to those that follow” (Eighth Habit, p.44). I also like to think of this person as a catalyst, a quickening change agent: one who continually transforms themselves and becomes an agent for aiding transformation in others.
Chapter 1
You may ask, “Is this seriously stuff I need to study?” The answer is YES! Research conducted in the past fifty years shows that human consciousness has reached a new level. Ken Wilber would call it Integral, Robert Kegan calls it Fifth Order Consciousness, and Stephen R. Covey calls it the Wisdom Age. These great thinkers know that humanity is facing unprecedented challenges brought on by rapid technological advances that unite all of us as a global community. We have outgrown thinking and systems set up to support ego/ethnocentricity and industrialization and need new, world-centric consciousness and leadership in order to address the multi-faceted, multicultural, global issues facing us. Our reality is not our once small isolated backyard (be it the actual backyard of the home of our childhood, or the socio-political backyard of the USA, or other nation of our birth). Our backyard is now the world (however you define that) – yep, the whole wide world is your backyard! The world of short-term solutions made for individual communities no longer exists. The world needs Wisdom - real Wisdom, deep Wisdom. Wisdom comes from within the emotio-rational beings on this planet, who, as you have surmised, is us! The fact that humans have physical, emotional, rational, and transpersonal ways of knowing and being in this world makes us the species capable of promoting and prospering in this world (or destroying it; the choice is ours). This book is an attempt to create a process of both deconstructing and optimizing the complexity of ourselves and our day-to-day problems and realities. In other words, it is a book aimed at deconstructing, reconstructing, and optimizing our physical, emotional, rational, and transpersonal ways of knowing and being in this crazy, wonderful world so we don’t destroy ourselves but rather learn how to thrive together.
Decision-making is not a two-way street, with one option being right and the other wrong. Take the following question as an example: “Do I go back to school and switch careers, or do I continue to stay in this job that does not really fulfill me but pays the bills?” Is it obvious that I should go to school? No. Is it obvious that I should stay in my job? No. The decision involves many factors and players. It affects my family. It affects my financial well-being. It affects my emotional and mental well-being. It depends on the economic climate and trends. It depends on my physical health. And so on… There are multiple factors at play, making this decision a complex one. Making these personal decisions all the way up to governments making global decisions requires a new approach to critical thinking. The strictly rational, objective approach that the Western world has promoted for the past 500 years is NOT enough. Why? Humans evolve. We get more complex as we grow individually and collectively. Our perspectives change, and our needs evolve, too. What seemed right and good for our parents is completely whacked for our kids! The complexity of the world fifty to one hundred years ago wasn’t near today's complexity! Why? To a great extent, the internet - mass amounts of global information readily available. Kids grow up in a very different world - a global one. A more global reality requires more global interactions and solutions. How do we view each other? Who are our friends? Who is like us? It used to be the kids on the block or in our schools. But now, our kids meet others from around the world, having access to videos, games, information, and interactions with each other from different nations. No wonder there are generation gaps! There is a solution to lessening these gaps and coming to an understanding and cooperative problem-solving that deals with this global and generational complexity. This book will show you a process that can make that solution possible. It will show you how to think critically and act responsibly in a way that encompasses the immense complexity of life. It will give you new and necessary self-knowledge for the edge you need to be the most effective leader (be that parenting, educating, or within the business world) that you can be. Thus, it is a critical text for anyone wanting to make positive, lasting change. Being happy and effective in this complex world requires the integration of many aspects of life. Integral Theory provides the integration model and process of inquiry called AQAL.
It is paramount that the one using AQAL (this is you) to study any object, event, person – well, anything – starts with oneself. The key to its effectiveness begins with unlocking the observer/participant – you! Why? Because you have a unique view that shapes your reality. Everything about you, your birth, upbringing, education, friends, cultures, travels or lack thereof, and so on, make you the only one with your perspective. That perspective is what drives you and how you see or understand and, therefore, act on everything. You have to get a grip on it and see its limitations and strengths before you can expand it. It is lost in the myriad of perspectives until you find it and can articulate it. Once you can do that, you and your ideas are very valuable because then you can see how others are different and understand their value as well. Learning to recognize your perspective and understanding and honoring the perspectives of others is the beginning of recognizing your best and highest Self. Anyone who can unlock their higher Self can also see and honor the higher Self in others. Once you can do that, you will know how to be the most effective and affective being you can be and how to help others be the same - the catalyst. That’s huge, my friend. HUGE. And that’s what this book can help you do. Utilizing the AQAL map is the most encompassing way to learn about the deep and wide territory that is you, and therefore, I have found it to be the most effective way. It provides five different methods to gain an understanding of oneself (or any subject). As you will see, these ways are distinct but cannot be separated.
So, I’m sure you have noticed that some birds are born to weather the winter, and some are not - they must fly south. This has something to do with the type of bird they are. Humans are often not aware of their types. You have personality types, body type, blood type, ethnic type, race type, culture type, socio-economic type, environmental type, and so on. All of these types play a role in whether you should “fly south for the winter” or not. Have you ever lacked direction, failed in relationships, been dissatisfied with your career or vocation, and not really known why? Much of this has to do with not knowing who you are and what you were made to do. Discovering your types is just one of the AQAL elements that aid in understanding who you are. You also need to know your strengths and weaknesses in various lines of intelligence and what level of development you are in each of those lines. Are you aware of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual states, and how those states help or hinder you? Incidentally, those italicized words should look familiar. I mentioned them earlier as the different elements of the AQAL map. Part One of this book will use the AQAL map to differentiate each component to learn about you (the territory). In essence, by exploring yourself, you will begin to “know thyself” and discover your unique lenses, traits, and gifts as each chapter emphasizes and utilizes a different element of AQAL (the map). This is the deconstruction part. Part Two will then “grow thyself” by showing you how to expand your lenses, especially in the blocked areas discovered in Part One. Expanding or growing yourself requires you to become both aware and conscious of who you are. Those two words, awareness and consciousness, are often used interchangeably, but to keep things as simple as possible, we will talk about growth broadly in two ways. Think of yourself like a bubble. The bubble expands both in breadth and depth. Breadth or widening will be associated with waking up to your trueidentity - being aware of who you are. Essentially, it is discovering and distinguishing your ego “self” from your Higher “Self”. Depth or deepening will be associated with expanding or growing your framework or worldview - your consciousness. This is the reconstructing part. (Again, I am really simplifying some complex concepts, but the point is to give you just enough to begin your growth. Getting technical and specific about awareness and consciousness will confuse, not help, at this early stage of the game). Breadth deals with waking up to who we really are, and depth deals with growing up and reaching our highest potential. Part Three will then suggest ways to act or express yourself in the world that honors your deepest, most expansive Self. It will guide you on how to make appropriate changes or adjustments to your thinking and actions that will better serve you and your Best Self. It will also give you direction for teaching this material to others if you are a parent, educator, counselor, or business leader. This is the optimization part. Several scholars agree that the survival of our species may well depend on our ability to grow in awareness and consciousness. I think that is motivation to delve into this kind of work, don’t you?
Chapter 1 Suggested Further Reading:
For further study consider joining my Introduction to Communicate with Intelligence Course where we learn how to Know, Grow and Show Thyself using communication as the key to unlock your highest human potential.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The 8th Habit. Both books are by Stephen R. Covey.
SQ21: The 21 Skills of Spiritual Intelligence by Cindy Wigglesworth.
The Integral Vision: A very short introduction to the Revolutionary Integral Approach to Life, God, the Universe, and Everything by Ken Wilber.
Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World by Ken Wilber.
In Over Our Heads by Robert Kegan