An Integral Approach To Healing

An integral approach to healing means (1) that the psychological, the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual are permitted to work in fruitful tandem; and (2) that whatever constitutes one -- at whatever level or dimension -- is worked with in the context of one’s innate wholeness of being.

For example, bodywork -- massage, structural integration, cranialsacral work, Feldenkrais, etcetera -- would through such an approach be conducted in a way that effectively connected it and its results to one’s mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. This is an intuitive, deeply felt process, known from the inside.

Without such connection, we are marooned, left clinging to -- and probably overrelying on -- particular aspects of ourselves. We may meditate deeply, but find ourselves cut off from the depths of our emotions; or we may be able to openly contact and express such depths, but find ourselves overwhelmed by or too easily caught up in them; or we may change our way of thinking, so that we can better regulate our emotions, but find ourselves stuck in disembodied rationality; and so on. We may conceal -- and not necessarily deliberately -- what isn’t working behind what is working for us.

The healthy integration of self -- the healing of self -- needs a suitable crucible for whatever changes are necessary. That crucible, that container for Awakening’s alchemy, is ideally present both inwardly -- in one’s commitment to healing -- and outwardly -- in supportive environments, like the company of kindred spirits. This is beautifully represented by the classical Greek word temenos, meaning a sacred enclosed space, a vessel or environment wherein transformation occurs.

In what follows, an overview is given of what it means to work with our body, our mind, our emotions, and our spirituality, and how such work can be beneficially conducted.

A. WORKING WITH OUR BODY

To work with our body is to be compassionately and wholly attentive to our body as it now is. To this end, it is useful to cease viewing our body as a thing, a mere container for our supposedly higher dimensions. It is also useful to stop viewing our body as being “down there,” somewhere below our head. When we envisage our body from the vantage point of our cranial headquarters, it may very likely seem as if we are above it, and not necessarily just in a physical sense. We may even blame our body for bringing us down. But the fault is not in our body, regardless of its condition, but rather in what we are doing with our body.

What we essentially are makes its appearance not in a body, but as a body. This does not necessarily mean that we literally are our body, but that our body expresses rather than contains us.

The body does not lie, but reveals.

Whether or not we listen to its messages -- as articulated through its tensions, aches, leanings, cries, asymmetries, oddities of gesture, and so on -- it is always revealing who we are busy being moment-to-moment. The damage (and not just physical damage) we have done and have had done to ourselves is eloquently present in our bodies, regardless of the compensatory twists and turns we have taken.

If the subtler messages of our body are not attended to, then more overt or dramatic signals may well ensue. If these are not given sufficient attention, then even more blatant signs -- serious malfunction, and so on -- may arise. Like the steed that needs not the whip, but only the shadow of the whip, we need to heed the language of our body when it is but a whisper, and heed it with our full, undivided attention.

Body-attuned practices -- like hatha yoga and the many kinds of massage -- can, when infused with mindful attentiveness, help us to more fully embody our fundamental nature. Then we begin to realize, and more than just intellectually, that body and mind are not really apart, that the body is the visible part of the mind and the mind the invisible part of the body. Then we are literally in touch with our innate wholeness of being. Such contact is the foundation of healing.

By not letting our body speak its mind, we miss the wisdom that can arise from and through the awakening body, the body that is consciously lived, respected, and felt.

We can work on our body from the outside -- for example, through typical exercise or conventional physiotherapy -- and we can also work on our body from the inside -- as through various meditative or awareness-centered disciplines. Ideally, the body is worked with both from the outside and the inside, in conjunction with fitting psychological/spiritual work, so as to bring about a deeper, more dynamic connection with one’s physicality. That connection, that congruent bodily anchoring, not only helps quiet and clarify our mind, but also helps us to more deeply contact and embody our spiritual dimensions.

The body asks only to be loved, lived, and illuminated. The body is not a burden with which we’ve been saddled. It is not an obstruction to wisdom.

We only need to shift from having a body to being a body, and from being a body to Being. Then we can feel, right down to the tips of our toes, how natural it is to be whole, no longer separating body and soul. In permitting a fuller, saner, nonproblematic embodiment of our essential nature, we make possible a life for ourselves that is of benefit not just to us, but to all beings.

It is crucial that we not only love what outlives this body, but this body also, for it too is a weaving of the Real, a unique flowering whose rise and beauty and singularity ache to be known before its demise.

B. WORKING WITH OUR MIND

How many of our thoughts do we actually think? Does not most of our mental activity arise unbidden, seemingly independent of a thought-generating thinker? And, even when we are clearly behind our thoughts -- as when we’re deliberately passing judgment on another -- are we not then usually identified with such thoughts, tangled up and lost in their weave?

Working with our mind means being consciously attentive to its various formations -- thoughts, fantasies, judgments, and so on, all in constant flux -- and such awareness is not something of which our mind is capable. Only that which is beyond the mind can see the mind.

Thinking that we are aware is altogether different than being aware of thinking.

To be aware of the actual process of thinking, and to maintain that awareness for more than a few minutes, is not easy. Our mind has, so to speak, a mind of its own, and is not about sit still or be quiet just because we want it to do so.

Nevertheless, we have to be able to stand apart -- in healthy detachment -- from our mental activities. Otherwise, we are at the mercy of whatever winds are blowing through our mind. A certain thought arises, and we automatically feed it with attention, letting ourselves be controlled or guided by it, all the while acting as if we are in charge. Becoming aware of what our mind is actually up to, and realizing how difficult it is to maintain such a focus for very long, is a humbling experience.

The mind is a marvellous servant, but a poor master. As we learn to relate to it, rather than only from it, we find ourselves freer, regardless of our current circumstances.

So how to do this? Discipline is needed -- particularly in the form of sustained concentration -- but so too is relaxation. Initially, we make the effort to stay focused on a particular object, like the sensations generated by our breath, and once we are sufficiently steadied -- the chatter of our mind having significantly quieted down -- we let our efforting lessen or perhaps even disappear, allowing ourselves to settle into the uncluttered ease of innate awareness.

After sufficient practice, we’ll find our concentrative doing and our spacious non-doing mixing more and more naturally. This is the essence of meditative practice, done not just in meditation halls, but in the midst of everyday life. Relaxed alertness. Consciously inhabiting the space between thoughts. Letting ourselves be awareness-centered, taking shelter in the natural vastness and peace of Being.

This is about having the same relationship to our mental activities as does the sky to its clouds. Not trying to get rid of them, not being stuck in their dramatics, neither suppressing nor indulging them. Awareness doesn’t take sides. It just is. The sun of awareness shines equally on all that it touches.

Learning to enter -- or to reenter -- that awareness is not so much a movement from here to there, as from here to a deeper here. It brings us present. If we’re not present, we are not really living, but are only dwelling in fantasies populated by spectres of past and future.

Awakening from such fantasies -- and, ultimately, from all the entrapping dreams we habitually animate -- is what meditative practice is all about. Meditation is not some exotic import from the East, but is simply the art of allowing everything to be encompassed by awareness. The art of awaring. Meditation doesn’t necessarily change the mind, but rather illuminates it.

As we work with our mind, learning to witness its thoughts, beliefs, dreams, and interplay with our body and emotions, we are, in effect, cleaning house, allowing ourselves immersion in the everfresh Mystery of Being. This process is perhaps best catalyzed not through meditative practices alone, but through the efficacious blending of such practices with apt psychological and body-centered approaches.

Even after plenty of meditative practice, we’ll very likely still find ourselves slipping into old habits of mind, resurrecting the same old thoughts, but we don’t have to make a problem out of that. Getting off track -- derailed by our train of thought -- need not be an occasion for self-castigation or unfavorable report cards, but rather for healthy humility; and it’s a chance to get back on track in a way that both lightens and strengthens us. Of course, we’ll likely continue to fall, to get deflated, to find ourselves on our hands and knees (along with everyone else), even after we’re sure that we’ve learnt the lesson by heart. The goal, however, is much deeper than perfection. Arrival, and a deeper arrival, when the ground once again shifts.

Compassionate attention nonviolently stills our mind. When our mind is thus naturally quieted, the signals of our intuition and heart come through more clearly, allowing us to live more wisely.

C. WORKING WITH OUR EMOTIONS

We’re born feeling. We live feeling, and we die feeling. Even when we might assess ourselves as feeling nothing, there nevertheless is some kind of feeling going on, however much it might be in the background. An emotion, and another emotion, and another, layer upon layer, suffusing our flesh, minds, psyches. But how well do we know our emotions? How much at home are we with them? Do we have difficulty controlling or expressing certain emotions? When fear, anger, shame, or sadness arise, what do we do? We may know our IQ, but do we know our EQ (emotional intelligence)?

The emotional illiteracy -- or shortage of emotional intelligence -- that plagues modern culture is largely rooted in the historical devaluing of emotion relative to cognition. It is, for example, not uncommon to view emotions as being “lower” or more “primitive” than reason, doing little more than clouding the skies of rational thought, or muddying objectivity. Thinking clearly is thus often associated with dispassion, or a muting of one’s emotions.

However, one can be objective and emotional at the same time, as when a releasing of tears washes away an ossified stance, leaving one not in a particular position, but rather aware of possible positions.

Furthermore, the practice of distancing or dissociating ourselves from our emotions, including our apparently darker or more uncomfortable emotions, can seriously disrupt our ability to think clearly and act morally. Neurological research demonstrates that an impairment in emotional capacity (as perhaps caused by damage to brain regions essential for emotional processing) can actually retard one’s ability to make sound decisions.

To view emotions as being “lower” (or less reliable) than reason also has serious gender implications, at least insofar in the sense that in modern Western culture femaleness is commonly associated with “getting emotional,” and maleness with being rational.

Many factors must be taken into account in examining a particular emotion, not the least of which is the interrelatedness of the various emotions. Anger may be a defense against sadness, or sadness may be a defense against anger. Rage at its peak may suddenly metamorphose into joy. Guilt may not be a feeling unto itself at all, but rather only a suppression of feeling, within which anger, hurt, fear, and shame together writhe. When anger and disgust mingle, contempt arises. And so on.

To work with our emotions is to become increasingly intimate with them. As obvious as it sounds, we need to know what we’re feeling when we’re feeling it. On the way, we learn to find the balance between containment -- as when our anger is about to mutate into aggression -- and expression -- as when held-in anger needs to be given emphatic voice. Healthy restraint and healthy uninhibitedness. We need to learn how to regulate our emotions, how to directly express them, how to infuse such expression with awareness and compassion, how to ride, guide, and ultimately just be with them.

Let’s take fear as an example.

The key to working effectively with fear is to get inside it.

This means, among other things, that we need to have a clear knowledge of all the ways we’ve learned to get away from fear, so that when one of them shows up, we’re capable of looking at it and saying no thanks. Getting inside fear means getting past its periphery, getting past its defining thoughts, getting past its propagandizing sentinels. Entering the dragon’s cave.

Once we’re within fear, under its skin, with our attention scanning our surroundings like a miner’s headlamp, we can begin acquainting ourselves with its basic character, particularly with regard to those sensations and beliefs that together make it into a something we label “fear.” The closer we get to it, the better we can see it. However, we need to learn not to get close too quickly, not to move so fast that we can’t keep digesting and integrating what we’re experiencing

When we remain outside our fear, we remain trapped in it.

When we, however, consciously get inside our fear, it’s as if it turns inside out. Getting inside our fear with wakeful attention and compassion actually expands our fear beyond itself. Once the contractedness at the center of fear ceases to be fueled, fear unravels, dissipates, terminates its occupancy of us.

In entering our fear, we end our fear of it.

Our emotions are not the problem. What matters is what we do with them. To cultivate intimacy with our emotions is to get close to them, really close, without, however, getting lost in them. Then we can accurately read and skilfully respond to whatever emotional weather we are in, learning to ride our craft into the heart of the matter.

D. WORKING WITH THE SPIRITUAL

Spirituality -- the cultivation of intimacy with what we take to be sacred or ultimate -- cannot be left out of any serious consideration of what it is to be human. As we become more aware of our body, mind, and emotions, the question of identity almost invariably arises: Who (or what) am I? It is a question that seeks something more real than mind-made answers, a question that ultimately brings us into a direct encounter with the ineffable Mystery of our existence.

To touch, deepen, and more fully embody one’s spirituality is not easy work, but sooner or later, one realizes that there is no point postponing it any longer. Such work ideally occurs in healthy conjunction with one’s physical, mental, emotional, and social dimensions. Then spirituality is not separate or removed from the stuff of everyday life, but rather pervades and illuminates it, providing a perspective that’s untainted by egoic or self-serving strategies.

Between the realm of pure Spirit -- where all dualism vanishes -- and the realm of ordinary egoic existence is the realm of Soul. Soul can be defined as individuated Being, or one’s personal essence. It is the last frontier of individuality. Beyond it lies undifferentiated Being.

Soul has considerable transpersonal perspective, yet is still profoundly human; as much as it may stand in the transcendent, it usually remains intimate with the particular, the personal, whether it is residing in saintly mansions or in the most appalling of slums. Soul keeps awareness from getting desiccated or too detached.

To work with our soul is to open to it, to surrender to its perspective. This is an inherently vulnerable undertaking, wherein we learn to make a major shift -- from avoiding our suffering to directly turning toward it. Soul does not turn away from pain, but instead meets it with compassion. Soul takes the suffering out of pain. When we allow ourselves to be soul-centered -- through the openness created by working deeply with our body, mind, and emotions -- we are making room for all that we are.

Then the integration of body, mind, emotion, and spirit is not just an attractive idea, but a living reality. A reunion that is our birthright. In allowing our soul to be more central than our egoity, we are on our way Home, becoming more intimate both with what dies and with what does not die.

Such intimacy is the fruit of wholehearted participation in awakening practices. These practices include not only times of meditation, awareness-enhancing exercise, and psychospiritually oriented therapy, but also every moment when we are present. Implicit in this is the realization that there’s no such thing as an insignificant act. It all matters. And, because it all matters, none of it can be left out. This is why we have to, sooner or later, learn to make room for all. We cannot do this as ego-centered beings, but we can do it as soul-centered beings.

When we recognize that we each contain all qualities -- however much we might like to disown some of them -- and when we can approach these with compassion, we are in a position where we cannot help but behave more compassionately toward others.

Spirituality is not an escape from Life’s difficulties, but rather an embracing and illumination of them; as such, it is love and awareness functioning as one.

We look deeply into another’s eyes, and what do we see? At first, personality and its attending programs and desires. Then, Soul. We may stop here, enjoying the exchange between two souls, or we may look even further, seeing Spirit in the raw. Then there is only Be-ing looking at itself. As we move along the continuum between personality and Spirit, getting closer to Spirit, we feel more wonder and awe, more love, more and more deeply entering what could be called a second innocence, an innocence that’s far from naive. Such innocence, so refreshingly unguarded and loose and joyful, is not the mark of childishness, but of real maturity.

Soul’s embrace is both panoramic and particular, touching the universal without neglecting the personal. Even if its heart breaks, the circle of its reach is widened, for its wounds only more deeply expose its love.

Ego says: I am what I think I am.

Soul says: I am more than I can imagine.

Spirit says: I am.

We are Light and we are Darkness
And we are the flesh, be it of mud or stars
Torn between the two
Yet already the One
Inseparable
From the broken Many

By Robert Augustus Masters, Ph.D.

Since the late 1970s Robert has worked as a psychotherapist (he has a Ph.D. in Psychology), group leader, and teacher of spiritual deepening practices, creatively integrating the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual in his work. Robert is known not only for the depth and transformative power of his sessions and groupwork, but also for his critically acclaimed books (including DIVINE DYNAMITE and DARKNESS SHINING WILD) and award-winning essays (which have appeared in magazines ranging from Magical Blend to the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, as well as in several anthologies). Among his current offerings are a free newsletter and apprenticeship programs in Integral Psychotherapy and Bodywork. He lives near Vancouver, British Columbia. http://www.robertmasters.com/home.htm