It is wisdom to know others;
It is enlightenment to know one's self.
– Lao-Tzu
Recently, I have been asked the question "what the heck is integrative living" by more than a few folks. According to the dictionary, the word integrative suggests "forming a whole or aggregate" and "tending to integrate", both of which form the basis for a more comprehensive and implicit definition. There's an overall American cultural trend toward integration which appears to be a reaction to a previous and longer-term trend of "compartmentalization" of life experience into distinct but disconnected categories. There's also a spiritual nuance that implies making a collective meaning out of the multiple facets of our life experiences into something personal and holistic rather than purely sacred or purely secular. And finally, I think there's a psychological aspect to the term integrative that implies an intention to unify disparate feelings, thoughts and emotions into something conscious and deliberate rather than accidental or dissociated from each other.
Living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York City, the trend toward "integrative living" appears to be hot. One can't turn a corner without seeing examples of young, energetic and creative people seeking to build a more holistic experience for themselves. Nearly every storefront has signs suggesting that the products sold inside were made locally in Brooklyn, were constructed by hand by an artisan or was otherwise created in a non-mass-produced fashion. This is, in fact, Williamsburg fashion. To many of us raised in nuclear families in the first few post-war generations, the notion of buying goods and consuming foods produced "en masse" seems both unsustainable and impersonal. It lacks inherent meaning, does not bring us closer to the common human experience and appears to contribute to a general societal malaise.
This is not only true in Brooklyn. From San Francisco to Portland to Asheville, North Carolina, vacant lots are being converted to neighborhood vegetable gardens, twenty-somethings are canning tomatoes and teenagers are asking grandpa how his grandpa used to distill his own whiskey. This trend is both encouraging and optimistic. Underlying this trend appears to be a belief that a well-rounded and interconnected life experience is possible and also suggests a desire for a deepening and integrative approach to living.
In addition to being a national (or international) consumer trend, the word integrative packs a spiritual punch. Statistics suggest that Americans are turning their backs on typical, western-style spiritual activities such as church on Sunday and a deep divide between those two hours and all of the other hours of the week. The trend is decidedly eastern in nature. When you ask a typical, modern, young American about their spiritual life, the words that follow are not usually, god, devil, sacred, secular, sin or piety. People are talking about sunsets, unspoiled forests, and the interconnectedness of humanity. This is the essence of integrative. When we look around us and desire to connect the things of beauty with the mundane in our lives, we are looking to integrate and to make meaning of our daily experience. There seems to be an awakening happening in the world to the notion that we cannot go on maintaining separate quarters for our spiritual feelings without losing something in the process. That something has been a lost sense of empathy for our fellow man. By thinking deeply about what our life might mean in relationship to the grand scheme of things, we find ourselves connecting to "the other" as we can feel that we all share the same larger plight in a world that is much bigger than ourselves.
Finally, the term integrative has an implicit psychological dimension. Research suggests that mammals often respond to emotional trauma (with both a capital T and a lower-case t) with a dis-integrative tendency. When we cannot make sense of our experience due to it's overwhelming impact, we break it up into smaller parts that feel disconnected. In this way, it is as if the brain is working to prevent us from having to experience the whole event over again. We repress, we split and we dissociate. In effect, we disintegrate. It has a self-protective quality. From an evolutionary standpoint, this makes sense. If the gazelle on the savanna (much less the stone-age hunter) can't separate her experience into a moment by moment sequence of events, the risk is that she will be overwhelmed by triggers that remind her of the past. If we were to find ourselves constantly feeling overwhelmed, we can't think straight, make good decisions, or escape the next lion. The trouble is, we are not exactly gazelles and we no longer live on the savanna. We are human beings with massive cortexes who think, and somehow, have a natural desire to make meaning of our experiences. We are torn between a tendency to protect ourselves and a need to know "why".
We also know that in the long run, we as humans do not really escape anything through dissociative strategies. It is the source of significant emotional and physical aches and pains (my time working in chronic pain taught me much in this regard) which we feel but cannot exactly locate, much less fully understand. It is the source of much suffering. The consequences of such a mechanistic approach are numerous. The symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, flashbacks, dissociation and intense distress in situations that contain cues similar to the traumatic event. Still, one doesn't to have gone to war or experienced a fear-of-death inducing event in order to compartmentalize.
More and more research is suggesting that this tendency to "split off" our daily, minor traumas without really acknowledging them is a typical part of the human experience. With this in mind, I mean to suggest that one job we are tasked with, if we are to become more-fully conscious of our lives, is to shift toward an integrative approach to our experience. By making meaning out of the things that happen to us (good and bad), we stay plugged in and stay awake. When we do this, we become more mindful of how things are impacting us. We can feel more deeply, taste more deeply, and smell more deeply if we attune to how we are reacting to these impacts. By being "integrative" in this way, we have more choices on how to respond to traumatic events and are less victimized by them.
This is what integrative means to me. While there are many more facets to this definition than I have covered in this entry, this is partially what this blog is all about. Looking for more ways to psychologically integrate our histories with our present and our futures, our feelings with our thoughts and sensations, our work with our play, our spirit with our bodies, we are hoping to live happier lives, make better love and connect to ourselves and one another with greater ease and comfort. Integrative, indeed.