90 Days of ILP

Please note: blogging will be light for the next few days as I have some major deadlines impending and have to put all of my effort into that (not to mention the fact that I got food poisoning last night, ugh). In the meantime, do yourself a favor and go out and rent the quad rugby documentary Murderball, one of the most emotionally intense/inspiring films I've seen in a long time.

Last night was something of a breakthrough for the Boulder Men's ILP Group (a.k.a. "Man Night!"). For the past 6 or so weeks we'd been using our time together to set small, piecemeal weekly goals and to hold each other accountable to them. This was combined with a theoretical discussion of some aspect of integral theory as it relates to "manhood". But last night, given the fact that for the first time ever less than 50% of us had met our goals for the previous week, we realized that something was arising that demanded a change of course, namely: the group was evolving.

Part of the reason for the goal-meeting failure, I believe, is that many us were setting goals just for the sake of setting a goal, rather than having it be part of a larger growth process tied to our purpose as dudes on this planet. Dude #1, for instance, had failed to show up for the grocery store job he'd tasked himself with showing up to the previous week. While the "old" Man Night would have certainly deemed this a failure, with all the push-ups and shame-hazing that would imply, the "new" Man Night decided to address the deeper issue at work, namely: what Dude #1 really wants to do is be a teacher. In this light, the grocery store job may have even been a distraction, and his failure to attend may have actually indicated a subconscious refusal to pursue such an inauthentic life path.

Similarly, Dude #2 was having a hard time keeping up with his dishes and was smoking dope too many nights a week. While we would have previously been tempted to simply punish him for these infractions in his goal-making (yes, some Man Night goals are as simple as "wash the dishes"), we decided last night to again address the deeper issue. In this case, Dude #2, who sees himself ultimately as someone with leadership potential, was displaying a general lack of awareness, with his failed dish duties and hedonistic excesses being mere symptoms of a more serious disease.

Once we realized what was going on -- that the group as a whole was pushing into the need for working on more important, long-term goals -- the weekly goals decreased in importance. Instead we took a half hour to go around and state what we each thought our larger purpose and mission in the world actually was. Dude #3, for instance, saw himself as a writer and political theorist, and was giving himself the mission of distributing "food" (whatever that may mean) to everyone in the world. Dude #4, by contrast, saw himself as a storyteller, and was motivated to tell stories in order to provide hope and inspiration. Dude #5, a graphic designer who writes an ILP blog, had the sole purpose of becoming an "enlightened multimedia powerhouse", and is hell-bent on unleashing this potential in the near future.

This all had the effect of orienting everything -- our weekly goals, our ILP modules, our camaraderie and high-fives -- around a more impersonal telos point, and made the whole thing seem a lot more important than just the Thursday Night Ken Wilber Clown Crew. And while we did set goals again this week, they were strictly voluntary, and to hold each other accountable we decided that the punishment should be tailored to the individual, i.e. Dude #1 would have to show up to something on time, or Dude #2 would have to do the dishes of every member of the group for a week.

It was a breathe of fresh air to say the least.

Note to Denver/Boulder readers: the ILP group is closed to membership for the time being, but we are considering re-opening in a month or two....]

I'm thinking of expanding this blog to a more general audience while keeping it focused on creative approaches to personal development, such as it is now. "ILP" is too much a specialist term, and implies a specific suite of practices, so I think I'd have to change the name to something else (not to mention, the fact that the "90 days" ended a while ago, although I do like the numbers). Any suggestions? I'm thinking something like "FURIOUS POTENTIAL!", or, using the "ILP" in a different way, i.e. "INTENSIFIED LIFE PROPAGANDA". Please comment!

As many of you know, I don't make a whole lot of money as an I-I semi-volunteer graphic designer. To cover my living expenses, I've had to chase various freelance leads, along with a one-month stint as a karaoke DJ (long story). Given how much time I spend talking to people online, however, I figure why fight it? Why not make an aesthetic contribution to the social aspect of the Internet?

With that in mind, I am offering a new service -- custom-designed avatars! All you have to do is email a photo of yourself to artisticavatars@gmail.com, and for a nominal fee, I'll recreate your image as a way-cool vector image. Best of all, because it's vector art, it is scalable, meaning you can use it for anything from a buddy icon to a Zaadz profile to a 2'x3' poster and beyond.

I've already done them for Casey and Dan, with more on the way. Let me know!

As you may have noticed, for the past few months this blog hasn't dealt much with Integral Life Practice in any direct sense. That's because the author (myself) found it necessary to make some more fundamental life changes to even allow the ILP habits a firm ground from which to arise. Most of these "boosters" have been written about before, but here they are in condensed form with some other ideas I've had:

1. Get up at the same time every morning
Easy to talk about, difficuly to enact if you've got a hyper-unpredictable schedule like my own. Read Steve's post for the best argument for it. I do 8am, and it's the hook upon which I hang the rest of my day, the platform upon which I stand.

2. Do the important things first
There is only so much energy in the day. Be wise in how you spend it from the moment you wake up, being sure to engage those practices which will insure your long-term development, not just short-term gain. For me, this means meditating, career fantasizing [see #7 below], physical exercise, a good healthy breakfast, and a few hours spent on my artwork.

3. Keep a time & money log
You don't need to go nuts with spreadsheets, but at least shine some awareness on your daily expenditures of seconds and cents by writing it in a small memo pad you keep in your back pocket or purse.

4. Process your emotions like email
Something I've just started (see my previous post). Basically, whenever you feel overwhelmed with various, often conflicting emotions piling up in your "emotional inbox", take a moment to write them all down. Then reflect on them a bit, and then cross off the negative ones and write positive substitions on top of them. For instance, yesterday I was racked by "fear about the economy." I wrote it down, then crossed it off and wrote "it's out of my control--which is fine! Best to just work hard, and save harder".

5. Find some dudes (or dudettes) to kick your ass
Thank God for Man Night, otherwise I wouldn't follow through on half the crazy schemes I hatch each week. If at all possible, find some sympathetic cohorts, and form a group devoted to each other's growth, with real practices to keep each other accountable. We set goals for each week, and those who fail are shamed and made to do push-ups. Sure, not for everyone, but it works for us!

6. Do combos
If you're going to go to the trouble of setting time aside for ILP, you may as well cluster your practices together so you can flow from one to another while you're still in the "ILP mood." One of the best I've found it to meditate, exercise, and then immediately jump into 3-2-1 practice, using the two chairs I just got done doing bench dips or Atlas push-ups with. If you do the kit's One-Minute modules, consider stringing several of these along as well, i.e. do "Get a Feel For AQAL" followed by the "3-Body Workout" and a few moments of "Integral Inquiry". Combos, after all, aren't just for street fighters.

7. Career Fantasia
This will be the subject of a full post in the near future. While I am loathe to use the New Age red flag term "affirmation", that's essentially what this is: imagining yourself in some future scenario where your career/life/romantic/spiritual goals have been fulfilled. Right now I've got one I do in the morning after meditation, which consists of the "1-year Paul" chillin' in Austin making art and doing blogs, and the "5-year Paul" working with 3D web objects in collaboration with dozens of artists via crystal-clear flatscreen HD panels. I also have a piano.

8. Do your food shopping on the outside ring of the supermarket
No, I'm not saying consume nothing but Starbucks pastries and water from the restroom sink: it's an old saw of healthful eating that the best, most wholesome foods are the most perishable, and hence, the ones located on the outside edge of any supermarket, where employees can attend to them quickly. The processed stuff -- the crackers, cookies, chips, pasta, canola oil, Kool-Aid mix, breakfast cereals and other horrors of the gastrointestinal tract -- are best left to rot forever at supermarket center. Stick to fresh meats, veggies, fruit, dairy and bread and you'll be head and shoulders above the majority of junk-gnoshing Americans.

9. Make time for nothing
ILP can be overwhelming at times, especially if you are tracking every single moment with a time log. Whether you want to or not, you're going to want to break free from this routine. Problem is, "breaking free" can often mean engaging in some other form of high-stimulation activity, like TV or blogging or drinking or breakdancing or cow-tipping or arm wrestling or magazine reading or betting on cock fights. But don't forget to take time to do absolutely nothing as well.

10. Do something totally new
Similar to above, the routines of ILP can grow tiresome. As my own mentor has advised me, take a day or two each month to do something completely uncharacteristic for you. If you're a pacifist, go to the rifle range. If you love outdoor sports where only water is served, go to a bowling alley on $3 pitcher night. If you hate meditation, go to a retreat.


Phew! Re-reading the above, I realize now that none of these ideas existed in my arena until I started this blog. Who knows what more will come from this.... Thanks for reading!

There's been a lot of hype in the blogosphere lately for David Allen's Getting Things Done productivity system, which is based entirely around the concept of the inbox. More than just the email inbox, however, the concept refers to all methods of data collection one uses in their life. Yet while Allen's system attempts to synthesize all the tasks we've set before ourselves each day--from taking out the trash to finishing up the business plan--putting them into a single stream of workflow, what I've always disliked is that there's nothing to be said about some of the more subtle "tasks" we have to do each day, namely, processing our emotions.

So here's my idea: create an inbox for the emotions. Each time you find yourself in or recovering from an emotionally stimulating experience, write or note to yourself every emotion through which your mind passed. Rather than suffer the exhausting fog of affective confusion, turn each of these emotions into an object, like a new message in your email inbox. After you've collected all the emotional "messages" related to that event/task, run through them one by one. Feel into them. Think about them. Explore them, honor them, and then neutralize them by crossing them off or erasing them. [See example above for a sample list, divided into three days consisting of one emotionally-stimulating event per day].

Like any inbox, don't let emotions linger unanswered. Issues that remain in your inbox for years will become shadows, and only a super-sophisticated search function will be able to uproot. Better to keep your inbox empty, and deal with new emotions as they come in.

Your thoughts?

[Note: as it is with the rest of this blog, the opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone.]

So. Rabbi Marc Gafni has just had three allegations of sexual misconduct made against him by members of his spiritual community, Bayit Chadash. Ken Wilber has made a statement. Other bloggers have made statements. Gafni himself has made a statement (scroll down to read it). What else is there to say?

Given that I myself fall quite short of reaching sainthood anytime soon, I've no moral high horse to climb upon to denounce Gafni. What he's been accused of sucks, of course, but the real consequences (not to mention the actual facts) of his actions are to be determined by the relevant justice system, not the blogosphere. We, instead, are left with the task of making sense of this sickly revelation, and, with the suffering of all those affected held firmly in our minds, find a way to apply the lessons of this possibly tragic case to our own lives.

For me, the lesson of Rabbi Gafni is this: be aware. Be aware of yourself in every moment. Be aware of everyone around you. Be aware of your affect on them, of their affect on you, and so on. If you're making grand spiritual pronouncements, try your best to live up to them. If people are coming to you for spiritual consul, be as transparent as you can with what you can actually offer. If you're in the business of giving people hope, be sure your product is as solid as it can be. Otherwise, you're selling wine in tainted bottles.

In the very few encounters I've had with Reb. Gafni at public talks he's given, I've been consistently amazed with his energy, his heart, and his passion. His knowledge of Judaism, to an outsider raised Catholic, seems profound. His use of music, anecdotes, and scriptural quotation seems masterful. He seems adept at drilling to the heart of an issue, and rendering the world deeper than it usually seems.

But like everyone else, he's part animal. Like everyone else, his animalness can make him susceptible to urges and drives which can rage unchecked. And like the long, sad lineage of spiritual teachers accused, and sometimes convicted, of sexual and other improprieties, Gafni is going to have to wait for the day when the conclusion to French novelist Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles is vindicated.

[For those who haven't read the amazing piece of literature in question, click here for a quick summary, or read the reviews. In short, it chronicles a pair of unhappy Boomer siblings living in late-20th century Europe, who dream and die by the longings of their sexual impulses. One lives on to fulfill a key role in the evolution of the beings who will evolve beyond homo sapiens.]

So that's where it stands: the answer to the abject human misery wrought by all men and women in positions of influence--gurus, politicians, CEOs, highly aggressive janitors, everyone else--is to be found in... posthumanity. For it is only when we can completely detach ourselves from the irrational whims of our sexuality that the human race will finally be happy. Cloning will replace reproduction, and our lives will take on the somnambulant quality of clouds floating on air.

Do you have a better idea?

Have faith, oh practitioner, temporary setbacks are just that: temporary. For the past two weeks, I've been on a roller coaster of self-denial and beer binges, coffee overdoses and lack of sleep. The two main engines driving this decline? An ability to get up at the same time every morning, and a loss of a singular purpose. We'll address the easy one first:

Want to get up with the alarm clock? You could train your body to do so as Steve recommends. What works for me is even simpler: I put the alarm clock on the other side of the room, and when it rings, I leap up to turn it off, and then leave the room. This, I've found, is the only way to get rid of the "sleepies", those opiate little demons which cling to the waking body in an attempt to pull it back into dreamland. They seem strong for a minute to or two, but if you stand at the front door and take in the morning breeze / bus fumes, they will soon die away. And then you can meditate, exercise, eat eggs, and run to work like a true champ.

But why bother getting up? Simple: to address some core purpose. I had one a month ago (must... write... novel!), but for one reason or another, it deconstructed itself, and into the vacuum I poured my aimless decadence. Without a pole star, your ship gets tossed by every wave that comes along. But I've got a new, tentative mission, which I am now ear-marking a portion of time each day to address. What held me back was the notion that whatever mission I chose, it had to be perfect, which in the relative realm is complete nonsense.

But I was killing myself in the pursuit of this "perfect project", rather than making a more reasonable assessment of what was "good enough" and just doing that. To paraphrase something Ken told a recent seminar participant, I was being narcissistic in hamstringing myself with the impossible task of saving the world. "It's not important what you do," Ken something to the effect of, "It's important just that you do something, and make adjustments from there."

Just do something, and do it every day, and get up at the same time to do that something you do every day. Word.

It's not a dark night, but it certainly is dim. With the bewildered gaze of bomb blast survivor, you survey the scene of your wrecked life and wonder: what happened? When your goal is clear, when the small engines of routine are humming beneath the soul's hood, you may act each day without doubt, certain that all things conspire to keep your self's ship afloat. But then, a split second of doubt punches its way through the hull, and in two days time the bow is sinking beneath the waves, and your practice has taken up residence in David Jones' locker.

Hyperbole? Perhaps. But to the committed practitioner of personal development, setbacks constitute more than a minor annoyance: they are speedbumps struck at 120 miles an hour.

I've had my run of setbacks in the last few weeks. As if in spite of the glorious analysis written at the 90-day mark, since that time, with the death of my aunt, the trip to New York, and the realization that being a novelist is next to impossible -- not to mention the new deadlines heaping atop my work plate -- I've found it difficult to get up at 8 in the morning, and even more difficult to practice my ILP, work on my art, and get to work on time. I'm drinking more, sleeping less, and for the most part worrying. I worry about the future, about my health, about the world and my place in it. "What should I do with my life?" has become the sole occupation of my free time, and I am as starved for answers now as when I was 16.

But there are glimmers of hope in the night sky, which prevent it from going truly black.

Just started reading Stephen Berlin Johnson's fascinating Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Good For Us, a book that has Coolmel written all over it. Similarly to the latter's thesis that blogging is a spiritual practice, Johnson presents a fascinating analysis of what he calls the "Sleeper Curve", the general tendency of increased complexity found in the mediated displays of today's pop, especially in video games and TV.

Video games, for instance, train not only hand/eye coordination, but skills in probing environments, discerning patterns, problem-solving, and much more. Though violent shooters like Doom may have dominated the headlines, the best-selling games are "God" games like Rise of Nations and others which actually foster cognitive development. TV as well has undergone something of an evolution through the use of multiple plot-threading, as seen by the increased popularity of densely-woven dramas like The West Wing and post-Malcolm in the Middle sitcoms like the amazing Arrested Development. Even puerile reality shows can be sources of cognitive enrichment if you ignore the content and look at the structure: what else are Survivor or The Apprentice but a chance to exercise one's emotional intelligence and ability to track the myriad relationships of a social network?

Where this is leading: though only a brief mention in the book, since the publication of Everything Bad there's been increased interest in what Johnson calls the the "media diet": the deliberate use of TV and video games (along with reading, the internet, film, music) to exercise various functions of the mind so as to better adapt to today's info-saturated realities. Sound like creepy apologetics for something we often suspect to be the enemy of the heightened consciousness and increased care/compassion we hope to get from ILP? Or a supplement to it?

Read Coolmel's description of the effect blogging has had on his awareness, and decide for yourself:

I can easily recall stuff I read and blogged about years ago. I could connect the dots more clearly and understand their meaning. Some of the stuff I blogged might seem gibberish to the casual readers, but they all make sense to me. If I imagine what my brain looks like at the time of this writing, I can see neurons firing and going non-stop hyperlinking. And it doesn't stop there.

Check out integral artist Steve Self's Ki Breathing - ILP Blog, possibly one of the most original approaches to a blog presentation I've seen in a while. If you can call something without an RSS feed (ahem) a blog....

Venti-sized coffee. Beers at 1 in the morning. 4 hours of sleep. Obsessive, self-injuring behavior all around. Sound like the lifestyle of somebody before taking on an Integral Life Practice? Think again.

Everything was fine two weeks ago. I was getting up at 8am every day, fully rested, and jumping into my morning meditation and exercise before working on my art. I was meeting my Men's Group goals, keeping the TV turned off, and minding my shadows. As my 90-day assessment indicated, things were going swimmingly. There was no turning back, but life has a way of shoving you in the ribcage and saying "not so fast!" And that's what's going on now.

It's not that I don't want to self-improve. Far from it. In fact, I'm more obsessed with it than ever. But it extends beyond just deepening my spirituality, toning my body, and fostering an ability to practice the thought experiment of integral perspective-taking. Career-wise, I'm still a mess. If you've seen my other blog, you know that my creative output is all over the map, serving all sorts of intentions, none of them, it appears, to draw much of an audience. I have a day job, but I have a lot of other things I want to do besides.

And so I obsess over this new project: me. Who am I? What do I do best? What is my future? What do I desire more than anything that will suck me like a giant magnet into the future? How can I think and grow "rich" with life, purpose, meaning, money, and influence?

Yes, these are egoic concerns. For many of our Boomer peers, they are issues largely settled. But for we X/Y/Millenial/Generation IMers, finding our way in the world is still of outmost concern. You need a Self to transcend, after all, and sometimes the discovery of that "Self" takes a lot more precedence over being a good boy or girl and doing your daily practice chores. I am reminded of something Ken once said to Stu, when the latter had confessed having trouble being both an amazing musician and a diligent practitioner. To badly paraphrase: "Sometimes you have to allow yourself to get out of balance in order to follow the call of the Muse. But in the off-time, you be damn well sure you get your practice in, so you'll have the strength to outlast the Muse's whims when She comes a-calling."

And so Tuff Ghost, and everyone else feeling bad when practice apathy bites them in the butt, take solace: it happens to all of us, because practice is more than just four core modules.

As I wrote about earlier this week, my Great Aunt Marge passed away Sunday at the age of 86 after a three-month bout with heart failure, spinal disintegration, and old age. Yesterday I managed to make my way up from NYC to attend the funeral in Upstate NY, an event I anticipated with both reluctance and a sense of duty. As previously mentioned, I'd failed to offer any form of comfort or "final words" as she was ailing, and was racked with guilt this entire week leading up to the funeral. But somehow, the service itself seemed to absolve these sins, and I left the post-funeral reception feeling... inspired.

It's difficult to explain. For one, Catholics know a thing or two about aesthetics. Aunt Marge's funeral was no different: the altar was tastefully arranged, filled with flowers and little mementos of her long life. A choir of music-minded seniors sang uplifting standards like "Angel's Wings" and funeral-only numbers with names I have forgotten. Though the mood was solemn, the presence of members of our extended family (three of my mother's cousins flew in from around the country), and numerous neighbors and old friends were in the back made it feel more like a celebration of her long and devoted life. The pastor even took the opportunity to editorialize on the acceptability of the non-standard practice of cremation (she asked to be cremated) and expressed regret for the Church's lack of a sacrement for single people.

All in all, while I teared up each time the music resumed and I cast a glance over to the tasteful gold-hued photo portrait standing next to her box of ashes, more than anything I felt that Aunt Marge had simply moved on to another, more radiant plane of existence, and that her soul was now actively taking up residence in our memories as though she were now renting hundreds of small heavenly apartments in our lives and souls. That her suffering is over simply means that she's blasted off to a new adventure, one more beatified, glowing, and eternal, and all we have to do it close our eyes to monitor her progress in this new and blessed infinity. Aunt Marge, you will be missed, but you will live on in a thousand other ways none of us can yet conceive.

Love,
Paul

[Apologies, this was supposed to be posted a day or two ago, but it turns out that Greenwich Village is not bathed in the wireless networks we breathe like air in cutting edge Colorado. Why is the frontier more developed than the Greatest City in the World?]

When I began this blog 90 days ago, I was in an atypical frame of mind. Where my normal priorities included getting plenty of sleep, exercising, meditating regularly, and working on my art, for the few months leading up to the beginning of this 90-day run, I was on a path of suicidal workaholism. For one reason or another, I was obsessed with "saving my company", and would stop at nothing short of 100-hours-a-week CEOhood to do so. Gone was any sense of regularity or self-development; in its place were 2-3 all-nighters a week, plenty of coffee, late nights, beers in bed with a notebook, and just about every other decadent, self-sacrificing activity you can think of.

This blog began as a way to both hold myself accountable to getting my life back on track, and to prove to myself and others that Integral Life Practice is a meme worth spreading. As a secondary benefit, promoting ILP could bring my organization more money, and me a raise. The self-interest was mutual. Well, I'm happy to report two things: ILP works, and it takes a hell of a lot more time to get "on track" than I'd originally concieved. While I wasn't expecting to become a Buddha-with-Biceps after just 3 months of practice, I hoped I'd be doing something along the lines of an hour of Big Mind or 1-2-3 O' God each morning, followed by some hardcore F.I.T. and a session with a therapist or two.

Instead, my commitment to personal development turned to more fundamental things, namely, money and time. The break-through, I believe, was when I started to keep a time and money log, which gave me a new awareness of my day-to-day activities and expenditures. This put me in the frame of mind that every second (and every dollar) counts, and gave me a new orientation towards the future which my previous work-a-hedonism had forbade. Contra postmodern addicto-culture's incessant injunction to chase pleasure and nothing else, I began to adopt something decidely more puritan and old school: saving for the future. I can't even express what a shift this was in my worldview.

From this fundamental attitude adjustment flowed everything else. Keeping track of time showed me what a lunatic practice it was to never have a standard waking or sleeping time. Thus began the 8am wake-up time. Waking up early with the world every morning, for a committed 4am hedonist, is actually a profound practice in itself, and from it flowed the desire to honor the magic of the A.M. with a bit of meditation and, since I was already in the practice mode, physical exercise. My ILP had rebuilt itself, and all I had to do was set my alarm for the same time every morning!

What then became obvious was a new pattern I had never considered: giving each day a heirarchy, by doing the most important things in my life first, with the bullshit casual entertainment vice-addictions saved for the end of the day (if there was time). So after meditating and exercising, came my art: 2 or 3 hours each morning. Then, going to the office to begin the work day, followed by my hobby (music), some food-tv-beer-books, and then bed.

Now, of course, there is a new emergent: boredom. And so this is my edge: finding a way to reintegrate the spontaneity, fun, and perspective-taking of my old lifestyle, without losing out on any of the rigorous structure of the new routine. One way, as suggested by my mentor John Forman, may be to take one day off per week to do something completely uncharacteristic, like go to a rifle range, or vote Republican. We'll see... =)

Well, I did it. I more or less blogged about Integral Life Practice for 90 days, and had a heck of a lot of fun (and pain) while doing it. The thing is, I see no reason to stop now. This blog will continue.

[3-month assessment coming later today...]