Integral Communication

      Hi, I'm new here, but I would like to understand more about Integral Communication. I've noticed that when I've given people books of Ken Wilber's, although they like them, they become less tolerant and more angry. I've also noticed this in myself (and have come down from it) although my communcation skills still need work. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that perhaps Integral theory's main weakness is communication skills? I've noticed this in myself and am currently reading books on communication skills. Please note that that I hardly know any other integralists and can't say that this is true for all other integralists.  I also want to avoid fighting with other people because we don't here the “essence” of what they are trying to say. I've found that sometimes the way a message is delivered is sometimes as important than the message itself.
        I've written integral communcation a while back on my blog, but am still thinking about it.
http://rltruthseeker-artist.gaia.com/blog/2009/2/include-and-transcend-your-differences#comments
I also like the work of Palo Friere on education.
http://rltruthseeker-artist.gaia.com/blog/2009/2/liberating_education#comments

Is there anyone who has found a good way of communicating with people?
Any good theories or books to recommend?

Sincerely  RL.

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Hi, RL, are you familiar with Adam Leonard's thesis, Integral Communication?

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  No, thanks…now reading it. 

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Great post! On the lighter side of the topic…

Daniel

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lol. liked the monty python thread  :)

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Currently reading The Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute
  http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Peace-Resolving-Heart-Conflict/dp/1576753344

and Dealing with People you can't stand: How to bring out the best in people at their worst. http://share.sweska.net/2007/12/08/dealing-with-people-you-cant-stand-by-brinkman-kirschner/
i recommend both books. Dealing with people you can't stand, dispite the title, has a good map of different communication styles and is pretty funny.

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RL, thank you for the link. Interesting they place these personality types in a 4 quadrant configuration and that the upper right quadrant is the “Controler”, which is the egos leveraged fulcrum point in the Big Mind Big Heart system.

Daniel

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      Yes, Hawkeye, they do four different dimensions of human experience in their model. That's partially why I liked it so much. Whether your intentions are to “get it done” “get it right” “get appreciated” or “get along” these are intentions by all people, but they change depending on the situation. The problem becomes when these needs aren't met, and so people become “problem people” and can develop one of the 10 different personality problems. It's a pretty good book.

I wouldn't say though that it is exactly like the four quadrants though… for that is actually in the other book! The Anatomy of Peace actually has the Four Quadrants in it! Although they are not called AQAL and no mention of Integral theory is in the book, it actually has the four quadrants diagramed.

I wanted to though, if I may, share with you one of the communication techniques I like so far in Dealing with People you Can't stand.

      It's called Blending.
       “Blending is any behavior by which you reduce the differences between you and another in order to meet them where they are and move to common ground. The result of blending is an increase in rapport. For example, have you ever been in a conversation with someone when, unexpectedly, you found you grew up in the same place? In that moment of discovery, differences were reduced and you felt closer. That's the experience of blending.
       
       Have you ever gone to a restaurant with a friend, looked at the menu, and asked, “What are you having?” Your question may have had little to do with what they wanted to eat, and a lot to do with sending a signal of friendship. If, before the meal, they ordered a drink, so you ordered one too, that was another example of blending…
 
  You blend with people in many ways. you blend with your facial expression, degreee of animation and body posture. You blend verbally with your voice volume and speed. And you blend conceptually with your words. But as natural as it is to blend with people you like, or with people you share an objective with, it is equally natural not to blend with people you perceive as difficult. And the failure to blend has serious consequences, because without blending the differences between you become the basis for conflict.
 
  Key point. Not one cooperates with anyone who seems to be against them. The fact is, in human relations there is no middle ground. Unconsciously or consciously, people want to know “Are you with me or not?' You come across as either hot or cold to the relationship, perceived as being on common ground or worlds apart. Believe it or not, that's one of the things you have in common with your difficult people.      –Dealing with People You can't Stand by Dr. Rick Brinkmand and Dr. Rick Kirshner.

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     P.S. “Voting with your feet” means walking away or leaving the discussion in the book. :)

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Wonderful excerpt, RL, thanks for sharing it. Rings totally true for me. The technology of consciousness-change called Neurolinguistic Programming, or NLP, pointed that phenomenon out, that all good interactions have in common. When the blending is deliberate with the aim of then shifting the person closer to your own position, or to somewhere other than where they are, it is called pacing and leading. It's slightly different from what is described here, in that “pacing” is your deliberately matching something they are (usually subconsciously) doing, such as breathing or posture or gestures or tone or pace of speaking, and preferably many of those, plus some conscious stuff like articulating similarities, as the authors you quoted are talking about.

I really like the explanation and examples in this excerpt, so clear!

Thanks again!
OM Bastet

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        Cool, thanks. I'm intererested in NLP? Are there any books or websites you recommend?   I think I know what you are talking about the subconscious. Like when you go on a date, and their moving their leg, and you move your leg or tap your glass to the same rhythm. Or how when they touch their hair, you reflexively do the same a split-second later?  I've noticed that myself.

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      I think that Integral Communication needs to embrace not only the right attitude (coming to the table as equals, “our worldview is better, not our being”) and not just tailoring our message to different the different value groups (thanks again Balder for the pdf), but also the tips and techniques (injunctions) that help us communicate with another person. Surely there were good communicators even if they didn't know about Integral theory(?)

       For me, if I could just get inside a person's holon, get them to understand that I'm with them, and not against them, and understand where their coming from, not just intellectually, but also their being, and if I can enter into their circle (hermenuetics?), then I can help them push their circle outward. This to me is what I'm thinking of when I think of resonating with a person. If I can do this, while keeping my own mind open (because let's face it, there are always things that come out of left field), then I can resonate with them.

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         The most interesting thing about this boundary line [identity] is that it can and frequently does shift. It can be redrawn. In a sense the person can remap her soul and find in it territories she never thought possible, attainable, or even desirable. As we have seen, the most radical re-mapping or shifting of the boundary line occurs in experiences of the supreme identity, for here the person expands her self-identity to include the entire universe. We might even say that she loses the boundary line altogether, for when she is identified with “one harmonious whole” there is no longer any outside or inside, and so nowhere to draw the line.
                        – Ken Wilber, The Simple Feeling of Being

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        These diagrams are from the Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute.
I only redid them in Photoshop, but they are the same. The only changes I made was that i moved the Feelings Box and the View of Others Box because they weren't in the right place. These viewpoints, the “I'm better than others” view, the “I'm worse than others” view, and “I'm entitled” to such and such because the world “owes me” box show how these viewpoints affect our view of the world, and how we “justify” our actions. (I'm convinced someone who knows about Integral theory is working at the Arbinger Institute.)
         Anyway, I thought I'd share these.

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     There are no “better” people, just better worldviews.

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      You can see how these views affect and reverberate through all four quadrants. They affect and color our View of Others, View of Self, Our Feelings, and how we View the World.

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This is an interesting conversation and I wish I could participate more.

About NLP and sources re it, my involvement was over 25 years ago, and NLP has evolved since then. I am partial to the old sources, like the books that existed back then, and to John Grinder, but co-founder Richard Bandler has some brilliant things to say and teach, as well as some stuff I don't resonate with. There is a new generation of teachers, possibly two generations by now, and I don't really know any of them well, and some significant new techniques. I don't even know what websites exist.

So you'll have to do your own research. I'm sure your inner wisdom can guide you to the best resources for your own learning. But I'm glad you are interested. It's good stuff, IMO, even though it can be mis-used by less mature (stage) folks.

Blessings, OM Bastet 

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     Thanks for the info, OM. I appreciate it. :)

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RL: For me, if I could just get inside a person's holon, get them to understand that I'm with them, and not against them, and understand where their coming from, not just intellectually, but also their being, and if I can enter into their circle (hermenuetics?), then I can help them push their circle outward.

This is how I have also often observed myself to operate spontaneously. I functioned this way long before I knew anything about integral theory. Because  of this phenomenon I often perceived myself as a chameleon, as I seemed to change colour depending on people I was communicating with.

Through integral theory I can now explain this phenomenon better. When higher more advanced structures are established, this new structure embraces and uses as tools the lower structures.

The chameleon phenomenon in my case mean that I intuitively sense the worldspace the other person inhabits, and tune in my communication to that space. Even then my communication is silently being coordinated from higher structures. This can mean that, when I detect a crack in the other's understanding or perception, I start to introduce softly new and wider perspectives. At best a new understanding appears in the other as his very own insight. My role has been here to function as an unobserved facilitator.

This way of functioning does not feel like sharing wisdom from above. It is based on sharing the same world space, and figuring out things together. No sense of superiority is present in me in those occasions.

Irmeli

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Nicely put, Irmeli.

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   Yes, Irmili. I like the way you say, ”At best a new understanding appears in the other as his very own insight. My role has been here to function as an unobservd facilitator.”  I like this very much.
      This for me is what I'm trying to do. Sharing the same worldspace as a felt connection. I'm getting better at it, though. Sometimes when we see the cracks, we only want to try and fix the wall, and we lose patience. If we focus only on the problems, then we start seeing the other person as an object, and not as a person. I've found that it's not about trying to get people to agree with me, but about speaking to the truth within an individual. Sometimes “the wisdom from above” aspect of it comes out though.  
Irmeli: Even then my communication is silently being coordinated from higher structures.
I also like this very much. Not being in charge of this process, (the claims of the “I”), but allowing it flow from this higher structure of truth, perhaps spontaneously and authentically.

Thank you Irmeli, you've given me some things to think about.
Thanks for being (un)observed facilitator.
      
rl.

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I tend excessively toward yang/fixing, so this last exchange has strengthened my movement into this other style. Thank you both, profoundly!!!!!

Hugs, OM Bastet

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RL: I've found that it's not about trying to get people to agree with me, but about speaking to the truth within an individual.

This I find to be important. Here I describe some of the personal learning on how I came to this conclusion.

My mother was a great teacher to me in this regard. She was a narcissist.

For really many years my emphasis was in being in good terms with her, to understand her problems, to show her empathy while simultaneously intensely working with my shadow issues originating from my childhood. And this phase was important to me. I developed a good relationship to my mother during these years. I became a  person she could trust no matter what. But basically this did not change her as a person not an inch. Instead a lot of healing appeared  in me through my shadow work.

 At that time I had the assumption that people can learn new behavior through how they themselves are treated. In my mother’s case that did not work. What she learned was imitating empathy, and using this skill to control others.
 Gradually I started to realize, that actually deep inside she perceived empathy as a weakness in people that she took  advantage of . By not being allured to this weakness herself, made her actually feel superior to others.
 Actually her lack of empathy, and her imitation of it, led her continuously in conflict in her relationships, but she saw the fault to be in the others. It is also possible that she understood some of the problems to arise from her own behavior, but this was just something she accepted as a  side effect of her superiority, and something that could justify her perception of herself as a suffering martyr.

 I got real results with her only after I got the courage myself  to consciously act from the level of red meme with her. In that phase I had long ago completely given up all hopes that she could  develop as a person. My sole purpose was to set strong enough limits to her abusing of other people. I let  her know among other things that now I am the chief devil and she is only a minor devil, and I also strongly showed I meant it. I also made her feel, she was accepted by me as she was.  No scheming  and plotting was needed with me. I accepted her totally as she was. I behaved in many ways as she did. I only did it totally openly without any hidden plotting. And from there we slowly made together some steps forward me being  the boss, with no room for her to feel superior.

 After this change in my approach quite amazing things started to happen in her. She stopped drinking. At that time she had been an alcoholic for over  30 years. Also her tendency  to try to control and abuse others declined significantly through this change in my behavior. She started to show capacity to truly appreciate others and their work. Gradually also weak signs of genuine empathy appeared. And all this emerged, when she was already over 70 years old.

 I have started to think that the model where the student tunes in to the behavior of the teacher works only if the student has in herself already some of  the structure the teacher represents. Otherwise she cannot capture that structure correctly. She can only imitate it.

Irmeli

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Irmeli,
 I feel unable to respond to such a poignant and emotional experience. Therefore I won't touch upon it. I can only thank you for sharing such a heartfelt response. I often know that mothers often live vicariously through their daughters, and the tensions between the two. You've touched upon a topic that I'm still learning to deal with with…namely narcissistic personalities.

       For example, one of my anthropology professors was an extreme narcissist, who always took pleasure in “pissing in other people's cheerios,” if I may use the phrase. He saw no reason why the world wasn't ugly and horrible, and took it upon himself to always try and teach us that. I could see that he himself was living in fear of the world, and didn't have anything to hope for, or was able to trust anyone (because I think he secretly didn't trust himself)

       I'm still learning not to push narcissistic people away, or to get angry with them. Rather as you said ”they need compassion.” But you also said that we can be a little forceful with them, in order to curtail their abuses. Narcissitic people, I think, as you said, think of empathy as a weakness, and don't see it as a strength. They only respect strength, because they think that's the only way they can survive. They see their own supposed guilt, and rather than dealing with it, project it out unto the world…a place where they can never get rid of it. Thus they become “a suffering martyr.”

       Thank you for this insight…I can only try and use your method… and to show that those people who are narcissistic that I totally accept them for who they are…and maybe awaken something that they may have forgotten in themselves.

     Hope, and trust. The ability to move forward in life. In my encounters, narcissistic people see the lining in every cloud, even when there's one cloud in the sky. These people are good at pointing out potential problems, but often not good at finding solutions and dealing with those problems. (Or even accepting things, and with acceptance, finding out that they are not problems.)

   Just let it be known that I appreciate you and your responses…
and that happiness is appreciation.

http://rltruthseeker-artist.gaia.com/blog/2009/7/happiness-is-appreciation#comments
     
RL.   :)

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RL, thank you for your appreciative response.

I also am still pretty cautious with narcissistic people. I avoid them, and don't easily push their buttons. And I don't generally have easy to tune into the world space of red meme. Amber, orange and green meme are mostly relatively easy to tune in for me.

My mother was a special case as she was so close to me and my family.  Things wound up step by step towards the final big confrontation with her.

It was preceded also by a eight year long psychoanalytical psychotherapy. This confrontation I could not have done successfully without it.

When I finished my therapy in 2001, my therapist gave me the advice to keep only very little contact to my mother. According to her almost every time my mother opened her mouth she caused some trauma to people around.

I think there was some exaggeration in that statement. But the fact was that my mother's behavior had got worse during the last years. It was possibly because of the stress caused by my father's illness.

Pretty soon after I had finished the therapy my father's condition with cancer started to get worse. My mother became his carer at home between his hospital visits. However occasionally her care taking took forms that resembled cruel torture. My father asked help from me and my sister. And we tried intervene the best we could. You can probably guess already how a narcissist reacts to that.
Our relationship to her became badly inflamed. She tried to get a revenge. My sister and I are pretty tough cases. It is not easily done to us. So she started to attack her grandchildren. And that was a weak spot in us.
 
The result was that my husband broke all contacts with her, as did some of her grandchildren. My son got married during that time. A big wedding got arranged with a lot of people invited, but not my mother. And from many other smaller family gatherings she got excluded.

After my father's death my sister and I also started to consider breaking all our connections with her. That felt however as a rather cruel solution, but  as  inevitable. I was already very close to that point. When my mother called me, I mostly did not answer. If I answered, and I did not like the tone of her voice, I immediately cut off without saying a word.

At that point my sister, who is group therapist, suggested me that we go to meet her, and give her our final ultimatums. There we went, and after having been listening to my mother's complaints for an hour, it all started to pour out from me.
Afterwards I thought that the episode would make her to also want to break all contact to us. Her efforts to call us became fewer, but when she did the tone in her voice and her approach was clearly different.

Gradually real warmth, that had never before been there, appeared between me and my mother.

Irmeli

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         Thank you Irmeli,
        Although we can try and be as incluse as possible, sometimes we have to honor our own holons…our own spaces, in order to operate effectively. In order to preserve the integrity of the system.

         There has been for me some “psychic vampires” that always drained my energy. What I mean by that, is that these people, whenever I was around them, always brought me down. Gradually, I moved away from these friends…and found other interests. It's not that we're not friends…it's just that we move around in different circles (holons). I would not be honoring my deepest truths if I had decided to stay.

        Just because you love someone doesn't mean you have to like their behavior. It just means you include them in your Being. They are a part of you…even if you are not around them. I think you can accept a person, while not accepting their behavior.That to me is an important distinction (and Spirit accepts everyone in Reality). Clearly some approaches don't work.

 This I think is good for a communication theory too. There will always be people you can't reach…but that doesn't mean that they won't eventually find their way. I'm glad that you were able to make that connection.
       Clearly your love and courage has shown through.

 Sincerely,  RL.