Integral Resilience

close up photo of mushrooms

The essence of Integral Resilience is to maintain a dynamic balance between an individual’s, culture’s and structure’s wholeness and identity on the one hand (“agency” for Wilberians), and partness and belonging on the other (“communion”).

For the individual, resilience involves being clear on my Purpose and identity at this time whilst being open to sense and rapidly adapt to changes around me.

For a culture, resilience involves clarity of collective Purpose and Principles of behaviour, whilst being open to pick up the feedback of the world around and respond adequately.

For a structure (organisational, governmental, technological etc), resilience involves the capacity for the structure to continue to deliver whatever it is that it is meant to be delivering, whilst learning from and adapting to continual feedback and more intense shocks from the world around.

When agency and communion are in a healthy dynamic balance, innovation, evolution and emergence occur in the dance of creative tension. We align ourselves as the evolutionary impulse of Spirit unfolding.

An Inconvenient Truth

Having seen this film, and having to face what I already knew, the question is, “so what now?”. We either deny what Gore says, or have to embrace it fully, and there seems little space in between. I choose to embrace it. Now what?

Firstly, we can make the most of the relatively harmonious world we are currently living in. Any problems we believe we have at the moment are going to look pathetic compared to what is awaiting us around the corner. So enjoy and appreciate the space and opportunity we currently have.

Secondly, use this precious time to do what we can to prepare ourselves, our organisations and our societies to engage this coming shift in as skillful a way as possible. Develop individual, cultural and structural (ie Integral) resilience. Resilience means to me the capacity to hold one’s centre whilst at the same time responding flexibly to the intense changes around us. It includes the capacity to learn rapidly and self-organise for emergence to a new way of being and doing that is fit for the changing reality. What this looks like in detail is something we are currently working on giving words to and will be putting out there soon. Watch this space!