Three In One
An Idea of Integrative Consciousness
I stumbled into a familiarity with a psychologist who is likely to become my mental health coach. His name is Dr. Gregg Henriques, and he is a licensed clinical psychologist, but is also a professor at James Madison University in Virginia.
I found him through his online conversations with Dr. John Vervaeke (of Awakening from the Meaning Crisis). I was struck by the fact that Dr. Henriques is scientifically rigorous, but also attentive to human needs for concepts like the soul and the transcendent.
His mission is to put a floor on suffering, and create a way of being in the world that accounts for our evolution, and also gives us a way to live more peacefully and prosperously in the physical world. His ideas are founded on his theory of knowledge, which looks at us as uniquely minded beings that have emerged from a complex progression of continually complexifying patterns of matter that react and adapt to the environment.
We are uniquely minded beings and, as Marilynne Robinson points out, we are a gem in our solar system, if not our cosmos. We are not merely atoms (although we are certainly atoms), we are also people — with relationships, goals, ideals, and the ability to make choices.
Here is an illustration I made of one of Dr. Henriques’ concepts. (Please note, this is my rendering — he does not present the ideas in this specific configuration.
The idea is that I have an Ego self who essentially narrates to myself, a primate Self who avoids threats and seeks safety and security (which manifests sometimes in addiction), and a Persona that I present to others as my Ego and primate Self react to social queues and adapt accordingly.
But finally, there is a sense of pure Awareness which transcends all of this, but can be sometimes attained through a variety of means. It’s related to what many call “Mindfulness.” It is the aspiration, sometimes obtained, of freeing myself from these three in order to see a broader picture of reality-as-it-is.
His UTOK approach to knowledge and life thinks of the human, appropriately, as the complex organisms which we are, and seeks to allow us to thrive in our conditions via learning to adapt in a more sophisticated and complete fashion.
I am interested in pursuing this coaching for three reasons.
It has a clear, well-stated set of assumptions and goals.
It does not conflict with religiospirituality.
It gives my brain something to do, and a helpful way to think about things.
It also makes sense of the phenomenon of inner dialogue, as well as parts work, loving and healing the inner child, and self-parenting. Further, it is liberating to realize that Consciousness is a broad phenomenon composed of many parts — parts which may be transcended and questioned.
I applied the method to some recent romantic woes to good effect. I realized that both my Ego and my primate Self were in a feedback loop where my primate Self thought that I needed my ex in order to feel a safe and secure sense of belonging, while my ego self told me that I am “in love with her” (hearkening back to a time when she told me she thought I was “the one”). Seeing how those two were in a sort of codependent spiral with one another, I was able to use my mindfulness of the present moment, and my recollection of past narratives and potential future ones broke me out of the loop of constant yearning.
Is that good? Shouldn’t a writer want to continue in the Ego mode so as to be able to craft unique statements about the world.
Nope.
The ego will always already be there, and the best writers are ones with enormous capacities for observation. Further, being caught in a chain of constant suffering makes writing almost impossible (unless I just want to keep spinning the same drivel I made in high school. I already have two boxes of that).
Better to feed the plant and get it the right amount of water and sunlight. The generativity emerges of its own accord.
This puts the whole depression remedy of sleep, healthy diet, right thinking, exercise, and social relationships in a structure, and allows for the emergence of the capacity to taste some of the waters of being enjoyed by other animals and organisms (and transcended by some Being infinite).
May this assist me in my progression toward Holiness (whole, integrated, healthy).
I’ll keep you updated!