Wholeness - How To Live As Yourself
Why balance is an unhealthy idea, how individualism distorts our well-being, and how wholeness can help us come alive
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Wholeness is a much better proxy for well-being than balance. I really dislike the idea of balance. Maybe there’s a bias here as I’ve been referred to as unbalanced for the better part of my life but I find balance to be a fundamentally unhealthy idea and believe wholeness is a much better approach to a life well lived.
Balance is well meaning but it presupposes a few things which I think are unhealthy:
You Need To Diversify The Use of Your Time - The idea is grounded in a belief that a healthy life consists of your time being allocated to a variety of different things - family, work, play, etc.
There Are Healthy Limits To Time Spent On Something - There is a belief that there is such a thing as too much time spent on X. Typically it’s used in the context of work but it also comes up on the opposite side of the spectrum - i.e. when people spend very little time engaged in our formal definition of work.
I think this does not make sense because everyone is different and many people don't thrive with a balanced approach to life. Wholeness is a much better north star that can serve everyone.
From Whole Children To Divided Adults
Afraid that our inner light will be extinguished or our inner darkness exposed, we hide our true identities from each other. In the process, we become separated from our own souls. We end up living divided lives, so far removed from the truth we hold within that we cannot know the integrity that comes from being what you are. - Parker Palmer
What Is Wholeness?
Wholeness is when our inner world (what we think, feel, and want) align with our outer world (how we speak, act and relate to others, and what we do).
Wholeness comes from the idea that we are born as who we are in the world. It's the idea that we are not a formless lump that can be molded into anything, but rather we are humans with talents, limitations, and tendencies.
Kids Are Great Examples of Wholeness
Another way to understand wholeness is through a narrative. Specifically, let’s use kids who present shining examples of living whole lives.
Kids Are Who They Are - The idea that we're born as who we are is obvious when you look at kids. They are all different. Some are more quiet, some have reckless amounts of energy, some enjoy sports, others enjoy art, and so on. It's very clear when you look at children that we come to the world as unique individuals.
Kids Are Whole - Additionally, kids are great examples of wholeness because with children what we see is what we get. One moment they’re bored and lying on the ground, the next they’re running around the house screaming because it’s fun. There is no division between what they are feeling and thinking and how they are acting and talking.
We Become Divided As We Grow Older
As we grow up we learn there are penalties and rewards for different behaviors. As a result of this realization, our outer life (how we act, speak, and behave) starts to diverge from our inner life (how we think and feel). We find ourselves now living two lives - an image we present externally and a reality we feel and live internally.
For some, this division starts to form in the home, for others it starts in school, and for a select few in the working world or never.
I Was Fortunate That I Could Be Myself At Home
I’m grateful that my home was a wonderful place to be fully myself. My parents never demanded I get straight A’s (I was highly inconsistent in my early academic years) and every time I wanted to try a new hobby, sport, or adventure it was met with encouragement and applause. This was awesome. To be clear, my parents set rules and boundaries early and often, but there was always dialogue. They made it clear how my behavior affected them and wanted me to reflect on what we had discussed. Additionally, after reflecting they would always ask me if I had thought about what we discussed and if I had anything to say. I digress a bit, but I was never made to feel like I had to be anything other than fully myself at home. I was lucky.
Examples of Living A Divided Life In School
At some point in life I learned that there were penalties for certain behaviors and rewards for others. Reading in school for example was a weird and introverted move. My English teacher was also strangely not cool with me reading in class. Go figure. Of all places you’d think I could get away with reading it would be English class.
As I got older, dating was a thing where I learned I could not always be myself. Aloofness and “coolness” were prized behaviors, something I was hilariously inept at. All I wanted to do was tell people I really liked them and it would be sweet if we spent a bunch of time together.
I think I'm fortunate and the divisions I experienced were minor in the grand scheme of things. I've always been encouraged to be myself and I'm grateful to my parents for that.
People In My Life Have Lived Divided Lives Since They Were Little
I have people in my life for which the divided life started at home. If grades were not a certain score they were chastised and told to try harder. If they made a mistake they were yelled at. If they wanted to study a certain subject they were told to study something else that was better for their future. These early interactions shut people off from their internal worlds and forced them to spend time looking to the world outside for validation versus trusting themselves.
I'm not trying to criticize because many of these efforts are well intentioned and I bet parenting is brutally hard. However, when kids are made to feel like they have to live up or conform to an expectation other than being themselves I think we risk them living out their lives not knowing who they are in the world.
The Risks of A Divided Life Are High
The divided life gets more intense as we become working adults and the “stakes are higher”. We have expectations to meet and responsibilities to shoulder. If we are not careful the distance between who we are in the world and who we want to be turns into a chasm. The costs of this division are very real and well known:
Examples of How A Divided Life Shows Up
We sense that something is missing in our lives and search the world for it, not understanding that what is missing is us.
We feel fraudulent, even invisible, because we are not in the world as who we really are.
We know we have more to give and want to give it, but are not sure what to give or how to channel it
Our traumas, fears, and things we are not proud of stay stuck inside of us and don’t come to light.
We project negative things within us onto others, making "enemies" of them and creating more conflict in the world.
Our inability to be authentic makes it tough to truly connect with others leading to loneliness.
I believe that this lack of wholeness underpins so many key problems in our society.
Results of Living Divided Lives
3 out of 5 Americans are lonely
1 in 2 Americans will suffer from a mental illness in their lifetime
60% of Americans are moderately mentally well
More than half of married couples divorce
More than 80% of Americans don’t love what they do for work
There are obviously other issues at play but our inability to be whole is a huge contributor to these tragic results.
To Understand Wholeness We Need to Understand Self
Being whole isn’t as simple as going back to being a kid, but it does require us to live congruently with our true self - i.e. what is inside of us. So what is true self?
“Philosophers haggle about what to call this core of our humanity, but I am no stickler for precision. Thomas Merton called it true self. Buddhists call it original nature or big self. Quakers call it the inner teacher or the inner light. Hasidic Jews call it a spark of the divine. Humanists call it identity and integrity. In popular parlance, people often call it soul.” - Parker Palmer
I know I know - here I go with soul again, but that’s the best word I’ve got for this thing so humor me. There are many traits of true self or soul that we name often and might speak to you.
Examples of How True Self Shows Up
The soul wants to do the stuff it wants regardless of what our rationale or ego pushes us to do and be.
The soul wants to stay connected with the humans that bring us joy and energy because it understands that relationship is essential to thriving.
The soul tries to tell us the truth about ourselves and our outside world and how the two relate to each other.
The soul wants to help us feel alive and by doing so help others feel alive as well.
For example, writing this newsletter has felt natural and instinctive to me (not to say I’m good at it, I just enjoy it). There are 100 other things that made more “sense” to do with my time or I’ve been counseled to spend time on, but writing this every week fills me with energy and I can’t fully explain why.
Conversely, traveling so consistently and being away from Isabella drained me of all my energy. Some people love to travel weekly and get a kick out of it - not me though. My whole being raged against that reality until I hit a very real wall.
This has been an important learning for me because it flies in the face of some of our prevailing ideologies. Namely, moralism and individualism. Next I'll explore what those ideologies say, how they show up in the world, and why they lead to a denial of true self in the long run.
Wholeness vs Individualism vs Moralism
There are two common ideologies that pop up that have a heavy influence on how we show up in the world - individualism and moralism.
Moralism Leads to Divided Life
Moralists believe that denial of self and serving society is of fundamental importance to ensure that humanity thrives. If we don't serve our community, the community will crumble. With this ideology there exists a belief that a focus on the self was selfish and will lead to ruin. Instead, moralists say you should identify a role that allows you to serve your community, serve your religious faith, serve your important institutions, etc. This view leads to having a place in society but not necessarily flourishing.
Parker hypothesizes that the issue with moralism is that through self-sacrifice we never learn who we are in the world. Parker says these humans:
“Suffer from an empty self. They have a bottomless pit where their identity should be. An inner void they try to fill with competitive success, consumerism, sexism, racism, or anything that might give them the illusion of being better than others. We embrace attitudes and practices such as these not because we regard ourselves as superior but because we have no sense of self at all. Putting others down becomes a path to identity, a path we would not need to walk if we knew who we were.” - Parker Palmer
Secularism & Individualism Leads To Divided Life Also
As we've become more secular, individualism has taken religion's place - i.e. the belief that humans can be and do whatever they want. Individualism suggests that humans come with no formed core and can shape it themselves as long as they try hard and work their butt off.
Ironically, by telling the individual they can be and do whatever they want we create an existential crisis. This crisis happens as individuals try to form their identities by thinking (what and how do I want to be?) and by looking outward (what seems like a good model to emulate?). Parker argues that we get lost because instead of living and paying attention to our internal responses we spend time ruminating and forming our identities based on what we think we want. This also leads to a denial of true self.
Parker hypothesizes that the issue with individualism is that by reducing a human to just its parts people stop trusting themselves and never learn who they are in the world.
He goes onto say if we consisted of nothing more than our biology, psychology, and sociology, humans could thrive in any situation. We know this isn’t true. We recognize wholeness intuitively even though we may not be conscious that we are recognizing it. An example of us recognizing wholeness in others is when we say things like:
Examples of Us Recognizing Wholeness
They’ve really come into their own
I don’t know what happened, they are totally unlike themselves
So if wholeness is real, and moralism and individualism (i.e. serving our institutions faithfully/being whoever we want) are not roads to true self, how do we get to true self and wholeness?
Creating Wholeness - Cracking Open The Divide
Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need. - Parker Palmer
Wholeness is about leaning into the self and living ourselves fully. So how do we get there? Usually people come back to wholeness, if ever, in phases. We exist in these different phases for varying amounts of time and it is not a linear progression (i.e. we can be in phase 3 and go back to phase 2).
Phase 1 - The Start of the Divided Life
The erecting of a wall between our inner and outer life. We associate rewards and punishments based on different behaviors and different contexts. As a result, we start to act and live incongruently - our actions and words don’t mirror our feelings, needs, and wants.
Phase 2 - The Painful Life
At some point, after living behind this wall for a bit we start to feel the pain. Not every person gets depressed, but some people feel aimless, without purpose, anxious, frustrated, burnt out, etc.
Phase 3 - The Safe Life
We don't want the pain anymore and try to reorganize our lives to feel more centered. We do this by aligning ourselves and our lives with our values and beliefs. This is a step towards living a life with more integrity. However, the downside appears when our values and beliefs become walls to new experiences and relationships. In this phase, we only allow in those with whom we feel comfortable or experiences we feel safe in.
A good example of the safe life is by looking at the role religion, politics, or other ideologies sometimes play in our lives (capitalism, individualism, etc). We use our beliefs and values to draw lines between us and others, to pronounce judgement and assess levels of goodness and badness.
Phase 4 - The Whole Life
In this phase we are taken further, past the walls of self and back into the arms of relationship. It is an understanding that all living is relationship and two questions guide us in this process
Outer Life - What are we sending from ourselves out into the world and what impact is it having out there
Inner Life - What is the world sending back to us and what impact is it having in here
In short, we arrive back at the wholeness of childhood with some differences. Phase 4 is more complex in that we carry with us our responsibilities, our successes, our failures, our misdeeds, and all that we have lived. Navigating this reality successfully requires us to
Lean into our true selves - Tap into what’s going on inside and try each day to live a life that aligns both our inner and outer realities. What we say and how we act is consistent with how we feel and think.
Lean into relationship - We learn most about ourselves in relation to others and to the world. In phase 4 we open ourselves up to new experiences, people, and ideas. In doing so, we also pay attention to what we’re putting out there (i.e. how are we acting, feeling, communicating) and how does that make us feel. Lastly we pay attention to what we're getting back - how are people feeling, what are they communicating, what are they needing, and how is it making us feel.
By leaning into both new experiences, relationships, ideas and to ourselves we have an opportunity understand the world and how we best want to show up in it.
Tactics To Bring Wholeness Into Your Everyday
So how do we tactically arrive at wholeness? I don’t have a straight answer for you because it’s a constant effort and it’s different for everyone, but I’ve got some general recommendations. Basically, I don’t know the path, but I can try and give you some rope, a pick axe, and a flashlight (that’s what A&T is all about).
Wholeness Tactics
Practice mindfulness to know yourself moment to moment
Build skills to create healthy relationships with yourself and to understand yourself better (i.e. journaling, gratitude, use of language, hobbies, etc)
Build skills to create healthy relationship to better understand others and to relate to them better (listening, supporting, etc.)
Do stuff that speaks to you without thinking too much about it (Ikigai)
Stop doing stuff that doesn’t speak to you and you don’t want to do
Be aware of choices you make and why you make them - are there underlying things you value that make you choose to do something that you don’t have instant gratification with? (ex. driving your kids to school)
Constantly realign yourself, your relationships, and your life for wholeness
Only in community can the self exercise and fulfill its nature - Parker Palmer
It can be extraordinarily difficult to carve this path and we can’t do it alone. I'd love to create a space for self-development and wholeness. Specifically a place where we can learn about ourselves and about how to relate to others. In a future newsletter I'll flush out some principles around what a space like that looks like.
It can be challenging to find the kinds of spaces that promote wholeness. However difficult the challenge of living whole lives and unique the path for each of us, I can’t imagine anything more rewarding.
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To Living Well,
Alvaro
Weekly Live Well Recs
I quoted the below book directly & liberally in writing this.
Read of the week 📖: A Hidden Wholeness - Parker Palmer