Dear IEC Friends,
Integral Theory’s beloved, conjoined sibling is Integral Life Practice. Stuck together, they both require the other to exist, as they accompany each other everywhere. So one striving to play with theory, must also play with practice. For this reason, there will be a heavy emphasis on embodiment, practicalities at IEC 2023.
In our final program, you will see that we have 9 presentations in the theme of Integral Life Practice. They are divided into three sections: Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Read along to see the details of the presentations:
Thursday • May 25 • 11:30 – 13:30 • Playroom
Integral Transcendence – Nurturing Life
By Marwa El Abd
A model focusing on the two lower quadrants: We & Its. Questioning how we can integrate peace, freedom & love into our relationships. And also, how we can contribute to our society in order to make it Serene, Healthy & Productive. Is it a dream to live fully Integrally? Is it possible? Are there challenges? Are there opportunities? Let’s explore it together.
Yet, sometimes saying is easier than doing. In the real-life daily engagement, we are not only faced by our own wounds, we are also faced by other’s wounds. This can make us move in the opposite of this Universal law of being Social Being. Taking distance, being isolated can be peaceful, but this led to more of separateness. We are here for a reason, for a mission, for a contribution with our own Essence & Light to engage in the universe. Being separate will make this mission “fine” but not complete.
Engaging in life after waking up is crucial to “walk the talk” to test our awakening, our consiousness, to face & overcome challenges, to cascade humanity values that can be missed.
ITS: Business is so important for societies & countries. It creates goods & services for the society to cover its needs, it provides employment opportunities for many people that can help them reach financial independence & live better lives. I creates meaning & purpose for life. It reduces poverty remarkably.
Yet recently the employment relationship is described by “Slavery”. Highlighting the fact that there is a very big challenge between achieving business requirements, financial independence from a side & living a balanced, passionate & peaceful life from the other side. Words like self-deprecation, fatigue, exhaustion, stress, burnout, toiling, overtime dogs, and on and on are used to reflect the suffering of achieving the dream of compromising between business & employee’s needs.
In business there are always training & development, yet it focuses on the Vertical development of the leader or the employee, focusing on acquiring more skills. It’s so important but it is not sufficient. Horizontal development of the Leader/ employee is as important as the vertical development, if it is not the most important.
Exploring Integral Coherence
This presentation argues that in order to uplevel the collective capacity of social change agents for transforming a metacrisis into a metamorphosis, we need to practice field intelligence that enhances and generates more coherence within and across networks and systems. It presents questions and insights from an ongoing European action research project which explores the nature of integral coherence as a means to facilitate transformative change, assisted by the SenseMaker technology. Besides working towards a deeper understanding of the structure and impacts of coherent fields, it also explores how we can maintain and reproduce them in different contexts.
Participants are invited to take an integrally informed look at the IEC as an example of a dynamic field aiming to build a minimum degree of coherence through specific practices. A SenseMaker capture helps to map existing field qualities (including unaddressed shadows) based on micro-narratives from involved actors.
Silent Connections (because talking is overrated)
By Paul Du Buf
Connections in stillness, being a witness, metaphor for timelessness. Allowing to be with the other, a reflection of ourselves. Witnessing allows for a meeting in presence, recognising the other as you. Being the body, space, environment and relationship that we are. Connection with hearts, metaphor for our relationships in this moment. Sensing the depth of our hearts and the relational field that we inhabit. All is welcome, all rainbow feelings from love to heartache. Sharing the space of our environment and relationships. Connecting with our bodies, metaphor for our unique embodiment in this moment. Being grounded, noticing our breath, sharing our experience of embodiment. Our physical manifestations sensed and expressed through movement.
Meeting in silence allows us to develop our capacity to be with our self and others just as we are without a story. Allowing our bodies to be as they are, allowing our associations to arise just as they are and allowing our body, movement to express itself as it wants or needs. Giving space to our experience, feelings, emotions, associations, movements just as they are, how they are developing. Connecting with the aliveness in our stillness and of our senses together in silence.
Saturday • May 27 • 11:30 – 13:30 • Room Panorama.
Awakening to a Planet of Living Cities
This session is an inquiry into how a Unitive Narrative calls us to awaken beyond individuals and organizations into our relationships within and among cities and their ecoregions.
We invite you to explore how Living Cities: Earth is creating the conditions for a mycelial web of inter and intra-connections arising when we practise Integral City’s Care-Ma Yoga. We invite you to share what happens when you notice how much you care for our Planet and then re-focus your care into Places, People and Person.
We will co-create an Interview Web and reflect on how we/you/I can amplify our/your/my senses of Aliveness where we/you/I live, with whom we/you/I are living and what we/you/I are doing. Let’s be curious if a sense of Cosmo-Localism ignites our 2nd Tier capacities to Think Cosmically, Feel Globally and Act Locally? Join our session and re-imagine the Integral City with wisdom from Marilyn Hamilton, Marina Demchenko, Indra Adnan, Jude Currivan.
Shadow Work and Narcistic Trauma in Organizations
By Adam Ralf
At the beginning, a short presentation is given to introduce the topic:
The pressure to adapt to the conditions of an organization can be understood as a narcissistic trauma. In our personal socialization strategies develop how we deal with this trauma. Often an organization develops a momentum of its own in which the pressure to adapt is not reflected. The interaction of personal strategies and organizational structures is a constant field of tension. Conscious handling is an important characteristic of an “integral” organization.
This is followed by an imagination exercise: It is about sensitizing the learned strategies in dealing with the pressure to adapt in organizations. Already as children we develop strategies in dealing with parents, kindergarten and school. Later it is the education and the professional life which takes place in organizations.
This is followed by an exchange of experiences with the focus on how my personal strategies are reflected in my current dealings with organizational structures.
Afterwards results from the work of Integrales Forum holacratic shadow circle will be presented with the desire to start a further exchange with other integral organizations on the subject.
ZERO
Integral means not touched. To Pass from the Zero is to realise that we are integral, any our exeprience is integral. According to transpersonal psychology, the concept of Self expresses the corresponding microcosmic psychic space of unity, which is drawn upon by transcending and including the ego through disidentification.
I will present concept such as Second Attention Epistemology, Transe-cognition coming from the experience of Zero, were we can see that we already are at the source, we always have been. There is nowhere to go, no goal to reach, no strategy to implement.
If you wish to understand the Passage from Zero, you can act like a thirsty person in the desert who finds a source. Once there, you simply drink and disappear from the world. All around you sand, sun, snakes, loneliness and the path ahead are still there, but you disappear from the world because you are thirsty and you drink. In the face of every problem, every conflict, every pain, you can try to disappear. Don’t wish the thoughts to disappear, don’t wish the problem to be solved, don’t even try to meditate, you can simply disappear, leave the problem behind and drink from the source.
Sunday • May 28 • 11:30 – 13:30 • Room TOSCANA II.
Integral Nonviolent Communication
This interactive workshops links the developmental stages of the integral theory with nonviolent communication in new ways.
Nonviolent communication is a powerful approach for understanding and solving conflicts and has been successfully applied in global conflicts.
The Integral Theory and it’s stages of development provide orientation for our complex world.
Combining NVC and stages of development leads to a more mature & coherent understanding and application of nonviolent communication. Integral Nonviolent Communication acknowledges and integrates the qualities of the stages. Hence, it allows us to find more appropriate, meaningful ways of communication. In our global community displaying a wide range of world views Integral Nonviolent Communication offers the next step of evolution in our ability to communicate & resolve conflicts.
The workshop offers self exploration, group practices together with playful insights for the application of an integral nonviolent communication. This session is an inquiry into how a Unitive Narrative calls us to awaken beyond individuals and organizations into our relationships within and among cities and their ecoregions.
Seeds of Wisdom
By Katalin Gátfalvi & Dr Olga Kiss
When you join us in this workshop, you bring your culture, your roots, your knowledge and experiences and all your unique qualities. We follow the core idea of integral theory and life here, to collect and spread all the treasures that human existence can offer: good energies, elevating ideas, positive emotions, joyous feelings, open-hearted attitudes, clear thoughts, deep reflections.
Of course, a small workshop is not enough for an extensive collection. Instead, we aim for an intensive collection: any goods that you may have inside in the here and now. Just live and share them: the wisdom of body, the wisdom of heart and the wisdom of mind. Spread these seeds into the noetic field. We invite you to join us in the presence of love, joy, care, inner peace, and gratefulness.
In this workshop you will find creative visualization, guided meditation, bodywork and free dance. It is enough to express yourself by your presence, but of course we will be glad if you share your truth, beauty and good in other ways as well.
10,000 Peaceful Warriors – an Embodied Action Team
Who will be at the forefront of the human response to the meta-crisis? Well, us, of course… provided that we are fully present; that we act from love, awareness and perspective; and that we have trained rigorously.
“In times of crisis we don’t rise to the level of our potential, we sink to the level of our training.” — Archilochus
This experiential workshop emerges from the martial arts, expanding from that tradition to embrace perspectives and skillsets needed to be fully present in critical moments. It will involve movement, play, and edge-work! It will introduce physical techniques that serve both as tactical moves and as perspectival tools that allow us to be more resilient and response-able. It represents an introduction to the rigorous training we are called to at this time between worlds.
The “work” of this workshop is that of maturation: moving towards eldership centered on serving collective wellbeing while being whole unto ourselves. This workshop will also engage participants in helping design a “Toolkit for the Metacrisis,” a work in progress that could become a training tool for those preparing to be frontline agents for planetary survival.
With Love
The IEC Team
