FUENTES, Lynn
(United States)
Title of contribution:
The Koan of Illness
Where & when:
The Koan of Illness
The importance of chronic illness in our world is not recognized even though it affects more than fifty percent of us. In fact, illness is a deep path for personal and spiritual growth, a source of answers to some of the global problems that most trouble us today, and a territory whose exploration is essential if we are to become whole. In this workshop, we will use poetry, role play, videos by people with illness, and small group discussion to:
1. Locate the presence of chronic illness in various aspects of the integral map.
2. Examine our personal and collective shadow around this topic. In particular, we will address some of the societal beliefs stemming from different stages of development (e.g. Amber – illness as punishment, Orange – illness as impediment, Green – illness as self-created) and contrast them with an integral view (illness as interpenetrating all of society and all of life, arising from and acting in all four quadrants, interacting with multiple causes and effects – illness as a wicked problem with which we all interact).
3. Begin to imagine how illness as a construct might be re-framed and re-constructed. What would happen if we ceased to hold it as a duality (ill vs well), what if we didn’t segregate and discriminate against people with illness, what if we integrated illness into our wholeness as human beings?
You should leave this workshop seeing beyond our conventional view of illness and able to articulate a new vision to yourself and others.
About Lynn Fuentes:
Lynn Fuentes, longtime integralist, CEO of Transformation Teaching, lawyer, mediator, and university professor and administrator, is the developer of The Koan of Illness, a program and course series which reframes illness as a valid personal and spiritual growth path and inseparable part of our humanity. Lynn is an expert in adult stage development and, with her husband, leads an integral salon. She was also part of the team that developed the first Hispanoamerican Integral Encounter in 2019.