An Aging Elder

I woke up this morning with more aches than a porcupine has quills. (OK, a slight exaggeration here). My knee, back and shoulder all were seeing who could scream the loudest for my brains’ distracted attention. Aging and Elderhood, encroaching personal entropy and joyful evolving consciousness. What a juxtaposition!

While I am extremely grateful for entering conscious Elderhood, I am very aware that my body is slowly running down. I was talking to a friend about running recently and he said, “The older I get, the faster I was.” So true. I was reading recently that the best hope for the world was that more people worldwide were living past 50. However, it has also been noted that civilization often advances one death at a time. Enough already – I’m confusing me!

I think it is no longer enough to just get older, even though it’s true that old age is not for sissies! We also can choose to become Elders, and our journey to Elderhood begins in adulthood. I have written about Signs of Elderhood in an earlier post. If you want to become an elder, you have to begin to wake up, grow up and clean up in adulthood. Briefly, cleaning up, in addition to eating healthier and exercising more, usually involves embracing some form of depth work in psychotherapy to heal wounds from the past. Waking up means realizing you need to move beyond dogma of all stripes and become a seeker of what IS and your true nature. Growing up means a willingness to recognize and move through actual developmental stages that we have become aware of in the last hundred years.

This work may be very challenging as you transcend and include the mainstays of your culture. All of this is necessary to be able to show up as an Elder and not just an old person. Gratefully, when you choose to enter conscious Elderhood, there is much more to life than aches and pains!

John Mariner

The Four Quadrants of Integral Elderhood

From Pinterest

It is exciting to me to view Integral Elderhood from the perspectives of each of the four quadrants of AQAL. (This is a first attempt in viewing it from this perspective).

In the upper right, the exterior of the individual, the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex of the brain is both highly developed and gradually more challenged with advancing aging. An integral Elder has discerned and adopted a wide range of healthy habits to the best of their ability. The book, Integral Life Practice, is an excellent guide and easily modified for older adults.

In the upper left, the interior of the individual, an integral Elder has embraced a high level of Waking Up and Growing Up, spiritual experience and spiritual intelligence. The practices begun in Adulthood continue to expand and deepen in Elderhood, at the same time that physical ailments may be increasing for the Elders. De Chardin’s Within and Without (of evolutionary development in the face of increasing entropy) may be immediately present in the growing consciousness and increasing physical limitations of integral Elders.

In the lower left, the interior of the collective, the Integral “we” space hopefully becomes sharper and clearer. Integral Elders are future oriented, caring deeply about others, and the sentient beings who haven’t been born yet. They understand that thoughts and feelings are actually structures of reality. They work together with millennials and baby boomers as Integral activists for a better future, blending their wisdom with the wisdom of the younger generation to envision a better world for all. They look at emerging patterns that may be as yet barely visible to the world at large. They help to discern the wheat from the chaff as the bare outlines of the structures and institutions of the future are contemplated.

In the lower right, the exterior of the collective, Integral Elders, like the biblical Moses, may only be able to envision, to glimpse the “promised land” that they will not inhabit, that they will not live to see. They can only hope that the structures and institutions of the future that they are beginning to envision and create will offer new options for more people. But do not think that this bright hope is in vain. The evolutionary vanguard, the lovers of a better future for all, and among them, Integral Elders, have sided with the advance into novelty, the creative impulse that exploded this universe into being and becoming 13.5 billion years ago.

I think they have picked the winning horse.

By John Mariner,
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Are you Shooting Yourself in the Foot?

The chances are high that you are unknowingly undermining the likelihood that you will get what you want from your spouse. Why is that?? It is because you privately know what you want from this relationship, and when you are hurt and angry, you ask for more than your partner can emotionally deliver. Sure, in an ideal world, you deserve to receive all the love you want in the manner that you would most like to get it. But only in Hollywood and fairy tales do “they live happily ever after.”

In reality, life involves an endless series of personal negotiations between two persons of equal value. Add to that the knowledge that what you wish for is particularly difficult for your partner to deliver. The result is that all relationships are predestined to have a lengthy power struggle after a few years. What follows are several tips for managing the negotiations of power struggles with patience and wisdom.

Think globally, act locally. Practice asking for small amounts of the behaviors that you want from your partner. Then practice thanking your partner for what he/she just did. We are all quietly influencing the behaviors of our partners by what we do after they act. If you want more loving from your partner, do not start by demanding sex three times a week. Even if you get your wish (i.e. through coercion), you will not have a happy, relaxed, and loving partner in bed with you. Begin by asking for small, specific and do-able behaviors that are on the path to connection. Ask for a little more touching during the day. Then when your partner gently touches you on the back as he/she walks by, you respond immediately with “Thanks, that touch felt great.”

In addition, you can “program” your spouse to do more of the behaviors that nurture you. Immediate smiles, approval and appreciation can go a very long way. Consider this story. A college social psychology class once decided to test the power of very small subtle social cues. They decided, without the professor’s knowledge, to appear ever so slightly more interested in what was being said whenever the professor leaned or took a step to his right. They looked up at him slightly more often, they took a few more notes, and they deliberately looked a bit more interested in the course material. They remained neutral when he stood still while talking. And they showed a tiny drop in interest when he drifted to his left. After four lectures with this subtle cuing, the professor walked into class, put his briefcase down by the desk in the middle of the front of the room, dug out his lecture notes and walked over to the front left corner of the room (to the students’ right!) where he delivered his entire lecture. Conclusion: You are always sending cues to your partner about your feelings and your support (or lack thereof) in the relationship. Everyone likes positive feedback!

Be on the lookout for what your partner is doing well. This will correspond to behaviors you like and want repeated more often. Then smile, brighten your tone, say thank you and generally be appreciative of their personhood. Over time, you will find that your mate will be more likely to repeat behaviors that get rewarded and less likely to do things that evoke boredom and loss of attention. When you focus on and amplify what is working, you are directing the relationship in the most successful direction.

This works infinitely better than complaining about what is bad or lacking in the relationship. Carping, nagging, repeating your complaints, character assassination, name calling and outright put-downs are the drivers of distance and divorce. When you attempt to negotiate from a “one-up,” “power-over” position, you invite a push back. Your partner will either “fight or flee” depending on how he/she protects him/herself. The dominant stance might feel powerful for a short while, but it is always a losing strategy in a love relationship.

Finally, when you do ask your partner to change his/her behavior so that you can feel more attended to in the relationship, make your requests small, measurable and positive. We talked about small requests above. Ask for changes in behavior that might be easy for your partner to give to you. Measurable means that you are able to specify quantity and duration of the behavior request, and you must be reasonable. You might want six hugs a day, but you would be best starting off at a lower number that your partner might do without feeling pressured. For example, you could ask for two hugs a day lasting at least three seconds each. The word positive means that you are asking for something that your partner actually does. If you are often annoyed when your partner interrupts you, you are shooting yourself in the foot when you say “Stop interrupting me.” That puts everyone’s attention on the annoying behavior, which is then likely to increase. Instead make it positive: “Please allow me to finish talking before you come back at me with an alternative point of view.” When you state your desire in the positive, the request is much more likely to happen. As stated above, when your partner makes any movement in the direction of your request, be prepared to smile, thank and appreciate even the smallest changes in behavior.

by Dr. Howard Lambert

Growing in Love in Elderhood AKA Elderlove

Elderlove . . . it’s not quite the same as love in adulthood, even though conscious love must begin in adulthood to grow into the Love that is an essential characteristic of Conscious Elderhood.

I do not want to limit my investigations, however, to the growth of love in couplehood that is possible in Elderhood, as wonderful as that may be. In our culture, marriage or coupling is too often regarded as “THE” realm of the sacred rather than “A” realm of the sacred; the former not so subtly discounting how singles also grow in love in adulthood leading to Elderlove.

When conscious love grows within the couple relationship in adulthood, that is truly wonderful and sadly, too often, rare. Not impossible, as I personally know, but not easy. It’s almost as if love begins to split its seams and demands its inherent expansion. Children demand that it opens up to embrace them, sometimes stretching the couple relationship beyond its limits. Sometimes one person grows and the other doesn’t, and the relationship bursts apart. Most often, people try the coupling route with someone else, hopefully expanding their ability to love with lessons learned from the past. Conscious love wants to keep expanding to include others, actually until there are no “others.” Conscious love keeps breaking our hearts open on the way to Elderhood, if we will allow it to. Otherwise, we gradually just close down, and at most become old and not Elders.

Elderlove is conscious love, ever expanding and developing to include more people toward the inclusion of all beings. It grows out of conscious adulthood, often but not always, developing in couplehood and parenting and tempered in the crucibles of our aging bodies and inevitable losses. Love teaches us HOW to Love if we will let it. This is one of love’s great secrets, opening us up to loving those beings we come in contact with as they need and want to be loved, awakening Love in them.

I have stated in another post that elderhood is better than adulthood. One of the reasons is that our capacity for conscious love can keep growing based on its beginnings in childhood and adulthood. Elderhood, today beginning at 65 or 70, is an expansion of our ability to love and not a diminishment! Conscious Adulthood is the necessary scaffolding for Conscious Elderhood that supports us growing in love all of our lives. The life stage of elderhood is the flowering of what has gone before. All of our work is worth it as love in elderhood pervades our lives and the lives of all that we touch in ever expanding and often surprising circles!

By John Mariner,
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Are You a Tyrant When You Are Angry?

Most relationships have one person who is a pursuer, and one person who is a distancer. These roles can change in different social settings and with different topics of conversation, but generally each member of a dyad plays one of these roles more often that the other.

When you are upset and something has been really bothering you, it is common for a pursuer to initiate a fight by barging into the personal space of the partner and declaring (as much with your non-verbal behavior as what you actually say), “I am upset, and we are going to talk about this right now!!!” You sound as if you have become an Army captain, and you are using your authority to command the movements of your troops. You have moved into a top-down tone of discourse, and you are talking to the enlisted men who have no choice but to stand there and listen to you as long as you want to talk.

When you demand your partner’s attention because you are upset, you are essentially shooting yourself in the foot. Your presumptuousness typically backfires. It drives the distancer into a psychological withdrawal and prolongs the unhappiness and fighting. Then you become a tempest in a teapot; full of sound and fury and having no effect in the real world. After you have sounded off for a while, which may include yelling and name calling (and other self-defeating agendas), you begin to notice how distant and remote your partner is behaving and how impotent you feel, even if you are loud.

The helplessness that comes with realizing you are getting nowhere can be very demoralizing. Rarely will you have the perspective to see that you helped produce the stalemate by the way you began the conversation.

Here is the task: Practice a slow start up. There are several aspects to this skill. First of all, it is very respectful to make an appointment with your spouse. This shows your spouse that you value his/her time and want to talk when he/she is ready to give you his/her full attention. Waiting half an hour and having a partner who is really present is much better than rendering yourself helpless shouting at a wall. Secondly, begin the conversation with an acknowledgement of the relationship. Launching right into your complaints and criticism might feel good to you as you blow off steam, but it tends to send the withdrawer into another universe. An appreciation might sound like this: “I love you deeply, and I really value our relationship. There is something troubling me that I want to talk about. Is this a good time, or can we set an appointment for later this evening?”

Other related “slow start-up skills” are also useful. If past arguments have melted down after 40+ minutes, agree up front to stop this discussion after 30 minutes. Speak about your concern and limit yourself to 6-7 minutes; then ask your partner to reflect back what he/she heard your concerns to be. Then give your spouse equal time to state his/her side of the story, after which you will reflect back what you hear his/her primary concern to be.

Moderation of energy and anger is the key element. Remember that if you take up too much time, space, volume, and intensity, your partner will be driven back into a self-protective walled-off silence. If you want a productive and a balanced fight, you must pull your energy down. As you learn the art of starting intense conversations gently, you will reap the benefit of a partner who does not withdraw (as much as in the past), and who will likely share much more of him/herself with you as the conversation stays moderate and your spouse feels safe enough to speak.

by Dr. Howard Lambert

When Green Attacks Orange, Amber Wins

I’m following up on my post, “Our Collective Dark Night” in which I spoke about being grateful for traditional, modern and post-modern contributions to humanity that are under fire in the US and around the world. Now I want to look at the challenge of valuing each of these structures of consciousness and culture from an evolutionary and developmental perspective, an integral perspective. In doing so, I hope to cast some light on the title of this post.

To greatly simplify, traditional culture (amber) places great value on fundamentalist, law and order. Modern culture and consciousness (orange) expands to embrace science and its contributions to our daily lives. Post-modern culture and consciousness (green) expands further to embrace equality for everyone. Unfortunately, at times the different structures war with each other, and the more evolved structure throws out the baby with the bath water instead of both transcending and including the hard won gains, the best and essential pieces, of the earlier stages of development. I want to focus on green and orange in particular.

Here is the deal: Post-modernity or Green, is the most developed stage of consciousness and culture to have evolved so far. But it is antagonistic towards Modernity or Orange in many ways. For example, when it insists that capitalism is evil and should be eliminated, it fails to transcend and include the best of capitalism and can lessen our sense of economic interdependence.
When Green insists that there is no objective truth, that all truth is dependent on context, it can support climate change deniers who can now challenge scientific evidence about the effects of climate change and say that’s just your opinion, there is no objective truth that the climate is changing.

When Green says to believe all women who accuse men of sexual assault and ignore due process, Green weakens one of the fundamental protections that is in place against arbitrary tyranny.
Also, Green, in wanting to do away with the dominator hierarchies that originated or persisted through Modernity, often wants to do away with all hierarchy, including natural hierarchies such as parent/child, teacher/student, etc., that allow us to learn and to grow in healthy ways.

In wanting to do away with the oppressive structures of Orange, a good thing, Green can leave us with no structures, a bad thing. That can allow Amber to rush in with fundamentalist structures, such as rigid definitions of right and wrong, to fill the vacuum.

Hopefully, emerging Integral leaders can support Green to not shoot itself in the foot and instead INCLUDE the best of Orange while also transcending its limitations and problems.

By John Mariner,
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Martin Luther King: Reflections from an Integral Elder

I was 27 when Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in 1968 at the age of 39. Integral consciousness was mostly latent at that time, both in me and in the world. He was a harbinger of that consciousness. His “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington D.C. was prophetic of an integral world, even though that dream is not yet fully realized in 2019.

My adopted daughter is primarily African American. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy and that of President Barack Obama are directly responsible for the evolving Integral world she is embracing wholeheartedly today. At 21 years old, she is a junior in college and active in politics, working to support women becoming elected to public office. Her amazing future is possible because no one, “trumpet” as they might, can destroy the scaffolding that these great American leaders have laid down.

On this great American holiday celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, I am deeply grateful.

By John Mariner,
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Are You a Master of Dismissal?

Consider the number of times in your life that while arguing with someone, you have listened to them and said “Yes, but…” This is essentially a losing strategy in any conversation where your desired end state is closeness and mutual understanding. This is true because the verbal form of “Yes, but…” signals to the other person that you are engaged with them in a winner-take-all struggle. The word “yes” might be meant to communicate that you have understood what was just said, and you might have understood every single word of the message. However, you are inadvertently setting up a battle by using the word “but.” It often feels to the other person as if you have suddenly removed all of the pieces on a chess board and placed them in positions of your choosing. You now appear arrogant, righteous and controlling. You seem to be acting as if the information you are now adding to the conversation is so convincing that it will inevitably change their mind. It won’t work. It is an invitation to a duel.

What you are probably trying to create is a conversation in which there is an open exchange of thoughts, feelings and information, where everyone can contribute, speak and be heard. Such exchanges can be fun and exciting. You learn how other people think and feel, and you allow new information to influence your own position. There would be sharing between equals resulting in a superior outcome because the intelligence of the group is greater than the sum of its parts.

What the “Yes, but…” effectively does, whether intentional or not, is minimize the argument, intelligence and reasoning of the other person. You have moved into the position of being a master of dismissal. Even while you try to be fair and even-handed, you are perceived as self-righteous and pompous. The inevitable conclusion is that you should permanently strike the “Yes, but…” from your spoken vocabulary.

There are a wide variety of healthy alternatives for you to begin to use to invite balanced and fair exchanges. The simplest is the construction, “Yes, and…” When you use this form, you are adding to the conversation without negating that which has come before. You can even amplify this model by saying, “What really makes sense to me about what you just said is … And I would urge you to consider this…” By modeling such bridging techniques, you invite your partner to return the favor in his/her reply. You can also use curiosity and inquiry to develop additive dialogue techniques. In this style, you genuinely ask for explanation or expansion of what your partner said before you add what you would like him/her to consider from your point of view. It might sound like this: “I’m not sure I fully understand the point you are making here. Would you say more about it? I really want to see your view before I add my thoughts to the mix.”

It can also be useful to state out loud that what you most desire is not to win the argument, but to move together towards a consolidated resolution that incorporates the best of everybody’s thinking. It is not so important where the two of you end up; it is how you feel about each other and about the relationship as you approach your conclusion.

Finally, it is good to keep in mind that your joint decisions are not etched in stone. Either one of you could learn new information the next day that might cause both of you to shift your thinking and your preferences. Be gentle about how you express your wishes, and be cautious about pushing too hard to win an argument while sacrificing closeness and intimacy.

by Dr. Howard Lambert

Our Collective Dark Night

“In the embers of our religions, let us bow our heads and pray, may the lights in the land of plenty, shine on the truth…some day”
Leonard Cohen

Make no mistake. This is a very dark night of the soul of this country, this America. Perhaps the darkest night since the years preceding and during the Civil War. The very foundations of our democracy are being shaken.

And what are those quaking pillars?

First of all, the rule of law. Might makes right rears its ugly head again, this time in the form of whoever has the most money and can lay claim to being the whitest. Not new of course, but seldom so course and foul. Second, the knowledge gained from science dismissed and disregarded. Third, the hard won gains from the Civil Rights movement and the other freedom movements from the 1960’s on. Dismantle the rule of law, dismiss the findings of science, and disparage the freedom movements, and we are in danger of descending back into the Dark Ages, before law, before science and before freedom began to become real for more and more people.

Before the Magna Carta, king wanna-bes like Trump ruled by absolute right, and no one could question or challenge them. The Magna Carta ended the “divine right” of kings to do whatever they pleased and began the traditional role of law that has been fundamental in democracies the world over. Modern Science began to supplant magical and mythical attempts to explain the world. In the 1960’s, the freedom movements for civil rights, women’s rights and gay rights flowered and gained traction.

At this Winter “looks within” time, let us give thanks for all of the structures of consciousness and culture that are currently under fire. Let us fight for the best of all of them, the best of all that we inhabit in this country and are our brightest beacons in these challenging days. Law, science and expanded freedoms, all lit up in our developing Evolutionary consciousness, the best of our common humanity, and all worth fighting for!

By John Mariner,
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Do You Always Make Sense?

The answer to this simple question is “yes.” But do you realize that the same is true for everyone else on the planet? People are like icebergs: we only get to see about 20% of them at any moment in time. The remaining 80% remains underwater. This includes their past history, traumas, life events, motivations, values, parenting, alcohol history, education, early teachings, etc. We rarely have the opportunity to ask someone who appears to be making little sense “What are you thinking and feeling that causes you to act this way?” However if we presume that some things inside that person are out of our sight and are having an influence on the current situation we can walk through life with more compassionate understanding for the apparently irrational behaviors of others.

Imagine the following scenario: you are standing in a grocery store check-out line with about 20 items in your cart. You have not had a good day and you find yourself grumpy and irritable. In front of you is a 40-something aged woman carrying a small child and nothing but a single gallon of milk in her cart. You look at the express lines and see just a few people in those lines. “Shouldn’t she be in one of those lines?” You feel critical and angry. “What is she doing here? She is wasting my valuable time. What is wrong with her judgment?” You rant like this in your head as you wait your turn. Your blood pressure goes up as you get angry. To make matters worse when it is her time to checkout she hands the baby to the cashier who smiles and coos and puts the baby to her face. As more time goes by you can hardly restrain yourself from speaking angrily to the clerk. When you move up to the cash register the cashier smiles and asks if you are having a nice day. You control your anger and instead say in an irritated and mildly sarcastic tone “Cute kid.” As she rings up your items the cashier says sincerely: “Thank you. That is my baby. My husband was killed in Afghanistan five months ago, and now I have to work here to get ends to meet. That was my mom. She is only allowed to bring him by once a day. These brief visits are precious to me.”

Of course your perception and judgment of the woman and the situation change in an instant. Suddenly it all makes sense and you understand. Your anger washes away and you feel compassion for the woman, her son, her Mom and even for the fallen soldier.

So consider this the next time you are fighting with your spouse. You do not allow yourself to say “You are not making any sense!!” Instead you say, “Tell me what it is that allows you to see this situation the way that you do. From what I know and what I see I cannot figure out how you are viewing this.” This will enable you to adopt a more patient attitude that communicates respect and concern to your partner rather than judgment and arrogance. You now realize that whenever you say (or think) “You are not making sense” what you really mean is “You are not making sense to me.”

If only people would think and feel the way you do, they would always make sense to you. However, this is not likely to happen very often. That is because their hidden 80% is totally different from your unseen 80%. The more you live with this deep understanding of individual differences, the more you learn to be tolerant and even respectful of the differences in other peoples’ world views and value systems. The next time your partner seems to assert a ridiculous position or a cowboy driver speeds past you in the right lane and cuts in front of you, you can adopt a posture of curiosity and wonder to yourself what it is in their life that supports the behavior that seems so unreasonable to you.

If you cannot figure out “where your partner is coming from” do not attack their position, instead ask for more information!