Integration Equals Mastery – The First Challenge of Your Adult Life Journey
Before you begin any difficult overland travel, the first two things you want to know are:
- Where am I going?, and
- What’s the map?
Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? We need to know our destination. As Steven Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, states: “Begin with the end in mind.”
Similarly for us. Our goal is total fulfillment of our human potential. The nature of this “potential” is unique for each of us. However, we share a common high-level roadmap in our adult life-journey.
Just as no child matures without going through the “terrible twos,” and no teenager becomes an adult without some sort of angst; some sort of “identity crisis,” as adults we face similar life-challenges. And the truth is, these are as well-known (in some circles) as are the “childhood development stages” first elucidated by Piaget.
As adults, we have similar growth challenges. The ancient Kabbalists understood these, and charted them as twenty-two pathways. These 22 paths became identified with letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and also with the Major Arcana in the Tarot. The first of these paths is the entry point. It simply means, “This is where you start.” (More on this later.)
The remaining twenty-one paths or steps are grouped into three sets of seven. Each set of seven paths is a major adult journey. We need to take these in order; we really can’t do the third “journey” until we’ve completed the first and the second.
For now, we focus on the first adult journey; integration.
“Integration of what?” you might ask.
Integration of your internal V8 power-car engine. (I introduced the V8 Power Car – analogy for life-mastery in the August 4, 2011 blogpost.)
The thing about this engine is: it doesn’t well unless you can get each of the power-car “cylinders” (archetypes) to fire when and where needed.
The ancients understood the idea of eight powerful archetypes, all drawing one person towards a compelling goal. The Greek god of the oceans, Poseidon, was said to have a “chariot of the gods” drawn by eight immortal horses.
Goddesses also rode chariots drawn by powerful horses; Eos – the Goddess of the Dawn – is shown in a chariot drawn by two gorgeous Pegasi. (Reproduced with permission.)
Our cultural history is replete with this compelling image; a person driving a chariot pulled by two, four, or even eight powerful beasts – each with a determined mind of its own!
Our goal; the “end” that we have in mind at our “beginning,” is to identify and harness and use each of these “beasts” or archetypes successfully. This is the completion of our first adult life-journey.
This goal – integration – access to and power over each of our core archetypes – is not trivial. In fact, it is one of mastery. However, it is one where we must succeed – if we are to progress further. This is the “end” that we must “keep in mind” (following Stephen Covey’s prescription) as we begin our first adult life-journey.
Unveiling: The Inner Journey takes us through our core power archetypes. Both women and men need to learn, access, and use each of these archetypes – although we may individually do so with different proportions and emphasis.
In particular, two Unveiling chapters– Chapter 7: “A Real Woman’s Path (Really Does Exist!)” and Chapter 11: “Shifting State” – describe these archetypes in detail. Succeeding blogposts will follow through with this theme.