Central inquiry: How can individuals grow to
their fullest, most integrated selves, fully engaged with the
aliveness that's within them and around them?
Forms of co-intelligence particularly useful in this field
(see Five Dimensions
of Co-Intelligence): Our personal wholeness and engagement
includes developing our multi-modal intelligence -- integrating
head, heart, feeling, intuition, and so on. In addition, the challenges
of a journey towards psycho-spiritual wholeness require (and generate)
a good measure of wisdom.
Sample projects in this field: Individually and
collectively we can: Develop our unique personal potential. Integrate
the many dimensions of who we are, and the many ways we engage
with the world. Realize our innate interconnectedness and co-creative
role in the world. Increase our openness and ability to fully
listen -- not only to other people, but to our deepest selves
and everything around us. Develop our capacitance -- our ability
to live with and work with ambiguity, uncertainty, mystery, dissonance,
complexity and all the other untidy (incoherent) aspects of life.
Comments: Ancient psycho-spiritual traditions,
modern psychology, education research, and the human potential
movement have all generated an abundance of approaches and tools
for individual development. There's a risk that people in individualistic
cultures will believe that cultural transformation involves nothing
more than widespread personal transformation. While personal development
is absolutely vital, it needs to be integrated with a broader
transformation of cultural beliefs, institutions, and stories.
A hopeful sign is that, on the leading edge of spirituality, psychology
and education, practitioners are finding that our engagement in
human and natural communities lies at the heart of our nature.
Such engagement provides a powerful means for personal development.
In a complementary trend, more people are realizing that personal
development enhances the "human resources" available
to meet the needs of organizations, communities, and society at
large. Both of these trends provide a healthy context for expanding
human capacities.