Last week we talked about how real HEALTH involves INTEGRATION and how we really need to expand how we think about health in order to achieve it.
This week I’d like to mention a person who is considered to be one of today’s preeminent philosophers. Ken Wilber has sought to create a “theory of everything”; an integral model which attempts to encompass all aspects of life including philosophies, sciences and religions. If you’d like to find out more, you can click here.
One part of his integral model involves something he refers to as lines of development. These lines include moral cognitive, interpersonal and values: all aspects of what makes the human being. These lines of development help put into perspective how a person can excel in a few of these lines and stagnate with others.
Lines of development help explain how a yogi who is advanced in lines of cognitive, aesthetic and emotional can at the same time be stagnant in other lines such as psychosexual and moral. There are also many examples of well known athletes who have excelled at somatic, aesthetic and interpersonal lines while at the same time being behind in others.
When we talk about “reaching our full potential”, I think that we are often referring to these lines of development within ourselves. The more we focus on improving our development along these various lines, the HEALTHIER we become as human beings, not just bodies.