While writing my memoir a few years back, my writing coach and editor, Mathina, asked hard questions in every chapter of my life and wanted me to convince her as a reader why I did what I did. To answer her questions and write a compelling story of my life, I needed to learn the psychology behind my behavior and others in my life. I also needed to be vulnerable and bring out authenticity through my words. The vulnerability was so strong that I needed the help of a psychotherapist to help me process the past traumas.

By sharing my story, I felt more seen and heard and that brought me a deeper connection to life. I learned and grew. I developed more self-awareness. I had many meaningful moments of feeling worthy and good about myself, stronger than my unpleasant feelings, and of course I had many moments of disconnection that needed self-care. I got to a point where I had learned too many different self-development tools that were missing the coherence.

While I was holding memoir writing workshops, I got encouraged to learn to help myself and others on our growth journeys whether it’s about writing a memoir or wanting to share their stories in a safe and private environment. I signed up for a coaching course, a one-year program that would help me to become a certified integral coach. At the coaching institute, New Ventures West, I learned about a coherent way, a path that could be built individually for every person’s self-growth and to integrate all aspects of life.

Based on Integral Theory the overall approach to self-growth happens both horizontally and vertically.

In horizontal growth, we evaluate our different types of intelligences (cognitive, emotional, somatic, & more) and try to learn new skills for better performance and efficiency. That is an important part of self-growth towards self-actualization introduced by Abraham Maslow. The horizontal skills could be better time management, obtaining a degree, getting more efficient at work out, driving, winning more advanced levels in our video games, becoming successful as a businessman/woman or an achieved entrepreneur, being an engaging public speaker, and you name it. These are great skills but if they are all to boost our ego or make us look better in the society, they soon lose their meaning. When we want to get better at our skills in order to add meaning to life and create new concepts to enhance others’ lives rather than conforming to the cultural demands and competition of feeling superior, then we can enjoy our skills and even walk in the path of mastery for a chosen skill.

And yet, self-growth is even more than this. We need to align our mind (thoughts), heart (emotions), and body (intuition) in order to live fully. We need to grow in other dimensions too.

The vertical development helps us to make a deeper connection with life and live with more fulfillment. It has several steps that go deeper and deeper. What I mean by that is the deeper we grow vertically the less self-absorbed we become. We see ourselves as part of a bigger system that holds our worth as well as other beings. These steps don’t happen unless we develop regular practices of self-care, self-awareness, and self-compassion.

There are several models and studies that show and explain how a person can make a deeper connection with life. I will introduce these models in future blogs and for the sake of keeping each post short, I chose to provide an outline of The Ego Development Theory enhanced and popularized by Susanne Cook-Greuter.

Here are a few stages of human/ego development that many people are traversing in the current societies in the world. 

Conventional state ( almost 80% of the world population – searching for knowledge)

• Stage 3: Group Centric/ conformist
• Stage 3/4: Self-Centric/expert
• Stage 4: Self-determining/achiever

Post-conventional State (almost 20% of the world population – searching for wisdom)

• Stage 4/5:  Self-questioning/individualist
• Stage 5: Self-actualizing/strategist
• Stage 5/6: Ego aware/Alchemist

And as evolution is happening these stages advance deeper and deeper….

As we achieve deeper stages we create a bigger perspective towards the world, ourselves, and others. We become more tolerant at listening to other viewpoints and communicate with more compassion. We enable stronger self-reflection and even self-observation skills as we go deeper. We develop more trust and acceptance in life.

The bottom line is we all want to live fully in a relatively safe world that we can flourish and bloom. Every one of us has a responsibility for self-growth and there are no two similar paths for individuals’ self-growth. Every person needs to build her/his own path. The new Personal Coaching methods provided by a professional could be a help to those who like to choose a method and brainstorm their self growth design using the ability of our analytical skills from the newer part of the brain that makes humans different from other species.

Photo by Singkham on Pexels.com