How John Donne’s Island Man thrives or fails
If you don’t have what you want, you’re not internally in alignment ~ Joey Hubbard
Joey Hubbard, CEO of InsightSeminars.org shared a set of diagrams from his journal, how individuals come into; and, go out of alignment. In the Three Selves model of the whole person, which Joey also uses, conscious self is the most limited of the Three Selves. He’s limited by design, so he, or she, can focus on making more healthy choices.
However conscious self is not supposed to be ignorant or oblivious to their own multiple lesser levels of intelligence awake and active in our own psyche.
Dg-Island-Man
When conscious-waking-self is ignorant, or willfully in denial of his own child within, acupuncture meridians, etc, then he begins to feel isolated and look a bit foolish, as depicted in the painting above.
When we say “Island Man” it points to conscious-waking-self in the condition of ignorance and/or denial of his own Bigger Self, his Friends in High Places (Guardian angel); and, Friends in Low Places (basic self). Many terms exist for the other logical levels active in the waking psyche of each adult.
We can CHOOSE to remain disconnected and dissociated from our higher and lower partners. At what cost? Feeling isolation, fear and doubt.
Multiple logical levels of our psyche
As proposed by John Maguire of KinesiologyInstitute.com, internal Coherency, Integration and Alignment, is the “new CIA.” Joey’s diagram makes more clear what Island Man overlooks or only skims the surface of when his plans go awry.
Joey’s model in the domain of one person
From the neck up we can perceive only a rudimentary sketch, a general outline, of our purpose and direction. Joey symbolizes this as an arrow:
Unless and until conscious waking Self becomes curious; and, has willingness to learn, he or she never learns about the additional logical levels active within us, both above and below conscious waking Self:
- child within,
- organ-gland intelligence,
- cell-level-intelligence (inner and outer facing cell walls),
- immune system self,
- dream life, and
- acupuncture meridians.
This is only a partial list of internal intelligences available to conscious waking Self — once he or she is curious and willing to learn.
Joey Hubbard says, if all our lesser logical intelligences were aligned with the goals of conscious self, you’d have this picture, sub-arrows all aligned with the larger arrow:
Most of us proceed like Island Man, living in and assuming only a superficial purpose and direction of our life, without any conscious awareness of inner support.
When conscious self and internal parts cooperate, consult and collaborate, the outer (conscious self) and the inner (internal parts) can begin to look and move in the same direction. I believe, this visual metaphor is consistent with the way J-R intended us to understand internal cooperation.
Do our conscious Self and all internal parts stay 100% aligned al the time? Of course not. Life happens.
With conscious self, big thick arrow; and, internal parts (little arrows) pointing all which way, our plans and direction can only manifest haphazardly. Within our lesser logical levels, a lack of alignment, a lack of internal consensus exists. Conscious Self has been avoiding talking with its own internal parts, supporting them to stay aligned with your goals.
In our life, this means, when our goals do not manifest, Life is telling us, one or more of our internal logical levels are NOT aligned with the purpose-direction set by conscious waking Self, from the neck-up.
When life goes awry, plans go awry, the uneducated conscious waking Self says, “Wha hoppen? I thought I was in alignment to get that job, cement that new relationship, get that next initiation, etc.”
Then what? The uneducated conscious waking Self can only blame others, someone else; “Life is unfair and YOU are eh problem.” Usually we start with blaming ourself. I’ve never found any self-blame necessary nor useful, have you?
The solution?
1) Encourage conscious Self to accept the existence of multiple helper intelligences, usually starting with the inner child; however, any internal part is a good place to start.
2) Encourage and support conscious-waking-Self to process its Many Selves (a 1974 book). Educate conscious-waking-Self how, inside a single individual, multiple intelligences, is safe, normal and natural. Multiple intelligences is a fact of human psychology. We may as well get with the way humans were designed. As you get to know your internal parts, over time, two-way trust, cooperation, consultation and collaboration results.
The above sums up inner child work, Internal Family Systems among other methods.
Q: What’s healthy to do when my goal does not manifest?
A: When my goal does not manifest, I feel my body and ask where is it feeling stressed or upset. This is usually the priority internal part who is upset and OUT of alignment. Fortunately for me, I have a safe, easy, cheap, reliable method to dialog with these parts (self-testing). I’m able to quickly locate who’s out-of-alignment. This part becomes the focus of my acceptance, acknowledgement and love. Together we go thru a list of possible problems until we “hit the nail on the head.”
Each person grows and matures somewhat individually. For everyone wishing to grow, it benefits us to incorporate a healthy model of the whole person: middle Self in the middle, taking the lead mostly, Friends above and below we can consult with. The Three Selves is one such model.
Prior to 1800, in the Christian West, people imagined the Christ as the template and measure of the whole person. In the East, they took Buddha or Mohammad as the ideal measure of the whole person. Whatever model works for you is fine with me. Christ can be your big “blank” arrow, the direction you aim to align more fully with.
Since the 1990s thru Bertrand Babinet’s Babinetics, PTS MSS-DSS; and, Internal Family Systems, methods are available to learn about, navigate and re-direct our wayward lesser logical levels. Over time more of our sub-arrows are aligned with our stated purpose-direction:
