This Appendix is a more detailed discussion of material covered in Chapter 8 of Book One: Cultivating the Integrating Self Function – A Practical Guide, Section 1 b).
The “Recognition of Needs” within the REAL model shares much in common with “Insight” in the IMAP model. Likewise, the “Activities” or “Actions” undertaken toward meeting one’s needs under REAL also share much in common with “Practice” in IMAP.
But what makes REAL additionally relevant is its consideration of “Environmental” and “Locus of Control” factors. The IMAP system already assumes an internal locus of control in the party using it, while REAL allows for an analysis of the larger social context. One might say that as tools, IMAP is more useful in fostering the ISF at the personal level, while the REAL tool is more useful in fostering an ISF understanding of humanity’s complex psycho-social system. In this sense, the two work hand-in-hand, each one cross-checking the limitations of the other.
As a social dynamic analysis tool, it is worth noting that the REAL system takes on a rather specific configuration as it approaches the ISF. The Recognition of Needs becomes open and clear. Needs are primarily seen as information important to be aware of and share with others. And because we are in control of our needs (i.e. the Locus of Control resides within each person), one’s feelings of vulnerability do not provoke fear, nor embarrassment, nor does their display denote a form of “weakness” as was shown in our earlier example of Spartacus. Rather they are seen as a form of both strength and opportunity to grow in wisdom. Moreover, now it is preferable to make such feelings known, for to go on hiding them would allow fear to remain intact.
Reaching this level of function attracts people of similar capacity based on resonance. To facilitate this however, presumes that each person has already recognized their own needs within themselves, which they have to one extent or another, depending on the mindset they occupy. They then must be willing to communicate these with others of similar mind for consideration and mutual exchange. However, if these conditions are not met, a fully functional ISF exchange of needs can’t really be negotiated as it would be influenced (i.e. contaminated) by the residual effects of other VP mindset habits skewing the exchange.
What this also means is that the locus of control in an ISF exchange process is actually a shared locus of control. Yet as stated above, it is one that requires that each person has already taken considerable mindful responsibility for themselves, and that each person has already made some effort to look inwardly to know their self at their core.* Only on these grounds can a genuine ISF exchange truly emerge.
[*Getting to one’s core first involves coming to understand our needs, be they physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and/or spiritual via one’s emotions. Our emotions lead us to our needs from which they emerge. Moreover, they hold the potential to organize structures like our body, brain, language, patterns of thinking, values, structures which help to maintain life function.]
As this veil is lifted, the environment begins to be perceived as something which is overflowing with opportunities to meet most needs, be these on a short-term or long-term basis. Similarly, the environment tends not to be seen as something filled with insurmountable, anxiety-producing obstacles as is often seen in people who are locked in one of the VP mindsets.
This is because in the ISF polarized “black and white” thinking has been replaced by full-color spectrum thinking. It allows a person to experience a sense of separateness (not separation) as an individual while at the same time being connected to the environment in a unity of coexistence and mutual respect. This changes the view of seeing “different” as being dangerous, something to be cautious about, or being wrong, and something to avoid or destroy, into something interesting, enriching, a gift of life, an opportunity to play, and to create.
That’s because phenomena become something to welcome to be curious about and to respect. While it is still up to us to decide how we are going to deal with it, the “Judge” that once ruled so much of the mental landscape has, in the ISF, been replaced by the wide-eyed child-like desire to understand the true nature of phenomena. This may initially feel confusing because phenomena when viewed through ISF lenses are no longer fixed in space and time, nor do they necessarily follow undeviating linear courses. All of these are artefacts of a world seen from the perspective of separateness consciousness and through the mindset of one of the VP positions. Instead within the ISF, phenomena are experienced as part of a constant flux within a larger complex system where the world is a continuous interplay of a myriad of Poincaré-like possibilities.** As such, we can choose to be that child scientist, that child artist again, and regain our vulnerability and something of our original innocence.
[**Jules Henri Poincaré thought about intuition as choices made by a pre-intellectual awareness in a subliminal self. According to author Robert Pirsig, “Poincaré’s contemporaries refused that facts are pre-selected because they thought that to do so would destroy the validity of the scientific method. They presumed that ‘pre-selected facts’ meant that ‘truth is whatever you like’ and called his ideas conventionalism. They vigorously ignored the truth that their own ‘principle of objectivity’ is not an observable fact – therefore, by their own criteria should be put in a state of suspended animation. They felt they had to do this because if they didn’t, the entire philosophic underpinning of science would collapse.” “To solve the problem of what is mathematical truth… [Poincaré asserted] we should first ask ourselves what is the nature of geometric axioms. Are they synthetic a priori judgments as Kant said? That is, do they exist as a fixed part of man’s consciousness independently of experience, and uncreated by experience? Poincaré thought not. They would then impose themselves upon us with such force, we could not conceive of the contrary proposition, or build upon it a theoretic edifice. There would be no non-Euclidian geometry.” …“ Poincaré concluded that the axioms of geometry are conventions, our choice among all possible conventions is guided by experimental facts, but it remains free, and is limited only by the necessity of avoiding all contradiction. Axioms are merely disguised definitions… Geometry is not true… It is advantageous.” …“Which facts are to re-appear? Simple facts.” …“How do you choose the facts? You have to create a method and many have been imagined since none have imposed itself. Method is precisely this choice of facts.” Pirsig, Robert (1974). Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Quill: William Morrow, N.Y. 1999 edition, pp 263-265. (First quote segment from page 267.)]