Notice when one part of you is running the whole
Spot the part of your life — work self, achiever, rational mind — that has taken over and is crowding the rest out.
Why it works
In a healthy holarchy each part does its job inside the whole; in the pathological form Wilber describes, one holon dominates to the detriment of all. Turned inward, the same picture describes a life in which one capacity — reasoning, productivity, caretaking — keeps expanding and the others shrink to serve it. Seeing it as a part overreaching, rather than as who you simply are, makes it possible to give the other parts a say again without attacking the dominant one.
How to do it
- List the main parts of your life as roles or capacities: worker, friend, body, partner, the playful one, the thinker.
- Next to each, write roughly how much of last week it actually got to decide.
- Circle the part that decided most, and write what it would say to defend that. Take its reasons seriously.
- Give one other part a fixed, protected slot this week that the dominant part is not allowed to cancel.
Evidence
Puhakka’s 1995 review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality reports Wilber’s account of pathological hierarchy as one holon assuming dominance to the detriment of all. Esbjörn-Hargens describes each level as both a part of a larger structure and a whole in itself. Applying the dominator pattern to the parts of one life is an extension of the framework, not a claim made or tested in those sources. (anecdotal)
A season where one part dominates — a newborn, an exam, a launch — can be a reasonable choice. The concern is a takeover that stops being chosen.
Sources
- Puhakka, K. (1995). Restoring connectedness in the Kosmos: A healing tale of a deeper order [Review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, by K. Wilber]. The Humanistic Psychologist, 23(3), 373–391.
- Esbjörn-Hargens, S. (2010). An Overview of Integral Theory: An All-Inclusive Framework for the Twenty-First Century. In S. Esbjörn-Hargens (Ed.), Integral Theory in Action: Applied, Theoretical, and Constructive Perspectives on the AQAL Model. SUNY Press. (First circulated as Integral Institute Resource Paper No. 1, 2009.)
Common mistake
Declaring war on the dominant part — trying to stop thinking, stop working, stop caring for others. It is a part that has overreached, not an enemy, and the whole still needs it.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Holons, Holarchy and “Transcend and Include”, Made Practical
- Ask what each earlier self gave you, and what you dropped
Walk back through the people you have been and list, for each, one capacity you kept and one you left behind.
- Reclaim one capacity you cut off on the way “up”
Pick one capacity you disowned while becoming more mature — feeling, play, need, belonging — and give it a small, regular place again.
- Release the old identity, keep what it built in you
When you leave a role, faith, team or culture behind, separate the identity you are letting go of from the capacities it gave you.
- Treat the stages you outgrew with respect when you meet them in others
Notice contempt for people who see the world the way you used to, and treat it as a sign of exclusion rather than growth.
- Look at a problem as a whole and as a part
When you are pulled between your own needs and a group’s, describe the situation once from each face of the holon.
- Check whether a hierarchy you are in grows people or dominates them
Ask whether the ranking you live inside exists to build people’s capacities or to keep power where it is.
Related concepts
- Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (AQAL), Made Practical
Five elements for catching what your view of a situation leaves out, held as a map rather than a truth
- Systems Thinking
Seeing structure instead of events — and the leverage that creates
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
- Spiral Dynamics, Made Practical
Understanding how value systems develop and how to navigate across them
- Shadow Work
Meeting the parts of yourself you have been ignoring
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