Tell a passing state from a lasting stage

After a powerful experience, separate what you glimpsed in a state from how you actually make sense of things day to day.

Por que funciona

Integral theory distinguishes states, which are temporary (moods, flow, a meditative opening, a peak experience), from stages, which are relatively stable ways of making meaning. In Integral Spirituality Wilber argues that people interpret even profound states through the stage they are at. Keeping the two apart prevents a common error: treating a striking experience as proof that you have permanently changed, or dismissing it because ordinary life has not.

Como fazer

1. Recall a recent experience that felt unusually clear, expansive or peaceful.
2. Write what you saw or felt during it, as plainly as you can.
3. Write how you handled a hard conversation or setback in the week after it.
4. Compare the two. Note which parts of the experience show up in ordinary behaviour, and which have not yet.
5. Choose one small, repeated situation in which to practise bringing the first into the second.

Evidência

Esbjörn-Hargens’s overview describes states as temporary (seconds to months) and distinguishes trained "state-stages" from the "structure-stages" of psychological development. Wilber develops the distinction in Integral Spirituality (2006), where states and stages are mapped on separate axes (often called the Wilber–Combs lattice), and in his 2003 outline of integral psychology. The distinction is theoretical; it has not been tested as a practice. (mechanistic)

Wilber’s account of how states and stages relate changed over his career, and commentators disagree about it. Use the distinction as a question to ask, not a settled fact about consciousness.

Fontes

• 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.)
• Wilber, K. (2006). Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World. Integral Books.
• Wilber, K. (2003). Waves, streams, states, and self: An outline of an integral psychology. The Humanistic Psychologist, 31(2–3), 22–49.

Erro comum

Concluding that a powerful experience "didn’t count" because life still feels ordinary. States are real; the point is that turning them into a lasting way of seeing usually takes repetition.