Beyond The Integrative Third Way

Some of us are now seeing and living a reality beyond polarity management. One that’s about the expression of wholeness.?

We manage polarities to help systems aka people relate better. We surrender either/or thinking for both/and. What happens after the surrender? Perhaps there is only me and you, mine and yours. Learn more about polarities here.

Managing polarities well lead us to integration. What we call the Integrative Third Way (thanks, Kelly Lewis and Brian Emerson) or what others refer to as The Law of Three (thanks, G. I. Gurdjieff). This Integrative Third Way or Law of Three makes possible Wholeness Expressed. Here, we live as though our concerns and what matters most to us are already integrated, because they are. All is a whole. One.

Look at any polarity map and you will notice a cross at the center. This is not to imply that the creator(s) of the map secretly, or overtly, infused Christian ideology in their framework. No. The cross existed long before Christianity. And like then, it illustrates the crucifixion of the ego, or transcending the ego, so as to become more. To become the whole. We must give up who we think and feel we are, what we think we’re here to do, what we believe is owed to us, and the story we have about our origin. We surrender those things for the whole.

What does living this Wholeness Expressed look like? Well, we move beyond thinking about both/and to living its possibilities. Here, you are me. I am you. We are One. Ubuntu (thanks, Nelson Mandela and the Zulu nation). I am, because you are. This is the essence of being integrated humans. Here, conflict is engaged and resolved from a place of "pro-relational sacredness" - all is in service of honoring the sacred that is our relationship. Nothing I do could possibly be without you or against you and nothing you do could possible be without me or against me. There is only MWe (a term I heard from Daniel Siegel at the 2023 Inner Development Goals Summit in Sweden). There is no separation between We and Me. The Self here is boundaryless. Or, it includes all living things. We have truly become The Beloved Community (thanks, Josiah Royce and MLK) where we are living as One. No navigation necessary. We surrender and go around in the Circle, or cycle.

Put two things together and you get one thing. 1+1=1. Both/and being. Now is the time to live more as that One thing, with more compassion, love, understanding, and appreciation. At home. In our communities. Inside our organizations. And in the world. There is nothing outside this One thing.

How do MWe live this One thing? Mwe replace that “i” with “o”. We not only live, but also Love.?