For self development addicts.

Rediscovering completeness

March 7th, by Attila Borcsa in Vertical thinking, 4 Comments

Society at a smaller or larger scale demands that we stand for certain values at certain times. This might be something we gladly do or maybe with less enthusiasm. MatryoshkaSometimes we decide on our own drives, sometimes we are forced to take sides. We usually define ourselves in time - consciously or not - among these decisions.

We live lives that seem incomplete at times. Often feeling diverging motivations in ourselves. Who can say that he was always following the same drives that he is after in the present?

When it comes to placing my vision on personal development, I tend to say it is a holistic approach. The holistic approach means seeing yourself as a whole living in bigger totalities. Picture for a moment a Matryoshka doll. I’m sure you’ve seen them, the nested dolls, one inside the other. This is the most suggestive representation of the human being as part of bigger wholes I’ve ever seen.

“The whole is more than the sum of its parts”

Aristotle defined the whole as being more than just the sum of its parts. The main goal of holistic personal development is to help you realize this in yourself and in your life. There is both the realization of inner and outer completeness. This might seem as a separation, and it is at first. But as they both develop in time, their unity is unfolding and they are not contradicting any more.

Experiencing completeness or unity at different levels, at different times are special moments in life. Can you recall one? How would you describe it?

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Comments on "Rediscovering completeness":

  1. kulcsi says:
    March 25th, 2007 at 7:45 am

    This principle of whole-sum was expressed very well in Gestalt psychology.
    In the other hand I think the completness experience can be linked to the concept of flow discovered by Csikszentmihályi Mihály.

  2. Attila Borcsa says:
    March 25th, 2007 at 10:16 am

    Thanks for pointing out the Gestalt connection. I am not 100% sure, but as far as I remember it concerns perception. Which still is related to holistic approaches.

    Regarding the flow, I am not quite sure how you mean it. My approach is more likely to be understood if you think of Jung’s syncronicity. When the inner and the outer are in perfect concordance. Isn’t flow more about experiencing happiness in some sort of action?

  3. kulcsi says:
    March 25th, 2007 at 12:07 pm

    Csikszentmihályi has pointed out that flow can be linked not only to joy or some sort of happiness. Flow is finally a state of mind, an experience of connection between the active voice and the object. One can have this experience even on a funeral. I think flow is about feeling completeness, it is about feeling the union between you and the outworld.

    Yes, it concerns perception, but the Gestalt psychology goes further and explains many psychic phenomena from this point of view. It is very regrettable fact that Gestalt psychology has sabbotaged by the first and second world waar. The principles developed by this school had big impact on humanistic psychology on the fifties. Gestaltism was a really holistic approach…

  4. teodora says:
    March 26th, 2007 at 10:04 am

    I tend to feel more complete when I feel more empty. But my world is upside down anyway :)

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