How is your integral life praxis, Anna?

Integral life practice means to me to stretch myself and develop the skills necessary for making me, my family, my community, this world and our planet better than it is. Integral life practice means to keep a balance between these four: mind, heart, body and soul.

MIND or Mental Clarity: As I learn and experiment, I continue to learn, laugh, wonder, and be in awe. I’m still in the process of defining myself and changing myself.

HEART or Emotional Balance: I‘m a mother of three children and this field of parenting is my best integral practice. All the dimensions, challenges and opportunities that come alive in looking at the parenting journey through an integral lens make it one of the most radically transformative experiences available.

BODY or Physical Health: Well, I love and accept my body. I’m thankful to my body for keeping me alive, for carrying me to places I want to go, for allowing me to enjoy music, the sunset, children, dancing, etc… So I really take care of my body. I practice yoga, jogging and swimming as often as possible, and do not forget the healthy sleep 🙂

SOUL or Spiritual Awakening: Mindfulness is my big project here. I try to add mindfulness to everything I do. I practice conscious breathing. At any time throughout the day, wherever I’m. It helps me to be calm, relaxed and peaceful. It helps me to stop thinking so much, calming my monkey mind :-))

What is Cosmopolitan Communication for you?

CC includes a lot of aspects of communication, but the most important for me is paying attention to the patterns of communication that we enact on a daily basis, and… acting. Acting on dysfunctional patterns means to me not just accepting things “as they are” but confront myself about patterns that don’t work well and seriously asking myself how I can make them better. I really love, what Barnett Pearce said: “We need to take every small moments seriously”… It is why the cosmopolitan communication is for me to find simple, but meaningful ways to enrich everyday interactions.

Global Integral Competence is the ability to make this world better for us, and for our descendants, for our world, and our planet. Ken Wilber wrote: “integral simply means to integrate, to bring together, to join, to link, to embrace…” etc. In this sense the Integral Competence means for me to find out the unity-in-diversity, keep on looking for shared commonalities along with our wonderful differences. The investigation of Integral Theory is not just an intellectual exercise for the aspiring academic, but it can change the world. By using this map, or lens through which to see this world, new possibilities arise wherein we can consciously join the evolutionary processes to create, renew, revitalize, and reshape our planet. Integral competence means to see more, understand more, and do more.

How do you experience it?

Every day, every moment I try to be present in the fullest way possible, bringing my whole self, but I’m still in the process of defining myself and changing myself. Dealing with other people I feel myself to be part of the game, aware of all the players and myself together as a whole. I believe that we are all interconnected and constantly changing and flowing not always in predictable directions. So paying attention and living right NOW and HERE, is what this is all about.

More about Anna and her activities you can find at: INTERKULTURA