Integral Naked 05.28.07 - Hal and Sidra Stone: The History of Voice Dialogue. Part 2. Relationship, Communication, and the Aware Ego.

The History of Voice Dialogue. Part 2. Relationship, Communication, and the Aware Ego. (37:00)
Hal & Sidra Stone with Bert Parlee

Click Here for Free Sample!

The founders of Voice Dialogue—the technique from which Genpo Roshi created the Big Mind Process—share the inner workings of this powerful psychotherapeutic tool, more than three decades in the making.

Who: Hal and Sidra Stone, creators of Voice Dialogue (the founding component of Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind Process) and the Psychology of the Aware Ego, and Bert Parlee, an Integral Life Coach, I-I seminar trainer, and co-Director of the Integral Psychotherapy Center at Integral University.

Relevance: There are many ways that our "disowned selves," or aspects of consciousness that we have rejected, can come back to make our lives difficult, in the form of neurosis, projections, psychosomatic symptoms, and so on. Voice Dialogue is a unique psychotherapeutic technique that has the power to address, liberate, and integrate a wide range of these "disowned selves." In the context of a truly Integral approach, which recognizes developmental structures of consciousness and the major states of consciousness, this is a wonderful tool.

Summary: Hal and Sidra, who are now in their 80’s and 70’s respectively, have spent the past 35 years teaching together on the topic of Voice Dialogue and the Psychology of the Aware Ego—and boy do they have some stories to tell! As they relate, when speaking to various selves within a single individual, that person may experience different physical symptoms, different postures, and, no kidding, even different eye colors. The interior impact can be even more striking: aspects of self that one didn’t even know one had can be brought to light, shared, and made a conscious and functional expression of the Aware Ego.

The Aware Ego, as Sidra and Hal explain, is that mature aspect of self that can hear both sides of a particular inner continuum (e.g., Outgoing versus Shy, Generous versus Stingy, Impulsive versus Calculating, etc.), both voices within your very own self, and make a decision based on the input of both. Hal and Sidra go on to explain the important energetic aspect of working with different voices, whereby the same exact words—e.g., "I don’t think we can afford to buy that new car right now"—can communicate dramatically different messages depending on whether voiced by the Judgmental Mother, the Cautious Accountant, the Worried Child, or the Aware Ego.

One of the wonderful contributions of Voice Dialogue—and of Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind Process, which uses the same basic technique to rapidly access genuine spiritual states of consciousness—is the simple practice of naming your experience in a practical and intuitive way. The inner sense of freedom one can achieve by simply naming and interacting with different aspects of your inner world is quite powerful, following the basic consciousness-growth principle of "making subject an object" (see Scholar’s Notes), and this kind of work is highly recommended as a potential part of one’s Integral Life Practice.

Scholar’s Notes (for Advanced Students and Curious Listeners):

This discussion is primarily meant to draw out the details and history of the Voice Dialogue system. As such, there is little AQAL discussion or Integral contextualization in the discussion. Integral Theory views Voice Dialogue as a superb tool to reach certain types of shadow elements, alienated potentials, and subpersonalities. As for "levels and lines"" (or simply "altitude"), a key element to remember is that Voice Dialogue and other similar techniques can reach past and present levels of development, but cannot itself call forth higher or not-yet-emerged levels of development. Technically, it can access the embedded unconscious and the submergent unconscious, but not the emergent unconscious (although the more that present translations are made healthy and functional, the more likely higher translations are to emerge).

The embedded unconscious is the level of development with which the self is identified at any given moment. As Robert Kegan summarized development, "The subject of one stage becomes the object of the subject of the next." The "subject of one stage" is so identified with that stage that it cannot see it as an object, but rather uses it as something with which to see the world. That is the embedded unconscious. Should any aspect of a stage or level of development become either fixated, on the one hand, or repressed, on the other, various shadow or subconscious material is generated. This is generically referred to as the submergent unconscious (or even the "repressed-submergent" unconscious, for severely dissociated material).

Voice Dialogue, and similar techniques, are a wonderful way to contact any alienated material from previous stages of development, giving voice to the hidden aspects of your own self. And it can help make your present subject more easily seen and voiced, thus helping development itself unfold more quickly and gracefully—i.e., more integrally. Again, higher or not-yet-emerged stages cannot fully be called forth (i.e., the emergent unconscious cannot be fully contacted). But giving voice to the alienated parts of yourself right now can help give voice to your even greater self of tomorrow.

*****

There is a special quality that comes along with Hal and Sidra teaching, talking, laughing, and sharing together that is almost irresistibly inviting—how can they sound so wise, and yet so clearly lighthearted at the same time? We invite you to listen in, and find out for yourself….

To listen to Part 1 of this dialogue, click here.

keywords: Voice Dialogue, Psychology of the Aware Ego, Big Mind Process, "What Is Altitude?," levels and lines, the Aware Ego, the Judgmental Mother, the Victim Daughter, the Protective Father, the Primary Self, the Witness, enlightened relationship, Robert Kegan, Integral Life Practice, Integral University, "disowned" selves, "What Is Integral?," Ken Wilber, A Theory of Everything.

most memorable moment: "We get the charge of divinity when we’re with somebody and they’re in a huge fight—at that moment, we feel God….

BOOKMARKS: