I GO! Edition 27: Wholeness 2.0: the Radical Power of Not Needing to Be Right

This week: London

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it” Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics)

You know what’s truly radical in today’s world? Being uncertain - and not clinging to a particular ‘truth’.

Let’s call it belief plasticity.

In an age of polarisation and hardened certainties, the ability to hold space for doubt, nuance, evolution and transformation, the ability of holding opposing perspectives without collapsing into "either/or" thinking is the mark of a true great soul.

This relates to one of my favourite words in the English language - agency.

Agency is the simple, but very empowering idea that we are not merely spectators of life but actors in it. It is the capacity to choose and the courage to act - to influence the course of our own lives, and the world.

Agency avoids extremes: it doesn’t deny structural injustice or the weight of circumstances, but it also refuses to surrender entirely to them, to be a victim. Agency is the space where possibility exists.

And in yet another week filled with cruelty-dripping, hate-filled headlines, where we feel so powerless, I found myself wondering: is politics the only way forward? Activism? Or… might there be another way?

Because there is another way. Psychologist Jack Beauregard calls it the Regenerative Path Forward.

Now I usually avoid political commentary here - except to insist that restoring the feminine principle could ease much of our collective suffering by bringing balance back. My reluctance is partly due to the fact I am constantly questioning my own worldview: hovering somewhere between classical liberal values (fiscal discipline, limited state intervention, a very strong sense of personal responsibility and independence, self-actuation and meritocracy) and progressive commitments (inclusion, justice, fairness, a deep love and feeling of connection to this world and people), part impermanence – understanding that nothing lasts, neither situations nor beliefs, being too attached to them is pointless as the world is in constant flux. Part...who cares what I think anyway? I’m no expert.

Which brings me back to Beauregard. His vision of transcendent wholeness offers something beyond binary thinking. Instead of collapsing into sides, it invites us to hold opposites and use the tension that ensues as a source of creativity – a Regenerative Path Forward.

Amid the noise of populism, polarisation, and discord, Beauregard invites us to revisit Carl Jung’s concept of self-actualisation (in very simple terms - and trained psychologists will probably sneer - listening to our subconscious more attentively and accepting our contradictions to become more whole, more ourselves, to thrive) but with a twist: personal wholeness as a stepping stone to transcendent wholeness that spreads onto the community.

I understand and interpret it like this:

Wholeness 101: The Personal Journey

Ordinary wholeness is about accepting yourself - integrating your past, reducing inner conflict by accepting paradox, expressing your true nature. It’s extremely important and difficult work on yourself. But it’s limited, because it’s still mostly about change in you.

Wholeness 2.0: The Transcendent Leap

Beauregard's Balanced Paradigm suggests a higher form of wholeness where opposites (good/bad, left/right, self/other, mind/heart) aren’t enemies but complementary forces. From this perspective, tension becomes generative, not divisive and becomes a source of creativity, helping unleash our human potential.

When turned outwards, wholeness can help us experience "inter-being": a deep sense of connection with all life, in all its contradictions. We learn to see the partial truth in contradictory positions, and the larger truth that emerges when both are held in creative tension. This shift transforms conflict into breakthrough thinking and even evolutionary leaps in consciousness.

In this space, wholeness becomes a dynamic force that radiates outward, as inner coherence enables new possibilities.

Hopefully you are still following here. In other words, it's about holding opposing perspectives without collapsing into "either/or" thinking, rippling through the community, healing cultural divides. Wow!

Transcendent wholeness is about YOU becoming the pattern of balance itself. You can then become a catalyst, rippling coherence far beyond your own self.

Transcendent wholeness is a higher kind of agency - not just the power to act for ourselves, but the ability to generate wholeness that spills outward, shifting not only us but those around us.

Maybe that’s the invitation of this moment: to practice agency not just as self-determination, but as sovereign presence - a balance that heals us inside and ripples beyond.

Ensō (円相), or Zen circle, a symbol of impermanence, linked in traditional Japanese aesthetics to the concept of wabi-sabi (侘び寂び) - acceptance of transience and imperfection.