Source Integrates: Teal Swan’s Spiritual Teachings — Enneagram Point 4
This article is part of a series called The Illuminating Enneagram.
How did we get here? Long ago, in a void-space of timeless nothingness, the Source of all creation gave rise to a thought. That thought was: “What am I?” Jarringly, this single thought caused the consciousness of Source to fracture into infinitely many aspects of itself, beginning a limitless journey of self-discovery for the (up to this point) unselfconscious Source of all creation. Each experience of consciousness, from this point on, would be Source discovering answers to “What am I?” Although now fragmented into a multiplicity of dimensions and beings, all these manifestations of Source would inform it of what its infinite potential can become by — how else? — having actually become that. Becoming a dog shows Source what it’s like to be a dog; becoming a cloud shows Source what it’s like to be a cloud; becoming love shows Source what it’s like to be love. All manifest phenomena are Source exploring the unending possibilities of what it can become, even up to the present moment of manifesting as a human being reading this article. Yet it all traces back to a question emerging out of complete mystery. What am I?
Origin stories of the universe, such as this one, are not precisely drawn maps of how things have come to be. Rather, they are stories the human mind can wrap itself around, oversimplifying something beyond comprehension, yet — if they are well crafted — still delivering an important kernel of truth. The origin story above is related to us by Teal Swan, a spiritual teacher born with extrasensory abilities and a less obstructed connection with her eternal spiritual self (compared to the average human, who may forget theirs entirely), allowing her to bring through awareness and information that most people would find very difficult, if not impossible, to connect with on their own merits. A prolific content creator, Teal speaks confidently and lucidly on an incredibly wide range of topics: from angels and ascended masters, to childhood trauma, to spiritual dieting, and everything in between. It’s no wonder she has become one of the most popular contemporary teachers in the spiritual field. After all, there’s something in her content for everyone. Nonetheless, there is a set of themes that continually reappear in her extensive body of work, helping us to identify the “real Teal” as a master of shadow work, an encourager of following one’s joy, and a guide to living a fully authentic life.
As is true for all teachings in this series, the Enneagram demystifies the overall philosophy or orientation of a spiritual teaching, exposing how it jives with a particular Enneagram point, a style of perceiving and relating to the world. Even if Teal Swan did not self-identify as having personality Type 4 on the “About” section of her website, there would still be more than enough signs in her writings and videos to decidedly indicate this energy. Point 4, home of “The Individualist,” resonates with mystery, creativity, beauty, romance, uniqueness and individualism, depth, art (especially for self-expression), authenticity, intimacy and love. Going clockwise around the symbol, 4 is the last point encountered in the heart center, just before we cross the biggest gap on the Enneagram — between 4 and 5 — which suggests that 4 is deeply introspective, as the emotional energies of the heart center start to meld into the awareness center, the head center. Eli Jaxon-Bear has suggested that the large gap at the bottom of the Enneagram symbol alludes to a “black hole” in the center of the personality structure, which all types are dimly aware of, but 4 and 5 feel the most, since they are the closest to it. Both personality types sense the black hole as emptiness or absence. Fives retreat from it (and from life) into the mind, which can make them feel disembodied. Fours, on the other hand, are inwardly torn between various emotional selves they sense within. This leads them to struggle with not feeling a clear, singular sense of self. On the downside, this state of “no sense of self” can lead 4’s to descend into apathy and despair, surrounded by a world of people severely lacking in emotional intelligence and avoidant of pain, amplifying 4’s feelings of not belonging and not being understood. On the upside, 4’s longing to feel whole can set them on an inner journey of expanding self-awareness and uncovering the beauty within.
The personal origin story of Teal Swan is very sad and heartbreaking. As explored in a documentary film made about her, Open Shadow: The Story of Teal Swan (2017), Teal’s childhood was engulfed in the darkness brought upon her by a psychopath and satanic cult member, who tortured and molested her, subjected her to cult rituals, conditioned her to believe false and harmful mental programs, and utterly dehumanized her. Teal’s years of subjugation to cruelty at the hands of that man amounts to one of the most terrifying, nightmarish experiences a human being can go through — in life, let alone in childhood — stealing from childhood all of its usual bliss and innocence, putting trauma there instead. There are horrible and agonizing physical experiences that human beings can have. However, nothing compares to the pain and suffering that can be inflicted upon a person’s psyche. Teal’s abuse-ridden childhood is the most life-destroying, most awful series of events I personally have ever heard of. Words fail to do justice to that bottomless pit of hell she somehow endured. That Teal survived at all is miraculous, let alone that she’s now — 20 years later, as of this writing — a successful spiritual teacher with a global audience.
The simultaneity of Teal being both a survivor of intense cult abuse, at the same time as a highly intelligent and revolutionary teacher of spirituality — plus many other things to boot — makes her very difficult to understand for the average person. Teal breaks just about every mould and box that people try to put her in. In terms of the Enneagram, Type 4 is pained by a chronic sensation of not being seen and understood. Although a limiting identification with being a victim may form around this, generally the 4 person’s feelings of being unseen and misunderstood are based in actual experiences, whether those experiences were more prevalent in the past or continue in the present. The reality of who Teal Swan is as a person, for example, illustrates how the 4’s inner world can be deep and complex — impossible to fully grasp by those who cannot go to a certain depth or hold a certain amount of complexity — resulting in many unwanted run-ins with people misconstruing her motives and character. To add insult to injury, people go out of their way to misrepresent Teal’s nuanced teachings and demonize her as a person, putting mistrust and prejudice into the space where she makes efforts to get her message across. This exacerbates her potential audience’s skepticism towards her and their bias towards negative interpretations of her life-affirming offerings. And yet, people who are “tapped in” to spiritual consciousness and centered in their power of discernment tend to recognize in Teal an extraordinary conduit for game-changing information, perhaps unmatched in her excellence at disseminating this information and bringing people closer to the highest vibrations of Source itself. One of my hopes in sharing this article is that, with the Enneagram’s power to illuminate, it will help us understand the teachings of this unconventional person: to see how Teal’s work is congruent with the wisdom inherent to Enneagram Point 4, simply expressed at a high level of awareness.
Trauma, Fragmentation, and Parts Work
Having survived and healed the degree of trauma that Teal has, despite the immense difficulty of it, does result in at least one positive aspect: it makes her one of the greatest teachers of healing trauma on earth. The origin story we began with is not just a story for Teal. It’s a reality she directly perceives. Source or universal consciousness is fragmented into many aspects. That original rupture within Source can be treated (and other teachers discuss this, too) as the original wounding, the first trauma within Source itself, which led to the many existent fragments (dogs, clouds, people, etc.) we are seeing all around us. We are all expressions of Source, but Source experiencing itself in a fragmentary way. Interestingly, part of Teal’s teaching is that not only is Source fragmented into a multitude of aspects, but it also possesses a fractal nature. This means that, since fractals are patterns that repeat themselves at different scales, the fragmentation we see at one level — as people, for instance — is also replicated within people. What are the implications of this?
Teal likes to use the analogy that consciousness is comparable to water. When a river comes to an impasse, it divides itself into two smaller rivers. The impact of trauma on consciousness is that it causes consciousness to break or fragment into units of consciousness. The “river” of an individual’s consciousness fragments into smaller “streams” of consciousness. After the occurrence of the trauma, that person’s consciousness is no longer undivided. It has been split into two parts: a vulnerable self that carries the burden of the experience, and another self that learn to cope with the trauma now held in the body. (As an example: if the trauma involved a very anxious state of lostness and confusion, the coping, “protector” part may take on the role of understanding everything to fend off confusion). Because of their singularity, our personal names (John, Susan, etc.) suggest the idea to our mind that we are singular. However, the naming of something doesn’t necessarily reflect the true reality of the thing in question. The psychologically revolutionary insight of parts work models (e.g., Internal Family Systems) is precisely that we are not singular, we are not one consciousness or one person, despite how our names make it seem. Looking inside, a legion of different aspects of self — with different perspectives, feelings, needs, desires, and so on — are readily available to be interacted with and share all about their world of experience, separate and distinct from the worlds of the other parts within us. This is the completely mind-boggling realization: we contain multitudes of parts, and the contradictory thoughts, feelings, and impulses in our life are due to conflict between inner parts. It’s not just a metaphor: “parts” are the real way our psyche has fragmented into separately perceiving units of consciousness as a result of trauma. And so, we are not one singular unit. Rather, we are a collective of parts. The many parts within are also Source’s replication of the pattern of fragmentation on the next level down. And the fractal continues.
Over the course of my time observing correlations between people’s personal psychology and what they are drawn to in the spiritual and self-help field, I have noticed a lot of people with a core Enneagram point of 4 resonate both with the central premise of parts work — that we are not one self but a collective of many different selves — and with the approach of parts work to inner growth and healing. Teal, for example, sees parts work as one of the highest approaches a person can utilize to get resolve with, or make genuine progress relative to many issues in life. She has even created her own methods of parts work called The Completion Process. But if people of every personality type benefit from parts work, why are 4’s especially drawn to it?
One reason 4’s are drawn to parts work is that it’s primarily an emotional modality, oriented in the direction of holding space for the emotions of parts and bringing about healing. Another reason they are drawn to it is that parts work deals directly with the inner experience of fragmentation. Generalizing, 4’s tend to resonate more with the picture of the fragmented psyche and find it to make more sense, compared to other personality types. Their resonance with it may stem from an unconscious tendency to identify with their wounding, which began early in life. In addition, fragmentation makes sense to 4’s because they are time and again unable to reach a verdict about their own inner world, puzzled by looking inside and not finding a solid center but instead, as Riso and Hudson said so well, “a kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting pattern of emotional reactions.” The Enneagram field hasn’t yet recognized this strong bond between Type 4 and fragmentation, which is surely due to the fact that fragmentation is not a widely understood concept and (the other side of that coin, which is) that the parts work model of consciousness has a growing number of enthusiasts but is far from the prevailing view in the field of psychology. However, we definitely see many 4’s embracing parts work modalities, intuitively recognizing the gentle, flexible, “all parts welcome” approach as a way they can address their personal issues without having to identify with only one part of themself or leave other parts behind. This is, in other words, an approach they can fully get on board with.
Yet another reason 4’s love parts work is that every parts work session enhances self-awareness, something 4’s instinctively seek for and celebrate having attained. The heart center (2, 3, 4) is thought of as the seat of identity, and Point 4 is connected to the search for self-understanding and the deep mystery of our spiritual nature, our deeper identity. This again hearkens back to the question: What am I? As we do the inner work and go through our own process of meeting and forming relationships with our parts, the 4 in all of us feels rewarded by the discoveries about ourself made along the way, and the ever-growing appreciation of ourselves as a diverse collective of parts or an “ecosystem,” as Teal would say. A parts work session may lead to an awareness of why we may feel abandoned in relationships, or the origins of the tendency to guard and protect our heart. It may show us why we are doubtful and hesitant to move in a certain direction in life, or reveal the deeper reasons underlying a feeling someone else triggered in us. Regardless, one thing is certain: we never walk away from a parts work session empty-handed. There’s always a boon we bring back to the surface from our excavations of the subconscious mind.
Because most of our parts are unconscious to us until we bring the light of awareness to them, Teal considers parts work to be a shadow work process. That is, it’s making conscious subconsciously held aspects of ourselves (shadows) so they can cease driving our behaviors, receive love and acceptance, and eventually merge with our conscious self. Teal’s passion for uncovering shadows and bringing them into the light traces back to the unimaginable suffering she experienced as a child. If she would’ve tried to avoid herself and bypass the trauma that lived on inside of her, she would’ve continued to be miserable, an empty shell of a person withering away in life. However, since she chose the path of courageously facing her inner demons, she appears on the world stage today offerings tools and methods for people to face their own inner pain. We need to turn towards our pain, rather than inventing coping mechanisms and distractions to get away from it, or else it continues to run the show of our lives. Only by giving compassionate attention to our pain and being completely present with it does it receive what it needs to heal and come to resolution. This insight can be seen as the shining of Enneagram Point 4’s wisdom-light. At the same time, it’s what drives Teal to focus so much on shadow work and why she has made it her forte as a spiritual teacher. When humanity is seen with eyes of compassion, the natural impulse to help goes towards healing the pain they don’t know they’re in.
Success, Joy, and Creative Participation
Serving to balance and complement the 4 energy, Teal also has a 3 wing, the energy of the “Achiever,” which plays into her teachings in interesting ways. Point 3, when it shows up at the personality level, orients towards success, however that’s defined by the person. Generally speaking, Teal defines success as the achievement of manifesting what is desired by the self. Whether that’s having a certain job, or a relationship, a financial goal or a spiritual state, it’s the manifestation of that which is of interest to Teal, because that allows for not only the expansion of the individual’s consciousness but of the universe’s consciousness. In this context, Teal discovered that the most powerful and efficient way for a person to manifest what they’re wanting is by bringing all parts of themself into alignment first. These are the teachings of resolving resistance, because to bring all parts into alignment with a given direction or goal means to get to know each part of self well enough that it becomes clear why it’s resistant to what is wanted (by another part), and then working with that part to see what it needs to be provided with or what needs to take place in order for it to feel good about moving forward in the desired direction. The opposite of this is what Teal calls “bulldozing,” which is just deciding that the thoughts and feelings of one or more parts of self are irrelevant and moving ahead with the plan anyway, in spite of them, rolling over them like a bulldozer. Everything in Teal’s teachings is against that, or stated in a positive way, everything in Teal’s teachings is for the consideration and inclusion of all parts of self. The huge benefit of this is, in this practice of integration and ultimately love, it gets rid of the sensation of being at war with, cutting off, or betraying any part of oneself. Even on the level of pure efficiency, this practice of resolving the resistance of all one’s inner parts allows a person to become a powerhouse of manifestation, because there is no part of them sabotaging or applying the brakes to the process of going for what is wanted. The desired result is virtually guaranteed. This is why she calls it “the greatest tip to success.”
Teal sometimes refers to following one’s desires as being guided by a “North Star,” an idea which is languaged a little bit differently in a tattoo on her arm: “Follow your joy.” While there’s a general consensus that the “chief feature” of Enneagram Point 4 is melancholy, some teachers see the core essence of this point as joy. Joy is what makes our hearts sing; Teal calls it the energy of “exalted happiness.” All people can orient towards joy to live a life more inspired by their hearts. For 4’s especially, since their core point is so connected to the heart center, it becomes very important for them to notice and prioritize what brings them joy. This orientation will help them save themselves during dark nights of the soul, when depression, shame and apathy hang over them like opaque clouds blocking out the sun. It is by making time and space for doing things which summon joy that gets 4’s (and all of us!) reconnected with love and a sense of optimism about life. The mind’s thoughts follow the feelings of the heart.
With joy and desire having such an important place within her teachings, it makes a lot of sense that Teal doesn’t share the same thinking as other spiritual philosophies which guide towards detaching from desire. Although she sees the value in resting in the present moment and giving up the chase of desire as a wise strategy to be at peace and fully appreciate the Now, at the same time, she perceives that we as spiritual beings have become physically incarnate so as to participate in life, which means to “cooperate with” (her language) our own desires and make efforts to achieve them. Otherwise, we risk falling into the trap of taking a physical form and entering into the game of life only to sit on the sidelines of life and not participate in life’s creative activity. And we are here, she suggests, to play the game of life wholeheartedly: holding nothing back and fully aligning with our joy, inspiring others to do the same. What brings us the highest joy is the greatest contribution we can make to the whole of humanity.
The Presence of Point 1, Alignment, and Discipline
As discussed in the previous article, each Enneagram point connects to others by way of lines, which have different meanings. Point 4 relates to Point 1 via a line of integration, representing an evolution of consciousness in which 4-energy becomes more balanced and harmonious within a person when they let the positive aspects of 1-energy influence them. I discussed some qualities associated with Point 1 previously, however, each Enneagram point can be seen from different perspectives and shows up a bit differently depending on who is expressing it. The energy of Point 1 is hugely important to Teal and her work, and here it shows up as: continual focus on being in alignment; service or contribution to others, based in compassion; practicing healthy discipline; and a commitment to living a value-driven life.
Turning first to the aspect of alignment, Russ Hudson describes this aspect in connection with Point 1 as the sense of being “aligned with something bigger, aligned with something real.” It’s a kind of felt-sense that we get in our body and energetically when we are on the mark or on point in a certain way. It’s like hitting the bullseye with a dart. Teal’s own definition of alignment is: “aligning with Source, which subsequently leads to the manifestation of everything you could desire, from perfect health to a great relationship to abundance.” And so, Teal is explicit that what we are lining up with is Source or the “Greater Universe” and the energy currents within it that are moving in certain directions. A good analogy for coming into alignment would be, in the ocean, there are already currents of water that are going in the direction of specific places, and if we join into them and move in the same direction as them, the power and momentum of the current moves with us. To the opposite, if we decided to swim off on our own — or worse, try to go against the current, maybe despite already being in it — our swimming experience is either going to be much less connected and exciting, or met with a lot of resistance. If we could only realize when we are in or out of alignment with the greater currents in life, that alone would help us understand why at times life can seem to flow with ease and grace, versus feeling hard and frustrating, like nothing we do seems to work out. Teal from her extrasensory perspective is able to see these things, and that’s why she takes steps in the direction of inviting people to become aware of their personal patterns, to integrate aspects of self, to master relationships and be in the practice of love; because the collective consciousness of Source is keenly interested in the timelines or realities in which humanity jumps up in consciousness to choose these things. Source or God wants to see humanity awaken and choose love, in contrast to the thousands of years of past history in which humans, in our unconsciousness, have chosen fear, separation, division and conflict. Teal teaches bringing the collective of selves within into a harmony or unity, partly because this is a mirror process for what we’re meant to be doing as a human species: finding unity and togetherness with each other. Just as the hermetic principle says: As within, so without.
The Enneagram reminds us of the synergistic intelligence accessible to us when we are able to bring together the different centers of intelligence, such as: the creativity of Point 4 (heart center) plus the discipline of Point 1 (gut center). We may have the potential to create beauty, but we also require the self-discipline to put ourselves in motion, even when that’s not the easiest option, or it asks us to curb our tendencies towards self-indulgence. In fact, Teal calls discipline “an essential element of happiness.” It’s common to misconceptualize of discipline as forcing ourselves to do something we don’t want to do. Instead, discipline is a tool to help us complete necessary steps along the way to the realization of long-term goals. Discipline is a function of the will, the body center, which is a contributing factor to why it can be easily misunderstood. In childhood, in moments when our parents imposed their will on us, their will became our will, and this may have prevented us from getting a strong felt-sense of our own personal will. Psychologically, this can be seen as a developmental trauma in the sense that, during the stage of development when the child is supposed to attain a sense of autonomy and independence, overly controlling and critical responses from parents can make the child feel shame and doubt instead. This damages their relationship with their personal will, and by association, their capacity for self-discipline. As an adult with a wounded will, the way this person intellectually thinks of the exercising of their will, such as discipline, may be distorted by their childhood experiences in which they had no will of their own. Attempting to impose discipline on oneself, then, gets subconsciously associated with the memories of having the will of one’s parents forcibly imposed on oneself, which is retraumatizing. Teal’s teaching on discipline is very powerful here, in the sense that she’s very clear that cultivating self-discipline is not bulldozing oneself. True discipline is not a failure to listen to and understand all parts of self — which is what our parents did to us, they bulldozed over parts of us — but is preceded by taking into consideration all of one’s parts, and then choosing that which is in alignment with one’s long-term best interests, even if it’s hard, inconvenient, or uncomfortable. The skillful application of discipline that Teal teaches is not pitting one part of self against another, but owning all inner parts as parts of oneself, and then making a decision that’s profoundly for oneself. This practice is informed by the wisdom of Point 1: in order to actualize our highest version of self, our spirit asks us to do what is right and good, not always what is easy.
Authenticity
Authenticity is the same as expressing what’s real and true of ourselves, rather than displaying pretenses or putting on a social mask to win acceptance. Teal has said she’s “leading an authenticity movement,” which forms another interesting connection with Point 4. Each of the Enneagram points values truth in a little bit of a different way — 5 values the illumination of truth; 8, the power of truth; 2, the truth of love — and at point 4, there’s a love of truth in the sense of loving what is real, deep, and authentic. As is true for all of these connections between Enneagram points and particular teachings, the Enneagram acts a prism through which the light of illumination is refracted in two directions at once. The Enneagram reveals how the essential aspects of a teaching are all united by one energy — a point on the symbol — while the teaching expands upon the meaning and importance of those aspects from that energy’s point of view. So here, for example, the Enneagram helps us see that Teal’s placement of emphasis on the aspect of authenticity makes a lot of sense in the context of the 4 energy of her teachings. And, simultaneously, the way that Teal unpacks authenticity sheds light on how it is conceptualized and practiced from the healthy or liberated 4 energy’s point of view. In other words, we get an answer to: how does authenticity appear from the 4’s vantage point, when the 4 energy manifests at higher levels of consciousness?
Teal writes, “We can only be authentic to the degree that we are currently aware of ourselves.” Since, as we discussed earlier, we are a collective of aspects of consciousness, as opposed to one singular aspect, authenticity for Teal means being honest and real relative to our totality of selves, not just one fragment of self. This angle on authenticity leads to some surprising conclusions. When a person says they aren’t artistic, yet they have within them a very artistic aspect of self that has been suppressed, they are being inauthentic. On this same logic, a spiritual teacher who says they feel bliss all the time when they have human aspects of them that don’t feel that way — even if a nonphysical aspect of them does feel bliss all the time — they are still being inauthentic, because they are presenting only one aspect of them as if it represents all of their parts. Moving closer to authentic expression for them might look like: “My nonphysical self feels blissful and free, and my physical self feels grumpy and tired today.” That would be more honest and true. Half of authenticity is being aware of our inner truth; half of it is being or expressing this truth. If we cut off parts of ourself or decide that certain aspects of us are unacceptable, we diminish our capacity to be fully authentic and sacrifice our power to make other people feel that their full, authentic truth is welcome and okay. Everyone is desperately longing to know that the truth of hidden and repressed parts of themselves, the parts they were taught are “not okay,” are okay and welcome and perfectly human, and that love is available for these parts as well. Absolutely everyone has aspects of them that society taught them were bad. It’s as though we’re all waiting for someone else to say, “I have a part that feels [something unacceptable],” — whether the unacceptable part of self hates and wants to destroy; is suicidal; has an addiction; has an uncommon sexual fetish; or whatever it may be — before we finally give ourselves permission to admit to and voice the mirroring parts in us. Here’s another place where Teal blazes a beautiful trail into a potentially difficult-to-navigate territory of transparently revealing the fullness of who we are. By saying it’s one part of us that thinks or feels or is a certain way, we’re not saying that all parts of us are that way. But we are most certainly saying that’s the truth and reality of at least one aspect of us. And so, this deep self awareness of ourselves as a whole ecosystem of selves furnishes a gateway into a new world of authentic relating. This is no longer being a mere fragment of wholeness, while the rest of us is confined to the shadows, but bringing all of ourselves into the light.
Integration, Love, AND-Consciousness
Spiritual teachings in general do have some kind of overall direction, whether that’s the direction of higher insight, as we saw in point 5; of being the creator of reality, as in point 8; of becoming service and love, as in point 2. Here at point 4, the current of consciousness inspiring Teal’s teachings flows in the direction of integration. “Integration” can mean different things in different contexts. For example, the way that integration is understood in the context of Enneagram teachings is different than how Teal uses the word. In an Enneagram context, “integration” brings to mind certain patterns of growth and development, which always exist relative to particular points on the symbol, and are always about reconnecting with chronically underutilized energies and functioning in the world with more of one’s cache of inner resources online and available. Teal’s incorporation of the 1-energy, relative to her home base of Point 4, serves as an example of this. In contrast, the definition of “integration” in Teal’s work is composed in light of the big picture of consciousness and psychology that forms the backdrop to her teachings.
As we said at the beginning, Source is fragmented into infinitely many aspects of consciousness, each one aware of the universe from a unique perspective and contributing that awareness to the whole. But all aspects of Source have the ancient memory, even if it only exists as a feeling, of that original wounding or disintegration of a perfect, unified field into many fractured parts. The many rivers of consciousness long to merge and become one with their original source, the ocean — the longing to become one again. Integration is about this “becoming one again.” It’s a response within the collective that Source is, to the desire and crying out for love arising from so many of its aspects; to give an answer to that asking-for-love by surrounding all of its aspects in love and inviting them to merge back into the oneness. Teal has called integration “the true mission of God” and the act of embodying love, but because it’s such an esoteric subject matter, it’s hard to figure out what she means. The process of integration begins when the aspects of Source, wherever they are in time and space, have their first glimpses of remembering that they are fragments of an original unity. As they begin to, instead of move “away” from the origin or emanation point (expansion), turn back “towards” this point (integration), they are drawn back to the wholeness and completeness of the original unity. Like black holes absorb the matter and energy around them, individual units of consciousness are merged and integrated by larger expanses of consciousness. A person can have the experience in parts work of going through the integration process relative to an aspect of self, and observe this part merging back into the larger consciousness of the individual’s beingness. But on a higher level of the fractal, this individual consciousness is on a journey of merging, or becoming one, with a still larger consciousness. Thus, integration is happening at all levels of the fractal universes Source or God has become. Why does Teal call it the true mission of God? Because it’s Source’s “mission” (the most apt word we have in the English language for this) to not abandon or leave behind any aspect of itself, but to bring love to all of itself and reunite the lost, wandering aspects of itself with their greater Self. This is what we feel in our hearts as the longing for God: it is to be reunited with the greater consciousness we originated from, the ultimate homecoming.With this being Teal’s overview perspective of what God is up to, her role as a teacher and what she sees as her mission in this lifetime fits into this bigger picture in a logical way. The problem or even the tragedy of human beings, as she sees it, is that Source is calling home these aspects of itself (us), calling us back to wholeness and unity, but we have ventured so far from the remembering of what we are, and become so disconnected from our interconnectedness with all of life — trapped in our rigidified beliefs and ideas, caught in a matrix of our own design — that we actually believe we are just organisms in an indifferent, physical universe, ignorant to the reality of our greater Self surrounding us with love and inviting us to rejoin with it. And so, Source needs people to remind the human beings of what they are, so that they can get on board with this greater universal movement in the direction of integration, rather than swimming against the current (which is a setup for a lot of struggling and suffering).
Teal realized that this was her soul’s mission in this lifetime in a near-death experience she had at a young age, an experience she tried to convey in a blog piece entitled, “Only Love, Only Love.” One thing that she absolutely could not fail to see at the end of that experience is how “nothing is left out” of God. Everything, everything is radically included, even the ugly and gross and nightmarish things. Even these things are parts of God, parts of oneness, fragments of Source that allow for completely “other” kinds of experiences to be had. Something in our human makeup wants God to only be the pleasant, nice and lovely things, not the things that make us recoil or cause our stomachs to turn. And yet, in this vision of oneness, yes, there are angels, benevolent teachers, and beings of the light, too — they are also here — but they are not more or less Source than the demons, frightening creatures, and dark-minded evildoers. Are human beings ready to confront this larger view that God manifests as all things, not just the positive things? Apparently so, because Teal Swan and other spiritual teachers have showed up saying, “It’s time we look at this.” Either that, or we quickly need to become ready, as a matter of self-preservation of the species; because our seeming inability to admit to the darker aspects of existence, especially in ourselves, is driving humanity towards extinction. The denial of shadow aspects is how our egos try to control life and keep up a facade of pretenses, but things which are not brought out into the light of consciousness can’t be suppressed indefinitely. When they aren’t dealt with in healthy ways, aspects of self will find alternative ways to get their needs met, even to the point of making people do “crazy” things; because those aspects of us believe they have no other choice.
What is the connection between Enneagram Point 4 and integration as Teal sees it? There are multiple connections. Integration is related not only to Point 4 but to the heart center more generally. Anodea Judith, a pioneering researcher on the chakra system, identifies the heart as “the central integrating chamber … the healer, the unifier.” In the Hindu chakra system, as well as in the Enneagram’s three centers of intelligence, the heart is located in the middle of these systems, signifying that it is the unifier, connector and bridge of mind and body, heaven and earth, above and below. Everything comes together in the heart. Connection is what the heart does, whether that’s connection to other people, to one’s soul-self, or facilitating connection between the different parts of consciousness. As a center of intelligence, our hearts guide us in the direction of wholeness, which means embracing the opposites of being both nonphysical and physical, divine and human, masculine and feminine, universal and particular — all at the same time. Tantra and the Sri Yantra symbol have also been associated with the heart inasmuch as the heart’s consciousness oversees the weaving — which is the literal meaning of “tantra” — of the various threads of one’s being into a holistic tapestry of unified interconnectedness. Teal’s integration teachings could be interpreted as a modern, updated version of the tantric spiritual path, weaving in new psychological understandings and tailored to the needs and demands of the present time. At the very least, Teal’s perspectives arise from a deeply heart-centered way of looking at life and the universe. She writes, for example, that in her near-death experience she was led to see the fragmentation of Source as the universe’s broken heart, and that “it is our job to love that broken heart back to unity.” Love is the action of taking something as part of yourself, bringing it closer to you, and helping to meet its needs. How the universe’s heart gets healed, then, occurs through love, the ultimate healing agent. Love is also the ultimate spiritual practice, because it’s the inclusion of all parts within the light of consciousness.
Another way of viewing integration is through the lens of AND-Consciousness, or what Teal conceives of as “the modern day middle way.” AND-Consciousness means expanding the container of one’s field of awareness wide enough to be able to hold opposite extremes and seemingly contradictory realities. An example she frequently uses is holding the truth and reality of different dimensions of existence simultaneously. On the level of the physical dimension, things like pain and death are completely real and true; and yet, on a higher, nonphysical level of reality, those very things that seem so inescapably true to us, are seen from that viewpoint as dreams or illusions. Now, our logical, rational mind can’t really grasp this, and yet AND-Consciousness is practicing being or identifying as an even bigger space of consciousness in which both of these dimensions can be true and valid simultaneously. This is not to say, of course, that pain is an illusion or that death is an illusion. They appear that way when they are seen from a certain level of reality, which is why so many spiritual teachings have said things like that. But on the level of the physical dimension, they are quite real and if you walk into a door without opening it, it’s going to hurt. Accordingly, AND-Consciousness does not deny or negate the way things are experienced at any particular dimensional level. It just says, “and…” when you see it from this level of reality, it appears differently, or it’s a different experience of the same thing. Having said all that, the practice of AND-Consciousness is very counterintuitive and relatively advanced, so it’s not something to be mastered and fully accomplished right out of the gate. Rather, just like integration, which is another angle on the project of including and accommodating for so many disparate parts within oneself, AND-Consciousness is something to be practiced ongoingly. Even Teal, although she’s a teacher of it, is continually applying herself in the direction of mastering it but not making claims to be perfect at it. If we ourselves commit to the practice of AND-Consciousness, there’s a deep wisdom in having compassion for ourselves along the way, and understanding that we’re not going to do it perfectly, but that we’ll always be learning new insights as we try to function with this awareness of multiple realities. Perhaps another reason why AND-Consciousness is the new “middle way” is because this practice is for masters in training or “Buddhas-in-progress.”
One of the concepts that has been an undercurrent throughout the duration of this article is that of the multi-faceted nature of self or the multiplicity of inner selves. I claimed towards the beginning that, while from the perspectives of Teal and parts work models the nature of everyone’s psyche is fragmentation or division, this inner condition tends to make more sense to Enneagram 4’s (compared to other types), whether because of their introspectiveness, sensitivity, or sense of being broken. Continuing in this way, in their quest for self-awareness 4’s become starkly aware of the opposing and contradictory nature of so many of their parts. One part of self is totally aggressive and competitive; another part is docile and peacemaking. Another part is cerebral and intellectual; still another is playful and childlike. Contradiction and polar opposites abound within the spectrum of selves. Surely the Type 4 poet Walt Whitman was thinking of this when he wrote, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am vast, I contain multitudes.” This is where the path of self-awareness invariably leads us: to the appreciation of the immensity of the psyche, which, as the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki said, is as “limitless” as the outer world. And so, we can understand why integration and AND-Consciousness are perfectly congruent with Enneagram Type 4’s sensibility. Not only do these practices make room for the far-apart galaxies within the inner universe, and not only do they resonate with the heart’s intuition and guidance, but they answer the 4’s call for a sense of self, a unique identity. The answer is: they are not any one inner fragment of self but the wholeness and totality of all selves combined into unity and harmony. Teal calls this woven tapestry the “united selfhood,” and it is the end result of the process of integration.
Paramahamsa
My overall focus in this piece has been very philosophical or cosmic, and yet, in the living of her teachings Teal’s way of being is quite practical and down-to-earth. She’s focused not on the heavens or the stars above per se, but on human relationships and what makes a real, tangible difference in people’s lives. With all her ability to resonate at higher frequencies and hang out in those transcendent places, one might ask why she’s so actively participating in life, boots on the ground.
Nonphysical awareness in Teal’s view is properly used in the support and enrichment of our physical lives here, not as a way to escape the human experience. Again, in contrast with other spiritual teachings which may have a more otherworldly focus, or see the human experience on Earth as somehow less than the realms of pure spirit, Teal doesn’t share these views. Instead, her sense and feeling (informed by her own experience) is that Source’s nonphysical aspects are intensely interested in what’s going on here in the physical dimension, and that Source’s “cutting edge of expansion,” the crest of the wave it’s currently surfing, is none other than this physical world. Because, this is where Source has the most tactile, sensual, visceral experience of itself. It’s flesh and blood here; hot and cold, dry and wet, pain and pleasure. So this is where Source or God actually wants to be. Rather than trying to transcend the Earth plane, it’s keenly interested in delving more deeply into it and harvesting even more self-awareness as it perceives and feels all the forms of this time-space reality. That’s what it’s doing now — like an earthworm burrowing further and further down into deeper layers of loamy soil. Teal’s tack of awareness mirrors the greater universe’s: it’s going and getting more immersed in this physically manifest play of consciousness, rather than withdrawing or pulling away from it.
The ancient gurus of India had a title they bestowed on the spiritually masterful, like placing a laurel wreath around the neck of a victor in athletic games. That title is paramahamsa, which literally translates to “supreme swan.” The old yogis were aware of the difficulty of transcending the physical dimension and realizing the nonphysical realities of spirit. However, they knew it was still more difficult to not only swim in the waters of that enlightened awareness but be able to walk on the shores of the human reality, equally at home and free in the dense realms of matter. The swan finds a home both in water and on land and can fly between them, representing Source’s supreme transcendence: the freedom and liberation to go anywhere in the cosmos and still be a master of consciousness. Feeling themselves to be as if a node in the vast interconnected neural network of all consciousness, while embodying this greater intelligence in a human vessel, the paramahamsa shows beyond a doubt that the world of physical matter is not an insuperable obstacle to manifesting Source’s boundless potential. Matter’s seeming limitations are not really limitations, as this person demonstrates, who has advanced far enough to be able to bend reality. Teal Swan’s name is connected to this title of paramahamsa; because, looking down at the physical dimension from a higher dimensional perspective, it’s seen that there are no accidents. Just as in a fractal structure, in which every micro-pattern within it is connected to the macro-pattern of the fractal itself, our reality is designed in a parallel way. Every aspect or pattern within it is dynamically interconnected with all other patterns. And so, the name Teal Swan — the name by which she has become world famous — is not accidentally there. What the name Swan means is that Teal teaches the expansion of consciousness to be able to hold, and the mastery of, all dimensions of Source: not only transcending the physical to gather the awareness of the nonphysical, but utilizing that higher frequency awareness to enhance and enrich life as a human being. That is where all of her teachings are headed, and that is why her name is Swan.
New Age
What is a spiritual teacher without people to teach to? If humanity had no need of raising its consciousness, what would be the purpose of Teal Swan’s teachings? The backdrop to all of her teachings is that there’s a collective of beings (humanity) who desperately need to learn to expand their consciousness and choose love; otherwise they cyclically repeat the same old patterns over and over again, or worse, downward spiral into collective trauma and catastrophe. Humanity stands on such a precipice now. As its members, we have to snap out of the trance that going through the motions is okay and that self-destruction isn’t right around the corner. In the greater universe, the survival of a species is not a guaranteed thing; it’s contingent upon the species’ willingness to adapt, change themselves, and change course in light of new information. Change is what we need now, most especially the ability to change or mutate into a new species that can take responsibility for the world situation, understand itself as the creator of it, and blaze a new pathway in consciousness — the beginnings of a new world. Teal’s emergence as a leader in the spiritual field at this time signals that humanity has the potential to make a quantum leap in consciousness. But the future is not predetermined; everything depends upon the awakening and choices of we who are here, embodied. It’s not the study of these teachings by itself that will realign us with Source but the practice of them, the actual living of a new consciousness. Practice puts into motion new vibratory patterns, rippling out and influencing all of life. Other units of consciousness feel those vibrations and start to come into resonance with them. Gradually a new field of consciousness and energy is established, one which absorbs the old energies and transmutes them into itself. This is how humanity will ascend into a new age: by finding unity in shared resonance with a new and higher field of energy frequency. How that field is architected and grows roots is by way of people taking real, practical steps here in the physical dimension. It’s not by believing in a fanciful, romantic idea of a new age that will descend upon us, but by having the daring and courage to be the new age ourselves. Fantasizing doesn’t transform the world; it is transformed through action.
