What is Holistic Self-Development?

by Helen Mosimann-Kogan, March 17, 2021

The term self-development is pretty self-explanatory - one wants to

evolve, grow become more of who they are.

However the word holistic may be unclear so we'll jump in with a couple
of definitions from the Oxford Languages dictionary:

From PHILOSOPHY
Holistic is characterized by the belief that the parts of something
are intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to
the whole.
 From MEDICINE
Holistic is characterized by the treatment of the whole person,
taking into account mental and social factors, rather than just
the symptoms of a disease.

So we’re saying holism is where all parts are considered in terms of the
whole… and the whole is considered in terms of its parts. 
What this means to you and me, is that when we look at what we want
to develop into - in terms of self-develop-ment - let’s say, our dreams
and aspirations and who we want to become - it’s useful to see that all
parts of our lives are connected. 

Taking a step back, from our dreams and aspirations, and looking at
where we are now, it’s worth appraising how we and how our all parts
are doing now, compared to where we want to them all to go!
You’ll appreciate that this is a different approach to the many adverts
that can be found on social media or in the self-development section of
bookstores that focus on how to earn more money… or how to get the
partner… or how to lose/gain weight… or how to attain enlightenment…
Instead, holistic self-development is an approach that says to achieve
one of these things is to achieve all of these things - or whichever things
you want.

Holistic self-development says ALL parts of your life are connected and
for one part to be ‘successful’ (according to your definition of successful,
which may need revising) - all parts have to be.

In other words, why you are dissatisfied with one area of your life is
connected to why you are dissatisfied with all the things you aren’t
achieving - even if you haven’t fully acknowledged the dissatisfaction
yet - you may have learned to live with it! So yes, this approach takes
being very honest with oneself! transparent in fact.

When we think we lack in one area, for example, I don’t have enough
money or receive enough love - it’s a ‘lack’ filter… which we look through
in whichever direction we are looking in.

Nothing exists in isolation!

Lynne McTaggart talks about this extensively in her book The Field - the
one field of consciousness that connects us all. Although, because we
can’t see this field, many of us rarely think about it. 

Awareness of the One Field was always appreciated and honoured in all
the ancient wisdom teachings of the world without them needing
tangible proof, they just knew it… but for the modern world, this is
something we are only recently starting to truly wake up to. 
Oh! (scratching my head) what I do or say really matters. I have a
choice and what I choose affects other people, I contribute to The
Field! I’d better not be so hasty in making a decision and really
think about what I am choosing / doing / agreeing with / angry
about …

So, back to how abundance or lack in one area of life must equate to
abundance or lack in all other areas of life. Sure, you can be
money-dripping rich and have no loved ones. But is being
money-dripping rich a real indicator of abundance if all your days are
spent watching your accounts, anxious that you will lose money, and/or
suspicious that everyone you know is after it?

Again, the process requires complete self-transparency…

Am I reeeeaaally happy in this situation?
Do I feeeeeeeel abundant?!

So, what is true abundance? And what does it feel like?

We’ll turn to nature for the answer.
We know nature thrives in a state of balance. It is abundant when it has
everything it needs and it has the space to grow and express itself.
And that’s probably it.

Overwatering a plant or depriving it of light and the plant withers.

Balance, could, therefore, be a simple formula for abundance - where
when you are in balance you know it because so are all parts of your life,
not just one part or another. Equally, when a part of your life is out of
balance (for example, your finances have nose-dived, your partner
walked out, or your health is struggling) - your whole life is affected. 

Another way of saying holistic self-development is holographic

consciousness (I’ll be using the terms here interchangeably) because
consciousness is always developing and evolving and holograph or
hologram refers to a picture where all parts of the picture contain the
whole, while the whole contains all parts.

To learn how holographic consciousness works is to learn the full

working mechanism of you - that is ALL parts of you - and you as a
contributing part of the big ALL of everything.

Holistic self-development is a state of awareness most of us need to

learn because it involves seeing ourselves, others and the world in a
very different way than we have until now. 

Up until now, you are, more or less, used to seeing yourself and the
world the way you do because you have been seeing them that way all
of your life… and most of the people around you see these things the
same way as you, so you have had no reason to question it.

To incorporate holographic consciousness involves stepping back from

being dogged ‘right’ about this one way of seeing the world and being
willing and open-minded to question what you see. What if there is
much more to the picture than you ever previously imagined?

For now, few, but increasing numbers of people are simply curious
about exploring these things and just want to open their minds. More
often, though, the reason people are prepared to open their minds to
new perspectives is they realise that the old perspectives have been
causing them pain.

Now is a good time to find out what the opposite of holism is.
I’ll save you the few moments that it takes to switch apps and come
back again - it is atomism. This is the view that something or
everything is composed of distinct, separable, and independent
elementary components. This sounds fractured and lonely. Which it is,
so no wonder it causes us pain.

On to a positive note about holism… once you get how it works, it puts
the steering wheel of your life firmly in your hands because you don’t
need someone else telling you what to do so that you are right or
belong with them… You will see for yourself what is working and not
working in your life, identify the pattern in other areas of your life
(remember they are all connected!) and do something about it. Yes,
you! Your life, in your hands!
Across the board, we are seeing the middle-person exiting the stage.
Less and less do we need intermediaries because we can easily learn to
do so much for ourselves and then get on and do it. Be it YouTube,
online courses, advice from people across the world who have been
there and done that, with a bit of investment we can all learn to fix our
cars, cook exotic foods, sell our house, cut hair, publish books, open a
shop, make paintings using scrunched up aluminium foil - and even
speak to god…

So what could be more empowering than knowing how to do our own

development?!

There is no final destination to self-development, we never get to the

place where we say ‘I am fully developed (while punching the sky and
cracking open the champers)’. If you are open to it, there are always
new experiences, interactions and realisations that we integrate with
what we know thus far which we can take  - and ourselves - to the next
level.

This is not work, mind you, it’s the process of being an evolving
conscious being! Owning our life experience, understanding how it
works, playing and creating with it.

To be able to confidently do this for oneself, that is to manage one’s

own self-development must be the pinnacle of self-development
because you are fully in charge of you - while recognising yourself as a
contributing part of a whole, where everyone else is responsible for
their development.

Each has the awareness, the tools, the understanding and the
confidence to make necessary changes to keep heading in the
direction of life that they prefer - with awareness and the humility to
know when a challenge is too big, knowing that it’s time to ask for help.
To reach this place is to transform from atomism to holism.
Therefore, less pain and more joy. 

- Hurrah! -

This is to go from a fractured and separated perspective - because all it

is, is a perspective! - to one of wholeness and interconnectivity.
Surrendered hands up in the air, I’m not saying the process happens
overnight, nor that it’s all necessarily smooth sailing. There is substantial
effort involved in recalibrating all parts of your life to your new
perspective and course-correcting yourself to a new trajectory. 

However, each individual’s course correction contributes to the overall

collective’s course correction. And this is how, one at a time, we can
steer away from our inner conflicts of what we want and don’t want,
that are reflected in the external wars we see in the news. 

Whether you call it holistic self-development or holographic

consciousness or whatever you want to call it, the mechanism dictates
that unless each of us learns to live with peace, freedom and
abundance in our lives, our reflections on the world stage won’t be able
to either.