Democracia profunda
Deep Democracy evolved from Arnold Mindell’s insight that both inner and outer, or global, changes must be rooted in awareness and the inclusion of all voices, as well as all layers of personal and communal experiences. These layers encompass objective facts, emotional experiences, and deep-seated insights of perennial wisdom and centeredness. It bridges individual personal development with group and community change, serving as an awareness principle applicable to individual growth, organizational development, and political change.
First published in The Leader as a Martial Artist, Deep Democracy emphasized the development of facilitators and the use of personal awareness to help groups, organizations, and communities better understand and support all aspects of their processes. By concentrating on the moment-to-moment awareness of the background moods, feelings, dynamics, visions, values, and subtle communication signals of all participants, Deep Democracy fosters a deeper understanding of their underlying hopes, conflicts, and challenges, as well as their impact on groups and teams.
Deep Democracy awareness encourages participants and facilitators to embrace all facets of experiences. It facilitates the processing of overt issues and facts in any given situation. It also fosters dialogue between conflicting roles, addresses existing power dynamics, and acknowledges background feelings, dreams, and visions that, if neglected, may obstruct efforts to achieve sustainable reconciliation or resolution.
Deep Democracy awareness enables individuals to process their experiences holistically, addressing practical aspects alongside the dreaming and feeling dimensions, while also recognizing the underlying deep seated feelings, values, visions and universal and timeless truths of the moment. This heightened individual awareness allows us to build community and engage in the co-creation of our world.
Deep Democracy awareness can be applied to groups, organizations, personal inner experiences, or individuals in conflict. By taking both everyday concerns and seemingly minor events and feelings seriously, we can broaden conversations and uncover unexpected solutions to both group and inner conflicts.
La democracia profunda es nuestra sensación de que el mundo está aquí para ayudarnos a ser nosotros mismos, y que nosotros estamos aquí para ayudar al mundo a ser completo (Mindell, 1992).
Below is a short description of the three levels of awareness that comprise Deep Democracy.
Consensus Reality (CR)
Every group, community, or nation coalesces around ideas and experiences that are perceived to define what is considered real—Consensus Reality—the view of the world that is accepted as reality by most people. These worldviews differ from one culture to another. In some cultures, communicating with trees or nature is seen as crazy; in others, it is completely normal. Western cultures have adopted a scientific and mechanistic worldview, where reality consists of discrete objects and causation follows mechanistic rules. Other perspectives view reality as being based more on mutual relationships and a web of overlapping kinships. Issues of everyday reality, such as making a living, sustaining businesses, managing resources, structuring communities, distributing power, and interpreting history, are all part of this consensual layer.
Dreamland
Dreamland encompasses all experiences that stretch our imagination, occur outside our control, and disrupt our sense of self. It includes feelings, moods, altered states, intense bodily experiences, deep visions, and hopes. It embodies what we reject in ourselves and project onto others. In our individual psychology, these experiences often manifest as conflicting internalized roles and expectations, along with unintended expressions and signals. In relationships or group contexts, Dreamland-level experiences emerge through atmospheres shaped by unnamed collective or cultural forces, such as those related to gender identity, ethnic origin, sexual preference, financial and social status, and health. These collective fields organize themselves into polarized roles and positions that often appear static in a Consensus Reality sense, belonging to specific individuals, parties, clans, or groups. In actuality, these roles and positions are shared and fluctuating; they belong, in some way, to everyone involved. Therefore, as Process Work practitioners, we can facilitate personal, individual, and communal processes by highlighting the various roles, sides of an issue, and feelings, representing them, and moving between them to foster dialogue, communication, and understanding. In Dreamland, we enter a more fluid realm where we all share the various positions and roles of our internalized or external groups. By using our awareness, we can switch roles and sides, becoming more fluid and transformative. Additionally, a Process Work practitioner can use their awareness to notice ghost roles—those people, events, or things that are discussed in a group but not directly represented. Bringing awareness to ghost roles can be key to resolving internal and external conflicts.
Essence
This level hosts the deepest and subtlest feelings, visions, and dreams that underlie any given emotion, role, or aspect of an individual or group. When we connect with this essence level, exploring our deepest feelings and dreams often brings a sense of inner coherence and outer unity or common ground, at least for that specific moment in time. Essence-level experiences are frequently difficult to articulate; they relate to altered states of consciousness, profound yearnings, and motivations that are challenging to express. These experiences are often found in nature, meditation, and prayer, and are conveyed through creative mediums such as visual art, music, and poetry.
Non-Consensus Reality (NCR)
Non-Consensus Reality encompasses all Dreamland and Essence experiences. From the mathematics of complex numbers (both real and imaginary) and the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics (the collapse of the quantum wave function), Mindell deduced that our Consensus Reality (CR) world and experiences arise through transitions between the realms of sentient Non-Consensus Reality (NCR) and CR experiences. Consciousness is thus the process of self-reflection and the conjugation of sentient and dreaming processes. Remaining in our ordinary CR mindsets creates uncertainty regarding the impact of NCR events on everyday life. Instead of marginalizing these NCR experiences, we should include them in our CR world.
An important aspect of Deep Democracy is the use, maintenance, and awareness of metaskills (Arnold Mindell, 1992, Amy Mindell 1994, 2001), or the way we apply personal and group-level skills. Deep Democracy emphasizes openness to diversity and dialogue among various internal and external voices and perspectives, requiring us to be flexible and responsive to the needs of both our inner selves and the outer group. Compassion, detachment, the courage to hold tension, and a love for the natural flow of events are examples of emotional skills essential for effective facilitation. The more familiar we become with all sides and the better we resolve our internal conflicts with opposing views, the better we can support the entire group. This highlights the importance of human development—the internal psychological and spiritual growth and inner peace—of the facilitator. By remaining comfortable in Consensus Reality and neglecting our Deep Democracy awareness, we contribute to the rigidity of Consensus Reality.
Deep Democracy involves not only openness to other individuals, groups, and diverse viewpoints but also an openness to experience, which encompasses feelings, dreams, bodily sensations, altered states of consciousness, synchronicities, and an awareness of signals, roles, and the structural dynamics of interactions between internal parts and external parties involved.
Referencias:
Mindell, Arnold (1992). The Leader as Martial Artist: An Introduction to Deep Democracy (1st ed.). San Francisco: Harper San Francisco.
Mindell, Amy (1994/2001). Metaskills: The Spiritual Art Of Therapy: Tempe, Arizona, New Falcon 94/Lao Tse Press.
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