The Four Quadrants: Balance

In this first session of ten classes The Four Quadrants: Balance, after a brief opening meditation, we begin with a model of health based on the balance of our physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual selves. This simple diagnostic tool shows us how to restore a healthy balance and have access to our spirit. Includes the touching story ‘The Indian Raid’. We close with the spiritual practice “Balanced.”

Transcript

Our first class is the Four Quadrants,

Balance.

Let's start our class,

As we will every time,

With a brief meditation.

I sit with my body.

I sit with my feelings.

I sit with my mind.

I sit with my spirit.

Such fine companions.

I first saw the diagram describing the Four Quadrants when Elizabeth Kubler-Ross drew it up on the wide,

Green chalkboard.

I was attending her Life,

Death and Transition workshop,

Eager to improve my skills as a grief counselor.

To see the diagram of the Four Quadrants on the chalkboard gave me a needed visual picture of ideas that helped me understand my life.

The Four Quadrants is a model of health.

Imagine a circle divided into four equal parts.

The first part is the physical,

The body.

The second part is the emotional,

The heart.

The third,

Intellectual,

The mind.

And the fourth,

Spiritual,

The soul.

This is similar to the four elements of earth,

Air,

Fire and water and the four directions used by various native traditions.

I want to say right here that this model is not to be used as a rigid formula,

But rather as a gentle diagnostic tool to clarify the relative balance of our different parts,

And thus identify how we might regain the health of equilibrium to support the whole person.

Holistic health demands and seeks balance.

To create balance creates health.

Let's look at the first quadrant,

The body,

The physical.

When we are conceived,

A sperm meets an egg,

And we begin our physical journey here on this planet at this time and in this place.

The miracle of conception and birth.

We have incarnated,

Embodied,

Become flesh.

And during the first few months of our life,

After birth,

The developmental emphasis is on the physical quadrant.

The developing function centers on the five senses,

Sensation itself,

And the purpose is physical growth and security.

Because we are human,

We have fleshly needs.

Our body needs to be protected from danger.

The basic need is survival.

The helpless newborn must be sheltered,

Clothed,

Fed,

Changed,

And nurtured.

If this happens,

Then we thrive,

Grow,

And mature.

We develop security about having a body,

About being here on the planet in physical form.

Ideally,

We learn that our bodies are sacred,

A temple to be respected and cared for.

We learn to listen to our bodies,

To hear and feel what they require for health and well-being.

But if we are not sheltered,

Not cared for,

Or not respected physically,

Then we experience wounds,

Painful wounds,

That our bodies remember.

Though we cannot erase our history,

That includes physical wounding,

Some of the effects of physical wounds can heal.

Most physical wounds leave an emotional scar.

It is important to learn that with the support and expertise of friends,

Therapists,

Healers,

Workshops,

Books,

Our own hard work,

We can revisit old wounds later in our lives and provide ourselves with healing and forgiveness.

Here lies the relief of inner security to know and trust that we,

Our physical bodies,

Have a rightful place in the world.

Let's look at the second quadrant,

The heart,

The emotional quadrant.

Around six months of age,

And by the way,

The numbers around the quadrants are not that important,

It could be six months,

Eight months.

Anyway,

Around six months of age,

The emphasis turns to the development of the emotional quadrant.

The growing function is facility with emotions and feelings,

And we begin to gain ease,

Experience and skill to express our emotions.

The purpose is self-care and the development of relationships,

Including with ourselves.

The need here is to belong,

To love and be loved,

Both.

Naturally,

We cry when we're sad,

We yell and scream when we're angry,

We get anxious when we are afraid,

We smile and giggle when we're happy.

If our emotional expressions are noticed and affirmed,

Responded to,

We develop trust and confidence that it's okay to express our feelings,

That our feelings matter.

When we're hungry and cry for food,

If our caregiver hears us and responds by bringing our mother's breast or a bottle,

Then over time,

We develop confidence and a sense of security in the validity of our emotional self.

We learn that to express our feelings has consequences,

And that other people care about us enough to respond.

Of course,

We can be wounded in the emotional quadrant,

Too.

Incompleteness here brings feelings of rejection,

Abandonment and betrayal.

As we grow into adults,

A major task of claiming our personhood is to regain the ability to acknowledge and to feel and express our natural emotions.

This skill develops as we grow into self-acceptance and self-love.

Now let's look at the third quadrant,

The mind,

The intellectual quadrant.

Around six years of age,

As we learn to figure out how to get our needs met in the larger world,

The emphasis turns to our intellectual development.

The growing function is thinking and reason,

And the purpose is intellectual development.

We need to know to use reason to figure out how the world works.

An organic feedback loop develops to inform us whether or not what we do is effective to get our needs met.

If our action is not successful,

If it does not produce the outcome we seek,

We modify it to achieve better results.

Our intellect helps us do this,

Helps us remember what actions are successful and what actions are not successful.

We learn how to investigate.

We use our mind to do research to find the information we need.

Incomplete development here means feeling stupid,

Dumb,

Inadequate and incompetent and even feeling crazy.

Humiliation creates a profound wound.

Again,

This might be our history,

Which we cannot change.

But over time,

We can recover,

Heal and regain a sense of intellectual confidence and competence.

This allows us to move forward in life,

Exercising good judgment.

With practice,

We can develop our intellectual capacity to help us get our needs met in the world.

Let's look now at the fourth,

The last,

Or perhaps the first quadrant,

The soul,

The spiritual quadrant.

During the teen years,

The emphasis shifts to the spiritual quadrant.

Here,

The function is intuition,

Which leads to spiritual growth.

We begin to notice that family members and friends may express their spirituality by attending temples or churches.

Often popular culture in movies,

TV shows,

The Internet and music brings us references to spiritual ideas.

The need is to develop curiosity about life's major questions and to seek connections with our creator.

Around puberty and onward,

We begin to ask questions that are spiritual in nature,

Such as,

Who is in charge of things?

Why do bad things happen to people?

Why do people have to suffer?

What control,

If any,

Do I have of my life?

Am I really as alone as I sometimes feel?

Is there a God or higher being or spirit?

And if so,

Do they care about me?

When we know that these are normal and healthy questions to ask,

Then we develop a sense of confidence about having a spiritual life.

We grow into the realization that we are a spiritual being.

When I was around 10 years old,

My family moved to a new state to live.

My mother took me along with her when she went looking for a new church.

We ended up attending a Quaker meeting,

Where our Sunday school class sat with the adults for the first part of their silent worship.

We met in an old stone building built in the 1700s.

There,

I heard the story that in colonial times,

The Quakers met one first day,

A Sunday,

And an Indian war party suddenly burst screaming through the door.

The Indians encountered the room full of Quakers sitting in silence.

None of the Quakers moved.

They remained sitting on their wooden benches that faced each other.

They did not get up or speak.

The raiders looked around,

Then left quietly,

Leaving the worshippers in their silence.

I was deeply impressed by this story,

Which became part of my family's precious few conversations about the spiritual life.

All of life's experiences,

Both inner and outer,

Past and present,

Are contained and held in the circle of the four quadrants.

These days,

We have more access to sages and spiritual teachers than ever before.

The doors of the ancient libraries and monasteries have been flung open to us to use for our education and transformation.

We can create and we have access to and conversations with the true mystics,

Then and now.

The spiritual is the last or the first of these four quadrants.

Remember,

It is as much a part of us as any other three,

And to be a healthy person,

That is,

In balance,

The spiritual quadrant two needs to be acknowledged and expressed.

We'll close our class with a spiritual practice.

This is called balanced.

Allow yourself to stand with your body straight and tall,

Secured by a strong foundation of firmly planted feet.

This is the yoga position of mountain pose,

A posture of body prayer.

Standing tall with your arms at your side,

Breathe into your whole form,

Taking the energizing air from the universe into your lungs and then throughout your whole body.

Slowly raise your arms and sweep them up until they point straight overhead to the sky.

Feel the space you inhabit as a physical being.

This is yours,

The space to stand tall.

Take a stand,

Have your place,

Exist here and now.

Now notice how you feel,

Your natural emotions standing here.

This is your emotional being,

Alive,

Well,

Conscious and expressing itself.

Perhaps you feel peaceful.

Now notice your mind observing and making sense of this body prayer.

Notice your lightness of being,

Your spirit.

Feel your spirit embodied in your physical form and also your energy body extending all around you for a few feet in every direction.

Standing here,

Allow yourself to experience your wholeness and balance,

The health of yourself right now in this space and time.

You are living all four quadrants now as one because you stand in balance,

Aware,

Integrated and embodying your physical,

Emotional,

Intellectual and spiritual self whole.

Thank you.

I'll meet you next time for Lesson 2,

Grief,

Letting Go.

Reviews

Hello to you Jacob.
Enlightening and effective.
Thank you, again.
Orly
Israel
Have a beautiful weekend ♾

Thank you for sharing your wholeness perspective

A lot of knowledge and insights in a short time! Thank you!

Thank you. I am learning more about somatic release and this helps. I love this format too. Will look for more :)

Very interesting. I will sit with this! Thank you

Thanks Jacob, this was my first meditation with you...

Thank you very much for these wise words.

Excellent review of the quadrants and developmental stages/tasks of each one. Loved the incorporation of the brief meditation at the front and the mountain pose at the end, particularly the guidance provided for the mountain pose. Bookmarked and downloaded. Thank you so much for sharing this practice with us here. I see the light in you. 🤲❤️🤲