Horizontal Development
Exploring the Map of Horizontal Development
“Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.” —Rumi
Horizontal development is the journey of Self-actualization. It’s the climb up the pyramid of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs where, once your survival needs are met, you can begin to thrive in the adventure of actualizing your human potential. In theory, horizontal development means the unfolding of human potential towards deeper understanding, wisdom and effectiveness in the world.
We use the concept of a map with different “lands” to visit as a teaching tool because experiencing horizontal growth can be likened to: a) discovering new lands of potential growth, b) having adventures by overcoming challenges unique to each land visited. For example, if you were unaware of and unpracticed in the area of mindfulness, mindfulness wouldn’t be on your map of potentials. If you were aware of mindfulness through research but haven’t actually practiced it yet, it would be on your map but has remained an unexplored territory. If you have both mindfulness research and some practice, you have more exploring to do, more challenges to overcome in order to bring it into actualized potential. Actualization is a degree of mastery in a land of potential.
You can only overcome what you are aware of and just like real countries on a map, each land area in our horizontal growth map has its own infinite richness to explore. The process of actualization is never-ending, but achieving certain levels of competencies can prove very helpful in achieving the scope of work in your awakening intended through BioVibrational.com.
Your “competencies” are a measurement of your overcoming obstacles—limitations connected to your vertical development. Your vertical development is measured by which terrain you inhabit. That “you” is your ego-self and its limitations, and the terrain you inhabit is an average of your development in all the “lands” of horizontal development. Each “land” has 9 levels of competency, matching the Spiral Terrains. Reading the scales below, the left side is the most underdeveloped and most ego-centric. The right is most developed and most higher-Self centric. Confused yet? Sounds like the instructions for a super-heady board game, right? See the examples below, they’ll help.
Career & Livelihood
If your “career & livelihood” land of development is at “orange diamond,” you will likely lean toward: employment from single-bottom-line socially and environmentally irresponsible companies or an entrepreneurship endeavor that doesn’t utilize your higher gifts.
Political
If your “political” land of development is at “blue square,” your beliefs will be leaning toward: law-and-order, fixed rules, future security, and moral majority candidates and policies.
Health & Nutrition
If your “health & nutrition” land of development is at “green circle,” you will be leaning towards: experimenting with or participating fully in using environmentally friendly, socially responsible foods/products such as vegan products, natural ingredients, and sustainably packaged goods.
Psychosexual
If your “psychosexual” land of development is at “red diamond,” you will be leaning towards: treating the opposite sex with dominant/submissive stereotypical dynamics (ex: Wahhabist Islamic Muslims) and using intercourse as a means of achieving your gratification with little to no regard for the other person’s pleasure experience.
Interpersonal relationships
If your “interpersonal relationships” land of development is at “turquoise toroid,” you will be leaning towards: seeing every interaction as an opportunity to experience love, acceptance, and helping another with their development while embodying the perspective of a bodhisattva.
If you don’t know what the “color shape” terrain terms mean, please read about Spiral Terrain Development first and come back to this.
Map Your Self-actualization
Where do you want to grow? What lands would you like to develop new adventures in? Talk to your guide about what self-actualization looks like to you.
The process of self-actualization co-emerges with self-realization (transcendence) to create ascension. Ascension leads to your liberation out of ego-identification and into living life through the perspective of your higher-self. Taken all together, this is the journey of Total Embrace and is what leads you to being able to experience more of the love, beauty, peace, and happiness this life has to offer.
During our time together, we will discover areas of self-actualization that could use development and apply the practice of Total Embrace to what we discover on your map. Because we are often blind to our own underdevelopments, working with a guide is very helpful in the discovery and embrace process.
Combined with the effort you make in your day-to-day practice of mindful awareness, we apply the four elements of Total Embrace:
Becoming aware of (mindful discovery)
Accepting (non-judgmental regard)
Loving (fully embracing with joy), and
Releasing (non-attachment and giving up defenses)
…all that you are.
This practice along with taking action from your new perspective will bring you into alignment with the self-actualizing perspective Abraham Maslow laid out in his groundbreaking work, “The Farther Reaches of Human Nature.”
"A self-actualizing person is more able to perceive the world as if it were independent not only of them, but also of human beings in general. They can then more readily look upon nature as if it were there in itself and for itself, and not simply as if it were a human playground put there for human purposes. They can more easily refrain from projecting human purposes onto it. And they can see it is there in its own being rather than something to be used, or something to be afraid of, or something to be reacted to in some other human way."
"Self-actualizing people take a non-valuing, non-judging, non-interfering, non-condemning attitude towards others. A desirelessness, and a choiceless awareness. This understanding permits much clearer and more insightful perception of what is actually there."
—Abraham Maslow
The game of horizontal and vertical development are always at play—consciously or unconsciously. The more conscious we make our experience, the more actualized we become.
Click below to learn about how Spiral Terrain Development (vertical development) can vitally shift your perspective on reality.