I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Sunday Planning, I plan for the week ahead.
Could my experience of feeling tortured and disoriented be exactly what I need to progress to a higher level of personal development? Today I want to share the work of Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dąbrowski on the theory of positive disintegration.
But first, let’s start with one of my favorite texts relevant to reinvention.
In his book Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, William Bridges proposes that personal transformation involves a three-step process in which you experience an ending, you spend time in a neutral zone where seemingly not much happens, and then, after this apparently fallow period, you experience a new beginning.
I call the neutral zone “apparently fallow” because actually much is happening beneath the surface even as the person going through the transition may seem curiously inert and inactive. Or, if the person in transition is someone like me who very actively engages with the world at all times, the process may look chaotic and without direction or purpose.
Bridges writes:
You should not feel defensive about this apparently unproductive time-out during your transition points, for the neutral zone is meant to be a moratorium from the conventional activity of your everyday existence. The activities of your ordinary life keep you “you” by presenting you with a set of signals that are difficult to respond to in any but the old way. Only in the apparently aimless activity of your time alone can you do the important inner business of self-transformation. But you don’t do it as you do ordinary things, for it is in the walking, watching, making coffee, counting the birds on the phone wire, studying the cracks in the plaster ceiling over the bed, dreaming, and waiting for God-knows-what to happen that you are carrying on the basic industry of the neutral zone, which is attentive inactivity and ritualized routine.
For me, the neutral zone has been a flurry of activity: blogging every day, creating abstract art and showing it in juried shows, writing a first draft of a book about midlife dating and romance, taking professional photography courses, fostering homeless dogs. It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere though.
And I’ve become increasingly agitated because of the sense that I’m stuck in some ever repeating cycle of trying new things and then discarding them.
Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration
Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dąbrowski developed a theory of personality development based on the concept of positive disintegration. He proposed that to reach a higher level of development your lower-level psychological structures and commitment to societal demands must break down. This necessary period of change will likely feel like a crisis, not like forward progress.
Let’s look at Dąbrowski’s five developmental levels. Keep in mind that in his theory, not everyone progresses through all five levels. In fact, most people live at Level I: Primary Integration.
Level i: primary integration
Dabrowski suggested that most people live in a stage of primary integration, where their values are a reflection of social norms as well as genetic and physiological influences. Most people live at this level of integration, following conventional pathways (marriage, corporate career, work until 65 then retire). This life can be lived largely on autopilot. You borrow values from your culture rather than developing your own. You have high self-esteem as long as you meet society’s expectations for you. You can be efficient with your choices because you don’t have to question their foundation.
level ii: Unilevel disintegration
At some point, a person may experience unilevel disintegration when they feel dissatisfied with their lives. They may question their career, their relationship, where they live, and consider whether alternatives might bring more happiness to them. In this phase, the disintegration only happens on one level — it doesn’t question the whole setup.
If you enter a period of unilevel disintegration, you might question the foundations of social success and feel like nothing matters. This period can be painful and directionless. It brings with it a crisis of meaning. Think of a midlife crisis where someone gets rid of everything that used to define them and matter to them. Many people will return to primary integration — a new relationship, a new career, the same old coping mechanisms (excessive drinking or shopping or social media). This is because living in unilevel disintegration can feel so empty and uncomfortable.
The question you ask yourself when you are experiencing unilevel disintegration is Should I do X or Y? You don’t question the foundation that says you should be in a relationship of a certain sort (a stable, long-term heterosexual marriage), have a reliable job and source of income, live in a beautifully appointed single family house, buy new stuff regularly, and generally meet the demands of the achievement society.
In the twelve years after my divorce, I experienced unilevel disintegration. I tried many different relationships with many different men. Somehow none satisfied me or brought me happiness. I tried various career options — a couple different data science leadership jobs, a brief attempt at launching an AI startup. I sold my house and lived in a rental, lived with a boyfriend for a time, and then bought a different house. I controlled my drinking through various means and then I’d go back to using alcohol to cope and to force myself to socialize in the way people seemed to want me to socialize. Financially, I tried to make buy-and-hold investing work (and failed, even though it works for so many people!)
level iii: multilevel disintegration
In this phase, your question is I am doing X, but what ought I to be doing instead? You stop comparing yourself to others. You begin comparing yourself to a higher self that doesn’t fully exist yet.
In this stage, you will experience a conflict between who you are and who you ought to be. What is your calling? Who might you become? How might you throw off the shackles of burnout culture and live in a more meaningful, authentic way?
You experience positive maladjustment. Maladjustment is usually seen as something negative where a person can’t adjust to the reality of their situation, and the societal demands placed on them. But this is not always negative. It can be the trigger for development beyond the conventional.
This is the phase I have experienced since I left my data science job in April of 2024. It has been very uncomfortable and chaotic, even as I’ve enjoyed all the activities I’ve tried. I’ve felt all the things that Bridges says you feel in the neutral zone: disoriented, detached, disenchanted, disidentified, disengaged. These are hallmarks of Dabrowski’s multilevel disintegration.
level iv: directed multilevel disintegration
In this phase, you move from disintegration happening to you to directing the process yourself. The disintegration continues but now you shift from feeling like a victim of the transition to being its architect.
You no longer react to social pressure or biological impulses. You have developed an autonomous internal compass that decides which traits to cultivate and which to let die. You aspire to something different than what society has asked of you, something better (at least according to the values you hope to fully embody someday).
You become your own therapist and your own mentor and your own coach. You don’t look for external validation. You don’t rely on experts to tell you how to live. You develop your own systems and routines that support your growth, and support the lifestyle that you are designing for yourself.
This doesn’t entirely align with Bridge’s theory of new beginnings. He writes, “The lesson in all such experiences is that when we are ready to make a new beginning, we will shortly find an opportunity.” Perhaps, in fact, the actual new beginning is less under the transitioner’s control than “directed multilevel disintegration” makes it sound like?
And yet, I do feel like there has been a shift for me of distintegration happening to me to my being in control of the disintegration now. I have a sense of where it’s going. I am getting “a faint intimation of something different, a new theme in the music, a strange fragrance on the breeze,” as Bridges puts it.
Level V: Secondary integration
In this phase the “is” and the “ought” merge together. You live in alignment with your highest values. You live autonomously, free of social conditioning. In multilevel disintegration, you suffer through change. In secondary integration, you live your change.
I only aspire to reach that point but I have an idea what it looks like: I live in permanent (or at least indefinite and celebrated) singlehood, without a corporate job or probably any job at all, I spend my days trading to provide myself with income and intellectual engagement, and I continue my work fostering and training homeless dogs. Instead of listening to endless financial podcasts that stress me out, I listen to philosophical and Buddhist podcasts instead. I write regularly, maybe even sharing my experience of reinvention that played out not over one year, not over 1000 days, but over probably fifteen years of disintegration and integration.
Planning the week ahead – more directed disintegration
I’m welcoming foster dog Sally today which will introduce a new element of chaos into my household. I’m meeting with a trainer on Tuesday to work on her leash reactivity.
Today I’m having a mini birthday brunch at my house for my daughter (who just turned 23) and myself (turning 58 a week from today) after picking Sally up in Wheat Ridge.
Having sold off all my long positions in my income portfolio last week, I’m ready to start wheel trading in earnest.
I’m sure I’ll keep blogging about this topic of reinvention all week, with more on the ideas of Dabrowski, Callard, and others.