Measuring Integral Resilience

Integral Resilience recognizes that all dimensions of resilience—physical, energetic, emotional, cognitive, psychological, and spiritual—are important and synergistic. These can be tabulated and analyzed, and the resulting score, or Integral Resilience Quotient (IRQ), derived.

Integral Resilience recognizes that all dimensions of resilience—physical, energetic, emotional, cognitive, psychological, and spiritual—are important and synergistic. By improving resilience in one domain, you are likely to enhance resilience in another. When possible, we like to begin with the Reflex Resilience Ball (RRB) because it introduces play and eudaimonia (64) from the outset. In tracking progress, we begin with standard neurological indicators using a simple scale of 1-5, as indicated in Appendix B. These are followed by other metrics intrinsic to the RRB such as timing, balance, relaxed looseness, pacing, yielding, and so forth. Each are scored. Finally, certain BHI parameters are introduced adapted to the specific practice of the RRB. These are all tabulated and the resulting score offers a preliminary Integral Resilience Quotient (IRQ). A similar analysis is followed for each of the 10 Essential Moves.

Several important points must be highlighted in refining the IRQ.

• The state of Big Heart Intelligence (BHI), which we are suggesting is a state of Integral Resilience, embodies all of the important dimensions of resilience as described in the literature.
• Each element is considered to have equal dignity, since all it is suggested are intimately related. This premise greatly simplifies the analysis.
• As noted, each of the 10 Essential Moves is a gate. It welcomes complementary modalities. Many of the above metrics can be incorporated into the calculation of the IRQ.
• For example, physical exercise is well known to influence blood pressure. Move # 2 Finding Your Power invites an exploration of physical exercise in combination with the energetic practices such as “standing like a tree” or horse stance, as introduced in Move # 2. Specific BHI training Field Notes are available for each of the 10 Essential Moves. These notes provide at least a subjective score that BHI or Integral Resilience is a core skill that can be rapidly learned and refined by enjoyable practice.
• Although the initial data is subjective, it is highly likely that it will become increasingly reliable. We call this the “principle of increasing fidelity.” This is because BHI and Integral Resilience are examples of (integrity) systems based on expanding consciousness where a first principle is to “see the world objectively as it is”; in other words, to move away from our natural tendency to want to delude ourselves.
• The IRQ is closely correlated with measurable outcomes for specific health challenges, including literacy, obesity, nutrition, burnout, hypertension, diabetes, and neurodegenerative and cardiac illnesses. A pilot study in collaboration with the Center for Successful Aging in Santa Barbara is being launched focused on three such parameters: loneliness, burnout, and hypertension.
• Measuring Big Heart Advantage™ in communities is a new frontier and raises far more complex technical challenges. In addition to increased integral resilience for individuals and their families, other factors are introduced. These include: organizational resilience, the contribution of synchronicity, and the influence of a personalized, interactive, and intelligent platform, known as the Community Health Multiplier Exchange (CHME), which is described in III.
• Monetization of IRQ. A final way of measuring IRQ is through monetization by means of stakeholders participating in a local currency where IRQ actually becomes a medium of transaction exchange. This element is discussed in III.

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