Developmental processes and structures requisite to the integration of spirituality and work

This qualitative research study describes the experience of personal integration of spirituality and work. It is grounded in the theoretical context of transpersonal developmental psychology that claims spiritual development is human development. It extends into the workplace 5 developmental theories positing that human beings possess the potential to surpass the limits of the developed adult ego. The theorists discussed are Assagioli, Helminiak, Kegan, Maslow, and Wilber. The study explores the essence of integration of spirituality and work as described by 11 individuals working in nine different departments within a nonprofit medical complex. Interviews were qualitatively conducted and analyzed using a phenomenologically inspired approach. Processes required for spiritual integration with work include ongoing differentiation and integration of the ego often supported by spiritual practices. Findings indicate that crisis periods resulting in reflection and reassessment of worldview assumptions can propel individuals toward spiritual development. This supports human developmental theory that chronicles the process of differentiation and integration moving toward a spiritual end. This course can be continuous along the lifetime of a self-actualizing individual as demonstrated by study participants. Supported also is the notion that, at the fundamental core, everything becomes spiritual. Participants describe mundane activities transformed into spiritual practices through a process of clear and focused sacred intention. Four structures are recognized to be integral to the lived experience of integration of spirituality and work: (1) relationship, identified as the actual point of overlap between the inner and outer worlds; (2) authenticity, expressed as integrity or a growing self-consistency within the individual; (3) awareness, bringing about a perspective shift revealing previously hidden worldview contexts; and (4) congruency, leading to clear intention and action in the world while seeing the inconsistency in life with an interior vision of truth. All four of these structures are found to be mutually influencing within self-actualizing individuals. This study suggests that the potential may be present for a new level of transformation and integration at the individual, organizational, and societal level. The findings propose that individual transformation can influence organizational transformation, arguing for the possible interdependence of micro-transformation and macro-transformation. Individuals engaged in this process are creating the cognitive potential in which the current marginalized view of spirituality in the workplace may become anchored in a transformed collective consciousness leading to and supporting a new way of organizing and being in the workplace.