Becoming Wholer

....I keep learning more and more

The good life is a process, not a state of being.

It is a direction, not a destination.

~Carl Rogers, On Becoming A Person

The Messy Elegance of Becoming Whole Wholer

Making Your Way Toward a Life of Grace and Depth

A companion for people learning to live life more deeply

(My current, evolving, book title)

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OK, well, after much deliberation I thought I’d pretty much nailed the title of this book-of-mine-in-progress but then I remembered that pretty much anything in progress is actually going to progress. That’s the whole idea, right, that is if one wants to learn and grow along the way. And I do.

So I added “grace” to the title, and I think that adds a richness to the whole idea of becoming whole. (Think Audrey Hepburn in contrast with, say, Joan Crawford, or Andrea Sachs compared to Miranda Priestly, Annie Hall versus Claire Underwood, or Atticus Finch as the antithesis of Don Draper) After all, how whole can one be if part of their personality is mean-spirited or even vicious?

But that begged the question, can anyone — anyone — ever become whole? And if not, am I on a wild-goose chase here?

Last year I lost 30 pounds. This year, I’ve gained ten of those back. Causes? Well, I could blame a fall I took on March 1st that led to an ER visit on March 27th (where we all discovered I had blood clots — pulmonary embolisms — all across my lungs) which required me to stop exercising for a month, and only then slowly re-engaging with slow, regular walking and then hiking. But the real weight-gain culprit, I submit, was my capitulation to the “what the hell effect.”

Maybe you can remember a time when you committed to something - say running every day or dropping sugar from your diet. And you do great until, one day, you miss a day on the trail or eat that one Snickers bar. Then you say to yourself, well shoot, since I broke that commitment I can eat some Red Vines or those Milk Duds (some of my favs) and then I find myself hooked up to the metaphorical sugar IV. One missed jog becomes a skipped week and then a month and then “mind over mattress” (as I heard Stephen Covey call it) becomes the snooze button-over-alarm new habit. In fact, “counterregulation” is the term researchers use for the overindulgence that can come after breaking a commitment to oneself (to eating, exercising, and such).

In my own less-clinical terminology, it meant giving myself excuses to eat or drink anything I darn well wanted to, including candy bars, beer at bars, and bartering healthy versus unhealthy calories with myself. Bar none.

Well, some.

And this sad example is my way of laying out the case against the possibility that anyone can ever become completely whole. Just because I had the discipline and drive and joy of getting in shape, of really focusing on increasing my healthspan, it did not mean I was whole by any means. It only meant that part of me — my body — was a lot healthier than before, and could become not-as-healthy again. Other parts of my life, like re-engaging with the love of writing, had been on hold. When I took up this process of writing with purpose again, I moved it up on my priority list. The consequence was that healthiness lost my single-minded devotion.

And here I am.

The good news is that I can walk and chew gum at the same time (I went on a ten-mile hike just a week ago with an elevation gain of over 1600 feet), so I’m already moving into a more wholesome balance. But there’s still tons I’m not doing or not doing well. Welcome to the real world, Michael.

If I generalize this anecdotal information, I must conclude again that no one — at least no one I know of — has become whole. At best, they have become “wholer.” More whole.

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Carl Rogers talked about this process as “becoming.” Rogers, back in the day, back in my Dad’s day, changed the way many therapists worked with clients by suggesting they should act more as compassionate facilitators than as authoritative experts. I remember Dad, the Director of Guidance and Counseling in the Wichita Public Schools and later a special education professor who became known in his field for working with the parents of special needs children, speak of Rogers and “Rogerian” therapy. In his classic book, On Becoming A Person: A Therapist’s view of Psychotherapy, Rogers wrote about therapy,

“Can I meet this other individual as a person who is in the process of becoming, or will I be bound by his past and by my past…If I accept the other person as something fixed, already diagnosed and classified, already shaped by his past, then I am doing my part to confirm this limited hypothesis. If I accept him as a process of becoming then I am doing what I can to confirm or make real his potentialities.”

Can we apply that re-framing to ourselves? Instead of looking at who we are through the eyes of critique, asking how we can fix ourselves, can we instead consider how we can teach ourselves, and how we can be lifelong learners seeking to develop ourselves? Exit self-judgment. Enter exploration. Enter wholing.

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You are invited to join me and others on this Messy Elegance journey.

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If we extended this idea of becoming wholer, we could look at “wholiness,” that is, becoming wiser, healthier, kinder, more graceful, more compassionate, more integrated, more deeply human.

At first glance, wholiness sounds like a typo for holiness. But I think the two are more like fraternal twins or cousins than born of different families.

Holiness and wholiness may be related but I don’t think they are the same thing. History is full of people widely regarded as holy who may not have been particularly whole. Saints, monks, reformers, ministers, and spiritual leaders have shown remarkable devotion, courage, discipline, and sacrifice while simultaneously struggling to become wholer. In fact, I’d suggest that one of the characteristics of these holy people is that they never consider themselves done, complete, arrived. They’re all workin’ on it.

Likewise, we all know people who seem remarkably whole — grounded, compassionate, emotionally healthy, relationally mature — who don’t consider themselves holy or even spiritual at all.

Holying (my term for becoming holier) in the Christian tradition, perhaps then, is the spiritual work to “Imitate Christ,” that is to become more Christlike. For many, if not all faith traditions, holying is perhaps that quest to become closer to the divine through intentional spiritual practice and experience.

Wholying is more oriented toward the lifelong learning process of becoming more and more healthy in all aspects of our lives - mind, body, spirit, socio-emotional (if you get a chance, you might want to check out an article my colleagues Davin Carr-Chellman and Carol Rogers-Shaw and I wrote about lifelong formation) - and the integration of all aspects of those into becoming a person of more and more depth, joy, and completeness. It’s an enflourishing process.

Holyness concerns sacred orientation; wholiness concerns caring for and developing the entire person. These are not exactly the same, but both are essential for each other.

Perhaps holiness and wholiness meet in grace.

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Modern life pushes us toward goals, perfection (no errors, flawless), to more and more or to less and less. But we aren’t machines built to be one-trick ponies. We are organisms, ecosystems. We ebb. we flow. When I have to go to the doctor for this or that - especially for big ticket items - I’m amazed to find how integrated our bodies are, how they heal themselves almost always. Not-healing is the exception, not the rule.

We flourish when that integrated who-we-are includes it all - not just arteries and veins, but also deep thinking, wisdom, relationships, and meaningfulness.

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Questions to think about.

What parts of your life are flourishing right now — and what parts quietly need attention?

What might becoming “wholer” look like in your own life these days?

What have you or others you have observed done to become “wholer” on your/their journey?

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Take-aways

1. No one is whole

The more I sat with this essay, the more I questioned the phrase “becoming whole.” It felt too final, too polished, too complete — as if somewhere out there existed as a perfect human being who had finally arrived. I’ve met some people I’ve admired mightily but never one who was perfect, or complete, or whole.

2. People can become “wholer.”

What I have met are people who are becoming wholer.

More joyful.

Richer in all the most important ways.

Living with more meaning.

Deeper relationships

Healthier, in various aspects of life.

3. Wholeness is not perfection.

Perfection is impossible, and the quest for perfection is a fool’s errand. But everyone can be wholer.

4. Holyness and Wholiness are different, but related

All of this led me into an unexpected rabbit hole. Somewhere along the way we split them apart. Health became medical. Holiness became something just for special people. Knowledge became the province of highly educated people or just older people. I increasingly think the deepest forms of flourishing are not extraordinary at all. They are profoundly ordinary, ordinarily profound.

5. Becoming wholer is all about enflourishing

Becoming wholer is not about becoming exceptional. It is about becoming more deeply and uniquely human. We can’t control what happens to us, but we have a lot of ability to influence the kind of people we wish to becoming.

The work of a lifetime is not about becoming perfect, it’s not to become something, but to move toward wholeness, to being.

Wholer.

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Blue Sky

Heading down from the Aldape Summit 5-24-26

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It would mean a lot to me if you would share this post with people you think might be interested in this kind of discussion/exploration.

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Notes

Rogers, C., On becoming a person. Houghton Mifflin, 1961. pp. 186-187

Polivy J and Herman CP (2020) Overeating in Restrained and Unrestrained Eaters. Front. Nutr. 7:30

Herman, C. Peter, et al. “The Illusion of Counter-Regulation.” Appetite [England], vol. 9, no. 3, December 1987, pp. 161–69

à Kempis, T. (2013). The Imitation of Christ (R. Challoner, Trans.). Tan Books & Pub.

*Kroth, M., Carr‐Chellman, D. J., & Rogers‐Shaw, C. (2022). Formation as an organizing framework for the processes of lifelong learning. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 34(1), 26-36.