Personal Ecology

I first encountered the term "personal ecology" in my NLP training back in 1979-1980 with John Grinder and Richard Bandler. They used it within the context of their reframing process where you were asked to check with "all the other parts of yourself" to ensure that some newly proposed behaviors were synergistic with or at least not in conflict with any of those other parts that were considered to have important functions.

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This question contained a basic assumption that "all the other parts" were necessary as constructed, with all their costs and benefits included, in supporting that person to have a great life. I understand that not making this assumption could have left the whole reframing process unwieldy and too open-ended. This assumption, however, left the fox in the hen house.

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My discovery that any and all "parts of ourselves," the number of which that could exist in any individual as being indeterminately large and therefore unwieldy, can be included as just the four parts of Now and Next and Oneself and Others, and with further refinement, if needed sometimes, into eight sub-parts of Frightened and Pleasure (for Now), Fearless and Plan (for Next), Selfish and Express (for Oneself) and Service and Emage (for Others).

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Therefore, the meaning for Personal Ecology, within this context, is measured positively by your level of Integrity among these parts. Or negatively, it can be measured by the lack of a civil war.

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See Anatomy of Integrity.