Commodent

@sgn Yes, I've used it as a foundation for most of my inner work. What I like about it is that it corresponds well with neuroscience and even goes well along with spirituality. I remember reading about it in "Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors" by Janina Fisher, a book built on cutting-edge trauma research. It was made clear that the model is very effective in treatment of treatment-resistant patients, something which I don't doubt since it matches my own experience. Note that I did not learn this from any therapist, but instead used is as a powerful tool for self-therapy. I do not use it as much anymore, at least not consciously, as I feel pretty integrated and I have a lot of other stuff to think about. But it was absolutely essential understanding for me in order to stop fighting with myself, and to develop self-compassion. The reason I say this goes well along with spirituality, is that it makes you more aware of who you ACTUALLY are beyond all that inner turmoil. Because the whole point of the model is really to not get sucked into the limited consciousness of one part. It helped me get in touch with that healing, compassionate presence inside of me that has a very wide perspective, and is me in its totality. Whereas before I was always worrying, which was only really a small fragment of who I am. And yet it was ruling my life. The model helped me find my grounding, which I wasn't ever aware of before. That is really the main focus in my life right now. To fully embody that inner presence. Always grounding, grounding, grounding. Whenever I notice a part flaring up, like worrying about being accepted, I notice it, and put my attention back again at my body and the joy of the present moment. Because that's really the end-goal of any trauma treatment: to be here and not there. I feel like one trap of this model is to falsely believe that you should just let your parts run wild. I remember I would give the flaring part my full attention, talk to it compassionately, and hope that it would oblige. It's way better than fighting with yourself at least, but at the same time I allowed myself to become destabilized. You want to trust that you can return to the present moment at any time and remain in control. Don't turn this into a limiting belief. Whenever you notice a part flaring up, notice it, accept it as a part of you, take in its perspective, but DON'T let it suck you in. Stay grounded in the present moment and in your body, as much as possible. If you find yourself getting stuck in a part consistently, you might want to do some journaling and give it your full attention, let it speak its truth fully, and try to alleviate its fears with positive talk. But don't let it consume you in your day-to-day life. That should be the goal at least.

I remember having similar concerns before buying the course. This is what he replied:

@MAYA EL I'd like to rephrase that sentiment more accurately. Let's say the people in your tribe were currently starving. Would it then be wise to have more kids? Also, people in the past did generally not make excuses to not have kids. More than anything, it has been glorified. @Spinoza And I'd like to add that if you were to have a child, I'd probably choose to adopt or something. There's enough of homeless children out there. And with adoption you also have the added "benefit" of not risking getting a retarded child, for those of you that are worried about that.

Oh, tell us about your time in the mafia. Didn't that work out with your LP?

In my opinion there are two very good reasons to not have kids: Our Earth is already incredibly strained. The money you don't spend on raising kids (which is a lot) could instead be spent on a good cause. Having a kid in this day and age is in my view a very selfish decision. You can achieve a lot more in the world when you don't have to spend time raising a kid. Raising a child takes 18 years of your life, and to be fair, it probably isn't over after those 18 years either. Whatever kind of meaning you'd imagine from having a kid, can be increased ten-fold by getting out there and doing the real work. Most people usually just get kids to meet their unmet needs, to fill a certain void inside of them. Don't be that guy. It will fuck up your kids. If you were to have kids, you should 100% be coming from a place of abundance.

Yeah, do you have any good fiction books to recommend, by the way? I can personally recommend the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Hugely inspiring and deep.

Indeed. I do in many ways think fiction books can actually be more powerful than standard self-help books, since fiction books elicit detailed visualizations (which sends a stronger message to the subconscious). @Alex bAlex And I can definitely vouch for doing something creative. It might be a bit difficult to get started, but once you get going it's so much fun. Look for something that evokes strong emotions in you, and try to express it.

People of the same subtype as you tend to look the same, dress the same, and have exactly the same life problems as you: Curios pattern, isn't it? Source: https://www.objectivepersonality.com/home

@SkrOzz I'm not saying your personality doesn't change. It does (hopefully). Your type however, remains constant throughout your life. It is the framework in which you evolve. Self-assessment tests are inherently unreliable, because people are in general not able to perceive themselves accurately (and no, you are not the rare, special exception). So the only thing you will learn from such tests is really just how you perceive yourself, and not how you are objectively. Unless you type yourself using input from others and do some serious studies on cognitive functions, any self-typing is useless.

@bejapuskas Let's say your dominant cognitive function is Fi. You will spend 95% of your day view through the lens of how you feel about things and your personal values. This is what you've been doing your entire life, and it's so encompassing you aren't really aware of it. You can't fathom any other way of doing it. C.G. Jung said so himself, you are BLIND to your 1st and 4th function. People are only really aware of their 2nd and 3rd function. You can exercise your weaker functions, even tone down your dominant function. But your type will still stay the same. In fact, you want to balance out your dominant function. Doing so won't change your personality type, though, and that's the thing. You mature. You don't become a completely different person. They might act as if they were extroverted, but they still won't be extroverted. They would still go home and recharge their batteries in their introverted state. Extroversion will drain them, because they're not naturally good at it. And even more, their bodies are not wired to be in that extroverted state all the time. So if they exert themselves too much, they will become physically sick. Sorry, this discussion is honestly not very interesting. What I'm saying is well-established and really not worth the time arguing over. If you have any further questions, I'd advice you to simply educate yourself some more on the topic. E.g. by reading the book "Psychological Types" by C.G. Jung.

@bejapuskas Perceived personality type, that is. A Fi-dom doesn't suddenly become a Ni-dom. A Fi-dom might start identifying more with their Ni, but that doesn't change the fact that they still spend 95% of their day in a Introverted Feelings state. Your type doesn't change.

@Aquarius Your personality type doesn't change. If it does, it's because you got your type wrong. Most people lack the self-awareness to discover their actual personality type. Consider it more of a values assessment.

Growing up, my mother was incredibly hot-tempered, miserable and toxic. I didn't love her, and I didn't even like her. Which is fine, because she treated me like a dog. It took me a very long time to realize that though, because I thought I was the problem. I thought I was being lazy and uncooperative, and in a sense that was true, but she handled it in the worst way possible. She demonised certain parts of me, and decided to fight it with fire. I deeply resented her, something which I felt very guilty about at the time (because she was shaming me for my anger). But in retrospect, I see that my feelings were completely justified. Which has made me realize one very important thing: Always trust your instincts. Now, you might wonder, how did it go in the end? After moving out I started reading about dysfunctional families, something which required a quite open mind because I thought my upbringing was perfectly fine at the time. But after reading countless of books on it the depths of the abuse and neglect started dawning on me. I was, after all this time, finally reassured that my feelings were indeed valid. She would still treat me hugely disrespectful the times I visited her for vacation, so I made it very clear to her that if she did not treat me with respect I would cease to visit her. Every time she would attempt a sneaky little jab at me I would call her out and stand my ground when she accused me of "overreacting". Finally, she seemed to have gotten the point. The year that followed, she did her very best to not unleash her wrath at me, because she understood the consequences. But I could sense it wasn't authentic. Now, about a year later, it's almost as if she's a completely different person. She has been to therapy for her own traumas and now actually seems happy. She has even acknowledged that I might not have had the best upbringing, something which from my understanding is super rare to hear from dysfunctional parents. Our relationship is now the best that it has ever been. So my advice to you is: if you feel pulled down by her weights, then it's probably a good idea to get some distance. You are not responsible for other people's happiness. Find your inner truth, and trust it. Also, read "The Tao of Fully Feeling" by Pete Walker. It was monumental for learning to trust myself. I think you might need that.

Maybe, when you mind/body is perfectly balanced. Trying to enforce it though is just silly.

@Manjushri Maybe your life is somewhat unbalanced? If you're always pushing towards your goals (authentic being and personal development) then it's easy to get detached from what is really inside. And then it will come bite you in the ass, forcing you to face what you have been avoiding. You say your depression is filled with anger, hurt and "hatred"? Where does this come from? Don't try to find an intellectual answer, experience it within you. I have a feeling you might need to take a deep dive into your past, to understand why you have these feelings. And remember, depression is really no less an authentic experience than the most euphoric joy. Honor every experience.

Depression is not a crime against life. It is life. No matter how deadening it might feel. This was personally a tough pill for me to swallow. I was depressed most of my teens. And the reason why it stuck so long was mainly because I desperately tried running away from it. That's what got me into self-help at an early age. The desire to feel alive. But all the time I was really running away from the depression, and didn't dare facing it. I didn't dare to feel it fully. And thus, I never really got to know it, which prevented me from understanding why it really was there. I was too ungrounded, always striving for something "in the future" to fix it. Accept that you will likely never get completely rid of depression. We all experience it from time to time, if only for a couple of minutes. And if you run away from it in those moments, it will inevitably build up, because you are ignoring what it is trying to tell you. It might also be helpful to recall times in the past that you were depressed, and put it into context, in order to understand you why it arose. That will help you in the moments it's happening again. Seek to understand your depression, not to get rid of it. In my case it usually arises when I'm unaligned, and is thus a call to ground myself. Remember, your emotions are there to guide you.

You spend more time in solitude.

This is highly inaccurate and also a mistranslation. "Suffering arises from attachment to desires." That is, attachment to desires lead to suffering. Not the desires themselves. Not having your desires met can certainly be painful, but luckily pain is not equal to suffering. It's quite beautiful, really.

Intuition without real life data is useless, and vice versa. So if you have superior intuitive skills, you are still going to crash and burn in the real world if you lack the practical skills and ignore the details (something which is quite common). Thus, I don't think your theory holds water. They might have the ideas, but they will save a harder time actualizing it. Thinking without feeling is also quite useless btw, because you'll end up thinking about stuff that isn't really important. ENTJs might get stuff done in the real world, but due to demon Fi they might not even be aware of what THEY want, something which is a huge hurdle to self-actualization. And intuitives are not less likely to succumb to group think. If you're serious about this work, I'd advice against relying on stereotypes.

The best way I've found is to consciously brainwash yourself. That is, exposing yourself to people that has the kind of mindset that you want. For example, if I want to be more self-loving and authentic, I will spend some time finding the best books on self-love and authenticity. And after a couple of months of listening to these audio-books, it will be deeply ingrained in my psyche. I will start thinking like them, and over time, embody it. It's particularly powerful if you read / listen right before going to bed. Another powerful method is to spend some time writing down the ideal worldview that you would like to have, and then read it each morning. Spend some time getting this down, and only pick those sentences that particularly elates you. It should be grounded in truth, and beauty. Your subconscious is like a big, slow elephant. Changing its course requires repetition and consistency. But it's quite easy. You don't even have to think about the material you're ingesting, as all that stuff gets ingrained subconsciously.

You need to have a good intuition of the different stages, and then you just listen to what they say. As @Nivsch says, you gotta find their center of gravity. When people talk their statements might go a along the lines of: BLUE BLUE ORANGE BLUE RED BLUE or something like that. In the example given there is some red and orange, but mostly blue. So one could say that the center of gravity is blue.

Reminds me of something that was said in an audiobook I'm currently listening to, "The Power of Vulnerability" by Brené Brown: "We know why we judge. We have pretty good data that speaks to why we judge. Here is why and how we judge: We always judge in areas where we are vulnerable to shame, and then we always pick people who are doing worse than we are doing."

How do you know? Mixing psychedelic substances can be deadly. Edit: I see someone already asked that, but you didn't answer the question

What are healthy manifestations of Beige? To be able to survive independently and take care of yourself. What are unhealthy manifestations of Beige? To not be able to survive independently and to take care of yourself in a healthy way. For example, people with eat and sleeping disorders, the homeless, drug addicts, the terminal ill, etc. What are healthy manifestations of Purple? Peace. Natural. Grounded. Safe. Discrete. Emotional. Creates trust. The relational connection is based on what happened in the past, which gives trust for the future. A very clear and deep understanding about who we are and what needs to be done. What are unhealthy manifestations of Purple? Closed. Evasive. Fearful. Conservative. Stick together in close groups and gossip. Keep everything within the boundaries of the community. The like knows like mentality is outplayed at the cost of the organization or the system. Secure wayside shrines. Continuously creating an in-group and an out-group feeling. What are healthy manifestations of Red? Assertive, movement, show courage, acts immediately on what needs to be done in the here and now and in a respectful way. Set clear boundaries and indicate urgency. Express one’s own opinion. What are unhealthy manifestations of Red? Over-simplified, impatient, harsh, blabbermouth. Too honest. Insistent. Impulsive, unreasonable. Have one’s own needs met or wants to be right at all costs. Dog eats dog. Only thinks of oneself. What are healthy manifestations of the Blue value system? Concrete, meticulous, reliable, steer a straight course, fair and without surprises. Work in a structured manner supported by what is needed. Clear communication lines aimed at a secure and save working environment. Clear decisions without white noise and with clear expectations, made SMART. What are unhealthy manifestations of Blue? Hard, strict, polarizing, fixed and inflexible. Judging and cold. Finds fault with everything. Extreme bureaucracy. Stick to the rules because those are the rules. Continuously striving for perfection, even when solutions are already workable. What are healthy manifestations of Orange? Result-driven, explorative, be able to think strategically, switch pragmatically to solve problems, entrepreneurial. What are unhealthy manifestations of Orange? Calculating, opportunistic, exploitation of the living environment, manipulative and abusing nature and environment, not taking one’s responsibility, too functional, too busy and loosing sight of the human aspect. What are healthy manifestations of Green? Attention for emotions and exploring the inner being of self. A need for community and gathering. Personal development as the basis for collective development. Accepting differences. Attention, care and compassion for all people and the Planet. Open, loving, warm, empathic and helpful. What are unhealthy manifestations of Green? Appeasing, avoiding conflicts, soft and patronizing. Conflicts are not addresses because harmony is more important and should not be compromised. When Green adopts her own wisdom as the only truth it becomes limiting and exclusive and it will exclude everyone who’s not Green. Conversations tend to take longer and results may not be achieved because of the continuous search for consensus and the need to include everyone in the process. What are healthy manifestations of Yellow? Critical, curious without judging and keep asking questions. Can easily distinguish between the essential and the ancillary. Creative and innovative and has a continuous flow of new ideas and ways of thinking. Uses the most appropriate and workable methods and behaviors to realize strategies and builds on already existing knowledge and models. What are unhealthy manifestations of Yellow? Get bogged down in complex analysis. Builds castles in the air; inventing beautiful futuristic solutions, which are not pragmatic. Not able to finish something because there’s always something new that requires attention. Everything is criticized and made more complex instead of doing what actually needs to be done. At times, Yellow may seem cold and distant as it sometimes forgets to connect to people (because of its enthusiasm). What are healthy manifestations of Turquoise? To see the world and the cosmos as an integral whole. To explore, feel and pragmatically work together to solve the large complex problems to serve humanity and the earth. What are unhealthy manifestations of Turquoise? Stay in a spiritual and/or cosmic consciousness too long without taking earthly action. Source: http://spiraldynamicsintegral.nl/en/

SD is a model based on extensive real-life data. It is not "true" per se, but it is just a description of the ways in which value systems tend to evolve. How do they then know that one stage is above the other? Just look at the historical data. If stage X generally arises before stage Y in different people and societies, then it's safe to say that X precedes Y. Simple as that. This is why there is no stage Coral in the Spiral Dynamics framework (yet). Sample size is simply too small.