Emerald

It's actually the middle-most chakra, where the Feminine and Masculine connects. All the chakras above it are Masculine and all the chakras below it are Feminine. So, it's the only chakra of the 7 chakras that's considered both Feminine and Masculine.

Moral development and the question of "evil" isn't even the most effective perspective through which to see this issue... as neither morality nor evil are their own root causes. They are surface-level symptoms and labels that keep us grappling with those symptoms... and missing the root cause entirely. Seeing the problem of evil and prescribing morality and goodness as the cure... is like being a doctor that recognizes the patient has a fever and proposes Tylenol as a cure, when the patient actually has Malaria. And this notion of human morality remaining constant and the persistence of evil, is not recognizing what "moral development" really means at the roots... and what it really means to "cure" the root cause of evil. What we fail to see is that underneath all apparent evils is always a fundamental benevolent and loving intention towards all things recognized as Self. (This is why morality and evil is a very shallow perspective that no solutions can be found in.) But in our ignorance to the fundamental state of benevolent oneness that undergirds all sentient impulses... we split the world into the illusion of self and other. And we will go to war with anything labeled "other." We can even split ourselves... and label parts of ourselves as "other" and go to war with them. And it's because of this illusion of 'self and other' that TONS of "evil" actions that are taken all the time... rape, genocide, torture, murder, child abuse, pedophilia, etc. And these are VERY common in the human species. And it's more common than the average person knows... lest they are on the receiving end of said "evils.' Lucky people end up in little bubbles of privilege that insulate them from the harshness of the world. Hence, the most sheltered among us are the most unawares about both the surface and the roots of humanity. But like I said, looking through the lens of moral development and evil is just not a very effective lens through which to view this issue because morality and evil are just surface-level symptoms of a deeper problem. And that is the problem of disconnection and fragmentation... within ourselves and relative to others. And anyone (and anything), we genuinely recognize as part of ourselves... we will not want bad things to happen to these aspects of ourselves. And if harm comes their way, we will hurt. And we will not be capable of harming others without harming ourselves. But if we are disconnected (especially to an extreme degree) and we believed that we are separate form other people and the Earth itself... we will not care if harm comes to human, creature, or planet. So, what looks like a lack of moral development and evil on the surface is just a symptom of the ignorance that causes disconnection. And the entire reason why Spiral Dynamics can even be framed in terms of "moral development" is because, as we move up the spiral, we expand the scope of our sense of self to see more and more through the illusion of separation. Let's look at more collective phases in Spiral Dynamics... because the sense of self and other increases in more individuation-oriented phases. A Stage Purple tribe from thousands of years ago sees their tribe as one with themselves... and everyone else is an other. A person in a Stage Blue society will see everyone in their nation as one with themselves... and everyone else is an other And ostensibly once we have Stage Green community (which hasn't yet come to pass) we will expand our self-identification to a species-wide or even inter-species identification. And beyond that, at Turquoise we recognize a more cosmic oneness. So, it's this expansion of our sense of self-hood and the undoing of the illusions of separation and disconnection that causes what we refer to as "moral development" But the moral development stays the same. We always are 100% benevolent towards Self... and we are indifferent towards "other". That's always the case at every phase. That doesn't' change. As long as we are in a state of ignorance about our inter-connection and oneness with others, we will continue to be an organism at war with itself. What changes is that we expand our identity, our consciousness, and our worldview to include those that would have been considered "other" in eras past. And we can interpret this on the surface as "moral development" or "overcoming evil". But the reality is that nothing really changed... except the fact that we've seen through the veils of our own ignorance to recognize the underlying oneness underneath the apparent sense of separation. So, societies only "morally develop" because society's expand from tribal cosmologies, to national cosmologies, to global cosmologies. It's just an aperture change of our scope of awareness which re-sensitizes us to the pain and harm we might have otherwise caused without that sensitivity. it's awakening heart wisdom towards that which spans beyond the scope of yourself as an individual or your family or community... or even your own species. Edit: Here's a video that I made on the topic of evil, as explored through the lens of the Genesis story in the Bible...

With the Tarot, it's chock full of archetypal symbolism.... just like fairy tales and myths have. And pulling cards is like creating a randomized archetypal visual mini-myth... as it allows you to reflect on the meanings that are relevant to your life. Some people apparently use it to tap into psychic phenomenon. But I'm not psychic, so I don't use them that way. Instead, I assume a sense of synchronicity to the cards and assume them to be relevant to me... and then, I try to find different angles of interpretation of how the cards relate together in the reading. And then, if that relationship between the cards reminds me of something that's happening in life, I will look back to the symbolism of the cards to see if the symbols and the relationship between them spark any insights or connections that are relevant. And I'll keep going back and forth between the symbolism in the cards, the relationship between the symbols, and the real-life dynamics that I'm experiences. And this can often reveal insights about the situation at hand that pure logical/rational thinking would not have produced.

You wouldn't necessarily know that another person is going through these things. Plus, it was pretty normalized that some low status kids just constantly got their asses handed to them by the other kids... and I was one of those kids, because I was sensitive and had a hard time adapting socially. It was very easy to pick on me because I was weird and socially inept... and easy to get a rise out of me because I was sensitive. And I was short and always looked like I was a couple grades younger that I actually was. So, it was the perfect recipe for any kid with a sadistic impulse to come swooping in to poke the vulnerability... to give themselves a sense of power over someone else. And I would tend to just keep things to myself because I assumed that no one would be able to help me anyway nor did I feel empowered to do anything about it myself (anytime I did try to stand up for myself, I just embarrassed myself further and invited more ridicule)... and that it was incumbent upon me to just roll with the punches. My experience of school from Kindergarten through early 8th grade was like one of those dreams where someone is attacking you and you're trying to punch them... but the punch is ineffective because it's like your fist is moving through water. And I spent years and years trying to figure out a solution to this problem... which I thought lay in the ability to be "popular." I'd often spend my summers brain-storming about how I was going to turn things around for myself socially. It took me a long time to find a game plan that worked sustainably. But around the time I started high school, I eventually did figure out how to adapt socially once I leaned heavily into my alternative style and learned how to socialize and come across as normal/tough/nonchalant. I also developed a positive identity around being a super chilled out stoic person that never gets upset about anything... and who can always be the bigger person even If the other person is being an arsehole. And being non-reactive worked incredibly well... like a social version of Judo. And I became quite popular and commanded a lot of respect in the alt crowd when I was 14/15 as I went from shy awkward nerd girl that's an easy target for everyone to pick on (like Carrie from the movie) to being a relatively social and confident goth girl who dumb people were afraid of... and who would make tons of bold creative choices and didn't mind going against the grain. It's easier to make bolder choices when you're used to being widely reviled and pelted with rotten fruit, figuratively speaking. It inoculates you quite a bit to embarrassment and social scorn. But I ended up disliking the popularity (after feeling like popularity was going to be my saving grace during the 9 years prior). So, I just withdrew from the crowds that wanted to be associated with me. And I just kept a moderate sized friend group after that.

If we're communicating with language, we have to be operating in the mental world. And that's all that an online forum affords us. But being able to intellectually recognize the resistance to the archetypal Feminine on the level of the mind, helps us learn of our blocks and enables us to figure out what we need to drop resistance to towards the end of integration. And because the issue is a lack of understanding about what integrating the Feminine means, many people (especially men) will continue to resist the integration of the Feminine... despite the fact that this is what is necessary to integrate to solve the most common problems that pop up on this section of the forum.

Yes, the "living in one's head" is an archetypally Masculine thing. This reads as nerdy. Yet culturally, the way we think about the Masculine (and what's attractive in men) is a guy who's really in tune with the physical world and in the moment... which means the guy is more Feminine integrated. I like to think of polarized Masculinity like a "brain in a jar"... and the polarized Feminine like a "blob on the ground". So, the most unintegrated man (or woman) who polarizes the most into the Masculine is a guy who operates robotically and like an algorithm. And the most unintegrated woman (or man) who polarizes the most into the Feminine is like an inert couch potato with a hoarded up house. And one can repress both.... and end up as a hyper nerdy robotic inert couch potato with a hoarded up house. That's why we really need integration of both. And the issue that I see with nerdy guys, is that they believe they're not polarized into the Masculine enough... so they keep trying to polarize themselves further and further into the Masculine (both archetypal and cultural). But all they need to do is drop resistance to the archetypal Feminine and a lot of those issues with socializing, connection, lack of bodily attunement, coming across as alien, and lack of presence will drop away. It will also give them an internal relationship to the Feminine, such that their desperation towards women drops... as they no longer feel a lack or a void where their own Feminine side once once.

Thank you

Thank you. I do appreciate the sympathy. But I rarely think about this period of time in my life, and I don't feel much about it other than some more generalized rage about how so many people and forces in the world are geared towards poking something/someone vulnerable with a sharp stick. Digging up the memories does make me remember how difficult things were when I was a kid/young teenager though.

When I was goth (ages 15+), I was rarely bullied in a meaningful way. It happened once every blue moon. Many people who would have bullied me were afraid of me at that point and kept a pretty wide gate... which I thought was quite silly. I'm like 5'2" and I was quite small at the time size-wise. And I didn't have physical strength. I was just a short little goth that wore frilly black dresses with blazers on top of them. The most annoying thing that would happen to me then is the people would try to evangelize me.... but they were not necessarily being mean-spirited about it. Just annoying. Or I'd get people who'd ask annoying questions about me being goth or not... which also wasn't mean-spirited. And (for better or worse) I felt quite superior to all of the people who used to bully me by the time I got to high school... so I didn't feel as defensive as I did in elementary and middle school when they'd pick on me. And when you have boundaries people don't pick on you as much. But middle school was especially brutal... and late elementary was really bad too. This is mostly because I was sensitive and didn't know how to defend myself... and I was a bit weird. But some examples of bullying were these... Being called "The Ogre" on a consistent basis by many guys for several years in middle school Being called a lesbian/butch/Masculine often by both girls and boys between elementary and early high school. This happened hundreds of times... most of the time it was pure bullying. When I was in 2nd grade and I had no friends, there was another girl in my class that made me do a lot of things that go over my boundaries with the threat of "If you don't do this, I won't be your friend anymore." She made me kick a boy in our class in the nuts, show her my private parts in the school bathroom... and she even tried to get me to knock some books out of kindergarteners hands (I couldn't bring myself to do it). But she was able to wield this power over me because she was the only person in my class who was willing to be my friend. I was that one un-popular kid that no one wanted to be associated with. Having boys go into my backpack, steal a pad, and then throwing it across the room and blaming me for it to the teacher... and then 4 or 5 boys surrounding me in a group and calling me a disgusting bitch for it and shouting me down, while the male teacher blamed me for the whole situation because it was my pad that was out. Having a boy pull my chair out from under me so that I fell on the floor (which got me in trouble with the same male teacher) Having gum put in my hair 3 times in one week by 3 different people (oddly enough, it hadn't happened before or since) Having a guy friend take a picture of me on the bus (he was taking pictures of lots of friends) and him uploading it to a site called 'wouldyouhitthis.com". My friend Shanna (who would often upload attractive photos of her to sites like that to get rated) ran across it at random and let me know. And I figured out who it was by looking at the photo. Having a very unattractive guy with a gimpy arm announce in front of a lot of people (to look cool) that "I'd be willing to fuck Emerald if she didn't have such fucked up teeth." I'm mentioning his appearance because he was trying to neg me... as I was a lot more attractive than him. Having some mean girls in the locker room in 6th grade approach me and start chanting "saggy butt" in front of everyone. The same ones had chanted "Emerald's a bitch" the summer before at summer camp. Having a guy that I liked in 8th grade that I was flirting with in a particular class say that he reciprocated the feelings that I had for him. So, we were planning on sneaking out of class to kiss in the hallway because we didn't have any other opportunity. And then, it was revealed that a bunch of friends bet himself $20 to do that with me... and he actually was just pretending to flirt with me but really found me disgusting. (Honestly, I think he did really like me. He was just saving face because I was of a lower social status to him back then) I had always been bullied by mean girls since elementary school for being weird. But I had a glow up in the 8th grade... and I thought that would fix the situation. But the bullying continued and intensified because they felt threatened because I was now a rival and suddenly getting a lot of male attention. Similar things happened with the guys, where I suddenly got a lot more attention from them... but a lot more ugly bitch, ugly slut, ugly whore insults as opposed to just the ugly insults. When I dated a guy in my grade in 8th grade, I thought he really liked me. But my best friend overheard him telling his friends that he thought I was a nasty slut and that he was just trying to get in my pants. (trying to look cool in front of his guy friends) I dated another guy in the 8th grade that used to tell me that I was ugly and that my breath stank (because I would gargle with mouthwash and eat mints before I would kiss him to make sure that his experience was extra pleasant). Apparently he thought that the mintiness "stank like shit". He also used to be very sexist and (during the mere couple weeks we were dating, as I broke up with him really quick), he would tell me that I wasn't allowed to play video games with him and his guy friend, but that I needed to stay with his younger sister and tend to a baby (maybe his niece or nephew) with her because that was all I was meant to do as a female. He also came to my door after I broke up with him, (we lived in the same trailer park, walking distance form one another). And he said he wanted me to come and hang out with him and his friend Lance. And I was on that idea always of being the bigger person. So, I said okay and went with them. And he started saying, "Jeez, Emerald you're so desperate. Why are you following me?" in a jokey way. So, I laughed and brushed it off. And then, when I got to his house, his parents were there. And he started telling them that I was being annoying that I followed him there when he told me not to. And I said, "No, that's not true." And he pulled the whole, "Go hand out with my sister thing (she was just a year younger than us). And I was there. And I hear him say "Hey Emerald!" from his bedroom where he was playing videos with his guy friend. And I walk over there and ask his, "Hey Cody, what's up?" And he was like "JEEZ! GODDAMMIT! YOU'RE BEING SOO ANNOYING!! CAN'T YOU JUST TAKE A HINT AND STOP FOLLOWING ME AND LEAVE ME ALONE." And I blessed him out right in front of his parents and never hung out with him again. This one kid I knew in middle school called me flat face. Occasionally having a guy try to pull the trick on me where he'd be like, "Hey, my guy friend likes you." And it was him trying to play a trick on his guy friend. It wasn't ever one that I ever fell for. But the idea was to tease his guy friend for telling a low status girl that he liked her... expecting that the low status girl was dumb and fall for it and get her hopes up. Flirting with a guy daily who was in the culinary class that I'd walk by to go to lunch. And he asked for my phone number. And he was cute and we'd been mutually flirting for a while through the window, which felt really genuine meet-cute vibes. So, I gave him my number. And he called my dad and step mom and claimed that I was skipping school with him and that I was with him and that he was violating me. In the second grade, the girl who used to coerce me into doing things under the threat of "I won't be your friend anymore" lifted up my skirt in front of the class just to be unkind to me. Having my step-sisters talk crap about me to their friends, and one of their friends older sisters would threaten to beat the shit out of me (I was 13 and she was 16) I was on a phone conversation with the unattractive guy with the gimpy arm that I mentioned before (before he made the comments about fucking me if I didn't have fucked up teeth... as I was always nice to him and would not have an issue talking to him). And his crazy sister (who was really hostile to me when I knew her in 7th grade, when I was really shy) just decided to go of on me randomly. And she was calling me a bitch and that she was going to kill me for talking to her brother. When I was between the ages of 2 and 10, I used to hang out with my my mom's best friend's grandson who was my age. And half the time, he was really nice to me and he'd offer to let me play his Sega games. But the other half of the time, he was really mean. Sometimes, he'd jump on top of me and smother me with a pillow until I couldn't breathe. Other times he'd push me up against the wall of the bed we were playing video games on and he'd kick me really hard and fast into the wall repeatedly. He'd also call me ugly, fat, and call me names like watermelon head. These are all the ones that I can remember, but I've probably forgotten more than I remember in terms of instances because many times it was just an odd mean world like you're fat, you're gay, you're a bitch, you're a slut/whore, etc. But honestly, I was a pretty unusual kid and didn't know how to defend myself until high school... because I couldn't feel anger at all. I had no boundaries or self-respect because I thought that I was unworthy. So, I was a frequent target for bullying. And that bullying often took on the form of appearance insults, calling me Masculine, insinuations that I'm a lesbian, sexual harassment, mean girl jealousy, and demeaning sexually objectifying behaviors. But I still don't project that out onto other people. I just avoid those who are stupid enough to act that way. Most of these people are either in jail, dead, or living a dead end life now anyway... so I only feel sorry for them. And there are plenty of kind people out there. And these experiences have taught me how to sort them from consideration... friendship-wise and romantically. By the time I turned 14 or 15, I secretly became like a goth Regina George in my head with regard to many of those people..."Sorry. You can't sit with us."

The minority of it was bullying with mutual roasting. The majority of the time it was just bullying. You're literally talking to someone who was bullied mercilessly all the way through elementary school until I was around 14, when I learned how to play my own version of the social game.

I'm certainly no stranger to that kind of treatment. It happened often in my teen years and even back to elementary school that people would use lesbian as an insult towards me. (Note: I am bi-sexual, but I prefer men and I didn't acknowledge this about myself until I was 20.) The nickname a lot of boys used to call me in middle school used to be "Elmo the lesbo". I was also called "The Ogre"... which was a bit more mean-spirited as a way to call me ugly and manly. (BTW - I was like 5ft tall and pretty tiny back then. But boys would say it because I was always nervous and socially awkward and an easy target for bullying.) So, being insulted by being called 'lesbian, manly, unattractive, etc.' probably happened to me... HUNDREDS of times. LITERALLY. And it was quite common for peers to use butch or lesbian as an insult to girls as a way of calling them unattractive. And I certainly don't hate all men because of the bullying that I experienced. I don't even hate the guys that used to call me that back then. For a couple of them, we were sort of frenemies... and I'd usually shoot back some gay insult back at them. One of the guys that used to call me "Elmo the lesbo" was this guy named Billy. And I'd always call him "Billy goat gayfer." Like, he meant the insult and so did I... as homophobia was quite normalized at that time. But it was also kind of banter and mutual roasting.

I'm sorry to hear that things didn't work out. But your feelings of hesitation and fear make sense, since your experience are that connection and love came with loss, grief, and heart ache. So, it's very likely a "once bitten, twice shy" situation. In order to move forward and to open up to love again, you will need to face into your grief and open yourself to the potential for the pain of grief in the future. Grief is the necessary cost you must be willing to pay in order to open your heart to love again. And that's a very difficult thing to do. So, I recommend spending some more time with your grief about your lost relationship to process the pain. And then, when you feel ready to re-open your heart, you can get back out there. This is truly the challenge of life. We start as children with no idea of the potential for pain and loss ahead of us. But we are open to it all and we get so much from it because of our openness. But as we continue on the path of life, we experience hurt and we build all kinds of blocks and barriers to keep ourselves numb and closed up to the pain of the past. And the challenge is getting back into the beginner's mind state that the child naturally has... with all the wisdom that the pains and sufferings of a well-lived life bestows upon us.

@Hojo Well, if you do have a naturally more Feminine personality, they may have assumed in earnest that you're gay. But having a Feminine personality doesn't have to do with Feminine integration. You can have a very Masculine guy who's integrated with his Feminine side... or a very Feminine guy who isn't integrated with his Feminine side. Integration and repression don't change the "amount" of Femininity one has. That's an innate personality quality. But metrosexual guys who have a more Feminine personality than average are often assumed to be gay, when they're not. And that's not necessarily to be mean to you or anything if someone assumes that. There are people that I get a vibe about that's usually correct, but sometimes is incorrect. Also, there is nothing wrong with being gay. It's not really an insult to be assumed gay, unless the person is homophobic themselves and intends it as such. Also, Incels are not upset that women are repressing their Feminine side. They're upset because women are Feminine... and these men feel powerless to a woman who is in touch with her Feminine side because of how much they've repressed the Feminine in themselves. And it's the most Feminine women that these guys feel the MOST threatened by... and feel the MOST resentment towards. They'll also beat up on women that they deem as un-Feminine and un-attractive... but that's only because they feel comforted in considering themselves "above" these un-Feminine/unattractive women. So, these women become the "whipping boys" for their resentment towards and powerless feelings towards women they find attractive... and towards the Feminine more generally. But they feel absolutely terrified of and bitter about Feminine women... and the power that Feminine women have over them, largely because they are so desperate for union with their own Feminine side. So, it's important to understand that misogynistic men are not misogynistic because "women aren't Feminine anymore". Women are as Feminine as they've ever been... and more, as we're in a much more Feminine-integrated era than in times past. They're misogynistic because they can't stand how powerless they feel towards the Feminine. And they're saying "women aren't Feminine anymore" because they want to repress the real Feminine and put it back in the box of traditional Femininity that de-claws, tames, and strips the Feminine of all its power.

So, because a woman called you gay, you now hate women in general? Doesn't that seem like a bit of an over-reaction when it was a specific person (or maybe a handful of people) who called you gay? Also, men who resist their Feminine side tend to come across as less socially adept than men who don't resist their Feminine side... because the Feminine principle is reflective of softness while the Masculine principle is reflective of hardness. And the integration of the softness of the Feminine creates flexibility and resilience in the hardness of the Masculine. And hardness without flexibility/resilience creates brittleness and fragility. But hardness integrated with flexibility/resilience creates firmness. Another example like this is... imperfection is archetypally Feminine while perfection is archetypally Masculine. And a man who resists owning his imperfections will be much less socially adept and resilient than a man who can embrace his imperfections and laugh about them. And these are just a couple of examples of how dropping resistance to the archetypal Feminine helps a man come across as more attractive (and be perceived as more Masculine through the eyes of culture)... and just feel better to be around in general.