Forestluv

@brugluiz Good points. Open-mindedness is essential to mature into each new stage. By saying “effort”, I don’t mean a strained/fored type of effort like going on a diet and forcing yourself to eat foods you don’t like. Rather, the effort of engaging in growth practices that might be uncomfortable at times. There is an intellectual Green developmental line, yet also other lines such as emotional and spiritual development. Imo, one needs to actually engage in practices to develop these lines. For example, an orange-level westerner may immerse themself in a third world village for three months. Or, an upper-orange man may open up, become vulnerable and share an insecurity with his girlfriend (and perhaps even cry - gasp!). Or a psycology student entrenched in theory might volunteer with patients in a psychiatric unit and connect with the human emotions associated with psychosis. It takes openness as well as effort to engage in such activities.

@CreamCat @brugluiz Yes, the model allows that individuals are a mix of stages along various developmental lines. Thus, individuals are said to be “centered” in a stage for each developmental line. As one moves up the spiral, ther is a maturation process. For example, beliefs that mythical stories literally happened dissolve as the person perceives more rationally. As well, values and motivations mature from to include egocentric to ethnocentric to world-centric. There is an expansion of views, community etc. It’s not like all preceding lessons and skills are rejected and discarded during the maturation process. Green still sees value in having laws, Green still uses bimodal and ligical thinking modes, Green can still value science as a tool to help humanity and the globe (e.g. global warming). Developing into a healthy Green that has embodied lower stages takes maturity, learning and effort. Someone doesn’t take a Yoga class and suddenly transform into Green during a triangle pose. It takes years of development. As well, Green generally still has conflict, holds onto their perspective as “right” and is prone to demonizing lower stages as the root of problems. It’s not until the integral stages in yellow in which one can take a more objective meta view of the entire spiral.

@Fairy Stage Green has embodied Orange. Green can utilize Orange-level modes such as logic and science. Green also adds in modes such as cultural relativism, empathy, intuition etc. After one learns Calculus, they can still use Algebra.

Because what is referred to as “you” is illusory.

Who/what is this “chooser”?

I don’t know the requirements to practice traditional modes of therapy. You would need to research that in your country. I’m not aware of psychedelic therapy that is legally permitted in clinics. In the U.S., MDMA therapy for PTSD is the furthest along at stage III clinal trials. If those go well, we will begin to see supervised clinical MDMA therapy in about 5 years. My sense is other psychedelics are a few years behind MDMA.

@winterknight Is what you are getting at with illusion in the same context of how, in the strictest sense, thinking/imagining any thing is a step too far?

And it’s oh so liberating.

I’m not referring to an illusory self. It’s more expansive than that. Ime, this is why de-identification as thoughts is so important.

Yes, surrender is key. There is no “you” separate from “god”. If you become “one with god”, how can “he” take care of the rest? You and God are One and the same. You are God.

I encourage you to dive deeper. There is sooo much more.

Yes. And who/what is aware of the mind’s jibber jabber?

The mind becomes contracted when it identifies as thoughts. It is a dynamic that maintains the relevance of an illusory ego. There are practices to de-identify with thoughts, yet a mind generally needs to be relaxed and open.

Can there be awareness of the bird chip without the thought “there is awareness of a bird”? The thought is unnecessary for awareness. There is awareness without thought. And there are thoughts within awareness. I am not pointing to the idea of “awareness of thoughts”. I am pointing to the actual direct experience of awareness of thoughts.

Can there be awareness of a bird chirping? Yes, because the awareness does not identify as being the bird chirp. Similarly there is awareness of thoughts - the awareness does not identify as being the thoughts. This often first manifests as an observer + object mind set, yet goes much deeper. There are mind states in which thoughts are merely impulses with mo more relevance than a bird chirp. Also, mind states without thought that go deep into thoughtless concentration. And many others.

@Intuition Perhaps the weed has done it’s job. It revealed some sibconscious stuff. Now you can work through it consciously. Religious guilt/shame can take a while to deconstruct.

@Gladius I’d say it’s fine as long as one is honest and clearly communicates with the woman that she is a “practice girl”. Some women are cool with “practice fun”. Yet, I’d say not clearly communicating this early on is misleading and could hurt the woman.

@Pilgrim That all assumes that a personal self exists and there is an internal reality separate from an external reality. If we allow those assumptions, then there is still a spectrum of influence between biological inheritance and environment. If someone inherits a mutant allele of the Huntington gene, they will get Huntington's disease. Period. Environment is a nonfactor. Similarly, if someone contracts the Dengue virus from the environment they will get Dengue fever. Genetics has very little impact. Most other traits are more complex and involve varying degrees of influence from genetics and environment. For example, the onset of Schizophrenia involves an interplay between genetics and environment. It’s thought that a few dozen genes are involved wich contribute yo about 65% of risk, and 35% risk from environment. The extremes are much more straightforward. Once you have an interplay between genetics and environment, it gets incredibly complex. We are talking trillions of input points. It is far too complex for a human mind to comprehend - too complex for a group of minds to comprehend. We are currently designing A.I. to synthesize/analyze data and genetate models.

@Krisena Thanks for sharing that with us! Could you tell us a bit about the evaluation? Was it just a multiple choice questionaire? Or did it include essays and interviews with Beck’s team?

@Pilgrim I think you are placing a lot of emphasis on internal vs. external environments. Imo, it’s best to balance this with a perspectives that internal/external is so intimate and integrated that boundaries become arbitrary. Internal /external is so intimate that if we look closely, it’s hard to separate the two. Exactly where does your inernal start and end? For example, the microbiome of bacteria, viruses and fungi in your gut help regulate your metabolism, immune system and brain chemustry. The microbiome is directly linked to tge brain via the vagus nerve. Alterations or removal of the microbiome alter mind-body function and can result in serious illnesses. So, is this microbiome nature or nurture? Is it part of your internal ir expern world? Is it part of “you” or outside “you”?

Thanks for the reminder. I think it’s about time I shift my research into how psychedelics stimulate neural plasticity. And there are enough Green-level undergraduates excited to research it.

First, I would question assumptions. Do you know that positive psychology and high consciousness material is not taight in Universities? Have you researched course content in the most progressive psycology departments? Might there be some yellow-level psychology professors you aspire to? I teach Spiral Dynamics at my institution and I’ve read it’s taught at others as well. Why would you be limited to only scientific theories and how do you know these scientific theories don’t tackle the root problem? Perhaps scientific theories are one tool of many that can tackle root problems. Perhaps scientific theories can be integrated with other practices to form a more holistic treatment plan tailored to an individual’s problems. For example, children that have suffered abuse/trauma have epigenetic alterations in the brain that persist into adulthood. These changes lead to altered gene expression in the brain which can contribute to neurosis. For example, an elevated baseline level of cortisol expression that is asdiciated with anxiety. Addressing this issue is one piece of a much larger puzzle. Another example: recent clinical studies show that patients that undergo traditional talk therapy (with scientific theories) coupled with a few guided psychedelic therapy sessions show significant improvement. These aren’t people with PTSD that are tripping in their own - it is the integration of two modes. . . This is just one example, there will be many examples of integrating various forms of psychological therapy emerging. I think it’s super exciting to integrate various modes such as shamanic breathing, meditation, yoga, psychedelics, talk therapy, cbt, emdr, medication etc. Imagine being a Yellow level psycologist skilled in all of these modes. A psycologist that could use logic, theory, empathy and intuition to design a custom treatment plan that utilizes various modes to best meet the needs of a patient. Communities could use more psychologists like that.

@LoveandPurpose I don’t think awakening and personal development are mutually exclusive. For example, one could do meditative practice, sit and observe the fear. Notice fear comes and goes. Allow it to enter, listen/feel and allow it to leave. As well, one could do a personal fear inventory. Journal about various fears. What do the fears have in common? Was the mind-body conditioned by it’s environment to fear certain things? What is the source of the fear? What does it boil down to? What if the presentation goes over poorly? What is the underlying fear of what will happen? Is the fear about feeling uncomfortable? Fear of rejection that leads to being alone and unloved? Fear of failing school, being poor and hungry? I’ve found it helpful to increase awareness of the underlying personality dynamic of fear. As if I am an observer. For example, I had various fragments of fears that arose from a central fear of not being smart enough. Then, I dug deeper and found a collection of fears about not being ______ enough. Not being funny enough, not enough confidence, not tall enough, not handsome enough - and on and on. Collectively, it all boils down to an insecurity of not being good enough which would lead to being alone, unloved and unhappy. It took a long time to deconstruct the inner fear construct. It is complex and multi-layered. During this process, I became better at accepting fear when it arose. I had a better understanding of it’s source and I could just allow it to exist in my mind-body. I didn’t have to spiral into anxiety and panic. I didn’t have to subconsciously, seek relief from the fear through people pleasing and seeking approval/validation. This allowed for a more genuine personality to arise. More genuine with myself and others. For me, I needed to balance solo work on fear with sharing it with others that were at a higher conscious level and could mirror back to me input from this higher conscious perspective.

@andyjohnsonman Yellow can see some value in all perspectives, yet does not see equal value in all perspectives.

Individual people can be a mixture of stages - they can be more advanced along some developmental lines than others. Also, I give more weight to core values and motivation than outward appearance. For example, someone could join a diversity committee at their workplace just to outcompte a coworker and improve their chance for promotion. That would be Orange, not Green.