How to move quickly up the Spiral

[How to be wise]

There are six conditions which need to be met before permanent change up the Spiral can happen. They are:

1. Potential: How open are you to new ideas about the next MEME.

2. Solutions: Have you solved the Problems that were raised by your current MEME. Notice that every MEME brings its set of problems that need to be solved before you can move up. 

3. Dissonance: You need to feel the limitations of this MEME. You need to see the negative side of this MEME, and to be unsatisfied with it. This cannot be faked. You actually need to learn about all of the problems that this MEME cannot solve, and be aware of it. 

4. Insight: Learn that the limitations that you found in the current MEME can only be solved by the ideas of the next MEME. Become aware of this, and learn about how the next MEME can help you. Become encouraged by the next MEME. 

5. Barriers: Is there anything stopping you from moving up. Maybe you live in a household where the next MEME’s ideas will not be accepted. Maybe you haven’t felt enough dissonance about your current MEME. Maybe you don’t know enough about the next MEME. Either way, any problem stopping you from moving to the next MEME must be dealt with, or at least neutralised. It cannot carry on being a problem.

6. Consolidation: You will need some time of support when you move to the next MEME. You’re still quite uncertain about the massive change that you just made. You will need somebody to help you when you are new to the MEME. There is every chance that you will slip back to the previous MEME without this consolidation.

Moving up the Spiral is a very delicate matter. Those six conditions can really save you a lot of time. 

[Forestluv]

I think you describe some great conditions from a cognitive level. Especially regarding intellectual exploration, awareness and planning.

Ime, direct experience was much more powerful to evolve up the spiral. For example, as a solid Orange with a desire to evolve to Green, I read a lot about disadvantaged people, marginalization, racism, gender equality, toxic masculinity, spirituality etc. I felt like I had a good cognitive understanding and at times assumed "this is it". I'm Green now. Yet something deeper was missing - I had not reached a deeper level of understanding and embodiment through direct experience.

To explore these deeper aspects of direct experience of Green, I immersed myself into Green actuality. I lived in poverty in a village in Honduras. I learned Spanish to deepen my human connection with locals. I volunteered in a psychiatric ward and spent many hours talking with and connecting with mentally ill patients and victims of domestic violence. I did volunteer work helping low bottom alcoholics and drug addicts. I fell in love within an inter-racial relationship and directly experienced racism toward myself and a woman I deeply loved. 

The intellectual learning was helpful to set the stage, yet direct experience immersion absolutely blew away intellectual theory. It's not even close. I'd say the direct experience was 1,000X more powerful than theory during my Green evolution.

[How to be wise]

@Serotoninluv I think that that experience helped you to meet all of the conditions above.

These six conditions are of course not my creation. It is from the book ‘Spiral Dynamics’ by Don Beck. He says that, if those six conditions are not met, change to the next MEME will not happen.

This applies to both individuals and countries.

[How to be wise]

On 14/01/2019 at 9:32 PM, Serotoninluv said:

To explore these deeper aspects of direct experience of Green, I immersed myself into Green actuality. I lived in poverty in a village in Honduras. I learned Spanish to deepen my human connection with locals. I volunteered in a psychiatric ward and spent many hours talking with and connecting with mentally ill patients and victims of domestic violence. I did volunteer work helping low bottom alcoholics and drug addicts. I fell in love within an inter-racial relationship and directly experienced racism toward myself and a woman I deeply loved.

I’m very fascinated by this story! Thank you for sharing ?

How long did all of this take by the way? You had a long adventure. How were you working then?

[Krisena]

I'm 26 and transitioning from Orange to Green. What set the transition in motion was my reckless belief that I could pursue greatness in my field without friends, trust, loving relationships... only my abysmal sense of self. This lead me into a spectacular crash of crippling depression and now my body is revolting toward this way of life with every fiber.

I haven't really become any more of a saint, though in my good moments I'm optimistic about humanity. What really characterizes this new mode of being for me is a feeling of having "woken up". I've had tunnel vision going through the world, but now it's like I can see the world in all its three dimensional beauty. Periods of longer and longer duration where I'm happy just being able to taste the sweet honey of simply being alive and enjoy a gust of wind, or the dew in the grass.

I have also worked on connecting more with people on equal terms, instead of keeping them dependent on me and calling that friendship. That has meant opening myself up and being vulnerable a lot, and that has been very scary to me.

I don't have a stable income yet, so maybe the growth of Green is a bit premature, but I don't really feel any worry, as Orange at least gave me valuable skills and craft that I can use. To some degree, I see this transition to Green as my body pushing me in the direction of even higher mastery somehow as well. It's like it's saying

"Now you've acquired the theory, the principles, the scaffolding, the models, the forms, the intellect - I'm not going to allow you to pursue that any longer. Now you've absorbed all that and instead you're going to forget about it and simply be alive and sense reality in the most intense way possible, as that is also a part of mastery. The yin to your yang."

I do not look away from the possibility that the yin and yang will combine in the future in an eventual Yellow, where I'll be able to master both worlds seamlessly. For now however, I'm just going to savour all these warm fuzzy feelings for my newfound friends and deal with personal issues. It's thanks to Spiral Dynamics I've had the courage to embrace this change in my life that so violently forced itself upon me.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Krisena

[Forestluv]

2 hours ago, How to be wise said:

@Serotoninluv I think that that experience helped you to meet all of the conditions above.

These six conditions are of course not my creation. It is from the book ‘Spiral Dynamics’ by Don Beck. He says that, if those six conditions are not met, change to the next MEME will not happen.

This applies to both individuals and countries.

Necessity does not assume sufficiency. That cognitive framework may be necessary, yet still insufficient. 

Understanding the rules of soccer is necessary to become a successful professional soccer player, yet it is insufficient. Massive amounts of training and experience are necessary to become a successful professional soccer player.

Openness, willingness, cognitive awareness and understanding may open the door, yet direct experience is key for embodiment. Conceptual understanding and direct experience are both necessary for maturation. Anyone who skimps on Green direct experience is at a surface level.

[Michael569]

On 14/01/2019 at 7:29 AM, How to be wise said:

Solutions: Have you solved the Problems that were raised by your current MEME. Notice that every MEME brings its set of problems that need to be solved before you can move up. 

This may not necessarily be truth, for example green will see world hunger as a serious problem but it takes Yellow and Turquoise systemic thinker to be able to potentially create strategies for implementing initial local plans. Green will mostly bitch about it and post on facebook or lie in front of walmart trucks..

Otherwise those a solid set of points and very valid for moving up the spiral. Very important to consider the dark side as well, I think this is what keeps many people stuck that they are unable to see limitations of their current state and will put a lot of struggle and energy towards eradicating them. 

[Forestluv]

18 hours ago, How to be wise said:

I’m very fascinated by this story! Thank you for sharing ?

How long did all of this take by the way? You had a long adventure. How were you working then?

About 10 years. From 2016-2018 was the deepest immersion. I have a job in which I can take 3 months off a year. I wasn't working when I lived in foreign countries. I think traditional career work would have been a distraction. I lived with locals, as a local. After about a month of immersion, the story of me began to dissolve. Not in an intellectual way like thinking "I know the story of me is an illusion". Rather in a very literal way. I literally began to forget who I was. I didn't interact with westerners or speak any English. Occasionally, a local would ask me about my "real life". At times, I didn't know how to answer the question. It took effort to remember what this character is. And it felt like I was talking about a movie character. Not in theory, in direct experience. When I returned to the States, I felt like an impostor, like I was pretending to be some movie character. The first week at work was really uncomfortable. I could only talk to my colleagues for a few seconds. I locked myself in my office or worked at home as much as I could. It took a couple weeks to relearn how to play the character. This was super important through my Green evolution. Now, any character is me. I would sit with someone and be their character, I "got" them. This created extremely strong empathy energy that at times was overwhelming. I would awareness of "me" and "them". When this energy arose with someone unaware of this empathy dynamic, a bizarre energy dynamic would arise. Part of Turquoise work is developing and taming those energetic channels in a responsible and mature manner. 

[How to be wise]

@Krisena Thank you for sharing

18 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

Necessity does not assume sufficiency. That cognitive framework may be necessary, yet still insufficient. 

Understanding the rules of soccer is necessary to become a successful professional soccer player, yet it is insufficient. Massive amounts of training and experience are necessary to become a successful professional soccer player.

Openness, willingness, cognitive awareness and understanding may open the door, yet direct experience is key for embodiment. Conceptual understanding and direct experience are both necessary for maturation. Anyone who skimps on Green direct experience is at a surface level.

Yes, you could be right. Don Beck says that if the six conditions are met, change up the spiral may happen.

3 hours ago, Michael569 said:

This may not necessarily be truth, for example green will see world hunger as a serious problem but it takes Yellow and Turquoise systemic thinker to be able to potentially create strategies for implementing initial local plans. Green will mostly bitch about it and post on facebook or lie in front of walmart trucks..

Otherwise those a solid set of points and very valid for moving up the spiral. Very important to consider the dark side as well, I think this is what keeps many people stuck that they are unable to see limitations of their current state and will put a lot of struggle and energy towards eradicating them. 

Yes, I don’t understand the GREEN needs. But for example BEIGE needs are food, water, and shelter. PURPLE needs are a safe place to belong. RED needs are self expression. BLUE needs are a higher purpose. ORANGE needs are success. Unless the person at ORANGE obtains some success, he will be unable to move up to GREEN.

[Forestluv]

@How to be wise You seem to have evolved quite a bit during the last year. Nice work. 

[bejapuskas]

Do you actually need to obtain success in order to develop?

Maybe I don't understand the question, just because our view of success is different...

Can you elaborate?  

[Aimblack]

On 1/14/2019 at 10:32 PM, Serotoninluv said:

I think you describe some great conditions from a cognitive level. Especially regarding intellectual exploration, awareness and planning.

Ime, direct experience was much more powerful to evolve up the spiral. For example, as a solid Orange with a desire to evolve to Green, I read a lot about disadvantaged people, marginalization, racism, gender equality, toxic masculinity, spirituality etc. I felt like I had a good cognitive understanding and at times assumed "this is it". I'm Green now. Yet something deeper was missing - I had not reached a deeper level of understanding and embodiment through direct experience.

To explore these deeper aspects of direct experience of Green, I immersed myself into Green actuality. I lived in poverty in a village in Honduras. I learned Spanish to deepen my human connection with locals. I volunteered in a psychiatric ward and spent many hours talking with and connecting with mentally ill patients and victims of domestic violence. I did volunteer work helping low bottom alcoholics and drug addicts. I fell in love within an inter-racial relationship and directly experienced racism toward myself and a woman I deeply loved. 

The intellectual learning was helpful to set the stage, yet direct experience immersion absolutely blew away intellectual theory. It's not even close. I'd say the direct experience was 1,000X more powerful than theory during my Green evolution.

What did you do to get fully into yellow? 

[martins name]

I heard Ken Wilber saying that the fastest method for moving people up the spiral that they have found is meditation.

[bejapuskas]

@martins name That's quite likely  

[Forestluv]

2 minutes ago, Aimblack said:

What did you do to get fully into yellow? 

I'd say my mind-body is in a fluid flow ranging from Green to Turquoise along various lines (intellectual, emotional, spiritual etc). 

For a while, I was firmly centered in Green. The strongest hurdle I had to get over was the deeply emotional connections with humanity - especially with people that are disadvantaged, marginalized and ostracized. People in poverty, the homeless, abused children, domestic violence victims, the mentally ill etc. Yellow seemed so cold to me and I thought I would stop caring for others if I evolved into Yellow. 

I'd say that the biggest change from tier1 to tier2 is an energetic shift from seeking for personal needs (tier 1) to seeking to experience the magnificence of life. Tier2 is transpersonal. There is a very different relationship with the person in the mind-body. 

I'd say psychedelics played a big role in transitioning to tier2. They gave me many yellow and turquoise level experiences. I was already centered in Green and within striking distance of tier2. Psychedelics boosted me into yellow and turquoise. When I returned to my Green level baseline consciousness, I was able to integrate these lessons and perspectives through meditation, yoga, journaling etc. Imo, psychedelics aren't a particularly effective spiritual tool until the Green stage. Jumping from blue/orange to yellow/turquoise is a really big jump and I can't imagine integrating it.

For example, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what "nonlinear" and "post-logical" thinking is. Psychedelics showed with absolute clarity what this is. After a while, direct experience and lessons become embodied. There was a shift from thinking about it to being it. At first, my default thinking mode was logical and it took effort to think post-logically. Yet my brain has been rewired and the default is post-logical thinking. Thinking logically and rationally takes work now. And I find it boring and tiresome. . . I don't use psychedelics often anymore and small doses have a big effect on me. It's like those yellow and turquoise conscious states now arise even in a "sober" mind. As if the software of the brain was updated to a higher conscious level.  

[Aimblack]

@Serotoninluv That's very encouraging to hear as I was looking to get into psychedelics to finally make the shift. Thanks man.

[brugluiz]

I feel some areas of my life are very Orange and other areas are very Green. I wonder if experiencing psychic abilities means I had experienced Turquoise though.

Sean Blackwell makes a relationship between depression and your spiral evolution. It seems when you see a new paradigm and can't accept it, you get depressed. You then need to let go of your ego to evolve and go to the next level of the spiral. No meditation will make it for you, but just letting go.

[Forestluv]

38 minutes ago, Aimblack said:

@Serotoninluv That's very encouraging to hear as I was looking to get into psychedelics to finally make the shift. Thanks man.

Nice. I hope you give us trip reports on the forum 

[How to be wise]

@Serotoninluv Thank you