Do higher ego developmental stages indicate that you have your shit together?

[Intraplanetary]

For example, does the construct-aware stage automatically grantees that you meet your basic needs and have material well-being? Or in other words, when your ego development is high, do you become highly functional, hence fulfil your needs with ease?

Or

Could it be the case that a highly aware person actually struggles with life? Including finances, relationships maybe even mental health?

Can a person be construct-aware/unitive but can’t get his/her shit together in other areas of life?

I’m 29, still young (maybe depends) and I know there is no way for me to go back and not continue on the spiritual path. And, I believe I still have enough decades to develop my ego to at least the construct-aware stage. Or at least I would like to think that and it's my aspiration.

However, I still haven’t got my shit together financially as I’ve been struggling with a whole bunch of emotional stuff from a very early age and it’s been my main preoccupation to free myself from myself. I feel I don't have a place in the world in terms of a career. I've recently just finished university and have very little professional experience.

However, spiritual work doesn't help me with motivation about going and conquering the world. In fact, the more I grow spiritually the more I become disinterested with the realities of the society and most of the people. 

I see all the BS out there and I feel inauthentic when for example in the interview I'm asked talk about competition, targets, money, achieving, etc … makes me shake.

How do you balance spirituality and survival?

Don’t your open loving heart and clear mind kill the drive for money, competition and motivation to live in today's society? And without those, isn't quite hard to adapt…?

[Preety_India]

This happened to me. The more I got spiritual the more I lost interest in materialistic physical lifestyle. 

I guess it's the natural progression of spirituality and it had to be this way and no other because it wouldn't make sense if spirituality also accommodated materialistic needs, because then it wouldn't really make much of a difference in overall perspective. 

It won't look like a path but more like an accompaniment to life. 

But since it's supposed to be unique and a journey, a path, by the nature of the divine universe it makes perfect sense why spirituality should move us away from a non spiritual materialistic life. 

The key would be balance. I mean that's what I do now. I tried to be minimal with my materialistic needs like Job and money but I want more of spirituality because that feels right. 

I don't feel like I'm missing out because this is my goal, this is what I wanted so no regrets 

I also compare it to the idea of peace and war. Let's say I want peace. Would I want war in that case? Nope. Which means if I want peace, I should no longer be invested in war, because I can't have both. 

 

[tsuki]

38 minutes ago, Intraplanetary said:

For example, does the construct-aware stage automatically grantees that you meet your basic needs and have material well-being? Or in other words, when your ego development is high, do you become highly functional, hence fulfil your needs with ease?

Or

Could it be the case that a highly aware person actually struggles with life? Including finances, relationships maybe even mental health?

Life is not governed by automatic rules that put an equals sign between the capacity to do something and having the desired outcome.
There are external factors at play. While I find it unlikely, I can picture a person born in a third world country that struggles with life, while being in a construct-aware stage.

There is also a possibility of spiritual bypassing, where a person resides in a higher stage and uses this understanding to reject and demonize lower stages. It's the so-called Green disease.

38 minutes ago, Intraplanetary said:

However, I still haven’t got my shit together financially as I’ve been struggling with a whole bunch of emotional stuff from a very early age and it’s been my main preoccupation to free myself from myself. I feel I don't have a place in the world in terms of a career. I've recently just finished university and have very little professional experience.

Are you looking for external assessment of your spiritual growth? If so, I would put "need for validation" on your "emotional stuff" list. Welcome to the club .

38 minutes ago, Intraplanetary said:

However, spiritual work doesn't help me with motivation about going and conquering the world. In fact, the more I grow spiritually the more I become disinterested with the realities of the society and most of the people. 

No worries, this will come around when you go deeply enough.

38 minutes ago, Intraplanetary said:

I see all the BS out there and I feel inauthentic when for example in the interview I'm asked talk about competition, targets, money, achieving, etc … makes me shake.

Your values are not aligned with the companies that you are applying for. Your body is telling you that.

38 minutes ago, Intraplanetary said:

How do you balance spirituality and survival?

Don’t your open loving heart and clear mind kill the drive for money, competition and motivation to live in today's society? And without those, isn't quite hard to adapt…?

The recipe for balancing spirituality and survival is much simpler than people care to admit.
First, you are alive, then you do spirituality. Go build your life to the point where you are out of debt, have a home, food, clothes and free time, then you go meditate. Don't be proud of what you look like, be proud of the extent to which you are able to real-ize your true nature. By that, I mean: find your uniqueness, your true potential, and express it, make it real. This is spirituality. Don't use detachment for being above it all, for feeling superior than the mundane tasks of life. Don't substitute material pleasure for knowing who you are and being centered within yourself. Express what you are relentlessly after you know it by heart. Before you do, try different things and feel what suits you.

Keep digging. The bulk of this work lies in freeing yourself from "emotional stuff" that is grounded in beliefs that don't work for you. This is the main blockage that obstructs your view of what is already true. 

Edited January 25, 2021 by tsuki

[Espaim]

Transition from orange-green:

What happened over the years is that I have put less emphasis on becoming a super efficient human robot and being rich billionaire materialist badass to working on a purposeful goal. I mean, purposeful life?

I then realigned my goals to reflect my values and likes and I am working on it. The difference is that I will work towards not being a faceless cog in the machine of capitalism and focusing my work on raising overall consciousness. If I need to earn money to achieve my goals, and I'll need to of course, I'll try do it in the most conscious way I am able to.

I have developed discipline and work ethic during the years, lost it due to some depressive spells and I'm rebuilding it. That said, I'm still young and I don't have any material success that I can show off. Does this mean I don't have the capacity to do it? Hell no! I do have the achiever mentality developed. The mindset is the thing that matters the most. If your house is on fire and someone stoles all your money and possessions, do you go back to stage blue?

The idea that money isn't needed is naive. Until we become a socialist world, it'll be needed. How do you plan to help people? Or how do you plan to go to that meditation retreat in tibet?

Also, achieving, discipline and goals also exist in spirituality, it's just not as obvious. If you don't develop those you will be hard-pressed to succeed in anything, even in spirituality.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Espaim

[Nahm]

 

2 hours ago, Intraplanetary said:

 

How do you balance spirituality and survival?

 

Not. Two. 

[Bodhitree]

One thing that I found interesting about the way spiritually advanced people live are the stories about George Gurdjieff. Apparently he was a carpet salesman for a while, and he was quite devious making money off some people. He was a bit of a scoundrel, as well as a spiritual teacher. 
While I wouldn’t say to follow his example, it does show there are quite a few ways to live. By contrast, the Zen master Bernie Glassman started an ethical bakery which makes a point of employing people who have a hard time finding employment elsewhere, like ex-cons. They now bake the brownies for Ben & Jerry’s. 
But more often than not you see highly evolved people doing jobs which are inline with their inner directions. Some become yoga teachers, some give talks, some become artists and live on a minimum income, some are sponsored by people with money, some work at ngo’s. 

[Intraplanetary]

2 hours ago, Nahm said:

Not. Two. 

What do you mean by this? 

[lmfao]

@Intraplanetary I don't think so. From a certain space I might say "spiral dynamics is true". But I've learnt that just because something is true, or because you can say it is true, doesn't mean that it's useful or helpful to think in the terms of that model. 
___
Another tip I'd give is to see spiral dynamics (or whatever exact model you're using) as a lot more approximate, less linear and less hierarchical. 

[James123]

@Intraplanetary letting go or surrendering the self mean is no more life. Just the moment. 

Edited January 25, 2021 by James123

[Michal__]

From the larger picture probably yes (when you get full yellow). But in the short / medium term it can be pretty destabilizing. For example when you go from orange to green. That will definitely make you seem like you don't have your shit together at all, at least from the perspective of people who don't know spiral dynamics (the general population).

[Intraplanetary]

 

7 minutes ago, lmfao said:

Another tip I'd give is to see spiral dynamics (or whatever exact model you're using) as a lot more approximate, less linear and less hierarchical. 

Would you say then that is possible to consciously transcend a stage without fully living it through?

If I wanted to get a career in today's society, it would think that I need to regress to orange/achievers stage and fully experience that. Because well, I've never really achieved anything significant money wise. However, my heart has no desire to do so, it's only my ego would need to do it for survival purposes. 

If we look at the model, it could be said that there is a gap in my development and that I need to fill the 'holes'. However, as you said, maybe the model is not necessarily useful in my situation and ego development may unfold in a non-linear way? If I allowed it. 

It's hard to think about my development in any other way because these models seem to be so powerful and true. But thank you for your reply. It really is a new perspective.

 

 

[WonderSeeker]

Ego development is just one line of development. In the field of developmental psychology, there are researchers studying different aspects of the self, and essentially all of these different aspects go through the same levels. So in theory, you can have a construct-aware ego, with a 5th-person, cross-global, cross-paradigmatic view. But you could still have less-developed relational view, where you've had limited relationship/sexual experiences. Think about a monk living alone in a cave. His development will surely be lop-sided like this.

[Intraplanetary]

2 hours ago, Bodhitree said:

But more often than not you see highly evolved people doing jobs which are inline with their inner directions. Some become yoga teachers, some give talks, some become artists and live on a minimum income, some are sponsored by people with money, some work at ngo’s. 

I love this diversity. And I really want to embrace my uniqueness. It's just hard to navigate through so many faces of ego and its deceptions. But perhaps that's the main challenge to be overcome. 

 

[Nahm]

@Intraplanetary

Are you aware? Yes or no?

[Intraplanetary]

1 minute ago, Nahm said:

@Intraplanetary

Are you aware? Yes or no?

I'm aware but obviously not enough to navigate through ego deceptions

[Nahm]

@Intraplanetary

Are you aware? Yes. Or no?   Just ‘check a box’, like we did in kindergarten. A simple yes, or no. 

[Intraplanetary]

2 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@Intraplanetary

Are you aware? Yes. Or no?   Just ‘check a box’, like we did in kindergarten. A simple yes, or no. 

Yes

[Nahm]

@Intraplanetary

Take a deep breath or two and relax. Don’t think relaxation, feel it. Sink into gravity. Feel every inch of your body let go, and sink. Neck loosens, shoulders drop, hands loosen, every muscle lets go, etc. Actual Relaxation. 

Can you name something else which has the property of being aware?  Anything at all? 

 

 

[Intraplanetary]

26 minutes ago, WonderSeeker said:

Ego development is just one line of development. In the field of developmental psychology, there are researchers studying different aspects of the self, and essentially all of these different aspects go through the same levels. So in theory, you can have a construct-aware ego, with a 5th-person, cross-global, cross-paradigmatic view. But you could still have less-developed relational view, where you've had limited relationship/sexual experiences. Think about a monk living alone in a cave. His development will surely be lop-sided like this.

That's a really good point. However, as per your example, do you think that not having sex AND not needing it still create problems? Don't you think that we can consciously choose and transcend ego survival needs without needing to go through the whole experience?

Let's say someone wants sex, hence goes to fulfil his ego desire but he has no need for a relationship and maybe never had one. Does this make a person somehow undeveloped? Lopsided?

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by Intraplanetary

[Username]

I have my basic needs met but not in a sustainable way. I didn't have any interest in playing survival game on someone's else terms. I tried to work on my life purpose but I'm not financially successful.

Transition into turquoise gave me a kick to to sort my basic needs (health, diet, daily routine and finances). When I was yellow I had many great ideas but I was struggling to implement them - I thought that I can solve my problems by thinking.