Dealing with unhealthy green. Healing the green. And other levels

Reflections
1

Hello dear community

I am from Moscow, Russia

I was born of a yogi mother, being brought up face to face with post modern attitudes.

There are many people here stuck in the nihilistic, narcissist, deconstructive attitudes towards wisdom and beauty. Especially in the YOGA community.

Where can I find theoretical and practical material for dealing with those attitudes. Posts, courses, books, anything, just point me.

I want to build a strong argument-knowledge base to speak with those attitudes.

Also. It would be so great if there would be “guides” on communication with other levels too?

Like “integral/yellow intellectual warrior guide” don’t get me wrong. ))

Guide Like

  1. Outline of a level and it’s bias tendencies-Arguments
  2. What to understand, dealing with this level. Ground to stay and proper behaviour
  3. Knowledge base, examples of arguments and situations

That would be so cool

UPD
Found lots of information, diving deeper, thanks!

2

Hi. Your questions are ones I have been working on quite a bit. Here is my short answer:

Practice your values. Ground speech in action. Let your results speak for themselves. Then people will start wondering about the underlying ideas.

I like your idea of a guidebook. The organizations I am working with like my results, but they are at a loss to figure out how to train another version of me. My best idea so far is clinical case studies. Watch the practice, then debrief on the reasoning behind it.

Good luck!

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I find it generally more useful to focus on and address specific examples and situations (as @robert.bunge might be pointing to with his suggestion of clinical case studies), so I’m wondering if you could or would want to provide or describe some actual examples of situations where you’ve personally encountered the nihilism, narcissism, and/or deconstructive attitudes. How have you been affected in one-on-one situations? How have your relationships or community been affected (for instance in the/your yoga community)?

On the other hand, if you’re interested in generalities around these subjects, there are tons of YouTube videos on narcissism, for example, and how to interact with people with narcissistic tendencies or traits. If you’re a member of Integral Life, you might also use their Search or their AI/Holo to find the information you’re seeking.

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Or … if you prefer pure theory, this is interesting.

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27155#:~:text=The%20Included%20Middle%20is%20a,that%20is%20neither%20or%20both.

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Thank you, Robert! That is very helpful.

6

Thank you LaWanna. I’ll dive deeper into this myself, and might come back later with specific examples :relaxed:

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Again, thank you for your attention. Im sorry can’t withhold my emotions it’s just so tendering to know that people like you exist… I’m so happy to to know English and have this wonderful possibility to be here, to learn, to grow, to interact… it’s beyond words 🤍

The culture here is yet to discover the unity of integralism

I already found useful material but will outline the situation a bit more clear, just if you’re interested.

People who are into self development, spirituality, non duality, when reaching progress in understandings - easily fall into criticism, nihilism, narcissism. It’s like the “ego” is taking its last chance to grab the person. And this last transformation step is huge.

It’s the transition from green to teal (orange) which is the biggest jump.

So people who are into those spheres, without a proper map, are jumping into the void.

And that’s when the narcissism and nilisism come. These people just don’t let go.

They stick to one thing or another.

To some teaching or some desire. Approving their position, not able to let it go for the whole

This void is such an intimate place to be! When you are living in Moscow, not knowing English and recent developments. So much shit going on and not many people who demonstrate true integral understanding. Wisdom is partially present, usually saying like “it is the way” which is true for them, but not for others. And that destabilises many, I see that. Integralism is very much needed on every level.

Not much suffice level “universal knowledge” to hold on to. We need a basis for integrality to thrive and I’m looking into that.

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This is my own perspective, based on Integral and many other sources.

  • everyone needs to ground their thinking in their own experiential reality. Theory needs living roots.

  • but as this exchange exemplifies, communications and cognition are now global in scope. So you can use forums like this to reflect on lived experience. Global thought forms may in some cases speak to your experience.

9

This is just my own thoughts and don’t exactly place anywhere in the Integral theory.

Humans are relucant to give up what they know or what has been working for them. So it’s not “natural” for people to “level up” until they see that their current mode of thinking and acting is not working for them.
I also have lots of my community at Green, though in my region it’s more of a “shallow green” than anything else with consumer capitalism and stylistic and financial one upsmanship still being the core drivers of the social dynamics.
Yet I understand that for them to progress, they would need to experience the fear and pain of this comfortable shallow life come crashing down upon them. Often this does happen when the person they married has the same bullshit as them and they sling their own bs at each other until it all comes crashing down in divorce and financial and / or emotional crisis. Then when they are in this broken state they may look for answers and see that their SUV Yoga lifestyle was a sham.

The difficulty is that I think it would be immoral to provoke this crisis in another person, this “dark night of the soul” that causes people to question everything they thought they knew up to that point. It’s kind of like you have to hang in the background, keeping tabs on whose life is about to fall apart - then when they are finally at that point, offer an alternative to the toxic youtube "solutions’. Steer them away from the likes of Jordan Peterson and other internet memes who put forward dead-end solutions and just make the problems worse.

It’s mostly a waste of time to try and point out the error of a person’s ways when they theink they are on top of the world. It’s not that you would ever hope for their downfall, but it is almost inevitable. Life inevitably changes as people get older and if their lifestyle is based at it’s core on anything other than universal spiritual needs, in one decade or another the thing that their life is based on will dissapear.

While this may sound kind of “bad” - my closest circle of friends are people who are on the other side of a midlife crisis, and I see potential future friends as people who are currently going through such crisis such as a divorce, health crisis, etc.

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I can comment on a couple of things, and hope it’s helpful to you.

This is insightful, and one way to look at it.

Another way is that the ego never really disappears, not permanently, regardless of how much progress we might make. Sometimes, it’s useful to intentionally behave in ways that model a behavior you would like to see in others. For instance, in a conversation with someone, you might experiment by intentionally making remarks (when appropriate) such as “I can see that my ego wants to get (fill in the blank…upset, angry, argumentative, etc. etc.).” You observing/witnessing your ego and commenting on it may help another to consider the role of their own ego in the conversation. Just an idea, sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t.

This is quite common, not just in Moscow, but in the U.S. as well. And that is a marker in Integralism, as you seem to know, of 1st Tier; people at first tier stages think their views are the correct ones. I think you have to engage a person in the foundations of relationship before having much effect on their perspectives, or their ability to take the perspective of others. By “engaging a person in the foundations of relationship,” I mean you have to first show some interest in their view, ask questions, ask them to help you understand their view–that kind of thing. Sometimes, then, (not always), they will be a little more open to hearing your views or a different perspective than their own.

I’m glad to hear that you have Integralism on your mind. And thank you for those kind words at the beginning of your post to me!

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Wow! This resonates so much. 100% agree. Feel a friendly soul )
That people reluctant giving up what they think works for them, that’s very up to the point. It makes me think now about how to suggest better ways, despite criticizing the existing ones. Establishing a healthy communication-connection. Keeping the interest of the person. Looking if he makes the steps towards me and my understaning. While i improve my ways.

Also i think we as integral people (if we truly are) can forgive our “bad” behaviour and learn in the process. Practice our ways more

When i make mistakes i get natural responsibility to heal the thing. I dont want to escape anything that i did wrong. And it brings more. Like the vase. So like. We can allow ourselves demolishing the world, trusting that we’re fix it. Which opens up the potential to get shit done which is needed in the world

If we break some lives or structures. Well shoosh, we didn’t want to, but we gotta act. And act big. That’s my motto which almost killed me and some other people. BUT! i learned so much and became so strong. The Universe will support us on our journey, we can trustfully fuck people up. that’s what im saying. IF! we’re truly integral In our values

Some reflections )

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<3 Sometimes i’m so tired of this nonsense, some people go pretty nuts when they reach this level of understanding (me as well).

Analyzing this i came to a realization that this happens because there is no consensus “truth”
Not much understanding where to go and how to get there. No map.

And people are trailblazing their way into 2nd tier which is almost insane doing on your own in present day environment.

There needs to be a common sense, supported by real life examples, science, loving kindness. Of the “map” of human. which integral really efficently strives to be.
So my energy goes there. How can i serve this.

<3

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The general problem of explaining higher level complexity to people who are not there yet is something I am exploring quite a bit on a theoretical level. The general idea goes like this:

  • higher complexity arises through the collision and combination of ideas at lower levels.
  • lower level complexity systems can only see the world through their own filters.
  • to communicate higher complexity to lower complexity, you have to decompose higher complexity into the lower level elements that led to it in the first place.
  • when those at the lower level grasp each component element and try to create their own synthesis, they will need to level up to reach equilibrium.

In integral terms, to communicate teal to green, you need to decompose teal into multiple green elements. In particular, you need to find multiple green elements that contradict each other. Then see if you can get people to find consistent ways of keeping all of those ideas in their heads at the same time. This will lead to tension that can be resolved by leveling up. Of course, the tension can also be deflected through some very unhealthy defense mechanisms, which many readers of this forum will be very familiar with.

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Nice man! That’s a really good explanation. Like wow… really.

So In order to do the “guide” we need to specify all the beliefs or elements of the stage. We can take the main ones

Then the process of collision and combination for those levels. How it is synthesised. Where does it evolve
And how it deconstructs

Then you have the vocabulary to work with.

For example. A belief that the truth is relativistic and everyone has its own truth

Or
The purpose of life is to raise kids that go to college to have a well paid job

This sort of guidebook would be very practical for daily communication that every one of us faces each day.

16

I realize this conversation began some time ago, although I stumbled upon it today. I resonate with what you are asking about as I myself live in an area with highly focused and intense green perspectives, often heavily focused on dismantling this and that, to the degree that any leadership at all is deemed suspect to hierarchy, expertise in a topic is deemed as hierarchy and patriarchy (including science), and individual lived experience (upper left quadrant) is the highest level of knowing. I am speaking in extremes.

This can be highly frustrating, especially after early discoveries of integral perspectives and spiral dynamics. What I have found is that most people stuck in green are not interested in or responsive to explanatory information, and it often results in a highly negative response. Particularly if you exist in a masculine/male body. Trying to explain to others why their unhealthy green perspectives are not working (particularly if the people assigned female at birth and identify as women) will result in being told you are “mansplaining” or supporting patriarchy.

My male partner (who has been integral in his thinking since his early teen years but did not have a name for it) has recognized at 72 that listening with compassion, saying what is true about their perspectives, and recognizing they need to be at that stage space (especially people who have been marginalized) and will start to crave and look for something else when they are ready. We lead a spiritual tantric community group and have witnessed this process.

I would love a “translation” book for how to speak with green level people to help them stay in a place of expansion. Correcting them and using hierarchical language tends to evoke their inner warrior and contract rather than expand.

17

Good insight. In general, any altitude only sees the world on its own terms. So at best, one can only direct attention to things people already see and perceive.