Hey,
I’ve been following Ken for now almost three years or at least two+, I was fascinated when I listened to the content of his audiobooks. I listened to a lot of them and was deeply entrenched and entertained into Ken’s insights and perspectives. Also, then re-tracing that partially by looking up some of the literature and its validity. Which is rather difficult.
Now, I do have some questions regarding how one can benefit from being integral, also it is quite difficult to tell if I am integral. Since I do not know many people who think integrally, yet I started around the perfect time to move up the stages and did the practices quite intensely, besides this year. I am currently 24 years old and I study at a university in Germany. ( I am half German/American / bi-racial) as far as identity goes.
Anyway, here is what I did to move up the spiral:
-> Travelled and stayed in China for 6 months and meditated regularly for 1h a day.
->Started a meditation habit in 2015 moved up to 1 hour a day in that year.
->Started a journaling habit in 2015 and wrote quite rigorously
->Started studying in 2016
-> Started shadow work in 2017 ( Cleaning up habit, not growing up)
Now, from what I read/heard all of this can but are not necessarily enough move one up through the stages. I’ve met while I travelled people from Norway and from Germany and Britain who were very different from the average person I knew before.
They were very open-minded, interested in spirituality and culture ( I am overlapping all the traits of the people) , multiculturalism, gender identity and roles, rights etc.
Now, I was raised partially with people gay people, since my aunt is a lesbian. So, all of this behaviour was not very new to me, but the topics were and how the interactions between people unfolded / humans was a bit more fun. Then “good’ol” animal rights. Which my Aunt is a biggy in. Still, my friends and the region in total seem sort of blue/orange even sometimes, with the youth being more orange/green.
While I read and listened to integral theory, I was fascinated with the facets of spirituality and meditation, especially rebirth during that time, since I went to China and read a bit about the culture and Buddhism beforehand. Listening to Allan Watts also etc.
Now, even though I think and sometimes feel that I have an integral value structure and cognition. Ever since I felt, that I am finally included through the green meme, I was quickly unsatisfied since I hate conformity since I was little and sort of went through that rather quickly. I am listing all of this to receive potential feedback from people if I could be integral or not also is it that important?
Sometimes I also don’t feel that I am morally or value vice integral since I do not care that much about animals and the environment, yet partially since I saw that with my aunt and I do like animals of course. Yet, when I see people who really care and complain, now I would ask my self is that because of a genetic / personality based difference or a “psychological structure” / a stage of development. Of course, all of that can have an influence, but I do not have the knowledge or know how to know every partial truth and which truth is true…
Well, here are some questions before I continue to ramble:
Recently, I perceive everything as a system, but I do not know if other stages perceive it as vividly as I do for instance, how nature interacts with people/humans/ other systems. It is like they sense and adopt certain tones, vibes, a behaviour of people. You can see that with a cat or dog. But, birds are the animals which seem to make sounds every time to keep an equilibrium of silence and noise for people, while also sensing intentions especially hostile ones based on… intelligence. Or even things like, what happens with plastic bottles when they are received, who benefits from that, the folk, companies? The grocery store? What system is in place in order to take care of that? Same thing with traffic and such.
Also, I tend to not click anymore with people, I love green people but sometimes I feel left out, I am ( I say to myself that …) a minority of a minority I am a bi-racial half black and white german living in Germany. People mistake me for a refugee, a Turkish person, with good luck American or even Egyptian / French etc. So, identity never made sense to me meditation helped a lot. Can too much inclusivity like the green stage tends to love cause isolation and a herd mentality which excludes people again? I find it easier to connect with green people on a yellow stage then as a green stage, since I feel I am more about flexibility and opportunity, and a good bond won’t be torn that fast. But, then I feel they keep themselves available for their friend group, which I then feel excluded since nobody asks me to join. Often these groups imo only consists of Germans who are green, with one or two exceptions. This is my … experience so far. Yet, they are very inclusive, yet I don’t get why I always have to join a green group instead of having or being in a green group. I don’t know.
It’s either only germans, only multi-national people, or a lot of Germans with one or two multi-national friends. Then I feel they complain that we are not similar so they rather seek someone who had a German upbringing in order to have that “German Green Bond Feeling”, this is how I imagine it, and see it at college/uni. Sometimes I feel I am not reaching out enough, but sometimes I just need to laugh at some weird perceptions and ideas that they have and that they exclude ideas who would benefit the whole, then I sometimes I am so odd talking about meditation or even spiral dynamics, integral theory. I can talk with two people about this one studies political science and the other one computer science and they are actually interested, but my “old”/“real” friends or people at uni, don’t seem to care or don’t get it. I can’t understand why one would not even look it up, one real friend was open enough to watch two videos about spiral dynamics. But, without further interest.
What can an integral person do to find friends in real-life ?
Which companies are integral since I will soon join the working force?
What are some common pitfalls that happened when one starts to be integral?
Is it normal that I feel so lonely, but at the same time I am not very interested to have friends who are like everyone…?
Is it normal to yearn for complexity?
Can multiculturalism actually be racist in a sense that it tries to make everyone equal and denies differences, sometimes people feel confused how to deal with me, instead of seeing me as an individual, who can also be part of a group, but then I can’t express my identity fully, because I am to wild ? lol ? Or do people just don’t like me lol.
Which country is ideal for meeting integral people? In the audiobook cosmic consciousness, Ken Wilber talked about how Paris was the heartland of revolutions or at least the student’s revolution because of the Vietnam war and the use of chemical weapons? Which brought the green meme, love and peace movement. My mom is a boomer. Sometimes I feel she resembles that spirit. Anyway, my friend studies political science there, I feel she is sometimes quite integral, but top stuck in the green meme with sometimes blue hang-ups as a shadow.
Is it safe to be black and odd ??? I did a zen retreat and the zen master there at one point seemed a bit scared about me, and I felt like I am soon going to get shot…(In Germany as if…)
How can I deal with people? Sometimes I feel they become jealous when I use language different, and I feel I do not have the right to self-express myself with the new words that suddenly emerge from my psyche. I read a bit about Susan-Cook Greuters Ego Development ( the paper and on Wikipedia or w/e) and that ego development was cohesive… with a change in language.
I feel adopting any other stage limits me, is effective for dealing with people, sometimes I feel I just hit integral and hit people with complexity that in the end is quite simple. Which is… odd.
Also, I feel that privilege is quite real, in the sense that the culture were people live in, the people who live there have prerogatives, that are simply based on habit, they are used to treating each other in the way people in that particular country w/e treat each other. But, are dumbfounded or feel scared /frustrated/guilty when dealing with people from other countries and a different dynamic develops. I mean it feels great, that people change and find some new personality traits … about themselves but. It’s just odd. I am nothing and everything identity-wise.
After I did the zen retreat this year I saw how difficult it is to accurately tell other peoples stage. Simply because of the fact of language, when someone is from a different culture and they interact on a green meme which was quite present there, I could see the green meme, but I could not decipher a language that I could not speak. I thought one guy was rather blue, I was projecting or I simply could not tell since his English was bad.
Would really appreciate some insights and feedback. I am struggling a bit with building the life that I want and finding ways to stop procrastination and depressive phases.
, so I am unsure how “highly diagnostic” all of this is.) Yet, to compare this with the ten ox-herding pictures is reaching stage tourquise being one with all sentient beings or psychic stage the same as catching the ox. The is the sense of what I am getting after doing a couple of retreats this year. And just finishing one from Shinzen Young. ( 3 almost 4 Micro Retreats from Shinzen Young and 1 14 day Zen Retreat at a Soto Tempel with recommendations from Shinzen Young)
This is partly because sometimes I feel people constantly one-up me, because of my skin color, and then I have to assess is this normal does every stage do that, am I going to further interact with that person because of the way he/she uses language or behaves. Is it me? Am I projecting? Is it normal? Sometimes even how jealous can people be of a minority which is simply amazing. Yet, nobody really admits that. Which makes it difficult to be non-judgemental. Or to create a framework for an embrace of equality and differences. Not sure, if I understand everything correctly.