Ready, Steady, Grow: The Art & Science of Vertical Development

Media
1

“Vertical development is not a goal. It’s an outcome of the living process.” —Beena Sharma

In this insightful conversation, Corey deVos and Beena Sharma explore the concept of vertical development and its importance in today’s world. Beena, with over 30 years of experience in the field, shares her journey and evolving understanding of vertical development.

The discussion covers several key areas:

  • The difference between horizontal and vertical development
  • Common challenges people face when growing into later stages of development
  • How vertical development can help address global challenges and metacrises
  • Practical advice and practices for fostering vertical development
  • The importance of polarity thinking in personal growth and understanding complex issues

Beena emphasizes that vertical development is not a goal but an outcome of how we live and make sense of the world. She stresses the importance of integrating earlier stages of development and warns against complacency or self-congratulation at later stages.

The conversation also touches on the application of vertical development to global issues, the role of AI in development, and the importance of having both power and perspective to effect change.

Beena introduces her VEDA training programs, which offer in-depth exploration of vertical development for personal growth and professional application. The dialogue concludes with an invitation to the Integral community to engage with these programs and continue their developmental journey. To learn more about these training opportunities, click here!

Throughout the discussion, Beena and Corey highlight the transformative potential of understanding and applying vertical development principles in various aspects of life and society.

1 Like
2

I enjoyed [1] the talk by Beena and Corey.

A potential story of my own life could be, family problems made me a fatalistic teenager, but then discovered growth literature and the promise of potentials, followed by a smattering of efforts to grow as a way to avoid suffering, later tempered as, to avoid unnecessary suffering, and eventually, over a few decades, coming to the limits of what I as a human being seem able to do, and the abyss that, some problems won’t be solved, because of limitations, and those just are what they are—and so, just not knowing.

Of course, the world did produce orange and we can to some extent transcend it, so it isn’t all “just stories”—things, to some extent, are represented in orange model making—so my computer chip will still follow the laws of quantum mechanics, and the surgeon can still follow protocols to minimise infection, and cows will still eat grass and humans eat the cows, in a natural cycle of life—and stories do have power—an insight which, if it weren’t true in some sense, would obviate any need to even bother asking whether the story can be rewritten, whether a voice can be made object, whether a model is useful and transformative.

And often, I honestly can’t tell the difference between orange’s ability to think about thinking, versus any “higher” stage. A very clever and bright orange mindset could emulate higher stages, simply by being able to hold many more variables in a model. So what then comes later? Perhaps that’s more about pattern recognition, intuitively recognising a whole mental model in action, when you speak to people?

In any case, I also liked—what seemed to be to me—the notion that, changing the model, the story, the view, of how I relate to life problems and myself, can often be painful. And human. And often I forget I’ve got the causality backwards; the suffering is forcing me to grow.

So I very much liked Beena’s notion that, the universe [2] is what’s making the hair on my head grow. And as I sit here typing, not knowing really, what story to tell?

Thanks for a great talk. :slightly_smiling_face:

[1] In a “delight of resonance but with concurrent groans of being reminded of my human condition, ooh, yay, urgh, hey ho”

[2] For want of a better word for whatever this whole thing is—nature? kosmos? evolution? energy? reality?

1 Like