Identity

Funny story. a couple years back I had a book club with some friends. One by one we could choose a personal development book. When it was my turn, I choose the spiral dynamics book. We didn’t make it more than a couple chapters in before the book club fell apart. ???

Thought this comedy sketch about stage blue was pretty hilarious:

@Nahm All kind of "stiff" like this? I like what you did there.

The concept of personal development gets thrown around a lot. Different people attach completely different meanings to this concept. This interesting phrase just came to me that I wanted to share: "Real personal development is changing what you see as personal development." To unpack this a bit further, when we are pursuing a certain interpretation of personal development, we are creating superficial changes. Ultimately, we still operate from the same paradigm, cognitive structure, worldview. It's just that we are pursuing a life that is more in line with what that worldview sees as beneficial. When we change our definition of personal development, that is when we really start to see ourselves and the world in a different way. New doors start to open from which we were previously unaware that they even existed. We could see it as two directions, horizontal and verticle. That's how the spiral dynamics model describes it if I remember correctly. In the end, both are important. However, it is rare to find someone who understands this meta-level of personal development. What is your definition of personal development currently?

@Rilles Loved part 1 too! Relatable stuff @Recursoinominado I'll keep the abundance mindset in mind next time some of these thoughts appear, thanks! @Leo Gura High value and rising, hehe.

Just had an interesting reflection I want to share. a few years back I did a bunch of pick-up. To be effective at fulfilling my desires, I “downloaded” a bunch of cognitive structures; beliefs, thought patterns, world views. The views helped me at the time to get what I wanted. However, they were low-conscious, partial, selfish. Like a devil I trumped around wrecking havoc on my environment. Not acting in the interest of the people around me. Now, those structures are still active in my mind. However, I have a girlfriend. Now those same structures are causing fearful thoughts and feelings. Because I have been a devil, I see devils. The world is colored by that perspective. It just turned out the lens is quite dark.

Good stuff ??

@Rilles Oh haha, still a cool song!

@Rilles Thank you! Is that you in the song you have the YouTube link to? It's dope, going to listen to it again

@Leo Gura Yes, it's hard to see the full dynamic of it.. and hard to let go..

@Recursoinominado Fear that someone comes along and scoops my girlfriend. Fear that if we don't have good sex, she will go have sex with someone else. Projecting my own behaviours onto others. Thinking they will not take responsibility for their actions either. Believing in a world where humans are mostly animals. This kind of evolutionary biology pick-up ideology. Which creates this kind of self-fulfilling prophesy by which I create a world wherein that is true. Limiting the possibilities I see for shaping relationships. This is only part of my psyche, but it is there. ps. Thanks for digging

Mostly programming from the pick-up world, such as RSD. looking at the people in a quite shallow way. Especially looking at girls as objects that can be manipulated. And how they can be manipulated. Believing things such as “it’s not my responsibility to not hit on het, and continue to seduce her, when she has a boyfriend. That’s her responsibility”. Not really seeing people as whole human beings with their own unique expressions and desires. Rather as something to satisfy my needs. It’s hard to exactly put into words. It’s like the world is this huge collection of data, and the perspective you look at the world with selects, ordens and interprets that data. The perspective I am trying to release, or at least expand upon, takes merely a small slice of all that data available, and makes sense of it in a self-serving way. Denying responsibility. Not seeing the best in people. Mostly seeing animalistic, low-consciousness dynamics. Not saying they are totally false. Just saying they are limited and limiting.

Congrats Leo, great work!

Is engineering truly what your heart wants to do? What I hear is not someone who is following his life purpose, but someone who is trying to justify an unconscious decision made in the past. What do you really want to do?

@Leo Gura Hee Leo, You are obviously a very complex and nuanced thinker. And I would assume you think a lot. Just to be able to present these long detailed video's it must take a huge amount of mental energy to produce. Then adding in all the thinking you do behind the scenes, I can't imagine. My question is, how do you keep your mind in a healthy balance? Are there certain techniques, methods, approaches you use to make sure you balance thinking and feeling? To keep the mind in check, not burning it out, making sure your mind can also stay calm? I am personally struggling with this quite a bit. My work includes a lot of thinking and then watching actualized video's, contemplating, reading, figuring out life, etc. makes my mind gets overloaded. Symptoms can be: - Feeling my mind "burn" - Not being able to switch off or relax - Difficulty connecting to the body and feeling I do meditate regularly for an average of 30 minutes a day, but this does not seem to be enough. Do you have any advice you could share?

@zazed Because in general, I am operating from the level of ego-development where I am a separate human-being on the hero's journey. At times this construct can resolve to various degrees. But for now, there is the belief that I need myself to build up my life. When in this state of mind there is a strong sense of personal identity, control and future. After some self-reflection, this was the best story that came up.

I am willing to do it. No matter the obstacles that I will have to face, I am willing to do it. Looking back at the last years of self-actualizing, it hasn’t been easy, but I am willing to keep pushing forwards. I can see what I am creating. I can sense that I am on the right path. Even though times will get dark and bright, I will keep moving forwards. I can feel in my heart that I am laying the foundation for something beautiful. I see the glimpses of what my life will become. Every now and again, I look at the sky and my soul is filled with beauty that brings tears in my eyes. I know god is calling me and cheering me on, even though I am rarely connected to it as I go through my day. I am proud of how far I have come. And although there are few people cheering me on to continue the journey, I am on my own team. I know there is great potential in me and I will keep chipping away steadily to realize it. I love you all, thank you for being on this journey.

@JosephKnecht I am at times. And then I quickly get back to distracting myself and denying what I saw.

@Moksha ??

Hmm interesting. Let’s say confidence = success in business. One claims: experience —> confidence —> success the other claims: confidence —> success Maybe both are true, but one has the belief that there needs to be experience in order to be confident, which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy? Nice talk, but in my direct experience I also see that the more I have done in a field, the more confident I get and the more successful.

I love J. Cole! I’ve tried to psychoanalyse him before ? My guess would be that his normal cognitive survival mechanisms are between orange and green. Than maybe in some moments of rest and detachment he reaches into yellow. It’s the same for me. Making a living, social interactions, entertainment, and all of these big survival fields are hard to crank up to stage yellow. It’s relatively easy to think from that perspective at night making posts on the Actualized forum ?

Amazing podcast. Randall Carlson incorporates huge amounts of research from various scientific disciplines to see a big-picture of the history of the earth and civilization that will make your jaw drop. He displays a great example of stage yellow thinking in this episode. from just before the 2 hour mark, he has a nice 2 minute rand for anyone looking to move from stage green to stage yellow. Enjoy! ?

@herghly That’s basically what I’m doing atm. I helped to develop a training called ‘transformational leadership’ where we used spiral dynamics to help leaders to transition from orange to green. The business for that is growing. Another big challenge is the younger generations growing up with a stage green mindset not finding their place in an overwelmingly stage orange workplace.

You know how in math both sides of the '=' sign have to be equal and can be resolved to 0? I had this insight like that is what is happening with reality. There is nothing. But then on both sides of the "=" you can make up numbers. Therefore at first glance, it appears like there is a lot, but in actuality, there is nothing. For example; 0 0=0 (add 15 on each side) 15 = 15 (multiply by 3 each side) 15 x 3 = 15 x 3 (divide by 7) (15 x 3)/7 = (15 x 3)/7 Look at all this form that is created! Oh, it is actually still nothingness?

Some conversations I have had with my girlfriend sparked this interest of hearing different perspectives on the topic of desire and commitment within intimate relationships. The perspective of me and my girlfriend are quite far apart. I would love to hear how other people view this topic. My perspective: I shared with my girlfriend that I have desires for other girls then her at times. In the form of: - Getting aroused by hot girls walking down the street - Daydreaming about sex with other girls - Watching porn from time to time From my perspective, this is normal for a young guy being in a relationship. For me commitment is the choice of what I do with those thoughts and desires, thus not acting on them. So, as long as I honour our agreement to be monogamous, all is good. I don't want to suppress any of these desires, but just deal with them deliberately. My understanding of her perspective: For her basically any form of desire outside my desire for her is hurtful. She also claims (I say claims because I am sceptical) that she has no desires outside of me of any kind. I explicitly asked for different desires, and she denied to have any of these: - Feeling aroused when a hot guy looks at her with sexual intention - Wanting to watch porn - Daydreaming about intimacy with other guys To her the ideal relationship is one where you basically only see each other. No thoughts, emotions, desires for other people of any kind. Anything that falls outside of that mould she regards as hurtful, not the maximum amount of love you could have for each other. Questions: - To guys in relationships; do you also have desires for other women? If yes, to what degree? Has this evolved during the course of your relationship? - To girls in relationships; do you ever have desires for different men? If yes, what form do they take? - As a guy, I want to be honest, yet not hurtful. My approach so far has been to try to answer questions honestly (not easy), but not share much otherwise. However, I am not sure what approach to really take. I could play into her desires and fantasies vs. be honest to different degrees... - Are the perspectives and desires of men and woman just inherently different on this topic? Just because we are both devils, or do these perspectives remain add odds at higher states of consciousness?