Elisabeth

Haha, that position is interesting, thanks for bringing that up. Notice how women do NOT sit in that position. We would be educated by our MOTHERS when little to not sit with legs apart - apparently it's inappropriate for a woman to open her legs even if fully clothed. Slut shaming at it's finest. (Yet we can sit with our legs crossed wrapped tightly which I understand to be hardly physiologically possible for men.) I don't link that position to dominance but I did envy men their open positions at times. This is how comfort IS dominance - if women don't have the same freedom (by upbringing) than taking the position of comfort is actually a display of "privilege". Interesting systemic connection. (I'm sure though there are ways in which roles are reversed, though they may be fewer.) Sit however you want. I prefer to empower women to also take a "dominant" position to levelling the field by making restrictions. Thanks for being aware.

Sorry I don't want to advocate boundless immigration and building ghettos, but this reasoning seems flawed to me. If the government or bank need money, they can raise taxes/interest rates. No need to create a bunch of new problems. Nobody needs unassimilable people on welfare (in contrast to people who can work). Besides, the total amount of money which you give out on welfare stays in the economy if you invest it otherwise or simply don't collect it from the people in the first place. There can be economic reasons for immigration e.g. if there is demand for low qualification work-force, sure. Human naivete - thinking that everyone's essentially the same and can be assimilated - seems like a more plausible reason for Europe failing to watch its boundaries to me.

Bear with us, you're right of course, but we're trying the tool on Ok, at least I am

@billiesimon Yeah right, don't take the points as dogma, just my experience/take refined by discussions with some really green people. Ad b) .. sometimes words don't have to be spoken if the context is clear, it's more about a "joyful yes" type of consent. I wonder. It's true that attraction does take its due time and until we're ready we're simply not ready. Honesty (especially around sex) is not what drives women away. Worst case, honesty may reveal something that's an actual dealbreaker ... which is not a loss because dealbreakers cause problems later on. In that sense revealing dealbreakers early is a win. To understand where I'm coming from: I've been involved with polyamorous and bdsm communities for some time now. In both of these talking early on becomes a best practice, almost a necessity, because people's wishes and expectations are so varied and an unwanted interaction can cause so much more harm. Maybe the majority culture, even among green, is shifted … yet I don't think there's any harm in learning from these subcultures (well, from their most conscious parts anyway), because they are the ones who have thought about and debated dating, consent, power-dynamics and ethical standards over and over again. The key to consent is that both people own their wishes, intentions and boundaries and speak up if things take an uncomfortable turn (with honesty as an absolute pre-requisite). So I'm not exactly disputing what you said but I still think you have some preconceptions there which need to be examined. What's the "must hold myself back before love" thing actually supposed to mean? What's the "love" word in here, what are you holding yourself back from? I genuinely don't understand. I feel like there's maybe one more bit of info I can give you - on the so called "nice guy" thing. Look, I've dated nice guys (two of them for a few years each), and I left them in the end. The problem with the typical nice guy is, he's essentially blue, not green. (I don't know if that's your case relationship-wise or not.) He will lack self-respect, personal boundaries, and ambition (or even purpose) - and yeah, these qualities are the good side of orange and they are attractive (to our orange parts at least). He will not own his emotions, especially the bad ones. He will also try to squeeze the woman into his one right idea of a relationship, because they haven't fully grasped the idea of individuality and defining your style to suit you, which in effect, isn't that nice at all. Orange IS a step up from blue. Please let me know if this is useful @tsuki I liked that video

I'm not Leo, but I have an opinion Sure, it's ok to date in stage green. You just become a) much more aware of the reasons why you're doing it in the first place (hint: they change upon close examination), b) much more honest about those reasons with the girls (like, talking about what you're looking for before the first kiss honest), and c) you truly care about the reasons the girl has for dating and if they align, so that you don't hurt either her or yourself (...see: you become conscious how a mismatch in expectation hurts you both). Then you go on and enjoy the moment, or attempt a life-long partnership, or whatever

It seems to me Leo and the founders of spiral dynamics have (ironically) once again left out some of the more feminine manifestations of the stages... I want to hear what you think - especially girls. I'm convinced an overlooked facet of orange is serial monogamy, soap-opera style drama and the whole fairytale "romantic love" ideal. Leo said orange doesn't believe in love or care about emotion, and he gave us the stereotypical pick-up guy who treats sex as an achievement picture for orange relationships, but hey - some girls also go screw a lot of guys, but most have other patterns. Like trying to find THE ONE who can make her feel love and be happy. My take on spiral dynamics and relationships tl;dr: There's plenty of orange relationships which are not empty of romance but where people still treat each other as a means to an end. IMHO all stages are capable of having some compassion for their nearest and dearest, of pair-bonding or being non-monogamous etc. Blue will place restrictions on relationships to comply with the group's structure. Monogamous marriage, as an institution, is the ideological child of blue, designed partly to protect property and inheritance. I'm not saying monogamous people today can't be further in their development, however, the structure they adopt is one that has served as the religious one-true-way and a social obligation. That's quite clear. Orange, IMHO, breads the romantic love ideal - only you choose the best partner for you. Think about it, marriage based on love and choosing your loved one yourself actually becomes popular around the same time as capitalism does. It also gives rise to serial monogamy. Now the individual is more important than the relationship (structure), so “moving on when a relationship no longer suits you” is celebrated sometimes as the right thing to do. So what you get is people just dating and sleeping around, but also relationships which were born from the belief in one true love ... ending in bitter divorce after a few years when the new and exciting vanishes and people failed to develop deep intimacy. In orange you may have the guy who judges women on their looks and the girl who is attracted to money and power and the teenage girl who worships a pop-star, but also the woman who reads romantic fiction and is looking for "true love" - where loving her is of course measured by her personal standards of behaviour. "If he truly loved her, he would/wouldn't..." Heck, we don't even have to read romantic fiction to buy into this set of beliefs, it's everywhere in the pop-culture starting with fairy-tales (purple?), and encompassing fantasy literature and romantic movies (orange/green). Notice how this perception of love is equally objectifying to man as the "male gaze" to women - the man here also becomes a means to an end, he's the one to provide the love I want, to bring my "happily ever after", the one to earn money and care for family and give me sex, cuddles, flowers and dates, and the one who's to blame if I'm not feeling the love I expect from a relationship. What he's NOT, unless in love, is a fascinating being of his own to connect with - hence sometimes marriages of mostly stage orange people turn into a fight for influence and "whose way is the right way" after the initial infatuation wears off. And then people say "he/she wasn't right for me". At orange, we also get narcissism as a couple, the "two against the world", where people manage to get absorbed with each other and just merge into codependence without having any helpful impact on the world as a unit. Orange also has a tolerance or even looks for, drama. After all, the emotions you suppress in your work-life have to come out somewhere. Hence conflicts with your spouse, and hence soap-opera and gossip. There are also guys who buy into the romantic love ideal. A lot of them. Guys also want love and know they want love, not everyone is completely cut off from their emotion at orange. IMHO for women, the transition into green in relationships is not necessarily about starting to focus on emotion and believe in "love" - though the word certainly gets a redefinition - but rather realizing that participation has to be truly voluntary and you can't change your lover. Only from that realization people can find an appreciation for true connection and start to base their relationships at that quality. Green development in relationships is imho finding true intimacy. Also, grasping how love comes from inside, not from the person you're in relationship with. Sometimes you do that with your spouse, sometimes you skew a bit more communal even in your love life. Green is also about going global with your empathy and applying the loving-kindness you've learned in your personal relationships to the whole world. As an aside, polyamory in my view is a funny blend of green and orange values. The ideology of abundant love must be an ideal of green, as are more communal forms of poly. Also the emphasis on processing feelings, everyone being heard and valued etc. However for most people, I the main motivations are more individualistic. Personal freedom to pursue your attractions. Sexual variety. Not being bound by any convention. Needless to say, orange polyamory not heavily tempered by green compassion doesn't work that great. But living the "green" ideas also seems difficult for most people. It could be we are simply not there yet, or it could be an example of a green ideal which is not that easily brought into practice. I wonder what yellow relationships are like. Maybe the dilemma between monogamy and non-monogamy proves itself false somehow? Well, if you've read all that, thanks for your time and please tell me if I'm getting some interesting points right or if I'm re-inventing my own spiral

Do you live in a country in direct neighbourhood with Russia? I understand why you would be struggling with this topic. A perceived direct threat to your safety will always make actualization harder. Recall Maslows hierarchy. It's much easier to be a multiculturalist when war is NOT around the corner. Even really green people will go into hate if tanks are occupying their country. (I'm Czech. 1968 is a half-healed wound here. Still, there's less fear of Russia because of the few hundred kilometers between our borders and Ukraine.) Your second post about judgement is excellent. Yes, go that direction. And you don't have to start with your very enemy.

@Key Elements Interesting, this idea about skipping stages. With blue, I think many people passed through blue just fine in their school years. Yet maybe they haven't integrated it with orange when they go on. I haven't noticed people who skipped blue, but I've noticed a friend of mine who was born into a very green hippie family and consequently has all those green values but didn't manage to integrate orange. On boundaries ... what do you mean? I think personal boundaries are an orange development. Like, blue gives you external boundaries "you are not allowed to do this" (it's wrong, shame on you). Orange does away with it, but as the individual is defining her/himself, she has to put up these guidelines of "if this happens, I will do that". And then green ... maybe that's what you mean. Green may be tempted to do away with all boundaries (the blue ones that define the shape of the relationship and even the orange ones that may be seen as barriers between me and the other person). But that's not workable. You have to choose some defining lines on what is allowed and what isn't and how much you can merge with other people too. Is that what you mean?

@fireworld The problem with pushing another persons attraction buttons without actually being up for a deep relationship is that it fucking hurts to end up in a state of unreciprocated longing for intimacy. I hurts to be after an intimate relationship and find out the other person is just up for a fling. It feels like a betrayal - and worse if you happen to find out only after sex. (Blah, I'm feeling dirty just immagining.) That's why we hate players. Recall the times when you "fell in love", like, deeply, and it was one-sided. Have you had these? They could give you some empathy. Anyway, for the sake of you and others gathering knowledge, +1 on pretty much everything Emerald wrote (except perhaps my attractions are slightly less sudden). She found really good words about the emotional sensitivity + traits (like equanimity) we admire being the most attractive. Excellent. Also, consider this: The research you cite is a statistics. It means it will work best for your blue-orange median. Yet if you shoot higher women's tastes will be different. I for myself know that I'm totally done with blue-orange guys... but I'm totally turned on by self-aware teachers of pretty much any art (though I would only approach someone who seems within reach). Maybe women are in fact attracted to (self-)mastery. Maybe a woman will not be attracted to someone who's lower on the spiral than her.

@Sparkist This is very powerful. (And a great example of green as well.) Thanks.

Some good discussions here, thanks a lot everyone! Thanks I hope I'm not misapplying the model too much I didn't know house of cards, but this video is quite comprehensive. My trouble with cliché examples is, they are not typical examples, and I'm trying to understand the typical as I see it going on around me, with the people I know from everyday life, to see if the model fits at all. And it's harder with women. Outside the context of their carriers, they generally don't seem orange. Heck, I can't tell if my own mom is more blue or green. She's caring and liberal to the point of doing voluntary work for immigrants, but otherwise quite blue-orange in her morals and worldview. It's like watered down green without any radical shifts of perspective. Do women go emotionally into green faster? I do get the competition thing, I really do. It has been my driving force for ... so much of my studying and even hobbies. It does make sense to me that healthily developing women (and men) in our society become orange in their early teens, questioning their parents and some of the rules and striving for some success. But it seems that as soon as women have children, or earlier, they have to either become green or revert into this blue-greenish mixture if they're not ready - otherwise, they and/or their children get really unhappy, not to mention all the judgement an ambitious mom is fighting against. Blah, it's a heavy topic for me. Struggling to reconcile both my remaining success orientation and even personal development "ambition" with possibly wanting children. Maybe this really is the female version of orange-green transition. @Brittany Thanks for your writing. It's dreamy, almost poetic. I really do like it. Great insight

Actually, to get himself into a mental health hospital (in Europe at least) or a "daily stationaire" or a therapy group at least. My reasoning is that when really depressed one is not really able to self-actualize. All of Leo content may be way to high for him. In a mental health hospital they would do a few things for him provide a daily structure which helps re-establish habits have him make contact with other people and have him realize he's not alone in his problems which both helps social phobia and low self-esteem provide various therapeutic sessions where he starts getting to know himself they'd probably also give him antidepressants, but I don't think that's bad as a crutch Once he's out it's really important to get a job, even part-time is fine, and follow up with more therapy. Follow what @egoeimai sais in whatever order, and don't forget about the "doing things you enjoy" - chances are when depressed there is little you actually enjoy, but finding any of it is of huge benefit. Another little tip on the habits side is to have a gratitude journal, google that. Anyway, that's the conventional way of dealing with it. And it does work to a large extent.

I think the drama of soap opera is very much part of orange culture.

Not sure, maybe the teaching is indeed yellow-ish. Yet I still place myself in orange-green overall personality wise (possibly I'm underestimating myself), though I do have the intellectual capacity for yellow. I don't seem to have shedded the achiever mindset completelly and I still react to some of the "orange" triggers (especially regarding science) ... but it's true that I've been introspecting into my emotional life for quite a while. I only started resonating with Teal Swan lately. I know that a few years ago all the "law of attraction" talk would put me off in an unsurmountable way. Now I mostly disregard it and take what's useful. Her advice on relationship and on integrating childhood issues is gold. Anyway, no pressure, different people resonate with different teachers at different times in their life, I just thought her teaching would be excellent for green.

Green IMHO is also all about emotional healing. While Teal Swan herself is higher up the spiral, a lot of her teaching is aimed at green people helping them integrate their emotional world which they now pay attention to, or actually sometimes on getting orange people into green by having them pay attention to relationships and emotions. You also have to be at least somewhat relativistic to tolerate her metaphysics, so yeah, Teals audience is definitelly green and if you wanna do more green personal development on yourself, watch her.

The "non-violent communication" approach by Marshall Rosenberg is really green. It's all about understanding your needs and the other persons needs and meeting them with compassion. Also radical honesty by Brad Blanton. (They are great approaches if you can understand their limits - and I think these psychologists have moved into yellow by now and try to implement and teach these approaches in a way that fits with all of society.) And hey, this lady is really, really green (perhaps including the false positivity trap)

My respect for even contemplating such a path. You seem able to take care of yourself now, even if that means doing some manual work. So, likely, you'll still be able to do that when you come back from the ashram. In adition, you'll probably be in a position to build up a business from teaching meditation or yoga if you choose to. So I think you do have some survival skills Sure, it may suck for a while before you transition from lousy jobs into something closer to your life purpose... as it would if you were to enter the job market now without studying. The only loss you're incurring is being sponsored by your parents during your studies. And I don't want to minimize that. A college degree still carries some worth (although less so than in the generation of our parents), and it's harder to concentrate on earning one when you have to make money as well. But even that is doable. Look ... you already know you can survive ... so whats more essential to you thriving? ... committing to the thing you really want to committ to, or being supported through an endeavour you'll have to grind through just as to not loose that support? So yeah, sice you seem motivated, I think you should do it. It's a bit hypocritical because I probably wouldn't - but hey, that's because I don't really want to. Practicing yoga and meditation all day still seems somewhat pointless to me. But you seem to want to do it. And there will be no better time in your life - certainly not when you get your degree and worry about entry-level jobs.

Yes, turquise is supposed to be above yellow and... basically transcending concepts? Not sure. Leo didn't speak about coral. There are different systems due to different people taking the original research further, some have more stage and different color labels or names, I didn't go any deep into it.

I wrote a very short summary for another forum two years ago after I watched the first video: Spiral dynamics is a theory of psychological development, especially concerned with VALUES, of both individual human beings and societies. Some of the research is originally due to Clare Graves . Have a look at this image. According to this theory, individuals and societies pass through stages which itself are not good or bad, but they occur in a successive order and are necessary. You can't skip any of these. Different aspects of a psyche can be in different phases, and you but probably you will be "mostly" somewhere. You also don't completelly abandon the prior stages as you move up, but you get aware of their limitations. At our time, 3-4 stages are important: Blue: Conformist. Tradition, law, family, obedience, a belief in good and evil and one right way to do things. Organized religion. Focused on others, sacrificing self. An extremely successful stage in societal context - civilization started in this stage, and it's no more than a few hundred years since a part of western society has surpassed this kind of thinking. Orange: Individualism, success, rationality. Leading to consumentarism, business, scientific progress. Sometimes at all costs. Focus on self, not that much other. This is where a lot of our culture is at. Green: Relativism, care, community. Developing deep empathy. Return to spirituality. Focus on others, less self, less materialism. Tends to be overly idealistic, may fail to take real action. Yellow: Systemic thinking. Can reconsile complexity and paradox. Relativistic, no absolute truths. More focused on self again, however responsible. This is the first level that is accepting of people in all prior stages. Still very rare in people today. The point is, it's a comprehensive (though some will argue that comprehensive means oversimplified) model of evolution. You use it as a guideline to guess where you're at and what your next developmental step is. You'll be at different levels regarding different areas of your psyche, it's in no way a rigid hierarchy. For self-actualization it's especially useful to know that you can't skip levels and there are barriers to reaching the next level. Green seems very inefficient to orange, also its focus on society will threaten oranges individualism, therefore orange will not want to become green. But unless developping these green traits of empathy and understanding relativity of persepectives, orange can't move on from where it is. I'm yet unclear on a lot of things too. Of course it's just a model and well... as far as I understand the notion of developmental stages vs. continuous development is an ongoing debate among developmental psychologists. (Though I can remember my very fast blue-orange transition regarding relationships, that's why it makes sense to me.) Just use it for inspiration.

I didn't like the voice, so I read the original blogpost. https://markmanson.net/ken-wilber I found it interesting. I'm also reading manson's book right now. I've been wondering if he's an example of yellow. His writing is centered around the power to choose one's own values, so that sounds kind of yellow-ish.

*hug* Five rejections is not that much. Remember, you only need one success. Possibly the HR people can tell that you already know that this is not your life-purpose. They can see that you're unsure about working there and maybe your attention is devided. Ideas: - Maybe try to find and show some genuine excitement for programming? Like, it's something you studied, I'm sure you liked some of it. - Don't try to guess what they need, ask questions. In particular, if you only talk to HR people, ask if you can talk to your future boss or coworkers about your job specifically. Show that it matters to you what exactly you'd be doing there, and with whom. All my IT friends complain about IT recruiters not knowing anything about the specifics - if they let you meet the team than you have both better chances and a much better idea of the proposed position - remember, you can also say no, an interview shouldn't be a one-sided interrogation. - Don't go blind, ask people you know if their company has an opening. - If everything else fails, move to Europe, we've got a high demand for IT people (just kidding)

Depression ... well my personal experience has been that real life changes along with gaining more understanding is much more helpful. (Though I haven't done all that much meditating.) I basically needed to outgrow my problems. But meditation, even very low-key 20min before sleep helps tremendously with anxiety, not to the point of curing it fully, but reducing by more than just a bit. So it's just one tool.

I ... don't know really that much about the philosophy, but I have some libertarian friends and I've read through an anarchokapitalist blog to get the gist of that one. Through my half-informed but very broad perspective libertanianism seems like a mix of orange and green. If you put more emphasis on the non-violence and voluntary aspects of these philosophies, you go more green. People who only emphasize the personal freedom aspect make it orange. I don't know how libertarianism looks from yellow. I guess some more limitations become apparent. I have a pretty standard set of objections towards libertarianism, which colored now by (somewhat stereotypical) spiral dynamics thinking goes something like Yes, the state uses force. Force is needed to controll red and really, the excesses of any other color. Blue can't really handle libertarianism. A lot of people need explicit rules because in a world without, they are lost. So they will not respect a society without rules. Likewise, a lot of people need extrinsic motivation. They are not in touch with intrinsic motivation. Orange will use the absence of rules to further exploit Green breeds the idea of non-violence, but they are overly idealistic to believe that people will take care of each other on a purely voluntary basis. Maybe in a society of green-yellow libertarianism is a good arrangement. I know this is not a precise formulation of anything but you get the idea. I'm not saying some libertarian ideas can't be usefully implemented, but by and large I think it overlooks the necessity of the current system for people who are either in a disadvantage or at stages bellow high orange.

Orange solving the problems it has created in an orange way. http://www.dissertationhelp.uk/

@Santiago It would be nice to know you're following along...