Spiral Dynamics Stage Green Examples Mega-Thread

[Key Elements]

 

[Key Elements]

On 01/07/2018 at 0:09 AM, Leo Gura said:

Relationships, bonding

• Free love, intimate sex
• Sex education

Hmm...ok good, but I'm not exactly sure what is going on in the relationship section of the forum when ppl are saying that they are into open relationships. A few years ago, I knew of this girl who got AIDS after having 5 bfs. This was in the US. She suffered a very painful death. In other countries, like in "3rd world" countries, you could catch AIDS and other STDs very easily. It's in abundance, esp if you're poor and don't have the money to go to a good hospital. 

Also, I met a polygamist in real life (not in the US). He has 2 wives and 2 sets of children, living in different houses. The wives don't work and don't talk to each other. I could understand this better.  He's a very responsible man who could afford and manage 2 families. At least the children know who is their father. They get to see him everyday.

At least when you get married and have children, you'll know how precious time is and learn more responsibilities. It's a tough situation that could take you by surprise if you don't know what it is and can't adjust to it. Marrying into polygamy if you're a man has more responsibilities than monogamy. Polyandrus women have to manage two or more husbands, which is challenging. At least you're responsible and gaining tons of skills by managing multiple families and raising children. 

What's there to learn in just getting laid? It's just pleasure and distraction from the real work, which involves your life purpose + spiritual path. 

I noticed after I wrote this, there is a difference in the definitions of polygamy and just "getting laid." The real polygamist doesn't try to avoid responsiblies by dumping his wives and children. He's a real man. If he falls in love with a 3rd girl, he marries her and have children with her. He wants his children to be raised well.

[Forestluv]

Open relationships / polyamory is a different area than polygamy.

I’ve recently expanded my consciousness in this area. I was raised in a fundamental catholic house. I was conditioned with strong beliefs in favor of monogamy, marraige and children. Last year, in an effort to be radically open-minded and challenge my beliefs, I got involved with the polyamory community in my area. I dated one woman in an open relationship for 8 months. It turned out we only had sex with each other. I went to various activities and got to meet a diverse set of people within the community. I went through a process of self inquiry and contemplation during this time that got extremely uncomfortable at times - including arguments and emotional breakdowns. I finally broke through and was able to see through their perspective and felt empathetic.  It’s a different sexual orientation and I  experienced it in my mind-body. I totally get a polyamorous sexual orientation from direct experience. It was nothing like anything I could have imagined.  I can honestly say my capacity to love has expanded greatly. Yet I also discovered my social conditioning for monogamy runs deep into me. It would have taken a lot of reconditioning for me to stay within the community. I just didn’t want to invest that kind of time and energy into that area of my life, so I left the community two months ago. I’m still integrating the lessons. It was really profound for me. 

Imo, to describe polyamory as sleeping around is on the same level as describing monogamy as cheating and affairs.

[Key Elements]

Ok, I understand. All relationships are more or less similar. If you have to live with a group of ppl, like your family, for example, a healthy, functional family do care for each other, and understand each other, but they are detached from each other. They give each other their own space. This includes your spouse. Because if you're not detached, you cannot work on yourself, and that's the main thing. It's healthy to have time to work on yourself. The same is true for living in a monestary. The same is true with the polygamist. I guess it's true for these other types of relationships. If it's really profound and it opened your mind, that's great. Congrats. However, I'm not sure why you left just because you didn't want to invest more time into it. I think being married with children is also profound. Lots of lessons learned, lots of challenges, and your whole life goes into it. And, I didn't leave. Been married for 20 yrs. 

Ok. Let's be open about this. If you are being intimate (having sex) with more than a few, there are more ppl to trust on the AIDS / STDS. This is not a joke.

[Forestluv]

I’ve been so conditioned for monogamy it would have taken a lot of work to recondition myself for polyamory. It doesn’t cone naturally for me. There are other aspects of life I want to focus on. 

Polyamory is much broader than polygamy. Noone I met in the polyamory community was into polygamy.

A few things I learned is polyam is about sooo much more than sex. Just like monogamy is more than sex. Also, I met many people that were very introspective. I observed healthy and unhealthy relationships, just like in monogamy. I was surprised by how open and honest people in the polyam community were with their connections. Good communication seemed like a high priority. Getting tested for STDs and being transparent was also a high priority. The woman I dated openly wouldn't sleep with anyone until tests. They seemed more serious about this than monogamists I know and dated. They weren’t just looking to sleep around and, in general, were in committed relationships. Many were only having sex with their primary partner by internal choice. Some were in open marraiges.

Open relationships are becoming more common and with good communication they seemed quite healthy to me. I've noticed it's becoming an acceptable type of relationship with the millennial generation. My students seem much more open to the idea than previous generations. 

[Elisabeth]

I confirm. Getting involved with the polyamorous community is a great way to get more conscious with relationships. And polyamory is deeply and profoundly rooted in green ideas, although a lot of orange people get into it as well (and usually hurt themselves and their partners in the process). If you know some polyamorous individuals, that is people who can  maintain multiple committed romantic relationships at the same time, it's a good idea to try to 'get' their approach to relationships - I'm not saying everyone should (can, is inclined to) try for themselves, but an exposure to this lifestyle sure makes you question all you assumptions. 

Edited August 29, 2018 by Elisabeth

[Key Elements]

@Serotoninluv @Elisabeth Thanks for the info. I was reading polyamorous as polygamist and did not know what is open relationships. Thanks for clearing that up. 

You know what, I think one of the biggest reason why some ppl continue to stay stuck in cold approaching is because they do not take the time and effort to understand that different ppl want different relationships. They do not take the time to understand that ppl have different boundaries. They are being rejected for these reasons and not because of how they look and how much money they have.

Successful relationships take time and lots of patience to understand. No one can explain it in just one post. What I highly recommend, and I said this before, is to learn about different cultures and transend them, including your own. However, when you do that, do not get involved in any relationships, unless you know what's going on. Otherwise, you might end up hurt or in trouble and end up hurting the other person.

Here's an example of not understanding and judging someone just because. Let's say someone tells you 'no sex before marriage.' This doesn't prove that the person is dogmatic and that he/she is Christian. It doesn't prove anything. You still don't have any idea of who the person is overall.

[Forestluv]

4 hours ago, Key Elements said:

I highly recommend, and I said this before, is to learn about different cultures and transend them, including your own. 

I totally agree. One thing I found very helpful is cultural immersion. I lived with a tribe in the mountains of Peru last summer which shattered many of my belief systems. I learned Spanish so I could communicate in their native language.

In the area of sexuality, I got involved with polyam meet-up groups and really listened to their experiences and perspectives. So many of my unconscious biases were revealed. 

For unconscious racial biases, I was in two committed relationships outside my race twice for over a year (a colombian woman and a black woman). I had an intellectual understanding of racism and I serve on a diversity committee. Yet, directly experiencing racism within an inter-racial relationship blew away all my intellectual knowledge. My understanding goes so much deeper now.

For me, learning is more than reading and watching videos about other cultures. IME, to understand a culture, one needs to experience and immerse themself into it. For me, that has been key to deeply understanding and experiencing the green stage of consciousness. An intellectual understanding is a surface level.

[Key Elements]

@Serotoninluv Since you've been through relationships, you must've learned one of the most important things in life, if not the most important thing. How do you define love (in practical life)?

To me, love is what you give, not what you take. It's not being "romantic," holding hands, kissing, thinking someone is pretty or hot. Nope. Those are all infatuation--the icing on the cake. Infatuation is just like a wedding with lots of guests and the honeymoon phase.

The real love is the giving--the contributions that you give. How well do you care for the other person? How well do you raise your children? Do you give them enough space (detachment) to develop themselves? If they are not developing themselves properly, do you step in the right way to let them know? Sometimes it's tough love.

You know, it's up to you to have children or not. It's up to you to choose to be in whatever type of relationship you want. 100% your choice, ok? However, I'm far more impressed by the polygamist who does love correctly than the polyamorous. Raising a good family is probably one of the toughest things to do in life. I'm not talking about dysfunctional families. That polygamist I saw is actually raising two families. He takes that up as a challenge. He doesn't call it quits on them. One family is not "on the side" or more important than the other one.

[Forestluv]

@Key Elements I have experienced various flavors of love. Various energies and connections. There isn't a correct form of love for me. For me, defining love feels contracted. Rather, I feel an inner calling to expand my capacity to love. From the silence, love appears. 

There are flavors I love I have not experienced. I don't have direct experience raising children or with polygamy. I don't have experience loving my own child or the practical aspects of raising children. I have been in relationships with several woman who have children and have observed and felt empathy, yet not direct experience. I've participated in an open relationship and with people oriented toward polyamory (but not polygamy). I still have poly friends, yet I found it's not my natural orientation. At least, not in this present moment.

[Key Elements]

@Serotoninluv I'm talking about practical life, not the "flavors." Looks like the ppl who become exes will only be, at most, "friends" or fb friends. They cannot be best friends and beyond; I never heard of it. Best friends are rare. BFFs are extremely rare. I tried to define it in the relationship area of the forum. Someone told me that in your lifetime it's extremely rare to have three BFFs. Yes, they could be in your family or not.

Wait, you don't have to have direct experience of poly to understand poly. For example, I'm not a poly.

[Forestluv]

@Key Elements Practical expressions of love is one form of love that I have experienced. That form of love is within a much larger scope of love for me.

In my experience an intellectual understanding is very different than direct experience understanding. They go hand-in-hand for me. I've explored various ideas and concepts of love intellectually and I have experienced deep love within both monogamous relationships and a poly relationship. The poly experience was distinct from anything I have experienced in monogamy and beyond anything I could have imagined. It expanded my sphere of love.

For me, it isn't binary. It isn't about being 100% oriented toward monogamy or 100% oriented toward poly. I've experienced a complex mixture of both.

[Key Elements]

@Serotoninluv Well, ok, I get what you're saying. You could have 1 profound relationship with someone and that's more than enough to understand the other relationships. And, that relationship doesn't even have to involve sex. Sex all by itself isn't much. I'm talking about relationships. A monk could understand all types of relationships because he's travelling/immigrating and mingling with all types of ppl.

Here's another example. You could understand cousin marriages and girls marrying their uncles without getting involved in it. I don't recommend it, ok?  That's a "different" "flavor" of love. You're going to see that all profound relationships have similarities and similarities in flavors. Remember Leo's differences and sameness video?

[Forestluv]

@Key Elements There are lots of different perspectives. For me, fully immersing myself and experiencing that form of love is beyond any type of observation or conceptualization. It's like describing an apple, observing someone eating an apple, having conversations about the experience of eating an apple and the direct experience of actually eating an apple.  As well, an intellectual understanding of tribal peruvian customs was different than my direct experience within a peruvian tribe. And I still lack the direct experience of actually being a peruvian within a tribe. Various understandings are great, yet IME direct experience is distinct. 

Also, I have no experience about polygamy or sexual relationships within family members. I'm talking about open relationships with people that are unrelated. You seem to say you have an understanding of poly, yet what you describe is very different than what I experienced.

[Key Elements]

42 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

Also, I have no experience about polygamy or sexual relationships within family members. I'm talking about open relationships with people that are unrelated. You seem to say you have an understanding of poly, yet what you describe is very different than what I experienced.

I also have no experience in those types of relationships. The question was:

How do you define love in practical life?

Let me rephrase it:

How do you show love to someone in real life without speaking it?

[Forestluv]

9 minutes ago, Key Elements said:

I also have no experience in those types of relationships. The question was:

How do you define love in practical life?

Let me rephrase it:

How do you show love to someone in real life without speaking it?

It depends on the person and the situation in a given moment. Love appears and has many forms of expression. There are an infinite number of possibilities. I don't feel seeking energy to define love or create borders around love. That feels like a contraction to me. For me it's about expansion. Yet, I still have just a tiny sliver of knowledge and experience regarding the broad, magnificent scope of love.

[Key Elements]

22 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

 I don't feel seeking energy to define love or create borders around love. That feels like a contraction to me. For me it's about expansion. 

To answer my own question(s) that I asked you, something happened during my early childhood. A family was hiding me in their home due to a "racial" war outside. Ppl were being stabbed to death on the street due to their "race." This family didn't want that to happen to me, so they hid me.

Anyway, this is just one example. I'm not sure how this is a border. We might be talking about different things.

I think what I'm saying is, I met a polygamist in real life who has gone through a lot. He might be capable of doing such things. But, no, I wouldn't want to marry him or become his 3rd wife. 

What I'm really trying to say is, the ex cannot be the best friend and definitely not the BFF. (I could be wrong.) Having best friend and BFF relationships are more profound than entering into a relationship and leaving one day. If you keep becoming the ex, how long are you going to repeatedly learn the same lessons over and over and over again? Remember that Leo made a video on Sameness vs Differences. This one. The "sameness" applies to relationships too. All healthy, functional relationships have similarities. So that means if you keep breaking up, you did not learn your lessons. To prevent yourself from breaking up in the first place, have patience and learn about the different values and boundaries of different ppl without judging them and most importantly, without entering into a relationship with them. You have to know yourself too (your own values and boundaries). This way, you won't waste your time and energy going into the wrong relationships. Feel free to share thoughts.

Another thing I realized is, healthy, functional relationships do grow into best friends and BFFs. 

[Key Elements]

Different species BFFs:

Actually, the crow is the BFF.

 

[Forestluv]

Here is a beautiful example of a woman describing her evolution from an orange-level feminist to healthy green. There are many video examples of people within stages, yet very few videos of someone who has awareness of their evolution process and is able to describe it so eloquently.

 

[Key Elements]

Polyandry of the Himalayas