Orange Spiral Dynamics - Challenging points

[George H]

Hello Actualized folks!

I have recently watched all the amazing Spiral Dynamics videos by Leo and I cant get over how easy the concept is to understand, it has really helped me become more aware of peoples belief stages, I know that this model isn't 100% perfect as it may have some holes but it does help my self-development movement and I will most definitely use it! I would put my self at 30% Orange/ 40% Green and 30% Yellow.

Now, I have tried explaining the stage system to my father and its very obvious he is heavily stuck on stage orange, now normally I would surrender trying to help someone understand something if they challenge me or start arguing, but as i'm very close to my father and I thought that he was open minded, I tried my hardest to explain it to him, but he just laughed me down the road, he also argued some points I simply could not answer, he said I don't know what i'm talking about.

I would class my father as: 80% Orange and 20% Green. He does not believe in god but accepts the fact that there is more out there then us humans understand.

 

These are the points he stumped me with:

1.) If you believe in spiral dynamics, then your just as bad as stage Blue. You are buying in to what some other guy believes in, if your open minded like me then you don't need to have silly systems in place, especially if the system was made by man.  

2.) Why do you need a system to layout how people think? Surely you already know how to talk to people from different cultures/ religions as I've taught you to be a chameleon and adapt to any environment no matter whom you talk to. 

3.) Religion and spirituality are the same thing, both are belief systems of a higher being or energy, you cant claim that stage blue people are less enlightened or lower on the stage system compared to a green spiritual believer as you both have a strong belief that a god of some sort does exist over the fact that god might also not be real or exist at all. If this Leo says that he's been enlightened and is stating that he has now found the truth through psychedelics then this is just his experience, it will be different for every person, so by believing what this Leo says, you are basically stage blue because your limiting your beliefs.

4.) If you believe that you might be god and that consciousness is everything and state that as a fact because Leo does, again you are limited your beliefs like stage blue. Unlike me I don't need a man made concept to help me visualise what I already know.

5.) If we can decide what colour we are on the stage system then I would be Mauve.

 

If anyone can help me answer these questions/ points from your point of view it would be highly appreciated! I've tried to write them as the way he spoke to me.

His points of view were valid as I am a very open person and can accept the fact that no-one really knows the real truth, I couldn't make him out to be wrong but I said to him that he's mostly on stage orange because he wouldn't fully hear me out or listen to what I had to say, this triggered him to get really annoyed for some reason, he didn't like being called orange or accept hearing the whole concept, I think his ego was getting in the way. I simply said every stage has its benefits and disadvantages, I'm part orange too but its nice to identify where you are so you know how to move up to the next stage. 

I couldn't believe how closed minded he was to hearing me explain how the stages work, he is a very successful entrepreneur and is very good at understanding people, no matter their belief system of culture, which is why I thought he would like to understand spiral dynamics but he simply states that he already understands how people think and doesn't need a man made system to help him see what he already knows. 

[Leo Gura]

54 minutes ago, George H said:

These are the points he stumped me with:

1.) If you believe in spiral dynamics, then your just as bad as stage Blue. You are buying in to what some other guy believes in, if your open minded like me then you don't need to have silly systems in place, especially if the system was made by man.  

SD is not a religious belief system. It is a scientific model.

By his logic every scientific model is silly and unnecessary.

He might as well be arguing, "Why believe what Einstein said? If you are openminded you don't need General Relativity."

54 minutes ago, George H said:

2.) Why do you need a system to layout how people think? Surely you already know how to talk to people from different cultures/ religions as I've taught you to be a chameleon and adapt to any environment no matter whom you talk to. 

Precisely because it allows you to predict why they think how they think, how they will resist changing their thinking, and what the next level of thinking looks like. It also allows you to avoid very common traps ans sticking points.

Without SD your Dad doesn't even know what he's missing.

54 minutes ago, George H said:

3.) Religion and spirituality are the same thing, both are belief systems of a higher being or energy, you cant claim that stage blue people are less enlightened or lower on the stage system compared to a green spiritual believer as you both have a strong belief that a god of some sort does exist over the fact that god might also not be real or exist at all. If this Leo says that he's been enlightened and is stating that he has now found the truth through psychedelics then this is just his experience, it will be different for every person, so by believing what this Leo says, you are basically stage blue because your limiting your beliefs.

This is known as the pre/trans fallacy, conflating advanced mysticism with fundamentalist religion.

True spirituality is not a belief at all. It is direct consciousness of the Absolute.

If you just blindly believed Leo, then yes, you would be falling into a stage Blue trap. But that is as silly as saying, "By believing your math teacher you are just being stage Blue and math is just true in your math teacher's experience and it's different for everyone so I don't need it."

54 minutes ago, George H said:

4.) If you believe that you might be god and that consciousness is everything and state that as a fact because Leo does, again you are limited your beliefs like stage blue. Unlike me I don't need a man made concept to help me visualise what I already know.

God and Consciousness are beliefs in the same way the sun is a belief.

"Again, you are limited in your beliefs like Blue because you claim the sun exists. I don't need a manmade concept like 'the sun' to help me."

54 minutes ago, George H said:

5.) If we can decide what colour we are on the stage system then I would be Mauve.

And if we can decide which labels to give to elements on the periodic table, I would call one of them Dumbassium

Your dad is simply closedminded and uneducated about developmental psychology.

Maybe, like, read a book on developmental psychology before opining on it with such hubris.

[George H]

Thank you for taking the time to reply Leo

Although I knew deep down how to answer these questions, its nice hearing it from another perspective. As I said, I wouldn't normally try to teach someone something if they challenge me on every breath.

The SD system has really helped me see what self-work needs to be done to become more mindful and aware. As I mentioned I will never truly believe in something thats absolute truth as we need to stay 100% open to all ideas, even if a bearded man from the sky was to come down to earth, that too could be an illusion of consciousness. 

I now understand what you mean by stage blue or orange being closed minded, they literally dismiss anything outside what they already believe in. A strong stage orange claims to be open minded and think they've been there, seen it and done it and simply class self-development or awareness as airy fairy stuff.

I've always felt alone with my thoughts as everyone around me seems to only care about reality or money. I'm ok with it being just me but I cannot believe how many people i'm around are literally zombies. I'm glad I found this forum as I'm sure I will have more topics to talk about in the future!

[Adam M]

Seeing people challenge spiral dynamjcs is almost always hilarious. Rarely do you see people, who fully understand the model, making these types of ignorant criticisms.

[Artsu]

George, your dad is right. You're being an idiot.

You are telling us that your dad is below you in consciousness, when in reality he is likely much wiser than you.

Think you're a fast developer? Ok, well he has many years on you with which to develop.

I'm not saying that being older automatically makes someone higher in consciousness than someone else, but consciousness develops as you get older so clearly they are correlated.

Anyway, your post makes it sound like you are in the wrong, so that is why i am saying that.

[George H]

@Artsu Thank you for your perspective, but being that only 1% of the worlds population is currently at stage yellow, this clearly shows that age has nothing to do with what I'm talking about, especially if an individual has never worked on self-awareness.