Exploring New Conversations

Exploring New Conversations

Are you among the many people moving through Green and into Yellow/Teal who are getting impatient or bored with trivial, banal, "small-talk?" That seems to be one of the markers of this transition. It seems to me worthwhile to walk around this phenomenon and explore it from several angles. The risk I see is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Four kinds/levels/stages of conversation

One very rich and growthful angle is to study Otto Scharmer's "4 kinds of conversations" analysis. I cannot recommend your study of this strongly enough. (The linked page is a short introduction.)

May you be lucky enough to find a practice group built around this exploration, as I did. It was quite the eye-opener, to deliberately practice each of the 4 kinds of conversation and see what each did to my consciousness.

These 4 kinds of conversations represent a spectrum, or actually several spectra, of development, of purposes for the conversation, etc. They range from "talking nice" (no self-reflection, nothing new) to "debating" to empathetic yet subjective/inquiry-curiosity dialogue, to generative dialogue for co-creation, built on primacy of the whole and aimed at enacting emerging futures.

The function of smalltalk in online conversations

Another angle is to see whether there's a balance between "meaningful conversation" and seemingly useless trivia like acknowledging receipt of an email by a word or two. Let's dive into that.

It seems to be characteristic of Yellow-consciousness businesses and organizations that the small communications that used to be called "politeness" that "greases the social wheels" are common. 

Perhaps that's more necessary in online communications than skin-life conversations, where there is parallel subliminal body-language perceptible conveying the response to a communication. 

Online, the "netiquette" or "culture" in Yellow consciousness seems to be hitting Reply and sending a smile, or brief words like Got it, Wow, Thanks, Hmmmmm, or anything else, often conveyed via an emoticon--that all serves the purpose of letting the sender/speaker know their communication hasn't disappeared into the black hole of internet hyperspace.

The function of smalltalk for Wholeness and Bond-building

Yet another angle is to see that in Yellow consciousness, all previous stages can be drawn upon to form a richer, stronger relationship that is multi-colored. That means seemingly trivial "small talk" about seemingly trivial matters can actually be bond-building, by including all facets of our humanity in the relationship, whether it's about the weather or sports or our relatives. 

All four kinds of conversation in the Scharmer model have their usefulness for bond-building and as "community glue."

Is intolerance of smalltalk narcissistic?

Of course, we have a tolerance limit for trivial talk, most of us can attest. And I would suggest that the greater our intolerance of anything but "meaningful conversation," the more we might be exhibiting a regression to, or hangover from, the "what's in it for me" limited perspective of First Tier--rather than the diversity-embracing, bond-building perspective of Second Tier. 

A good question is: Am I focused only on what I personally find interesting or exciting, or am I sensing what the relationship might benefit from, given my purpose in the relationship, or given my caring for the other person?

Small-talking through the stages

I again strongly recommend reading and studying the reference above to the 4 kinds of conversations because they represent different stages in the development of consciousness.

"Greasing the social wheels" can start as relationship advice to the teenager (or as "say 'Thank You'" to the toddler) from mother in Blue, and continue in Orange from the perspective of a way of getting to my goals via other people. It can show up in Green as empathy, respect, and community-bonding. 

(We might even see it in Red as formal bows, ritual acknowledgments, and attempts to appear or behave as similar to others.)

In Yellow, it seems to have more a flavor of "we are a single system co-creating our shared purpose, so let's communicate as completely as we can, optimize our information flow, for that."

And perhaps in Turquoise, there is more of a felt sense of such responses to communications without the need for overt behavior, even in online situations. "I knew you got it, and I felt your response of amazement/puzzlement/annoyance....."

Can this be a meaningful conversation?

What else could be said for a "generative dialogue?" Leave a comment below!

by Rev. Alia Aurami, Ph.D., 
Head Minister, 
Amplifying Divine Light in All Church

"Amplifying Divine Light in All" is a completely independent church fostering empowerment of people to co-create loving, thriving God-realized lives, and wellbeing for everyone, on a clean, peaceful Earth.

Our main religious purpose and mission is to amplify the Divine Light in everyone. When you read this article, you will agree or disagree with its various points, and then you will know more about what is true for you. Knowing more of your own Truth amplifies your Divine Light. Thus providing/presenting this article is one way for us to accomplish our purpose and mission. 

This article and our providing/presenting it are therefore a central and essential part of our exercise and practice of our religion. 

None of the contents herein are claimed as absolute truth. They represent one possible perspective which might prove useful for you.

All rights reserved under the Common Law. This means please respect our creatorship.

Cross-mapping: What are its Limits?

Cross-mapping: What are its Limits?

Exploring the common tendency to seek cross-mapping, especially common among folks exploring the early territory of Second Tier, variously named Teal or Yellow. Cross-mapping is the new crossword puzzle hobby!

If like me you're bumping up against some challenges, here are some insights that might amplify your understanding, as they did mine.

We start with the understandings that "the map is not the territory" and that a territory can usefully be mapped in many ways. For example, a section of land that's a city: we can map the topography, the transportation system, the neighborhood names, the parks, etc. 

The separate maps are very useful, depending on your purpose. Those maps can also be cross-mapped, because they are maps of the same territory, the land. The layers of maps visible in Google maps shows this kind of cross-mapping.

However, when we're talking about cross-mapping of systems of thought, of conceptual frameworks, then it's too easy to assume the territory is the same, and seek our fun in cross-mapping. But then we get bogged down, halfway through the crossword puzzle, with pencil in hand, and conclude that we don't know enough to complete the cross-mapping. 

What if the challenge is really that the territory which SEEMS the same in both systems, is really too different to permit cross-mapping? What if both frameworks SEEM to be for example about the development of consciousness, but they really are about different territories within that broad arena? 

Cross-mapping is extremely useful, besides great fun. Cross-maps advance human understanding very significantly. So we who love it, do it often, and don't give up easily. 

I'm suggesting that when a particular cross-mapping attempt is tooooo challenging, we take a step back and assess: Am I just missing something, should I try harder, do I just lack the skills? Or are these really SUCH different territories that no useful cross-map will be forthcoming even if I try for years, or get help from others to try for years?

When a cross-map attempt is started but not working, those observers of the attempt who know both territories look at it and kinda squint. Hmmm, this glass slipper doesn't fit; this integration feels awkward, forced; things are being called similar which aren't. That's a clue that the territories are actually too different.

An example might be that trying to cross-map the transportation system of a city onto the religions of the inhabitants; it just might not work. 

I address these musing to many of us studying Terri O'Fallon's Stages model, and trying to cross-map that with several other systems/frameworks around "the development/maturation of human consciousness." We're having challenges, but seem to be assuming those are due to our own limitations of skill. 

I'm now thinking: maybe that's not the source of the challenges. What if the territory of consciousness is so vast that there are territories within it--even within a named arena like "development"-- which are simply not cross-mappable?  

So we might give up on trying to advance human knowledge by producing that particular cross-mapping. Wouldn't it be more generative, more usefully advancing of human knowledge, to seek to identify whether we're looking at a difference in territories, rather than reduce them to being regarded as only differing maps of the same territory?

What do you think?

P.S. I cite this historical example of how cross-mapping attempt led to the useful, generative awareness that the territories were indeed too different: Ken Wilber started developing his framework of the development of consciousness with "concrete, subtle, psychic, causal, nondual" at the apex. Then it became clearer to him and many that those referred to a territory they called STATES which were differentiated from the territory called STAGES. The Wilber-Combs Lattice was one attempt to cross-map those. 

Then Terri O'Fallon came along and added another dimension to that two-dimensional cross-map indicating that the territory was even more complex, and that the Lattice itself was an insufficient attempt at cross-mapping. (My interpretation of what she said.)

So at this point we have three named, discretely mapped territories: states, state-stages, and structure-stages. And cross-mapping attempts continue.

My ending comment is that by all means I encourage us all to persist in attempts at cross-mapping when we feel called. And at some point, if challenges abound, we could step back and consider whether the territories are different. How might we advance human knowledge by identifying them rather than by producing our desired cross-map?

by Rev. Alia Aurami, Ph.D., Head Minister, Amplifying Divine Light in All Church

"Amplifying Divine Light in All" is a completely independent church fostering empowerment of people to co-create loving, thriving God-realized lives, and wellbeing for everyone, on a clean, peaceful Earth.

Our main religious purpose and mission is to amplify the Divine Light in everyone. When you read this article, you will agree or disagree with its various points, and then you will know more about what is true for you. Knowing more of your own Truth amplifies your Divine Light. Thus providing/presenting this article is one way for us to accomplish our purpose and mission. 

This article and our providing/presenting it are therefore a central and essential part of our exercise and practice of our religion. 

None of the contents herein are claimed as absolute truth. They represent one possible perspective which might prove useful for you.

All rights reserved under the Common Law. This means please respect our creatorship.

Why Green is not just a minor transition phase between Orange and Teal

Why Green is not just a minor transition phase between Orange and Yellow/Teal*

I hear some folks interested in Teal organizations who are suggesting the view that Green is not a true stage of development but merely a transition phase. That view wouldn't be tenable after reading the original Spiral Dynamics book, in my opinion, but short of such a reading, here's my own attempt to respond, out of my own distress.

I've been distressed hearing that view because I feel it is dangerous: it will cause failure and suffering for those who attempt to live by it.** I'd like to try to articulate why I feel that way. I haven't the bandwidth now to go hunting for examples, but they are visible in the pages of Enlivening Edge Magazine. Perhaps you, a reader, can make a comment below with one.

Green is not only a full stage, it is the necessary foundation of the Teal stage. Green is the capstone of the First Tier, and the only basis from which one can move fully and healthily  into Second Tier's first stage, which is Yellow/Teal. It is the only healthy springboard into Second-Tier consciousness.

I think to view Green as a mere phase is to not fully "get" the huge difference between 1st and 2nd Tier, and the role of Green in making that difference possible. Green is where the heart comes online in human development, put most simply. It is a radical expansion of the capability of a wide circle of concern. It is, we could say, a huge move in widening individual ego's scope of concern, awareness, and care. 

Without that foundation, one cannot truly move into the scope of care and concern and awareness required for the leap into Teal/Second Tier, which involves building on that concern with wider systems-awareness, but with a quantum leap beyond any previous stage leap.

That's why Graves called it a Tier leap, not a stage development, between Green and Teal. Green still has the right-wrong, either-or mentality, despite how inclusive its values are. Green is, for example, very intolerant of intolerance. Teal and 2nd Tier is where inconsistencies like that disappear, for the first time in human development. Teal is the first FULL universality of care and concern. Because others are fully real in their wholeness, Teal develops a "both-and" synergistic approach to life.

Yellow to Turquoise, Individual to Collective, Parts to Whole?

​ 

 Yellow to Turquoise, Individual to Collective, Parts to Whole?

Hey, an insight which might prove heuristic for me and for you -- about the swings between individual-focus and group-focus as worldviews develop along the spiral.

I was contemplating a difference between Yellow and Turquoise. Yellow is focused on the health, wellbeing, getting-along, working-together, systemic harmonization, of EACH, EVERY, and ANY person or group of persons no matter where they are on the spiral. Yellow is coming from that perspective, and developing actual capacities to foster and achieve such purposes.

Turquoise, we might say, then focuses on the health, wellbeing, getting along, working together of ALL persons and/or groups. The shift is from Every to All. This is often listed as one instance of the swing along the spiral between "warm" colors which are characterized as more "individual-concerned" and cool colors which are more "group/collective-concerned."​ The word "whole" is often used with respect to Turquoise: focus on the whole planet, the whole of humanity, taking a holistic perspective.

However, I don't remember hearing anyone characterize the "warm" phases as focused on "parts of next whole." It is noted in Integral Theory that each "collective" gets larger in some ways (smaller in other ways) along the spiral, thus each "collective" transcends and includes the previous wholes which are now parts. Well, it seems to me that is what a new "emergent holon" is.

The insight which blossomed in my awareness this morning with respect to Yellow and Turquoise is that Yellow is developing its capacity to deal well with many parts. "Curating" them, if you will, to use a term I got from Marilyn Hamilton, author, consultant and movement-leader of Integral City (.com.)

With enough skill at fostering good working connections among the previous worldviews, among individuals and groups holding them, there is in the Yellow consciousness developing into Turquoise perhaps what we could call a "coalescing" of these into a new emergent Whole of subtle Energies of the planet which is then the focus of attention/work and the arena of development of new capacities at a new scale. Or we might language it as that there is a "zooming out" and seeing the individuals as an energetic Whole when viewed from "further out" (whatever that might mean; don't try to pin me down on it here!) in consciousness.

They turn out to be able to be seen as parts only in retrospect, of course; only when the new Whole is perceived, are the objects of attention, having capacities developed to deal with them, seen to be related in that way. At the time of the warm worldview, they are merely various objects of attention.

I just said "I don't remember hearing anyone characterize the 'warm' phases as focused on 'parts of the next whole.'" It could very well be that indeed Ken Wilber said this, or it was explicit or implicit in Terri O'Fallon's StAGES training I took last June. It has happened before in my life, that I read something, and then months or years later, it pops up as "new." So I might have encountered the seed idea, or in its plant or bud form, or even the blossom itself, previously. I'm open to discovering that.

For now, however, it seems quite logical to regard movement along the Spiral of development of consciousness as not only having the theme of individual or collective, but to further characterize the theme as parts or wholes. So perhaps we could say the times of the "warm" worldviews are times of developing capacities around managing certain parts of life, of experience, of the world, and then part of the natural movement into the next "cool" time is when so much familiarity with and skill with those particular parts, catalyzes a natural coalescing or zooming out, and the pieces of the puzzle are no longer pieces, they are part of a picture which is now seen, now grokked, even if quite implicitly.

The next steps in this exploration would be to try to characterize the "parts" involved in the warm worldviews, and their emergent Whole in the next cool worldview, all the way from Beige to Teal (first in First Tier, last in Third Tier.) That is a task for another day. I suspect it would not be a lengthy task. I'd look first to characterizations of the "scope of caring" of each worldview, for clues.

Whaddaya think? It makes logical sense, right?

And no need to get hung up that a worldview is not a holon; the term "holon" is used imprecisely when heuristic in many contexts these days, I notice, so I am comfortable with playing with it as a framework here. Maybe just "that which transcends and includes previous elements" would serve, but a single word is easier to use in discourse.

Do comment below!

by Rev. Alia Aurami, Ph.D., Head Minister, 
Amplifying Divine Light in All Church

"Amplifying Divine Light in All" is a completely independent church fostering empowerment of people to co-create loving, thriving God-realized lives, and wellbeing for everyone, on a clean, peaceful Earth.

Our main religious purpose and mission is to amplify the Divine Light in everyone. When you read this blogpost, you will agree or disagree with its various points, and find new insights, and then you will know more about what is true for you. Knowing more of your own Truth amplifies your Divine Light. Thus providing/presenting this blogpost is one way for us to accomplish our purpose and mission. 

This blogpost and our providing/presenting it are therefore a central and essential part of our exercise and practice of our religion. 

None of the contents herein are claimed as absolute truth. They represent one possible perspective which might prove useful for you, and they encourage you to explore your own spiritual truths.

All rights reserved under the Common Law. This means please respect our creatorship.