Watch the full episode here: https://integrallife.com/what-is-a-man/ What is a man? Vulnerable? Gentle? Powerful? Big biceps? Tall? Strong? Innovative? Loyal? Logical? On the Left, more and more say a man is whatever you want it to be — penis or vagina, boobs or pecs, loaded with testosterone or almost none of it, masculine or feminine — it makes no difference. A man, or a woman, is a form of self-identity, freed from any biological constraints. If you say you’re a man, it’s my job to accept it and society’s job to validate it. On the Right, more and more say that a man, or a woman, are constrained by their biology if not outright defined by it, and all of this talk of “identity” runs the range from irritating to an existential threat on traditional gender roles. Conservatives say that a man and woman are defined by their biology first and foremost, and that there is no burying or obfuscating that truth. Who should we believe?

Watch the full episode here: https://integrallife.com/what-makes-us-happy-growing-toward-anti-fragility/ In this captivating episode of Witt and Wisdom, Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos engage in a thought-provoking dialogue that addresses the critical themes from Jonathan Haidt’s and David Brooks’ recent articles on the mental health of young liberals and the self-destructive effects of progressive sadness. Both Haidt and Brooks examine the increasing rates of anxiety, depression, and despair among young people, particularly in liberal communities, and the potentially maladaptive nature of their mindset. The conversation delves into the complexities of mental health and resilience among young people, emphasizing the powerful concept of anti-fragility and its role in balancing the poles of fragility and resilience, with the ultimate goal of addressing these primary pain points. Drawing inspiration from Haidt’s and Brooks’ articles, Witt and deVos explore the different happiness strategies associated with each stage of cognitive development, including creating community, practicing empathy and compassion, and pursuing personal transformation. By understanding and applying these approaches, individuals can effectively strive for progress, self-improvement, material success, empathy, and social justice throughout their lives. The dialogue also highlights the importance of adult guidance and mentorship in nurturing young people’s development. As teenagers face unique challenges and seek autonomy, it’s vital for adults to recognize the inherent tension between providing guidance and allowing young people the freedom to navigate their own paths. By offering support and challenge tailored to each individual’s needs, parents, teachers, and mentors can help cultivate healthy growth and resilience in the next generation. Please join Keith and Corey in this enriching dialogue, as they bring forth an integral perspective on the pressing issue of mental health and resilience among youth, and explore the transformative potential of anti-fragility and the happiness strategies that can empower us to create a brighter future for ourselves and the generations to come.

You can find the full 1-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/the-highest-stages-of-conscious-development/ Terri O'Fallon and Keith Martin-Smith dive into a deeper and more detailed exploration of Terri's STAGES model, focusing on a smaller section of the model: stages 3.0 – 6.0 (roughly Amber/Orange to Turquoise/Indigo). Terri outlines what makes each level of her model unique from the last, what causes people to shift from one level to another, as well as what the mature expressions look like for 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 stages. She goes on to explain how people can use the model’s parameters to determine the developmental expression of others in coaching, psychotherapy, parenting, teaching, negotiating, etc., and how the STAGES model's perspectival parameters can be a tool for generating more empathy and compassion. In the STAGES model, structure-stages (Amber, Orange, Green, Teal, etc.) and state-stages (Gross, Subtle Causal, Witness, Nondual) begin to merge and stabilize. Terri explains exactly how this happens, and how both states and stages underlie the developmental process. Finally, Terri explores her idea of developmental bypassing, and why we need spiritual work, shadow work, and developmental guidance to all in order to produce an integrated human experience.

Watch the full 1-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/navigating-the-meaning-crisis/ John Vervaeke, PhD is an award-winning lecturer at the University of Toronto in the departments of psychology, cognitive science and Buddhist psychology. His work involves constructing a bridge between science and spirituality in order to understand the experience of meaningfulness and the cultivation of wisdom so as to afford awakening from what is often experienced by members of society as “the meaning crisis.” In 2022, Nomali Perera facilitated a study group at Integral Life using the teachings of John Vervaeke from his Awakening from the Meaning Crisis YouTube video series. This video is from Mr. Vervaeke’s visit with study group participants for a lively Q&A. In the first half of this very rich discussion, John talks with Nomali, Jeff, and the rest of the group about his three major concerns about stage models, and why he doesn’t emphasize them in his own work: - Psychometric skepticism – uncertainty around how we are measuring and validating these measurements, - The problem of the “monolithic mind” — the idea that the mind is a “whole”, which wholly moves from one stage to the next, - Underlying founders’ bias — stage models often bias the model-maker, who tend to represent themselves as the highest stage(s) in the model. Whether we agree with John’s criticisms of stage models, or we see these criticisms already being addressed by other elements of Integral metatheory, these nonetheless offer some exceptionally important guardrails around how we wield and communicate these ideas. Integral theory in many ways represents a “simplicity on the other side of complexity” — but if we are being overly simplistic with these ideas, then we begin to lose some much-needed resolution, and are left only with a blurry map that can be misread and misapplied in all sorts of ineffective or even abusive ways.

“Tapping into Divine guidance” is a term most of us in the Integral family are familiar with. But what is the difference between that and prophesy or prophesizing? And what would practicing a prophetic modality entail? Join Lisa and Kevin with guest practitioner Rodrick Chambers, an ordained minister and spiritual coach, as we dive into the role of prophesy in the 21st Century.

Watch the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/perspectives-on-develoment-introducing-the-stages-model/ Terri O’Fallon takes us on a guided journey through her STAGES model, an integrally based development model that charts human development from infancy to the highest levels of development that humans are capable of. Terri’s research is based in the number of perspectives a person can take (1st through 7th) – and she explains how different levels of fluency with these perspectives can often cause us to talk “past” or “over” one another, and how familiarizing ourselves with these perspectives can help us stop doing that. Terri and Keith start with a brief overview of what exactly adult ego growth is, and why it matters. They also explore why adult developmental psychology — despite being part of the academic culture for more than 100 years — isn’t more understood and used by mainstream therapist and psychologists. Terri also explores how many of our culture wars are generated from conflicts between these stages — certain perspectives are able to see (and therefore respond to) social challenges that other perspectives simply cannot yet Finally, Terri spends some time unpacking her data on a 5th person perspective (mature Integral, or Turquoise) what that perspective sees, how it relates to the Wilber-Combs Lattice and to Post-Modernity (and to Integral), and how one might know for themselves what this means.

Watch the full 2-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/transform-the-police-a-more-integral-approach-to-law-enforcement/ Mark and Corey are joined by Chris Orrey, a retired police lieutenant with over 30 years of service with the Hayward, California Police Department, to discuss the abuse and resulting death of Tyre Nichols, who was severely beaten by five Memphis police officers after a routine traffic stop. What allowed this tragedy (and others like it) to take place, and what sorts of institutional transformation are necessary to prevent them from occurring again? We were very excited to have Chris join us for this discussion — not only because of her experience as a former police lieutenant, but also because she is leading the Integrative Policing Transformation Initiative over at the Institute of Applied Metatheory, designed to map the fuller complexity of policing in the United States and examine how a transformation toward a fuller guardian model of policing might be achieved. If you are at all interested in supporting this tremendously important and timely endeavor, we encourage you to get in touch here: https://instituteofappliedmetatheory.org/donations/integrative-policing-transformation-initiative/ One of the primary factors we discuss is how our modern Orange standards of law and justice depend on Amber enforcement agencies being healthy, trustable, and reliable — otherwise the entire system breaks down as the public looses confidence in the police’s ability to serve the community. And without this Orange-stage accountability and oversight, Amber groups often go bad fairly quickly — we don’t only see this in policing, but also in organizations such as the military, the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, and others. Closed-off Amber groups often tend to normalize, justify, and cover for all sorts of abuse within the group — even when that abuse is coming from a small number within the group. There is a natural Amber drive to protect the group at all costs (such as the “blue line of silence” within policing culture) which prevents real accountability from taking place, and which in turn drives more resentment and mistrust between the population and the police in general. We go on to talk about a number of other critical factors and leverage points in each of the four quadrants, including: UL (Intentional problems/solutions) * Creating more support and healing for officers (e.g. helping officers with accumulated job-related traumas), * Training greater emotional intelligence to help with empathy and  de-escalation of violence * State training to help officers better regulate and manage intense emotional and psychological states of consciousness (e.g. the natural fight or flight response) in both officers and criminal suspects)
 UR (Behavioral problems/solutions) * Managing physiological states associated with interior mental/emotional states (e.g. adrenaline, overall physical health of the officer) * Identifying multiple skillsets to deal with different kinds of confrontations and social challenges, * Recruitment strategies to attract more healthy and ethical officer candidates LL (Cultural problems/solutions) * Expanding officers' sense of "we" to include the communities they are protecting, * Restoring trust by creating more connective tissue between police and the communities they serve, * Dismantling internal "blue wall of silence" culture within police culture, LR (Systemic problems/solutions) * External social/environmental conditions (overall social violence, proliferation of guns, race and racism, etc.), * Outmoded social inertias from previous policing eras that remain with us today, * Rethinking “qualified immunity” that often prevents abusive officers from being held accountable, * Various forms of corruption and bias in justice systems, * Bringing more Orange-stage accountability to Amber-stage police organizations

Listen to the full 1.5-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/escaping-the-comfort-zone-motivation-shame-and-the-will-to-transform/ How do we cultivate the will to transform? How can we consciously step out of the safety of our comfort zones, and into our greater purpose and potential? Dr. Keith and Corey explore the complex psychology of motivation — the various sticks and carrots we use to get out of bed in the morning and keep ourselves moving forward in our lives, sustaining the inertia we need to push us through any number of hardships, setbacks, and growth opportunities. And of course these sources of motivation are as multifaceted as the human mind itself. We can notice interior motivations and exterior motivations, individual and collective motivations, motivations to feel more whole, motivations to feel like we are part of a greater whole, etc. — all focused, enacted, and enforced in very different ways at each stage of development. So how do we as integralists navigate and reconcile this vast array of motivations, both within us and outside of us? How can we better align ourselves with our deepest, most purposeful motivations so that we can more fully contribute our gifts to the world? Watch as Dr. Keith and Corey explore these questions, and more.

Listen to the full 1.5-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/how-to-build-a-conscious-community/ What Would a Genuinely Integral Spiritual Community Look Like? You may be surprised to learn one is actually being built — and launched — right now! Keith Martin-Smith talks with Dr. John Churchill about the themes in Keith’s latest book, When the Buddha Needs Therapy: shadow and awakening, the problem and promise of spiritual communities, the state-stage model as it relates to trauma and growth, narcissism and other personality disorders inside of spirituality, the power and trap of lineage, and what a fully Western version of an awakened spiritual path might look like.

Find the full 1.5 hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/psychedelic-therapy-and-the-politics-of-consciousness/ In the recent 2022 midterm elections, Colorado joined the state of Oregon in its decriminalization of psychedelic substances for therapeutic use. Here Dr. Keith and Corey explore some of the major implications of this profound legal shift, both in terms of our overall emotional, psychological, and spiritual health, as well as our rapidly evolving “politics of consciousness” — those states of consciousness that are sanctioned by the state, versus those that are not. Watch as we take an in-depth look at the many growth opportunities being surfaced by these changing laws, and how integral concepts such as quadrants, states, and developmental stages help us better understand the effects these substances have on us, as well as the role they have played throughout history.