Becoming Conscious

* Understanding Complexity* What is Sense-making?* Rule Omega* Primary Characteristics and Values of this Stage* How does this stage emerge* Survival vs. Being* Fully being within and operating in the world rather than trying to make it conform to our expectations* the limits of activism and pluralistic thinking* inhabiting complexity in the world vs. wanting the world* the felt experience of reality vs. forcing reality into our concepts Get full access to Becoming Conscious at becomeconscious.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I explore many aspects of sovereignty including:* intellectual sensemaking* being-level sensemaking* ability to act and respond to the world* dharma & connection to meaning in life* core confidence / knowing your worth* sovereignty amidst the complexity of the digital age* courage: the joy of living dangerously* asking better questions to respond more sovereignly* poking the box and agentic creative exploration🎧 Sit back and enjoy the listen! 🎧 Get full access to Becoming Conscious at becomeconscious.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I explore the different narratives, core beliefs, phenomenological experiences, and potential solutions and approaches to curing victim mentality.What is victim mentality?What does it feel like?What other similar topics are related to and intersect with the feeling of victim mentality?Going deeper into victim mentality to the level of ontology. Taking a more inclusive approach to reality as an antidote to the victim mentality. Get full access to Becoming Conscious at becomeconscious.substack.com/subscribe

Hussam Shareef is a participant in the Stages of Consciousness course that I'm running. In this call, as part of the course, we discuss what a healthy integration of the pluralist/collectivist vmeme looks like.OverviewGreen’s pushback against stage orange* The fast-paced material world of Orange* the pluralist stage slowly recognized that material wealth alone is not sufficient to live a satisfying life.* Start to realize that not everything can be explained and solved with reason* There is not only a need for achieved tangible wealth but also a need for more emotional well-being.* When one realizes that we can’t solve all of the world’s problems with more money, economic growth, pollution, and everything happening on wall street* Now realizes Orange is unsustainable and we need to think about ecology.* So, Green emerges when materialism and success fail to feed the human spirit. We used to think that money and success could make us actualized, but now we are noticing that there is still a hole inside us.* Now, after getting much money and success, one discovers that life is not about it; instead, we should have been chasing connection and relationships.* this emotional void* What moves Orange into Green is sometimes a health crisis because Orange is living in such a toxic way that many health issues started to come out.* stress-related diseases* loneliness* anxiety* depression* One's view of the world expands.* Orange only viewed the world as being a marketplace* Green views the world as a community where we all get to collectively need to take care of our Planet.* Life is not about things, life is about people. It’s about deep human bonds. Now, Green is starting to realize that people should cooperate rather than compete with each other.* Life is about more than just egoic success but the success of the whole community; but now, the sense of what community means has expanded beyond blue.* There is the recognition of this larger global community and now it starts to notice all the inequality and oppression in the world that is caused by Blue and Orange.* The community of green is the entire world, regardless of the country, gender, race, etc.* Whereas blue was promoting the civilization (in the sense of my civilization against all the other ones)Healthy Green / What Can We Include / How Does Green Look When Used For Higher-Order Purposes* To work together, it is essential to make real contact. This means that people are able to bond on an emotional level. This asks for a lot of communication, understanding, and empathy.* Give attention to everyone and give everyone the space to be heard.* Accept every person completely in their own individuality.* journey of discovery is more important than reaching a goal* Connection with nature* I feel emotions, therefore I am alive. In essence, everyone is equal.* Love* Heart* Soul* Empathy, Intimacy, Kindness* Compassion, Mercy, and Leniency* Equality* Harmony* Human well-beingWhere am I not taking into account the emotional component of life?Where am I not valuing others for their innate human-ness, but rather putting them lower or higher based on their beliefs, success, ego, etc.? Get full access to Becoming Conscious at becomeconscious.substack.com/subscribe

Maya is a spontaneous artist and permaculture magician. She is more embodied in a state of abundance, trust, and child-like play than anyone I know. 👩🏽‍🎨We talk: 🗣A being-level embodiment of the state of abundance. How to access your deepest artistic state through bringing child-like play into your art, poetry, painting, and creative endeavors. This leads us into a discussion of how every single action we take in life can be a source of child-like creativity — and turning this into a spiritual practice. Get full access to Becoming Conscious at becomeconscious.substack.com/subscribe

Oscar Correa is the founder of The New Activist and Ekumal (located between Playa Del Carmen and Tulum, Mexico), a hub for conscious individuals to co-create and experience the magic of planetary regeneration at the local scale. We speak on 👇* What is activism? * Activism as doing rather than just having opinions* Local vs. Global* Open Sourcing Ekumal* What are the ripple effects of building a community like this?* Regenerative Community Building* the pillars* Building Bridges* constructing an inter-dependent network of regeneration* SEEDS Cryptocurrency Get full access to Becoming Conscious at becomeconscious.substack.com/subscribe

Eric Brown is the steward of Phoenix Culture and an all-around fascinating dude. He’s on the leading edge culture design, creating systems for embodied awakening, and truly doing what it takes to combat the meaning crisis. We Talk About:* DAOs* top-down and bottom-up stewardship* Phoenix Culture * the call to action for those who are willing to play the biggest game* on designing and enacting a civilization-level transformation so that we can continue to play the human game* a collective co-collaborative fusion of the mind and heart* what does it take to show up and play the game? * the self-actualized man as the scaffold to steward the collective* what is stopping some people from showing up and playing?* ie: ecology of practices* artists as a way to steward the collective towards a bright future * to re-enchant life and the globe* to create compelling visions of the future* the neccessity of them* on re-aligning our collective with what we're actually trying to do * success?* being?* heart?* Top down control is unnatural.* Create Self-Sovereign individuals ready to become Cultural Architects.* Provide aspiring architects with thetools, technologies, training, culture, contexts, and support they need to continue their evolution and growth towards becoming Architects of Culture.* ecologies of practices * religious technologies* the psycho-technologies, repeatable processes to allow us to transcend our mind and move into being* these have been scattered and they are everywhere.* phoenix culture = holistic ecology of psycho-technologies* Hedonic Engineering: Building a Psycho-Spiritual Growth Stack* pheonix culture as the generative step towards the emergence of new religions * the religion of tomorrow - ken wilber* a decentralized religion based on a new shared metaphysics* the myth of the self made man * we are all part of systems so how could we individually be the ones that created all our success* what are we actually searching for? * heart* intuition* trauma is a lack of completion of an energetic cycle in the body * it's not conceptual whatsoever* Listen to what life wants to do next. Listen to the calling of my heart. Listen to the rhythm of the cosmos. So I answered the call. I went to a river, sat down, and listened.* on intuition and listening to the heart 👆* the fear of death / social exclusion * and this is entirely based on the definition that you have of yourself* creative evolution * on the fundamental nature of the creative evolutionary process* as the fundamental process of life itself* Emergence is not chaos. It’s creative evolution. 🧬* open-ended questions* what slowing down looks like?* how do you steward the collective intelligence towards creative evolution on the individual and collective level within a DAO Get full access to Becoming Conscious at becomeconscious.substack.com/subscribe

* A period of crisis and regression before the higher level system emerged* the perspectives they had on life were inadequacy to solve the problems that they were facing* the old 'solutions' to former existential problems didn't apply to this new problem* growing pains and a sense of loss, or uncertainty about how to make sense of this new problem emerges and one must be faced with a crisis in order to make the jump to a higher level of meaning making* changing a stage of development induces discomfort, pain, losses, and uncertainty* the need for the emergence of the next system as the only way to solve the problems one is facing* He must come by an insight which enables oneself to solve his new problem more effectively* the barriers, one’s family, friends, or the established and its way of thinking, must be overcome or ignored if the insight is to fully sink in. Get full access to Becoming Conscious at becomeconscious.substack.com/subscribe

* earlier vs. laterNote: We use "earlier and later" vs. "lower and higher" to avoid the bias found in the latter.* rather than higher vs. lower * implicit assumptions* no one is entirely at one stage or another* it's more like a probability* all stages are idealizations* every human being is a unique idiosyncratic representation of these mental models and never fits the model perfectly* if you're stressed then you'll be at the lower stage and if your life is going well then you'll probably peak experience one of the higher levels* this is a scientific model* so it has it's limits* it can't handle every instance of life and the world* not every situation in the world can fit into this model* all growth happens in separate lines of development* different lines of development can be at different stages of growth* There's no "stage development" without a particular line. * the levels of development never occur on their own, they are always levels of some line* later stages aren't necessarily happier* shadows develop at every stage* later stages can understand earlier — but earlier can't understand later* it's pointless to try to get someone at an earlier stage to understand a later stage concept or way of viewing the world* growth can't be forced* these stages are the map NOT the territory* the later the stage, the lesser the need for defending our perspective* none of these stages are good are bad* they're all a necessary part of human development* the hard part of this work is:* being humble enough to admit that there are stages that are higher and more developed as you* to a 1st grader who sees calculus on a chalkboard will seem like new-age woo woo that means nothing. * so not judging the higher stages is crucial* each stage has the capabilities of the stages beneath it* transcend and include* key word INCLUDE* each stage builds on top of the previous stages* even advanced stages can still conform, to use the rational mind, they don't lose these abilities* the higher stages can understand the lower stages, but the lower can't understand the higher* when you're stressed and in survival-mode you will regress stages* mystical experiences can happen at any stages but the mind will interpret the experience in terms of whatever stage you're at* Greuters model consists of mostly the cognitive line* what's being measured is your capacity to take perspectives* it's how you mind make sense of reality* this model relates to meaning making* And Spiral Dynamics relates to what we value* what we deem as important and what we're driven by* These aren't the only psychological models of development* horizontal vs. vertical* horizontal could mean * getter better and better at business and expert skills* self-help is most often done on the horizontal level* vertical movement * much more difficult* requires more depth, effort and a longer vision* The levels alternate between differentiation and integration* from impulsive differentiation of self - separate from everything else* to integration into a conformist mindset* to differentiation into a individualistic (expert/achiever)* Note that each stage is it's own reality* why conservatives and liberals can't understand each other* every structural stage of belief systems are their own realities Get full access to Becoming Conscious at becomeconscious.substack.com/subscribe

the myth of science* turning out lives and the universe into a machine - the myth of science * Secular materialist indoctrination * The Ascent of Humanity* the ideology of science* the technological and scientific programs of control* the mind and rationality are put on a pedestal* by accepting the materialist paradigm is to lose meaning, purpose and the sacredness of reality.the myth of technology* Technology will never solve our problems * control is a trap * control only perpetuates control* the more you control, the more you have and need to control* as technology relieves physical hardship, psychological suffering (loneliness, despair, depression, anxiety, angst, etc.) has grown to epidemic proportions.* they can't realize the more technology will never fix the underlying cause of "bad" human behavior and even the idea that there's bad behaviors that need to be shamed in oneself * that acquiring more will never fill the gaping void of cosmic alienation* your emotions will stay the same no matter how much you try to control your life Get full access to Becoming Conscious at becomeconscious.substack.com/subscribe