The Daily Evolver

Who better to process the election with than my integral political pals, Diane Musho Hamilton and Terry Patten? After all, it was just four years ago we gathered at my place to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s victory together (Ha ha!). The next day we recorded the podcast, The Trump Era, Day 1: Three integrally-informed friends attempt to face reality. After four years of The Trump Show, we’re happy to be changing the channel. To what, we don’t exactly know, but we’re happy to share our musings with you! Share back at jeff@dailyevolver.com. This is a co-production with Terry’s podcast “State of Emergence”. You can find out more about Diane here.   

Very good podcast Jeff. Puts a lot of calm into a very chaotic time. – Nils Montan The day before this week’s US presidential election one of my favorite public intellectuals, Sam Harris, released a podcast where he announced a breakthrough in his understanding of what had heretofore been a mystery: the appeal of Donald Trump to his followers. His revelation: Trump offers what no priest can credibly offer: a total expiation of shame. His personal shamelessness is a kind of spiritual balm. Trump is fat Jesus. He’s grab-them-by-the-pussy Jesus. He’s I’ll-eat- cheeseburgers-if-I-want-to Jesus. He’s punch-them-in-the-face Jesus.  How painfully partial and depressing is Harris’s denigration of the 30% of the population who love Trump, and the 47% who voted for him. And we thought Trump was insulting (he is)! Integral thinking offers so much more in the way of understanding – and appreciating – people with different worldviews. We see the dignities and disasters of all three developmental stages currently fighting the culture war and seek to integrate the best of each. Harris, in contrast, offers a “mean modernism” that marks all non-rational reality as deluded and dangerous. Enjoy the podcast and let me know what you think at Jeff@DailyEvolver.com.  

One of my biggest surprises in this campaign has been the growth in my estimation of Joe Biden as a person, candidate, and possible President of the United States. No longer just the compromise contender to defeat Donald Trump, Biden has inspired me with a vision for America that seeks to integrate the two competing stories of our history, those of gratitude and grievance. I endorse him enthusiastically!   Watch full video of “The Love – @Black Eyed Peas and Jennifer Hudson | Joe Biden for President 2020″   _ _ _

* That is great piece! Real manifestation of 2nd tear in practical terms. And eye opening even for people from abroad USA, which have bit different racial issues. – KuboF Hromoslav * Powerful. Extremely informative. Thank you – Sue Brooks * This is really good. Cindy Wigglesworth has a great balance between a lot of knowledge/wisdom with true humility. She’s doing good work in our world, y’all. – Michael Gott * Whoa, such a great conversation! – Sarah Foster Barrett This week I welcome back my dear friend, Cindy Wigglesworth, a Teacher known and loved by many in the integral world. Several years ago, Cindy turned her considerable insight to the issue of racial reckoning in America, particularly on the part of privileged white people, and has helped build a vanguard program of diversity training through her church, Unity of Houston. As always with Sister Cindy, whether we’re talking about spiritual intelligence or Star Trek, I received a transmission of new consciousness in this conversation, and ended it with an enlarged view of what is happening and how to be helpful. I hope you do, too! Cindy Wigglesworth is author of SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence, and you can find out more about her and her work here. Cindy is also an accomplished watercolorist and painted the illustration above.       Friends, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and Like us on Facebook! Thank you!

I remember hearing something like “any behavior is appropriate in some context”. Your presentation really brings this out! – George Shepherd Moral development involves increasing the categories of people who are inside one’s circle of compassion. At the green postmodern stage, we include people who have been marginalized because of race, looks or sexual identities, as well as folks with mental and emotional conditions that deviate from behavioral norms (which are themselves questioned). One of the most challenging frontiers in the mainstreaming of abnormal behavior is the “anti-social personality disorder,” which includes psychopathy and sociopathy. These conditions range from people who lack empathy and capacity for guilt, to people who lie and bully, to violent criminals. In this episode, I look at two examples of our culture’s reconsideration of people who exhibit this spectrum of traits: * The author of last Sunday’s New York Times’ Modern Love column, “He Married a Sociopath: Me”, who describes her journey from a sociopathy diagnosis in her early twenties to a functional life today as a wife, mother and doctor of psychology (specializing in anti-social personality disorders). * A certain resident of the White House. Hope you enjoy!

Wow a great stimulating conversation. – Mary Linda Landauer These two guests were particularly interesting. a fascinating discussion. – Dave Cardano A couple weeks ago I received an email from my old pal Jason Lange with the question: “What’s your pulse on all the ‘conspirituality’ out there?” I’d never heard the term “conspirituality”, but I understood what he meant when he described “the weird convergence I’m seeing of ‘spiritual’ friends going hard right, Trump, even QAnon.” What an interesting phenomenon! I’ve seen some of it myself, even in the integral world. Is it a reaction against the recent eruptions of mean green? An evolutionary regression brought on by stressful life conditions? Or perhaps a strange integration, as is the way of evolution, of the split-off fragments of earlier stages? Or … do they see something true that the rest of us are missing? I wanted to know more, so I invited Jason and our colleague Nomali Perera, who has a keen cultural eye, to a conversation. I learned a lot (what a world!) and trust you will too.  – Jeff Salzman * 1:00 Conspirituality, what a great word! * 16:13 Can we even know what’s true? * 20:00 Trump, the mind-blower * 20:58 Vaccines and the DNA of the USA * 40:58 Who or what has authority in the face of conspirituality? * 42:21 Healthy American nationalism and Biden * 45:16 The emerging Integral political right * 52:52 So, what now? Some ideas to move forward Nomali Perera is an integral coach and consultant, and can be found at Practical Integral. Jason Lange is a filmmaker and evolutionary guide and producer of the podcast, Do the Evolution. 

Hey Folks, I recently checked in with Corey DeVos, Editor-in-Chief of Integral Life, about their long-awaited debut of Integral Life Practice (ILP), a “personal-evolution” program that integrates the best practices of spiritual, psychological, interpersonal and cognitive development. Integral Life has brought together dozens of deeply-experienced Practice Leaders to provide live, daily guided ILP practice sessions that you can experience from the privacy of your own living room. Check it out here. But being integralists and old pals, Corey and I couldn’t stop our conversation there, so we also took on our mostly-concurring integral interpretations of today’s news in politics and culture, as well as the evolution of the integral community. And Corey’s new integral hobby which you can also purchase! We hope you enjoy. – Jeff Salzman 1:51 – Introducing Integral Life Practice: the new online community practice platform on IntegralLife.com 11:44 – What’s going on in the Integral community regarding politics, culture and news 55:34 – Corey’s amazing AQAL woodwork!

That is the best and most integral commentary on the US presidential election I have come across so far. Thanks so much, Jeff. – John O’neill With less than a month left in the campaign, Trump, knocked back with Covid, stokes his base with new cries about “the Russia hoax”. Meanwhile Joe Biden, up in the polls, goes to Gettysburg to talk about faith in “One America.” In this episode I share my observations on another week in the evolution of American politics.  

The first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is over – and I didn’t start drinking! In this episode, I show how an integral view helps us see the debate for what it is instead of a defective version of “what it should be”. Then I look at some of the issues the candidates addressed, and how together they moved the ball. By the way, I hope you’ll join me for my live show every Wednesday at 1pm US Mountain Time. The Daily Evolver Live is hosted by IntegralLife – and now simulcast to my Facebook page! As always, I love hearing what’s on your minds and hearts, so keep your comments, questions and critiques coming! You can write me at jeff@dailyevolver.com, or leave me a voicemail (which I may play on the show). And don’t forget to Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter…

Hey Folks! In this episode, I respond to provocative comments from my very smart listeners, and share some photos from my trip to Trumplandia!  See topics and timestamps below. I love hearing what’s on your minds and hearts, so keep your comments, questions and critiques coming! You can write me at jeff@dailyevolver.com, or leave me a voicemail (which I may play on the show). And don’t forget to Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter… THIS EPISODE: * 0:45 – “What’s up with these Trump people?” Trump supporters seen through the lens of Piaget’s developmental theory. * 13:06 – The devilish details in the political integration of left and right. * 24:16 – Rapper J Cole’s “vulnerable rap with a sword” displays integral consciousness. * 30:52 – “Isn’t woke culture really warrior red, and critical theory amber fundamentalist?” * 39:30 – Peak Barbra: a 24-year-old Barbra Streisand transmits early green consciousness in her signature song.

In this episode of “Shrink and the Pundit,” Keith and I explore breathing practices described in a powerful new book, Breath, the New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor, as well as a muscle conditioning program developed by Dr. Zach Bush in his 4-Minute Workout. Both systems promised – and delivered – big results from easy effort, enabling both Keith, a master practitioner, and I, a serial dilettante, to tap into new vitality from rethinking some basic biological functions. I hope it inspires you too! __________________________________ Attn: Apple Podcast users – please resubscribe Our link to Apple Podcasts broke, so new episodes may not be showing up. To fix, simply delete the Daily Evolver from Podcasts – then resubscribe. All fixed!

“Claire and I listened to Jeff’s latest podcast on Sunday and it was a breath of fresh air. Highly recommended if you’re upset by the current culture wars. (if you’re not, are you still alive?) Yes, Jeff uses some integral jargon from time to time but I think anyone will appreciate his view from 10,000 feet.” – Bill Epperly, PhD, of Integral Awakenings Every stage of human development is experienced by its subjects as an awakening into a new world. * Traditional religious believers (amber/blue meme) “wake up” to the reality of a transcendent God or Nirvana. * Modern rationalists (orange meme) create “the Enlightenment,” a world freed from the bondage of ignorance and superstition. * Postmodern (green meme) progressives “get woke” to how the historic karmas of oppression continue to manifest, including in our own hearts and minds. People at each of these stages tend to hate and fear those who have not awakened into their world, and each has their orthodoxy, thought police and cancellation of heretics. This provides the fuel for today’s culture war (and the endless wars of history). I receive a lot of questions about what integral thinking can reveal about woke culture, and the challenge it brings to the established modern and traditional views. In this episode, I respond to a message I received from a listener who sums up his argument with a sincere question: “What’s so good about WOKE?”

Integral psychotherapist Dr. Keith Witt sparked this episode of our ongoing conversation, “The Shrink and the Pundit”, by writing to me about a dilemma that many evolutionaries share: In our personal relationships we are pretty good at harmonizing differences. But when it comes to politics and culture it is a much harder task. He writes: I’m mostly stable at teal and turquoise helping my clients at whatever Kosmic address they occupy, but I find that much more difficult when considering the larger social struggles. It’s as if a primitive part of me wants war so I can attack and defeat enemies, while the mature part of me wants to turn enemies into allies, even brothers and sisters. I can do this on the local, individual level, but keep struggling with it on larger cultural levels. I objectify and attack individuals, institutions, and groups, knowing I’m objectifying them, knowing that it is not the most beautiful, good or true reaction. I feel like I’m missing something that’s just on the edge of awareness. WDYT? Together, I think Keith and I found some answers, and may even have caught a glimpse of what can happen when the cats and dogs stop fighting. Enjoy and let us know what you think! Dr. Keith Witt is a practicing psychotherapist and author of many books and courses on integral psychotherapy.

In today’s episode I recount my own evolution through the spiral of development and share how the integral vision has illuminated my world(s). I was approached for this interview by two dear friends: Nomali Perera, with whom I’ve worked on many integral projects since 2004, and Lee Mason, whom I’ve come to know more recently. Nomali and Lee are both coaches, facilitators and teachers in the integral arena, and have teamed up to create a series of offerings called Practical Integral. In addition to this interview, they asked me to join them in producing short introductory videos on each of the five dimensions of Ken Wilber’s AQAL Theory (all Quadrants, Levels, Lines, States and Types). It was a perfect lockdown project that we enjoyed thoroughly, and the videos, Back to Basics: Introducing Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory, are now available on their site. I encourage you to check them out (and perhaps send them to someone who might enjoy hearing the lived experience of integral consciousness more than the fine points of theory). I hope you enjoy both the interview and the new video series. And please do get in touch with Nomali and Lee if you are interested in integral facilitation and coaching. About Lee Mason and Nomali Perera Based in Amsterdam, Lee Mason will be teaching the fourth edition of his comprehensive Integral Flourishing course, starting on September 14th, 2020. Nomali Perera, a certified Integral Master Coach will be offering three new  Immunity to Change™ group coaching sessions in August and September. You can find more details on www.practicalintegral.com.

One of the most powerful projects to come out of the integral movement is the practice of “authentic relating” with its core 2nd-person technology of “circling.” The Boulder Integral Center was a laboratory for its development, and Jason Digges was in the thick of it, first by being personally transformed, then by teaching it to others … and now with his terrific new book Conflict = Energy, The Transformative Practice of Authentic Relating.