Trace Bell Part 2 - Spiral Dynamics, Healthy Evolution, and Transcending Old Beliefs for Individuals, Organizations, and Society
“I see Spiral Dynamics as a tool for integration; each stage is saying something incredibly important and profound about what it means to be human.” - Trace Bell
We’re back for Part 2 of Sarah’s interview with Trace where they dig more into Spiral Dynamics.
If you haven’t listened to part 1, head back to our last episode to hear more about Trace, about my strong reactions to Trace and, as you’ll hear in the intro to this episode, my general “eh” attitude towards Spiral Dynamics. Why is that important? Well, as you’ll hear Sarah and I discuss, not all messages and messengers are for all people. It doesn’t make anything or anyone wrong, bad or ignorant, it just meants not everything fits for us, and that’s OK. It’s why Sarah and I work well together. We can challenge each other and help open each other to new ideas.
If you, like me, are new to SD, it helps to think of it as a language that expands our understanding of the stages of evolutionary development in individuals, organizations, or whole societies.
Not sure what that really means? I get it. It was helpful for me to understand SD as another tool that can be used, that can coexist alongside Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Erickson's stages of development, or any other preferred model. Different languages for different people, right? "SD posits that evolution actually happens in distinct stages that increase in complexity and nuance," Trace explains. "No stage is better or worse than another; they are equally important because they're all saying something really crucial about what it means to be human.”
Spiral Dynamics can accommodate different rates of growth along emotional, moral, and cognitive lines, with each upward move to a new stage/color marks a transcendent "jump" away from the beliefs and actions of the stage that came before. "When we start to understand Spiral Dynamics as a way to identify how these stages are showing up in healthy ways within us, we also identify the ways that un-health (or ego) is showing up in us," says Trace. "We can use that to heal trauma and heal our relationship with some of these stages.”
Is this the lens that works best for me? Nah, but I can appreciate that it is for others. Let us know what you think!
RECOMMENDED EPISODES
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
The NeuroAffective Relational Model - NARM
Ken Wilber - Allergies and Addictions: States of Consciousness
GUEST CONTACT AND BIO
Trace Bell is an integration guide, transformational coach, and cultivator of emergence. He is passionate about the intersection of consciousness and systems change and co-founded a non-profit called Holon Institute that is dedicated to helping people heal the separation from themselves, each other and nature.
Let’s be friends! You can find me in the following places…
