Change’ll Do You Good

I thought I’d do a quick download of the Spiral Dynamics Change Model… it’s one of the more elegant ones I’ve come across.

First, the context:

SD proposes that we move from one “center of gravity” worldview to a more complex worldview generally through some kind of change process. The map above describes one story of that change process. It starts with being in a stable worldview, and then what can happen in the process of shifting to a New worldview.

Start in the upper left with Stable. We call this Alpha in the original SD change model. What it means is that my perception of my life conditions, and my responses to those life conditions, are congruent. All is well. In some cases where there’s been a lot of chaos, simply having a routine I can count on can create a sense of Stable Alpha.

But things change, and pretty soon there’s perturbations in the field… this can happen many times a day, when we recognize stuff that needs to be dealt with. We call this Turbulence, or SD calls it Beta. Obviously Beta covers a HUGE range, some part of which most of us feel like we’re in all the time. But still, sometimes after trying the same thing over again, or doubling-own on what we’ve always done, or going back to the “old ways,” and things seem to continue to get worse, we may begin to recognize that something new has to happen; for if it doesn’t, then we’ll start heading down the Revolutionary path toward what can feel like a Tornado, and SD refers to it as Gamma.

So how can we avoid what we refer to as a Gamma Trap? At some point in Beta, we can consciously discover that the sooner we navigate ourselves through the Turbulence, the easier a time we’ll have sensing our New Stable Alpha. If we pay attention to the vital signs and are aware of upcoming turbulence and we listen, we can evolve on a healthy, and sometimes can even be fun, evolutionary path to the New worldview, and a new sense of Alpha Stability. Epic stories of this journey flood our movies, and sometimes real life. This is by far the preferred path we all want for civilization as a whole. However, much of our journey is based on conditional goals, ones we have no control over… like climate change, which we’ve baked into civilization for the next century or so, and which promises to toss us all into some local expression of Beta conditions, and of course, in the case of disasters, far worse.

So Turbulent Beta is an interesting place… for it’s in Beta that we have an opportunity to observe what values emerge when we’re under stress. That’s where practices, and practice fields, are so useful. They help us develop the awareness and groundedness to maintain a healthy perspective on the turbulence we’re perceiving… which I personally feel is heading for a global Tornado Gamma Trap (or Trapping…) of epic proportions. What values show up for us becomes something we can be unconditional about… accept 100% responsibility for the meaning-making happening in my head. This offers me opportunities to not only be with what is (wherever we perceive we are,) but also gives us insights into how to reframe the perceived barriers, so that they are traversed in as healthy a way as possible.

To make what can be a long story short, once the barriers are in the rear-view mirror, there is a natural surge of positive energy and power that we call Breakthrough, or in SD terms, Delta. There is a song that points to Delta very well… I Can See Clearly Now. That surge of energy, when utilized in healthy ways, can propel us to our New Stable Alpha, where we start the journey anew, from a different perspective, in a new way. However, if there is huge divisiveness on the other side of the barriers, there is a strong urge to use that surge of energy to destroy that which you thought was holding you back the whole time. This can be a big mistake, as it is clear that the healthiest way to a new system is to build from a decent old one, rather than from, for example, WW III which will leave the planet in rubble.

So the key understanding is the idea of a Superordinate Goal… a picture of a New Alpha that works for everyone living on our interconnected planet, but no one can possibly do it by themselves. We need each other to reach that goal. When we all work together toward that goal, what isn’t congruent with that goal will fall away, and the spirit of innovation and creativity will again help us frame the future we all want.

Lastly, always remember, “all models are wrong; some are more useful than others.” I trust this model will be useful for you.