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Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

The Basics of Spiral Dynamics (Nicole Churchill)

Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

Elise Loehnen

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Self-improvement, Education

4.8900 Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2024

⏱️ 77 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“Turquoise is looking for how do we bring back the village? How do we live in community again? Why are we living in these separate houses? We're not sharing resources. Everyone on the street has a snowblower, a lawnmower, you know, like the design isn't elegant, it's not an elegant design. And so I think the mind of yellow joins into turquoise and as it has studied systems, it contributes to that and we are looking for more holistic, elegant solutions to give birth to a new culture. It's like we can no longer continue down the path. And at turquoise, we are going to have to sacrifice for the whole.” For those of you who follow me on Instagram or read my newsletter on Substack, you’ll know that I’ve been quite obsessed with Spiral Dynamics of late, and see it as one way to explain our current cultural and political dilemmas, along with so much of our internalized anxiety. It was first developed by the late professor Clare Graves, who was a contemporary and colleague of Abraham Maslow, and then advanced by professor Don Beck, who worked on post-Apartheid South Africa with Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, and then further pushed by integral philosopher Ken Wilber. Spiral Dynamics can be heady stuff, and so I was thrilled when Nicole Churchill, a wonderfully grounded therapist and expert in Spiral Dynamics, offered to talk through the system with me for the podcast. Nicole and her husband John Churchill, who has also been a guest on Pulling the Thread, studied with Ken Wilber, and both apply it in their therapy work with both individuals and organizations. If you all end up loving Spiral Dynamics as much as I do, Nicole has offered to come back and explore how she uses it in therapy—please pass this episode on to any friends who you think might enjoy. I’m convinced that there are some keys here that can help us see the world and ourselves more clearly. In the show notes, you’ll find ways to go deeper as well.  MORE FROM NICOLE CHURCHILL: Nicole’s websites: Samadhi Institute and Karuna Mandela John Churchill’s episode on Pulling the Thread: “Our Collective Psychological Development” MORE ON SPIRAL DYNAMICS: My Substack Newsletter: “Finding Ourselves on the Spiral” Spiral Dynamics Integral, by Don Beck Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy, by Ken Wilber Spiral Dynamics, by Don Beck and Chris Cowan Trump and a Post-Truth World, by Ken Wilber To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hi, it's Elise Lunan host of Pulling the Thread. I'm thrilled about today's episode,

0:04.9

which is an exploration of spiral dynamics with therapist Nicole Churchill.

0:10.7

Hi, friends, throughout this holiday season, you will find me right here per normal. We will

0:16.8

keep publishing new episodes every week and a few solos thrown in as well. So when you just

0:24.0

need to escape from the business of the holiday shuffle or take a break from mom or dad or who

0:29.4

knows who, we'll be the web in which we all live to understand who we are and why we're here. Pulling the thread is about big questions, why we do what we do,

0:56.7

how we can understand our own experiences within a larger spiritual and historical context,

1:01.9

the ways in which we might begin to understand ourselves and each other better, and what's

1:06.2

required to heal ourselves and our world. I'll be joined in conversation by luminaries and wise elders, those who have laid tracks

1:13.8

in their work and lives to help us bring meaning and understanding to a world that often

1:18.4

feels chaotic and overwhelming.

1:20.7

My hope is that these conversations spark moments of resonance and plant tiny seeds of

1:25.4

awareness so that we might all collectively learn and grow.

1:31.3

Turquoise is looking for how do we bring back in the village? How do we live in community again?

1:39.3

Why are we living in these separate houses? We're not sharing resources.

1:45.2

Everyone on the street has a snowblower, a lawnmower.

1:49.5

You know, like the design isn't elegant.

1:53.0

It's not an elegant design.

1:55.6

And so I think the mind of yellow joins into turquoise.

2:00.8

And as it has studied systems, it contributes to that,

2:05.6

and we are looking for more holistic, elegant solutions to give birth to a new culture.

2:14.6

It's like we can no longer continue down the path. And that turquoise, we're going to have to

...

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