My old friend Rob McNamara dropped by yesterday to talk about his new book, The Elegant Self: A Radical Approach to Personal Evolution for Greater Influence in Life. I loved the book because it so successfully ponders one of my favorite topics: what is it like to grow? What do the higher stages of human development look like and feel like? How do we endeavor to bring forth the next higher dimensions of our own consciousness?
Rob has been teaching human development at Naropa University for several years, and has studied with well-known Harvard development expert Susanne Cook-Greuter. They both work with a developmental system created by Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan and elucidated in his book, The Evolving Self. In this dialog you will here Rob and me speak of:
- 3rd Order: The Socialized Mind
- 4th Order: The Self-Authoring Mind
- 5th Order: The Self-Transforming Mind
These three stages roughly correlate with Ken Wilber’s altitudes from Amber through Orange, Green and Teal/Turquoise.
As in many of the discussions you’ll find on this blog, the goal is to map the emerging territories of thinking and functioning that evolution is unfolding in the human being. The key idea is that once we realize we are indeed evolving creatures in an evolving cosmos, the imperative arises to participate with emergence in consciously creating our next self. I trust you’ll find Rob McNamara to be a worthy and inspiring guide in your own evolution.
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A Elegant conversation. Tears well in my eyes as I finally hear people speaking about things that have been thought and seen in me. A lonely trek it has been.
Thank you Jeff and Rob.
Blessings
Wow. Blown away. Transformed. Must have paused and written down…my method of integrating… every thought from minutes 40 through 58… and paused and tried out and experienced each step and contemplated the valure …Freudian slip of the keyboard- valure equals the synthesis of value and allure – of each.
Thank you for the up-levelling consciousness ride…and the beat goes on. Looking forward to more. Appreciating you both. Hoping this state continues…committing to self to “turn toward formless subjectivity and STOP staying connected to the immediacy of each moment arising”…I’ll have what’s on the elegant menu, thank you.
Continuing to practice… more benefits coming. PS there should be the word while after STOP in my above comment to be sure it expresses clearly what is meant rather than the opposite. Thank you.