The Vital Shift
From ‘Me’ to ‘Us’ to ‘Us All’
I wake up each day to the assault on my senses of a strong set of messages - ‘Make America great (again?)’, ‘Brexit - Take Back Control’, ‘Build a wall’ ‘Send them home’ – these are the familiar headlines and the controlling narratives of our day. Then I hear the counter positions telling the Far Right, The Brexiteers, the Protectionists, that they are wrong. And I see an angry polarized…I was going to say debate, but to be honest there is little to no debate. Just positions. Entrenchment. Polarisation.
And as with any position, when we feel we are not belong heard, we start borrowing some extra muscle for our argument from our insecurities and begin to throw insulting labels, or liberties with the facts, which in turn soon become vitriolic slander that bear no relationship to the actual person involved. We have seen deeper divisions between friends and family over these issues than I have witnessed in my lifetime. Yes, right wing has always thrown stones at the left and the left at the right, but at some level it seemed accepted that we would agree to disagree. This is different. This has become more personal. It has become about something else. A more fundamental sense of you are wrong; not just that your ideas are wrong, but you are wrong. There is something wrong with you as a person, if you take that particular view. The divisions within society are seemingly deepening and it is becoming even harder to see how they can ever be resolved.
But, I would argue, we are trying to resolve the wrong debate, the wrong battles. We are focusing on the symptoms, the battle lines, the labels, the positions and like any good negotiation, you cannot solve a complex issue at that level. You have to go deeper. The deeper issue is not what view do you hold, but why do you hold it. I don't mean a stream of data, or points scoring, or more ammunition, or more arguments, for or against. I’m talking about the very lens, or worldview, we look through to see the issues. We don't just view the world through our education or our religion, but through our emotional, psychological and spiritual stage of development. There is some fundamental understanding of our human development that needs to be put up front and central in these debates in order to unlock what is going on and how we can move forwards.
When we are born we are necessarily egocentric. It really is all about me. Feed me, clothe me, and love me. It is essential to be egocentric because we wouldn’t develop our sense of secure identity without it. I need to have a foundation of ‘me’ before I can engage with you and with the world I find myself in. However when a child stays in that egocentric place it becomes increasingly unpleasant to see and when it remains into adulthood it becomes various shades of narcissism. So in normal healthy development we move from egocentric to ethnocentric. This means that I slowly realize that ‘I’ is a part of ‘us’. Firstly this happens within our families. We learn that we belong to this group and this group belongs to a wider tribe of family members. A significant part of who we are becomes defined by who we belong to. If we then see that our group sits within a very defined, wider tribe then we associate with that tribe. I am Amish, I am Jewish, I am Muslim, I am Christian, I am atheist, I am English, I am Republican, I am Democrat. This is what it means to become ethno-centric.
The important thing is that just as egocentric is a fine place to start, but not to remain, so also ethnocentric makes total sense as a place to develop a provisional sense of identity and belonging…. but not to get stuck there. There’s even more. After ethnocentric comes global centric. Global centric recognizes that we are all part of the same world. Different, maybe very different, but the same humanity. Same in body, same in interdependence on ecosystems and other people, same mind-body-spirit integration, but also different in so many ways. Global centric includes everyone living thing and includes all the differences. “Everyone is welcome and everyone belongs”, is the mantra of global centric. I have views and perspectives and experiences, but I don't have a monopoly on the truth; I am not immortal; I am not infallible.
The vital insight is that we all see the world through the lens of our particular level of development. If I am stuck in egocentric then I will look at the issues of politics, society, religion, through my own eyes. How do I perceive it benefits me or harms me? Are you for me? Are you against me? How I see the issue will shape the position I take. The same is true if I am still stuck in an ethnocentric stage of development; that is how I will see the world; I will look at the issues of politics, society, and religion, through my own tribe’s eyes. How does my tribe perceive that they will benefit or be harmed? How we see the issue will shape the position we take. If I am in a global centric stage of development then I will look at the issues of politics, society, religion, through the eyes of how it impacts all of us in the world. How do I perceive it benefits everyone on the planet or harms everyone on the planet? How we all see the issue will shape the position we all take. This couldn't be truer than an issue like climate change or species extinction. Egocentric says I’ll get what I want. Ethnocentric says it’s not in my backyard, so it isn’t my problem. Global centric says, if it impacts you then it impacts me, we are one.
If these are the vital insights then what is the Vital Shift, as I ‘m calling it? And how do we focus in society on helping us all to make the Vital Shifts, rather than getting trapped in the binary, opposing, relationally and socially damaging places, that seem to be happening right now? I would see the Vital Shift is the shift from Ethnocentric to Global centric. How do I shift my own world view and help others shift theirs from ‘us’, to ‘us all’. Why is it vital? Ken Wilber quotes the research that shows that in this very globalized world that 70% of people are still stuck in an ethnocentric worldview!
It was Einstein that said that a problem could not be solved on the same level as it was created. The challenges we face whether in politics, climate, or society have been largely shaped by an Ethno centric world view. We need to find a different perspective from which to look at the issues or we will just go round in destructive circles.
As for the ‘how’ to do we make this Vital Shift I have been driven back to my own history because I have been on this journey and these recent social tensions have made me ask myself how did things change for me? I was born into a household that was largely atheist and agnostic with a bit of Christianity influencing from the side. I moved away from that religious influence in my teenage years, but then had a very real spiritual experience. It took place in a barn on a farm, so it was a long way from any church building or service, but it felt like what is called a conversion experience. I remember asking someone ‘what do I do now?’ and they said I should go to a church because that where people with conversion experiences go. So I went. What I discovered was a mix of friendships and new ideas but also a lot of new norms to control my thoughts. I am going to heaven so my dad must be going to hell; I am on the inside and you are on the outside; sex before marriage is wrong and homosexuality is very wrong; getting married to a non Christian is wrong and swearing is definitely wrong; the world was created, not evolved and it probably happened over seven actual days. The underlying message was that ‘this is what we believe in this tribe and if you are part of this tribe this is what you need to believe’.
And for a while I did. Until it didn't fit. It felt claustrophobic. It felt like it lacked psychological integrity. I moved to a different brand of church that seemed a lot more freed up and yet they too had their own sets of norms around having spiritual experiences. A lot of what people seemed to be saying they experienced all the time, I experienced none of the time, so I wrestled with whether I was in or out. And all of that came tumbling down when I separated from my first wife and married my second wife and then I was totally seen as an outsider by those who were still on the ‘inside’. But it did me a favour because it meant that I began in the most enlarging way to study and to practice spiritual practices from a wide range of groups – Hindu, Buddhist, Christian mystics, integrative psychology - and I worked and visited many countries, mainly in Africa, but a little in Asia and saw how much of my thinking was shaped by my western background, but how much ancient wisdom on subjects as far ranging as leadership, politics and god, I was missing in my relatively new (in world terms) ways of thinking.
What I discovered from this journey is firstly that it’s helpful to see that I’m on a journey not in a club. That I am evolving. Each group I’ve been part of has added something to me. It has nurtured and shaped and stretched me. But this evolution means that things are always changing. Life is a constant moving on, becoming familiar with this new place, learning how to be comfortable and familiar there, then getting restless, finding new thresholds and moving on again. It’s true emotionally, spiritually, politically, and relationally. What I also learned was that moving on doesn't mean disowning what went before, but rather embracing a past and integrating it into the new place. What people like Ken Wilber describe as transcend (moving on) and include (bring what is useful with you into this new space). So I would still regard myself as a Christian, but what I mean by that now may be quite different than what I meant when I was 23 years old. The same, but different. Up, onwards and include.
So what do I think are the keys to making the Vital Shift for ourselves and for others?
Education.
I don't ever remember being taught anything about stages of my development when I was at school. No one said, “Look Trevor, there is a pathway ahead of you and this is where you are right now and its worth knowing this because you can then invest in each stage of the journey”. I was taught about King Harold and 1066 and I was taught simultaneous equations and I was taught about Lord of the Flies…. but I wasn't taught about the journey of life. I would suspect that not many people know that there are levels of human development from Egocentric to Global centric, via Ethno centric. (there my well be a further stage of Cosmo centric). The importance of education is that it is a primary route to getting insight. Without insight, without awareness, we wont see where change is possible or necessary. It’s because I’ve now learned about egocentricity that I can see it in myself much more readily than before. It was a reality, but I hadn’t seen it and so I didn't do anything about it. The same with Ethno centric. Learning all about my tribe is important and so is learning that my tribe is just one tribe and the dangers of me thinking my tribe is the one and only right tribe. It is also important to learn about Global centric. Whether it’s worldviews, social norms and customs, or climate change, it’s important that we get to see how people think and act and the challenges they face. Some TV is seeking to help us with this education. Programmes like Our Planetshows us what is happening in the issue of climate change in places that most of us don't get to visit, or the success of a series like Fauda that has aimed to show both sides of the Palestinian and Israeli reality, with the result of empathy and insight.
Pain.
None of us like pain and the suffering that results from it. But pain does one thing. It gets our attention. Pain tells us that life is not in control and we are not in control of life. It tells us that something isn’t working anymore. The thing about pain and suffering is that we naturally want things to go back to the time when things were as they were when we had no pain. We want things to be ok again, back to normal and back under control. It was Jung that said that the birth of new levels of consciousness feels like a death. Pain gives birth to new levels of consciousness. My divorce gave birth to whole new levels of spiritual insight. Being with the pain of those who live in the effects of climate change in Malawi, or Kenya, awaken new levels of thinking in me. Life can’t just go on the same after experiencing or witnessing pain.
Love
Love is going beyond myself to see the life of another person. Being in love is to see and be seen by someone and the person I see is not me, they are them, different, other than me. To love them means to embrace what is different about them, their preferences and their habits. To do that means I have to embrace those things in myself. Love breaks down walls and barriers, it knows no boundaries. Even the love of friendship allows us to move away from labels and stereotypes that allow us to stay within our ethnocentric world. That woman is no longer a Muslim woman, she is Haniya who loves tennis and swimming and is amazing at her job in IT and who is such fun to be with and laughs the most endearing laughter. That man is no longer transsexual, he is Mike who is a friend who will always have your back and who cooks up amazing Ethiopian food. Love makes people human, different, enriching, challenging, discomforting, as much as comforting. Labels and positions fall away where there is love.
Empathy
Remain or Leave became the binary choice of Brexit in the UK. Which one are you? As you peel back the layers you discover than no two people voted for their position for the same reason. Some were experiencing great financial hardship in neglected areas of the country, others had motives around fear or control, and others were motivated by opportunity. Once you dig beneath the layers of positions you discover a whole range of motives and when you look at those motives it’s easier to say ‘I understand that; I would feel like that if I was experiencing what they are experiencing’.
Once we look at them and realize that they are me in some way, then a shift has begun. When we look at a suffering child in another country who isn’t eating and then look at my own sons who have never gone without food, then I can say those children are the same as my children and if my children were in that situation I wouldn't hesitate to do something about it.
Enlightenment
Some people make the shift because they have a moment of enlightenment, an epiphany, a mini revelation. They may be meditating or walking in the forests or mountains or, like Thomas Merton, just walking down a crowded street, but suddenly they see things differently. While its impossible to plan for a moment such as this, it is possible to be open to it and to foster the possibility by simply taking the time to look at an aspect of nature. Just look or listen for a long time. I had a small moment like that when I was sitting in the garden. I was peaceful and I noticed my breathing. In and out and then I started listening to a bird and it occurred to me that the bird was breathing in and out and then I slowly, through attentiveness, picked up the sound of eight different birds, all breathing. I then looked at the grass and trees and the flowers and I realized that they were all breathing as well. I listened to the wind and realized that this air was the breath of all of us. Suddenly I could see how we are all interconnected by breath. It both humbled me and amazed me in the same moment. In that moment in the garden I had moved from ‘me’ all the way to ‘us all’.
Courage
When life gets uncertain, when I feel insecure, fearful, my default is often to retreat into my own world or my own tribe. It’s safe there. I might even make an enemy out of all that seems different so that I can be safer still. The opposite of this is taking the heart, the courage, to push in to the challenges of learning to value others and not retrench. It’s easier to retrench into sound bites, fixed positions and headlines, but it takes courage to keep on growing, evolving, moving beyond my own comfort zones and the places where ‘I know’, into those places where I don't know, I feel disorientated, or feel confused; a place of humble learning.
The Vital Shift is a vital shift because the future for all of us depends on it. Learning how the make our own journey from egocentric to global centric via ethno centric is possibly the most important challenge of our times. It's a conversation worth starting.