My recent reflections upon the LA fires has made me stop and step back, reflecting back even farther in time to potentially seeing something that, if my intuition is right about it, could help explain a lot of things, both in terms what my family has been experiencing but also society at large.
One dominant pattern that emerged from the LA fires and that has increasingly emerged in past events over the years is this.
There is an increasing distrust in authority figures in our society.
The Effects of the Pandemic Tearing Our Social Fabric
While this pattern existed before the pandemic, I believe it was the pandemic itself that really ripped the social fabric of society, as well as the social contracts that exist within it.
While a lot of government authorities were correct in implementing lockdown measures to protect people’s lives, especially at the start when there was no vaccine, most people couldn’t comprehend this. “Why would you separate me from my mother in her senior care facility? You’re monsters!”
Thus these events created cognitive dissonance in a lot of people, a inner tension that they couldn’t accept, so to overcome it they often created narratives that made them 1) believe that COVID wasn’t real and 2) it was a plot by government officials to try to “control” us.
While this might seem like an extreme reaction to an event, it’s obvious that the pandemic itself was an extreme event.
A Breakdown of the Social Contract
But as I said though, this distrust for authority figures, especially in the government, existed well before the pandemic. So where did it start?
I believe it started with the breakdown of society decades earlier, with the massive loss of blue collar jobs, and it is increasing today, with the loss of white collar jobs as well. Heck, even high end tech jobs, which once used to be the ultimate in job certainty, security, and safety are no longer safe anymore with the threat of AI overtaking these people’s jobs as well.
This is why I believe the U.S. elections have been so volatile and unpredictable recently. There is this continual unrest amongst people that the social contract of society is completely broken and shredded beyond recognition anymore. And it has to take often the highest tiered jobs being under threat before people wake up and realize something is wrong.
I noticed this within my own city of Vancouver over the past couple of decades. Back before the turn of the millennium, lower class people thought that the cost of living in Vancouver was getting too expensive. Then from 2000 to 2010, it started affecting the middle class. Finally from 2010 to today, even people in the upper middle class or lower upper class (ie $150,000 or more) are finding it difficult to live here.
Of course, no business or government leader really started freaking out until the high cost of living started to affect them personally and their work in trying to attract top talent to Vancouver. In effect, many businesses today have found that their high paying jobs are not enough to retain people, let alone even attract them anymore, as the cost of living in the city has become absurd and untenable.
A Societal Shift
But where am I going with all of this? Because while this post touches upon these points, it’s trying to show a bigger picture of something that is probably invisible to most people.
What I believe is happening is this.
Our society is undergoing a massive transformational shift between a Socialized Mind to a Self-Authoring Mind. But…it is stuck.
What do I mean by this? Here’s a quick summary of ChatGPT’s description of these mindsets, based upon Robert Kegan’s work, in relation to what might be happening within society.
The Socialized Mind thrives on trusting external systems to provide stability and meaning. When those systems fail (or are perceived to fail), this trust collapses.
The Self-Authoring Mind builds new meaning by integrating multiple perspectives and taking responsibility for one’s beliefs and choices. However, this transition requires a level of critical thinking and emotional resilience that may be hindered by anger, fear, or grief.
Conversations with ChatGPT
So instead of relying upon an external compass to navigate their lives, like a Socialized Mind would do so when they rely upon societal leaders, a Self-Authoring Mind creates their own internal compass to help them navigate life instead.
But that’s not what’s happening here.
What we’re effectively experiencing here is a transformational shift where people are letting go of trusting external authority figures, so letting go of a Socialized Mind, and yet they are not making the inner journey which helps them to create a Self-Authoring Mind for themselves.
In Limbo With a Victim’s Mindset
So where are they then, from an internal perspective?
They are stuck in limbo within a liminal world of their own imagination, one not grounded in reality, because they have to actually let go of older beliefs and an older worldview before they construct and step into a newer worldview and a new reality.
But they don’t want to let go of these older beliefs. They want to make them permanent forever. This is why they’re stuck.
People stuck in between may regress into defensive patterns, including black-and-white thinking, conspiracy theories, or a victim mindset, because these offer a sense of certainty and coherence in an overwhelming world.
Conversations with ChatGPT
If you want to describe what type of mindset most people are living within today, it would most definitely be a victim’s mindset. Why? Because the most powerful tool of a victim mindset is blame. Blame externalizes fault to someone else and thus detaches responsibility from one’s self. Yet in doing so, that detachment of responsibility also detaches the possibility of empowering ones’s self.
In other words, when one gives up responsibility for their lives, they will always be a victim. Yet for some, this victimhood becomes a righteous, safe, secure space of certainty, almost like a knightly badge of honour, with their gleaming, defensive armour protecting them from the seeming chaos of life. Yet what they don’t realize is that this armour also separates them from all of the wonderful depth of life as well.
What’s also important to realize here though is that these people haven’t actually let go of external authorities. All they’ve done is just exchanged one type of external authority for another (i.e. Trump as a replacement for Biden). And if anything, their belief in these external authorities is even more vehement than it was before. It’s almost like they are doubling down and putting all of their belief, faith, and trust in this seemingly different leader to save them from the crisis they are in.
Why Are People Stuck?
But why are people stuck though, especially with regards to striving to find a sense of sovereignty and trust with themselves, which is what a Self-Authoring Mind could help achieve? ChatGPT offered some clues.
Conversations with ChatGPT
- Unprocessed Grief and Trauma: Anger often masks deeper feelings of loss, fear, or sadness. If they haven’t fully processed the trauma and stress of the pandemic, those emotions may be driving their current mindset.
- Fear of Responsibility: Transitioning to a Self-Authoring Mind requires taking responsibility for one’s beliefs and actions. This can feel daunting, especially when trust in any guiding framework has been eroded.
- Overwhelmed by Complexity: Topics like climate change and COVID require engaging with complexity and ambiguity. Without a clear internal framework to navigate this, it’s easier to reject these ideas outright.
While these are valid points, I think my previous post highlighting my thinking process around the LA fires touches upon some more important points that could be incapsulated as follows.
People are so overwhelmed with the complexity of life today that they can’t wrap their head around the ambiguity and uncertainty of it. Yet at the same time, our society so voraciously pushes the belief of needing to be a knowledgeable expert, that people actually fear looking like they don’t know what is happening, so they create an illusion that they do.
Why this is monumentally important is that it actually relates to the shift between a Self-Authoring Mind to a Self-Transforming Mind as well. In effect, if you can’t let go of being an expert and feeling like you need to know everything, you will never ever be able to embrace a Self-Transforming Mindset which embraces not knowing as a sort of super-power.
This is the very paradox I’m struggling to overcome myself in my own journey to a Self-Transforming Mind. In effect, recognizing that I will never ever know everything I need to know, so as to be comfortable enough to share my experiences, knowledge, and wisdom relating to vertical development.
How Can We Help People Get Unstuck?
But let’s continue. How do you help people get unstuck and continue this transition that they are effectively standing in their own way of? Again ChatGPT had some suggestions.
If they’re stuck in a victim mindset, here are some ways to encourage growth:
Conversations with ChatGPT
- Address the Underlying Emotions:
- Help them process the grief, fear, and helplessness they may be masking with anger.
- Acknowledge their pain without dismissing it. For example: “It must have been incredibly hard to feel so powerless during the pandemic.”
- Encourage Perspective-Taking:
- Instead of arguing facts (e.g., about COVID or climate change), gently invite them to consider alternative viewpoints. Ask open-ended questions like: “What do you think might explain this differently?” This helps them start practicing critical thinking without feeling attacked.
- Focus on Agency, Not Blame:
- Reframe the conversation toward what they can control. For example, ask: “What small changes could you make that align with your values, regardless of what politicians do?” This shifts the focus from external blame to internal action.
- Model and Share Growth:
- Share your own experiences of navigating disillusionment or frustration in a way that demonstrates self-authoring behavior. Show how it’s possible to create meaning without relying on external authority.
- Normalize the Transition:
- Let them know it’s okay to feel disoriented or angry during this process. Highlight that these feelings are often signs of growth, even if it feels messy right now.
While these points are interesting and most definitely viable on their own, what I find interesting about them is that when you integrate them all together, it provides a bigger picture to someone that may be paradoxically shocking and confounding for them to face.
The very transformation that you’re avoiding, that you’re blaming others for experiencing and feeling, is the very thing that will provide you with the sovereignty, agency, and sense of meaning that you’re seeking in your life.
This is what I’m becoming more and more aware of in my own journey. In accepting this statement, I increasingly avoid externalizing and blaming my “problems” on others and instead shift my awareness to what I’m not aware of that is making me misinterpret this experience I am undergoing right now.
A perfect example of this is what I said earlier. I currently believe (with my Self-Authoring Mind) that I need to be an expert and know everything before I can share my experiences, knowledge, and wisdom of vertical development with others. Yet a Self-Transforming Mind realizes that they can never truly know everything. It’s impossible because there are veils behind veils within life (thus representing the stages of development within vertical development).
So for me to actually embrace my Self-Transforming Mind that’s actually already within me, I need to let go of my belief (and associated fears) that I need to know everything first. That would be like a child wanting to read and master everything before you actually live your life. But that’s absurd because you actually understand and master life by actually living it.
Again, I “know” this but I don’t truly know it in the sense that I’m not truly embodying it yet. So it’s this seemingly weird, unnatural experience where I feel like I’m stepping into uncertainty and ambiguity, but in doing so, the experiences I actually experience, help me to actually embody and make the transition one step and one day at at time.
This is what everyone needs to realize and become aware of. This seemingly weird, unnatural experience is actually a natural part of life. In fact, it forms the very bedrock of what it means to be a human being.