How to "Awaken" Through Personal Development

Many researchers agree that “awakening” is a normal stage of human development.

Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

You might already know that we can awaken through exercises like meditation or self-inquiry. But did you know that we can also awaken developmentally? Many researchers now agree that what we might call “awakening” is a normal stage of human development. The reason why this hasn't become common knowledge is that few people make it to the developmental stage where they begin to “wake up” (e.g., Cook-Grueter, 2014).

What Does It Mean To Wake Up Developmentally?

According to researchers, these are the general worldviews of each developmental stage (O’Fallon, 2010). You might notice that the later stages sound a lot like “awakening”.

• Red Stage - awareness of body (self-centric) - 1st person perspective
• Orange Stage — awareness of social interactions (peer group-centric) — 2nd person perspective
• Yellow Stage — awareness of behaviors or actions (skill-centric) — Early 3rd person perspective
• Green Stage — awareness of emotions or outcomes (outcome-centric) — Late 3rd person perspective
• Teal Stage — awareness of thoughts or perspectives (perspective-centric) — Early 4th person perspective
• Blue Stage — awareness of beliefs (pattern-centric) — Late 4th person perspective
• Indigo Stage — awareness of constructs (construct-centric) — 5th person perspective
• Violet Stage — awareness of oneness (oneness-centric) — 6th person perspective
• White Stage — I-I (non-dual) — 7th person perspective

How Do We Wake Up Developmentally?

Waking up developmentally seems to be a process of expansion. Ken Wilber describes it as moving toward greater “fullness” (Wilber, 2007). I agree and like to use the camera metaphor to explain further.

If we use the metaphor of a camera:

• Awareness is what is looking through our eyes to see the world.
• Our stage is what determines how far we are zoomed out (i.e., how much of the world we can see).
• Our psychological skills are what enable us to focus on more different aspects of the world that are within our view (i.e., within our stage).

It seems that the more psychological skills we build, the more of the world (and the self) we can see (e.g., Braks, 2020). Once we can see enough of the world (within each stage), we begin to move beyond it.

The Emergent Process of Psychological Experiences

If we talk about this path using psychological language, each developmental stage gives us conscious awareness of one more layer of self and experience. In other words, it’s like we’re reverse engineering reality. We move from being able to observe the most concrete objects to the most subtle objects (O'Fallon, 2010).

The process model below shows how our psychological experiences emerge:

Awareness > Constructs > Beliefs > Thoughts > Emotions > Behaviors > Social Experiences > Physical Experiences

Although we have all of these psychological experiences, we can’t always directly observe them. When we are in each stage, it feels like we are the experience of that stage (e.g., Wilber, 2007). In other words, our “self” or identity is mind (thoughts & beliefs) in teal and blue stages. It’s not until we reach the next stage that we realize that we have that experience (mind, in this example), but mind is not who we are.

So, we can directly observe approximately one more psychological experience in each stage. When we directly observe this psychological experience, we begin to see it for what it is. Once we get to the stage of being able to see constructs for what they truly are, the concepts of “self” and “reality” begin to fall apart, and this is the beginning of fully awakening developmentally (O'Fallon, 2020).

Learn more here: berkeleywellbeing.com/path-to-well-being