”Why don’t you love me, stupid?!”

On my morning walk the other day I was reminded about the lyrics of the popular Latin American song ”Los caminos de la Vida”, i.e. ”The Paths of Life” in English, which a dear friend of mine once referred me to. Walking, especially in the mornings, oftentimes and spontaneously tend to power up my introvert intuition. ¹ But the spark which ignited the intuitive process in regards to the song was probably a social media comment I saw the very same morning before my walk, since both those inputs to my mind seemed to ending up into a contemplation about how it could be to experience the sometimes and partly traumatic growing-up process under different life conditions. And as usual on my behalf, in the background there was also a third present component with some explanatory power in it: the Spiral Dynamics model; a model of cultural but also psychological development. ² I also referred to knowledge within the field of trauma theory and therapy. So without further ado, this post is about how it all finally played out.

Background

It seems to me that on a large scale most cultures and individuals around the world pretty much go through a similar trajectory in regards to the evolution of worldviews and values. I am not the only one who thinks so, of course. Many great thinkers, much more prominent than myself, have come to similar conclusions through the ages. But exactly how the trajectory plays out as manifestations in time, space and matter may differ a lot. This post is a reflection about how we as a community once upon a time deliberately helped our tweenies or teenagers handle and heal traumatic events by initiating them via rites of passage into the adult world; in contrast to what may happen in our modern world of today. It is in that spirit that I draw upon the Spiral Dynamics model in this post, as it elegantly employs a few key concepts that greatly facilitate the comparison between our modern way of life and that of earlier eras.

According to the Spiral Dynamics model, rites of passage into adulthood emerged foremost during the tribalistic/magic-self Purple stage of development. In some remote and relatively isolated parts of the world those ceremonies may still be practiced as being significant for the local culture, but I assume the vast majority of humankind’s societies have passed that stage of development by far even though they still may occurr in some subcultural and local contexts. According to the model, since then the predominant cultures in most countries one way or another have developed through both the subsequent (Empire-building) impulse-driven/powercentric-self Red and (Medieval/pre-modern) ordering-rule/role-self Blue stages before entering into the predominantly rational/achiever-self modern era of Orange.

Orange represents a modernization lead by foremost science, rationality, capitalism, and individualism which over time may seem to be the most groundbreaking developmental processes in most industrialized countries in the world; which has transformed or completely replaced old Purple but also Red stage ceremonies into something completely different since long. For example in the Northern European countries like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden I assume we have to go all the way back to at least the Vikings in the 800–1000 C.E. to find Purple/Red stage rites of passage or sacrificial rituals to the gods in the predominant culture. That is, before those countries became Christian.³

Leaping forward into our times of profound individualization powered by foremost achiever-self Orange, I suggest that most of us have to deal with and heal traumatic events pretty much on our own. Or if we are lucky, at best we may have one or two close mature adults that can support us in dealing with and overcoming traumatic events. But I assume the knowledge of how to heal from traumatization⁴ for the vast majority requires a professional and trauma-informed therapist to be successful. Moreover, we may not have a collectively safe space in which we can experience and heal; instead we may have to do it by experiencing and handle real life challenges pretty much on our own. Hence, a fair claim would be that many of us in our Orange coloured world potentially get our rite of passage into adulthood by individual challenges and therefore without proper guidance while living our ordinary day-to-day lives. Which is a great contrast to foremost the Purple stage’s way of dealing with it.

Now, let’s delve into the the two main inputs to my walk contemplation.

Part 1: The lyrics and my interpretation

This is the lyrics of ”Los caminos de la Vida” in an English translation, which to me is quite a sad song:

The paths of life
are not how I thought they’d be,
not how I imagined them,
not how I believed they’d be.

The paths of life
are so hard to walk,
so hard to travel,
and I can’t find the way out.

I used to think that life
was something different,
when I was just a little kid,
I believed that everything
was easy, like it used to be.

That my mother, without worries,
would give me everything I needed,
and now I realize
that it wasn’t really like that.

Because now I see my mother
so tired from working
for my brother and me,
and now I just want to help her,
and I’d fight for her to the end.

I’ll fight for her until I die,
and I don’t want to die
because I don’t want my mother to die,
but what can I do—if that’s destiny

My interpretation of the song is that it ultimately is about growing up. And in the process some really hard facts about the world may appear for quite a lot of us; since they have the potential power to crush some of the childhood’s dream-like, idealizing or even idolizing but more or less worryless veils of the world/people around us. A hard kind of waking-up, which may actually become a traumatic and in the worst-case scenario also traumatizing experience for some of us simply because we don’t know how to properly deal with it.

So during my morning walk, I realized that the lyrics describe a crucial part of a rite of passage. Although it lacks the deliberate purposefulness and therefore also meaningfulness of the original strongly collective rites at the Purple stage; the purpose of transcending the veils of a dreamlike child stage at about age 10–14 or so, and by that helping the child enter into the community’s adult world. Thus, the rites once upon a time quite often included traumatic events for the individual (I leave some horrific pictures of that below), while the purpose and meaningfulness – in combination with caring and trustworthy elders together with the collective experience of it by the many cohorts of young boys going through it over the years – could provide the power of properly healing the wounds at stage Purple.

In our modern times of foremost radical individualization, disenchantment and rationality predominantly at the modernistic stage Orange, the individual may have to deal with traumatic events more or less on her own and in real life situations; thus may have neither a preparatory training ground nor a competent social support enough to properly deal with and heal from it. So potentially she may become lost or stranded on her own in the feelings of unfairness, blame and shame, and of being wounded without knowing how to properly heal. Which potentially could extinguish parts of her soul’s inner flame, crippling her development in some aspects and therefore also her self-esteem; partly pushing her into a stagnant or even regressive trajectory in life. Ultimately, and in a nihilistic worst-case scenario, with depression or even worse as its potential outcome in the absence of a meaningful purpose of the suffering. In that regard, the song’s title make some obvious sense to me since the paths of life for sure can spiral in an unforseen, less fortunate or even destructive direction for anyone — in a society that in our point of view may not seem to care very much about us.⁵

Part 2: The Facebook comment and my interpretation

In the Facebook group, which is quite a small group of nine, we were discussing the topic of ”What does it mean to be awake?”; hence the context of spirituality. Which to begin with may seem quite a far-fetched topic in regards to the theme here being discussed. Although, I would like to argue that trauma expereriences potentially can serve as waking-up calls that turn out to become important for the growing-up process; if properly dealt with. Anyways, this is how the comment played out:

— Do you love me? Alice asked.
— No, I don’t love you! replied the White Rabbit.
Alice frowned and clasped her hands together as she did whenever she felt hurt.

— See? the White Rabbit continued. Now you’re going to start asking yourself what makes you so imperfect and what did you do wrong so that I can’t love you at least a little. You know, that’s why I can’t love you. You will not always be loved Alice, there will be days when others will be tired and bored with life, will have their heads in the clouds, and will hurt you. Because people are like that, they somehow always end up hurting each other’s feelings, whether through carelessness, misunderstanding, or conflicts with themselves.

— If you don’t love yourself, at least a little, if you don’t create an armor of self-love and happiness around your heart, the feeble annoyances caused by others will become lethal and will destroy you. The first time I saw you I made a pact with myself: ”I will avoid loving you until you learn to love yourself.”

Paraphrase of ”Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll.
As far as I know of, the paraphrase has been adapted to social media discussions about the importance of self-love in our society of today. So it doesn’t necessarily very well reflect the theme of the original story.

In one interpretation I would say that Alice here in a sence actually is confronted with a similar situation like the subject in the song’s lyrics above, because she’s having an emotionally negative experience of the environment in regards to her own self since she cannot feel its love or care for her, and that upsets her or even shocks her. Because that is something she craves, since she experiences a lack or void within herself that she thinks has to be filled by someone or something else ”out there” in a very specific way. In its trivial form, the White Rabbit could e.g. be one of her life’s lovers who simply has another love language⁶ than hers; or has more or less emotional or spiritual depth than she has. For example, maybe she craves for intense physical attraction and sexual passion while her partner is more into getting to know her soul-body in depth, because that is primarily what the attraction and sexual act of merging means to him.

In a second interpretation, the White Rabbit represents something much larger than just a lover although he may be one of its many agents: It’s a signal from life at large, turning up as a reccurring pattern of crisis — or trauma, if you will — screaming that it’s time to wake up for the next step in the growing-up process; it’s time again for the Heroine to embark her endless Journey of transformation.⁷

So in the absence of the Purple stage collective support, here we are as adolescent or even adult individuals with a lesson of our predominantly achiever-self Orange but perhaps also rising sensitive/egalitarian-self Green era to wake up and heal our growing-up traumas by learning, practicing, and achieving self-love – the kind of love that persists through hard times instead of perishing from strong emotional reactions about the acts or passivity of the environment.

The goal of the lesson is good, of course, but it says nothing about how to actually do it, how to bring it about. Unfortunately or luckily, depending on perspectives, I assume there are many methods to choose from in regards to who and where you are in life, so I leave it for another post or so. On the other hand, the silence about it may indicate that it’s really up to Alice to find out on her own. At least if she feels that she is living in a predominantly Orange or even Green environment/culture that will allow for it. Or if she as an individual has managed to break free herself from most of the rule/role Blue dominance in her environment, e.g. the Christian church, and therefore trust her own mind’s Orange light to show her the way rather than looking for (Blue or even Purple stage) authorities or institutions to lead or support her.

So finally, who is Alice? I assume she could potentially be you, me or anybody else in this predominantly modern Orange or even post-modern Green era of the Western world…

Illustrations of a rite of passage at stage Purple

As mentioned above and as a curiosity, I finally leave some pictures and a video about an example of Purple stage rites of passage, as wittnessed in the 1830s among the North American Mandan tribe.⁸

”Okipa” or ”O-kee-pa”, as the ceremony for the young tribe boys was called, lasted for four days and on the final day they went trough what in our modern/post-modern times may seem like an extreme torture. But that being said, the torture and other rituals during those four days — such as fasting, dancing, storytelling, and other intense physical trials — had an important purpose for the social and spiritual tribe collective since for them it was not cruelty but instead a matter of honor, purification, and transformation. So pain for the participants per se was not glorified; it was a vehicle for transcendence and connection to the sacred while the community supported and revered the participants. It also helped both the individual and the collective to find out which of them were fit for special recognition as warriors, leaders, or spiritual figures.

Probably good to have in mind, of course the predominantly Purple stage society was indeed different in its structures than the kind of more or less globally-informed and technically advanced societies that most of us live in today: Relatively small tribe villages socially based on blood ties, thus more or less isolated from other tribes; of which the closest living probably at times could end up as the cruelest enemies. Moreover, life was rather unpredictable under the dominance of Nature. So collective tradititions including sacrificial rituals to the gods for e.g. abundant crops and hunting luck, worthy warriors, and the wisdom of and respect for the elders were oftentimes key for survival while becoming an outcast could be the ultimate penalty.

In our foremost Orange or even Green era of advanced and rapid socio-economical and technical change, the elders in general have much less influence on the younger generations; partly due to a greater diversity in life styles and experiences between the generations than during the Purple era. Thanks to the increased material wealth of our societies and what it brings about in regards to e.g. individualization, ideally each individual to a much greater degree can have her very own and thus unique life-path. That is for good as well as for bad since along with it comes the heavy aspect of personal accountability regarding what destiny to achieve, a crucial circumstance and task for each individual that I have addressed in this post.

Moreover, I assume for the vast majority of modern countries and thus predominantly Orange cultures, the nearest we have left regarding general rites of passage is general military service. But usually that plays out in places far from home and the closest family, simply because the aim for the training is to protect the nation rather than the bloodline’s people and its territory. With other words, it is on a higher holarchical and therefore abstract level. Furthermore, warfare has been drastically mechanized and also digitalized; while the spiritual aspect has totally vanished in the name of rationality, and so have to a great degree also the raw bravery aspect that was needed in close face-to-face battles.

So, where does this leave us?

Where does this leave us, what can we make of it; and more specifically, what can I bring to the table?

Well, I hope that my reflections at least in parts may have come across as rather valid or at least relevant, even though they of course cannot cover all the ground and perspectives. Although one main message that I would like to be perceived is that traumatic events have been around for ages, but how we perceive and take care of them may have changed over time. On the Purple stage they could under collective control be embrased and perceived as meaningful vehicles promoting the growing up process into matureness, while on the Orange stage — or even more so on the subsequent empathetic Green stage — we rather prefer avoiding them simply because we don’t know what they are for or how to deal with them; or we tend get traumatized into some kind of silent crippleness by them for the very same reason. Thus both approaches won’t promote us to grow up in a balanced manner. ⁹

Another way to phrase it is that by avoiding traumas or quite the opposite becoming traumatized, I would suggest we have become sensitized in the process. That is, we have become more sensitive or susceptable in regards to all the potential dangers out there in the evironment; the big gross ones as well as the small and subtle ones. ¹⁰ No wonder we overly discuss love languages, self-esteem, self-love and lack thereof in our times; which in contrast to the pain we have seen among e.g. the Mandan tribe must be referred to as indeed being small and subtle ones.

But that doesn’t change our experience very much, probably because we react with the same fear center in our brains in both cases. And as we have seen above, risking to become an outcast on the Purple stage would mean the ultimate penalty because it will threaten our individual survival. Maybe that is why we react with the same kind of fear in our intimate relationships in our times, even though its events in regards to e.g. differences in love languages may come across as very minor and subtle?

Anyways, the bottom line of what I would like to propose is that whatever brings us into traumatic experiences, and what helps us deal with them is to a great degree our ability to make sense of them by a meaning-making process. Simply because the core of what gets hurt by them is our Ego, and one crucial aspect of the Ego is its, I would say, instinctive capacity to heal by making our experiences meaningful to us. Therefore, instead of destroying the Ego, we should better take care of and develop it by e.g. improving our innate capacity to make meaning, shouldn’t we?

Furthermore, it might be a good idea to ask for some socio-emotional support in the meaning-making process. But beware what kind of people you invite to it. If possible, choose the more mature and wiser ones; they who have been around for a while and therefore potentially are more experienced or educated than you are and therefore can contribute with more meaning. That would in our Orange/Green era at least mimic the Purple stage of how to take care of it. That would also be in accordance with the Spiral Dynamics model, especially in its integral version, since it highly proposes not only transcendence from one stage to the next but also inclusion of the previous stages (hence ”Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!”).

As it comes to traumatization — which is a prolonged syndrome that is stored in both body and mind and could involve PTSD — I would rather suggest professional help by a trauma-informed therapist. Alternatively autotherapy for the ones who are able to dedicate themselves and can endure the process, like I did in 2023 during my hermit period. Foremost because it may contain methodological situations that might scare both the client and less trauma-informed elders/therapists.

Well, I assume I could write much more on this topic, which has grown in complexity by my associations into several different fields already during the writing process. So, I think I have to close now and leave it as it is before I get overwhelmed by it; and probably you too as a reader. That being said, I accept this post to become only half-done or so; but eventually I may return to make something more or something completely different with it — who knows? But thanks a lot for reading!

Footnotes

1. Introvert intuition is the kind of intuition which with ease and like a puzzle-master has the instinctive ability to connect and synthesize nodes in the Web of Knowledge by drawing content from different source dimensions, fields, domains, areas, disciplines, experiences, and perspectives into some kind of clear-view synthesis. Hence, on my behalf that is the easy part; while the real challenge for me is to put it all into words for others to apprehend by their cohesion. Hopefully as clearly as the synthesis appeared to me, but that I can only leave up to you to judge as being the reader.
2. See summary about Spiral Dynamics on e.g. Spiral Dynamics Integral: How to Use Grave’s Values Model for Psychological Development. It refers to an updated version by Don Beck & Ken Wilber of the original Spiral Dynamics model by Don Beck & Christopher Cowan (see about their book here). I aim for adding a summary of it in MyEvo’s ELEMENTA section before the end of 2025 as well.
3. Fore some sources about rites of passage in the Viking, please see Viking Martial Arts: Viking rite of passage, Viking Dragon: 5 Interesting Viking Rituals Explained, and Medievalists.net: Awkward Adolescents: Male Maturation in Norse Literature.
4. I suggest the terms ”trauma” and ”traumatic” are not equivalent to ”traumatization”. Because we may experience some situations we call traumatic without getting traumatized, while other situations we cannot fully recover from. Instead we become more or less crippled by them; hence traumatized.
5. Not very far-fetched examples of less fortunate directions may turn into different ways of destructive living by e.g. self-hate, food addiction, drug abuse, suicide or suicide attempts, or even school- or other kinds of mass-shootings but also e.g. participation in online hate groups.
6. By ”love language” I imply the different approaches and preferences we all have to show and receive love in intimate relationships; such as e.g. physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, and acts of service. And by the way, I am not fully sure there has to be a perfect reprocity between the languages we prefer to convey vs receive love with. So I assume a transactional process between different love languages can occur for some couples; for example prefering to give love by words of affirmation but expect gifts in return. Furthermore, the languages may alter according to e.g. age and matureness of the persons, but also the length and matureness of the relationship. And, they can be stacked on top of each other in a priority order; so there may be a primary, secondary and tertiary language to alter between depending on mood and circumstances. Thus, in practice I assume the love language interaction could end up becoming quite a complex story to observe and analyze. The good news, though, is that by an increased self-love through growing up — or even more so an achieved sense of unconditional love on higher stages of development — the need for a specific language will probably decline quite a lot; thus confusion about them will also decrease radically. :-)
7. By the ”Heroine and her Journey”, I refer to Joseph Campbell’s ”The Hero’s Journey”, which he has found to be a universal narrative pattern that underlies countless myths, stories, and legends across cultures and eras. As such, it serves as a symbolic journey of transformation containing three steps; which may be applicable not only for mythic heroes but for human growth, psychological transformation, and the search for meaning:
   1. Departure from the ordinary world by entering into the unknown — something stirs in the soul; the whisper of a greater destiny.
   2. Initiation in the entered realm of trials, allies, enemies, and internal conflict; facing tests and ordeals, symbolizing death and rebirth. The climax is often a supreme ordeal — a confrontation with darkness, chaos, or a shadow-self. Emerging victorious, the hero gains a boon, treasure, or insight — something of deep value. In the belly of the beast, the hero finds not ruin, but revelation!
   3. Return of the transformed hero to the ordinary world, bearing the gift or wisdom he’s earned. This return can be hard — society might resist the hero’s insight, or the hero may struggle to reintegrate. But if successful, the journey ends with renewal — of self, society, or both. Thus, the world is never the same again, because the hero has changed and brings the light of change with him.

   Well aware of the growing-up theme in the original Alice in Wonderland story, its structure reminds quite a lot of the Hero’s Journey, doesn’t it?! 🤓

8. The observation and first documentation of the okipa ceremony among the Mandan tribe was made by the lawyer, painter, author, and traveler George Catlin in 1832. Although the ceremony was suppressed by the United States in 1989–1890, maybe the most startling body suspension part of it has occurred in many different cultures in the world before and after. Aside from this cruel but very important ceremony, the Mandan tribe seemed to be peaceful people but with war-inclined neighbour tribes. The peacefulness defeated them, though, since a couple of white fur trappers unfortunately brought smallpox to them in 1837; reducing their numbers from 1600–1800 individuals to just 32 families, mostly women and children. Subsequently a neighbour tribe attacked and enslaved them. Later on the mighty SIoux tribe attacked them, and by it they became extinct except for a few individuals who escaped and eventually were enslaved or adopted by some other local tribes.
9. The integral philosopher Ken Wilber actually more than hints in that direction since he suggests that traumatization may freeze our development, but I still don’t know what kind of specific clinical methods he proposes. What I do know, tough, is that he suggests that trauma therapy must engage multiple quadrants of reality, not just the inner psyche. For example, combining talk therapy (Upper Left quadrant) with somatic experiencing (Upper Right quadrant) and cultural reflection (Lower Left quadrant). On my own behalf, I am inclined to foremost Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing in combination with reflections about my psyche, and reflections about the culture that surrounds us by e.g. making use of the Spiral Dynamics model like in this very blog post.
10. Actually, an increase of perceived sensitivity/susceptibility in the population has been observered by researchers within the field of high sensitivity, for example by researcher Michael Pluess. But according to him, that doesn’t mean that the biological creature of a human has become more sensitive, though, but rather that the environment has become more stimuli-intense during the last decades. But I don’t know how if he also has studied personal development issues and trauma, which is in focus on my behalf in this post.