July 12, 2025 • 64 mins
Sometimes the most powerful conversations happen when we least expect them. What started as a casual planning call between friends the day after the 2024 presidential election quickly evolved into something much more meaningful – a raw, unfiltered exploration of how we might heal our divided nation.
As the initial shock and disappointment of election night settled in, Chi and I found ourselves wrestling with profound questions: How do we move forward? What does this political moment reveal about our collective consciousness? Is there wisdom to be found in the discomfort?
We dive deep into Spiral Dynamics, a fascinating model that maps the evolution of human consciousness through various stages. This framework offers a compassionate lens for understanding why people who seem so different from us think the way they do. Rather than viewing Trump supporters (or anyone with opposing views) as enemies to be converted or obstacles to be overcome, what might happen if we approached them with genuine curiosity about their context, fears, and needs.
The conversation takes unexpected turns as we examine the paradoxical shadow side of progressive thinking – how the most "evolved" consciousness can sometimes be the most judgmental, creating cancel culture that leaves no room for redemption or growth. We share personal stories of navigating relationships with people whose politics differ dramatically from our own, and the surprising wisdom that emerges when we refuse to place others in simplistic "good" or "evil" boxes.
Drawing inspiration from individuals like Daryl Davis (a Black musician who befriended KKK members and helped hundreds leave the organization) and Marshall Rosenberg (creator of Nonviolent Communication), we contemplate what becomes possible when we focus on our shared humanity rather than our ideological differences.
Whether you're feeling hopeful, devastated, or somewhere in between after this election, this conversation offers a different path forward – one of compassion, curiosity, and the radical integration of perspectives that might just be our best hope for collective healing.
Have thoughts to share? I'd love to hear from you through my website or social channels. Together, let's explore what it means to give each other permission to be our full selves, even – perhaps especially – when we disagree.
Learn more about Chi and contact him directly through these links: https://linktr.ee/chi.infinite
Learn more about Daryl Davis here:
How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes
Why I, as a black man, attend KKK rallies. | Daryl Davis | TEDx Naperville
My Blog:
https://www.inconnectionwithnature.com/blog
My Website:
https://www.inconnectionwithnature.com/
EFT Tapping Meditation on Self Compassion:
https://youtu.be/R7XpdDl_Bdo?si=HlswKsV_TScAdJpf
My article on our self talk:
Tiny Buddha - How Our Self Talk Can Sabotage Or Support Us
Instagram:
https://www.instagr
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gregg Berman (00:02):
Today's podcast is a bit different from previous
episodes.
In fact, it was never intendedto be a podcast.
I got together with my friendChi to discuss and plan what we
wanted to share in a futurepodcast episode.
Yet as it was the day after the2024 presidential election, the
conversation immediately wentin a very different and
(00:22):
unanticipated direction.
After the call, we both felt itwas a conversation worth
sharing.
The conversation immediatelywent in a very different and
unanticipated direction Afterthe call, we both felt it was a
conversation worth sharing.
At its essence, what both Chiand I discuss in a variety of
ways are the concepts ofcompassion and curiosity for
others' views and our sharedbelief that demonizing,
attacking and or disowningothers for believing something
(00:44):
different simply entrenches thedivide already there.
It creates enemies instead ofallies.
While a different context, itbrings to mind the story of
Daryl Davis, a black musicianwho was invited as a guest to
many Ku Klux Klan rallies.
He originally connected to themthrough his music, though he
(01:08):
never set out to do so.
Through the genuine friendshipshe developed with many of these
men and the conversation andconnection that ensued, several
hundred Klan members gave uptheir robes and some chapters
became closed.
It's a fascinating story andI'll post a link to that in the
(01:28):
show notes.
I absolutely understand thefrustration, rancor and fear
felt both after the election andnow.
I feel all of that myself attimes, regardless of what side
of the political divide you fallon.
The way forward is morecuriosity, understanding and
(01:49):
connection, not more hatred anddivision.
I believe, similar to DarylDavis and those members of the
Ku Klux Klan who are willing tosee beyond their differences,
together we can move in adirection that supports us all.
Marshall Rosenberg, the authorof Nonviolent Communication A
Language of Life, speaks of thisin his book, where he takes two
(02:11):
groups in deep and often deadlyconflict and puts them in
separate rooms.
He asks them to write downtheir needs and desires from the
level of universal human needs.
He then has them switch roomsand when people on both sides
begin to recognize their sharedhumanity and what the other side
had written, it allowed newpossibilities for connection and
(02:36):
collaboration to emerge.
It's been a long time since theelection, so why post now?
Well, there are a few reasonsfor that.
One is because there was somuch intensity in the division
happening immediately after theelection.
(02:56):
Rightly or wrongly, I thoughtthe message might not be
received and wanted to give alittle time before releasing it.
While most of the media isfocused on widening the division
, I'm seeing more talk aboutunderstanding each other as a
means to working towards commongoals and, as Marshall Rosenberg
said, all conflict is a tragicexpression of unmet needs.
(03:19):
I hope we can start to exploreeach other's needs.
This podcast is an attempt atthat exploration.
The other reason is simply myown humanness, as I briefly
mentioned at the start of thisepisode.
The night before Chi and I satdown, I learned my mother might
(03:41):
be going into hospice.
Though the start of ourconversation is a bit awkward,
I've left that in so you areaware of my mental state as we
made this episode.
If you're a reader of my blog,you know she did end up in and
out of hospice and ultimatelydied in early December.
(04:02):
At the same time I was movingfrom one side of the San
Francisco Bay to the other, soit's taken me time to have the
bandwidth to put this out.
I hope you enjoy this episodeand I'd love to hear your
thoughts.
Ready to unlock your fullpotential, join me.
(04:23):
Greg Berman.
Your guide to self-discovery,self-acceptance and joy.
This podcast blends lifecoaching, mindfulness and the
power of nature to help youmanage anxiety, cultivate
self-compassion and embrace yourtrue self.
Along the way, we'll embracethe imperfection, fallibility
(04:45):
and messiness of what it meansto be a human, with love, care
and acceptance for all of whoyou are.
This is your sanctuary for amore mindful, authentic and
fulfilling life.
Let's embark on this journeytogether, as we give you
permission to be your full self.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (05:08):
In the last episode, I shared with you
Hello, it looks like it bootedme out the first time, but I'm
back the first time, but I'mback.
Gregg Berman (05:32):
I I was actually in something with with somebody
else and and then we went anhour and 15 minutes over.
Oh, wow, awesome.
Yeah, I mean good, good and notgood.
It it's.
You know, and I'll just sharethis with with you as well.
As well, I want to connect withyou and have our conversation
and you know, there's both thestruggle around the election
(05:55):
results and there's the struggleof yesterday.
I got word that it sounds likemy mom is probably going to end
up going into hospice, and soit's brought up lots of shit and
she's on the other side of thecountry from me although I
already had plans to go thereand lots of shit between my
(06:19):
brothers and I.
I mean good conversations buthard conversations, or, you know
, feelings that come up aroundboth her potential death and the
ways that we were not served byeither of our parents growing
up.
Yeah, it's really hard.
(06:41):
Yeah, I've been in a not goodstate today.
Christopher Tang (06:49):
Understandably so, and I have so much
compassion and sharing love withyou.
I've been navigating thisperspective, the spiritual
perspective that the universehas our backs, and to shift the
mindset that we habitually fallinto of why is this happening to
(07:10):
me, to how is this happeningfor me.
So I've been thinking aboutthat with these election results
, so as the election was comingcloser, I was very much trying
to operate in the same statethat I've been practicing a
state of surrender andunattachment.
So it's not easy when youreally fear something or you
(07:34):
really desire something, it'svery easy to get attached to a
certain outcome, and I foundthat I've been experiencing lots
of magic and lots ofsynchronicity, except when I get
too attached to something.
When I really want something togo a certain way.
It seems that I push that away.
So as the election approached,I tried to think about it less
(07:59):
and less and not be attached toit and just be like, okay, the
universe is going to take careof it exactly how it's supposed
to take care of it, exactly howit's supposed to take care of it
.
Now, I was hoping that thatwould lead to a Harris win, but,
and I thought that by tryingand caring too much and wanting
it too much, then that's when Iwould push us into this reality.
But I was really in a state of,I think, surrender and peace
(08:22):
and not being attached to it.
And yet I still attracted whatI perceived to be the negative
outcome.
In fact, I attracted a worseoutcome than I ever imagined,
because I thought that if Trumpwon, he wouldn't also win the
Senate and the House ofRepresentatives.
To have every branch ofgovernment, including the
Supreme Court, is very, very,very scary, very scary.
(08:46):
Basically, you could dowhatever he wants and everybody
will just push it through.
No one's going to resist, therewill be no resistance
whatsoever, and that'sterrifying.
That's more terrifying than himwinning the presidency.
It's more terrifying than hislast presidency, because he
didn't have control of all theseareas.
So it's really scary.
So how is this happening for me?
Or, if the universe is reallyworking in our favor, why is
(09:08):
this occurring?
And I have some answers that Ifeel pretty good about, if you
care to hear that.
So what I've realized in mytime reflecting is that the
universe is a reflection of ourinternal self, our internal
state, right, because we are theuniverse.
(09:29):
So what is going on externallyis mirroring something that's
going on internally and alsowith the collective
consciousness of humanity, right?
So what is key to bring aboutthe next tier of human
consciousness, according to amodel that I feel is very
(09:50):
accurate?
Spiral dynamics.
Are you familiar?
I've heard the term, but Idon't know what it is.
It has stages labeled by color.
Ken Wilber also has a modelthat the spiral dynamics was
built off of which is verysimilar but his colors are a
little bit different.
But it's largely the samesystem and it's a grand model of
(10:14):
psychological evolution thatshows the stages of
consciousness that every singlehuman must pass through, and in
the same order.
And it's proven to be true aboutindividuals as well as entire
societies.
You can watch countries as theygo through stages in history
where it's clear that they're ateach stage and they move up
through these stages.
(10:34):
They oscillate back and forthbetween more individual focus
and more collective focus andthey each have a
transformational dilemma suchthat whatever is above that
stage of consciousness is kindof like a dog whistle right,
like you cannot.
Hey, greg, check out thatunicorn right next to me, isn't
(11:10):
it horn so iridescent andbeautiful and its mane is so
lush.
And you won't be able to see itbecause you're not at that
frequency of consciousness andyou will think I'm insane.
And that's why none of thelogical explanations to Trump
supporters will get them tounderstand why we need to take
care of the planet or why weneed to create systems to
(11:32):
protect the disenfranchised andmarginalized, and all that.
It's at a frequency that theydon't understand.
So learning about this actuallyhelped me have a lot more
compassion for human beings, nomatter how they show up, even if
they're as far down as a stagered, which Trump clearly has a
lot of stage red tendencies.
(11:53):
Also, nobody's all at one stage.
Every facet of our personalityis at a different stage of
development.
So there are going to be waysthat I'm way down at stage blue,
and I'm aware of them Now thatI know the model.
There's a lot of ways that well, not very many.
There's a few ways I'm still atstage orange, and then there's
a lot of ways I'm at green andyellow, which is primarily what
I identify with.
So most liberals are at stagegreen, which is the highest
(12:19):
stage of tier one consciousness.
It's the stage that's also thehighest of any country in the
world.
One consciousness.
It's the stage that's also thehighest of any country in the
world.
Scandinavian countries, whichalso test the highest in
happiness, are at stage greenand they are, you know, the most
advanced countries in the worldbased on this model.
However, none of the models instage one are actually superior
(12:41):
to the other.
They all have pros, but anequal and opposite con.
So, even though we pass throughthem in a certain order and you
think it's a hierarchy ofgetting smarter and getting more
conscious, it actually isn't,because every single stage
within tier one is doomed tobring about the same cycles of
(13:02):
suffering that have plaguedhumanity for all of existence,
about the same cycles ofsuffering that have plagued
humanity for all of existencewar, economic inequality,
jealousy, you know, you know allthese things, the crimes that
we do right, it's all going tohappen again and again, again,
until we reach tier twoconsciousness, which very, very,
very, very few people havereached.
There's some people that say 1%of people can see it.
(13:23):
We are in one of the mostprogressive, one of the most
conscious places and I've beensurrounding myself with the most
conscious people.
I am 100% sure that it is lessthan 1% of people who can see it
.
And then to actually embody it,you need to move from logical
understanding to emotionalunderstanding of it, and that's
what I'm in the process of doing.
I'm not even there yet.
I'm not actually embodied as astage yellow is the first tier
(13:46):
of tier two consciousnessthinker yet, but at least I can
see it.
I've had the transformationaldilemma unlocked, and the
transformational dilemma thatunlocks this tier of
consciousness that's actuallysupposed to break us free from
all of the systems that have itbasically helps us create a new
world where we break free fromrepeating the same patterns.
The transformational dilemma isparadox, which is, in my opinion
(14:10):
this is not something I'veheard elsewhere, but I believe
is unlocked by the incorporationof the shadow.
So when you can fully love theshadow just as much as what we
see as our light, that's whenyou can actually integrate
opposites that exist in theworld around us and hold them to
be simultaneously true.
(14:31):
One that's a good example isabortion when we can
simultaneously hold that we arekilling a life, we're
essentially killing a human, butthat also women have the right
to be sovereign about theirbodies and have that decision,
and that there are times whenkilling is actually kind and
better for humanity.
When you can hold thatsimultaneously that it is wrong,
(14:54):
it is killing, but it'snecessary and it's good and it's
a woman's choice, and all thatexists equally and
simultaneously together.
That's the beginning ofunderstanding this.
What is happening now and theproblem with stage green, okay,
which is the people who are wokeand they have a lot of benefits
.
They have gone through more ofthese stages.
(15:15):
They are on the precipice ofgetting into stage yellow, but
the night is darkest before thedawn.
So stage green is not only themost enlightened stage, but it's
the most judgmental stage.
And all the vitriol that hasbeen put down towards all the
other states of consciousnessbelow, and also the fact that
(15:37):
it's we almost dehumanize Trumpsupporters right?
We, we really reject them, wereally think we're superior to
them, that they areunderdeveloped, that there's
something wrong with them.
that is the downside that makesstage green, even though it's
higher up on the stages,actually equally bad and equally
contributing to repeating thecycles of suffering on the
(16:00):
planet yeah I think that what wedidn't do is we didn't learn
compassion for these people, wedidn't learn how to actually
integrate them into creating abetter society and when we are
faced with enough darkness thateventually we have some sort of
epiphany that they're not wrong.
(16:20):
But it's their context.
You know the context of fear,like if you put yourself in the
perspective of the somebodywho's been a coal miner and your
grand fathers were coal minersand all your family's coal
miners and your town, your lovedones, your best friends are
coal miners and you've seenpeople give their lives.
You know people you loved havedied in the mines because this
(16:42):
is something that's important,it's the livelihood of everyone.
And then you have somebody thatwants to take this away and you
know they're not going to buildsome fancy electric car thing
in your town or whatever.
You can understand their fearand you can understand how that
would also, once they putthemselves in echo chambers on
social media with people who areon that side, chambers on
(17:06):
social media with people who are, you know, on that side, they
start to hear and getbrainwashed with a lot of other
things and they don't haveaccess to college education and
things like that to help peopleto elevate their consciousness.
It's not that that person's avillain, it's not that they're
stupid, it's this, that that'stheir context, and spiral
dynamics really helped me tounderstand that.
So I think that we had to facethis.
We have to face this so we donot villainize the other, and as
(17:29):
we are able to start to havecompassion and even forgive or
build connections with peoplethat we hate what they believe
and what they stand for, thenit'll be easier to give
ourselves grace for all thethings that we hate about
ourselves.
It'll be easier to giveourselves grace for all the
things that we hate aboutourselves, right?
(17:51):
So, yeah, there's a lot ofthings within your shadow, right
?
I heard a little bit about yourstruggle that it's still hard to
feel like you're good enough orworthy because of and that same
part of you that attacks thatpart of your being as a larger
body externally being connectedto the universe is the same
response that we have for aTrump supporter, for example,
and when we heal one, wemagically have the mirror
(18:14):
principle come into effect andit heals the other.
I think that if Kamala won,then perhaps and I think this is
part of why Obama's presidencywasn't as revolutionary as we
wanted it to be, and I thinkthis is part of why Obama's
presidency wasn't asrevolutionary as we wanted it to
be I think maybe it gave us afalse sense of oh, we're doing
(18:38):
good, we don't need torevolutionize, we're on the
right path.
Well, this shows us, oh my God,more internal focus on
elevating our own consciousnessbeing the change that we want to
see in the world, because wesaw that we couldn't change
other people.
We tried to change otherpeople's minds so that they
would vote a certain way andshut down this.
(18:59):
But I think the more that wevillainize them, the more it
actually built strength in them,because when somebody is being
attacked, when you've got ananimal cornered, the animal goes
crazy, and I think that's whatwe did.
We should have been loving, nothave been attacking.
We shouldn't have beeninsulting, we shouldn't have
been trying to cancel so much.
We need to be able to embracethe shadow, and I think that's
(19:19):
why the universe has put us inthis reality, because most
people have not learned tointegrate their shadow, and
that's proof in the way that wejudge others too.
So it's the same the more wejudge others, the more we judge
ourselves.
The more we judge ourselves,the more we judge others, and I
think that's why we're in thisreality, because we need to face
that and learn something thatwe haven't learned otherwise.
Gregg Berman (19:43):
Yeah, I definitely appreciate and resonate with,
well, appreciate you sharingthat and resonate, you know, and
it was my thought during thefirst time that he got elected
of like, okay, I hope this is awake-up call and you know,
apparently we need to be hittinghead with it again.
But I also, you know, I washaving a over the last few days
(20:06):
having a conversation withsomebody who, who I knew, was
going to vote for Trump and waswas, you know she when she first
approached me and told me shewanted to share some things with
me and she's like I'm worriedyou're going to hate me, greg,
and I'm like I'm not going tohate you.
I might not agree with you, butI'm not going to hate you.
(20:26):
And you know, one of the thingsI was saying is I'm genuinely
curious.
What is in the mind of somebodylike this person's, a female
Asian physician, you know,intelligent, has plenty of
motivation and not want Trump,and so, like, like I'm genuinely
(20:49):
curious, what, what, what arethe things you're seeing?
And I, and similar to whatyou're saying, you know it, like
I I've said for a long time, Idon't, like some people want to
paint Trump as Satan and I don'tthink that that serves any of
us.
It's just another way ofcreating division and saying all
(21:12):
Trump is is about division.
Well, you're still being aboutdivision by saying that he's
only about division and bysaying everything with him is
wrong and it doesn't mean youhave to agree with him, but it's
.
You know, how do we haveconversations with each other?
How do we explore each other?
How do we find ways to cometogether even when we disagree,
(21:37):
rather than be in this place ofoh, you're totally wrong and
you're totally evil, and youknow, know, as you say, like
people who are, who have avested interest, for whatever
reason, whether it's the coalmine thing or you know whatever
else, you know you're just yeah,I mean the, my, the.
(22:01):
The analogy that I use, which issimilar to what you said, is
like if you are, if you'rebacking a person or an animal up
to a cliff edge, even if youare coming towards it with the
thought of I want to help pullyou away, what sees is you're
coming towards it and it's, it'sgoing to, you know, attack yeah
(22:22):
, or it's going to back itselfoff of the cliff in fear of you
and not even being aware thatit's going to kill itself
exactly yeah, yeah, and I thinkI'm actually very curious what
that friend said about why whythey were supporting trump I
mean they're?
they sent me a bunch of videosand so I haven't.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (22:43):
They didn't give you an actual answer
, though I would have liked thepersonal answer yeah, me, me too
, you know and you know.
Gregg Berman (22:52):
But part of the reason that that she's not doing
the personal answer is becauseshe's terrified I'm going to
hate her and even though I'vesaid I'm not going to, yeah, but
you know, you see so much hateout there, so I understand her
thinking that.
But I know that part of it shehas shared and it's that it's
that when and RFK Jr came outfor Trump and it was in part
(23:21):
around medical stuff and the youknow the way the medical system
bucks with us.
Basically, you know she wantssomething different and she
wants drug companies to not haveso much power and and and she
(23:41):
sees that.
And then there was somethingaround kids and and what we like
missing, missing children frommexico, although it's not
(24:03):
missing children, it's justchildren who didn't show up to a
court case, but but so, yeah, Iwould, I would be curious to.
I'm even now, I still, I stillintend on talking to her more
about it yeah you know, becauseit is.
It is fascinating.
And you know, to what you saidabout like percentage of people
(24:27):
like I, I know that we, well,we're in a bubble in california,
then we're in another bubble inthe bay Area and then you and I
, in the people that we connectwith even within the Bay Area,
are in yet another bubble.
And so it's like you know I wassaying this last night to Ariel
(24:47):
and Alex of you know, it's notthat I didn't know that Trump
had lots of support, but whenyou're surrounded by a bunch of
people who you know don't wantthem, and that's like you know,
90, 95 percent of the peoplethat I see, and then you look on
the map and see what it, whatit was like, you know, to your
(25:10):
point, it's like, oh, we,there's a lot, of, a lot of
spiritual work that needs to bedone here a lot of yeah.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (25:17):
Yeah, and that's what I see within the
United States is that we havealmost equal percentages of
people who are, I think, largely, maybe a little.
I think there's less in blueand more in green, but there's a
lot that are in the blue stage,which is the very rigid.
You need to follow all therules and there's no flexibility
(25:37):
mindset.
You need to follow all therules and there's no flexibility
mindset, and that's usually ahighly religious stage as well.
So you know, anybody that'sreally.
Oh, did I lose you?
You did Nope, can you hear me?
Gregg Berman (25:49):
Oh no, internet's problems.
Yeah, I, I can hear you.
Can you hear me?
Christopher Tang (Chi) (26:19):
Okay, okay, so as long, yeah, whenever
my dad's using the microwavewhich he may do he usually
microwaves a couple things for aminute each, then it goes out.
So that might.
I don't know why that is, butit happens I heard.
Gregg Berman (26:32):
I heard everything you were saying.
Your face was frozen, but yourvoice was continuing.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (26:38):
Oh, okay , cool, that actually threw me
off about what I was saying.
Oh yes, so I actually havebelieved, ever since I learned
about spiral dynamics, that thenext world war will not be a war
between countries, but betweena war of stages of consciousness
and that most of it will occurtechnologically and online,
particularly now that people candeep fake things and you know
(27:01):
you won't even know what's trueor what's not.
You can use my exact voice.
You can use my body and make itlook like I'm doing or saying
terrible things.
You can get people canceled.
You can hack their, theiraccounts.
You can do all these differentthings in this technological age
.
So that's what I imagine thenext war is.
And the way that we prevent thiswar.
(27:21):
Because we have, like I said, alot of people in stage blue who
are very rigid religious,mostly on the Trump side.
And then we have a lot ofpeople who are stage orange,
which is very individual.
It's the capitalist mentalitywork and get the prestige and
the fame and the money and thematerial goods and all that.
That's also where a lot ofAmerica is.
(27:43):
I'd say the majority of Americais still in that phase.
And then we move from orangeinto the green phase, which is
about community and the planetand equality and all these other
things.
And, yeah, that's the phasethat we're moving into.
But you know, we still have alot of people who are very much
(28:03):
in the more individualistic,selfish orange stage, which
Trump is really great at as abusinessman, right.
So we've got these three primarystages battling each other and
dividing each other in ourcountry right now and the only
way to resolve everything is toget people to the next stage,
stage yellow, where they canintegrate paradox and they can
(28:25):
see all the stages below, thepros and the cons of each,
realize that somebody that'swoke and green is not
necessarily better than somebodywho is super rigidly religious.
In fact, somebody who isfunctioning in a, you know,
positive version of themselvesbut way down at stage blue
consciousness, will actually beexperiencing a happier life in
(28:49):
this sort of ignorance is blisskind of state than some people
in green who are, you know,really struggling to navigate
all the heartbreak and pain andsuffering in the world.
So you know they're notnavigate all the heartbreak and
pain and suffering in the world.
So you know they're not betterat all.
It's just.
It's just a higher level ofconsciousness, but it doesn't
mean that they will be happier.
It doesn't mean they'll bebetter until we get to stage
(29:11):
yellow and then we can actuallysee how to dissolve the current
systems and create somethingthat actually works better for
everyone.
And I I don't I don't know verymany people, if any people, who
are actually embodying stageyellow in the conscious
community.
Gregg Berman (29:27):
Most of the people are highly in green, which
unfortunately, is also highlyjudgmental yeah, yeah, I, based
on on the things that you saidand you know the knowledge that
we're in, you know there'sdifferent parts of us in
different places.
(29:47):
I mean I would say that therehas been a part of me, for
whatever reason, that for a longtime has been in yellow and
able to see nuance.
But there's also another partof me that's, you know, in green
and probably in multiple otherstages as well, and you know
feeling all that, but something,something like it makes me
(30:08):
think about did you ever readnon-violent communication?
Christopher Tang (Chi) (30:14):
no, but I've been hearing about it
because my friend Janice hasbeen going to a bunch of the
workshops.
Gregg Berman (30:20):
I used to do some of the workshops.
I would like to again.
I haven't been connected to thecommunity, but I read the book
probably three times, and thereare a number of things,
beautiful things, in it.
But one of the stories he talksabout is I think this was with,
(30:43):
I don't know, there was MiddleEast relations, but it was
something like that where therewere these two factions who were
, were, you know, just at oddswith each other, couldn't hear
each other vilifying each other,and what he did was he took
them each in separate rooms, putposter board on the walls and
and said what are your dreams,what are your desires?
(31:03):
Why do you want this outcome?
What will it get you?
And and so when, when peoplewere were sharing from, from
their heart and from theirdeepest yearnings, what they
wanted, you know, which wassafety for their kids, you know,
health, a home, whatever youknow.
(31:24):
And and then he, he had themall switch rooms and read what
the other people wrote, and, andyou know, that was like the
first time where they weren't,just, like you, immediately
triggered just by seeing theother person, but could say, oh,
wow, the things that we wantare actually really similar.
(31:46):
It allowed them to cometogether, and that's you know
that.
That's exactly why I thinksaying things like like Trump is
Satan don't serve us, becauseif you're, because if you're
just putting that block there,then there's never any
possibility of coming together.
Exactly.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (32:05):
And that's what I've seen a lot of
today on social media from myfriends is a lot of them saying
you know, if you voted for Trump, you're dead to me.
See yourself out, you don'tbelong in my life, all these
other things.
I got some experience with thisbecause the friend that I fell
(32:26):
deeply in love with love morethan I've ever loved any human
ever was a Trump supportingMexican girl.
He was a Mexican girl whobelieved in building the wall,
and her reason is that herfamily took the time and effort
to do everything right.
So from her perspective, she'slike my father did everything
right and he has.
You know, he's successful.
He did all these other things.
(32:46):
Anybody else should be able towork hard and do the same thing.
Now, if they are able to justcome in here and have the same
privileges that my father had,to give and sacrifice and do all
this stuff, for that's not fairto us, you know.
So there's, amongst other things, and we completely disagreed in
certain areas, but on a soullevel, I felt very much
connected with this person aswell, and that was a tricky
(33:09):
thing for me to navigate,because I certainly didn't
expect to fall in love withsomebody like that, but I feel
like I learned a lot about thatand it actually elevated my own
consciousness to have thisdifferent sort of perspective
reflected back to me Now, whenone of my other really close
friends who I'd done a lot for,I'd book them on my show and
work their merch table for freeand did all these other things
(33:31):
to support them in their musiccareer and you know, we were
really good friends for yearswhen they found out that I was
in love with a Trump supporter,they not only stopped being my
friend and told me that I was anaccessory to bigotry and you
know, all these other things andthat's any space that I'm in is
unsafe because I bring unsafepeople around and all this other
(33:54):
stuff.
And you know, I've been aroundthis person a lot and she's the
most giving generous person,especially to strangers, that
I've ever been around Like shedoesn't even have that much
money and she's always buyingthings for homeless people,
giving them like $10 here orthere, helping all these
strangers do all these things,which is also really confusing
with some of her politicalbeliefs.
(34:14):
I don't understand, but in mypersonal experience being around
them, they have the greatestheart that I'd ever seen anybody
ever have.
And it was a bit of a paradoxin her as well.
But I knew that you know you'resafe around this person.
She might buy you some food or,you know, be really nice and
kind to you.
But yeah, my friend thoughtthat you know that I was
(34:35):
dangerous because I have, youknow, this person in my life
that I associate withconservatives.
And then not only did they, youknow, not want to be my friend
anymore, they started goingaround to other people in the
hip hop community, other mutualfriends of ours, and having
private conversations about meand how dangerous I was and how
(34:55):
I shouldn't be a part of thecommunity anymore and all this
other stuff, because I associatewith bigotry.
And, yeah, one other personalso turned against me because
of that, which was another closefriend of mine, but some of the
other ones did not.
So you know, I've already I'vealready experienced how extreme
this can be and I alreadyunderstand from spiral dynamics
(35:17):
that that's the downside.
The funny thing is, most of myconsciousness is at stage green,
and yet the stage that I thinkis the most dangerous is stage
green, because cancel culture isa very slippery slope,
censorship is a very slipperyslope, and this is.
I was listening to Joe Rogan'sinterview with Elon Musk that
(35:40):
came out right after his Trumpinterview, and that was the part
that I think really wouldchange most people's minds was
two things when Elon Musk saidthat if Kamala wins this
election, we're never going tohave a truly open, free election
again, and I agreed with hisreasoning.
Actually, I believe that thatis actually part of the natural
(36:02):
shift.
It would indicate that more ofus have moved into stage green
and you're never going to haveso many people regress back to
the stages that even would voteconservative.
I do believe we would have fairelections, but now they'd be an
elevated.
It basically, just like theWhig Party is obsolete,
republicans would becomeobsolete.
But he doesn't see that.
The new party that's moreliberal, basically the people
(36:25):
like AOC and Bernie Sanders,like the Democratic Socialists,
they probably become one partyand then the more conservative
Democratic Party becomes theother party and those are two
new parties.
Like that's probably what wouldhave happened.
So he's not wrong about thatand if you were in stage blue or
orange, you'd be terrified ofthat because you're never going
to win another election,basically, and I agreed.
(36:47):
But then also, the other thingthat he said was very dangerous
was why he got X was because,yeah, there's a lot of
censorship of ideas, and I'veactually been very upset because
Instagram, on their music, hasstarted censoring a lot of rap
songs.
I like putting rap songs ontomy stories and I believe that
(37:07):
hip hop I partially love becauseI think it's one of the last
bastions of true freedom ofspeech.
So the fact that these socialmedias are censoring certain
types of information, certainideas and, yes, a lot of them
are really harmful.
But it's also a slippery slope,because who's determining what
kind of information can beshared and what can't?
And there's a lot of times whensomebody shared something that
(37:30):
they don't see how it violatesany of the user agreements and
yet they get banned for a while,like that's happened to some
very progressive friends of mine, and I'm like, oh, that's
really weird.
So I think that their pointsabout censorship and about
cancel culture are very, verydangerous, because right now, a
lot of the people who are on theliberal side will take somebody
(37:54):
saying the N-word 20 years agoone time in an interview and say
we need to take away theirlivelihood, we need to make sure
they never work again, that allthis other stuff happens.
The greatest story in humanityis the redemption story.
You know, that's why Star Warsis so great.
Yeah, there's a redemptionstory for Vader, right?
You have all these people whoare able to change from being a
(38:15):
villain to being a hero, andthat's one of the greatest
things about humanity.
It's character development.
If we continue to do cancelculture the way that woke
perspectives are doing, cancelculture, we deprive people of
that, and that means that oncesomebody has done something
wrong and we've all donesomething wrong again, it's the
rejection of the shadow.
(38:36):
Cancel culture is the rejectionof the shadow, the hate right
now towards the Trump side isthe rejection of the shadow.
All of this is really reallypushing the shadow away instead
of facing it and integrating it,and I think that's where we're
at.
We're at this phase where wereally really need to integrate
the shadow, and getting mad atpeople for their mistakes and
(38:58):
making it so they'reunforgivable only makes the
things that we hold in our headsmore unforgivable.
We need to forgive them, weneed to realize they can change
and in doing so, we'll forgiveourselves and realize we can
change and that's what I thinkwe are yeah, I, I agree, and I
think it's.
Gregg Berman (39:15):
It's not simply we .
We need to forgive them andunderstand that they can change,
but we need to understand them.
What brought them to this place?
What were their motivations?
Is there any validity in thatand what do we need to do?
And it's like you know what yousaid about the, the people who
(39:36):
are canceling you for, you know,for caring about somebody who
supports trump.
It's, it's, you know, and howdangerous that is.
It's like, well, if you go tothe other side and there are
people who would look at youknow, the cultures that you are
and I are involved in that thathave psychedelics and sex
(39:59):
positivity and and would thinkthose, those people are, are
evil and it's just bad and wrong.
And you know, and and yet notrealizing, you know, the people
that are in the communities thatwe're in even though, yes, many
of them are in the green, willvilify others, but they're also
some of the most loving, caring,nurturing, desiring for
(40:24):
progress people, and it's, yes,some of that is because of the
sex positivity and the you know,I mean even even, you know,
cuddling is vilified becausepeople don't understand what
that that is, and and so youknow, knowing where, when we
don't, when, when all that weare doing is looking at
(40:48):
something and that either goesin the good box or the bad box,
rather than what's the nuancehere, and what you know it's
something that I, I share allthe time is it's the nuance here
, and what you know it'ssomething that I, I share all
the time is it's is, it's neverthe action, it's what's behind
it.
You know, and this, this is akind of a dumb example, but like
(41:10):
take eating ice cream, ifyou're.
If you're eating ice creambecause I enjoy the flavor and
it feels good and I I feelnourished, and yes, I know that
it might not be the most healthything for me, but I'm really
getting pleasure out of thisright now versus I'm eating ice
cream because there's a holethat I want to fill or because
(41:33):
I'm angry at somebody or I hatemy body anyway, so I'm just
going to do this.
Neither is right or wrong, butone is more empowering than the
other, and so it's.
You know, I think again, thisis separate, but it reminds me
(41:57):
of years ago.
You know, I was in a Cites, theConvention on Trade and
International Species Conference, and you know, people are Like
there are people that areTotally against hunting and
think hunters are bad because,know, this goes to.
(42:19):
You know a different versionwhat you were saying about
abortion, taking life, but it'slike, well, if they're also
protecting the land.
And you know not, not, you knowdoing something where, okay,
this animal had a good lifeversus an animal that's brought
up in a cage and doing things insustainable ways and wanting
the good of nature and the world, like, like, that's a that's.
(42:43):
Is that worse than okay, I'm?
I'm gonna go buy my, my meatwrapped in cellophane in a
grocery store and it had amiserable life.
And you know promoting factoryfarming, like you know exploring
what is the, what is the nuance, and not just painting things
(43:05):
in a, in a evil versus gooddynamic.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (43:10):
Yeah, that's exactly it because,
objectively, when we think aboutthe universe there, there is no
evil or good.
It's all the lens that we lookat it through.
And the thing is that we don'tknow the lens of any other
person Like we don't know yourfriend's lens for why they voted
for Trump and what most peoplewill do because they haven't
(43:33):
practiced you know differentperspectives enough or they
haven't had enough conversationswith people who are different
from them to be able to reallyperceive all the possibilities.
It's very easy to project areason upon them and a lot of
the times our brains arenaturally I've heard maybe 70%
(43:56):
of thoughts each day arenegative, and that was a
survival mechanism back in thedays when we lived in a very
dangerous world.
Things would kill you all thetime, so you needed to be more
worried than then.
You would survive.
You wouldn't eat something thatyou don't know what it is or
whatever it is, but we stillhave the wiring to be more
fearful and more worried andhave majority negative thoughts.
(44:20):
So anytime we project thatunconsciously to anyone, we're
going to skew towards negativethoughts, even to ourselves.
We will skew towards negativethoughts until we rewire our
brains to have a more balancedratio and then it becomes also
that 85 or so percent of ourthoughts each day are the same
(44:42):
thoughts we had the previous day.
So now you've got these largelynegative thoughts about other
people, about the world, aboutwhatever.
It's mostly fear-based lens andyou're repeating them on a
day-to-day basis.
You're really creating verythick, dendrite axon connections
so that it becomes instinctualinstant thinking and it becomes
so ingrained that it's hard tosee anything else.
(45:04):
Which is why I think that youknow, with spiral dynamics, it's
very, very easy for people toelevate to the stage that they
are raised in.
So if you're born in a certaincountry let's say you're in Gaza
right now okay, you'reexperiencing a lot of stage red
thinking, so you're going to beable to get up through beige to
(45:26):
purple, to red and then fromthere, each, each
transformational dilemmarequires going through the fire
and really facing somethingthat's very difficult and having
new perspectives and thenhaving to move from logical
understanding of it to emotionalunderstanding, then emotional
embodiment.
(45:47):
Then you're at that next stageand then you, you know, have to
do the same thing again.
You have to be able to actuallyget to a point where you face
enough adversity and struggleand suffering that the
transformational dilemma becomesapparent to you and then you
need to logically understand itand that, like most people maybe
go through one one stage inconsciousness in their life
(46:11):
above what they're raised into.
And then, but if somebody wereraised in you know copenhagen
right now, they would be able toget right through red, probably
by the time they are inelementary school and they'll be
like oh, now we have to followthe rules, like that's when I
got to stage blue was inelementary school.
Follow the rules.
All the situations you mustfollow the rules.
That's how things are, that'show we get along.
(46:34):
And then eventually in highschool you become a teenager and
you start independentlythinking and wanting things for
yourself.
And you want to get a car, youwant to work, you want these
championships and awards andthings like that.
So you get into orange reallyeasily.
And then you go to a gooduniversity that teaches you more
about a global perspective andhumanity and you start joining
clubs that are protesting causes.
All of a sudden, you're atstage green.
(46:55):
By the time you're 20, you'realready at stage green.
A sudden, you're at stage green.
By the time you're 20, you'realready at stage green.
Well, somebody like yeah, inthe middle east.
You know, really, raised in astrict islamic situation,
they're going to go up to blue.
Really well, but how the heckare they going to get from blue
to orange?
right and then from orange togreen right.
It's very, very difficult.
Gregg Berman (47:12):
So yeah, yeah, which which goes it goes to
what's happening right nowaround Trump.
And you know, even like thepeople, that that canceled you.
It's that.
You know that thing.
You know the, the, thenegativity bias that comes from
fear and, yeah, evolutionarilythat served us, but but it, you
(47:33):
know it's, it's not serving usnow.
It's not serving us now.
It's not.
It's not that there's some, notsome, value in it, but it but
then it becomes all right.
I'm, I'm noticing, I'm havingthis thought.
I'm noticing I feel a lot ofrage toward this person, you
know, and being able to becurious about that, like why,
why is that?
What's going on for me?
Well, what's creating that?
(47:54):
And it's always because we wantto protect something, we want
to save something, we wantwhether it's whether it's
ourself and our values, or orour kids, or our job, or
whatever it is there's some,something feels in danger for
you, and so, rather thanfocusing on that and what we do
about it, we focus on no badwrong got to get rid of.
(48:19):
And you know, we haven't, wehaven't been taught how to get
outside the boxes of ourthinking.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (48:30):
Yes, that's what my education program
is going to be designed to do,and I need to launch it because
we direly need it, and that's abig component of it is to learn
the context and perspective, howto zoom into the micro, zoom
out to the macro, go back andforth like spinning in all the
different perspectives possibleas we do so.
(48:52):
I think that that is key tobeing able to find happiness, or
even to create happiness foryourself, because once you can
see all the differentperspectives, neither of them,
or none of them, is more realthan the others.
So you just attach yourself tothe one that serves you the most
and it's just as valid and justas real as any other
perspective.
So, the more that you getreally good at seeing every
(49:14):
perspective and then you attachyourself to the ones that create
the best version of you, knowyou your your best self-image,
your best way of perceiving theworld.
I think that's how you createyour own reality.
Maybe you don't actually changewhat's physically in existence,
but if you can change your lensof it, then your experience of
it will be entirely differentyeah I think that's why, at a t
(49:38):
compression the other day, gracesaid that I look like I was
four inches taller than sheremembered me being.
I don't think I actually grew,but I do feel like I was
carrying myself differently andthat different energy created a
lens of perception that I was,you know, standing taller and
larger than life or whatever itis, and then I would be
perceived as being tallerphysically by her as well, I
(50:02):
think.
Gregg Berman (50:02):
Yeah, yeah, when you're, when you're energetics
are more radiant.
And yeah, it gives.
It gives it changes yourphysical perception, even if not
the physical reality.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (50:14):
Yeah, and somebody else.
I forgot who it was, because atthat point I was no longer
sober, but there was somebodyelse that said the same thing to
me about two hours later, abouttwo hours after Grace talked to
me.
She was like you got taller andI'm like you're the second
person that said that and I'mpretty sure 41 year olds don't
grow yeah yeah, yeah, and andand at the same point, they do.
Gregg Berman (50:42):
Just, you know, you, you, you shifted your
energetics.
We won't have a long time today, but so that goes into.
You know, like, like, talkingabout your program and what you
want to do, like I had this,since I, I talked with you, I
(51:04):
was I don't know if you sawschwell's post of what's
happening in her journey inchina, but I, I, it was just the
other day, she posted it andafter reading it, I had this
idea of, and you can tell meyour thoughts on this, but it
(51:24):
was, you know, my both.
My podcast is called Permissionto Be your Full Self and the
coaching program that I have isalso called that, and and so
when I, when I first said to youabout being on the podcast, I
didn't have a specific idea, butthe idea that has formed is
wanting to do a series ofinterviews with different people
(51:46):
where we explore and it can bea back and forth, but explore
what what are the things thatsupport you and being your full
self?
What are the things that get inthe way of you being your full
self?
What is the things that supportyou in being your full self?
What are the things that get inthe way of you being your full
self.
What is the vision that youwant to create for yourself,
such as your program, and youknow how do you want to get that
out there and what, what hasstopped you and like like really
(52:08):
being being open and vulnerablewith like, where do we want to
go and what gets in our way andhow.
You know, how do we I meanpartly how do we change that?
It's not it's not specificallyto come up with answers, but to
explore the question.
I like that.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (52:26):
I'd love to do that.
Also, I noticed that there'ssomething that's recording this.
I feel like this was reallygood, like I feel like I don't
know that I could explaineverything that I explained with
Spiral Dynamics the Trumpsituation any better than I have
.
So I would love, whateverrecording you have, if you could
share that with me, I might beable to chop it up and put it on
(52:46):
social media in some form.
Gregg Berman (52:48):
Yeah, absolutely, you might automatically get it
and if not, I will send it toyou, okay, but yeah, it's funny,
I was I was thinking thatearlier like, oh, I still want
to do a podcast with you, butthis, this conversation has been
really good and, and you know,we could even use bits and
(53:09):
pieces the whole thing, whatever.
Like there's a lot, of, a lotof good information in what
we've been discussing and nuance, and you know that very high
level conversation.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (53:22):
I'm wearing like a very low level
shirt, but the conversation but,you have a high level
background.
Yeah, I do that's.
That's what I'd like to see abalance of nature and technology
, and yeah, yeah, definitely acuriosity.
Gregg Berman (53:37):
Oh well, also in in that, what?
Whether, whether youautomatically get it or whether
I send it to you, which will beliterally seconds after we get
off.
There's the video recording.
There is also a writtentranscript and there is also
bullet point notes Amazing.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (53:57):
I might need to get Fathom.
Gregg Berman (54:03):
It's been great.
I use it for all my clientsessions now I use it when I am
being coached.
I use it sometimes just inconversations or when any
anybody's ever teaching mesomething like hey, yeah, you
know, and I apologize for notasking you, but I assumed you
you knew their normal at thebeginning and I've just found
(54:24):
it's been so valuable inretaining these and again not oh
, and the way that thetranscript works is you can go
through the transcript, click ona part of the transcript and
it'll go to that part of thevideo.
Nice, oh, that's hella useful.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (54:43):
Yeah.
Gregg Berman (54:44):
Yeah, it's really great.
So one question I do want toask you before we go is is there
a place you would recommendthat I could get more
information on Spiral Dynamics?
Christopher Tang (Chi) (54:57):
Yes, so I learned about it from my
friend Sabo, who is amazing.
He's changed my life so much,and he sent me this video from
actualizeorg.
I can send it to you as well.
I have seen some peopleattacking the person that made
videos for actualizeorg, and Idon't know what to believe here
(55:19):
or there.
So I'm not saying that Icompletely agree with this
person, but I love the way thathe explains it, and every other
place where I've seen itexplained is missing key details
.
There is one thing that I thinkhe gets wrong.
That he says in the video,though, is that people can only
move upwards, and I think thatlargely the trend is, but with
(55:41):
certain types of trauma or thechange in a certain situation, I
believe that it does go up anddown.
So he said that once you unlocka certain tier of consciousness
, you don't regress.
As somebody that believes inneuroplasticity and growth
mindset, growth mindset worksboth ways Use it or lose it.
You can go down, so you couldhave a very enlightened person,
(56:03):
but that if we, let's say, wehave a nuclear apocalypse and
then we're regressed to a timewhere it's like the Wild West
out there and you need to killto survive, and some, you know,
somebody could go right frombeing very enlightened back down
to stage red and not caringabout other people and you, you
know, just having to do whatthey do to survive.
So I think that's the onemistake that he makes in the
video is by saying that yeah, itdoesn't go backwards.
(56:26):
Aside from that, hisexplanation is really, really,
really great.
It's an hour and a half videoand then, if you're interested
in any particular stages, he haslike another hour and a half
video on each stage, which isreally incredible.
So I I was very, very moved byhis stage yellow video in
(56:47):
particular, because that's where, you know, that's what I think
it's all about and that's whatmy education program would be
essentially about is gettingpeople to stage yellow
consciousness before technologymakes the world so small that we
we tear each other apart yeah,we're not able to transcend the
differences yeah, I, Iappreciate that and and, yeah, I
(57:09):
, I, I, I would agree with yourassessment that it's possible to
go both ways.
Gregg Berman (57:15):
And and then on on something that you said earlier
about people attacking him.
Again, that goes to the wholeconversation that we've been
having on nuance and puttingthings in one box or another.
It reminds me of where I metInfinity was at Interchange
Counseling a decade ago, andwhen that I don't know if you
(57:38):
know anything about it, but whenthat imploded because of a big
sex scandal, you know, which washorrible.
But then there were a lot ofpeople who were then painting
everything that ever came out ofthat organization as wrong and
bad.
And I credit not only what Ilearned there but also the
(57:59):
people that I met.
I call that thing my gatewaydrug into so many groups and so
much learning and healing thatI've done for myself.
And it's yes, what happened waswas awful, and we all do things
that are are.
You know, there's none of uswho are perfect and some have
(58:21):
created more harm than others.
But even somebody who's createdtons of harm doesn't mean that
they're all evil and that's itand that nothing that comes out
of them has value.
And again to our wholeconversation.
It's like it doesn't.
When we have that viewpoint ofthe silos, it doesn't serve us
(58:43):
yeah.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (58:44):
Yeah, I've heard things about Martin
Luther King Jr and his problemswith his wife, right, and
domestic violence and Gandhibeing racist as fuck.
You know, there's all thesethings, and if we take all the
great ideas and throw them outthe window the baby with the
bathwater, right then webasically can't use anything.
If you know, we, you can't usethis invention because this,
(59:06):
this person that invented it,had a problem.
Well, you're not going to useany invention, right?
Same thing with music or movies, right?
Kevin Spacey has done someterrible things.
Does that mean that every oneof his movies should now be
banned?
It should never be allowed tobe on any streaming site or
anything like that?
Well, what about all thethousand other people that put
effort into that movie, thatcreation, or whatever could be
(59:29):
learned from the moral of thestory or whatever it is?
You need to separate the artfrom the artist, essentially,
and the information or theknowledge from the source,
because everybody is flawed, andthat's where I am very afraid
of and that's the place where Iagreed the most with Elon Musk
and Joe Rogan during thatpodcast was about censorship and
(59:51):
cancel culture, and I fullyagreed with them that that's
where the left is going too farand it's actually dangerous.
Gregg Berman (59:58):
Even though I still voted for kamala I, I see
I see parts of the otherargument that make a lot of
sense to me and it's really anintegration of both that you
actually find you know the bestanswers I'll just say I, I, you
know, I really appreciate thatabout you, your your to to see
(01:00:21):
that nuance and to to see like,oh yeah, even though I may not
fully agree with it.
Like, yeah, here here is a apart that I agree with, because
it's it's only through ourwillingness to do that that we
can, we can learn, we can grow,we can explore and we can, we
can start to have understandingfor other perspectives, rather
(01:00:45):
than just wronging and pushingaway other perspectives.
Correct, yeah.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (01:00:50):
And even if I can't understand it for
myself, I can understand their,their context and how their
context could make that makesense for them and I could.
I could feel that it'sreprehensible.
At the same time it makes sensefor them and then I can give
them grace because it does makesense in their context.
(01:01:10):
And if I were in the exact samecontext with the same
upbringing, the same kind oflike brainwashing from the
people around me, would I reallybe any different?
Would I actually know what Iknow?
I don't think I would Right.
So how could I hate you for that?
How could I say that you shouldbe thrown in jail for this
thing when it's a product ofyour environment?
(01:01:31):
It's more of a well, how do wechange your environment?
And it's interesting because Ithink that liberals often
understand that in certain cases, certain cases where it's clear
that system you know there'ssystemic reasons for that so
they can have more compassionfor somebody who has, let's say,
(01:01:53):
an African-American who's grownup with all these different
systems against them and thenhad to shoplift to be able to
feed their family or somethinglike that.
I think that a lot of liberalperspectives would give a lot of
grace to that person, but thencertain other contexts, which
also lead to harmful behavior,aren't given the same grace.
Gregg Berman (01:02:16):
so yeah interesting yeah, yeah, yeah,
definitely a lot more to say.
I have to go do a couple things, but I'll call in 10 minutes as
well, great.
So I've really enjoyed thisconversation good to connect
with you, and and then I have tofigure out what's happening
(01:02:37):
between my mom and I.
I'm also going to explorepotentially moving and so when I
get you know next week, perhapsI'll reach out again.
And I mean, feel free to reachout before then.
But in terms of figuring outwhat our next steps are in terms
of the podcast, it'll takeabout a week to figure this out.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (01:02:57):
Sure, yeah, all in divine, divine
timing, and if it takes longer,that's cool.
Give yourself the grace andI'll be here whenever we're
ready for that, yeah that soundsgood all right much love you
too take care thank you forjoining me on my journey.
Gregg Berman (01:03:19):
I'm honored that you have chosen to be here and
let me share with you.
I hope what I share isnourishing and valuable for you.
I hope it offers you someinsight into your own patterns,
whether they are similar or evenif they are wildly different
from my own.
If anything resonates with you,I'd love to hear what you are
(01:03:42):
taking away or even whatquestions it brings up for you.
Let's give each otherpermission to be our full selves
, both the amazing and the messythat resides in us all, and
please share this far and wide.
I'd be grateful if you'd put alike and a comment wherever you
(01:04:02):
get your podcasts.
You can find out more about meand my work on my website,
inconnectionwithnaturecom.
If I can be of more directsupport, reach out and let's
have a conversation.
See you in the next episode orjoin me on my blog.
Today's podcast is a bit different from previous
episodes.
In fact, it was never intendedto be a podcast.
I got together with my friendChi to discuss and plan what we
wanted to share in a futurepodcast episode.
Yet as it was the day after the2024 presidential election, the
conversation immediately wentin a very different and
(00:22):
unanticipated direction.
After the call, we both felt itwas a conversation worth
sharing.
The conversation immediatelywent in a very different and
unanticipated direction Afterthe call, we both felt it was a
conversation worth sharing.
At its essence, what both Chiand I discuss in a variety of
ways are the concepts ofcompassion and curiosity for
others' views and our sharedbelief that demonizing,
attacking and or disowningothers for believing something
(00:44):
different simply entrenches thedivide already there.
It creates enemies instead ofallies.
While a different context, itbrings to mind the story of
Daryl Davis, a black musicianwho was invited as a guest to
many Ku Klux Klan rallies.
He originally connected to themthrough his music, though he
(01:08):
never set out to do so.
Through the genuine friendshipshe developed with many of these
men and the conversation andconnection that ensued, several
hundred Klan members gave uptheir robes and some chapters
became closed.
It's a fascinating story andI'll post a link to that in the
(01:28):
show notes.
I absolutely understand thefrustration, rancor and fear
felt both after the election andnow.
I feel all of that myself attimes, regardless of what side
of the political divide you fallon.
The way forward is morecuriosity, understanding and
(01:49):
connection, not more hatred anddivision.
I believe, similar to DarylDavis and those members of the
Ku Klux Klan who are willing tosee beyond their differences,
together we can move in adirection that supports us all.
Marshall Rosenberg, the authorof Nonviolent Communication A
Language of Life, speaks of thisin his book, where he takes two
(02:11):
groups in deep and often deadlyconflict and puts them in
separate rooms.
He asks them to write downtheir needs and desires from the
level of universal human needs.
He then has them switch roomsand when people on both sides
begin to recognize their sharedhumanity and what the other side
had written, it allowed newpossibilities for connection and
(02:36):
collaboration to emerge.
It's been a long time since theelection, so why post now?
Well, there are a few reasonsfor that.
One is because there was somuch intensity in the division
happening immediately after theelection.
(02:56):
Rightly or wrongly, I thoughtthe message might not be
received and wanted to give alittle time before releasing it.
While most of the media isfocused on widening the division
, I'm seeing more talk aboutunderstanding each other as a
means to working towards commongoals and, as Marshall Rosenberg
said, all conflict is a tragicexpression of unmet needs.
(03:19):
I hope we can start to exploreeach other's needs.
This podcast is an attempt atthat exploration.
The other reason is simply myown humanness, as I briefly
mentioned at the start of thisepisode.
The night before Chi and I satdown, I learned my mother might
(03:41):
be going into hospice.
Though the start of ourconversation is a bit awkward,
I've left that in so you areaware of my mental state as we
made this episode.
If you're a reader of my blog,you know she did end up in and
out of hospice and ultimatelydied in early December.
(04:02):
At the same time I was movingfrom one side of the San
Francisco Bay to the other, soit's taken me time to have the
bandwidth to put this out.
I hope you enjoy this episodeand I'd love to hear your
thoughts.
Ready to unlock your fullpotential, join me.
(04:23):
Greg Berman.
Your guide to self-discovery,self-acceptance and joy.
This podcast blends lifecoaching, mindfulness and the
power of nature to help youmanage anxiety, cultivate
self-compassion and embrace yourtrue self.
Along the way, we'll embracethe imperfection, fallibility
(04:45):
and messiness of what it meansto be a human, with love, care
and acceptance for all of whoyou are.
This is your sanctuary for amore mindful, authentic and
fulfilling life.
Let's embark on this journeytogether, as we give you
permission to be your full self.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (05:08):
In the last episode, I shared with you
Hello, it looks like it bootedme out the first time, but I'm
back the first time, but I'mback.
Gregg Berman (05:32):
I I was actually in something with with somebody
else and and then we went anhour and 15 minutes over.
Oh, wow, awesome.
Yeah, I mean good, good and notgood.
It it's.
You know, and I'll just sharethis with with you as well.
As well, I want to connect withyou and have our conversation
and you know, there's both thestruggle around the election
(05:55):
results and there's the struggleof yesterday.
I got word that it sounds likemy mom is probably going to end
up going into hospice, and soit's brought up lots of shit and
she's on the other side of thecountry from me although I
already had plans to go thereand lots of shit between my
(06:19):
brothers and I.
I mean good conversations buthard conversations, or, you know
, feelings that come up aroundboth her potential death and the
ways that we were not served byeither of our parents growing
up.
Yeah, it's really hard.
(06:41):
Yeah, I've been in a not goodstate today.
Christopher Tang (06:49):
Understandably so, and I have so much
compassion and sharing love withyou.
I've been navigating thisperspective, the spiritual
perspective that the universehas our backs, and to shift the
mindset that we habitually fallinto of why is this happening to
(07:10):
me, to how is this happeningfor me.
So I've been thinking aboutthat with these election results
, so as the election was comingcloser, I was very much trying
to operate in the same statethat I've been practicing a
state of surrender andunattachment.
So it's not easy when youreally fear something or you
(07:34):
really desire something, it'svery easy to get attached to a
certain outcome, and I foundthat I've been experiencing lots
of magic and lots ofsynchronicity, except when I get
too attached to something.
When I really want something togo a certain way.
It seems that I push that away.
So as the election approached,I tried to think about it less
(07:59):
and less and not be attached toit and just be like, okay, the
universe is going to take careof it exactly how it's supposed
to take care of it, exactly howit's supposed to take care of it
.
Now, I was hoping that thatwould lead to a Harris win, but,
and I thought that by tryingand caring too much and wanting
it too much, then that's when Iwould push us into this reality.
But I was really in a state of,I think, surrender and peace
(08:22):
and not being attached to it.
And yet I still attracted whatI perceived to be the negative
outcome.
In fact, I attracted a worseoutcome than I ever imagined,
because I thought that if Trumpwon, he wouldn't also win the
Senate and the House ofRepresentatives.
To have every branch ofgovernment, including the
Supreme Court, is very, very,very scary, very scary.
(08:46):
Basically, you could dowhatever he wants and everybody
will just push it through.
No one's going to resist, therewill be no resistance
whatsoever, and that'sterrifying.
That's more terrifying than himwinning the presidency.
It's more terrifying than hislast presidency, because he
didn't have control of all theseareas.
So it's really scary.
So how is this happening for me?
Or, if the universe is reallyworking in our favor, why is
(09:08):
this occurring?
And I have some answers that Ifeel pretty good about, if you
care to hear that.
So what I've realized in mytime reflecting is that the
universe is a reflection of ourinternal self, our internal
state, right, because we are theuniverse.
(09:29):
So what is going on externallyis mirroring something that's
going on internally and alsowith the collective
consciousness of humanity, right?
So what is key to bring aboutthe next tier of human
consciousness, according to amodel that I feel is very
(09:50):
accurate?
Spiral dynamics.
Are you familiar?
I've heard the term, but Idon't know what it is.
It has stages labeled by color.
Ken Wilber also has a modelthat the spiral dynamics was
built off of which is verysimilar but his colors are a
little bit different.
But it's largely the samesystem and it's a grand model of
(10:14):
psychological evolution thatshows the stages of
consciousness that every singlehuman must pass through, and in
the same order.
And it's proven to be true aboutindividuals as well as entire
societies.
You can watch countries as theygo through stages in history
where it's clear that they're ateach stage and they move up
through these stages.
(10:34):
They oscillate back and forthbetween more individual focus
and more collective focus andthey each have a
transformational dilemma suchthat whatever is above that
stage of consciousness is kindof like a dog whistle right,
like you cannot.
Hey, greg, check out thatunicorn right next to me, isn't
(11:10):
it horn so iridescent andbeautiful and its mane is so
lush.
And you won't be able to see itbecause you're not at that
frequency of consciousness andyou will think I'm insane.
And that's why none of thelogical explanations to Trump
supporters will get them tounderstand why we need to take
care of the planet or why weneed to create systems to
(11:32):
protect the disenfranchised andmarginalized, and all that.
It's at a frequency that theydon't understand.
So learning about this actuallyhelped me have a lot more
compassion for human beings, nomatter how they show up, even if
they're as far down as a stagered, which Trump clearly has a
lot of stage red tendencies.
(11:53):
Also, nobody's all at one stage.
Every facet of our personalityis at a different stage of
development.
So there are going to be waysthat I'm way down at stage blue,
and I'm aware of them Now thatI know the model.
There's a lot of ways that well, not very many.
There's a few ways I'm still atstage orange, and then there's
a lot of ways I'm at green andyellow, which is primarily what
I identify with.
So most liberals are at stagegreen, which is the highest
(12:19):
stage of tier one consciousness.
It's the stage that's also thehighest of any country in the
world.
One consciousness.
It's the stage that's also thehighest of any country in the
world.
Scandinavian countries, whichalso test the highest in
happiness, are at stage greenand they are, you know, the most
advanced countries in the worldbased on this model.
However, none of the models instage one are actually superior
(12:41):
to the other.
They all have pros, but anequal and opposite con.
So, even though we pass throughthem in a certain order and you
think it's a hierarchy ofgetting smarter and getting more
conscious, it actually isn't,because every single stage
within tier one is doomed tobring about the same cycles of
(13:02):
suffering that have plaguedhumanity for all of existence,
about the same cycles ofsuffering that have plagued
humanity for all of existencewar, economic inequality,
jealousy, you know, you know allthese things, the crimes that
we do right, it's all going tohappen again and again, again,
until we reach tier twoconsciousness, which very, very,
very, very few people havereached.
There's some people that say 1%of people can see it.
(13:23):
We are in one of the mostprogressive, one of the most
conscious places and I've beensurrounding myself with the most
conscious people.
I am 100% sure that it is lessthan 1% of people who can see it
.
And then to actually embody it,you need to move from logical
understanding to emotionalunderstanding of it, and that's
what I'm in the process of doing.
I'm not even there yet.
I'm not actually embodied as astage yellow is the first tier
(13:46):
of tier two consciousnessthinker yet, but at least I can
see it.
I've had the transformationaldilemma unlocked, and the
transformational dilemma thatunlocks this tier of
consciousness that's actuallysupposed to break us free from
all of the systems that have itbasically helps us create a new
world where we break free fromrepeating the same patterns.
The transformational dilemma isparadox, which is, in my opinion
(14:10):
this is not something I'veheard elsewhere, but I believe
is unlocked by the incorporationof the shadow.
So when you can fully love theshadow just as much as what we
see as our light, that's whenyou can actually integrate
opposites that exist in theworld around us and hold them to
be simultaneously true.
(14:31):
One that's a good example isabortion when we can
simultaneously hold that we arekilling a life, we're
essentially killing a human, butthat also women have the right
to be sovereign about theirbodies and have that decision,
and that there are times whenkilling is actually kind and
better for humanity.
When you can hold thatsimultaneously that it is wrong,
(14:54):
it is killing, but it'snecessary and it's good and it's
a woman's choice, and all thatexists equally and
simultaneously together.
That's the beginning ofunderstanding this.
What is happening now and theproblem with stage green, okay,
which is the people who are wokeand they have a lot of benefits
.
They have gone through more ofthese stages.
(15:15):
They are on the precipice ofgetting into stage yellow, but
the night is darkest before thedawn.
So stage green is not only themost enlightened stage, but it's
the most judgmental stage.
And all the vitriol that hasbeen put down towards all the
other states of consciousnessbelow, and also the fact that
(15:37):
it's we almost dehumanize Trumpsupporters right?
We, we really reject them, wereally think we're superior to
them, that they areunderdeveloped, that there's
something wrong with them.
that is the downside that makesstage green, even though it's
higher up on the stages,actually equally bad and equally
contributing to repeating thecycles of suffering on the
(16:00):
planet yeah I think that what wedidn't do is we didn't learn
compassion for these people, wedidn't learn how to actually
integrate them into creating abetter society and when we are
faced with enough darkness thateventually we have some sort of
epiphany that they're not wrong.
(16:20):
But it's their context.
You know the context of fear,like if you put yourself in the
perspective of the somebodywho's been a coal miner and your
grand fathers were coal minersand all your family's coal
miners and your town, your lovedones, your best friends are
coal miners and you've seenpeople give their lives.
You know people you loved havedied in the mines because this
(16:42):
is something that's important,it's the livelihood of everyone.
And then you have somebody thatwants to take this away and you
know they're not going to buildsome fancy electric car thing
in your town or whatever.
You can understand their fearand you can understand how that
would also, once they putthemselves in echo chambers on
social media with people who areon that side, chambers on
(17:06):
social media with people who are, you know, on that side, they
start to hear and getbrainwashed with a lot of other
things and they don't haveaccess to college education and
things like that to help peopleto elevate their consciousness.
It's not that that person's avillain, it's not that they're
stupid, it's this, that that'stheir context, and spiral
dynamics really helped me tounderstand that.
So I think that we had to facethis.
We have to face this so we donot villainize the other, and as
(17:29):
we are able to start to havecompassion and even forgive or
build connections with peoplethat we hate what they believe
and what they stand for, thenit'll be easier to give
ourselves grace for all thethings that we hate about
ourselves.
It'll be easier to giveourselves grace for all the
things that we hate aboutourselves, right?
(17:51):
So, yeah, there's a lot ofthings within your shadow, right
?
I heard a little bit about yourstruggle that it's still hard to
feel like you're good enough orworthy because of and that same
part of you that attacks thatpart of your being as a larger
body externally being connectedto the universe is the same
response that we have for aTrump supporter, for example,
and when we heal one, wemagically have the mirror
(18:14):
principle come into effect andit heals the other.
I think that if Kamala won,then perhaps and I think this is
part of why Obama's presidencywasn't as revolutionary as we
wanted it to be, and I thinkthis is part of why Obama's
presidency wasn't asrevolutionary as we wanted it to
be I think maybe it gave us afalse sense of oh, we're doing
(18:38):
good, we don't need torevolutionize, we're on the
right path.
Well, this shows us, oh my God,more internal focus on
elevating our own consciousnessbeing the change that we want to
see in the world, because wesaw that we couldn't change
other people.
We tried to change otherpeople's minds so that they
would vote a certain way andshut down this.
(18:59):
But I think the more that wevillainize them, the more it
actually built strength in them,because when somebody is being
attacked, when you've got ananimal cornered, the animal goes
crazy, and I think that's whatwe did.
We should have been loving, nothave been attacking.
We shouldn't have beeninsulting, we shouldn't have
been trying to cancel so much.
We need to be able to embracethe shadow, and I think that's
(19:19):
why the universe has put us inthis reality, because most
people have not learned tointegrate their shadow, and
that's proof in the way that wejudge others too.
So it's the same the more wejudge others, the more we judge
ourselves.
The more we judge ourselves,the more we judge others, and I
think that's why we're in thisreality, because we need to face
that and learn something thatwe haven't learned otherwise.
Gregg Berman (19:43):
Yeah, I definitely appreciate and resonate with,
well, appreciate you sharingthat and resonate, you know, and
it was my thought during thefirst time that he got elected
of like, okay, I hope this is awake-up call and you know,
apparently we need to be hittinghead with it again.
But I also, you know, I washaving a over the last few days
(20:06):
having a conversation withsomebody who, who I knew, was
going to vote for Trump and waswas, you know she when she first
approached me and told me shewanted to share some things with
me and she's like I'm worriedyou're going to hate me, greg,
and I'm like I'm not going tohate you.
I might not agree with you, butI'm not going to hate you.
(20:26):
And you know, one of the thingsI was saying is I'm genuinely
curious.
What is in the mind of somebodylike this person's, a female
Asian physician, you know,intelligent, has plenty of
motivation and not want Trump,and so, like, like I'm genuinely
(20:49):
curious, what, what, what arethe things you're seeing?
And I, and similar to whatyou're saying, you know it, like
I I've said for a long time, Idon't, like some people want to
paint Trump as Satan and I don'tthink that that serves any of
us.
It's just another way ofcreating division and saying all
(21:12):
Trump is is about division.
Well, you're still being aboutdivision by saying that he's
only about division and bysaying everything with him is
wrong and it doesn't mean youhave to agree with him, but it's
.
You know, how do we haveconversations with each other?
How do we explore each other?
How do we find ways to cometogether even when we disagree,
(21:37):
rather than be in this place ofoh, you're totally wrong and
you're totally evil, and youknow, know, as you say, like
people who are, who have avested interest, for whatever
reason, whether it's the coalmine thing or you know whatever
else, you know you're just yeah,I mean the, my, the.
(22:01):
The analogy that I use, which issimilar to what you said, is
like if you are, if you'rebacking a person or an animal up
to a cliff edge, even if youare coming towards it with the
thought of I want to help pullyou away, what sees is you're
coming towards it and it's, it'sgoing to, you know, attack yeah
(22:22):
, or it's going to back itselfoff of the cliff in fear of you
and not even being aware thatit's going to kill itself
exactly yeah, yeah, and I thinkI'm actually very curious what
that friend said about why whythey were supporting trump I
mean they're?
they sent me a bunch of videosand so I haven't.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (22:43):
They didn't give you an actual answer
, though I would have liked thepersonal answer yeah, me, me too
, you know and you know.
Gregg Berman (22:52):
But part of the reason that that she's not doing
the personal answer is becauseshe's terrified I'm going to
hate her and even though I'vesaid I'm not going to, yeah, but
you know, you see so much hateout there, so I understand her
thinking that.
But I know that part of it shehas shared and it's that it's
that when and RFK Jr came outfor Trump and it was in part
(23:21):
around medical stuff and the youknow the way the medical system
bucks with us.
Basically, you know she wantssomething different and she
wants drug companies to not haveso much power and and and she
(23:41):
sees that.
And then there was somethingaround kids and and what we like
missing, missing children frommexico, although it's not
(24:03):
missing children, it's justchildren who didn't show up to a
court case, but but so, yeah, Iwould, I would be curious to.
I'm even now, I still, I stillintend on talking to her more
about it yeah you know, becauseit is.
It is fascinating.
And you know, to what you saidabout like percentage of people
(24:27):
like I, I know that we, well,we're in a bubble in california,
then we're in another bubble inthe bay Area and then you and I
, in the people that we connectwith even within the Bay Area,
are in yet another bubble.
And so it's like you know I wassaying this last night to Ariel
(24:47):
and Alex of you know, it's notthat I didn't know that Trump
had lots of support, but whenyou're surrounded by a bunch of
people who you know don't wantthem, and that's like you know,
90, 95 percent of the peoplethat I see, and then you look on
the map and see what it, whatit was like, you know, to your
(25:10):
point, it's like, oh, we,there's a lot, of, a lot of
spiritual work that needs to bedone here a lot of yeah.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (25:17):
Yeah, and that's what I see within the
United States is that we havealmost equal percentages of
people who are, I think, largely, maybe a little.
I think there's less in blueand more in green, but there's a
lot that are in the blue stage,which is the very rigid.
You need to follow all therules and there's no flexibility
(25:37):
mindset.
You need to follow all therules and there's no flexibility
mindset, and that's usually ahighly religious stage as well.
So you know, anybody that'sreally.
Oh, did I lose you?
You did Nope, can you hear me?
Gregg Berman (25:49):
Oh no, internet's problems.
Yeah, I, I can hear you.
Can you hear me?
Christopher Tang (Chi) (26:19):
Okay, okay, so as long, yeah, whenever
my dad's using the microwavewhich he may do he usually
microwaves a couple things for aminute each, then it goes out.
So that might.
I don't know why that is, butit happens I heard.
Gregg Berman (26:32):
I heard everything you were saying.
Your face was frozen, but yourvoice was continuing.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (26:38):
Oh, okay , cool, that actually threw me
off about what I was saying.
Oh yes, so I actually havebelieved, ever since I learned
about spiral dynamics, that thenext world war will not be a war
between countries, but betweena war of stages of consciousness
and that most of it will occurtechnologically and online,
particularly now that people candeep fake things and you know
(27:01):
you won't even know what's trueor what's not.
You can use my exact voice.
You can use my body and make itlook like I'm doing or saying
terrible things.
You can get people canceled.
You can hack their, theiraccounts.
You can do all these differentthings in this technological age
.
So that's what I imagine thenext war is.
And the way that we prevent thiswar.
(27:21):
Because we have, like I said, alot of people in stage blue who
are very rigid religious,mostly on the Trump side.
And then we have a lot ofpeople who are stage orange,
which is very individual.
It's the capitalist mentalitywork and get the prestige and
the fame and the money and thematerial goods and all that.
That's also where a lot ofAmerica is.
(27:43):
I'd say the majority of Americais still in that phase.
And then we move from orangeinto the green phase, which is
about community and the planetand equality and all these other
things.
And, yeah, that's the phasethat we're moving into.
But you know, we still have alot of people who are very much
(28:03):
in the more individualistic,selfish orange stage, which
Trump is really great at as abusinessman, right.
So we've got these three primarystages battling each other and
dividing each other in ourcountry right now and the only
way to resolve everything is toget people to the next stage,
stage yellow, where they canintegrate paradox and they can
(28:25):
see all the stages below, thepros and the cons of each,
realize that somebody that'swoke and green is not
necessarily better than somebodywho is super rigidly religious.
In fact, somebody who isfunctioning in a, you know,
positive version of themselvesbut way down at stage blue
consciousness, will actually beexperiencing a happier life in
(28:49):
this sort of ignorance is blisskind of state than some people
in green who are, you know,really struggling to navigate
all the heartbreak and pain andsuffering in the world.
So you know they're notnavigate all the heartbreak and
pain and suffering in the world.
So you know they're not betterat all.
It's just.
It's just a higher level ofconsciousness, but it doesn't
mean that they will be happier.
It doesn't mean they'll bebetter until we get to stage
(29:11):
yellow and then we can actuallysee how to dissolve the current
systems and create somethingthat actually works better for
everyone.
And I I don't I don't know verymany people, if any people, who
are actually embodying stageyellow in the conscious
community.
Gregg Berman (29:27):
Most of the people are highly in green, which
unfortunately, is also highlyjudgmental yeah, yeah, I, based
on on the things that you saidand you know the knowledge that
we're in, you know there'sdifferent parts of us in
different places.
(29:47):
I mean I would say that therehas been a part of me, for
whatever reason, that for a longtime has been in yellow and
able to see nuance.
But there's also another partof me that's, you know, in green
and probably in multiple otherstages as well, and you know
feeling all that, but something,something like it makes me
(30:08):
think about did you ever readnon-violent communication?
Christopher Tang (Chi) (30:14):
no, but I've been hearing about it
because my friend Janice hasbeen going to a bunch of the
workshops.
Gregg Berman (30:20):
I used to do some of the workshops.
I would like to again.
I haven't been connected to thecommunity, but I read the book
probably three times, and thereare a number of things,
beautiful things, in it.
But one of the stories he talksabout is I think this was with,
(30:43):
I don't know, there was MiddleEast relations, but it was
something like that where therewere these two factions who were
, were, you know, just at oddswith each other, couldn't hear
each other vilifying each other,and what he did was he took
them each in separate rooms, putposter board on the walls and
and said what are your dreams,what are your desires?
(31:03):
Why do you want this outcome?
What will it get you?
And and so when, when peoplewere were sharing from, from
their heart and from theirdeepest yearnings, what they
wanted, you know, which wassafety for their kids, you know,
health, a home, whatever youknow.
(31:24):
And and then he, he had themall switch rooms and read what
the other people wrote, and, andyou know, that was like the
first time where they weren't,just, like you, immediately
triggered just by seeing theother person, but could say, oh,
wow, the things that we wantare actually really similar.
(31:46):
It allowed them to cometogether, and that's you know
that.
That's exactly why I thinksaying things like like Trump is
Satan don't serve us, becauseif you're, because if you're
just putting that block there,then there's never any
possibility of coming together.
Exactly.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (32:05):
And that's what I've seen a lot of
today on social media from myfriends is a lot of them saying
you know, if you voted for Trump, you're dead to me.
See yourself out, you don'tbelong in my life, all these
other things.
I got some experience with thisbecause the friend that I fell
(32:26):
deeply in love with love morethan I've ever loved any human
ever was a Trump supportingMexican girl.
He was a Mexican girl whobelieved in building the wall,
and her reason is that herfamily took the time and effort
to do everything right.
So from her perspective, she'slike my father did everything
right and he has.
You know, he's successful.
He did all these other things.
(32:46):
Anybody else should be able towork hard and do the same thing.
Now, if they are able to justcome in here and have the same
privileges that my father had,to give and sacrifice and do all
this stuff, for that's not fairto us, you know.
So there's, amongst other things, and we completely disagreed in
certain areas, but on a soullevel, I felt very much
connected with this person aswell, and that was a tricky
(33:09):
thing for me to navigate,because I certainly didn't
expect to fall in love withsomebody like that, but I feel
like I learned a lot about thatand it actually elevated my own
consciousness to have thisdifferent sort of perspective
reflected back to me Now, whenone of my other really close
friends who I'd done a lot for,I'd book them on my show and
work their merch table for freeand did all these other things
(33:31):
to support them in their musiccareer and you know, we were
really good friends for yearswhen they found out that I was
in love with a Trump supporter,they not only stopped being my
friend and told me that I was anaccessory to bigotry and you
know, all these other things andthat's any space that I'm in is
unsafe because I bring unsafepeople around and all this other
(33:54):
stuff.
And you know, I've been aroundthis person a lot and she's the
most giving generous person,especially to strangers, that
I've ever been around Like shedoesn't even have that much
money and she's always buyingthings for homeless people,
giving them like $10 here orthere, helping all these
strangers do all these things,which is also really confusing
with some of her politicalbeliefs.
(34:14):
I don't understand, but in mypersonal experience being around
them, they have the greatestheart that I'd ever seen anybody
ever have.
And it was a bit of a paradoxin her as well.
But I knew that you know you'resafe around this person.
She might buy you some food or,you know, be really nice and
kind to you.
But yeah, my friend thoughtthat you know that I was
(34:35):
dangerous because I have, youknow, this person in my life
that I associate withconservatives.
And then not only did they, youknow, not want to be my friend
anymore, they started goingaround to other people in the
hip hop community, other mutualfriends of ours, and having
private conversations about meand how dangerous I was and how
(34:55):
I shouldn't be a part of thecommunity anymore and all this
other stuff, because I associatewith bigotry.
And, yeah, one other personalso turned against me because
of that, which was another closefriend of mine, but some of the
other ones did not.
So you know, I've already I'vealready experienced how extreme
this can be and I alreadyunderstand from spiral dynamics
(35:17):
that that's the downside.
The funny thing is, most of myconsciousness is at stage green,
and yet the stage that I thinkis the most dangerous is stage
green, because cancel culture isa very slippery slope,
censorship is a very slipperyslope, and this is.
I was listening to Joe Rogan'sinterview with Elon Musk that
(35:40):
came out right after his Trumpinterview, and that was the part
that I think really wouldchange most people's minds was
two things when Elon Musk saidthat if Kamala wins this
election, we're never going tohave a truly open, free election
again, and I agreed with hisreasoning.
Actually, I believe that thatis actually part of the natural
(36:02):
shift.
It would indicate that more ofus have moved into stage green
and you're never going to haveso many people regress back to
the stages that even would voteconservative.
I do believe we would have fairelections, but now they'd be an
elevated.
It basically, just like theWhig Party is obsolete,
republicans would becomeobsolete.
But he doesn't see that.
The new party that's moreliberal, basically the people
(36:25):
like AOC and Bernie Sanders,like the Democratic Socialists,
they probably become one partyand then the more conservative
Democratic Party becomes theother party and those are two
new parties.
Like that's probably what wouldhave happened.
So he's not wrong about thatand if you were in stage blue or
orange, you'd be terrified ofthat because you're never going
to win another election,basically, and I agreed.
(36:47):
But then also, the other thingthat he said was very dangerous
was why he got X was because,yeah, there's a lot of
censorship of ideas, and I'veactually been very upset because
Instagram, on their music, hasstarted censoring a lot of rap
songs.
I like putting rap songs ontomy stories and I believe that
(37:07):
hip hop I partially love becauseI think it's one of the last
bastions of true freedom ofspeech.
So the fact that these socialmedias are censoring certain
types of information, certainideas and, yes, a lot of them
are really harmful.
But it's also a slippery slope,because who's determining what
kind of information can beshared and what can't?
And there's a lot of times whensomebody shared something that
(37:30):
they don't see how it violatesany of the user agreements and
yet they get banned for a while,like that's happened to some
very progressive friends of mine, and I'm like, oh, that's
really weird.
So I think that their pointsabout censorship and about
cancel culture are very, verydangerous, because right now, a
lot of the people who are on theliberal side will take somebody
(37:54):
saying the N-word 20 years agoone time in an interview and say
we need to take away theirlivelihood, we need to make sure
they never work again, that allthis other stuff happens.
The greatest story in humanityis the redemption story.
You know, that's why Star Warsis so great.
Yeah, there's a redemptionstory for Vader, right?
You have all these people whoare able to change from being a
(38:15):
villain to being a hero, andthat's one of the greatest
things about humanity.
It's character development.
If we continue to do cancelculture the way that woke
perspectives are doing, cancelculture, we deprive people of
that, and that means that oncesomebody has done something
wrong and we've all donesomething wrong again, it's the
rejection of the shadow.
(38:36):
Cancel culture is the rejectionof the shadow, the hate right
now towards the Trump side isthe rejection of the shadow.
All of this is really reallypushing the shadow away instead
of facing it and integrating it,and I think that's where we're
at.
We're at this phase where wereally really need to integrate
the shadow, and getting mad atpeople for their mistakes and
(38:58):
making it so they'reunforgivable only makes the
things that we hold in our headsmore unforgivable.
We need to forgive them, weneed to realize they can change
and in doing so, we'll forgiveourselves and realize we can
change and that's what I thinkwe are yeah, I, I agree, and I
think it's.
Gregg Berman (39:15):
It's not simply we .
We need to forgive them andunderstand that they can change,
but we need to understand them.
What brought them to this place?
What were their motivations?
Is there any validity in thatand what do we need to do?
And it's like you know what yousaid about the, the people who
(39:36):
are canceling you for, you know,for caring about somebody who
supports trump.
It's, it's, you know, and howdangerous that is.
It's like, well, if you go tothe other side and there are
people who would look at youknow, the cultures that you are
and I are involved in that thathave psychedelics and sex
(39:59):
positivity and and would thinkthose, those people are, are
evil and it's just bad and wrong.
And you know, and and yet notrealizing, you know, the people
that are in the communities thatwe're in even though, yes, many
of them are in the green, willvilify others, but they're also
some of the most loving, caring,nurturing, desiring for
(40:24):
progress people, and it's, yes,some of that is because of the
sex positivity and the you know,I mean even even, you know,
cuddling is vilified becausepeople don't understand what
that that is, and and so youknow, knowing where, when we
don't, when, when all that weare doing is looking at
(40:48):
something and that either goesin the good box or the bad box,
rather than what's the nuancehere, and what you know it's
something that I, I share allthe time is it's the nuance here
, and what you know it'ssomething that I, I share all
the time is it's is, it's neverthe action, it's what's behind
it.
You know, and this, this is akind of a dumb example, but like
(41:10):
take eating ice cream, ifyou're.
If you're eating ice creambecause I enjoy the flavor and
it feels good and I I feelnourished, and yes, I know that
it might not be the most healthything for me, but I'm really
getting pleasure out of thisright now versus I'm eating ice
cream because there's a holethat I want to fill or because
(41:33):
I'm angry at somebody or I hatemy body anyway, so I'm just
going to do this.
Neither is right or wrong, butone is more empowering than the
other, and so it's.
You know, I think again, thisis separate, but it reminds me
(41:57):
of years ago.
You know, I was in a Cites, theConvention on Trade and
International Species Conference, and you know, people are Like
there are people that areTotally against hunting and
think hunters are bad because,know, this goes to.
(42:19):
You know a different versionwhat you were saying about
abortion, taking life, but it'slike, well, if they're also
protecting the land.
And you know not, not, you knowdoing something where, okay,
this animal had a good lifeversus an animal that's brought
up in a cage and doing things insustainable ways and wanting
the good of nature and the world, like, like, that's a that's.
(42:43):
Is that worse than okay, I'm?
I'm gonna go buy my, my meatwrapped in cellophane in a
grocery store and it had amiserable life.
And you know promoting factoryfarming, like you know exploring
what is the, what is the nuance, and not just painting things
(43:05):
in a, in a evil versus gooddynamic.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (43:10):
Yeah, that's exactly it because,
objectively, when we think aboutthe universe there, there is no
evil or good.
It's all the lens that we lookat it through.
And the thing is that we don'tknow the lens of any other
person Like we don't know yourfriend's lens for why they voted
for Trump and what most peoplewill do because they haven't
(43:33):
practiced you know differentperspectives enough or they
haven't had enough conversationswith people who are different
from them to be able to reallyperceive all the possibilities.
It's very easy to project areason upon them and a lot of
the times our brains arenaturally I've heard maybe 70%
(43:56):
of thoughts each day arenegative, and that was a
survival mechanism back in thedays when we lived in a very
dangerous world.
Things would kill you all thetime, so you needed to be more
worried than then.
You would survive.
You wouldn't eat something thatyou don't know what it is or
whatever it is, but we stillhave the wiring to be more
fearful and more worried andhave majority negative thoughts.
(44:20):
So anytime we project thatunconsciously to anyone, we're
going to skew towards negativethoughts, even to ourselves.
We will skew towards negativethoughts until we rewire our
brains to have a more balancedratio and then it becomes also
that 85 or so percent of ourthoughts each day are the same
(44:42):
thoughts we had the previous day.
So now you've got these largelynegative thoughts about other
people, about the world, aboutwhatever.
It's mostly fear-based lens andyou're repeating them on a
day-to-day basis.
You're really creating verythick, dendrite axon connections
so that it becomes instinctualinstant thinking and it becomes
so ingrained that it's hard tosee anything else.
(45:04):
Which is why I think that youknow, with spiral dynamics, it's
very, very easy for people toelevate to the stage that they
are raised in.
So if you're born in a certaincountry let's say you're in Gaza
right now okay, you'reexperiencing a lot of stage red
thinking, so you're going to beable to get up through beige to
(45:26):
purple, to red and then fromthere, each, each
transformational dilemmarequires going through the fire
and really facing somethingthat's very difficult and having
new perspectives and thenhaving to move from logical
understanding of it to emotionalunderstanding, then emotional
embodiment.
(45:47):
Then you're at that next stageand then you, you know, have to
do the same thing again.
You have to be able to actuallyget to a point where you face
enough adversity and struggleand suffering that the
transformational dilemma becomesapparent to you and then you
need to logically understand itand that, like most people maybe
go through one one stage inconsciousness in their life
(46:11):
above what they're raised into.
And then, but if somebody wereraised in you know copenhagen
right now, they would be able toget right through red, probably
by the time they are inelementary school and they'll be
like oh, now we have to followthe rules, like that's when I
got to stage blue was inelementary school.
Follow the rules.
All the situations you mustfollow the rules.
That's how things are, that'show we get along.
(46:34):
And then eventually in highschool you become a teenager and
you start independentlythinking and wanting things for
yourself.
And you want to get a car, youwant to work, you want these
championships and awards andthings like that.
So you get into orange reallyeasily.
And then you go to a gooduniversity that teaches you more
about a global perspective andhumanity and you start joining
clubs that are protesting causes.
All of a sudden, you're atstage green.
(46:55):
By the time you're 20, you'realready at stage green.
A sudden, you're at stage green.
By the time you're 20, you'realready at stage green.
Well, somebody like yeah, inthe middle east.
You know, really, raised in astrict islamic situation,
they're going to go up to blue.
Really well, but how the heckare they going to get from blue
to orange?
right and then from orange togreen right.
It's very, very difficult.
Gregg Berman (47:12):
So yeah, yeah, which which goes it goes to
what's happening right nowaround Trump.
And you know, even like thepeople, that that canceled you.
It's that.
You know that thing.
You know the, the, thenegativity bias that comes from
fear and, yeah, evolutionarilythat served us, but but it, you
(47:33):
know it's, it's not serving usnow.
It's not serving us now.
It's not.
It's not that there's some, notsome, value in it, but it but
then it becomes all right.
I'm, I'm noticing, I'm havingthis thought.
I'm noticing I feel a lot ofrage toward this person, you
know, and being able to becurious about that, like why,
why is that?
What's going on for me?
Well, what's creating that?
(47:54):
And it's always because we wantto protect something, we want
to save something, we wantwhether it's whether it's
ourself and our values, or orour kids, or our job, or
whatever it is there's some,something feels in danger for
you, and so, rather thanfocusing on that and what we do
about it, we focus on no badwrong got to get rid of.
(48:19):
And you know, we haven't, wehaven't been taught how to get
outside the boxes of ourthinking.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (48:30):
Yes, that's what my education program
is going to be designed to do,and I need to launch it because
we direly need it, and that's abig component of it is to learn
the context and perspective, howto zoom into the micro, zoom
out to the macro, go back andforth like spinning in all the
different perspectives possibleas we do so.
(48:52):
I think that that is key tobeing able to find happiness, or
even to create happiness foryourself, because once you can
see all the differentperspectives, neither of them,
or none of them, is more realthan the others.
So you just attach yourself tothe one that serves you the most
and it's just as valid and justas real as any other
perspective.
So, the more that you getreally good at seeing every
(49:14):
perspective and then you attachyourself to the ones that create
the best version of you, knowyou your your best self-image,
your best way of perceiving theworld.
I think that's how you createyour own reality.
Maybe you don't actually changewhat's physically in existence,
but if you can change your lensof it, then your experience of
it will be entirely differentyeah I think that's why, at a t
(49:38):
compression the other day, gracesaid that I look like I was
four inches taller than sheremembered me being.
I don't think I actually grew,but I do feel like I was
carrying myself differently andthat different energy created a
lens of perception that I was,you know, standing taller and
larger than life or whatever itis, and then I would be
perceived as being tallerphysically by her as well, I
(50:02):
think.
Gregg Berman (50:02):
Yeah, yeah, when you're, when you're energetics
are more radiant.
And yeah, it gives.
It gives it changes yourphysical perception, even if not
the physical reality.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (50:14):
Yeah, and somebody else.
I forgot who it was, because atthat point I was no longer
sober, but there was somebodyelse that said the same thing to
me about two hours later, abouttwo hours after Grace talked to
me.
She was like you got taller andI'm like you're the second
person that said that and I'mpretty sure 41 year olds don't
grow yeah yeah, yeah, and andand at the same point, they do.
Gregg Berman (50:42):
Just, you know, you, you, you shifted your
energetics.
We won't have a long time today, but so that goes into.
You know, like, like, talkingabout your program and what you
want to do, like I had this,since I, I talked with you, I
(51:04):
was I don't know if you sawschwell's post of what's
happening in her journey inchina, but I, I, it was just the
other day, she posted it andafter reading it, I had this
idea of, and you can tell meyour thoughts on this, but it
(51:24):
was, you know, my both.
My podcast is called Permissionto Be your Full Self and the
coaching program that I have isalso called that, and and so
when I, when I first said to youabout being on the podcast, I
didn't have a specific idea, butthe idea that has formed is
wanting to do a series ofinterviews with different people
(51:46):
where we explore and it can bea back and forth, but explore
what what are the things thatsupport you and being your full
self?
What are the things that get inthe way of you being your full
self?
What is the things that supportyou in being your full self?
What are the things that get inthe way of you being your full
self.
What is the vision that youwant to create for yourself,
such as your program, and youknow how do you want to get that
out there and what, what hasstopped you and like like really
(52:08):
being being open and vulnerablewith like, where do we want to
go and what gets in our way andhow.
You know, how do we I meanpartly how do we change that?
It's not it's not specificallyto come up with answers, but to
explore the question.
I like that.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (52:26):
I'd love to do that.
Also, I noticed that there'ssomething that's recording this.
I feel like this was reallygood, like I feel like I don't
know that I could explaineverything that I explained with
Spiral Dynamics the Trumpsituation any better than I have
.
So I would love, whateverrecording you have, if you could
share that with me, I might beable to chop it up and put it on
(52:46):
social media in some form.
Gregg Berman (52:48):
Yeah, absolutely, you might automatically get it
and if not, I will send it toyou, okay, but yeah, it's funny,
I was I was thinking thatearlier like, oh, I still want
to do a podcast with you, butthis, this conversation has been
really good and, and you know,we could even use bits and
(53:09):
pieces the whole thing, whatever.
Like there's a lot, of, a lotof good information in what
we've been discussing and nuance, and you know that very high
level conversation.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (53:22):
I'm wearing like a very low level
shirt, but the conversation but,you have a high level
background.
Yeah, I do that's.
That's what I'd like to see abalance of nature and technology
, and yeah, yeah, definitely acuriosity.
Gregg Berman (53:37):
Oh well, also in in that, what?
Whether, whether youautomatically get it or whether
I send it to you, which will beliterally seconds after we get
off.
There's the video recording.
There is also a writtentranscript and there is also
bullet point notes Amazing.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (53:57):
I might need to get Fathom.
Gregg Berman (54:03):
It's been great.
I use it for all my clientsessions now I use it when I am
being coached.
I use it sometimes just inconversations or when any
anybody's ever teaching mesomething like hey, yeah, you
know, and I apologize for notasking you, but I assumed you
you knew their normal at thebeginning and I've just found
(54:24):
it's been so valuable inretaining these and again not oh
, and the way that thetranscript works is you can go
through the transcript, click ona part of the transcript and
it'll go to that part of thevideo.
Nice, oh, that's hella useful.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (54:43):
Yeah.
Gregg Berman (54:44):
Yeah, it's really great.
So one question I do want toask you before we go is is there
a place you would recommendthat I could get more
information on Spiral Dynamics?
Christopher Tang (Chi) (54:57):
Yes, so I learned about it from my
friend Sabo, who is amazing.
He's changed my life so much,and he sent me this video from
actualizeorg.
I can send it to you as well.
I have seen some peopleattacking the person that made
videos for actualizeorg, and Idon't know what to believe here
(55:19):
or there.
So I'm not saying that Icompletely agree with this
person, but I love the way thathe explains it, and every other
place where I've seen itexplained is missing key details
.
There is one thing that I thinkhe gets wrong.
That he says in the video,though, is that people can only
move upwards, and I think thatlargely the trend is, but with
(55:41):
certain types of trauma or thechange in a certain situation, I
believe that it does go up anddown.
So he said that once you unlocka certain tier of consciousness
, you don't regress.
As somebody that believes inneuroplasticity and growth
mindset, growth mindset worksboth ways Use it or lose it.
You can go down, so you couldhave a very enlightened person,
(56:03):
but that if we, let's say, wehave a nuclear apocalypse and
then we're regressed to a timewhere it's like the Wild West
out there and you need to killto survive, and some, you know,
somebody could go right frombeing very enlightened back down
to stage red and not caringabout other people and you, you
know, just having to do whatthey do to survive.
So I think that's the onemistake that he makes in the
video is by saying that yeah, itdoesn't go backwards.
(56:26):
Aside from that, hisexplanation is really, really,
really great.
It's an hour and a half videoand then, if you're interested
in any particular stages, he haslike another hour and a half
video on each stage, which isreally incredible.
So I I was very, very moved byhis stage yellow video in
(56:47):
particular, because that's where, you know, that's what I think
it's all about and that's whatmy education program would be
essentially about is gettingpeople to stage yellow
consciousness before technologymakes the world so small that we
we tear each other apart yeah,we're not able to transcend the
differences yeah, I, Iappreciate that and and, yeah, I
(57:09):
, I, I, I would agree with yourassessment that it's possible to
go both ways.
Gregg Berman (57:15):
And and then on on something that you said earlier
about people attacking him.
Again, that goes to the wholeconversation that we've been
having on nuance and puttingthings in one box or another.
It reminds me of where I metInfinity was at Interchange
Counseling a decade ago, andwhen that I don't know if you
(57:38):
know anything about it, but whenthat imploded because of a big
sex scandal, you know, which washorrible.
But then there were a lot ofpeople who were then painting
everything that ever came out ofthat organization as wrong and
bad.
And I credit not only what Ilearned there but also the
(57:59):
people that I met.
I call that thing my gatewaydrug into so many groups and so
much learning and healing thatI've done for myself.
And it's yes, what happened waswas awful, and we all do things
that are are.
You know, there's none of uswho are perfect and some have
(58:21):
created more harm than others.
But even somebody who's createdtons of harm doesn't mean that
they're all evil and that's itand that nothing that comes out
of them has value.
And again to our wholeconversation.
It's like it doesn't.
When we have that viewpoint ofthe silos, it doesn't serve us
(58:43):
yeah.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (58:44):
Yeah, I've heard things about Martin
Luther King Jr and his problemswith his wife, right, and
domestic violence and Gandhibeing racist as fuck.
You know, there's all thesethings, and if we take all the
great ideas and throw them outthe window the baby with the
bathwater, right then webasically can't use anything.
If you know, we, you can't usethis invention because this,
(59:06):
this person that invented it,had a problem.
Well, you're not going to useany invention, right?
Same thing with music or movies, right?
Kevin Spacey has done someterrible things.
Does that mean that every oneof his movies should now be
banned?
It should never be allowed tobe on any streaming site or
anything like that?
Well, what about all thethousand other people that put
effort into that movie, thatcreation, or whatever could be
(59:29):
learned from the moral of thestory or whatever it is?
You need to separate the artfrom the artist, essentially,
and the information or theknowledge from the source,
because everybody is flawed, andthat's where I am very afraid
of and that's the place where Iagreed the most with Elon Musk
and Joe Rogan during thatpodcast was about censorship and
(59:51):
cancel culture, and I fullyagreed with them that that's
where the left is going too farand it's actually dangerous.
Gregg Berman (59:58):
Even though I still voted for kamala I, I see
I see parts of the otherargument that make a lot of
sense to me and it's really anintegration of both that you
actually find you know the bestanswers I'll just say I, I, you
know, I really appreciate thatabout you, your your to to see
(01:00:21):
that nuance and to to see like,oh yeah, even though I may not
fully agree with it.
Like, yeah, here here is a apart that I agree with, because
it's it's only through ourwillingness to do that that we
can, we can learn, we can grow,we can explore and we can, we
can start to have understandingfor other perspectives, rather
(01:00:45):
than just wronging and pushingaway other perspectives.
Correct, yeah.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (01:00:50):
And even if I can't understand it for
myself, I can understand their,their context and how their
context could make that makesense for them and I could.
I could feel that it'sreprehensible.
At the same time it makes sensefor them and then I can give
them grace because it does makesense in their context.
(01:01:10):
And if I were in the exact samecontext with the same
upbringing, the same kind oflike brainwashing from the
people around me, would I reallybe any different?
Would I actually know what Iknow?
I don't think I would Right.
So how could I hate you for that?
How could I say that you shouldbe thrown in jail for this
thing when it's a product ofyour environment?
(01:01:31):
It's more of a well, how do wechange your environment?
And it's interesting because Ithink that liberals often
understand that in certain cases, certain cases where it's clear
that system you know there'ssystemic reasons for that so
they can have more compassionfor somebody who has, let's say,
(01:01:53):
an African-American who's grownup with all these different
systems against them and thenhad to shoplift to be able to
feed their family or somethinglike that.
I think that a lot of liberalperspectives would give a lot of
grace to that person, but thencertain other contexts, which
also lead to harmful behavior,aren't given the same grace.
Gregg Berman (01:02:16):
so yeah interesting yeah, yeah, yeah,
definitely a lot more to say.
I have to go do a couple things, but I'll call in 10 minutes as
well, great.
So I've really enjoyed thisconversation good to connect
with you, and and then I have tofigure out what's happening
(01:02:37):
between my mom and I.
I'm also going to explorepotentially moving and so when I
get you know next week, perhapsI'll reach out again.
And I mean, feel free to reachout before then.
But in terms of figuring outwhat our next steps are in terms
of the podcast, it'll takeabout a week to figure this out.
Christopher Tang (Chi) (01:02:57):
Sure, yeah, all in divine, divine
timing, and if it takes longer,that's cool.
Give yourself the grace andI'll be here whenever we're
ready for that, yeah that soundsgood all right much love you
too take care thank you forjoining me on my journey.
Gregg Berman (01:03:19):
I'm honored that you have chosen to be here and
let me share with you.
I hope what I share isnourishing and valuable for you.
I hope it offers you someinsight into your own patterns,
whether they are similar or evenif they are wildly different
from my own.
If anything resonates with you,I'd love to hear what you are
(01:03:42):
taking away or even whatquestions it brings up for you.
Let's give each otherpermission to be our full selves
, both the amazing and the messythat resides in us all, and
please share this far and wide.
I'd be grateful if you'd put alike and a comment wherever you
(01:04:02):
get your podcasts.
You can find out more about meand my work on my website,
inconnectionwithnaturecom.
If I can be of more directsupport, reach out and let's
have a conversation.
See you in the next episode orjoin me on my blog.
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