text/PolarityMatters-ThinkingInPairs.txt

Bina, how are you? Good, Corey. It's great to be here, especially after having talked about it for  a while. I know, I know, I know. We've been talking for months about what the next series  of shows. You know, our problem, Bina, is every time you and I get on the phone together, there's  just this eruption of ideas. And there's always like a dozen things we want to do. And then we  have time to execute like one and a half of them. So we have to, we always have to play a little bit  of triage to figure out how to prioritize it. But that's one of the things I love about working  with you is that there's just so much ground to cover. And whenever you and I hop on to do one  of these things together, we're always discussing just some of my favorite subjects. And in this  case, you know, polarity thinking is mine. And mine too. And that's a good problem to have to  have, to have, you know, so many ideas. And, and in some ways, they all interconnect, right? They  intersect. And polarity will show up everywhere.  So it's my most exciting topic.  And that has been my experience is that it really shows up absolutely everywhere. I mean,  Ken often talks about how integral theory itself, he uses the word psychoactive to describe learning  integral theory, where it's like, once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you're, you're  not getting it back in. And polarity thinking, it's the exact same thing. It's like, once you  learn sort of the basics of how to manage and integrate polarities, you start seeing them  everywhere. And, you know, one of the things,  I was talking to you about, I was chatting with you about earlier is, for me, personally,  how it's landed is it's helped me so much, not only with my sort of interior, intrapersonal  development and awakening, and just sort of navigating my way through some of these patterns  and tendencies and all that, but also epistemically, I mean, when I look out at the world, and I try to  make sense of the world around me, polarity thinking has been absolutely invaluable, because  it helps us,  you know, get through our own biases, and our own sort of presuppositions, and whatever  judgments, fully formed judgments, we're walking into a conversation with, and it's helping us  recognize what's in our blind spot, what are we missing, what's valuable about the other  perspective, but it's not a perspective that you need to agree with, or even disagree with at the  at the end of the day. But if you're not actually working to integrate sort of the deep features of  that polarity, of that, you know, coming from the outside world, you're not actually working to  bring that opposite pole, then you're probably missing something really, really important. So all  of which is just to say this, this work has been tremendously beneficial for me, personally, and  it's come into a lot of the shows that we've been doing, ever since we launched this course. And I  thank you for bringing this, you know, to us to the integral audience. It's been it's been such a  great ride.  Yeah, of course, I couldn't agree with you more. It is a tool for seeing. And seeing is  relieving.  So it helps us to see more completely. And we all have our lenses, we all have our biases, we all  have our biases, we all have have our preferences. And I think it's a great tool to begin to see what  is unconscious. Also, it helps you open the doors to see the things that you couldn't see. And then  you wonder, well, why didn't I see that before? And then you realize that there was an unconscious  bias or an unconscious filter. And that's,  that's why this tool is developmental. And it's fundamentally integral, or rather, it's  fundamentally teaches us how to be integral. And it's applicable all the way up all the way down,  there's a big relationship between polarity thinking and developmental thinking, or, you know,  the levels of maturity. So how to be more integral, how to climb the ladder of development involves  how to integrate that which we have rejected.  So it's just a beautiful integrator is, and I think that's, I think, I think  a more enlightened perspective is, is an outcome usually of more integration.  Yeah, no, beautifully said, you know, I kind of think of it almost like,  you know, it's one of these, these sort of technologies of consciousness is  interior technologies. It's a, it's a fairly simple sort of mechanic that we use in all sorts  of facets of our life. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,  you know, you're talking about sort of how it can help us with growth and development.  This also helps us with the waking up path, right? This helps us with, as you just said,  cleaning up, I mean, to reclaim some of our hidden shadows. And again, the biases and the,  and the presuppositions that we walk around with, it helps us reclaim and reintegrate so much of  that. And then finally, it helps us to show up more fully in this world and to be more skillful  and to, you know, have the capacity to engage with people on a much deeper level where, you know,  really everyone, it becomes easier to see how everyone kind of has a place and everyone can  fit into a larger conversation, whatever that conversation happens to be. I mean, you know,  these days we're talking a lot about gun violence in the wake of the Rittenhouse verdict, for  example, polarity thinking helps me navigate that helps me navigate the political divides that I see  as much as sort of the, the tensions that I feel, you know, within myself, within my own mind and my  own heart. So it's just been, it's precious. It reminds me of, you know, Ken often talked about  how Robert Keegan's framing of subject becomes object is this really simple technology that can  be used again for all of these different facets of our being and polarity thinking is it's something  very similar to me. Yeah. And I think polarity thinking does the opposite as well, is enabling  object becoming an integrated subject, the things that we push away, the thing that we don't see  helps us to integrate into a new level of integrated subject, which, which is actually  developmental. And so even subject making subject object is only one pole. And that's a polarity  making subject object and making object subject. And if you miss the other pole, you're missing  half of development. That's right. Beautifully said. I mean,  that's shadow work, right? I mean, you're supposed to, I mean, that's, you're supposed to go three,  two, one, one, two, three, you got to push it out, pull it back in. You need that. It's a, it's a,  it's a, it's almost like breath work in a certain kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.  Well, beautiful. All the more reason I'm excited to have this conversation with you today. So let's  talk to our audience about what we're going to be doing. So we are designing this segment to be as  interactive as possible. These shows are always so much better when we get to talk to you at home.  I mean, being a, you and I can hop on the phone and talk to each other whenever we want. We,  you know having the opportunity to actually talk with our audience, I think is a really cool  and special thing. So I'm hoping you have a question. We already have a question. So should  we start just like jump off with a question or do you want to give some kind of, you know, opening  salvo? I'm actually curious to see how many people on the call are familiar with polarities because  we use the word. And if you don't understand the way we are using it in some ways, we are codifying  it. And if you don't understand the way we are using it in some ways, we are codifying it.  In a particular way. And so if there are people who, who, who this is new to, I think it would  help to give a little introduction, but if everybody here is familiar, then we can just  jump into some questions. Yeah. Is there a way of checking? I could, if, if, if, you know, maybe if  you make a couple comments to begin with, while you do that, I can create a quick poll that people  can take right here in zoom to let us know. Yeah, that would be great. And I can see some chat  messages. So if you have any questions, please feel free to put them in the comments section.  So, so Ann says, you know, she's taken the course. So yeah, you know, those who are familiar,  you can also put in the chat message and respond to Corey's poll. And what I'll do is take this  question from Paul. Great. So Paul's question is I'm very interested in the role function and  importance of paying attention to the feeling sensing of the body while working with polarities.  And I can't help, but notice that you are looking at, um, working with polarities as  a mental function, and then you are highlighting the other pole, which is where does the body come  in? What's the importance and what is the role in the function? So you're already, um, you're  already naming in some ways, the pole that you feel is missing from the way we work with polarities  and that is showing polarity thinking. So yes, in order to really, um, integrate the working  with polarities, we need to be able to sense,  and feel and use our body as well as use our mind and use our thinking often when I'm teaching,  uh, and we're working with the polarity, I will draw a quadrant map on the floor, simply,  you know, line up a piece of tape vertically and then across horizontally. And then when we're  working with the polarity, people will walk through the four quadrants that arise from the  two poles that we're discussing. And then we actually ask questions that help them to sense  into the body. You know, what are they feeling?  Which part of the body are they feeling in and which of these quadrants they feel more body in  which, which of the quadrants, you know, do you actually feel you, you know, you, you're not paying  attention to your body. And so there's so many different ways you can integrate, but thanks for  the question. And thanks for bringing the body in because if you're just doing it with your head and  doing it conceptually, then you haven't integrated it. If you don't bring the body and you haven't  integrated it. So that would be my quick response. Um, Corey, do you have any questions?  Any other thoughts?  No, I just, that was, that was a fantastic question. And I do think it's, um, you know,  I do a show with Ryan Oki called inhabit and, uh, the purpose of the show is to, um, you know,  basically help answer questions exactly like this, because it's so easy when we're doing  integral, anything, whether it's polarity work or integral aqua kind of thinking and analyses,  it's very easy for it to be sort of neck up. You know what I mean? It's, it's, especially since we  are, um, you know, this integral movement quote unquote is unfolding on these, you know,  disembodied social media platforms where all we sort of have to experience each other is these  little sort of text windows. So it's easy for this stuff to get disembodied really, really quickly.  Um, which is why I was glad that the first question that we answered, it was actually  about embodiment, actually pulling this material into, you know, not just our heads, but into our  hearts and into our bones, um, so that we can, you know, really, again, just embody this material  as fully, um, and as skillfully as we can. Yeah. And I'd like to highlight another aspect  of embodying is actually experiential. So we can think about it. We can, uh, understand it. Well,  we can interpret, we can name, we can articulate. And if we don't notice how it's showing up in our  experience, if we are not able to connect how it's showing up in the other person's experience,  and that's another polarity, which is thinking and experiential that I think is an important  aspect of integrating.  Uh, polarities, which is different from embodying. And, um, I think it's an important thing to  include. I see a comment, a request from Patricia to do a brief intro to establish a mutual agreement  about what we're talking about. Yeah, that sounds good. And so I just put out the poll. Um, let's  see here. We've had, uh, 22 people answer. It looks like 16 of you guys are already familiar  with, uh, polarity thinking. And for six of you, uh, this is, this is, uh, somewhat new. So we've  got, we've got a bit of a mix.  Okay, great. So let's do a very quick intro. Hopefully it'll be a refresher for those of you  who are already familiar. So what I'm going to have you do is actually, um, respond in the chat  message as a way to trigger your thinking. And for me to be able to respond and use what you're  saying as examples, I'm going to have you respond to two, what I call sentence stems for you to  just complete the sentence. So I want you to first complete the sentence. The thing I like about  myself is just complete that sentence. And it could be,  three or four things, or you could say the things I like about myself or the thing I like about  myself. So just please complete, um, honesty. Okay. Just complete that. The thing I like about  myself, curious. I'm curious. And Corey, feel free to put your, yours too. You're cool. Greg  is cool. The thing I like about myself. Okay. Inquiry perspective. You're a seeker. Beautiful  passion about learning sensitivity.  Okay. Great. Thank you. Um, thinking systemically. Okay. So those who, um, haven't written,  please put yours in. I'll give you another 10 seconds. David is open, warm, hard, caring.  Wonderful. So what I'd like you to do now is think about, actually, I have another stem,  but I feel like following what I'm seeing here and have you, uh, do the next,  which is when I am whatever I like about myself, when I'm ingenious, open, curious, um, um,  sensitive, then I suffer from, uh, actually let me, let me rephrase that slightly when I'm too  open, too ingenious, too sensitive, too honest, too patient, uh, too curious and trying to seek  too much. I suffer from what?  What's the downside. So I'd like you to complete that sentence and no focus. So I have to go back  to see what Ann started with. Um, yeah. Curiosity. If I'm too curious, then I lose focus.  I lose directionality. I lose follow through. I get lost in complexity. I feel overwhelmed.  Wonderful. Focus is hard. Yes. When you seek too much, David, you suffer from losing contact with  the perfection.  So you recognize already, you are in this experience of privileging something that you  love. And when you do too much of it, then you land in these places that are not great. And  if we love something, we will do more because we think doing more is better.  Yeah. Overly involved, too tolerant. Yeah. Okay. So now we're going to go back to the  Now I'd like you to complete, um, another sentence stem, which sort of naturally flows from  this is that when I'm overly involved, when I'm overwhelmed, when focus is hard, when I get lost  in complexity, I'm not using your words when I'm indecisive and I'm paralyzed. When I have no focus,  what I would like, what I really need, what I would like, or what I really need is what complete  that. Um, like Edward says, when I'm too tolerant, I may sacrifice my own focus. I may sacrifice my  own needs. So what I really need is to focus on myself because I'm too tolerant of other people.  So what is it that you need?  Something concrete. What would, when you're too, like you're overly curious, you lose focus. So  what you need is focus. So in some ways you're describing what is missing. You need to focus.  You need to, you need to be humble. You need to take a decision.  Spaciousness. Yeah, David. Otherwise you're seeking, seeking, seeking. You get,  you lose contact with what is, you want a simple walk in nature to get connected.  Great. Thank you. Now I want you to complete the last part, which is what happens if you did too  much of this thing that you just need. If you did too much of spaciousness and too much of walking  in nature or too much of focus, too much of decision-making, what do you worry about?  What is something that might happen? So there is another downside that you want to avoid. You  don't want to go to the other side because you worry. So in David, your case, it could be if I  spend too much time in nature, I'm too focused on perfection. Then I lose direction. Then I feel I'm  not getting anywhere. I'm stagnant. And so then you want to go back to seeking perhaps. Yeah.  Notice. And, and what I want you to do is,  feel this fear, feel this place that you don't want to be. You become too egoistic. You're not  engaged in the world. Yes. Missing important perspectives. And therefore each of these  fears, places you don't want to be will naturally push you to what you love about yourself. So this  is a little simple cycle. I'm going to share, share my screen and right now, and then give you  my example. Yeah. I want you to feel this dynamic as you've been,  um, following the four, very simple questions, very simple triggers. And I'm going to give you  an example of mine. Um, so you can see my screen, Corey, assume everybody can see my screen. So in  my case, what, uh, if I start with number one, what I love about myself is I like to make a  difference. I like to have a voice. I want to grow. I want to develop. I want to influence.  And, uh, I of course end up doing a lot of it and I end up dominating in a conversation or when we  are in a group, because I'm.  Okay.  So committed to having my voice spoken, I end up dominating and that's not a great place for me to  be. And I often can hear people saying, Hey, you know, we have 30 minutes. You were supposed to  speak for 10 and you took 20. This happens quite easily, even though I'm working on it, I'm aware  of it, but it's just that the passion is, is so, uh, you know, intense. And so I realize,  and I get this feedback that I need to be listening. I need to be pausing. I need to  be more receptive. And so I start doing that, but very quickly, I worry if I did too much of that,  then I worry that I would lose my voice. I'm ineffective. I'm ineffectual. And that's,  that's the worst place for me to be. If I love making a difference and I love having a voice  and, um, I hate that. So that's going to drive me back into speaking out. And then that cycle  continues. So as you have seen in just your quick examples, this is a dynamic.  Um, you can see there are two things in tension in my case, on one side, I'd like to be assertive  and then many ways to describe this. I'm just choosing to describe it in this way. Um, I want  to be assertive and I value that. And I have something to say. And on the other side, I need  to be more receptive because I tend to dominate. I tend to exclude. And unless I harmonize these  two, unless I integrate, I'm actually not going to be very effective.  Because you can imagine if I end up dominating what happens, people stop listening to me,  right? People will think, well, she goes on and on. And so now they've switched off and it's  exactly the thing that I wanted. And I'm losing, which is I'm losing my voice regardless. And I  find this fascinating that if we pursue the very thing we love, then we lose the very benefits we  pursue that for. And you can apply it into each of your own, um, each of your examples that you  came up with.  If you're trying to seek, seek, seek, you lose contact with what is, then you want to go and  stay with what is, but then you worry that you're not contributing and you don't want to do that.  And so you come back to seeking to make a difference, a little bit similar, uh, but  described slightly differently, you know, David's in my example. So this is the dynamic, these,  these two things, we call them poles and, um, they need each other. If, if I'm just assertive,  it's not enough because I will be neglecting.  Receptive and I'll end up dominating. If I'm only receptive and not assertive, then I don't have a  voice and that doesn't work. So a polarity, it means that are two values, two things that are  needed, both needed to harmonize over time and choosing one over the other will always end up  in a dysfunctionality. Now, often, you know, we've learned this throughout our lives. We won't  choose. We won't completely neglect the other,  we privilege one. And if you privilege one, you will experience the downside. That's also a  principle. So the way this dynamic simply works is we move towards something because we love that,  you know, you love to seek, you're curious, you love big perspectives. You want to be sensitive  for various reasons that has passion for you and that has charged for you. And so you do more and  more of that and that you hit the limit of that and you end up in the downside of that. And you  sit and tolerate it.  And you tolerate it and tolerate it because this either our mindset that we have tells us,  oh, in my case, I'm not dominating. I'm just making a difference. You see how we interpret  that. And then before long, it becomes unsustainable. Sometimes it may take months,  it may take years, sometimes shorter. And then we realize we have no choice but to go to the  other side, because it's just doesn't work anymore, especially in relationship.  And  we're sitting there doing this other thing that we want to do. But very quickly, we are  feeling the loss of what we left behind. If I'm feeling I'm listening, but where is my voice? And  then I quickly end up in this downside. This doesn't feel good to me. And I'm missing what I  really love and what I care about. And so very quickly, I go back and feel that that's exactly  what I should be doing, because that is me. So in some ways, we define ourselves, our identity  gets caught up with these preferences that we have. And then we can lose sight of what the other  pole is, that will demand its attention, you know, it will demand its pound of flesh over time. And  so it's wise to recognize that it's there to notice it to name it and then to be proactively  and intentionally integrating it so that we are more balanced. I don't like the word balance,  because that has other connotations.  But it's a simple word to use, so that we can, we end up not overdoing one or the other. So this is  so Patricia, this is the basic introduction to what a polarity is. And they show up everywhere,  like Corey said, once you begin to see it, you see them everywhere.  Real briefly, Bina, while you while you still have that graphic up, because right now we're  looking at a graphic with four boxes on a screen. And of course, there's another famous integral  graphic that's a polarity. And it's a polarity. And it's a polarity. And it's a polarity. And it's a  four boxes. So one of the questions we got in the community is, is the use of the four quadrants in  this integrating polarities model aligned to the interior exterior individual collective four  quadrant matrix. So we're using quadrants, but we're using them in a slightly different way. So  I just want to make clear for folks that this graphic is not Ken Wilber's version of the four  quadrants. However, notice that in Ken Wilber's four quadrants, those are themselves  polarities. And in fact, most of integral theory comes down to polarity. So you've got  obviously individual collective interior exterior, you've got part and whole, you've got  form and emptiness, temporal, atemporal, etc. And what I've noticed, Bina, is oftentimes when  I'm doing polarity work myself, I've noticed how some of the polarities that I wrestle with  often integrate up to some of these kind of fundamental integral polarities.  Like this one right here, assertive and receptive, I can kind of enact it as almost a fractalization  of like agency and communion, for example. Or self and other. So there is a root, what I call  root polarity. So self and other will show up in like a million ways. And here assertive could be  I'm focusing more on myself and my voice and receptive and focusing on your voice. So self  and other is sort of a fundamental root polarity as a function of being a human being in relationship  with another. Yeah.  Yeah. And if you look at this particular polarity, you see four quadrants. So the four quadrants in  connection with a polarity are the upsides of both. And then the downsides, when you neglect  one and over-focus on the other. And in the integral quadrants, you have the individual  collective, the interior exterior superimposed on each other. And they are a much more multi-layered  textured quadrants that are, that again, the polarities that Ken chose are fundamental to  just our existence as a human being. It covers, you put those two polarities together, it covers  all the bases, all the bases of being a human being. So those would be the integral core  polarities. And that's great. And I do, in my experience, it has been, you can be a master  at integral, you can be a master at those four quadrants and still be mismanaging all kinds of  polarities because you haven't seen them, you haven't named them. And that's where I find,  that what polarity thinking does is it trains you in noticing and integrating polarities.  And basically that's what Ken did. He saw all the various pools of endeavor in different fields of  inquiry. And he began to see how different schools in a particular field focused on one pole.  And then newer schools emerged in contrast, in competition, in resistance and focused on another  pole. And each claiming we are right.  And what Ken saw was they're both right. They're both partial and they're both right. And that's  the fundamental principle that follows all polarities. They're both equally important.  They're both necessary. They're both partial. Neither is true just by itself. And they both  need each other over time. Yeah. Beautifully said. Yeah. That's why I often say this is the  kind of thinking that produces things like integral maps in the first place. Yes, absolutely.  Absolutely.  So I have a couple more slides, which I'll share later if there's a question around developmental  stages, but I'm going to stop sharing so that you have a good basic introduction.  And then we could look at some questions or see, actually at this time, I would love to  listen to those of you who answered the stems, what I love about myself, when I do too much of  that, how do I suffer? So did you follow the cycle in your own example? And what insights did you get?  So if you wouldn't mind sharing in the chat message, that would be great.  Or you can hit the raise my hand button and we can actually let you talk.  Yeah, that would be good too.  Paul, I'm bringing you on over, buddy. There we go. Hey, Paul.  Yeah. Hi, Paul.  Hi there.  No, I'm just referring to you.  Yeah. My question is, I did your questioning and I noticed in myself the tendency to go  from one to two, but then not go to three and four. So when I hit number two, like,  in your example, when there is like authority or people stop listening, I tend to make room for  that. So not go really to three or four, but I seem to want to stay within the one and two polarity  and make room for those. So I don't seem to complete the circle, one, two, three, four.  Well, but is there, is there, is there  an,  imperative to go to number three? Is there a, is there a natural one? Then maybe number two is  not, is not a negative place for you. Is there, is, what is that, what is that, what is number  two like for you?  So the tension I feel in number two, like when I don't seem to be able to express myself,  or I don't seem to be able to hear my voice, have my voice heard.  That tension then seems, seemed for me to be the, the invitation to stay with that tension.  So not so much to find a solution for that, but to integrate that friction as to make space for that.  Yeah, that's beautiful. That's another, that's another way of you countering number one,  where you want to make your voice heard. And now that's, you're sort of disidentifying with that.  And you're, it's not coming.  So you're looking at it as being an imperative, which means number two, you're not in a downside.  So in some ways you're already managing the polarity of, I want my voice heard and it's okay  for my voice not to be heard.  Yeah.  You're actually moving to that.  So that is the polarity.  So that your number three is, um, can I be okay with this?  Yeah.  That's right.  Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah.  Love that.  Thank you very much.  Thanks.  And there might be.  So just what,  I would want to want you to watch out for is when does it feel it's no longer okay for me  there might there might be a time when it doesn't serve you because you keep expanding you'll keep  integrating that and then you'll fall quiet and then you may end up one day feeling like  I'm not influencing anything that I'm there's no energy to make any change and if you feel that  that's uncomfortable for you then you would want to claim your voice then ideally integrating the  polarity means how can I claim my voice fully and how can I disappear my voice fully that would mean  that would feel like integration where you can do both yeah and that's why my first question  question came up initially about the the body so I tend to can then then make space into my body to  kind of embody that  place of well not wanting to change or needing to change so it's like that I can see myself  kind of retreating from wanting to be an outside force to being more embodied in in in the being  kind of dimension so see how beautifully you're actually embracing number three but you haven't  you didn't see it the number three is um like the number three could be moving into the interior  space so from outside to inside that's  the polarity you are managing that polarity you're countering the problem that you're facing  by integrating the inside you're also moving from from doing to being which is another polarity  and you're also freeing yourself from being attached so you're identified by something  you're freeing yourself in each of these cases you can anticipate if you do too much of being  too much of it's all okay too much of the problem is that you're not being able to  change the body then you may miss the thing that was that drew you and that also has value so  just watch don't uh throw away don't throw away the baby with the bath water is what I was yeah  you see the beauty in that which you are trying to integrate yeah yeah lovely just just one more  comment that comes up for me I can see this as a journey of being focused outside to becoming more  embodied so that that and that and the being more embodied uh component adds rich experiential  value and and and yeah the feeling alive sense yeah absolutely yeah thanks Paul thank you too  oh beautiful thank you so much man yeah I see Anne has a question yeah and actually let me ask  Anne's question um and this is I've actually got another question from the community that's  sort of related so what I'll do being is I'll ask them both um because I think they'll probably  receive a somewhat similar um answer so Anne asks how to trigger interest in polarity for someone  who does not see them especially in a business environment I don't want to take a position of  somebody who quote knows what is your problem um which I think is is uh some some really great  humility there and it's it's it's always difficult when it's like I have something that I know will  serve you but I don't want to like you know  sort of beat you over the head with it um but we had another question I feel it kind of syncs up  with this a little bit um because it's largely a developmental question uh hi Bina uh does work  on polarities assume that we are all rational evidence seems to suggest that many people are  entrenched in their biases and impervious to rational investigation how do we overcome  people's unconscious biases and prejudices I'm sure the course will answer that but I thought  I'd put it out there anyway and that was from a commenter named Phil  so  both of these questions are sort of like okay you know I have whatever I'm at whatever altitude I'm  at I can enact polarity thinking the way I do and I can see it's got a lot of immediate and obvious  benefit for me um will others be able to enjoy the same benefit if they're not necessarily coming  from the same sort of structures in developmental structures uh so is is is polarity thinking  something that um can be used by by earlier altitudes um and is it as beneficial to the  artificial for earlier altitudes or is this something that kind of ripens alongside development  yeah the many many different questions in there and so let me start with ends  um because um I don't necessarily see a developmental level difference there  it's just a question of if you know if somebody can't see them how do I tell them that hey this  is operating and so my simple answer to that to that is uh maybe people can't see polarities but  everybody feels them it because everybody is subject to them everybody is privileging something  having a bias having a preference and everybody is sitting on the downside in some way so they  have an experience of this dynamic they may not name it they may not be able to see it and that's  something that you can do more skillfully by simply asking questions you don't you you're  not telling them that you know what their problem is because even that I wouldn't do  even if I'm working with somebody and I can sense a polarity that they are struggling with  I would want them to begin to describe their experience and then name it themselves so I  will very rarely say this is the polarity that's operating in you because when you work with  somebody else you have to follow how they see their experience and how they might name their  experience so the simple thing and is just follow you know ask the questions you know  if if they are over focusing on something then you can ask a question well when you do too much of  this uh you know what are you experiencing what are some of the downsides or what do you think  is needed or do you do you want to shift or people are people asking you to be somebody  else people asking you to focus on something else and what are you concerned about what if  what are you cons what don't you like about the other view and if you did embrace the other view  what what what is your fear so once you understand  the the four quadrants or dimensions that emerge when a polarity is at play then you  can ask the questions very conversationally and the person can get a sense so that would  be my first question is people can't see them but everybody feels them everybody is in the dynamic  because it's a human condition um the second thing is I would um tailor  the simplicity of  complexity with which I might address what they are going through based on my understanding  of their capacity so if they are very concrete they are simple they can't see systems and they  can only see either or black and white you know mechanical logic then I will just be very simple  and concrete and I will want to connect to their experience and look for what they are wanting to  solve but if they are capable of interdependent thinking they are integrally informed and they  are  understanding that they have unconscious world you know that they are wanting to become aware of my  mind go into much greater Nuance I might even  talk about polarities that happen within within you like intrapersonal polarities and then there  are polarities that show up between people which would be interpersonal polarities and  then there are other polarities that show up in systems like structural polarities so I might I  go into great nuance and greater complexity based on the level of understanding capacity  of the other person. Coming back, so those are the two things I wanted to mention to Anne. Now,  you had mentioned the question that had come up in, can you just repeat that question that came on  the course platform? Sure. Let's see here. Does work and polarities assume we're all rational?  Evidence seems to suggest that many people are entrenched in their biases  and impervious to rational investigation. How do we overcome people's unconscious biases and  prejudices? I'm sure the course will answer this, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway.  Okay. So how do we overcome unconscious biases and prejudices? My first response is by working  on your own. Find out where your unconscious biases and how do you figure that out? So that  would be one. But in terms of, yes, most, many people are not rational.  And they are still effective in some parts of their life because they have applied their mind  and they have gotten successful in something or the other. So you want to use what they're already  doing and help them see something that they are not quite seeing. And, you know, we're all using  our thinking capacity to solve problems, to make sense of what is going on and to achieve a new  life or a different world for ourselves and for others. And we can't do that without  employing some rationality. So, yes, some people may not be applying their rationality  in this way. And this is a fantastic way to actually invite them to think about  what their unconscious preferences are. And you don't think about them by asking them.  You just think about them by looking at what they're experiencing and what is their experience  revealing to them about what was unconscious.  So that would be.  Yeah, that's fascinating. You know, I'm thinking of, well, I love what you said about how not  everyone sees polarities, but everyone feels them. And I think that's important because that means we  all actually interact with these polarities in very, very different ways.  We are subject to them.  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it's interesting to take the perspectives of trying to  enact a polarity at the sort of the amber absolutist mind versus the orange.  Multiplistic mind versus the green relativist mind. And then notice that in spiral dynamics,  the the integral level is the one level where they actually use a polarity to describe the level.  It's flex flow. So at each of these stages, you can always feel the polarity, but they're probably  going to look a little bit differently. You're going to relate to the two poles a little bit  differently, depending on what the overall sort of structure of your the overall shape of your  mind happens to be, which is fascinating. And I think that this.  You know, it's because it's like, you know, we can do our own work with our polarities.  But then when it's time for this to kind of spill out into the world and we share our ideas and we  share like, you know, whatever sort of the end result of this polarity process has been for us,  that product then can get enacted very, very differently by other people, depending on  their cosmic address. So these things, you know, these polarities are constantly  sort of creating and recreating themselves and recapitulating themselves and that are enacted in  very, very different ways by different people, which makes this, I think, an endlessly fascinating  process for us to be engaging with.  Yeah, absolutely.  Let's see, another person from the community asked when we're filling out the polarity map, do we  need to stick with one specific topic?  It's a good question, if this is early in your practice, then I would say yes, it's just simpler  to stick with one topic and understand.  You can elaborate on how the dynamic works, follow one thread, you can elaborate on that thread,  but make sure that the central focus is one thing because it just helps you to see more clearly.  And once you get familiar with it, then you can work with two or three different threads  simultaneously, then you're practiced and it's much easier for you to grapple with the dynamics  between the one, two, three strands.  You know, just like in Wilbur's Quadrants, it's not one polarity, but two.  There are two topics. One is individual collective and the other is interior  and exterior. You overlay one on the other, one over the other, and you have a whole complex world  that emerges. So I would say to start off with, yes, practice one, but you know, there's no end.  There's no end to the polarities that you can work with.  Yeah, especially when one polarity just sort of naturally leads you to another, which naturally  leads you and it becomes this whole sort of rabbit hole of compounding polarities.  Yeah, just like we saw with Paul, right on this call, starting with, you know, I want to make my  voice heard.  Yeah.  And then I want to not have it be that important. So I want to integrate just letting it be.  So that's one. And then he also said, well, that also goes into a doing and being polarity, which is  another polarity, which is sort of analogous to it, but not quite the same thing. And when you  enter a polarity map or you think about all the dimensions from one particular polarity and you  enter it through another polarity, the field is different because the content that comes up is  different. The context is different. And they both are windows into understanding yourself. They both  give you new data about yourself. So more than one is better because it reveals different aspects.  Yep.  Jonas asks, I'm seeing regular workplaces as dominated by the masculine polarity  with structure, goals, direction, logical thinking, abstract,  abstraction, et cetera. I'm curious how you see how the feminine polarity can enter the regular  workplace more. What could be the feminine role? What is needed that the feminine comes with?  How could a dance between the two look in a workplace environment? And I'm going to say  just right off the bat, this is a, it's a tricky question because there's multiple ways we can  enact these ideas of masculine and feminine, right? I mean, there's sort of a, you know, Ken  might, for example, describe it as there's a typology that we can find in all four quadrants  and all the way up and down. And those typologies each have different qualities. We can also relate  to it in a certain kind of way where, you know, these, these labels of masculine and feminine are  actually a set of a number of different sort of qualities coming from a number of polarities.  So we often think of, you know, things like arrows and agency and objectivity, for example, these are  three poles from different polarities that are often enacted as masculine, whereas communal and  agape and interior subjectivity is often seen as feminine values. So it's really, it gets really  complicated because we have to sort of carefully define what we mean by masculine and feminine and  track whatever sort of other polarities are being smuggled in with those, with those descriptions.  Sure. And we can even keep it at just that simple level also. And just, if we just look at,  as you are describing it, Jonas, so what the question is a very big question because it's  a change management question that you're asking. And what I'd like to highlight a couple of things.  One is that when polarities are at play, then over time the system corrects itself because when you  over focus on one and not the other, the system is vulnerable, and it's not sustainable over time.  So even if you don't do anything about it over time, the feminine will, will get integrated, will,  you know, will get, you know, get... we'll get integrated. We'll all get integrated and we all will get, you know, will get  attended to because the downside of the masculine is so toxic. Similarly, the downside of the  feminine is equally toxic. So a system needs to be integrating both. I mean, as you're saying,  so what could be the feminine role? What is needed that the feminine comes with? That's  a very broad, I would say, an abstract question. It all depends on the context. What kind of  feminine aspects are required in that particular context? What kind of workplace is it? What kind  of a business is it? What kind of industry is it? And some industries and businesses come  with already a particular kind of masculine attention or masculine focus, whereas there  might be others that are not. A non-profit organization that is invested in social service  already has a feminine value in its mission itself.  So there's so many layers that you may want to consider and think about. So I feel that question  about what could be the feminine role is too broad a question. It needs, it will depend upon the  context. And how could a dance between the two look like? I mean, a dance between the two looks  like an integrated organization. So if there are no complaints about it's too soft or it's too  harsh, you know, all the qualities, all the downsides of over-focus on masculine  or downsides of over-focus on feminine, if there are no complaints, it means it's a healthy  organization. And usually it relates to how healthy the leaders in power are, how well,  how integrated they are, how much they recognize the feminine values. And sometimes they're not  even called feminine values, but they have, there are healthy cultures where both are managed  beautifully. Yeah, that's beautifully said. And I think it leads us actually right into the next  question. So I think it leads us actually right into the next question. So I think it leads us  I love how you talked about toxic masculinity and toxic femininity. And this is, you know,  obviously this is a larger cultural conversation that we've been seeing unfolded and often  unfolds in fairly, you know, sometimes harmful ways. I think largely because in our culture,  we don't have a polarity understanding of how masculine and feminine works and how either  can lapse into healthy or toxic kind of version. So what happens when you don't have that  polarity and people keep on repeating words like this is people start interpreting it to mean,  oh, so you're saying masculinity is toxic and femininity is good and masculine is bad. And then  there's this whole, that creates a reaction, a cultural reaction, which re-entrenches the  culture wars and we drift farther and farther away from each other. Whereas polarity like reminds us,  well, no, no, no, no, no. Every side of all of these poles has a positive and a negative.  And in fact, if we're not putting,  all of that on the table, then again, we're missing something really,  really important about each other. And that's only going to, you know,  perpetuate the sort of political cultural wars that we're all engaged in.  Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, it's a fuzzy thinking, not clear thinking, and it's a product  of either or thinking the either or thinking mindset will say this is bad. And that is good  because they, of course they see the bad, they experienced the bad, but they're unable to see  the wisdom in the good.  That led to the bad because the other was being neglected. And so what, what polarity thinking  does is it just expands the situations enough for you to see there's the beautiful masculine,  there's the beautiful feminine. And if you focus only on the beautiful masculine and don't integrate  the feminine, it becomes toxic. And if you focus only on the beautiful feminine and don't  integrate the masculine, that becomes toxic. So there are two kinds of toxicities and there are  two kinds of wisdom.  Connection with the yin and the yang.  And this is so important for us to remember as we sort of, again, navigate the world around us is  that, you know, it's really, really easy to fall into the trap where we are comparing the negative  version of one pole to the positive version of another pole. Right. And then it just looks like  good versus bad, for example. And we have to remind ourselves, we have to train ourselves  to enact this in a fuller, in a fuller way. Which again, I think leads us to this next question.  I am involved with diversity.  Equity and inclusion at my professional in my professional society.  The minorities want to talk a lot about unconscious bias, causing systemic racism.  Somehow, I don't think that they want to talk about their own biases.  The they just talk about white privilege bias.  Are there any thoughts about how to approach the other pole with them?  Yeah, this is very, very tricky, and there's so many layers in this.  I'm going to point you actually to Byron Katie's work.  And she just did.  and I can put the link, I look for it in a moment  and I can put the link in the chat box  where she is asking four basic questions,  which is what she calls the inquiry method  with somebody who's working with diversity,  equity, and inclusion,  and who is struggling with others  who don't even see color  and or who are only wanting to talk about  the white privilege and not about their own.  So I'm gonna point you to that simply.  I feel you'll get a lot out of that,  much more than I could answer actually  in a few minutes here.  But the main thing and the main thing that I would add  is for us to begin to own our unconscious biases  while we are working with others as well.  That would be my response.  Yeah, and it's a great example  because I do oftentimes see these conversations  getting sort of stuck on one pole or another.  One of the things, for example,  in the debates  around critical race theory,  which just to be clear,  I'm not hostile at all to critical race theory.  I've got some issues with some of the prescriptions,  but I think they're uncovering  a lot of really important partial truths  that need to be put on the table and better managed.  But an example here is that  in the core critical race theory literature,  they look at qualities such as objectivity and neutrality,  which they enact as sort of being a negative.  And so there's an explicit attempt to go to the other pole of,  well, no, instead of being,  pretending that we're objective,  we need to allow ourselves to be subjective.  And instead of pretending to be neutral,  we need to allow for like political advocacy, for example,  that needs to become more sort of central.  And they're obviously what they're doing  is they're compensating for one pole with another pole,  but they're not taking that next step  of integrating and harmonizing that polarity issue.  polarity itself where we can see okay you know if we do too much objectivity and we lose track  of the subjectivity here's sort of you know the negatives that can fall out of that uh and vice  versa and i think what we'd like to see is a more integral conversation that's capable of identifying  and pulling all of these different poles together uh into something that's far more coherent um  than any sort of the of these theories that we've seen so far yeah thank you i um actually got  i found the one that uh i was looking for and i'm gonna put that in the chat box it's called i too  am a racist um let me see where would i put that uh in the chat box or i just put it in the yeah  in the chat box for everyone yeah yeah uh beth asks i fear this is too basic of a question no  such thing beth uh i'm new to this topic and i'm concerned that i am so entrenched in my personal  place i don't know what to do with what i don't know what to do with my life i don't know what to do with my life  polarities that I don't even have any idea that there's another pole. Is there a list of polarities  somewhere so I could start considering how to identify the places, other options that I have  not been conscious of yet? I love the question. Absolutely. Yes. So there are lists and lists  that I can send to you, Corey, if you want to post it. How do we post the material?  Well, whatever you send me, once this actually goes up on Integral Life, I'll post it right  down there on the page. In the meantime, we can share things in the chat. Beth, I also just want  to mention right now on Integral Life, we're selling Bina's polarity training for Integral  Life members anyway for 50 bucks. So we're intentionally keeping this very, very, very low  price because we want as many of you guys to be able to participate with this training and to  benefit from it so that we can help sort of bring more sanity and stability to the world. So I would  definitely invite you to check out the actual training if you haven't, which again, we've  intentionally...  We've intentionally made very, very affordable to as many people as possible.  And the lists are available in the course as material just so you know.  That's right. But maybe we can just kind of riff on some of them right now. I mean,  at least the ones, again, that Integral makes explicit. You have interior and exterior. You  have individual and collective. We have part and whole. We have time in the timeless or temporal  and atemporal. We have...  Form and emptiness, agency and communion, eros and agape. Geez.  So I'm going to pause here and say that that whole list was what are my conceptual polarities that  you can begin to look at. And based on experiential polarities, I'm going to look at the list that  people came up with earlier right here. So I'm looking at people who said honesty. So honesty  is one pull. You want to be really honest, but what if you're too honest? What is that other  thing?  Being tactful. Because you can, you know, some people say, I don't care. I believe in honesty  and I'm brutally honest and, you know, take it or leave it. And that is actually can get  dysfunctional. So you want to be honest, but you also want to take care of the impact on the other  person. So you want to be honest and you want to be caring. So brutally honest is not going to get  you the benefit that honesty can bring you if you do too much of it or if you do it in,  in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the,  in the wrong way. So being honest and being caring, that's a polarity. Cheryl says, I'm  curious. What happens when you're too curious? What are some of the downsides? And then, so what  would be the other sides? I need to be focused. I'm too curious. I'm all over the place. I would  like to be focused. So being curious, being focused, that's another polarity. So you, I would  like you to go down the list and look at, you can see all the values that people love. And then what  happens when they overdo it and what they, what they yearn for, which is the other pole. And you,  and you have, I think we can name 20 polarities right here, Beth, on the list. And if you learn  how to see the other pole, then you can get more skilled at noticing polarities.  One of them that's been really foregrounded for me recently. In fact, we did an entire episode  about it a couple of weeks ago is the polarity between confidence and humility, being able to  generate a, a genuine, confident humility.  In terms of how we move through this world. That really presented itself as a, as a critical  polarity for me. So I've been doing a lot of work with that one.  Great. Yeah. I'm looking at Luva Balo's question. It's a long question.  Shall I read it?  Yeah, sure.  Okay. I once had a phase where I was doing polarity management map on a paper,  but recently I've done it on a program, like a document,  program, and it served me well in my career. But now I've been hesitant with drawing it on  paper and filling out the paper. However, I know, see, and feel that I have polarities  with the schedule being squeezed in, in some personal relationships, wanting to be work  relationships again, that are somehow seen to force themselves back in this holiday. But I'm  sorry, I'm having, I'm having a little, I think we might have a bit of a language.  No, that's okay. But I'm sort of a good space.  And I don't have these relationships, which were once toxic or felt toxic. So there's this  tension between, do I, do I focus more on these relationships or, you know, I feel like I don't  want to reclaim relationships that were toxic. So I can understand what you're saying,  but your main question is that you want to continue training. Can I also do it on paper?  Of course you can do it on paper. I find that if you keep the rigor of doing the polarity map on  paper,  a little bit in the beginning and you get familiar, then you, you can do it without the  paper as well. So I would just say, I need, I would like you to practice until you feel you're  skilled at it. And I mean, you said you've been working on the maps and you, you can feel the  polarities. So I think you should trust yourself. And when you feel like you're not quite there,  or you don't understand, then go, go back to paper. But I would say do both, you know,  it's a polarity, you know, sometimes it's good to do,  take the template, print it out, write it out and work with yourself. And sometimes,  you know, you can work with the polarity over a month, you know, just exploring the wisdom of one  and getting familiar with what happens when you tend to overdo it, begin to explore what would  it look like to explore, you know, to embrace the other side you could do, you could just stretch it  out and not put it on paper as well. So I'm saying, trust yourself and just continue to practice.  I'm sorry, I lost.  Thread while I was reading that. And thank you, Bina, for picking the thread up again.  Yeah, that's okay.  Looks like Eric Troth has his hand raised. So let's bring him over.  Eric is an old friend. Hi, Eric.  Eric, I think I think I'm here. I miss everything, anything you said from the time you promoted me,  because it just sort of pops me out of zoom for a moment. So hi, Bina. Hi, Corey. Good to be with  you. Good to see you. Yeah. So the question I have is a little complex. And so one thing I want to  say is like an overall concept.  You know, overall framework for polarities, and how do we distinguish those things that are employees  are everywhere, you're talking about that, but there's also things that are not polarities? And how  do we distinguish, you know, the problems to be solved from polarities to be management, managed  and also to not get drawn into things that are not really polarities per se, that we can maybe get  sucked into, and we put them in that framework. And so, you know, a common example has been used, like, you know, to go to a  restaurant A or restaurant B. Yeah, there's pluses and there's minuses. But it's not something that's enduring. It's not a tension between two things. So now what I want to do is, you know, take that into culture wars in the US where I live, and hopefully this is relevant to others, because I think these  political divides are something that's, you know, more than just our country. You know, being around this community of integral, I'm great with the stuff of like, there's this tension between, you know, liberalism and  conservatism,  And, you know, we hold that as a polarity and that there's values of both sides.  I'm great with that.  When it comes to, you know, is someone who's a leader being, you know, transparent or maybe  being a little bit more guarded?  You brought up honesty a moment ago.  Yeah, there's something to that, that, you know, somebody who's totally transparent is  going to hit the downsides of that.  Somebody who's too secretive and guarded is going to hit the downsides of that.  And so I'm good with the polarities generally, but there's a place where I come up with a  boundary between like truth and falsehood.  And by that, I mean intentional falsehood.  For instance, there's a lot of conspiracy making and things like that, and it has a  major impact.  I can grant that, you know, maybe half of a country, for instance, has a different political  persuasion.  Yeah, okay, fine with that.  But right now we have a situation in this.  We have a country where, you know, half or more of one of the major political parties in  our country believes that the current president is, was not legitimately elected and is  falsely occupying a seat in the Oval Office.  And that's based on a lot of things that there's a lot of evidence that would say that's  based on a bunch of falsehoods.  That's a real problem for how our society functions.  So the kind of question that I have is like,  how does someone who's, we'll call it the polarity wizard, playing off of, you know,  spiral wizards and so forth, you know, what is the polarity wizard's approach to dealing with  these cultural dynamics of how to, you know, acknowledge the truths of different points of  view and at the same time not fall into some of these things that are just manufactured  falsehoods to further certain agendas in a way that I personally believe is harmful to our  society?  So it's not easy.  It's tricky.  And it's like you said, it's complex.  And I mean, there are so many different layers of responses.  So for me, I'll just speak personally that when I feel that this is, there is falsehood  there, I will be very clear and say, I don't think that's accurate.  I don't think that's true.  And I would look for evidence.  And I'm, I don't hesitate to be in an either or mindset if I have enough logic, if I have  enough evidence.  But that doesn't take away from the fact.  That different people have their different, different perspectives and when it comes to  conspiracy theories, I mean, again, there are so many layers of judgment.  There's the factual part, then there's the, you know, there's the, the cultural, social  part that becomes a thing in and of itself because you're then thinking about the collective  and the collective becomes one, one person as if it's one thought.  And.  So we end up mixing up by using monolithic thinking in some ways.  And ultimately the whole idea of conspiracy theorists, I mean, for me, I'm looking at  it at the level of mind and ego development.  And I think every time I make up a story of what somebody did, did to me, I'm a conspiracy  theorist.  So what I tend to do is when I am.  The moment.  When I begin to complain or project what somebody else is doing, I tend to turn it around and  ask myself, how am I doing that same thing?  It helps me deal with the situation.  It helps me integrate.  It helps me see how I am dividing the world into black or white.  It helps me see how I'm using monolithic thinking.  So there are so many layers and all of those are true.  You know, there's a place for polarities.  There's a place for no polarities.  There is a place for either, or there's a place for evidence.  There's a place for evidence.  There's a place for.  There's a place for.  There's a place for.  There's a place for.  There's a place for.  Then there's a place for my own filters and biases and and then I think about how does  that impact my relationship with people?  How does that impact my relationship with my neighbor?  Who am I with?  My neighbor is if my neighbor is holding this view that I don't, I don't agree with.  So, so that's a whole other layer of exploration of who, how do I show up?  Who can I be with this human being right now in this moment?  So those are all the, all the little thoughts that I have about the complex situation and  I'm with you, Eric.  I mean, it is, it's confounding and it's compounding and I don't think there is one, I don't think  there is a high level sort of a conclusive, you know, sort of a response to that.  Yeah.  Thank you.  I appreciate you shedding more light on that and I think the, the personal aspect I know  is something that I'm working with.  So in my little town in Montana, one of the people who recently went, ran for city council  a couple of weeks ago was someone who was very into the QAnon stuff and had been one  of the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.  And so, you know, I had this thing of like, how do I deal with this person who has the  appliance store with all these QAnon themes, you know, painted all over the sides of the  store who was, you know, running for city council.  And I was like, wow, that was a real challenge.  And for me to, you know, get to that place of like, can I not put this person out of  my heart?  Can I appreciate, you know, that they have good intentions?  I think they're misinformed, but you know, I, I can find that place of like, oh, appreciating  the goodness in this person.  It means, well, I disagree.  But then, you know, there's also the invitation for me implicit in that, like, am I willing  to engage with someone like that rather than hold them at arm's length and go like, oh,  that crazy person there.  But you know, am I willing to do that?  How much, you know, whether that's a worthy investment of my time is another question.  But, you know, I think to come over that hurdle of my fearfulness of someone who holds that  kind of view and is willing to take up arms and, you know, kill other people to, you know,  promote their point of view, that's a, that's a real challenging one for me, you know, so.  One of the corners that I've turned as I've continued to think about this and try to navigate  through it.  Is how.  I agree with you that something like fact versus fiction, that's not a polarity, right?  That's clearly not a polarity.  And when it comes to like people believing that JFK Jr. is going to come back from the  dead and reinstate Donald Trump, which is, you know, a contemporary QAnon thought that's  out there.  It's like, okay, I can't integrate with that.  I can't put that on a map and find any way to, you know, include that in a healthy polarity.  But when I dig a little bit deeper and I remind myself that sometimes what appears to be fact  versus fiction.  Is actually coming from another polarity of like orthodox versus heterodox.  In terms of sources of information.  I think this is where maybe the conversation gets a little bit more interesting because  we begin to realize that some of the things that we call conspiracy theory.  Some of them is, is, is a matter of fact versus fiction, right?  Such as the JFK thing.  Other times it's just a matter of what sources is this coming through?  Is this coming through, through an orthodox point of view?  Or is it coming through?  Is this coming through from a heterodox point of view?  And oftentimes, you know, we know that some conspiracies, we know that oil companies paid  researchers to deny climate change.  That's a conspiracy.  That's a real conspiracy.  And until it was proven, it was a conspiracy theory that was oftentimes only seen through  heterodox sources of information.  So for me, like just kind of making a space for that, just to be like, okay, this isn't  necessarily this, this, this very well could fall into a, a sort of fact or fiction by  binary where I can write off the fiction and I want to stick with the facts.  Other times there's another perspective in there that wants to emerge, which is simply  I'm enacting this information from a different kind of constellation of, of media sources.  And you know, maybe, maybe it gets a little bit easier for us to make room for it if we  relate to it in that way.  So that's, that's been, that's been helpful for me.  Yeah.  Yeah.  Thank you, Corey.  I appreciate that.  And yeah, it makes sense to me.  Conspiracies, theories do have a kernel of truth in the beginning of it.  And then they look and they dig into things and it's been helpful in many, because many  conspiracies have proven to be true.  I think, you know, part of the difference and the differentiation that I would like  to make is between something that takes that kernel of truth and then spins it into something  else with the intentional layering, because I think there's a lot of that going on, not  only within country, but also geopolitically, we look at the big players and you know, what  kind of you know, foreign sources of disinformation.  Have an agenda to create division and, you know, promote those.  So it gets incredibly complex when we add those layers of, um, intentionally dis- disinforming  people.  That's a hard one to find our way out of, unfortunately.  It's a big question.  I mean, I see this as being like one of the central life conditions of our time that is  just begging for integral solutions.  I don't think any of us know what those solutions look like quite yet, but, um, something is  going to emerge.  These are all the right problems for us to be having at this time, I think.  Yeah.  Yeah.  Sorry.  Go ahead.  Oh, and I was going to say, yeah.  And begging for integral solutions and also coming back to what you'd said earlier to  Bina about, you know, how can I, you know, relate to these people with different views  as people and really see their humanity and appreciate that, you know, they're trying  to make sense of a complex world just the same way I am and that it goes all the way  up and all the way down.  And so for my attitude, there's still a whole lot of levels of altitude above me too.  Yeah.  And that's the polarity is the idea and the person.  Am I only paying attention to their ideas, to their thoughts, to their beliefs, and then  completely disregarding the person?  I mean, would I kill them for their ideas?  And I kill them.  I mean, I may not actually pick up a gun and shoot them, but I'm killing them in my mind.  They don't exist.  They need to be exterminated.  How can we do away with them?  We all have these thoughts and feelings.  And so, so one of the ways to look at how does polarity thinking apply here is am I paying attention to the person, am I paying attention like you said to the humanity can I begin to understand how they got there, how, how orienting is their worldview  to them, just like I have a worldview that's orienting to me, I'm not necessarily saying relativize everything but I'm saying that can I consider that.  And especially if today is the only day we, we have we don't know if we're going to wake up tomorrow morning, you know, 1 million people don't wake up every morning.  Yeah. And if this is the only day I have with this human being, who am I going to be with this human being.  Yeah, if you'll move to say listen to what you're saying, being because it's like, you know, it's easy to think in some ways of like oh I'm just, you know, attacking it, an idea not a person, but at the same time that idea fits within  that.  Yeah.  And I think there's a whole worldview that gives coherence to their life and if I pull the rug out from under them there's a violence in that as well and that I have to respect, they are where they are that this gives them meaning and purpose.  And, you know, to be really mindful of how I approach that and not just say like, well that's actually wrong.  It's like, you know, maybe it is but does that really serve the interaction what I'm having. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate.  This has been a pleasure.  It's been very wonderful to talk with the two of you.  Thank you so much.  Thank you.  The other the other little wrinkle.  I'll add on to there that's that's helped me with this because you know it has been my experience that sometimes you know look sometimes our worldviews are not compatible, and they cannot be made compatible, you know, sometimes there are just mutually exclusive views  that do not fit together and I think there's an okayness with that. And for me, that whenever I feel like that's happening.  I try to take it as an invitation to take one step further, and not just stay in the realm of, of conflicting views, but try to get into access try to access the underlying values that are animating those views in the first place, because oftentimes the views that  we most vehemently disagree with.  They're coming from a value that we can really resonate with some of these, you know, crazy Q and on views that are out there for example are really just coming from a place of fear.  A place, you know, they're coming from places that all of us can relate with in various ways, and and these these sort of core emotions get enacted in very different ways for different groups of people who are in different regions  of the country and have different access to information and blah blah blah blah blah, but the value that is actually driving those views in the first place.  I think that's where we can find a lot of resonance with each other and I think that's where a lot of this polarity work and become even more valuable as a tool.  As a tool that we can use to better see each other, and and hopefully to get sort of beneath some of those views, because you know my experience is that these days we are just over identifying with, with our views, and we're not we're not really  leveraging our own inner values, as much as we could and probably should be.  Yeah, yeah.  Well we only have a few minutes left.  Corey, what would you like to, would you like to, I think there is a comment, not a question so that's good too good to have, and and has a comment here.  I don't understand Maryland's question so. Oh, since when it's fear of value I was in elegant when I was speaking Maryland and I was saying oftentimes our views are animated by our values.  Sometimes our values are in response to an emotion like fear.  I'm not saying fear is a value but I'm saying fear can trigger.  It is a value.  It can trigger our values and can trigger various responses, depending on what our values are and I think that that is the opportunity for us to more closely connect with each other and align ourselves with each other.  Other than that I'm wondering if there's anyone have any final questions and we look at the q amp a real quick. Yeah, I'd invite you to to to work a little bit more with polarities, you know, take the course or just read up there's lots of literature out there.  And I find that good that we can engage with each other. And that is where I think we can have that sort of matrix. And I think that's what it's looking like I think. And I think we can engage with each other, I think we can have a lot of interaction with each other. And I think there's a lot of effort to do the work, but I think we can engage with each other together. And I think we can engage with each other.  And I find that this is, it's a fundamental lens for making sense in ways that are more  integral, in ways that are integrative.  And I think it reduces suffering and brings clarity.  So that would be my sort of summary statement, you know, it allows us to be clearer and kinder  and it reduces the pain individually and collectively.  So beautiful, beautiful.  Well, again, I want to close just by inviting everyone who's watched right now, go to  integrallife.com, click the courses button and check out the Integrating Polarities training.  This is, I mean, it's truly extraordinary training.  You know, again, one of the things that I love about the course, as you formulated,  Abina, is, you know, I think that for a long time, we've been looking for sort of a way  to teach integral thinking.  Sort of the way critical.  Thinking is taught in high schools and universities around, around the country.  How can we systematize integral thinking and teach it to people?  Right.  And I think that you have sort of cracked the code here.  I think that, you know, whenever I'm suggesting integral ideas, especially for newcomers,  I tend to start with polarity thinking, because I think this formats the hard drive for all  the information that's about to get dumped there.  It helps you understand, better navigate and better.  Internalize all of these big, beautiful ideas that are floating around there in integral land.  So I invite all of you guys to please check out the training.  And then I just wanted to read a comment real briefly from our community.  This person says, this course has been extremely helpful and even transformative for me.  I came to Integral Life with deeply painful binary questions, and this course has untangled the two headed snake.  Thank you so much for the clarity and wisdom of the course.  And your engaging and perceptive presence.  And Bina, I want to extend that thanks to you.  Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us and to answer these questions and to hang out with our audience and hang out with me.  And this has just been so much fun.  Yeah, thank you.  Thanks, Corey, for the invitation.  And I find that polarity thinking has made me more human, more appreciative, more affirming.  And so, yeah, I invite all of you to play.  It's endlessly, it's like the gift that keeps on giving.  So thank you for this opportunity.  Great to meet everybody.  I found a very interesting question by Clinton, which we didn't have time to get to.  So Clinton, you can email me at bina at verticaldevelopment.com.  This is about ego death and the Buddhist idea about, you know, ego dying.  And so where does polarity come in?  It's a very beautiful question and too big in some ways to tackle here.  So if you want to write to me.  I'm happy to chat with you.  And well, and just to let people know, too, we are going to follow up this program with another one just for those of you who have enrolled in integrating polarities.  So we're going to do another one of these webinars with students of that course.  So maybe that's a question that we can bring into that discussion, Bina.  Yeah, sure.  I'd be happy to.  And I look forward to seeing you all again and hang out with you, Corey.  Yeah, absolutely.  Thanks for your partnership.  Thanks.  Thank you for supporting this effort.  Yeah, thank you.  Thank you, Bina.  I love you so much.  And thank you everyone who has watched us from home today.  And we hope to see you next time.  Yeah.  Bye for now.  Bye, everyone.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.  Bye.