The Spiral of Connection & Disconnection: Archetypes, Values, and the Journey Towards Wholeness

From Evolution to Values

In my previous blog, I wrote about the central role of values in growth in psychotherapy, particularly in the context of what modern societies are facing: a profound existential challenge, often described as a “crisis of meaning” (Peterson, 2018; Vervaeke, 2020). Despite unprecedented advances in science, medicine, and material comfort, many people feel disconnected, as seen in political polarisation, ecological neglect, and a global rise in anxiety and depression (World Health Organization, 2023). Building on my doctoral work (Flores, 2019), I argued that evolutionary psychology provides a more complete paradigm than the narrow biomedical model of distress. Rather than pathologising anxiety, depression, or risk-taking as mere “symptoms,” an evolutionary perspective conceptualises them as functional responses to environmental pressures. Present-focused strategies, for example, emerge in unstable and threatening environments, while future-focused strategies develop in predictable and supportive ones (Belsky, Steinberg, & Draper, 1991; Chisholm, 1996). From this angle, behaviours often labelled maladaptive - substance use, avoidance, aggression, and so forth - can be reinterpreted as survival strategies.

This reframing opens the possibility for greater empathy and compassion in clinical practice. A client who turns to alcohol or compulsive behaviours is not “broken,” but deploying an evolved mechanism to cope with overwhelming conditions. Therapy then becomes less about eradicating symptoms and more about helping the individual reorient toward values and long-term flourishing. I ascribed to the evolutionary idea that human cooperation, reciprocity, and moral sentiments are not accidental cultural products but deeply rooted evolutionary strategies that enabled groups to survive and thrive. From this perspective, what we call “virtues or values” - generosity, trust, fairness - can be seen as adaptive traits, selected because they promote cohesion and stability (Ridley, 1996).

In my professional development as a CBT therapist and later as a counselling psychologist, I initially approached questions of phenomenology and meaning through the lens of clinical and evolutionary models. During my university training, I adopted a secular and materialist worldview in which human behaviour was understood primarily in terms of adaptive strategies, environmental pressures, and neurobiological mechanisms. Within this framework, spirituality appeared to me largely as a projection - in the Freudian sense, a defence against existential anxiety, or in the Dawkinsian sense, as a cultural “meme” propagated because of its adaptive benefits rather than its truth-value (Dawkins, 1976; Dennett, 1991). Religion and spirituality were interpreted as memeplexes - clusters of mutually reinforcing beliefs and practices that enhanced group cohesion, fostered cooperation, and provided psychological comfort (Blackmore, 1999; Dunbar, 2022). As Dunbar (2022) argues, the endurance of religion lies in its role as a social glue: shared rituals and narratives exploit the same psychological mechanisms that underpin friendship and kinship, enabling large-scale communities to function cohesively.

Over time, as part of my personal growth process, especially when it came to dealing with my own struggles, I began to recognise that this view was also reductionist. While evolutionary psychology offers valuable insights into the mechanisms of adaptation, it does not adequately account for the lived experience of the organism -  the dimensions of meaning, connection, and orientation toward transcending the self (that is, locating the self outside the individual and into a larger whole through a sense of connection and oneness). Evolutionary theory may give us the ultimate explanation for why such experiences exist, but it is the proximate level - the felt sense of love, awe, gratitude, or despair, and crucially, the decisions we make - that actually drives change. To put it differently, natural selection may have prepared us for these capacities, but it is their immediate, lived reality that enables people to flourish, become their best selves, and even influence the course of evolution toward prosociality. For example, the Baldwin effect (Baldwin, 1896) describes the phenomenon by which learned behaviours and cultural practices can, over time, shape the evolutionary trajectory of a species. In human societies, this could mean that collective choices toward cooperation, compassion, and self-restraint become stabilised and transmitted across generations, a trend that, as Steven Pinker (2011) has argued, may help explain long-term historical declines in violence. Just as societies can evolve toward prosociality through repeated cultural choices, individuals in therapy can reshape their own developmental trajectories by committing to values-based action. Therefore, to believe that evolution alone drives behaviour is conceptually misleading. Evolution, like medication, provides the conditions or “space” within which organisms make decisions, exercising varying degrees of freedom based on what they perceive and deem most important. In clinical terms, clients often describe medication not as something that “does the work for them,” but as something that enables them to do the work themselves.

This same principle is also implicit in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Therapeutic change is not explained by evolutionary predispositions alone, but by the extent to which behaviour is consciously aligned with values and guided by purpose, meaning, and transcendence (Hayes et al., 2012). In this sense, therapy can be understood as a kind of micro-Baldwin effect: repeated choices toward compassion, forgiveness, or courage reshape an individual’s trajectory in ways that may eventually stabilise, much as cultural practices stabilise across societies.

Methodological Considerations

How do we study lived experiences without reducing them away? In my doctoral research, I explored Dennett’s (1991) heterophenomenology, which treats first-person reports as interpretable data, mediated by interpretation. This approach avoids naïve introspection, bridging science and subjectivity. Later, I found Varela’s (1996) neurophenomenology closer to my stance, integrating disciplined first-person methods with third-person neuroscience to capture the lived reality of experiences like awe and transcendence, which are essential for understanding virtuous behavior.

These methodological approaches inform how we understand the experiential foundations of virtuous behaviour. For a behavioural phenotype such as virtuous action to be expressed, there must be a phenomenological precursor: the felt motivation to become one’s best self. This includes the capacity to forgive others and oneself, to let go, and to cultivate compassion and love rather than pity and hate. Natural selection may have equipped us with the potential for such experiences, but they are experienced as emerging from the self, crucially enacted through choice. This is where the question of free will meets the practical concerns of psychotherapy: without some degree of responsibility for their actions, clients are not ready for change.

Varela's neurophenomenology, in particular, is critical because it honors the phenomenological precursors of action - such as the felt motivation to become one’s best self - without collapsing them into mere biological or behavioral outputs. For example, the capacity to forgive, let go, or cultivate compassion rather than to control and dominate emerges from lived experience, not just evolutionary predispositions. In contrast, heterophenomenology, while useful in treating subjective reports as interpretable data, ultimately remains more interpretative and third-person oriented, which can risk reducing the immediacy of first-person experience to behavioral or biological explanations. This is why I align more closely with Varela's approach, as it directly integrates disciplined first-person methods to preserve the richness of lived reality without such reduction.

This emphasis on lived experience and responsibility seems to be increasingly recognised by recent advancements in clinical diagnostic frameworks, which highlights the moral and spiritual dimensions of human suffering. The DSM-5-TR has now formally recognised moral injury under the Z codes (categories used to capture social and contextual issues that profoundly shape a person’s mental health but are not considered disorders), categorising it within the expanded “Moral, Religious, or Spiritual Problem” (Z65.8), which encompasses moral dilemmas and moral distress as part of its broader focus on moral problems. Importantly, this is an acknowledgment that moral trauma, arising from contexts such as war, decisions a person makes that are later regretted, betrayals, or other violations of deeply held values, profoundly affects a person’s mental health.  This means that clinicians now have language to describe these wounds without pathologising them as disorders - though critics argue that its inclusion within the broader DSM-5-TR framework, could still inadvertently medicalise normal moral and existential responses by framing them through a clinical lens. Nevertheless, as a non-diagnostic Z code, this recognition affirms clients' moral struggles as legitimate and worthy of focused therapeutic attention, encourages systems and institutions to become more accountable for the moral harms they inflict and highlights the relevance of therapies that focus on helping clients align their behaviours to their values and moral compass.

From an evolutionary psychology perspective, focusing on values and morals is consistent with Anthony Stevens’ account of archetypes as evolved predispositions that orient us toward survival, but also toward meaning, order, and transcendence (Stevens, 1982). Archetypes can be seen as deep templates of human experience - innate potentials that guide behaviour in recurring patterns across cultures. In therapy, when clients connect with values such as courage, forgiveness, or compassion, they are not just making arbitrary choices: they are activating archetypal patterns that evolution has inscribed in the psyche, but which only come alive when consciously embodied. This evolutionary–archetypal lens provides a bridge between biological predisposition and lived experience, highlighting why virtues feel both natural and sacred -  much like how moral injury underscores the sacredness of our internal moral frameworks, which, when violated, disrupt this archetypal harmony and demand integrative healing.

Evolutionary theory can therefore explain why certain behaviours emerge, but it is inadequate for describing experiences such as the felt sense of awe, love, or transcendence that people consistently describe as transformative. A commonly used analogy is that relying on materialist science alone to account for meaning is akin to a blind person attempting to understand sight: information is not the same as experience. This is also the essence of what philosophers call the “hard problem of consciousness,” as I discussed in my previous blog.

What matters most in human life is precisely the sense of connection with experience - an openness, an acceptance - that exists on a continuum. At one pole, virtues and values such as love, compassion, forgiveness, honesty, and justice act as positive (+) vectors, driving us toward connection, meaning, and flourishing. Justice here is not retribution but the archetypal capacity to discern fairly, to integrate the shadow by acknowledging responsibility, and to establish the right relationships. At the other pole, “antivalues” such as hate, cruelty, resentment, deceit, and injustice act as negative (−) vectors, pulling us toward disconnection, projection, meaninglessness, and suffering.

The philosopher and computer scientist Bernardo Kastrup (2019) argues that materialism reduces reality to measurable quantities (e.g., mass, charge, momentum), while relegating qualities such as colour, melody, or love to the status of “illusions” generated by the brain. This is not only counterintuitive but also circular: it treats the very fabric of our experience as epiphenomenal, a mere by-product of neural activity, while simultaneously relying on that same experience to justify its claims. As Kastrup observes, materialism “explains away” the world of lived meaning rather than explaining it.

If consciousness were simply the outcome of an algorithm, the obvious question arises: why do we have conscious experience at all, when in principle we could perform the same functions without it? This is the force of the philosophical “zombie” problem.

In my previous blog, I argued that values are better understood as spiritual elements of growth rather than as mere adaptive heuristics. Research on therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Compassion-Focused Therapy, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) demonstrates that healing occurs when individuals orient themselves toward compassion, courage, forgiveness, and love (Hayes et al., 2012; Schwartz, 2013; Gilbert, 2010).

These clinical insights point toward a deeper archetypal structure. They suggest that values and their opposites can be organised along a common thread of connection and disconnection. The more connected we feel, the more gratitude, love, and awe become possible; the more disconnected we are, the more likely we are to experience resentment, rejection, or hate. Traditions across the world have intuited this structure, whether expressed through sacred texts, archetypes, or symbolic cosmologies.

This insight was also crucial in my own spiritual growth, as my worldview shifted away from strict materialism toward perspectives more aligned with idealism and panpsychism. Philosophers such as Chalmers (1996) argue that consciousness cannot be reduced to brain states but must be treated as a fundamental feature of reality. Bohm (1980) described an “implicate order” in which matter and mind are enfolded aspects of a deeper unity. Such views open the door to understanding spirituality not as superstition, but as the recognition of potentially higher principles that inform both existence and experience.

To speak of values as spiritual is therefore not to lapse into unscientific mysticism. It is to recognise that meaning and sacredness are intrinsic to human flourishing. The World Health Organization has acknowledged spirituality as central to well-being since 1984. Moreover, evolutionary models themselves already point in this direction: if present-focused strategies emerge in threatening contexts, then recovery requires not only safety but also a shift toward future-oriented values such as trust, patience, and responsibility. In this way, spirituality is less an optional belief system than a condition for reorienting life away from survival alone and towards flourishing.

Archetypes, the Shadow, and Collective Life

Jung (1959) emphasised that archetypes are not only patterns of potentiality but also carry their opposites - light and shadow, creation and destruction, love and domination. The shadow represents those aspects of the self and society that are disowned, denied, or projected onto others. Individually, this can manifest as defensive hostility, self-sabotage, or addictions; collectively, it often emerges as scapegoating, political polarisation, or the demonisation of an “other.”

From this perspective, virtues such as compassion or courage are never simply given: they are cultivated through an ongoing dialogue with their shadow counterparts. Forgiveness only matters in the face of resentment; courage emerges in relation to fear; honesty gains significance precisely where there is temptation toward deceit. Archetypal polarities thus structure both psychological development and the moral fabric of societies.

The psychologist Anthony Stevens (1982), whose evolutionary framing I introduced earlier, describes archetypes as “biological regulators” of human behaviour. In this sense, the shadow is not “pathological” in itself, but a natural counterpart of growth. Without acknowledging its existence, individuals and societies risk being overwhelmed by the very forces they repress. History is full of examples where the denial of collective shadow - greed, cruelty, tribalism - has led to mass violence or oppression.

In recent years, this has become increasingly visible in political discourse. Polarisation thrives on shadow projection: each side attributing all malice, ignorance, or corruption to its opponents, while denying the possibility of such tendencies within itself. The rejoicing at the death of political opponents - something I have personally been appalled to witness, for example in reactions from some on the left after the death of Charlie Kirk - exemplifies this dynamic. What struck me in those responses was not a commitment to justice or fairness, but a raw delight in destruction, an inversion of compassion into cruelty. The paradox is that such reactions are often justified in the name of love, equality, or liberation, but in tone and resonance they align with hate.

This is why I believe that archetypes provide a heuristic: we can ask of any political movement, not only what its stated ideals are, but what resonance it evokes. Does it incline us toward love, gratitude, compassion, or responsibility? Or does it feed resentment, hatred, and the desire to humiliate? When framed this way, archetypes are not abstract symbols but experiential guides, allowing us to sense whether a movement, ideology, or leader is oriented toward integration and growth or toward disintegration and decay.

Just as individuals must confront their shadow and orient themselves toward values, so too do societies reveal their trajectory through the archetypal tone of their collective movements. At the individual level, this is where mentalisation and values-based action provide a path of transcendence. In therapy, for instance, a client overwhelmed by anger toward a parent may initially feel trapped in bitterness. Yet by mentalising - recognising their own feelings while also considering the parent’s inner world - the client can step into a higher level of intentionality (see my previous blogs on Spirituality, Polarisation and Mentalisation). From that perspective, they can reframe the narrative: “I was harmed, but I can choose to grow, to love, and even to recognise the suffering in the other, so that I do not perpetuate harm.” This shift does not erase the wound, but it integrates the shadow by transforming pain into responsibility and value-driven action. In terms I have used in previous writing, this is the move from a present-focused strategy of survival to a future-oriented strategy of flourishing, and even into higher perspectives such as the “witness” position - the capacity to observe one’s inner conflicts with compassion, without fusing with them. Such movement into higher levels of intentionality is how individuals transcend the dualities of blame and victimhood and reorient toward growth.

This dynamic unfolds collectively in societies like Venezuela, where resentment against inequality, fueled by real injustices, was amplified into an archetypal narrative of the oppressed versus the oppressor. This shadow story was co-opted by Chavismo, transforming legitimate grievances into a politics of hatred. Rather than integrating its wounds to foster justice and cohesion, the society projected them onto an external enemy, spiraling into fragmentation and decay. South Africa offers another example: deep grievances over historical injustices and ongoing inequality have sometimes been channeled into divisive narratives, such as racialised rhetoric or contentious land reform debates. These risk unraveling the delicate work of reconciliation. In both cases, the archetypal drive for justice and reparation risks being co-opted by the shadow, transforming the pursuit of healing into cycles of blame.

Archetypically, resentment finds fertile ground on the left, where identity aligns with the oppressed, fueling a noble pursuit of compassion and justice. Yet, when the shadow dominates, injury can become central to identity, twisting the impulse toward justice into vengeance. On the right, resentment arises archetypically from feeling dismissed or unappreciated, particularly when sacred structures of order, responsibility, and sacrifice are rejected. Here, the protective father archetype can slide into authoritarianism. Fascism exemplifies the collision of these distorted archetypes: rooted in socialist ideals but fused with nationalism, it channels resentment into authoritarian persecution. The term “fascism” is often misused by the left to label the right’s authoritarian shadow, overshadowing the authoritative father archetype, which embodies justice, boundaries, and the individual’s best interests. Likewise, the right may misuse labels like “socialist” or “woke” to caricature the left’s compassionate aims often stemming from genuine fears of societal structures falling apart. Archetypically, when resentment - whether from a victim’s stance or a protector’s - projects its shadow outward, it risks fueling domination and division across all sides.

History offers many examples where resentment-fueled ideologies - from revolutionary movements to sectarian nationalisms - weaponised archetypal energies while ignoring the shadow. For instance, the severe reparations imposed on Germany after World War I, through the Treaty of Versailles, are widely seen as a key factor contributing to economic devastation, hyperinflation, and deep national resentment, which helped fuel the rise of Nazism and ultimately led to World War II. This illustrates how justice misconstrued as punitive vengeance can sow the seeds of further conflict. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict provides another vivid example: each side often perceives itself as the oppressed victim, justified in retaliation, while projecting the persecutor role onto the other. The result has been enduring cycles of mistrust, violence, and fragmentation - the embodiment of justice perverted into vengeance. By contrast, some societies have pursued paths toward integration through mechanisms like Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs), which have been implemented in various forms around the world. South Africa’s TRC, though imperfect and facing ongoing criticisms for prioritising reconciliation over full justice or reparations, exemplified an effort to acknowledge suffering, promote truth-telling, and foster forgiveness in the wake of apartheid. Similar initiatives, such as Rwanda’s post-genocide commissions and Canada’s TRC addressing harms to Indigenous peoples, have aimed to integrate societal wounds by resisting vengeance and emphasising healing. These examples suggest that societies are more likely to move toward integration and flourishing when they cultivate values like gratitude, responsibility, forgiveness, and justice - values aligned with the upward spiral of connection. Justice here is essential, not as vengeance but as a fair reckoning of responsibilities: the capacity to integrate the shadow rather than disavow it or project it onto others. When justice is confused with vengeance, or when compassion becomes the devouring mother, or protection the authoritarian father, archetypal values are perverted into their shadows. This is the dynamic I described in my earlier blog on political polarisation: when the shadow archetypes dominate, both individuals and societies become trapped in cycles of blame and injury rather than moving toward integration and growth.

Tragically, this dynamic played out in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, who was fatally shot by an individual motivated by opposition to his views, including his outspoken critiques of transgender rights. The killing sparked expressions of hatred and even celebration in some online circles on the political left, which appalled me and highlighted how quickly resentment can erupt on any side. Yet, reading Kirk's words, I was struck by his emphasis on Christianity, love, community, and loyalty to his country - values that resonate with archetypal principles of responsibility and protection. On transgender topics, he drew from his religious convictions to reject certain ideologies while affirming the humanity of individuals. Though his positions were deeply controversial and seen by many as harmful, they were rooted in upholding family as a sacred institution. Ultimately, Kirk was killed for expressing his beliefs around family, community, responsibility, and loyalty, grounded in his faith-a stark reminder of how dialogue can turn deadly when resentment prevails. When such values are misrepresented as mere hatred or fascism, we risk alienating sources of societal cohesion. This allows resentment to fill the void on all sides, trapping us in cycles of blame rather than paths to mutual understanding. Kirk, despite his polemical views, he often invited debate and dialogue, opening the possibility for integrating opposing positions (and if not in him, in those who listened to the debates). 

Jordan Peterson (2018) has argued that one of the great dangers of our age is a loss of gratitude for the fragile order that sustains modern civilisation. Peace, prosperity, and freedom are not the natural state of human history but the product of centuries of sacrifice, discipline, and responsibility. When gratitude is abandoned, societies risk descending into what Peterson describes as “decay, immorality, and chaos.” This view is echoed in evolutionary accounts of social cohesion: Dunbar (1996) highlights the fragile cognitive and emotional scaffolding that enables trust in large-scale societies, while Ridley (2010) emphasises the role of reciprocal cooperation and shared norms in building civilisation.

The Archetypal Axis of Connection and Disconnection

This symbolic structure aligns with the model being presented here: human life unfolds along an axis of connection and disconnection, integration and fragmentation. Spiritual traditions across cultures point to the possibility of moving higher. Gratitude, awe, forgiveness, justice, and love belong to the upward movement toward integration and transcendence. Resentment, contempt, indulgence, cowardice, and impunity belong to the downward movement toward fragmentation and chaos. The task for both individuals and societies is to recognise that these poles exist within us all, and that growth requires orienting ourselves toward the higher path.

Love and compassion (its expression when it encounters suffering), with acceptance as their precursor, are key catalysts for the upward movement in the spiral model, forming a continuum with control and domination as its shadow. Their integrative power is supported by neuroscience, which suggests that compassion training may activate regions like the medial prefrontal cortex, enhancing empathy and emotional regulation (Singer & Klimecki, 2014). As expressions of love, they provide the substrate for integration, enabling a third-person perspective that steps outside the grip of self-condemnation or blame, holding our own and others’ suffering with openness. Without compassion, shame traps us in cycles of dissociation or denial. With compassion, shame can be transformed into responsibility and corrective action, moving us toward growth rather than paralysis.

Catholicism illustrates this tension well. Within Catholic tradition, release from shame is explicitly offered through God’s forgiveness and the compassion of the Virgin Mary. Yet for many - myself included, in childhood - the experience felt dependent on external mediation through confession, penitence, or ritual participation, which could be experienced as oppressive and shaming. These practices could bring relief, but they did not always provide the inner tools of curiosity, acceptance, and integration. By contrast, therapy and mindfulness practices (originating in Eastern traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism) can help break this cycle: by cultivating compassion for the self, shame can be transformed into acceptance leading to responsibility rather than self-condemnation, enabling genuine transformation. This works in part because shame and guilt, though often confused, are fundamentally different (see my previous blog on shame and guilt ). Shame says “I am bad,” trapping people in global self-condemnation and cycles of avoidance or withdrawal. Guilt says “I did something bad,” which can motivate reparation and corrective action. Therapy provides a path for reworking shame into adaptive guilt: self-compassion creates the conditions for curiosity and acceptance, allowing individuals to grieve, take responsibility, and act in line with values rather than remaining frozen in shame.

The polarities are many: love versus domination, gratitude versus ingratitude, justice versus vengeance, courage versus fear, restraint versus indulgence, and self-compassion versus self-pity. Each represents a crossroads where we either integrate the shadow responsibly or project it outward, perpetuating cycles of injury. They also spiral upwards towards union and integration or division and disintegration. Forgiveness, whether of ourselves or others, releases us from projection and opens the way for compassion to do its integrative work, rooted in love. 

If we map this spiral of connection and disconnection into lived experience, we see that human life is structured around a set of recurring polarities. Each pair reflects the tension between integration and fragmentation - between taking responsibility, truth, and reconciliation on the one hand, or disavowing and projecting the shadow on the other: Human life unfolds along a spiral of connection and disconnection, shaped by core forces -love, courage, and truth - that manifest as archetypal polarities within the Drama and Empowerment Triangles. These polarities, emanating from the triad of Truth, Courage, and Love (expressed as compassion), guide us from victimhood and shame toward integration. They include truth versus denial, courage versus fear, compassion versus shame, justice versus vengeance, responsibility versus irresponsibility, forgiveness versus resentment, recognition versus rejection, and gratitude versus entitlement.

Mapping this spiral into lived experience reveals a sequence of transformation: truth initiates awareness, compassion fosters acceptance, justice restores balance, responsibility builds agency, forgiveness heals wounds, and gratitude deepens connection - echoing the Kabbalistic emanation from a primal triad. These polarities are not abstract but lived intrapsychically (internally), in relationships, and collectively. The Drama Triangle (Karpman, 1968) embodies the downward pull of projection, resentment, or avoidance—fragmentation and disconnection—while the Empowerment Triangle (Emerald, 2005) reconfigures these energies upward into responsibility, compassion, and truth, driving integration and connection. The following examples illustrate these transformations, with further elaboration in the conclusion on their Kabbalistic resonance.

Illustrative Archetypal Polarities in Therapy and Society

Truth / Reality ↔ Distortion/Denial (Lies)

In its shadow form, truth collapses into distortion or denial. The Victim minimises harm, claiming, ‘It wasn’t that bad,’ while the Persecutor projects blame, and the Rescuer colludes to avoid conflict, ‘Let’s not dwell on it.’ In therapy, this manifests as clients evading painful realities, blocking growth. At the societal level, distortion fuels polarisation, as seen in partisan media where each side projects malice onto opponents, deepening division. By contrast, truth in its integrated form embodies compassionate awareness, naming reality clearly, ‘I was hurt, and I can heal.’ In therapy, this enables clients to confront pain, as when a client acknowledges trauma, transforming grief into growth. Collectively, truth manifests in journalistic courage or historical reckonings, like Germany’s confrontation with its Holocaust legacy, fostering accountability and reconciliation. These archetypal polarities are not abstract constructions but are lived out intrapsychicly, in relationships, and in the collective life of societies. The Drama Triangle (Karpman, 1968). manifests as the downward spiral of projection, resentment, or avoidance (fragmentation and disconnection), while the Empowerment Triangle (Emerald, 2005) reconfigures the same energies upward into responsibility, compassion, and truth (integration and connection).

Courage ↔ Fear / Paralysis or Dissociation

In its shadow form, courage collapses into paralysis or dissociation—the instinctive retreat from vulnerability that shields the self but severs agency and presence. Within the Drama Triangle, the Victim freezes in helplessness: “I can’t do anything.” The Persecutor tightens control: “If I stop, everything will fall apart,” mistaking rigidity for safety. The Rescuer dissociates—either by over-functioning to avoid fear or collapsing into numbness when effort fails. These patterns manifest as emotional detachment, fatigue, or a sense of unreality that conceals unprocessed fear. Collectively, this shadow takes form as apathy, compliance, or moral disengagement in the face of threat.

In its integrated form, courage restores embodied presence—the willingness to stay in contact with fear and act in alignment with values. In therapy, this means tolerating fear and distress without flight or collapse. Societally, courage appears as moral bravery and collective resilience—the capacity to meet uncertainty without retreat, acting for life even when outcomes are unknown.

Compassion ↔ Shame/Self-Pity

In its shadow form, compassion collapses into shame, which manifests as self-pity, dismissiveness, or over-helping within the Drama Triangle. The Victim role, steeped in shame, becomes trapped in helplessness, demanding rescue with ‘Nothing works for me.’ The Persecutor role, driven by shame, can turn inward, intensifying self-condemnation with harsh self-judgments like “It’s all my fault” or “I am a bad person,” reinforcing a global sense of unworthiness that paralyses growth. Alternatively, this same Persecutor can harden and project outward, dismissing others’ pain with sentiments like “At least they don’t have it as bad as me,” turning shame into dismissiveness. The Rescuer, meanwhile, overreaches in an attempt to alleviate shame through excessive care, disempowering others by enabling avoidance. In therapy, this manifests as clients dismissing coping strategies, clinging to suffering as identity, or berating themselves as fundamentally flawed. At the societal level, shame fuels grievance cultures where injury defines identity, deepening polarization, as seen in online echo chambers amplifying victimhood narratives. By contrast, compassion in its integrated form acknowledges suffering while mobilising care and action, fostering connection. In therapy, clients learn to self-soothe, holding pain as valid and workable, ‘I hurt, and I can grow,’ as when a client grieving loss uses mindfulness to embrace both sorrow and courage. Collectively, compassion emerges in trauma-informed education movements or community healing initiatives, like those supporting refugees, which validate wounds without entrenching shame, promoting empowerment and mutual care.

Justice ↔ Vengeance

In its shadow form, justice collapses into vengeance. The Persecutor role cloaks punitive anger as fairness, seeking to harm rather than restore, ‘They must pay.’ In therapy, clients fixated on ‘making them pay’ for past abuse remain tethered to perpetrators, perpetuating cycles of harm. At the societal level, vengeance drives conflicts like the Treaty of Versailles, whose punitive reparations sowed resentment, fuelling Nazism’s rise. By contrast, justice in its integrated form discerns fairly, restoring balance through accountability. In therapy, clients re-author their narrative, ‘I was harmed, but I choose not to harm,’ embracing restorative healing, as when a survivor of abuse channels pain into advocacy. Collectively, justice manifests in Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, which, though imperfect, seek acknowledgment and repair over retaliation, fostering societal cohesion.

Responsibility ↔ Irresponsibility (or Over-Responsibility)

In its shadow form, responsibility collapses into irresponsibility or over-responsibility. The Victim disowns agency, claiming, ‘Nothing I do matters,’ while the Rescuer overreaches, insisting, ‘Only I can fix others,’ both fostering disempowerment. In therapy, this appears as clients avoiding accountability or taking on others’ burdens, stalling growth. At the societal level, irresponsibility manifests in ecological neglect, passing costs to future generations, while over-responsibility appears in paternalistic policies that undermine autonomy. By contrast, responsibility in its integrated form, embodied by the Creator or Coach, affirms, ‘I can respond.’ In therapy, clients shift from ‘I can’t help it’ to ‘I can choose my next step,’ as when a client takes ownership of recovery goals. Collectively, responsibility emerges in ecological movements or social initiatives that promote stewardship and mutual care, fostering sustainable connection.

Forgiveness ↔ Resentment

In its shadow form, forgiveness collapses into resentment. The Victim fixates on injury, ‘They don’t deserve forgiveness,’ while the Persecutor seeks retribution, and the Rescuer perpetuates blame by enabling avoidance, ‘Let’s not stir the pot.’ In therapy, resentment blocks grief, keeping clients bound to wounds. At the societal level, resentment drives sectarian conflicts, as seen in cycles of revenge in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By contrast, forgiveness in its integrated form releases projection, reclaiming agency without excusing harm, ‘I let go to grow.’ In therapy, clients transform shame into adaptive guilt, as when a client forgives a past wrong to embrace healing, opening space for reparation. Collectively, forgiveness emerges in post-genocide reconciliation efforts, like Rwanda’s fragile initiatives, which prioritise rebuilding trust over vengeance, fostering an upward spiral of connection.

Recognition ↔ Self-Rejection (Validation Dependence/Perfectionism)

In its shadow form, recognition collapses into rejection, which can manifest in two directions: rejection of the self, where worth depends entirely on others’ approval, or rejection of the other, where dignity and humanity are denied. The Victim becomes trapped in validation dependence: “Unless I am seen and affirmed, I have no worth.” The Persecutor projects rejection outward: “You don’t matter; you are invisible,” erasing others’ dignity, or inward "I don't matter, I have to try harder to be worty". The Rescuer seeks recognition through over-giving, expecting loyalty or gratitude in return, leaving both parties disempowered. In therapy, this often emerges as rejection sensitivity, where even minor slights are experienced as overwhelming threats to self-worth. Collectively, rejection appears as systemic erasure, tokenism, or marginalisation, where recognition is reduced to conditional approval or denied altogether.

By contrast, recognition in its integrated form is grounded in dignity, integrity, and alignment with values. It is not earned through external validation or achievement, but arises from self-respect and mutual respect. At the intrapsychic level, recognition means saying to oneself: “I am doing my best; even in my shortcomings, I remain worthy.” At the relational level, it acknowledges others likewise: “You too are striving, imperfectly but sincerely, and I honour that.” At the societal level, recognition fosters cultures of mutual respect that affirm the intrinsic dignity of persons and communities. Within the Empowerment Triangle, the Creator enacts recognition through self-respect, the Challenger safeguards it by naming distortions that undermine dignity, and the Coach nurtures it by witnessing growth without collapsing into rescuing. In this way, recognition integrates the paradox of separateness and oneness: we are each distinct, yet bound in a shared humanity. Positioned after gratitude, recognition represents the final stabilising force of the spiral, where values transcend ego-performance and become a mutual affirmation of dignity in both self and other.

Gratitude ↔ Entitlement

In its shadow form, gratitude collapses into entitlement or indifference. The Victim demands, “Life owes me - others should provide,” grasping for fairness yet rejecting humility when expectations go unmet. The Persecutor withholds appreciation, maintaining control through criticism or superiority. The Rescuer over-gives, expecting gratitude or loyalty in return, and when it is not forthcoming, collapses into resentment or withdrawal. In therapy, entitlement appears as chronic bitterness - every difficulty framed as unjust, every intervention as inadequate - foreclosing growth. Collectively, entitlement manifests as grievance and consumer excess, where perpetual dissatisfaction replaces reverence and stewardship.

In its integrated form, gratitude dissolves entitlement through reverence. It recognises what is given - by life, by others, by the past - and responds not with demand but with care. Gratitude moves beyond recognition’s stabilising dignity toward surrender and belonging: it softens the ego’s striving and opens awareness to sufficiency. In therapy, it allows clients to hold pain and progress together: “I still struggle, and I am thankful for what supports me.” Collectively, gratitude emerges in cultures of appreciation and reciprocity - ecological movements that honour the earth’s generosity, or social communities that celebrate interdependence.

Love/Oneness ↔ Separateness

In its shadow form, oneness collapses into separateness - the breakdown where "there is not an us anymore." The Victim experiences isolation and abandonment, certain that no one truly understands or cares, reinforcing disconnection through withdrawal or desperate clinging. The Persecutor maintains separateness through objectification - treating others as obstacles or instruments rather than subjects, creating hierarchical distance that protects against genuine encounter. The Rescuer prevents true communion by keeping others perpetually dependent, maintaining helper/helped separation that blocks mutuality. In therapy, separateness appears as chronic loneliness despite relationships, an inability to be truly met. Collectively, separateness manifests as tribalism, dehumanisation, and systemic oppression, where superiority and inferiority maintain rigid boundaries that prevent recognition of our shared humanity.

In its integrated form, oneness dissolves separateness through genuine I-Thou relating. It recognises that self and other are ultimately expressions of shared being - not through merger that erases distinction, but through the recognition that "you and I become us (one)." Oneness moves beyond gratitude's reverent participation toward the mystical recognition of non-separation: the ego's contracted sense of isolated self softens into communion. In therapy, it emerges when clients shift from "me versus the world" to experiencing genuine encounter - moments where they feel truly seen and truly see another, where defenses dissolve into presence. Collectively, oneness appears in movements of solidarity and in contemplative traditions that recognise our shared wholeness and interdependence.

The illustrations depict how some of these values and their shadows operate within the Drama and Empowerment Triangles, reflecting their generic dynamics across human experience.

You can also interact with this model/diagram to explore the various cognitions and behaviours that the various roles may manifest according to the values and their shadow in relationships, as a society and intrapsychicly in the link below:

https://all-polarities-9-forces.replit.app/

Here is a screenshot of the interactive model diagram:

Conclusion

This spiral model suggests that many of the dynamics we encounter - in therapy, in relationships, within ourselves (as in Internal Family Systems), and in society -are not isolated events but systemic. Values and their shadows do not exist in abstraction; they emerge through interaction, shaping one another in what the existentialists might describe as being through becoming - existence revealed in the choices we embody and the patterns we reinforce moment by moment. These dynamics either manifest as forces of connection and integration, or collapse into shadows that pull us into disconnection and disintegration.

The Drama Triangle (Victim, Persecutor, Rescuer) illustrates a survival-based loop of projection: a closed, downward spiral in which the shadow is continually displaced onto others or disowned parts of the self. The Empowerment Triangle (Creator, Challenger, Coach), by contrast, reconfigures the same core energies toward flourishing - integrating responsibility, agency, and compassion. The shift from one triangle to the other is not achieved by merely adopting a “better” role within the system, but by stepping into a higher-order stance: awareness, compassion, courage, and truth. This pivot breaks the closed circuit of projection, reorients the spiral upward, and opens space for intentional choice - what neuroscience suggests may involve prefrontal activation overriding survival-driven reactivity (Singer & Klimecki, 2014). In this sense, the triangles enact a shift in levels of intentionality -from survival-driven strategies to values-oriented flourishing - a move that involves sacrificing the present sense of safety over investian uncertain future (see my blog, Change and (Spiritual) Growth: Understanding Consciousness, Values, and Spirituality in Psychotherapy).

Within these dynamics, three archetypal forces can be discerned: truth, courage, and love. Each corresponds to a role within the Empowerment Triangle - Challenger, Creator, and Coach - and each finds its distortion in its Drama Triangle counterpart - Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer. These are not abstract ideals but directional energies: truth reveals, courage acts, and love integrates. These are also represented by 1 st, 2nd and 3rd levels of intentionality or 1-3 person perspectives (the traditional CBT model's "alternative cognition").

Truth, expressed through the Challenger, constitutes the first force in the triad - it is the ground of reality and the blueprint of creation itself. Its shadow is distortion and denial - the serpent archetype that manipulates what is real. To live truth is to participate in reality. Embodied truth liberates, as the Gospel of John reminds: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The Challenger names what is out of integrity - not to punish, but to awaken. Truth is not abstract information but lived reality. It is one thing to know intellectually that we are made of stardust - that our bodies and minds are collections of intelligences (cells driven by DNA) within an interconnected cosmos. It is another to live this truth - to sense one’s oneness with the universe. This is captured in the African philosophy of Ubuntu: “a person is a person through other persons.” The former is theory; the latter is truth felt fully - what many define as enlightenment. Not that this theory alone takes us to “truth,” but when we embody truth through value-guided action, we give expression to it—we become our true selves. Just as children gain greater freedom through boundaries, adults gain deeper freedom through alignment with values. When distorted, truth becomes a weapon or a justification for harm - the Persecutor’s misuse of integrity as control. But in its essence, the Challenger is truth’s servant: it reveals what is real and clears the path for transformation.

Courage - the second force, expressed through the Creator - moves us through fear into values-based living. Fear, the shadow of courage, when dominant, restricts agency and openness. Fear keeps us safe, but when it overrules our capacity for presence and movement, it traps us in avoidance, blame, or collapse. In the Drama Triangle, this shadow manifests most strongly through the Victim role: paralysed, hopeless, and reactive. The Creator, by contrast, says: “I can respond.” Courage does not eliminate fear - it acts with it. It is the willingness to move forward into uncertainty, even when no guarantee exists. I conceptualise courage as the capacity that enables the leap of faith into values, often through grief, as seen in Buddhist teachings on “right effort” (Dhammapada 8). Courage is what allows love to act, and what gives truth its voice. Without love, courage collapses into aggression; without courage, love remains unexpressed. Together, love/acceptance and courage/faith (potentially engaging amygdala–prefrontal circuitry (LeDoux, 2015)) - lift us upward toward integration. The Creator does not wait for certainty - it acts creatively within uncertainty, forging new paths not because the outcome is guaranteed, but because becoming demands it. Love - the third force, expressed through the Coach - is the current of connection and integration. It begins in acceptance - meeting reality as it is - which opens the way for compassion as it meets pain. Its shadow, rejection, resists reality and fuels projection, introjection, collusion, and resignation. Love is the undercurrent that carries us upward, orienting every virtue toward integration and wholeness. Its absence, or its distortion into rescuing, pulls us downward into fragmentation and disempowerment. Compassion belongs within this vector of love: it is love’s operative form when it meets suffering - the alchemical force that transmutes shame into responsibility, pity into empowerment, and vengeance into justice. When distorted, love collapses into the Rescuer, where over-helping disempowers the other and colludes with avoidance. But true coaching does not rescue - it empowers. It supports without absorbing and witnesses without fixing.

At this point, the first developmental triangle appears - what we can call the “Triangle of Coming to Terms.” Truth, Courage, and Compassion form its foundation: the first person awareness of what is (Truth), the second-person engagement with what can be acted upon (Courage), and the third-person capacity to hold and respond to suffering (Compassion). These are the cornerstones of human consciousness emerging from survival into reflection.

Love is also Compassion when it encounters the truth of suffering - the movement to care, to accompany, to remain present. From these three archetypal forces - Truth, Courage and Love/Compassion - emerge a sequence of five more polarities that mark transformational stages in the spiral of becoming:

Compassion (level 3), together with Truth, gives rise to Justice/Fairness (level 4) - a discerning force that brings accountability while honouring suffering. When Justice is empowered by Courage, it transforms into Responsibility (Level 5) - the active capacity to respond with integrity, to exercise restraint when needed, and to reclaim agency in service of restoring balance. This is justice animated into embodied action, moving from knowing what is right to actually doing it. Finally, when Responsibility is grounded in Love, it opens the possibility for Forgiveness (Level 6) - not premature absolution or spiritual bypassing, but the genuine release that becomes possible only after accountability has been taken and reparations made. This is responsibility softened by love's recognition that we all fail, we all wound, and we all deserve the possibility of redemption. Together, upper these three levels -Justice, Responsibility, and Forgiveness - form the triangle of Accountable Relationship, teaching us how to be in right relationship with ourselves, others, and the moral order itself.

Recognition (Level 7) arises next - where Truth becomes self-reflective. In its integrated form, recognition stabilises dignity: “Worth is not earned but remembered - I am worthy, and so are you.” It honours separateness and oneness alike, safeguarding values from collapsing into egoic performance or moral display.

Yet, this upward spiral still can be subtly distorted when values are co-opted by the ego. We see this when values become badges of identity or tools of self-promotion - when “being the compassionate one” or “being the just one” becomes more important than simply embodying compassion or justice. Ego uses values to defend itself. Here, the archetypal force of Truth manifests as Recognition, playing a paradoxical role. In its distorted form, recognition collapses into validation dependence - “I am only worthy if I am seen” - or into moral superiority - “I am more virtuous than you.” 

The Pharisees in the Gospels embody this distortion: outwardly pious yet quick to condemn. Here the ego recognises another only through their faults, forgetting its own flaws, as the proverb warns about noticing the speck in another’s eye while ignoring the log in one’s own (Matthew 7:3–5).” In its integrated form, however, recognition arises from dignity, integrity, and alignment with values. Where the ego seeks recognition as possession, the Self allows recognition as presence - a mutual acknowledgment of being, one’s own and another’s. The therapeutic and spiritual task is therefore not to perfect the ego but to loosen it - to pass through the grief that softens our clinging to identity and defences. Grief clears the ground for values to arise as living orientations rather than as performances that make us feel good about ourselves.

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), this is described as the move from egoic performance to values-based action: not clinging to “I am the one who loves,” but allowing love to move through us in acts of care. When embodied in this way, values become pathways rather than possessions. This requires surrender - a kind of kenosis or self-emptying in which the ego loosens its grip on value as identity and instead becomes a vessel through which value flows. Values, when expressed in this way, transmute suffering into meaning.

Thus, the spiral triad is more like a fractal where other values emanate from as they interact with the human drama. 

Through love, truth, and courage - the primal triad from which compassion, justice, responsibility, forgiveness, recognition and gratitude emerge - we are called beyond survival into flourishing. In the personal, relational, collective domains, these forces orient us toward integration. To embody them is not to grasp at being “good,” but to allow love, truth, and courage to become living movements through us, carrying us from fragmentation into wholeness, from projection into presence, from shadow into light.

From the accountable relationship established in the second triangle emerges the final triad of Self-Realisation. When Recognition (Level 7) - the dignity of knowing one's worth beyond performance - meets Forgiveness (Level 6) - the release of resentment after accountability - they give birth to Gratitude (Level 8), which transcends both the need for recognition and the weight of past wounds. Gratitude is the in-breath of ecstasy, the moment when the heart opens to receive the gift of existence itself. It recognises our fundamental interdependence, dissolving the ego's grasping into reverent participation with the whole. Where Recognition stabilises the self in dignity and Forgiveness releases it from the burden of resentment, Gratitude transforms consciousness from self-focused awareness into communion - the place where humility and awe meet, where 'I am' softens into 'we are,' and where individual and collective coherence emerges. From this state of grateful reception naturally flows Love/Oneness (Level 9) - the out-breath that follows Gratitude's in-breath. If Gratitude is receiving the gift of existence, Love/Oneness is the overflow of that gift back into the world, the inevitable giving that arises from a full heart. This is not abstract universal love but the lived recognition of non-separation - the experiential knowing that self and other are waves in the same ocean, distinct but not separate. Thus completes the three developmental triangles: Coming to Terms (Truth → Courage → Compassion), Accountable Relationship (Justice → Responsibility → Forgiveness), and now Self-Realisation (Recognition → Gratitude → Love/Oneness) - each triangle emerging from the interplay of the archetypal forces, each building upon the last, spiraling upward toward the ultimate return to wholeness.

This is a sequential and relational unfolding - a spiral path from fragmentation to wholeness, from injury to repair. The Kabbalistic image of emanation from a primal triad offers a powerful analogy: as love, truth, and courage flow into the world, they give rise to lived expressions of balance, justice, responsibility, healing, and connection.

Transcending even these nine developmental levels sits Pure Awareness (Level 10) — the witnessing presence that can see, notice, and contain all the levels below. This is not another developmental achievement but the witness consciousness that observes without identifying. In Kabbalistic tradition, this corresponds to Kether (Crown) — pure existence before differentiation. The witness precedes and contains the Spiral itself: before we develop, before we integrate, before we become — we are. Phenomenologically, this dimension parallels what Depraz, Varela, and Vermersch (2003) describe as the autopoietic or self-organising nature of awareness — a recursive movement through which consciousness turns back upon itself, generating the capacity to be aware of being aware. In this sense, Pure Awareness is both the ever-present field that holds the Spiral and the emergent property of its recursive integration.

Archetypal Polarities as levels of intentionality

Through this exercise we could see how values arise when the archetypal forces meet reality with awareness, presence, and integration through the dynamics of the empowerment triangles. The Challenger embodies truth, confronting distortion and restoring balance through justice. The Coach channels love through compassion, forgiveness and wisdom. The Creator embodies courage, taking responsibility and initiating movement from fear into agency. On the shadow side, the Persecutor distorts truth into blame, the Rescuer twists love into control, and the Victim collapses courage into helplessness. Thus, the triangles mirror the archetypal forces at play - their upward or downward pull determined by whether values are integrated or shadowed (projected or introjected).

In its fullest expression, the spiral can be seen as a journey through ten levels of intentionality - nine developmental levels witnessed by a tenth: Pure Awareness itself. Each level reflects a deepening capacity to know, act, and connect. This mirrors Robin Dunbar's (2004) research on recursive intentionality - our uniquely human ability to think about what others think, to imagine perspectives beyond our own: I think, I know that you think, I understand that you know that I know. While most humans operate comfortably at four levels of intentionality, and even Shakespeare's most complex characters rarely exceed five or six levels, this spiral model suggests we can reach higher levels of awareness through conscious cultivation of values and witnessing presence.

At every level, the spiral invites both integration and shadow: we may project or introject, disconnect or reconnect. Yet through awareness and values-based action, these levels unfold as a movement from reactivity to reflection, from defence to dialogue, from egoic striving to participatory wholeness. The spiral, then, is not only a psychology of transformation but can be a map of the evolving consciousness of humanity itself.

Crucially, this model is not linear but circular. Beginning with Truth (Level 1) as the first emanation of creation - the initial differentiation from undifferentiated awareness - the journey ascends through increasing complexity and integration until it culminates in Love/Oneness (Level 9), the return to unity. Yet this return is not regression but a conscious reunion: we begin in unconscious unity, differentiate through the developmental journey, and return to oneness with full awareness of the path traveled. The tenth level, Pure Awareness, is both the source from which the spiral emerges and the witnessing presence that contains it - the alpha and omega, always already present yet revealed through the journey itself. This circular movement mirrors ancient wisdom traditions: the Kabbalistic teaching of emanation and return (ratzo v'shov), the Hindu concept of manifestation and dissolution, the Christian mystical journey from God through creation back to God. Each cycle through the spiral deepens integration - we may revisit Truth, Courage, or Love/Compassion but each return brings greater depth, wider embrace, and more conscious embodiment. The spiral thus moves both upward (developmental progress) and inward (return to source), creating a three-dimensional helix rather than a flat circle.

Even from a strictly materialist perspective, where phenomenological experience might be dismissed as epiphenomenal illusion, we cannot deny the immediacy of our perception of this geometric order. The spiral of values, the archetypal patterns, the movement between integration and fragmentation - these are not merely theoretical constructs but lived realities that shape every moment of human experience. Whether we consider consciousness as fundamental (as in idealist or panpsychist frameworks) or as emergent from material processes (as in materialist accounts), there remains an undeniable space of awareness where these experiences unfold - a phenomenological field where meaning arises, values orient action, and transformation occurs.

This geometric order of experience - the spiral pattern moving through truth, courage, and love - appears with such consistency across cultures, therapeutic modalities, and wisdom traditions that it suggests something deeper than arbitrary social construction. Even if we were to accept the materialist claim that consciousness is 'merely' what the brain does, we must still account for why this particular geometric architecture of values and shadows emerges so reliably, why it feels so meaningful, and why aligning with these patterns correlates so strongly with human flourishing. The map may not be the territory, but when the map consistently guides us toward wholeness, integration, and wellbeing, its pragmatic truth becomes undeniable. In this sense, the spiral model stands on its phenomenological validity: it accurately describes the terrain of lived experience, regardless of our metaphysical commitments about the ultimate nature of that experience.

On a personal note, there is something important about how this geometric model presented itself through perception rather than feeling that it was constructed by cognition. The experience of these patterns revealing themselves—as if discovered rather than invented - speaks to a phenomenological truth that transcends the materialism -idealism debate. Many who work deeply with psychological or spiritual frameworks report similar experiences: the sense that they are uncovering something already present rather than creating something new. Jung described this when discussing the collective unconscious; mathematicians speak of 'discovering' rather than inventing mathematical truths; artists describe being channels for their work rather than its sole creators.

Whether we interpret this phenomenologically (as participation in archetypal patterns that structure human experience), neurologically (as the brain recognising deep patterns encoded through evolution), or spiritually (as connection to dimensions of reality beyond individual consciousness), the quality of the experience itself carries information. When a model arrives with the phenomenological signature of recognition rather than construction - when it feels discovered rather than made - it suggests we may be touching something fundamental about how consciousness is organised. This doesn't require metaphysical commitments about external revelation; rather, it points to the possibility that consciousness itself has an inherent geometry, an architecture of meaning that we can perceive when we develop sufficient sensitivity to our inner experience. The fact that similar patterns emerge across cultures, across therapeutic modalities, and across wisdom traditions reinforces this sense of discovery - as if we are all mapping the same territory of human consciousness from different vantage points.

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The meditations below that take us through how various values can manifest or give expression as their shadow in 1. situations of loss and trauma, 2. Conflict in relationships and 3. Conflict in society.

🌙 Meditation on Encountering Adversity

Eight polarities; each with Drama pulls and Empowerment pivots)

1. Grounding

Settle into your body, feeling the earth beneath you like a steady friend.

Breathe in deeply… breathe out gently, letting each exhale soften your shoulders.

Bring to mind an adversity you can safely hold today—a loss, betrayal, or painful event—noticing where it lingers in your body, perhaps as a tightness or a quiet ache.

A. Truth ↔ Denial

(Shame hides; truth spoken with care transforms guilt into growth.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A fragile part minimises: “It wasn’t that bad. I should be over it,” burying the wound in shame.

• (P) A defensive part twists facts: “If I hadn’t been weak, this wouldn’t have happened,” turning shame inward to punish an exiled part.

• (R) A rescuing part either lies: "I'll pretend everything is perfect to keep others comfortable," or waits for others to acknowledge how bad it was: "Someone else should talk about this; I'll wait for them to say it."

• 
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A brave part whispers: “This happened. It hurt. I will not deny my truth,” initiating awareness with courage.

• (Ch) A clear part speaks openly: “I lost something precious. That is real,” claiming authenticity with love.

• (Co) A compassionate part finds a safe space - a journal, a trusted friend, a therapist -where truth can be voiced without shame, fostering connection.

B. Courage ↔ Fear

(Fear freezes us in the past; courage moves us forward into the unknown.)

Drama pulls

(V) A paralyzed part whispers: "I can't face this. It's too much. I'll just stay frozen here," collapsing into helplessness.

(P) A panicked part attacks other parts: "You're too weak to handle this. You'll never get through it," weaponizing fear.

(R) A protective part over-functions: "I'll keep all the other parts safe by controlling everything, never resting," exhausting itself with hypervigilance.

Empowerment pivots

(C) A resilient part takes one small step: "I can't see the whole path, but I can take this one breath, this one action," choosing movement with courage.

(Ch) A realistic part acknowledges: "This is hard, and I am capable of facing hard things," confronting fear with truth.

(Co) A supporting part reassures frightened parts: "I'm here with you. You don't have to do this alone," offering steady presence with love.

C. Compassion ↔ Shame

(If you notice shame -“I am bad, defective” -meet it with compassion. If guilt arises -“I did harm” -let it guide repair, not self-attack.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A weary part whispers, “Why me? Nothing ever works for me… I collapse into self-pity,” as shame murmurs, “I am bad.”

• (P) An angry part hardens, dismissing others’ pain: “At least they don’t have it as bad as me,” turning shame into dismissiveness.

• (R) A protective part pleads, “Someone else has to rescue me. Until they do, I’ll stay helpless,” over-helping to avoid shame.

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A gentle part places a hand on your heart, saying: “This pain is real, and I can care for it one step at a time,” easing shame with love.

• (Ch) A steady part sets a boundary when shame spirals: “I will not let self-pity drown me in rumination today,” reclaiming dignity with courage.

• (Co) A wise part calls a trusted friend - not to fix, but to sit with you - a steady presence that empowers beyond over-helping with compassion.

  
  

D. Justice ↔ Vengeance

(Vengeance fuses you to the harm; justice restores balance.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A wounded part replays how unfair it was, nursing grievances until you feel poisoned by the past.

• (P) A furious part fantasises: “They should suffer like I did. My anger demands retribution,” fueling rage.

• (R) A cautious part colludes: “Don’t rock the boat; keep the peace. I hide the truth to avoid conflict,” stifling healing. Or waits for others: "Someone else should stand up for justice; I'll wait for them to act."

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A creative part channels energy into what you can repair -writing, advocacy, or caring for yourself - turning pain into purpose with courage.

• (Ch) A firm part sets boundaries: “I was harmed, and I will not accept this again,” restoring balance with truth.

• (Co) A supportive part seeks a safe space for accountability -a support group, therapy, or internal dialogue - where justice emerges with love.

  
  

E. Responsibility ↔ Irresponsibility / Over-Responsibility

(Shame fuels both collapse and over-burden; adaptive guilt invites clear repair.)

Drama pulls

• (V) Over-responsibility (introjection) A burdened part insists, “This loss is my fault; if only I had done more, it wouldn’t have happened,” swallowing shame.

• (P) Over-responsibility (introjection) A controlling part believes, “I should have controlled everything - I must be to blame somehow,” carrying guilt alone.

• (R) Over-responsibility (introjection) A martyr part declares, “It’s all on me to hold everyone else together in this loss,” over-giving to cope.

• (V) Irresponsibility (projection) A numbed part avoids grief: “It’s pointless to try; I’ll just escape with alcohol, scrolling, or work,” pushing pain away.

• (P) Irresponsibility (projection) A blaming part asserts, “It’s all their fault: They failed; I bear no role in this loss,” projecting shame.

• (R) Irresponsibility (projection) A dependent part expects, “Others should know what I need and carry me through it; I won’t ask or act myself,” avoiding effort.

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A hopeful part says: “I cannot change the past, but I can choose my next step - today I’ll take a walk, write, breathe, or ask for support,” reclaiming agency with courage.

• (Ch) A balanced part accepts fair responsibility: “I’ll own what is mine, and release what is not,” finding equilibrium with truth.

• (Co) A nurturing part asks for help - a meal from a friend, guidance from a therapist -allowing mutual care with love, fostering connection.

  
  

F. Forgiveness ↔ Resentment

(Forgiveness does not excuse the harm; it releases you from its grip.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A hurt part ruminates endlessly: “I am defined by this wound,” fixating on pain.

• (P) A vengeful part clings to vindictiveness: “I hope they suffer as I did,” holding onto anger.

• (R) A guarded part avoids confronting the harm; resentment builds quietly underneath, suppressing grief or waits passively: "They should apologise first; then I'll consider forgiving."

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A freeing part releases what you cannot carry: “This pain is real, but it is not the whole of me,” letting go with courage.

• (Ch) A resilient part seeks restorative paths: “I will aim for repair, not retaliation,” healing with truth.

• (Co) A wise part practices forgiveness as freeing yourself -not excusing them -compassion that loosens resentment’s hold, fostering love.

G. Recognition ↔ Rejection

(Recognition affirms worth; rejection wounds the soul's need to be seen.)

Drama pulls

(V) An invisible part whispers: "No one sees my pain. I don't matter. I'll disappear into silence," collapsing into invisibility.

(P) A bitter part attacks: "They rejected me because I'm worthless. I'll reject myself first," turning rejection inward with cruelty.

(R) A performing part over-functions: "I'll prove my worth by pleasing everyone, never resting," or waits desperately: "Someone should finally see me; I'll keep waiting for recognition."

Empowerment pivots

(C) A self-affirming part declares: "I see myself. My experience matters, even if others don't recognize it yet," choosing self-recognition with courage.

(Ch) A clear part acknowledges: "I needed to be seen, and that need is valid," honoring truth without shame.

(Co) A compassionate part offers recognition to neglected parts: "I see you. You belong here. You matter," fostering inner love and belonging.

H. Gratitude ↔ Entitlement

(Gratitude restores dignity and connection; entitlement keeps you waiting.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A demanding part fixates: “Life owes me. I demand repayment for what I’ve lost,” grasping for more.

• (P) An exploitative part hoards: “Others owe me for my suffering,” taking without giving.

• (R) A needy part over-gives but expects, “Others must rescue me or stay loyal forever,” seeking validation.

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A grateful part notices what remains - a breath, a sunrise, one person who cares - and cultivates responsibility with courage, finding peace.

• (Ch) A fair part honours balance: giving and receiving with proportion, not debt, clarifying with truth.

• (Co) A connected part nurtures reciprocal appreciation - reaching out with thanks, letting gratitude deepen connection with love.

  
  

🌙 Closing

Take a slow breath, feeling the ground hold you gently. Notice the part of you that still aches from this loss or trauma.

You may carry a shame-filled part whispering, “I am broken, I am bad.” Let a compassionate part answer: “I am hurting, but I am still human, worthy of care.”

You may carry a guilty part murmuring, “I failed, I should have done more.” If that guilt is misplaced, meet it with kindness: “I could not have controlled what happened.” If it is true, let it guide repair gently: “I made a mistake. I have learned from it. Next time, I can act differently.”

Notice how shame distorts responsibility:

• Projection (“It was all their fault; I bear no role”) pushes the pain outward.

• Introjection (“It was all my fault; I should have stopped it”) swallows the pain inward. Both are traps that block healing. Step onto the middle path of fair responsibility: naming what was yours, and releasing what was not. Let your grief rest in the safety of your own compassion -like holding a child - with tenderness, patience, and love.

🌿 Meditation on Facing Relationship Problems

(Six polarities; Drama pulls and Empowerment pivots, with shame/guilt reflections woven in).

1. Grounding

Find a comfortable position, letting your body feel supported like a trusted ally.

Breathe slowly… let the exhale ease you, softening any tension.

Bring to mind a relationship struggle - past or present - one you can reflect on with care, noticing its echo in your heart.

A. Truth ↔ Denial

(Shame hides; truth spoken with care restores trust.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A fragile part denies: “I deny how hurt I am: It doesn’t matter, I’m fine,” burying pain in shame.

• (P) A defensive part distorts: “You’re the only one with problems here,” shifting blame with denial.

• (R) A fearful part avoids: “If I tell the truth, they’ll leave me,” suppressing honesty to avoid conflict or waits for others: "They should speak up first; I'll wait for them to be honest."

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A brave part admits: “I was hurt by what happened. It matters to me,” initiating awareness with courage.

• (Ch) A clear part speaks with honesty: “This is hard to say, but I need truth between us,” clarifying with love.

• (Co) A compassionate part creates space for truth - perhaps a calm conversation or with support - deepening connection.

  
  

B. Compassion ↔ Shame

(If shame arises -“I am unlovable” - soften into compassion. If guilt arises -“I hurt them” - let it guide honest repair.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A lonely part feels sorry for itself: “They never treat me right. I’m always the victim,” steeped in shame.

• (P) A defensive part shuts down empathy: “They don’t deserve my care after what they did,” turning shame into dismissiveness.

• (R) A passive part waits: “I wait for them to fix it all, without taking any step myself,” over-helping to avoid shame.

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A nurturing part turns compassion inward: “My pain is real, and I can nurture myself instead of collapsing,” easing shame with love.

• (Ch) A grounded part sets a boundary when shame spirals: “I will not let self-pity define me,” reclaiming dignity with courage.

• (Co) A wise part offers compassion without rescuing: “I hear your pain, but I trust you can grow,” fostering mutual strength with care.

  
  

C. Justice ↔ Vengeance

(Vengeance escalates conflict; justice restores fairness and clarity.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A hurt part replays every slight, keeping score, clinging to past wrongs.

• (P) An angry part lashes out: “They hurt me, I’ll hurt them back - with words, silence, or withdrawal,” driven by rage.

• (R) A peacemaking part either smooths things over: "Let's just forget it, even when harm isn't addressed," or waits for others to fix it: "They should make this right; I'll wait for them to act," hiding pain and nursing resentment.

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A creative part chooses action: a calm conversation, boundary, or pause, rebuilding trust with courage.

• (Ch) A clear part states: “This behaviour isn’t okay; here’s what I need,” restoring fairness with truth.

• (Co) A supportive part fosters dialogue where voices are heard, nurturing justice with love.

  
  

D. Responsibility ↔ Irresponsibility / Over-Responsibility

(Shame fuels collapse or over-burden; adaptive guilt helps repair.)

Drama pulls

• (V) Irresponsibility (projection) A withdrawn part avoids: “It’s their problem, not mine,” pushing shame away.

• (P) Irresponsibility (projection) A blaming part insists: “They ruined everything; I refuse my part,” deflecting guilt.

• (R) Irresponsibility (projection) A dependent part waits: “I expect them to apologise, doing nothing myself,” avoiding effort.

• (V) Over-responsibility (introjection) A burdened part believes: “I ruin everything; it’s all on me to fix this,” carrying shame.

• (P) Over-responsibility (introjection) A controlling part carries: “I caused all harm; I must bear the guilt,” over-burdened.

• (R) Over-responsibility (introjection) A martyr part takes on: “I fix, apologise, and over-give endlessly,” exhausting itself.

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A hopeful part recognises: “I can’t change them, but I can choose my response,” reclaiming agency with courage.

• (Ch) A balanced part owns: “I said things in anger, and I’ll repair that,” finding equilibrium with truth.

• (Co) A nurturing part shares: “What can we each do to improve this?” fostering mutual care with love.

  
  

E. Forgiveness ↔ Resentment

(Forgiveness heals connection—without excusing harm.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A hurt part clings: “I’ll never trust them; they ruined everything,” fixating on resentment.

• (P) A vengeful part punishes: “I’ll remind them of their mistake,” holding anger.

• (R) A guarded part buries: “I say I forgive, but hurt festers underground,” avoiding re(R) A guarded part either buries: "I say I forgive, but I bury my hurt, letting it fester," or waits: "They need to make it right first; I'll wait for their amends."

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A freeing part acknowledges: “I was hurt, but I’ll release this pain,” letting go with courage.

• (Ch) A resilient part seeks repair: “I forgive, setting boundaries to prevent repetition,” healing with truth.

• (Co) A wise part nurtures forgiveness: freeing yourself without excusing, easing strain with love.

  
  

F. Gratitude ↔ Entitlement

(Gratitude nourishes relationships; entitlement corrodes them.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A demanding part focuses: “They never meet my needs,” fixating on lack.

• (P) An exploitative part exploits: “They owe me for my effort,” taking without giving.

• (R) A needy part either gives excessively: "I give too much, but expect constant gratitude in return," or waits: "They should thank me first; then I'll be grateful."

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A grateful part notices gestures - a text, smile, memory - cultivating peace with courage.

• (Ch) A fair part balances giving and receiving, clarifying with truth, not entitlement.

• (Co) A connected part expresses thanks: “Your action mattered,” deepening bonds with love.

  
  

🌙 Closing

Take a deep breath, settling into the support beneath you. Feel the relationship you held, noting its tender or tense parts.

A shame-filled part may whisper, “I am unlovable, I ruin everything.” Let a compassionate part answer: “I am human, I can learn, I am enough.”

A guilty part may murmur, “I hurt them with my anger.” If misplaced, soften: “I can’t bear all blame.” If true, guide repair: “I’ll choose differently next time.”

Notice shame’s distortion:

• Projection (“It’s their fault; I’m blameless”) pushes blame outward.

• Introjection (“It’s all my fault; I must carry it”) swallows blame inward. Both block growth. Step to fair responsibility: name your part, release the rest. Hold this with tenderness, letting healing flow from compassion, fairness, truth, forgiveness, and gratitude -a living practice.

🌍 Meditation on Societal Grievances

(Six polarities; Drama pulls and Empowerment pivots, grounded in social/political life; shame/guilt reflections woven in)

1. Grounding

Sit comfortably, feeling your body anchored to the earth like a rooted tree.

Breathe in deeply… breathe out slowly, letting your shoulders ease into softness.

Bring to mind a social issue, injustice, or conflict that stirs anger, grief, or resentment - let it rise gently into awareness.

A. Truth ↔ Denial

(Societies collapse when truth is denied; healing begins with acknowledgment.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A fragile part minimises: “It wasn’t that bad; the past is over,” burying pain in shame.

• (P) A defensive part distorts: “Rewriting history vilifies others, excuses us,” projecting blame.

• (R) A fearful part silences: “Let’s not mention the past to avoid conflict,” hiding reality, or waits for others: "Historians or leaders should tell this truth; we'll wait for them."

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A brave part tells stories: “This happened, it matters,” initiating awareness with courage.

• (Ch) A steady part faces truths: “We acknowledge wrongs without denial,” clarifying with love.

• (Co) A compassionate part holds space - museums, dialogues - fostering reconciliation with care.

  
  

B. Compassion ↔ Shame

(Shame says: “We are broken.” Guilt says: “We caused harm.” Compassion holds both with care.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A wounded part cries, “We’re always the victim, no one understands,” steeped in shame.

• (P) A defensive part dismisses: “They have it easy; we suffer most,” turning shame outward.

• (R) A passive part waits: “We need saviours to rescue us,” over-helping to avoid shame.

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A healing part honours wounds: “Our pain shapes us, not defines us,” easing shame with love.

• (Ch) A strong part limits grievance: “We won’t reduce to pain alone,” reclaiming dignity with courage.

• (Co) A supportive part fosters solidarity: empowering communities, not collapsing, with compassion.

  
  

C. Justice ↔ Vengeance

(Vengeance repeats harm; justice seeks repair.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A resentful part nurses grievances, demanding payback, holding hurt.

• (P) An angry part retaliates: “They oppressed us; we’ll dominate,” driven by rage.

• (R) A cautious part colludes: “Silence injustices to avoid trouble,” suppressing healing, or waits for others: "Leaders should address this; we'll wait for them to act."

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A creative part repairs: education, advocacy, dialogue, with courage.

• (Ch) A fair part names harm, sets accountability - not humiliation - with truth.

• (Co) A guiding part convenes truth spaces - commissions, dialogues - for reconciliation with love.

  
  

D. Responsibility ↔ Irresponsibility / Over-Responsibility

(Shame traps in blame; fair guilt guides repair.)

Drama pulls

• (V) Irresponsibility (projection) A disengaged part says, “The system’s broken, we do nothing,” avoiding effort.

• (P) Irresponsibility (projection) A blaming part insists, “They failed; we’re blameless,” deflecting shame.

• (R) Irresponsibility (projection) A dependent part expects, “Leaders fix it,” shirking duty.

• (V) Over-responsibility (introjection) A burdened part believes, “We must heal all injustice now,” carrying guilt.

• (P) Over-responsibility (introjection) A shamed part carries, “We’re to blame for everything,” overwhelmed.

• (R) Over-responsibility (introjection) A martyr part takes on, “We repair society alone,” exhausting itself.

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A hopeful part acts: “We’ll take one step toward fairness,” with courage.

• (Ch) A balanced part owns: “We’ll amend where possible,” with truth.

• (Co) A collaborative part shares stewardship, building strength with love.

  
  

E. Forgiveness ↔ Resentment

(Forgiveness liberates; resentment chains to the past.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A hurt part fixates: “We can’t move on,” holding pain.

• (P) A vengeful part seeks punishment: “They must pay,” with anger.

• (R) A guarded part either covers up: "We pretend everything is fine—until resentment erupts later," or waits: "They should apologise to us first; we'll wait for their contrition."

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A freeing part releases: “We were wounded, but it’s not all,” with courage.

• (Ch) A resilient part seeks repair: “We heal, not punish,” with truth.

• (Co) A wise part forgives: freeing from bitterness, naming truth, with love.

  
  

F. Gratitude ↔ Entitlement

(Gratitude builds cohesion; entitlement corrodes solidarity.)

Drama pulls

• (V) A demanding part insists, “Society owes us everything,” grasping.

• (P) An exploitative part hoards: "We blame others for scarcity while taking resources," fueling division.

• (R) A needy part either over-gives: "We prove our worth but demand constant recognition and loyalty," or waits passively: "Other groups should acknowledge us first; then we'll show gratitude."

  
  

Empowerment pivots

• (C) A grateful part builds: noticing freedoms, relationships, with courage.

• (Ch) A fair part balances: giving, receiving proportionately, with truth.

• (Co) A connected part appreciates: “Each group gives,” weaving unity with love.

  
  

🌙 Closing

Take a slow breath, feeling the earth’s gentle embrace. Hold your society in mind, noting its weight or warmth.

A shame-filled part may whisper, “We’re broken, unworthy.” Let a compassionate part answer: “We’re human, capable of growth.”

A guilty part may murmur, “We caused harm.” If misplaced, soften: “Not all is ours.” If true, guide repair: “We’ll learn, act differently.”

Notice shame’s distortion:

• Projection (“It’s their fault”) pushes outward.

Introjection (“It’s all ours”) swallows inward. Both block repair. Step to shared responsibility: own your part, release the rest, act with clarity. Cradle your community with tenderness, patience, and love - like a grieving child - letting healing unfold.

Lastly, here is a poem by Thích Nhất Hạnh that invites us to recognise within ourselves both the shadow and the light - the wound and the healer - thus opening the door to compassion, and through compassion, to integration.

Please Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river, and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond, and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks, and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate, and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to my people, dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life. My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up, and so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion.

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