Look at the big words you treat as things
Take an abstraction you live by — purpose, true self, growth — and see what it is made of.
Why it works
Cook-Greuter (2018) points out that concepts such as "purpose", "soul", and "ego" are symbolic abstractions that exist through language and shared definitions, yet are almost always treated as if they were tangible things. Rewriting a sentence without the abstraction makes the construction visible: you can see what the word was standing in for, and which of your choices it has been quietly organizing.
How to do it
- Write one sentence you often say about your life that hinges on a big abstraction, e.g. "I need to find my purpose."
- Rewrite it without the abstract noun, describing only what actually happens: "I keep starting projects and feeling flat after three months."
- Ask where you first learned the word and who taught you what it meant.
- Notice what feels lost and what feels freed by the second sentence. Keep both.
Evidence
The observation that abstractions such as purpose, soul and ego are linguistic constructions treated as real things is made directly in Cook-Greuter’s 2018 essay, as part of her description of what the Construct-aware stage begins to see. The rewriting exercise applies it; it has not been studied. (anecdotal)
Seeing that a word is a construction does not make what it points to unimportant. For some people the exercise is unsettling; it is better done slowly than all at once.
Sources
Common mistake
Concluding that because purpose is a construct, nothing matters. The construct still organizes real choices; seeing it simply lets you hold it more lightly.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for The Construct-Aware and Unitive Stages of Adult Development
- Catch the map being drawn
Notice, in an ordinary moment, the instant raw experience is turned into a label and a story.
- Let a paradox stay a paradox
When two things you know are both true contradict each other, let them stand without forcing a resolution.
- Watch what the ego is protecting
In the moment you flare up, ask whether you are protecting feeling safe, feeling important, or feeling lasting.
- Don’t make "late stage" your new identity
Notice when developmental insight becomes a status to defend, and set it down.
- Take yourself lightly: the wise-fool practice
Let yourself laugh at how seriously you take your own growth.
- Let the ground give way without grabbing a new theory
When every belief starts to look like a story, stay with the disorientation instead of rushing to a new framework.
- Tend well-being as a separate path from maturity
Because seeing more and feeling better are different kinds of growth, give each its own attention.
- Come back to plain, ordinary being
Set the developmental frame down entirely, a few times a day, and simply be one ordinary person among many.
Related concepts
- Ego Development Theory: What It Is and How It Is Measured
The frame you make meaning through, how researchers measure it, and how to work with it without ranking anyone
- Terri O’Fallon’s STAGES Model, Made Practical
Twelve stages built from three repeating questions, and how to work with the one you are in
- The Self-Transforming Mind: Kegan’s Fifth Order, Made Practical
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- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
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- Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
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- Non-Dual Awareness, Made Practical
Effortless mindfulness and the recognition of open, aware presence
- Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (AQAL), Made Practical
Five elements for catching what your view of a situation leaves out, held as a map rather than a truth
- The Witness Stance
Observing experience from a stable, non-reactive vantage point
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