I was struck by a piece that put out recently that highlights some of the traps of spiritual/life coaching in today’s world.

I was struck by it because, living in Boulder CO, I run into a lot of spiritual and life coaches and they all seem to leave a bad taste in my mouth. There is something that doesn’t sit quite right in my system here but I’ve had a hard time pinpointing exactly what it is. Limberg does a nice job pinpointing it.

It’s that the core assumption of coaches is that the priorities are mental health and success. He proposes that instead we should look at the worldview that underlie these assumptions. 

Will focusing on becoming more mentally healthy and successful actually make us happy? Or will valuing wisdom, truth, and beauty lead us to the most fulfilling life?

I’ve sat with the topics of belief work and core worldview assumptions for a while, even writing a book on the subject, and yet I don’t feel that my implementation is all that great. I know there are assumptions that I’m operating under that I’m not aware that are causing foolishness, blindness and self-deception and yet the process of uncovering them is frustrating at best.

It seems to me that relationships are the level-best way to uncover these assumptions. Relationships of virtue, intimate relationship, family relationships, etc. When someone triggers us, or when someone is speaking in a way that leaves us feeling off (as if their worldview doesn’t mesh with ours.)

Exploring why there worldview doesn’t mesh with our may give rise to insights surrounding the nature of our core assumptions.

Figuring out how our environments shape our web of beliefs is an important thing to do. It can lead to us seeing that often times we’re in social and cultural echo chambers not of our own making.

Types of Environment-Level Echo Chambers

Social Media

Our online world can re-affirm our belief biases as we all know. Whether it’s facebook groups, our instagram/twitter feeds, or youtube. It’s virtually impossible to escape the echo-chamber nature of social media. I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that your feed is somehow less biased than other people’s feeds.

By nature of using social media we will inevitably fall into belief biases that keep us stuck in a worldview that is comfortable to us.

For example. The worldview bias of my feeds are something like: business building, Jordan Peterson, productivity, and spirituality content.

Although the variety of the content may be enough to give me the illusion that I’m seeing multiple perspectives, I know damn well that this is less than 0.01% of the total content out there and my perception of reality is being highly biased by what youtube (my social media drug of choice) serves me on a silver platter.

This is likely biasing me to think that business and capitalistic values are more important than they really are.

Familial Echo Chambers

The family that you were raised in has certain implicit biases which shape your perception of the world in profound ways. Because your immediate family members were the only people that you were surrounded with in the formative years where you brain was most malleable, you will tend to bias towards worldviews that either:

1. Directly map to theirs, or

2. Are directly opposite and rejecting theres

I’ve experienced both of these possibilities growing up. My family was not religious at all and so there was a strong bias towards a scientific and rational worldview. Then as I grew older I began to reject this scientific worldview harshly and have an overt spiritual (but not religious) worldview which was a direct rejection of rational worldview bias I was raised towards. Both the acceptance and rejection pieces were just as biased and perniciously self-deceptive.

What is your family bias? (whether it’s clinging to or rejecting what you were raised as.)

Cultural Echo Chambers

By virtue of being a fish in an ocean of culture, we live with implicit biases that are virtually impossible to escape.

I live in the US and thus have many western biases that are hard to spot — consumerism, a polarized populous, suburban living as widespread, drinking culture, lack of rituals write large and many others that I’m unaware of.

This type encompasses the way we live, how we spend our time, what is seen as normal, etc.

If my value metrics are success and my social group values making money over everything else, then my self-esteem and core beliefs will be directly relational to whether I’m successful or making a lot of money.

Friend Group Bias

Mistaking the beliefs and worldviews of our inner circle with what is common on a cultural level. Sure you’ll know there are other possible ways of viewing the world but you will sense that the worldviews that are most common with those around you are subtly more right and superior to the rest.

This is friend group bias.

You’ll also sense that the things your friend group sees as most relevant are somehow what is relevant on a global scale and with most people, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

My friend group bias: Has me feeling that therapy, authentic relating, ethical business, meditation, AI and psychedelics are what’s relevant on a cultural level. Which is definitely not true.

Relationship Bias

The sense that the dynamics of your relationship with your partner are common for all relationships. Thinking that most people you’ll meet and start a relationship with will also relate to you in the way that your partner does.

Corporate Worldview Bias

The company that we work for has inherent biases in it. What is meaningful and what the mission of the company is will bias us in a certain direction. We may feel that what is most important is making as many sales as possible. Not realizing that another company has a stronger mission to be of service and to maintain a level of integrity that my current company doesn’t have.

This may include a bias towards certain sales and marketing tactics that a company with more integrity may not even consider. It may include a bias for what company culture entails.

Someone companies will be strictly formal and others having more social gatherings and places to connect with other employees baked into the company culture.

Are Echo Chambers a Bad Thing?

Let’s take this one level meta. The assumption in this article is that echo chambers are inherently bad and should be avoided. 

It feels to me that the second-order effect of echo chambers are the following:

• decreased empathy/compassion for those outside one’s worldview

  • caused by a sense of moral superiority

• inability to effectively problem solve global solutions for those outside one’s echo chamber

• increased polarization on a cultural level

• decrease capacity for truth-seeking and propagation of harmful ideas

• increased aggression and irritability when confronting with cognitive dissonance

This is why I believe that doing work to decrease the intensity of our echo chambers and worldview bias is a virtuous project to undergo.

Solutions for Escaping Worldview Bias

• Travel to foreign countries

• Start a new social media account from scratch and specifically click on ideas and perspectives that you normally wouldn’t. To train the algorithm to show you ideas that are antithetical to your current perspectives.

• Engage in dialogues with people you disagree with.

• Spend time in new friend groups: make an effort to reach out to people outside of your immediate group of friends and social circle.

• Join a new company: that is radically different from the one you work at now.

• Read books outside of your current interest set: If you bias towards self-help and psychology then read some economics, game theory and scientific books. If you bias towards rational perspectives then seek more spiritual, artistic books or those about feelings and relationships.

  • If all of your books were written in the last 2 decades, read books written in the early 1900s, 1800s or even earlier

These are just a few ideas. I want to write a post specifically on strategies for counteracting worldview bias, but for now this will have to do.

Thanks for reading along. Until next time.