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14,1 Ego & Thou 14,2 The Lifecircle 14,3 PTSD
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Secret 14,2 · Values / Needs · The Lifecircle

The Lifecircle

Self-growth is not linear but cyclical — each phase offering both challenges and renewal. Follow the cyclical model step by step, from birth to death and regeneration, and see why total quality management, understood as continuous improvement, in practice means change — and why change brings unrest and resistance with it.

Self-growth is not linear but cyclical — each phase offering both challenges and renewal.

The Lifecircle — the cyclical model, from birth through personality development, ego structure, crisis, reactions and reorganisation, to death and regeneration.
The cyclical model. Follow it step by step, from birth to death — and back into the beginning of a new cycle.

Step by step

The cyclical model

1

Birth. Research shows that only about 10% of all genetic material passed on through inheritance is likely to be activated in each generation.

2

Personality development. In the intersection between nature and nurture, there is a visible selection of genetic potential forming the core of individual traits and characteristics.

3

Ego structure. During puberty, the preliminary ego structure is formed, shaped by heredity, environment, and value choices.

4

The “world” demands development and seeks to improve, expand, change and reinvent the established ego structure. This often requires significant psychological energy and may lead to considerable strain in terms of physical, mental, and social well-being.

5

Reactions. The established ego structure breaks down and disintegrates. A strong sense of chaos and disorder arises. Everything becomes fluid, and new inner resources must be activated to cope with the discomfort. New character traits may emerge.

6

Reorganisation (new ego structure). The new and expanded ego structure takes root and replaces the old one. The surrounding environment experiences the individual as more open, resilient, and enriched.

7

Death. The visible ego structure dissolves. Regeneration continues through children and grandchildren. This final transformation opens the door to something new and different.

Intro film coming

The place for this secret’s intro film is reserved here. It fills in when the recording arrives.

The pull inward

Become who you are

The industrial and information society has laid the “egg” for this “continuous improvement” through the global internet world. More and more, the “world sets the agenda,” and humans must evolve to survive. Not by doing “more of the same” as the human-created AI culture tends to promote, but by exploring and developing their own inherent resources as living souls for other living people. This development is already provoking and challenging educators and leaders alike.

In the knowledge industry, it is increasingly clear that the pursuit of creativity and quality is becoming a path inward — towards new sources and a different kind of energy than what we know today. This process, based on research and insight, was also illustrated by our Double-Loop-Model, which we described in Secret 3,2 — Double Experience.

A practical approach

Continuous improvement = continuous change

Total quality management — understood as continuous improvement — in practice means changes that bring about unrest and resistance as a result. This places entirely new demands on leadership as a profession. Not everyone is aware of this. Therefore, quality management without a strategy for personal development for all actors becomes a life-lie that sabotages much of what could otherwise have been achieved. Many poor TQM experiences are due to this. Thus, personal development and renewal of human resources become the actual success criteria for the learning organisation and for successful quality management.

This means recognising and understanding natural reactions, and establishing counterforces in relation to:

  • Poor information
  • Time pressure and performance anxiety
  • Threats to important values
  • Uncertainty about consequences
  • Lack of experience and frame of reference
  • Loss of control
  • Forced passivity regarding one’s own need to act
A yellow sticky-note-style card, hand-lettered: Endring (Change), which brings loss of something valuable and always creates risk for Krise-Kaos-Konflikt (Crisis-Chaos-Conflict), which requires Reaksjonstid (Reaction time) with Resistance/Anger/Emptiness and following Reorganiseringstid (Reorganisation time), before the organisation can move toward Nye Mål (New Goals).
From an original SGL worksheet: change → crisis → reaction time → reorganisation → new goals.

Grief and growth

The school of life

A granite gravestone in a churchyard, engraved Petrus Hagberg and Alma E. Hagberg, with red and white flowers planted at its base.
“Crisis and grief is the natural response to loss, and the pain of grief is the price of love.”

I wrote these words in my book Death, Without Sting, published by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. The many, many years since have gifted me the lived experiences I could only imagine as a young writer. Such is life. No one escapes the lightning strikes of existence — our own, personal storms. It may be the loss of a job, a divorce, a broken heart. The death of a child or a beloved relative. Or the slow, aching loss of one’s own health — becoming dependent on treatment, on help, on others.

In these moments, some will strive with all their might to reclaim what was lost — to make things “as they were.” Others may lose hope and remain frozen in their pain, until the weight becomes too much to bear. But there is, perhaps, a third path.

SGL describes it as staying with the unbearable — a little longer than comfort allows — before beginning the long walk toward a new and different life. In everyday language, some call it the school of life. It teaches not through textbooks, but through wounds. Through change. Through endurance. Through a kind of growth that no one seeks, yet becomes a hidden strength we carry with us.

Where are you now

Your own place on the circle

This is a cycle, not a single life story — it plays out again in every change and every growth process you go through. Which stage does your current one feel closest to right now?

Mark the stage of the circle that feels closest to where you are now.

When young wounds destroy relationship and sex: Secret 14,3 — PTSD.

An open notebook and two sharpened pencils on a dark desk under the pool of light from a lamp, the page still blank.
The exercise wants a pen and paper, not a keyboard.
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Homework 14,2

Your own journey

Reflection. Think of your own journey. Can you recognise some of the phases we have described? Become aware — and perhaps even a little proud — of what you have learned in life’s quiet, demanding classroom.

Alongside this lesson

See, listen and learn with our SGL videos

Video coming The Double-Loop-Model, from Secret 3 Video coming The Lifecircle, step by step Podcast coming Click and listen to the podcast
SGL Secrets — For those who are in need, and those who want a lot!

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Lesson 14,3 · PTSD

When young wounds destroy relationship and sex — and what actually helps.

Continue to 14,3 →