In addition to the kind of critical reflection on one's previous assumptive or tacit system of values we saw Jack undertake, there must be, for Stage 4, a relocation of authority within the self. While others and their judgments will remain important to the Individuative-Reflective person, their expectations, advice and counsel will be submitted to an internal panel of experts who reserve the right to choose and who are prepared to take responsibility for their choices. I sometimes call this the emergence of the executive ego. The two essential features of the emergence of Stage 4, then, are the critical distancing from one's previous assumptive value system and the emergence of the executive ego. . We find that sometimes many persons complete half of this double movement, but do not complete the other. James W. Fowler
About This Quote

The idea behind this quote is that we must distance ourselves from our previous assumptive and tacit system of values and we must agree to take responsibility for our own actions and judgments. We must be willing and able to choose and then we must accept the consequences of those choices. We cannot allow others to take our choices away from us.

Source: Stages Of Faith: The Psychology Of Human Development And The Quest For Meaning

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