We all get triggered from time to time. The question is whether we are growing through the events of our lives or becoming stuck. Sadly, because we aren’t taught to proactively process our inner experiencing selves, but are instinctively wired to avoid pain, we become the defensive and dysfunctional species our sad history of conflict, war, and destruction has demonstrated us to be.
The drama generally starts in a family context where romantic love inevitably takes a negative turn, as couples struggle to reconcile their different personalities and contrasting needs. The arrival of children into this strained relationship only makes matters worse. As humans, we have two basic personalities – under pressure or relaxed, which results in basic survival coping mechanisms or the best version of ourselves. Without the tools to proactively process, we can only respond reactively, often destructively to those around us. The children then go to schools where they meet other children coming from similarly dysfunctional homes, and the stage is set for prejudice, bullying, coercion, rejection, and further pressure ‘to fit in or face the consequences.’ Come the weekend, most families gravitate towards community support, be it through the extended family or organized religion. These larger systems tend to espouse beliefs and fixed ideas of how the world works based upon inherited myths and intergenerational stories.
Quickly, we learn the world is not a safe place, and by eight, nine, or ten years of age, our defense mechanisms are well established, and our innocence taken. When we consider the arms race, and various nations accumulating nuclear weapons, we can trace its origins right back to the family we are born into, the school we went to, and the extended family culture or religious doctrine we were exposed to. And so, the wheel turns, generation after generation. How we haven’t reached the point of complete destruction and extinction is something of a miracle. But what can be done to arrest this powerful systemic dynamic we find ourselves living within?
For me, the key lies in empowering individuals to proactively process themselves at a body, heart, head, and soul level. It’s called nurturing your nature and is a learnt process of spending time with yourself, building your own ability to cope with the vagaries of life. Each of us is the sum of an evolutionary journey spanning millions of years of natural selection for us to be here today. Our real potential lies within us, and it’s a question of connecting with this massive life-force whilst we can. Of course, religion has been an attempt to do so, but with the advances in science, technology, and neuropsychology, we are now at a point in human history where we can and should take full responsibility for our existence on an individual and global level, by proactively processing ourselves. The inherent confidence, creativity, and clarity residing within every human being is nothing less than what is required to solve the myriad problems facing our species and our planet, for which we are both the potential problem and solution.
Practically, what does it mean to proactively process yourself? Steve Biddulph in “Fully Human” introduces the mansion of being. We each live out our lives in a mansion, which we are responsible for looking after. It consists of four floors, starting with your body on the first floor, your heart on the second floor, your head on the third floor, and your soul on the fourth floor. Learning to be present with yourself on each floor through your senses, feelings, thoughts, and sacredness, is what proactive processing requires. Through daily practices like conscious breathing (Harnessing the wind blog), emotional regulation (Fuck, fuck, fuck. I feel so fucked up blog), the work (Developing mental flexibility blog), and meditation (Meditation – the fine art and science of detachment blog), we are taking back control of our mansions by activating the parasympathetic nervous systems’ rest and digest processes. We are no longer reactively responding to the triggers of life, or forced to avoid our pain, but can proactively process ourselves towards more meaningful and conscious outcomes of our own determination. It is time to take back our human power and responsibility to live our best lives.