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Eeefm Doutor Francisco De Albuquerque Montenegro
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<p>To each of us, siblings in the intraconnected family of the whole of nature</p><p>Contents</p><p>ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</p><p>SYNOPSIS</p><p>WELCOME</p><p>Challenge and Opportunity</p><p>Language Can Liberate</p><p>Losing to Loosen: Personal Identity</p><p>IntraConnected</p><p>Certainty in Identity as Entity</p><p>Wisdom Traditions</p><p>An Integrative Self</p><p>An Ancient Invitation for Modern Times</p><p>EMERGENCE</p><p>A Space of Being</p><p>Formless Into Form, Energy Into Mind and Matter</p><p>The Force and Matter of Life</p><p>An Identity Lens: Inner and Outer and a Narrowing of Belonging</p><p>CONCEPTION AND BIRTH</p><p>A Body Form</p><p>Our Embodied Brain</p><p>Simply Being and an Implicit Memory of Wholeness</p><p>From Being to Doing</p><p>Refocusing Our Identity Lens from Linear to Systems</p><p>INFANCY</p><p>Networks, Motivation, and Emotion</p><p>Doing and the Construction of Perception</p><p>Inner and Outer: Self and Other</p><p>Better Together: Relationships, Emotion, Meaning</p><p>Developing a Core Self</p><p>TODDLERHOOD</p><p>A World of Words</p><p>Narrative and the Stories We Learn of Self</p><p>Play, Presence, and Possibility</p><p>Many States, Many Identities</p><p>Security, Epistemic Trust, and Our Relational Self</p><p>SCHOOL YEARS</p><p>The Tree of Knowledge, the Knowledge of Trees</p><p>Comparison and Competition, Connection and Collaboration</p><p>Inner and Outer: Private and Public</p><p>The Stories of Our Lives, the Lives of Our Stories</p><p>ADOLESCENCE</p><p>The ESSENCE of Adolescence</p><p>Romance, Relationships, Identity</p><p>Timeless Wisdom, Timely Action</p><p>Preparation for Separation and Change</p><p>LEAVING HOME</p><p>A Mindsight Lens</p><p>From Grief to Growth</p><p>Lessons from the Wheel of Awareness</p><p>Science, Spirituality, Subjectivity</p><p>TRAVELS</p><p>Selfing as Noun and as Verb</p><p>Diversity and Possibility</p><p>Letting Go of Certainty</p><p>Transcending the Solo-Self with Awe</p><p>Longing for Certainty in an Uncertain World</p><p>Let Go and Let G.O.D.: Generator of Diversity</p><p>CHOICE</p><p>Self</p><p>Identity</p><p>Belonging</p><p>Integration</p><p>Systems</p><p>Love and Linking</p><p>Intraconnection</p><p>Interconnection</p><p>Our Noosphere</p><p>Adult Development and the Resistance to Change</p><p>HOPE</p><p>Appendix 1: Wheel of Awareness Practice</p><p>Appendix 2: Integrative Movement Series</p><p>References, Resources, and Readings</p><p>Index</p><p>SYNOPSIS</p><p>Weaving the internal and external, the subjective and objective, IntraConnected</p><p>reveals how the wiring in our brain, as well as the messages of modern</p><p>culture, may reinforce a way of living and a belief system based on the view</p><p>that our fundamental nature is one of independence, of separation—a life to</p><p>be lived as a solo, isolated self. Yet a wider perspective, revealed in new</p><p>views of contemporary science and echoed by the wisdom of generations of</p><p>Indigenous and contemplative traditions, unveils that who we are, our</p><p>deeper reality, may actually be something more than isolated individuals</p><p>interacting with one another—one’s mind and the experience of self it</p><p>creates are broader than the brain, bigger than the body: Each are</p><p>fundamental to the social systems and the natural world in which we live.</p><p>Investigating the nature of how our experience of what we often call “self”</p><p>and of how the related experiences of identity and belonging emerge across</p><p>the lifespan, from twinkle to twilight, this exploration combines personal</p><p>reflections, lessons from contemplation and Indigenous knowledge, and</p><p>findings from immersive meditative practices with scientific discussions of</p><p>how the mind, brain, and relationships shape who we are and who we can</p><p>become. Our body-based self—the origin of a Me—is not only connected to</p><p>others but also connected within these relational worlds themselves: a We,</p><p>forming the essence of belonging and a broader sense of self that forms our</p><p>identity. Who we are is both within and between: Me plus We equals MWe,</p><p>the reality of an integrative wholeness of our intraconnected lives.</p><p>IntraConnected</p><p>WELCOME</p><p>Belonging in the world—feeling membership, an experience of joining in our</p><p>connections with people around us and with nature—is shaped by our</p><p>identity, the defining features of our center of experience of being alive, our</p><p>sense of self. I invite you to join me in the conversational journey of this</p><p>book, a way we con-verse or “together-turn” our attention in exploring the</p><p>experience of becoming who we are—how we develop a sense of self,</p><p>identity, and belonging.</p><p>But what exactly is this self truly made of?</p><p>A range of scientific approaches to this question leads to a suggestion</p><p>that the term “self” generally refers to how we experience the subjective</p><p>sensations of being alive, the perspective we have on the world, and the</p><p>agency we assert in shaping our behavior and interactions. When we use the</p><p>term “self,” we broadly mean our sensation, perspective, and agency.</p><p>Yet there are many approaches other than science for exploring reality.</p><p>Science is a term we use to generally denote a rigorous way humans</p><p>observe patterns in the world and create hypotheses about what that world</p><p>is like. In Western science, we test those ideas with experimental paradigms</p><p>to challenge our viewpoints and confirm, or disprove, our proposals on the</p><p>nature of nature; on the way reality functions. I have been trained in the</p><p>Western educational system, as a scientist as well as a physician, and this</p><p>“scientific method” of hypothesis-testing and refutation has been the</p><p>foundation for what I’ve learned as a researcher and clinician. Some of</p><p>these Western scientific explorations of what the self is involve heated</p><p>debates, animated discussions that will naturally continue, about the nature</p><p>of who we are—about what the “self” is. We won’t be solving these</p><p>disagreements here, but will, hopefully, find a way to build on the disparate</p><p>insights in helpful ways.</p><p>In their breadth across a range of disciplines, from neuroscience and</p><p>psychology to anthropology and philosophy, these Western perspectives</p><p>contain an array of empirical and theoretical approaches to identity and</p><p>belonging, as exemplified by academics such as Baumeister (1998), Breger</p><p>(1974), Clark (2016), Damasio (2010, 2018), Godrey-Smith (2016), Kegan</p><p>(1982, 1994), Kelly (1995), Markus and Sentis (1982), Marsella, DeVos,</p><p>and Hsu (1985), and Stern (1985). While we will build on these scientific</p><p>foundations, this will not be a discursive academic review; however, it is an</p><p>invitation to build on fields of knowledge to find their common ground,</p><p>illuminate relevant implications, and then suggest practical applications for</p><p>how we might come to live in more generative, health-promoting ways in</p><p>contemporary times. While we will draw on the overall insights of these</p><p>various scientific explorations in our conversation here, we will build a</p><p>framework that incorporates many other perspectives as well, with the</p><p>intention of engaging in a discussion about who we are, individually and as</p><p>a human family, and where we might choose to go in the immediate future.</p><p>With consciousness opened up to these ideas, choice can become possible.</p><p>It is my hope that joining together in this immersive exploration will give us</p><p>a foundation for intentionally shaping our experience of self, identity, and</p><p>belonging in ways that enable us to thrive in this wondrous world we all</p><p>share.</p><p>This Western bias of my training has also naturally shaped how I have</p><p>been practicing as a psychotherapist for over thirty-five years. While</p><p>looking for answers from science and medicine was a place to start, my</p><p>search needed to be expanded by turning to wisdom traditions and</p><p>immersive experiences of helping others as distinct but equally important</p><p>“ways of knowing” about the nature of our lives. Within the human</p><p>endeavor to make sense of the world, non-Western approaches to a</p><p>disciplined way of understanding reality—including forms of Indigenous</p><p>science in the careful observation of nature as well as contemplative</p><p>insights from extensive meditative practices into the nature of the mind—</p><p>offer important perspectives on the world and how life unfolds. These</p><p>disciplined ways of studying reality may not use the Western hypothesis-</p><p>testing approach and peer review process, but they offer crucial and distinct</p><p>ways of rigorously observing and exploring the nature of our world—and of</p><p>our “self.”</p><p>In these pursuits of understanding</p><p>complexity” to consider</p><p>the value of even conflictual points of view. I loved and love living with</p><p>such an open, curious mindset in approaching how we come to understand</p><p>life and reality. A truly scientific stance welcomes challenge and invites</p><p>continual assessment of the accuracy of its own observations and ideas. In</p><p>our conversation, we are asking our selves, and the larger modern culture,</p><p>to “think again” about how we’ve come to construct the self-as-separate and</p><p>how this solo-self is shaping our identity and belonging.</p><p>Yet once that horse accident shattered my unquestioned sense of a solo-</p><p>self, I found nothing in biology, or later in the study of medicine, that</p><p>illuminated how we come to have a self, the ways we create identity, or</p><p>how we come to belong in life. The shift from a noun way of living as an</p><p>entity to realizing a verb set of patterns of energy flow that were deeply</p><p>interconnected seemed to have no place in the linear views of science that I</p><p>was learning—until I came across two fields of study. One was the nearly</p><p>one-hundred-year-old discipline of quantum physics; the other was the new</p><p>science of complex systems that was emerging in the last decades of our</p><p>prior millennium. The lessons from physics’ exploration of small units of</p><p>energy, of quanta, revealed a world of verb-like happenings that were</p><p>deeply connected. In this “quantum realm” of small quanta, such as</p><p>electrons and photons, there were no nouns—no “things”—only verbs—</p><p>emerging events—where time and space did not exist as dimensions of</p><p>separation. In the domain of larger entities, the noun-like objects we call</p><p>matter, the “macrostate” realm that Newton had studied, the Newtonian</p><p>principles of classical physics reveal separate entities interacting with one</p><p>another across the classical separations of time and of space.</p><p>In the mathematical study of systems in which three characteristics exist</p><p>—being open to influences outside of the system; being capable of chaotic,</p><p>or random, behavior; and being nonlinear, in which a small input leads to</p><p>large and difficult-to-predict outcomes—there is an emergence of</p><p>phenomena in these complex systems in which the whole is greater than the</p><p>sum of the individual parts. This recent Western scientific understanding of</p><p>complexity reveals insights into the verb-like nature of emergence—and the</p><p>ways in which a synergy arises from the parts that can appear, to a linear,</p><p>simple, reductionist view, to be magic and implausible. Systems awareness</p><p>enables us to sense the connections among parts and to observe the patterns</p><p>in how those connected parts interact. Systems thinking is all about</p><p>relationality, not individuality alone.</p><p>But the positionality of this body of Dan, as a person of privilege, trained</p><p>in the methodology of empirical Western science—even if it was at first</p><p>linear scientific reasoning and now is expanding to a systems science view</p><p>—means it is my responsibility to acknowledge my blind spots, as best I</p><p>can, and be open to equally valid ways of understanding the world. Those</p><p>views can come from deep inner reflection we call contemplative insights</p><p>and from the wisdom passed along most commonly in the oral tradition as</p><p>Indigenous knowledge. Since these Indigenous and contemplative</p><p>approaches are often rigorous ways of understanding our world, we could</p><p>choose to apply the general term “science” to their observations of</p><p>perceived patterns of reality. However, Indigenous, or what is sometimes</p><p>also termed “traditional,” knowledge is considered to be quite distinct from</p><p>Western science in that it involves a view of the whole, a sense of both the</p><p>secular and the sacred, and an emphasis on wisdom. Some might prefer that</p><p>we reserve the term “science” for experimental studies and the knowledge</p><p>derived from them, an approach often attributed to the European</p><p>Renaissance and including what is known as the “scientific method.” If you</p><p>and I are attempting to understand reality deeply here—the reality of self,</p><p>identity, and belonging—it seems to me, even as a Western-trained scientist,</p><p>that it is important to extend our conceptual reach beyond experimental</p><p>approaches and include many sources of knowing and wisdom. David</p><p>Graeber and David Wengrow’s opus, The Dawn of Everything: A New</p><p>History of Humanity, explores the importance of the contributions</p><p>Indigenous peoples have made in the emergence of our life as a human</p><p>species. Jeremy Lent’s The Web of Meaning provides further support for</p><p>how wisdom traditions offer great insights into our world. Western science</p><p>is only one way to know about reality. Our task will be to harness the</p><p>scientific invitation to “think again” and continually challenge even the</p><p>most basic assumptions we may have, while at the same time extending</p><p>beyond Western scientific knowledge to include insights from distinct</p><p>rigorous and disciplined ways of understanding the world.</p><p>In preparing for this exploration, I turned to examples of contemplative</p><p>and Indigenous sources to see if there might be a consilience, a common</p><p>ground, with Western scientific insights that might inform a broader, more</p><p>inclusive view of how self, identity, and belonging form in our lives. Using</p><p>the process that sociobiologist E. O. Wilson (1998) calls “consilience,”</p><p>these discoveries and their similarities among Western, Indigenous, and</p><p>contemplative explorations of reality can be woven together to form a basic</p><p>cross-disciplinary framework, one that underlies the perspective, known as</p><p>interpersonal neurobiology, we are drawing upon.</p><p>At various times along our journey together, it may be helpful to pause,</p><p>take a breath, and consider and challenge these ideas; to contemplate what</p><p>they might mean for you in your personal life, in your professional work,</p><p>and for the planet. And it might be helpful to consider how they might feel,</p><p>open your perspective, change how you act in the world; to imagine how</p><p>they affect the various SPA facets of your self—to try them on for size in</p><p>your life. At points when I think taking a brief pause from the reading might</p><p>be especially helpful to consider, challenge, and contemplate what we are</p><p>exploring, I have inserted the traditional Celtic symbol of air, to symbolize</p><p>the breath: . Of course, you may choose to ignore these suggestions and</p><p>continue reading, and you can take such pauses naturally at any time of</p><p>your choosing. I will note particular moments in our conversation when</p><p>three intentional, long breaths or a mindful pause, however it arises and</p><p>feels right to you, may be appropriate for you to consider.</p><p>The systems science and quantum physics view of the interconnection of all</p><p>things may be new for Western science, but hardly new for humanity. This</p><p>teaching has been around for millennia, found in philosophical, Indigenous,</p><p>and contemplative knowledge, yet in modern times this systems perspective</p><p>is often hidden from view, absent from our education, not part of our</p><p>everyday conversations. We can refer to these ancient ways of knowing</p><p>collectively as “wisdom traditions,” acknowledging their range across time</p><p>and across our planet and their diversity in both origin and content. In the</p><p>ancient philosophy of Confucianism, Taoism, and Stoicism, for example,</p><p>this view of the interconnection of all things was a fundamental teaching, as</p><p>it also has been in contemplative teachings from meditative practices, such</p><p>as in Buddhism, Christian Centering Prayer, and Hindu traditions, as well as</p><p>in the Indigenous knowledge of groups such as those of North America,</p><p>including the Inuit, Lakota, Chumash, and Tongva (on whose unceded</p><p>traditional lands I now reside and work); those of South America, including</p><p>the ancient Inca and the contemporary Tayuna; those of the Polynesian</p><p>Islands; as well as the Māori of New Zealand and the Aborigine of</p><p>Australia. In the tradition of southern Africa known as Ubuntu, the notion</p><p>of “I am because we are” is at the heart of living; in the Zen Buddhist</p><p>tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, we “inter-are” in what he calls interbeing.</p><p>This view of a common</p><p>ground of wisdom traditions is part of what has</p><p>been called the perennial philosophy.</p><p>At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, two Dutch film makers,</p><p>Ingeborg Ertenger and Thomas Roebers, organized the contributions of</p><p>Indigenous wisdom traditions from around the globe. This traditional</p><p>knowledge had lessons to remind humans of what we may need to course-</p><p>correct how our species had come to live on the planet. And what is so</p><p>striking about hearing these words directly, in the oral tradition, the frequent</p><p>medium through which many of these insights are conveyed across the</p><p>generations, is how they share such consilience—a common ground, a</p><p>similar set of principles—though they come from people whose populations</p><p>have lived in distinct regions, without communication with one another, for</p><p>thousands of years. Our human family is a deep resource for wisdom passed</p><p>along through the generations, a wisdom still present, but in modern times it</p><p>is often heard only as a whisper, rarely given attention or turned into action.</p><p>In the face of a viral pandemic spreading around the globe and the</p><p>shutting down of transportation and manufacturing as people were urged to</p><p>stay at home to curtail the spread of the disease, the living ecological</p><p>systems of Earth seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, the pollution and</p><p>excessive speed slowing down across the globe virtually in an instant.</p><p>Through the Rooted Messages project, Ertinger and Roebers reached out to</p><p>16 wise teachers from their traditional lands and then compiled their</p><p>teachings into short videos that were made available to the wider world to</p><p>disseminate insights regarding what we might learn from this moment of a</p><p>collective shut down—and what we might do to make a positive difference</p><p>going forward. If humanity could give the Earth a breather from its virtually</p><p>nonstop carbon emission modern life, might we not listen to what the</p><p>natural world, Mother Earth, is needing us to hear?</p><p>With permission, I include a few relevant excerpts that I transcribed</p><p>from their oral sharing in their contributions to Rooted Messages</p><p>(rootedmessages.com).</p><p>Beginning in the southern hemisphere, Te Ngaehe Wanikau of the Māori</p><p>people of New Zealand says:</p><p>It’s about our connection… between us and the cosmos, between us</p><p>and every single thing in the environment, and us to each other. We</p><p>know that to go back to what we were prior to COVID-19 would only</p><p>be a testimony to our collective stupidity. Be the generation that said,</p><p>“No, enough.” We’re not lost anymore; we’re finding our way home.</p><p>(Ertinger & Roebers, 2020, Te Ngaehe Wanikau)</p><p>Imagine what “our way home” might look like. What is this “home” really</p><p>about? Letting go of the separate, solo-self and seeing the truth of our</p><p>deeply intraconnected reality?</p><p>Tyson Yunkaporta (2020), an arts critic and researcher who belongs to the</p><p>Apalech clan in Queensland, Australia, describes his journey across the</p><p>continent to explore Indigenous ways of knowing in his inspiring text, Sand</p><p>Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World. Though published in</p><p>book form, the audiobook version enables the reader to soak in the more</p><p>customary vocal transmission of cross-generational wisdom, which focuses</p><p>on the connections among parts of systems that make up our world. In</p><p>describing how a local elder could detect patterns within living systems,</p><p>Yunkaporta (2020) states, “His process is all about seeing the overall shape</p><p>of the connections between things. Look beyond the things and focus on the</p><p>connections between them, he says. Then look beyond the connections and</p><p>see the patterns they make” (p. 77). Highlighting the deep systems wisdom</p><p>of aboriginal teaching, he goes on to state:</p><p>Preindustrial cultures have worked within self-organizing systems for</p><p>thousands of years to predict weather patterns, seasonal activity, and</p><p>the dynamics of social groups, then manage responses to these</p><p>complexities in nonintrusive ways that maintain systemic balance.</p><p>While interventions are possible from within these dynamic systems,</p><p>they cannot be controlled from the outside. Systems are heterarchical</p><p>—composed of equal parts interacting together. Imposing a</p><p>hierarchical model of top-down control can only destroy them.</p><p>(Yunkaporta, 2020, p. 82)</p><p>Inherent in the participation of agents of change is the central importance of</p><p>respect: “Respectful observation and interaction within the system, with the</p><p>parts and the connections between them, is the only way to see the pattern.</p><p>You cannot know any part, let alone the whole, without respect” (p. 83).</p><p>As we move through these lessons of wisdom traditions, it may be</p><p>helpful to keep this stance in mind. Yunkaporta (2020) suggests that</p><p>Each part, each person, is dignified as an embodiment of the</p><p>knowledge. Respect must be facilitated by custodians, but there is no</p><p>outside-imposed authority, no “boss,” no “dominion over.” While</p><p>senior people ensure that the processes and stages of coming to higher</p><p>levels of knowledge are maintained with safety and cohesion, there is</p><p>no centralized control in Aboriginal societies. (p. 83)</p><p>What is the challenge, then? To bring the wisdom of systems thinking into</p><p>our modern-day cultural view? If a “pervasive leadership” that enables each</p><p>person to serve as a custodian of the whole, in whatever ways their</p><p>individual capacities allow, may be the way forward, how might we invite a</p><p>shift toward broad participation as custodians of life on Earth? Let’s move</p><p>on further, around the globe, and see what other preindustrial, Indigenous</p><p>teachings of Rooted Messages might guide us to consider in humanity’s</p><p>next step of evolution.</p><p>Moving west from Australia to South America, Vandria Borari of the Borari</p><p>Indigenous people of the Tapajos region of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil</p><p>says:</p><p>For us, the Mother Earth is Sacred … the river, the forest, and the</p><p>animals, they complete our lives, and they are the reason for our</p><p>existence.… So it is urgent that all the people of the planet need to</p><p>reconcile and connect with nature. We need to value all the forms of</p><p>life.… We need more love, we need more humanity, and we need to</p><p>accept our differences so that then we can combat planetary inequality.</p><p>(Ertinger & Roebers, 2020, Vandria Borari)</p><p>Her words, “We need to value all forms of life,” honor diversity within our</p><p>unity (Ertinger & Roebers, 2020). In this perspective, the connecting of</p><p>differentiated elements—what we have specifically named “integration”—</p><p>seems to be a fundamental position of respect. Robin Wall Kimmerer—a</p><p>distinguished teaching professor of environmental biology, director of the</p><p>Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, and member of the Citizen</p><p>Potawatomi Nation of North America—in her transformative text, Braiding</p><p>Sweet Grass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings</p><p>of Plants (2013), states</p><p>There are layers upon layers of reciprocity in this garden between the</p><p>bean and the bacterium, the bean and the corn, the corn and the squash,</p><p>and ultimately with the people.… The beauty of the partnership is that</p><p>each plant does what it does in order to increase its own growth. But as</p><p>it happens, when the individuals flourish, so does the whole. The way</p><p>of the Three Sisters reminds me of one of the basic teachings of our</p><p>people. The most important thing each of us can know is our unique</p><p>gift and how to use it in the world. Individuality is cherished and</p><p>nurtured because in order for the whole to flourish, each of us has to be</p><p>strong in who we are and carry our gifts with conviction so they can be</p><p>shared with others. Being among the sisters provides a visible</p><p>manifestation of what a community can become when its members</p><p>understand and share their gifts. In reciprocity, we fill our spirits as</p><p>well as our bellies. (pp. 129–130)</p><p>Heading north, we come to Chief Phil Lane, Jr., of the Ihanktonwan and</p><p>Chickasaw Nations of North America and Canada (Ertinger & Roebers,</p><p>2020):</p><p>Each one of us has within us those potentialities, those capabilities,</p><p>those gifts that if shared in unity and respect</p><p>and kindness and</p><p>compassion, will transform the world we live in. (Chief Phil Lane, Jr.)</p><p>We’ll explore soon a science perspective on that kindness and compassion</p><p>through the lens of a systems view of being intraconnected—having a self,</p><p>identity, and belonging as fundamental to the whole, of which these bodies</p><p>we are born into in this time and place are simply a part. The journey to find</p><p>that shift, as Chief Lane continues to suggest, is within us:</p><p>To understand oneness also means to understand we’re related to all</p><p>living things. That’s the fundamental foundation of the Indigenous</p><p>worldview. Even to the point where now science is proving what Black</p><p>Elk said so beautifully: The center of the universe is everywhere.</p><p>Everywhere. That means we’re intimately related.… For in this</p><p>process of integration and disintegration, there is disintegration</p><p>unfolding everywhere. At that same time, we can choose to be part of</p><p>that disintegration or be part of the integration. (Ertinger & Roebers,</p><p>2020, Chief Phil Lane, Jr.)</p><p>As science also suggests, within the part is the whole, within the whole are</p><p>the parts. How we find our way to remembering such truths is an inspiration</p><p>of the various attempts to articulate them in words, words that can at times</p><p>feel too concrete in their proclamations—yet pointing in a direction we can</p><p>feel as well as come to know conceptually. In the foreword to John G.</p><p>Neihardt’s classic text, Black Elk Speaks (2014), Vine Deloria, Jr. states:</p><p>Reflection is the most difficult of all our activities because we are no</p><p>longer able to establish relative priorities from the multitude of</p><p>sensations that engulf us. Times such as these seem to illuminate the</p><p>classic expression for eternal truths and great wisdom comes to stand</p><p>out in the crowd of ordinary maxims.… The very nature of great</p><p>religious teachings is that they encompass everyone who understands</p><p>them, and personalities become indistinguishable from the</p><p>transcendent truth that is expressed. So let it be with Black Elk Speaks.</p><p>That it speaks to us with the simple and compelling language about an</p><p>aspect of human experience and encourages us to emphasize the best</p><p>that dwells within us is sufficient. (pp. xiiv, xvi)</p><p>The inspiration of the North American Oglala Lakota visionary and healer,</p><p>Nicholas Black Elk, reveals a view that each individual belongs to the</p><p>whole of humanity and humanity in turn to the whole of nature. This</p><p>wholeness, imbued with a reverence, respect, and responsibility for our</p><p>interdependence, is an eternal truth found throughout Indigenous teachings.</p><p>We’ll be heading west now, all the way to the Far East, to Asia, to further</p><p>explore these rooted messages. Ayan Ayangat of the Chonos people of</p><p>Mongolia states that Indigenous people are</p><p>Rooted in their ecosystem because they are deeply and closely</p><p>connected with the nurturing environment, they have their own unique</p><p>lifestyle, education, and cultural heritage.… Current mainstream</p><p>culture is not able to see the value of the Indigenous lifestyle and its</p><p>heritage. Our vivid Earth needs diverse cultures to sustain its brilliance</p><p>… their unique and close connection with Mother Earth. (Ertinger &</p><p>Roebers, 2020, Ayan Ayangat)</p><p>Each lesson reminds us that we are woven within Earth’s wholeness—a</p><p>tapestry that includes different strands intertwined to make a magnificent</p><p>whole. In many ways, these teachings are consilient with the more recent</p><p>perspective illuminated in the study of complex systems, those systems that</p><p>are open, chaos-capable, and nonlinear: They are comprised of</p><p>differentiated but linked components that are connected through</p><p>interdependence. This complexity gives rise to emergence; one of those</p><p>emergent properties is the adaptation and learning inherent to the self-</p><p>organization that arises innately from the complex system. This, too, is</p><p>consilient with Buckminster Fuller’s writings about synergy—the whole</p><p>being greater than merely the sum of its parts.</p><p>Continuing westward from the Far East, Patrick Dacquay (Ertinger &</p><p>Roebers, 2020) from the Celtic people of France, states that to deal with the</p><p>fear people are now experiencing, to have a relationship in equality with all</p><p>things, “It is within this wholeness, when all vibrates well, that the harmony</p><p>and the symphony are perfect. The song of life is perfect.”</p><p>Singing life in harmony. From a systems perspective, harmony emerges</p><p>when differentiated parts become linked, just as a choir expresses its</p><p>emergence through the different singers’ voices and the creation of</p><p>harmonic intervals while also singing the same song. How might such</p><p>integration at the heart of harmony become our shared goal for living on</p><p>Earth? Perhaps broadening our belonging emerges as the integration of our</p><p>identity as a me—the differentiated body—and a we—our relational self—</p><p>helps us live with a self, identity, and belonging as “MWe.”</p><p>Heading north to Greenland, Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq of the Eskimo</p><p>tribes says:</p><p>When we don’t relate to each other … we don’t celebrate each other’s</p><p>beauty. Only by melting the ice in the heart, you and I will have a</p><p>chance to change. And when we change, we will see that path where</p><p>we get home to our self. Thus, mankind has a chance to come to the</p><p>next level of reality of consciousness and realizing that there are the</p><p>yellow people, the white people, the red people, and the Black people</p><p>and we all belong in the same circle. (Ertinger & Roebers, 2020,</p><p>Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq)</p><p>The ice of the heart. What might we do to create conditions that melt that</p><p>ice, that free our compassion to liberate our connection? In science, the</p><p>head, the heart, and the intestines literally process information. To connect</p><p>head to heart may mean linking the logical reasoning of the head with the</p><p>compassionate feelings of relational connections of the heart. To melt that</p><p>ice, we may need to inform and transform, to realize the relational fields</p><p>that connect us, even if the logical eye cannot yet see. How does that feel in</p><p>the fullness of you?</p><p>As Tyson Yunkaporta (2020) suggests in his learnings from Indigenous</p><p>elders, we first bring spirit (respect), then heart (connect), then head</p><p>(reflect), and then hands (direct) as we join in the work of being a custodian</p><p>of our shared belonging to one another and to the lands upon which we live.</p><p>This is how he suggests we can bring the Indigenous wisdom of embracing</p><p>the systems in which we live into helpful ways of transforming our current</p><p>challenges and change the ways we can now live in our shared world.</p><p>Heading back to the Southern Hemisphere, Don Sebastian of the Inca</p><p>people in Peru states:</p><p>We have to restore our harmony with Mother Earth in order to enjoy a</p><p>harmonious and full life.… We should live in harmony, like brothers,</p><p>like one family with respect for each other.… Why not be united and</p><p>all walk together as a single force? (Ertinger & Roebers, 2020, Don</p><p>Sebastian)</p><p>A family filled with siblings? How might we have the love of family and</p><p>move beyond sibling rivalry? If we see all humanity as one such family, and</p><p>the family of all living beings as an even broader belonging to the family of</p><p>nature, we may be able to imagine how that membership within the whole</p><p>might emerge. Siblings may have their rivalry for fear of lack of protection,</p><p>lack of resources—this feeling of scarcity increases our distrust. Imagine a</p><p>world where we might live with an attitude of abundance and experience a</p><p>reciprocity and mutuality of belonging in our widening family circles. That</p><p>is a world of harmony we not only can imagine, but one we may be able to</p><p>move our modern lives toward.</p><p>Headed east to the west of Africa, Fadimata Walet Alassane (Ertinger &</p><p>Roebers, 2020, Fadimata Walet Alassane) of the Tuareg people, Burkina</p><p>Faso reminds us, “The Earth has always come first, and now comes last.…</p><p>Compassion was there at first, and it is no more … ” When we come to</p><p>embrace a larger sense of who we are, our mental well-being and our</p><p>experience of self, identity, and belonging can change.</p><p>Once, while visiting a San</p><p>tribe in Namibia, I noticed that the villagers</p><p>we met seemed so happy despite the presence of an epidemic of disease,</p><p>famine, and a drought. When asked about that observation, a leader of the</p><p>village said, “My people are happy. We are happy because we belong. We</p><p>belong to our village community. And we belong to nature.” He then went</p><p>on to ask me, through the translator, if we in America were happy, did we</p><p>belong? I paused; and sadly, after reflecting, came up with a no to both</p><p>inquiries. Despite material wealth, research showed that those in the United</p><p>States, our most individualistic- and material-oriented of countries, has</p><p>some of the highest levels of loneliness and mental health challenges on</p><p>Earth.</p><p>A colleague of mine from South Africa received his PhD for his studies of</p><p>the Ubuntu cultural practices of Southern Africa. He told me that there, the</p><p>fundamental principle of the way of life is found in the phrase, “I am</p><p>because we are,” a shared humanity. After reading his seven hundred-page</p><p>dissertation, it was clear how this sense of connection within community</p><p>and caring could shape the feeling of a cultural environment in a school,</p><p>business, or community. I asked him if this philosophy of living embraced</p><p>both the connection and the individuation that were each a part of</p><p>integration. He said he found that the individual often becomes lost within</p><p>the collaboration as a whole. Ubuntu, in his analysis at least, was not MWe</p><p>—a way we honor the differentiated inner individual experiences as me</p><p>while also belonging as a relational we.</p><p>In contrast, scholar James Ogude (2019) says,</p><p>Ubuntu is rooted in what I call a relational form of personhood,</p><p>basically meaning that you are because of the others. In other words,</p><p>as a human being, you—your humanity, your personhood—you are</p><p>fostered in relation to other people. (para. 4)</p><p>Yet the individual has a voice, Ogude (2019) suggests, and there is a place</p><p>for differentiation:</p><p>People will debate, people will disagree; it’s not like there are no</p><p>tensions. It is about coming together and building a consensus around</p><p>what affects the community. And once you have debated, then it is</p><p>understood what is best for the community, and then you have to buy</p><p>into that.… There’s a sense in which ubuntu as a concept, and the</p><p>African communitarian ethos, imposes a sense of moral obligation</p><p>regarding your responsibility for others even before you think of</p><p>yourself. You must, as the Russian critic, Bahktin would say, look into</p><p>another person’s eyes and have that person return the gaze. When the</p><p>gaze is returned, that recognition is what humanizes you. (paras. 5, 9)</p><p>Robin Wall Kimmerer’s description of coming to know your gifts as an</p><p>individual, having conviction in these, and then offering these in service to</p><p>the greater whole may parallel the ethos of Ubuntu and capture what we are</p><p>looking toward: a way of living, symbolized by the simple symbol of MWe,</p><p>as a synergy of self that is not at the extremes of individualistic or</p><p>collectivist cultures, as anthropologists have classified them in their studies,</p><p>but as integrated self, identity, and belonging that honors differences while</p><p>promoting compassionate, collaborative linkages.</p><p>MWe as an integrated identity might fit well with a sense of broader</p><p>belonging, as it is widened from an individual alone but does not leave the</p><p>individual out of the cultural relational field. What this synergy of self</p><p>suggests is that we might find a way to have both a broad belonging and an</p><p>integrated identity, which would allow for the wide focus of attention on</p><p>our overall world while at the same time honoring the importance of the</p><p>individual’s focus on inner experience. MWe invites the integrative linkage</p><p>of connection and the differentiation of individuality.</p><p>In modern cultures, this balance is often skewed toward the individual</p><p>alone, pushing for the solo-self in isolation. We are turning to the long-</p><p>standing wisdom of Indigenous teachings to explore how ancient</p><p>knowledge systems of how we can be linked within all of nature may help</p><p>us return to this balance of an integrative life in contemporary times.</p><p>Careful application of these teachings is advisable, as illustrated in the</p><p>following story: I once ran a conference in which the first set of speakers</p><p>and I were on a panel describing the importance of Indigenous teachings</p><p>that remind us of our experience of being “all one” with nature, all one in</p><p>the universe. It was a beautiful way to begin our three-day gathering on</p><p>“Timeless Wisdom, Timely Action”—the phrase we use at the Garrison</p><p>Institute, a nonprofit organization where I was and am still on the board.</p><p>The next panel was focused on the history of racism and the importance of</p><p>social justice in America. One of the speakers on that next panel raised the</p><p>concern that before we can move to an all-one linkage in our lives, we need</p><p>to fully honor the differentiated experiences of distinct, individual</p><p>groupings, such as the genocide of the Indigenous of North America and the</p><p>enslavement of and systemic racism against Black individuals in the United</p><p>States. Without such honoring of differences first, this wise faculty member</p><p>suggested, movements toward the all-one mentality would be an act of</p><p>aggression against the marginalized.</p><p>This powerful and insightful reflection, right at the beginning of our time</p><p>together, was a crucial reminder that integration is not about blending, it’s</p><p>not about being all-one without first knowing, honoring, and sharing our</p><p>individual features, including our ancestral histories.</p><p>A parallel experience arose in some community work I participated in</p><p>when the group discussion facilitators of a local conference in our city, a</p><p>collection of individuals who represented a wide array of cultural</p><p>backgrounds, came together before the event began to prepare for our work.</p><p>There was a stagnation of the air in the room at first, and then outright</p><p>hostility one could feel. I offered an overview of integration and suggested</p><p>that before we might work collaboratively as a group, we needed to share</p><p>our individual backgrounds and aspirations. One by one, each person</p><p>communicated to the group their own histories: One was a woman who had</p><p>come from Cambodia’s genocide and found the United States</p><p>unwelcoming, her family’s adolescents now finding street gangs their only</p><p>opportunity for belonging; one was a Black man whose grandparents had</p><p>been sharecroppers who came west to escape the Jim Crow laws of the</p><p>south, only to find continued racism in California; and my own history of a</p><p>grandmother who was sent away at the age of 12 to escape the pogroms of</p><p>Russia that had killed her father in the small Ukranian village they had lived</p><p>in. On and on, each of us opened up, sharing our own painful personal</p><p>pasts. Once the individual sharing was welcomed into the room with respect</p><p>and gratitude, then the joining could begin: We could become a group</p><p>without losing our individuality, open to receiving the joyful hopes for a</p><p>new community life.</p><p>Our human belonging, as Indigenous knowledge passed down for millennia</p><p>suggests, is even broader than our connections within humanity—it extends</p><p>to embrace all of nature. As we continue to soak in these words from</p><p>Indigenous knowledge stewards, we can keep in mind that the goal here is</p><p>not to idealize the past—there has been, in many cultures throughout the</p><p>ages and throughout the world, violence against out-groups and great</p><p>hardship and, perhaps, a lack of honoring of the individual. Our common</p><p>stance can be to see how we might learn from these cultures what in</p><p>modern times we have lost: a way of belonging to a greater whole—to</p><p>humanity and to nature. Our aim here might be to rework that balance, to</p><p>bring connection back into our lives while not losing the equally important</p><p>ways we thrive with the diversity of our individuality.</p><p>Heading south again, now back to Australia, we discover more rooted</p><p>messages. Anne Poelina of the Aboriginal people from the Martuwarra</p><p>Country (Fitzroy River), Professor</p><p>and Chair of Indigenous Studies,</p><p>University of Notre Dame, had these powerful words to say:</p><p>Indigenous wisdom right across the planet is grounded in law of the</p><p>land.…. Earth-centered governance.… Look at where greed has taken</p><p>us and severed our relationship with nature…</p><p>We are coming with a gift of knowledge … a gift to humanity …</p><p>this ancient wisdom has relevance in modernity.… It’s time to relearn</p><p>the values, the ethics, the principles of care and love that we as First</p><p>Nations, as Indigenous Wisdom Holders know, that we must continue</p><p>to have this relationship with the natural world. We are not separate.…</p><p>We need to realize that this is a world of relationship, of an ethics of</p><p>care, and of love … this wisdom, these laws, this knowledge is</p><p>Indigenous science which must be factored into the way that we start</p><p>to do business differently with our planet. (Ertinger & Roebers, 2020,</p><p>Anne Poelina)</p><p>How do we start doing business differently? How would you contribute to a</p><p>world that might be based on “a world of relationship, of an ethics of care,</p><p>and of love”?</p><p>Imagine that. Instead of isolated competitive actors in a game of winner</p><p>takes all, consider how we might see the world as a web of mutual</p><p>beneficence and sing the song of life into this collaborative belonging as an</p><p>intraconnected whole. Living our way into the life of the whole makes the</p><p>term “greater good” come alive as a win-win-win way of being:</p><p>Individually we will thrive with such belonging; the community will benefit</p><p>from the altruism and care that arise; and our home, Mother Earth, will</p><p>breathe a regenerative sigh of relief as we come to our senses and recognize</p><p>—remind our conscious minds—of the reality of our intraconnected nature.</p><p>If we get our act together, we can act together.</p><p>MWe can do this.</p><p>Heading north and east, we come to the islands of Hawaii. The linguistic</p><p>symbols of words can hold much in the concepts and categories they</p><p>communicate. MWe can choose our words wisely to cultivate the</p><p>integration at the heart of intraconnected ways of life that are possible for</p><p>humanity on Earth. Kuu Kaulia of the Native Hawaiian people offers two</p><p>words from his heritage to help us along our collective way:</p><p>Aloha in Hawaiian means unconditional love.… Ho’oponopono refers</p><p>to making a “wrong” right.… Our message from my people to</p><p>everyone is to love one another and to make things right now in this</p><p>life in order for us to move on and live a healthier life amidst the many</p><p>different challenges in the world today that we’re facing. (Ertinger &</p><p>Roebers, 2020, Kuu Kaulia)</p><p>Indigenous knowledge reminds us that deep learning invites an evolution,</p><p>perhaps a revolution, in consciousness. We start with our individual lives</p><p>and access a potentiality that rests in each of us. The universe in a grain of</p><p>sand; the infinite within the finitude of these bodily lives we lead. Though</p><p>we might not ever see the fruits of our labor nor resolve the seeming</p><p>paradoxes of these polarities, we can know that the eternal lives within the</p><p>transience of these bodies we are born into.</p><p>With the internal embraced, we move to the relational; we integrate</p><p>identity, broaden belonging. What arises is a synergy of self, an emergence</p><p>of something from the Me and We that is integration made visible:</p><p>kindness, compassion, love.</p><p>In a meeting with the activist Joanna Macy and some wonderful MWe</p><p>colleagues (or should it be “MWonderful” colleagues?), Joanna inspired us</p><p>to consider how bridging activism and spirituality could be done with deep</p><p>love, deep compassion. Her suggestion that we travel “gloriously” on this</p><p>challenging journey together to bring healing into the world, and that,</p><p>whether we succeed or not, we feel the gratitude and love in the effort,</p><p>ignited a fire in each of us.</p><p>If our conversation here is contributing anything to the larger human</p><p>conversation, it is the underscoring of the importance of these</p><p>philosophical, Indigenous, and contemplative sources of systems wisdom to</p><p>the contemporary narrative and the noting of the potential fundamental</p><p>mechanism of integration and its practical implications, which underlie how</p><p>systems function well in our world to promote harmony and health. By</p><p>delineating the differentiation and linkage components of integration, we</p><p>are given a science-informed, practical pathway to identify what might be</p><p>creating the chaos and rigidity in our lives—individually, socially,</p><p>ecologically—and then take action to liberate the various levels of impaired</p><p>integration at the root of these sources of suffering. While wisdom</p><p>traditions from Indigenous knowledge holders and from contemplative</p><p>practice may not explicitly use the concept of integration itself, nor that of</p><p>emergent self-organization, it seems they are implicitly consilient with these</p><p>views from Western mathematics and science and they knew them deeply</p><p>for millennia before science began to explore the synergy that arises from</p><p>interacting parts.</p><p>In addition to adding the lens of the science of systems and of energy to</p><p>this perennial wisdom, we will also be exploring key highlights of the</p><p>developmental stages of human life, which may help shed light on how</p><p>modern culture may mold the modern mind toward linear thinking and</p><p>away from systems wisdom across the lifespan. Both forms of thinking—</p><p>linear and systems—have important contributions to make for us to see the</p><p>world fully and act wisely in the world. Whatever our place in life, our</p><p>positionality, our developmental stage, we can participate in this move</p><p>toward integration. Each of us has the invitation; and those in a position of</p><p>privilege have the duty of integrity—the duty of bringing more integration</p><p>into our waiting world.</p><p>We can choose to live a life of love, awareness, and connection—to</p><p>move beyond a business-as-usual way of being on this planet that we all</p><p>share. As Indigenous scholars La Donna Harris and Jacqueline Wasilewski</p><p>(2004) suggest:</p><p>Structured dialogue processes have provided culturally resonant means</p><p>through which Indigenous peoples have been able to identify and</p><p>articulate their core values to broader audiences, especially the four</p><p>R’s (Relationship, Responsibility, Reciprocity and Redistribution).</p><p>These four R’s form the core of an emerging concept, Indigeneity. The</p><p>dynamic inclusivity of this value cluster has much to contribute to</p><p>global discourse as we go about the task of constructing global agoras,</p><p>the dialogic spaces of optimal mutual learning of the 21st century. (p.</p><p>489)</p><p>They contrast these four R’s of Indigeneity to the two P’s of modernity:</p><p>power and profit.</p><p>We can suggest a consilient notion that these core values of connection</p><p>are manifestations of a foundation of integration as health. We can choose</p><p>to take on these integrative ways of living in relationship with</p><p>responsibility, with a mutuality of reciprocal influence, and in ways that</p><p>redistribute and share our gifts—all driven by the innate force of love.</p><p>Imagine coming to these spaces of conversation, our modern agoras across</p><p>our shared systems of belonging, with love, connection, and the open</p><p>awareness of showing up, fully present, for one another, for humanity, and</p><p>for all living beings.</p><p>With these consilient approaches of wisdom traditions from thousands of</p><p>years of living on Earth, we can draw new ways of being and behaving that</p><p>have connection and collaboration at their core. Moving beyond the</p><p>extremes of the separation of individualism and the loss of independence in</p><p>collectivism, an integrated approach might be to combine the inner aspect</p><p>of identity, I or Me, with the inter aspect of belonging, an Us or We, in the</p><p>simple integrative self as MWe.</p><p>What a loving world MWe can choose to liberate, a world we can</p><p>intentionally nurture with a wider sense of what the self is, an integrative</p><p>identity, and a broadened belonging. MWe are each at once members of a</p><p>personal, human, and planetary family of all life on Earth. To re-mind</p><p>ourselves, to bring back to mind these broader ideas of what the notions of</p><p>“our” and “self” can truly mean,</p><p>is the intention of our initial steps on our</p><p>journey.</p><p>An Integrative Self</p><p>Long before I was exposed to these ancient teachings from Indigenous</p><p>knowledge or to the questions that challenged the modern view of a</p><p>separate self found in many contemplative practices, such as the Buddhist</p><p>focus on interdependence and the lack of a concrete self, I had been a young</p><p>adolescent focusing my attention on studying biology in college. Then I</p><p>came across those fascinating documentary films of other cultures in a</p><p>general education course on anthropology. The following summer I worked</p><p>in Mexico on that project with my anthropology teacher—the same trip</p><p>where I accidentally “lost my self.” I didn’t understand until many years</p><p>later that what shook me most about the academic aspect of that project,</p><p>was how I had expected to learn about their separate, isolated, Indigenous</p><p>ways of healing from a linear view of reducing something into its parts,</p><p>analyzing or breaking down things as if finding the fundamental units</p><p>would reveal the essence of something. I had been learning to see with a</p><p>simple view: take things apart to understand the whole. Yet in my</p><p>immersion in interviews with the various Indigenous healers, it seemed they</p><p>saw things through a different lens, a way of living that focused on</p><p>interconnection, not separation. And then, as a misfortune or not, I “fell</p><p>into” the experience of knocking that default mode-mediated experience of</p><p>a separate self right out of my worldview. My immediate, direct experience</p><p>was one of awareness without separation, a fullness of experience as a verb,</p><p>without the overlay of an identity as a noun of separation. Though I came</p><p>home to repair the bodily damage I sustained during that accident on the</p><p>horse, the “damage” to my linear, self-is-body view remained. As I try to</p><p>convey these experiences to you now, a feeling of gratitude arises, one with</p><p>a sense of awe that somehow, in the course of life’s unfolding, there could</p><p>be such an immersive shift in the feeling of identity, such a timely blow to</p><p>the linear lessons of a limited sense of self in the midst of adolescence.</p><p>Indigenous teachings—such as those offered by the knowledge holders</p><p>described earlier and those I’ve had the privilege to learn about directly</p><p>from individuals living in the cultures of the Tayuna of South America, the</p><p>Lakota and Inuit of North America, the San of Namibia in Africa, the Māori</p><p>of New Zealand, and the Aboriginal people of Australia—each have in their</p><p>core principles the notion that humans are fundamentally connected to each</p><p>other and to nature, that we are part of, not separate from, everything and</p><p>everyone around us. Similar insights are offered in the ancient philosophical</p><p>teachings and contemplative practices of Buddhism, originating in India,</p><p>Taoism and Confucianism in China, and the Stoics of Greece. In the</p><p>religious traditions of Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, a larger</p><p>sense of belonging within the human family is often fundamental to their</p><p>original teachings.</p><p>Yet now, in a trend that perhaps began in the West but seems to be</p><p>growing throughout the world, in the East and West, in the Northern and</p><p>Southern Hemispheres, the view of “modern culture” emphasizes</p><p>individuality and disconnection—the solo-self. From the perspective of</p><p>integration as health, this is an assault on well-being, as it overemphasizes</p><p>differentiation over linkage. Anthropologists and social psychologists</p><p>suggest that this modern cultural tendency toward a “self-construal” of</p><p>individualism and independence is at its most extreme in the United States</p><p>of America, my home. The culture here emphasizes separation rather than</p><p>connection, independence rather than interdependence, individuality rather</p><p>than a shared identity. There is often a pervasive attitude here that feels</p><p>something like “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” rather than a</p><p>mutuality of belonging to each other and to some greater good, some larger</p><p>whole of which we are a part. Instead, we are apart from one another,</p><p>finding our own way, it often feels to me, even in this body with white skin,</p><p>a heterosexual orientation, and economic and educational privilege. From</p><p>this position in this particular culture, I may try to understand but can only</p><p>listen deeply to friends and colleagues who do not share this position of the</p><p>majority, a position of privilege. And this culture of separateness is</p><p>contributing to, if not causing, many, if not all, of the pandemics we are</p><p>experiencing today, including those of social injustice and racism, and the</p><p>assaults on the vitality of our natural world.</p><p>Over these years I’ve learned from my relationship and my teaching with</p><p>Jack Kornfield about the contemplative tradition of Buddhism. And I’ve</p><p>had the honor of teaching at various times alongside the leader of Tibetan</p><p>Buddhism, his Holiness, the Dalai Lama. This contemplative tradition is not</p><p>my own background nor personal in-depth training, but these years of</p><p>learning, especially from these two individuals, about Buddhist thinking</p><p>and practice have given me insights into some of its contemplative—that is,</p><p>learning from meditative reflection—and philosophical points of view. In</p><p>these years, too, I have had the opportunity to teach with John O’Donohue,</p><p>a former Irish Catholic priest, philosopher, poet, and, in his own words,</p><p>mystic—someone who believes in the reality of the invisible (O’Donohue,</p><p>personal communication, October 15, 2003). These direct relationships and</p><p>experiences have woken my mind to the value of seeing beyond the</p><p>academy, beyond the research approach my own training in science and</p><p>medicine had led me to rely solely upon in constructing a worldview.</p><p>When we invite into our experience the reality of the connections among</p><p>parts of a system and open to the patterns of these connections across time</p><p>and space, we can realize how these invisible system connections are in fact</p><p>real. When we add to this the understanding that the ways in which we’ve</p><p>learned to perceive reality, including how to construct a sense of self, turn</p><p>back to filter what we sense into what we perceive in a top-down</p><p>construction of our view of the world, then we are further humbled and</p><p>inspired to do the hard work of being open to learning from different ways</p><p>of seeing, different ways of knowing, than what we were initially taught. It</p><p>is important to recall the statement, “the more we know, the less we see,” so</p><p>that we can come to let go of conceptual knowledge that may filter our</p><p>sensations into limited perceptions; we can, with intention, open our minds</p><p>to new ways of knowing.</p><p>As a science trained, Western educated physician, the challenge for this</p><p>body has been to let that educational top-down filtering move to the side in</p><p>order to attempt, as best as I could, to listen receptively to patients, students,</p><p>colleagues, and the wisdom of contemplative practice and Indigenous</p><p>teachings. This approach has invited the weaving of these ways of knowing</p><p>into a consilience with the foundations of science and, in turn, has opened</p><p>the doors to conversations with those in a range of many religious</p><p>traditions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and the Bahá’i</p><p>faith. As a child, my own experiences in my personal family were with the</p><p>Quaker American Friends and with the Unitarian Universalists. In each of</p><p>these new conversations and experiences, it seems that sensing a self that is</p><p>larger than the body has been at the heart of the teachings, even with the</p><p>various and quite distinct ways this principle is expressed in day-to-day</p><p>religious practices. Was there a way to bring these approaches to knowing</p><p>together, to bridge the worlds of science and of spirituality? While the</p><p>notion of being “interconnected” is at the heart of many of these</p><p>perspectives, might there be a way of moving from this perspective of a part</p><p>that is connected to other parts to a view from the experience of the whole</p><p>as intraconnected? Could there be an experience of the sensation,</p><p>perspective, and agency—the</p><p>elements from a science approach to self—</p><p>that might be consilient with this sense of being the whole, not just a part of</p><p>it?</p><p>As a white-identified person in the majority social grouping in the land I</p><p>live in, trained in the privileged educational systems of science and</p><p>medicine, I need to be open to the many blind spots I am blind to knowing</p><p>that I have. Even as I write these words to you, I remind myself to realize</p><p>that the journey of this self, of this individual named Dan, may speak to</p><p>these idealistic notions from the naïve position of not being marginalized, of</p><p>not facing the suffering and pain of being dehumanized because of the</p><p>identifying features of this body—its looks, its beliefs, its background, on</p><p>some levels, fit into the majority groupings. One state of mind in this body</p><p>says, “What right have you to write about belonging or identity when you</p><p>come from a position of such privilege where you never had to question</p><p>identity, never felt excluded because of that identity?” There have been</p><p>many days when this doubt has kept me stuck. I wonder, “Is there anything</p><p>useful from this place of privilege that might be of service to the world?”</p><p>What arises in this doubtful questioning is an inquiry into bridging worlds.</p><p>Is there a way to accept blind spots and respectfully offer something that</p><p>may provide a path to linking some of these often-separated ways of</p><p>knowing? When the news of global struggles continues to reveal the</p><p>mounting suffering the various pandemics create in our world, the doubts</p><p>are overcome by the drive to provide something that just might spark a light</p><p>in our collective efforts to change course.</p><p>With these limitations and concerns in mind, I feel that the journey</p><p>toward a consilience of knowledge, that common ground of a set of</p><p>discoveries derived from independent ways of knowing, might be a useful</p><p>and respectful attempt to see the whole elephant picture of our situation on</p><p>Earth, rather than relying on only one particular way of studying a part of</p><p>the whole. If we try to find the common ground across ways of knowing, to</p><p>not only illuminate a perhaps deeper sense of the truth of the world, we</p><p>might also be able to build helpful bridges across what seemed like</p><p>insurmountable divisions, bridges that offer an effective pathway for</p><p>cultivating a healthier world in which we all can live. “And maybe,” the</p><p>doubting mind of this body says, “just maybe, that could be of benefit to</p><p>our individual and collective journey ahead.”</p><p>What are we adding in our conversation here that hasn’t already been</p><p>addressed for thousands of years in wisdom teachings? We are</p><p>acknowledging, with deep respect and gratitude, these ancient teachings—</p><p>and we are offering to not only remind ourselves of this wisdom but also to</p><p>add to this focus on self. We are connecting the teachings from Indigenous</p><p>knowledge and of contemplative practice to the contributions of empirical</p><p>science in hopes that weaving longstanding insights with modern views</p><p>may bring a consilient strength to our human narrative, our ongoing</p><p>conversation, about who we are and where we are going.</p><p>From the framework of interpersonal neurobiology, it seems consiliently</p><p>clear that health is based on integration—the honoring of differences and</p><p>the cultivation of linkages. We are using the linguistic term “integration” to</p><p>name this balance of elements as being unique, specialized, or differentiated</p><p>on the one hand, and then connected, interwoven, or linked on the other.</p><p>Within the linkage there is no impeding of the differences. If we are adding</p><p>anything to this ancient topic, it is to name integration directly as the</p><p>process of well-being, to identify the chaos and rigidity that arise when</p><p>integration is not facilitated, and then to suggest ways to cultivate</p><p>integration to achieve states of well-being, of harmony, of health.</p><p>Opening to this consilience across ways of knowing brings up the</p><p>scientific notion, paralleled by contemplative and Indigenous teachings, that</p><p>an excessively differentiated self in modern culture may be at the root of</p><p>our most pressing challenges today. We can state the science-based notion</p><p>this way: Modern culture is not promoting an integrative self, identity, or</p><p>belonging. This impairment to integration is leading to the accelerating</p><p>chaos and rigidity in our personal, public, and planetary lives.</p><p>This is the impetus for our journey here, to dive deeply into self, identity,</p><p>and belonging. We can say that neither of the extremes of the original ways</p><p>researchers have identified this construction of self—an individualistic,</p><p>independent approach to self-construal that overemphasizes differentiation</p><p>over linkage nor an interdependent, relational, or collectivistic approach</p><p>that focuses on linkage at the peril of differentiation—lead to integration. A</p><p>broader building of identity might be wider than the two forms of relational</p><p>or collective interdependence, of being connected to other people or to</p><p>groups, features of our “self-aspects” explored by Emiko Kashima and</p><p>Elizabeth Hardie (2000), and perhaps be similar to the more recent</p><p>academic proposal of a metapersonal self-construal that sees one’s self as</p><p>related to all of humanity and to nature—not just particular people or</p><p>groups of people. In the original study of DeCicco and Stroink (2007),</p><p>lower levels of anxiety and depression were found in those in this</p><p>metapersonal grouping compared to those in the original two self-construal</p><p>categories—independent or interdependent, whether relational or</p><p>collectivistic. Questions that explore this more universal view of self</p><p>include items related to one’s personal existence being purposeful and</p><p>meaningful; a belief of not being separate from others; and a kinship with</p><p>all living things. Some studies suggest that those individuals of</p><p>contemplative and Indigenous backgrounds may reveal this metapersonal</p><p>self-construal more often than that those with other backgrounds. Factors</p><p>also included in this grouping are valuing an inner sense of peace, taking</p><p>time to quiet the mind, and acknowledging the benefits of intuition. With</p><p>this wider self-construal, enhanced well-being was found in further studies</p><p>by psychologists Constance Mara, Teresa DiCicco, and Mirella Stroink</p><p>(2010) who state:</p><p>The most relevant finding was in regard to the Metapersonal Self-</p><p>Construal. Higher Metapersonal Self-Construal scores predicted higher</p><p>emotional intelligence scores.… Additionally, higher Metapersonal</p><p>Self Construal scores alone predicted higher scores on two of the three</p><p>subscales of the TMMS [Trait Meta Mood Scale]: Mood Repair and</p><p>Attention to Feelings.…The Metapersonal Self-Construal scale was</p><p>also a stronger predictor of greater well-being. Thus, the Metapersonal</p><p>Self-Construal was meaningfully differentiated from the independent</p><p>and interdependent self-construals as a predictor of wellbeing and</p><p>emotional intelligence scores. (pp. 7–8)</p><p>Overall, these findings suggest that broadening our sense of belonging,</p><p>expanding our identity, enabling ourselves to have an experience of self that</p><p>extends beyond the body and even beyond just our personal relationships</p><p>and beliefs, and having membership in “something more” that connects us</p><p>to one another as a humanity, to nature, and to the reality of the universe are</p><p>both possible and beneficial. While the specific details of the empirical</p><p>measurement of self-construal may be actively debated in the academic</p><p>literature, as discussed, for example, by researchers Timothy Levine and</p><p>colleagues (2003) and further elaborated by Tom Giraud and team (Gibas,</p><p>2016), the concept itself—that we have various ways we construct a sense</p><p>of self—has important value. We will build on this concept of the</p><p>construction of self, acknowledging that the details of how to measure and</p><p>delineate the nature of these inner and relational identity processes is</p><p>actively being debated.</p><p>One basic premise we will suggest is that the journey toward a widened</p><p>sense of self does not need to leave our inner bodily experience out of this</p><p>extension of who we are—we can live a life that is both the inner,</p><p>individual me and the relational, connected we. This integration of self is</p><p>what our conversational journey is all about.</p><p>A consilient proposal is to see how human cultural evolution might</p><p>move itself in an integrative direction, honoring both differentiation and</p><p>linkage, cultivating and combining both the inner identity of me and the</p><p>inter identity of we as an intraconnected, integrative identity of MWe.</p><p>An Ancient Invitation for Modern Times</p><p>Our journey is an invitation to join together in addressing key issues about</p><p>our self, the experience of identity and belonging. In some ways, these</p><p>questions have been a part of our human dialogue in Indigenous cultures</p><p>and contemplative practices for thousands of years. So, you might wonder,</p><p>why focus on such ancient issues right now? We’ve seen that the major</p><p>challenges we face today, individually, as families, as communities, and as a</p><p>global system of living beings, may be fundamentally related to how we</p><p>humans view what the self is. It is the sense of self that may directly</p><p>influence our individual and collective well-being. And for this reason,</p><p>addressing an ancient question, perhaps with some new insights from</p><p>science, may be quite timely.</p><p>You may also be asking, even if these are interesting issues, what can we</p><p>do to make an effective and lasting impact on our well-being beyond just</p><p>discussing ideas? If the proposition from the wisdom traditions of</p><p>Indigenous and contemplative teachings is true, that we are all part of a</p><p>larger whole of nature and not merely the individual bodies we are born</p><p>into, what further impetus would we need to accept that timeless invitation</p><p>to be aware of our larger self and now turn that insight into timely action?</p><p>How can we make a difference in the journey of humanity in the immediate</p><p>years ahead of us?</p><p>One approach to these questions is to consider how we grow and change.</p><p>We’ll examine our individual development—highlighting particular aspects</p><p>of developmental science that may be especially relevant to understanding</p><p>how the mind and the construction of the experience of self, identity, and</p><p>belonging develop across the lifespan. And we’ll explore how we change in</p><p>large groups of people, how culture and community grow and change.</p><p>Cultural evolution can initiate deep shifts in how we live together on Earth.</p><p>This cultural growth in the self can be initiated and maintained through the</p><p>ways we intentionally choose to construct a sense of self. You are reading</p><p>and I am writing, and together, honoring the inner of you and of me, yet</p><p>acknowledging the deeply real—if sometimes not readily visible—</p><p>relational connections of we, MWe can consider new ways of living into the</p><p>wholeness of being intraconnected in our shared world. The way we</p><p>communicate—with one another, and within our internal reflections—</p><p>shapes how we become immersed in new ways of feeling into our</p><p>experience of self. Symbols, too, the language we use, can support ways of</p><p>sharing and deepening that directly felt shift in how we perceive reality.</p><p>Perhaps it is idealistic, perhaps naïve, perhaps wishful optimism—yet when</p><p>we add the broad fields of science, especially the sciences of energy and of</p><p>systems, to this timeless invitation to push back on our vulnerability to</p><p>perceiving only as an individual, we may come to see that naming this</p><p>challenge allows us to frame its parameters and then initiate wise action in</p><p>the service of cultural evolution. We can, with awareness, openness, and</p><p>intention, move beyond the understandable drive for certainty yet inherent</p><p>confusion of individualism and embrace the less visible, less certain, and</p><p>less controllable reality of our integrated nature, the intraconnection of the</p><p>whole of which these bodies, this you and this me, are just one component.</p><p>We are interconnected, you and I. We share many things between us: air,</p><p>ideas, economy, language, humanity. This betweenness is what we express</p><p>with the prefix “inter-.” This is where all those inter- terms, like</p><p>“interconnected,” arise; something very real exists between entities. The</p><p>idea and experience of intraconnection, in contrast, expresses a withinness</p><p>of identity and belonging, linked within a fabric of life. It emerged as a term</p><p>to describe a sense not merely of being connected to trees and people and</p><p>place but rather of a connectedness within a whole—a sense of wholeness</p><p>experienced from within.</p><p>This type of connection suggests that the wholeness of our self may</p><p>actually be different from the modern solo-me self we’ve so often been</p><p>taught. From an intraconnected perspective, the term “self” is more than</p><p>merely the brain, the body, the person that creates these words—bigger than</p><p>the body that empowers us to write and read these words. From this</p><p>perspective, the self encompasses the whole of the systems in which we</p><p>live. A system is composed of parts; and it may be that instead of seeing the</p><p>living system as the self, we’ve come to see only the part as the self. It may</p><p>be time to correct this illusion, this misguided perception—to widen our</p><p>lens and see the self not only as these bodies but to include the living</p><p>system as an intraconnected whole.</p><p>I invite you to join me in exploring how we might more deeply know</p><p>what comprises the experience of self, perhaps opening up our</p><p>understanding of how that self emerges, widening our perspective on how</p><p>we identify the self as we integrate our identity and broaden our sense of</p><p>belonging. I invite you to see inside the sea inside and to be open to what</p><p>may not at first be visible to the eye: a withinness that happens not just in</p><p>your body but within the wholeness of life itself. John O’Donohue might</p><p>suggest this then is a mystical journey, a quest to see the reality of the</p><p>invisible. Indigenous teachings would suggest this is ancient knowledge.</p><p>Contemplative insights might see this as the realization of the reality of</p><p>interdependence. And recent findings in science, from physics’s study of</p><p>the microstate properties of energy to the mathematical implications of the</p><p>emergence of complex systems, would support the movement from the</p><p>simplistic, closed, linear Newtonian view to a more complex, open,</p><p>dynamical systems perspective of not only the connections among parts but</p><p>the patterns of the whole that are observed with a different way of</p><p>perceiving the nature of reality—equally real, simply sensed with a</p><p>different lens.</p><p>This perspective may build a bridge to new ways, for many of us in</p><p>modern times, to experience a wider, more integrated identity, a broader</p><p>belonging that incorporates all of humanity and of nature, not only those</p><p>like-us, letting the experience of self open up to live more fully in life.</p><p>One way to symbolize this intraconnection, how individually we become</p><p>part of something larger than merely our inner selves or our connections to</p><p>individuals like us, is with a simple equation:</p><p>Me + We = MWe.</p><p>While I first introduced this term in prior writings (Siegel, 2014; 2017;</p><p>2020), here we are exploring, expanding, and expressing its features and</p><p>implications for how we might, as a human family, approach the many</p><p>pandemics that both challenge us and afford us an opportunity to embrace</p><p>the Indigenous wisdom of coming to respect, connect, reflect, and direct our</p><p>efforts to shift cultural evolution toward a more integrative way of living</p><p>together on Earth.</p><p>MWe is perhaps a funny and awkward word for some. Yet for others it is</p><p>a simple and useful term that reminds us of our integrated identity, the</p><p>features that characterize us as individuals (Me—our individual, inner self),</p><p>our wider belonging in humanity and within nature (We—our relational,</p><p>inter self), and the intraconnected, integrated experience of self in the</p><p>relational wholeness of MWe.</p><p>MWe symbolizes the ways we join as part of something larger than our</p><p>inner selves, larger than our connection to those who are like us: We join</p><p>with people and the planet; we are intraconnected within nature. Within</p><p>this</p><p>intraconnection, we do not lose our individuality; MWe embraces both the</p><p>me and the we of our identity. MWe reminds us how we can integrate our</p><p>identity and broaden our belonging to stretch beyond a limiting, separate,</p><p>solo-self.</p><p>A truly scientific stance entails not only curiosity about the true nature of</p><p>reality but also an inherent understanding that there is much beyond what</p><p>we can sense directly. When we open to that wonder about the world, we</p><p>leave behind the noun-like illusion of certainty that the solo-self shrinks</p><p>into. A wider sense of self fills us with wonder, opening to the verb-like</p><p>nature of unfolding.</p><p>As MWe move along in our journey here, I offer you an opportunity,</p><p>within the framework of this book, to creatively experience more than just a</p><p>factual exploration of things and events—the noun-like cognition of things.</p><p>I am also offering an experiential way of knowing—a verb-like dynamic</p><p>happening—as you pause, wonder, and explore this inner connection of self</p><p>within an intraconnected whole, which may be invisible to our eyes yet is</p><p>equally real. These two ways of knowing are captured by the Greek terms</p><p>“noesis,” meaning intellectual knowledge, and “gnosis,” meaning</p><p>knowledge gained from direct experience. Noesis and gnosis each provide</p><p>foundational ways of gaining new insights, understanding, and ways of</p><p>being.</p><p>The developmental approach we will take on our journey will invite both</p><p>types of knowledge: Through the lens of lifespan growth and learning, from</p><p>before conception through mature adult, we will explore core issues and</p><p>key aspects of the growth of our experience of self, identity, and belonging.</p><p>You may find yourself reflecting on your own history as you take this</p><p>journey. You’ll find two forms of immersive experiences that focus on the</p><p>personal process of integration in the Appendices, should you choose to try</p><p>these out: a Wheel of Awareness reflective practice, which I’ll discuss more</p><p>soon, and an Integrative Movement Series, which enables the embodiment</p><p>in motion of nine domains of integration, each relevant to our journey here.</p><p>You may find it helpful to reflect, in a journal or in your inner mental</p><p>explorations, on how these ideas and immersive experiences expand your</p><p>understanding of your own personal pathway in life and how they help link</p><p>the experiential knowing of gnosis with the conceptual conversations of</p><p>noetic experiences that unfold.</p><p>In many ways, this journey from before conception and across the</p><p>lifespan, this blending of gnosis and noesis and weaving of inner and outer</p><p>—this intraconnection of MWe—invites us to let go of the tangible</p><p>certainties our narrow focus, noun-based, individualistic modern</p><p>approaches have endowed us with and to embrace a wider expanse of</p><p>discovery within an integrated self. If we are truly open, our conversation,</p><p>in the pages of this book, will bring us to an open field of possibility—open</p><p>with curiosity, open to wonder and exploration, embracing uncertainty. It is</p><p>my sincere hope that this process will help us better understand and</p><p>navigate the world around and within. What we felt we knew with certainty,</p><p>what we thought we could control, how we filtered reality to predict</p><p>actions, how we organize information into categorical divisions and</p><p>concepts—each of these, embedded in the neural networks of our brains</p><p>and shaped by the communications we have with one another, can change,</p><p>grow, and evolve in our personal development and cultural evolution. They</p><p>can even happen in the journey of this conversation.</p><p>When we embrace this emerging uncertainty, we gain freedom and the</p><p>ability to reach outside the confines of our prescribed, noun-like, solo-self</p><p>ways. Put simply, our efforts to strive for certainty in an uncertain world</p><p>have been reinforced —pushing us to “live as nouns” rather than embrace</p><p>the reality of our verb-like nature. As a noun, we can have boundaries and</p><p>definitions that give us an illusion of certainty and control; as a verb, we are</p><p>open and ever-changing events, deeply interlinked in an uncontrollable</p><p>fabric of life. We can recognize these motivations to construct certainty and</p><p>then invite this more verb-like emergence into our mindset, let the fluent</p><p>nature of self arise, and perhaps even become surprised by our own</p><p>becoming. As John O’Donohue once said, “I would love to live like a river</p><p>flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding” (O’Donohue, 2000, p.</p><p>41). This is the invitation. I welcome you to the flow of whatever emerges</p><p>in our unfolding conversation that lies ahead.</p><p>EMERGENCE</p><p>Who are we? How do we form our identity, the features that define who we are? And</p><p>how does the world around us, the world of people and of nature, shape</p><p>these features of self to resonate with the larger memberships to which we</p><p>come to belong?</p><p>A Space of Being</p><p>To dive deeply into these fundamental questions linking self, identity, and</p><p>belonging, perhaps it is best to start at the very beginning, to first explore</p><p>some basic inquiries into the nature of reality itself. In our discussions</p><p>ahead, we will explore independently discovered principles, found in a</p><p>number of distinct approaches in Western science, and compare them to</p><p>other ways we come to make sense of experience, such as those of</p><p>Indigenous and contemplative traditions we briefly discussed earlier in our</p><p>conversation. As we’ve seen, this effort to find a common ground among</p><p>the independent ways of knowing can be called “consilience.”</p><p>As an example of applying the principle of consilience, let’s look at the</p><p>physical reality of energy. In the fields of mathematics and physics, the</p><p>pursuit of understanding the nature of the universe has resulted in a</p><p>proposal that there exists a “mathematical space,” known by such terms as a</p><p>“quantum vacuum” and “sea of potential,” a space in which all possibilities</p><p>rest before they transform into actualities.</p><p>Here’s an example we might use to make this abstract notion more</p><p>accessible. If I think of one of the, let’s say, one million English words you</p><p>and I share by virtue of sharing a common language, your chance of</p><p>guessing that one word out of one million is a “near-zero” quantity, as it’s</p><p>called. The space of possibility, that set containing all possible words, is</p><p>analogous to the sea of potential, a formless source of all form, as some</p><p>physicists call it. It is formless, as it contains only possibilities of what later</p><p>will become a form—in this case, a spoken word. The process of</p><p>transforming from the space of possibility, where all possibilities are</p><p>equally likely to be chosen, to a single actuality, once the choice is made, is</p><p>how some physicists define “energy.” The movement from that space of</p><p>possibility to the actuality of form, from possibility to actuality, can be</p><p>called “energy flow.”</p><p>So, when I tell you that the word I chose is “ocean,” energy occurs as a</p><p>flow from my mind to yours. Figure 2.1 shows what this experience might</p><p>look like on a diagram: the movement from Point A, all possible words</p><p>from which I could choose, to Point A-1, when I state one very specific</p><p>word. The vertical y-axis ranges from all those possibilities, at the bottom,</p><p>to specific certainty, at the top. When I said “ocean” and you and I were</p><p>now certain of which word was spoken, that represents 100 percent. This is</p><p>maximal probability, maximal certainty. The horizontal x-axis represents</p><p>the time between all choices being possible and my choice of one specific</p><p>word. The movement from that pool of all possibilities, each with near-zero</p><p>probability and a maximal degree of uncertainty, to the highest probability</p><p>—100 percent certainty, once I state my choice—is energy flow, a sharing</p><p>of that word between you and me, a movement from possibility to actuality.</p><p>Here’s the range of certainties, the range of probabilities: Possibility is</p><p>wide open potential, meaning both (a) lowest probability (you are most</p><p>unlikely to guess the word I might say) and at the same time (b) maximal</p><p>uncertainty (you are most uncertain of what I’ll say when possibility</p><p>is</p><p>maximal). Certainty results from the movement from potential to actual:</p><p>You are both (a) most certain of my choice of word and thus (b) most likely</p><p>to “guess” or “know” that word.</p><p>Figure 2.1 Energy flows from Point A—all possible words from which I could choose, each</p><p>with near zero probability—to Point A-1—once I’ve stated my choice of a single word, thus</p><p>100 percent certainty.</p><p>Life is dancing with possibility; life is dancing as energy. The process of</p><p>things changing is what we call “flow.” We are inherently aware of this</p><p>flow, this change, and we have named this awareness “time”—you and I</p><p>can measure this flow with our clocks. At the most fundamental level,</p><p>everything we experience is energy flow. Understanding the nature of</p><p>energy offers us an opportunity to understand more deeply the nature of our</p><p>life experience.</p><p>Sometimes we experience this energy flow as pure energy, like the</p><p>sensation of a breeze on your cheek, with our consciousness as an</p><p>awareness of a conduit for our experiences, letting the flow pass through us.</p><p>Other times the mind acts as a constructor of meaning, such as when we</p><p>label this sensation “breeze.” This labeling is also an energy flow: a symbol</p><p>of something other than itself, like a word, we call “information.” Our</p><p>experience of energy flow, then, is both as a conduit of sensory energy flow</p><p>and as a constructor of symbolic energy flow. Yet despite their differences,</p><p>both conduition and construction are energy flow in the mind and generate</p><p>our experience of being alive.</p><p>In this view of reality, energy is the “basic stuff” of the universe, and</p><p>information arises from its flow; a related perspective is that information is</p><p>the basic component of the universe, and energy emerges from it. From a</p><p>consilient perspective, these two notions of what the universe comprises are</p><p>fundamentally energy and information flow: Both energy and information</p><p>change over time—they flow.</p><p>You and I both know that there is something else we encounter every day</p><p>that seems different from the conduit sensory-like energy flow and different</p><p>from the constructed symbol-like information flow: matter. This book you</p><p>hold in your hand or, if you are listening to an audiobook, the speakers</p><p>generating the sounds that strike your ears are examples of this something</p><p>we call matter. Matter has a mass; we can hold it, measure its weight,</p><p>determine its spatial dimensions, and watch it change. Western science has</p><p>revealed to us that all matter in the universe is composed of molecules,</p><p>which are in turn comprised of atoms, which in turn consist of smaller units</p><p>… yet all of these forms of matter relate to energy through Albert Einstein’s</p><p>formula: energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. The simple</p><p>reality is that even mass is made of energy—very condensed energy.</p><p>Scientists propose that before basic atomic particles were formed there was</p><p>only potential. This might be viewed as pre-formation, in modern physics</p><p>terms: that formless source of all form, a sea of potential not yet manifested</p><p>into actuality.</p><p>Figure 2.2 helps illustrate this state of pre-formation by building on the</p><p>previous graph: It has the same y-axis, probability of my choice of word,</p><p>and it has the same x-axis, time or change in probability. But it adds a third</p><p>dimension: the z-axis, going in and out of the plane of the page, which</p><p>represents all the many diverse words that I could choose in a given</p><p>moment, representing all this diversity of possibility and actuality. This</p><p>gives the diagram a bottommost plane that represents all those diverse</p><p>possibilities across time. Let’s call this the “plane of possibility.”</p><p>In our word example, this would be the “mathematical space” filled with</p><p>all words that exist that could potentially be chosen. It is a “formless source</p><p>of all form” in that it is filled with potential choices before any were</p><p>chosen. This plane of possiblity on the diagram is consistent with what</p><p>physicists call the quantum vaccuum, or sea of potential.</p><p>Figure 2.2 The plane of possibility represents all diverse possibilities across time.</p><p>This diagram’s plane of possibility illustrates the pre-formation space of</p><p>reality. Before subatomic particles formed in our universe, there existed</p><p>only potential. The condensation of this energy became atoms and</p><p>molecules, stars and galaxies—open possibility transformed into probability</p><p>and actuality. In the diagram in Figure 2.2, this position of potentiality, this</p><p>pre-formed space of reality, is illustrated as the plane of possibility.</p><p>This often-unfamiliar notion of a mathematical space of potential may at</p><p>first seem odd, but for some, the notion of a space of potentiality may relate</p><p>to a sense of an open field, as the poet Rumi might call it, a wide-open</p><p>expanse, a peaceful sense of potential. It may be that these phrases are</p><p>efforts to convey this plane of possibility, what we can call a “space of</p><p>being.” Being is energy, and being emerges along a range, beginning in the</p><p>plane of possibility.</p><p>For some, a direct access to the subjective sense of this plane of</p><p>possibility arises in experiences of meditation or walks in nature, each</p><p>inviting a feeling of awe and the experience of a wide-open, receptive</p><p>awareness. Open awareness and awe share an “expansion of self,” a sense</p><p>of subjectivity and perspective of a wider lens on identity, a broader</p><p>belonging than an isolated self often entails. For some, this expansion feels</p><p>empty-yet-full: empty of particular thoughts and free of an isolated sense of</p><p>self—a noun-like view of identity—and full of potentiality and an</p><p>experience of timelessness and connection as a verb-like unfolding of</p><p>being. In our word-choice example, the moment before you knew the word</p><p>I chose, “ocean,” was a moment of uncertainty yet possibility, a time of</p><p>freedom, an experience of the openness of the plane of possibility. At that</p><p>moment, you may also have experienced that oddly worded sense, empty-</p><p>yet-full, as the sensation of this plane of possibility as a formless source of</p><p>potential-form filled your awareness. As we’ll see, this experience may be</p><p>not only something we can become aware of, it may be the source of being</p><p>aware itself.</p><p>As we move forward in our exploration of the flow of energy, I hope you</p><p>come to see how forms of all sorts—in the shape of matter and even of</p><p>mental experiences, from emotion to memory, thought to intention—emerge</p><p>from this space of potential, including how you and I come to understand</p><p>what a self may be, how we form our identity, and how we come to sense</p><p>our belonging in life. What’s more, these manifestations of potentialities,</p><p>transforming into increased probabilities and then certainties arising from</p><p>the plane of possibility, not only may be the source of our mental lives, they</p><p>also can be shaped by our mental experience—we can intentionally alter the</p><p>flow of energy and information. You may feel the recursive, reciprocal,</p><p>reinforcing nature of energy’s self-organizing emergent flow as mind—as</p><p>mental life both emerges from energy flow and then shapes its own</p><p>becoming.</p><p>Formless Into Form, Energy Into Mind and Matter</p><p>As the formlessness of potential gives rise to form as actuality, energy</p><p>moves from its lowest point, the plane of possibility, upward to higher</p><p>degrees of probability. Figure 2.1 illustrates this process of becoming as the</p><p>movement upward along the probability dimension (y-axis) from possibility</p><p>(near-zero probability) through various probabilities toward actuality (100%</p><p>probability).</p><p>Let’s relate this to our daily experience by continuing with the example</p><p>of choosing a word. Figure 2.3 is a simple, two-dimensional diagram like</p><p>Figure 2.1, where A is all possible words I could chose, and A-1 is my final</p><p>choice. Now let’s say I’m thinking of all words that might begin with an</p><p>“o”—let’s say there were ten thousand of these. Your chance of guessing</p><p>this word would be, yes, one in ten thousand. Point B in Figure 2.3 marks</p><p>that location of energy on the y-axis of probability; when I say the word</p><p>“ostrich,”</p><p>of this self, known as Dan, I have</p><p>come to appreciate that our sense of self sometimes becomes distorted and</p><p>misleads, constricts, and limits our well-being in life. Our subjective</p><p>sensations may become filled with suffering experienced as chaos and</p><p>rigidity; our perspective limited or distorted by filters beyond our</p><p>awareness; our agency hampered by paralysis or overwhelmed by</p><p>impulsivity.</p><p>In modern times, an experience of self—what is sometimes called a</p><p>“sense of self”—that is defined only by our individual body as a center of</p><p>identity and belonging can lead to the sadly common experience of</p><p>disconnection, disillusionment, and despair. The ensuing anxiety,</p><p>depression, and even suicidal thoughts and behavior are painful outcomes</p><p>that are steadily increasing in our modern societies. But if you, like me, live</p><p>within a culture that subscribes to this perspective of “identity equals body,”</p><p>isn’t the “self” truly based solely in this bodily center? Akin to the</p><p>statement that the mind is only the activity of the brain, questioning self as</p><p>body alone is often not even a part of our inquiries into the nature of life. It</p><p>is a modern construction, rarely challenged, that the individual is the center</p><p>of self-experience. It may even seem inevitable, through this particular lens</p><p>on identity, to say that our sensations, perspective, and agency come only</p><p>from an individual, bodily source.</p><p>If you live in a modern culture, when you ask who or where or what you</p><p>are, you likely point to your body, or perhaps your head, and say, “Here I</p><p>am. This is me.” You might ask, from this common vantage point of</p><p>contemporary life, how else would we see what the self is other than the</p><p>individual? Yet by understanding the true nature of ourselves and how our</p><p>identities and belonging actually can be expanded beyond the body as a</p><p>center of sensation, perspective, and agency, we come to a wider view of</p><p>how we are in fact connected with one another as human beings and within</p><p>nature as members of a broader belonging, an identity that is integrated with</p><p>more of the world than the body alone, a self that is a part of a synergy of</p><p>systems much bigger than the individual. It is the hope of this journey,</p><p>IntraConnected, that together we can transform our experiences from</p><p>disconnection to connection and come to live a healthier, fuller, freer life,</p><p>with enhanced personal flourishing, public health, and even with shared</p><p>planetary well-being.</p><p>A tall order, you may think—to move from the experience of an</p><p>individual’s identity to the health of life on Earth. But consider this: When</p><p>we examine how the actions of our human family are influencing so many</p><p>aspects of living systems on this precarious and precious planet upon which</p><p>we live, from the impact of human endeavors on our shared air, water, and</p><p>land to the social injustices and racism rampant in our civilization to the</p><p>loss of fellow species with whom we share our biosphere, we can see that</p><p>those consequences are each driven by the human mind. And it is this mind</p><p>—so rarely defined yet so profoundly influential—that is at the heart of</p><p>how well-being, or suffering, arises in our lives. I’ve spent the last four</p><p>decades obsessed with questions of what the mind is and what makes for a</p><p>healthy mind. This focus on self, identity, and belonging is a natural</p><p>extension and application of this exploration to some of the most pressing</p><p>challenges we face today: the health and flourishing of life on Earth.</p><p>These explorations of combining various ways of knowing into a</p><p>common-ground framework called interpersonal neurobiology have led to</p><p>the idea that well-being emerges when distinct aspects of our bodily lives,</p><p>our relationships, and our planetary systems become linked together as an</p><p>integrative, adaptive whole. We clearly define integration as the linkage of</p><p>differentiated components of a system.When this system’s components are</p><p>interacting and interdependent in their flow, the system is called complex</p><p>and has self-organizing features that include being adaptive and able to</p><p>learn. These complex systems, as we’ll explore throughout our journey, are</p><p>within the body and its brain, within families and communities, and within</p><p>all the ecosystems that form the intricate personal, social, and natural</p><p>environments in which we live—these inner and inter sources of our</p><p>experience of identity and belonging, our experience of self, shape our lives</p><p>and are, in turn, shaped by us.</p><p>We are all busy in our lives, so in this book, I’ll try to be as succinct as</p><p>possible; I’ll put a suggestion or an idea we can ponder together upfront,</p><p>then follow that with support for, or background on, that notion. Here is one</p><p>for us to start with: A complex system is composed of interacting parts,</p><p>often called nodes, and each node interacts with other nodes via their</p><p>linkages. This is how the system functions. If a node functions as if it is the</p><p>totality of its identity, that it belongs only to its nodal part in the system, it</p><p>will behave in a disconnected way, interdependence will shut down, and the</p><p>whole complex system will lose its ability to adapt and learn. Its self-</p><p>organization toward harmony will be compromised, and instead the system</p><p>will move toward chaos or rigidity. If the human mind has constructed a</p><p>view of the self as separate, it may be that the body (a node) has come to</p><p>identify itself as the whole self—rather than the self also including the</p><p>whole of the systems in which that node (the body) exists. In medicine,</p><p>when this happens to renegade cells in the body that grow without regard to</p><p>the complex living somatic system, we call it cancer.</p><p>In the journey we are undertaking together, as you, in the body with your</p><p>inner identity, read this book and I, in this body, write it, we will explore</p><p>how these systems shape our identity and belonging across the human</p><p>lifespan. I’ll be inviting you to reflect on your own experience, to</p><p>differentiate and define it, and then link it to what I’ll be sharing with you</p><p>from my own personal reflections. We’ll also be differentiating and then</p><p>linking various ideas and ways of knowing as we distinguish them and then</p><p>connect them to one another—as we integrate them. We’ll be drawing on a</p><p>range of ways of knowing, seeking out the consilience, or overlap, across</p><p>these often-distinct approaches to making sense of reality to reveal the ways</p><p>of living that support not confusion or constriction but a generative, health-</p><p>and connection-promoting outcome—ways by which we can honor the</p><p>complexity of what we experience as self, identity, and belonging and</p><p>enable these to develop in a positive, integrative direction.</p><p>Challenge and Opportunity</p><p>We live in remarkable times and face many challenges to our well-being</p><p>that can often feel overwhelming and insurmountable. It’s not uncommon</p><p>these days to hear people describe a sense of despair and hopelessness when</p><p>facing the social injustices and environmental destruction that surround us.</p><p>Yet this challenging moment in the history of life on Earth, of humanity and</p><p>of all nature, also provides an opportunity, a motivation for us to reimagine</p><p>how we might live, individually and as a human and nature family on Earth,</p><p>in ways that actually might serve as collective inspiration for growth. In this</p><p>book I invite you to join me in asking the fundamental questions of what</p><p>self, identity, and belonging truly are. Then we will be in a position to ask,</p><p>“What has gone wrong and how can this be changed?” so that we might</p><p>illuminate how the modern pathway has strayed from what we—</p><p>individually, humans collectively, and the natural world—need to be and do</p><p>to live as sustainable, generative systems on Earth. I invite you to explore,</p><p>express, and then consider ways to engage your selves, your identities, and</p><p>your belonging in fundamental changes that will promote health on our</p><p>planet.</p><p>If the human mind is responsible for the difficulties we now face, then</p><p>the human mind can be responsible for the awareness of these conditions</p><p>and the actions that are possible</p><p>energy flows to Point B-1. Focusing this idea even further, let’s</p><p>say that the number of words I might choose is small, such as the number of</p><p>named oceans in the world or the number of continents. Figure 2.3 also</p><p>shows this movement from a restricted number of options at Point C to the</p><p>actualization at Point C-1.</p><p>We shall see that if mind is an emergent property of energy flow, then</p><p>mental processes may be understood as “probability positions,” as</p><p>visualized on our diagram. A thought or memory, for example, would be</p><p>one hundred percent actualization whereas a state of mind or mood would</p><p>be a lower point, one representing higher probability than near zero, but not</p><p>yet one hundred percent—like the Points B or C in our graph that signify a</p><p>subset of possibilities that might be chosen, just as a state of mind or mood</p><p>filters which thoughts, emotions, or memories are most likely to emerge at</p><p>that moment. We’ll dive deeply into this notion of mind as emerging from</p><p>energy flow as we move ahead in our journey—as we develop into a being</p><p>with a body and a brain that shape this flow of energy within us to influence</p><p>our experience of self, identity, and belonging.</p><p>Figure 2.3 Energy flows from Point B, all possible words that begin with “o,” to Point B-1,</p><p>at which point I state my choice from the ten thousand possible words. If only five words are</p><p>in the subset of possible words, energy flows from Point C, at which there is a one in five</p><p>chance one will guess my word, to Point C-1, which represents the moment I select one of</p><p>those five words.</p><p>As we explore and travel a developmental trajectory and highlight</p><p>specific aspects of the science of human lifespan growth that are especially</p><p>relevant to understanding the self in the following chapters, we can use this</p><p>diagram to picture how energy flow—the movement across these different</p><p>probabilities across time—underlies the nature of mind, from consciousness</p><p>to states of mood and intention, from the dynamic verb-based thinking and</p><p>remembering to our experience of noun-based thought and memory.</p><p>Energy flows when we communicate with each other. When we use</p><p>symbols, such as words or gestures, possibility manifests into actuality,</p><p>formlessness transforms into form. Another familiar way energy manifests</p><p>in this wondrous world is as the fundamental “stuff” of mass, the matter that</p><p>we can see and touch and hold in our hands; the matter that makes life</p><p>possible. When atomic particles form, they are condensations of energy.</p><p>If this is all energy flow, we might ask what energy itself is “made of.” A</p><p>basic unit of energy is called a quantum (its plural is quanta). An example</p><p>of a quantum is an electron or a photon. When you see something, like</p><p>these words on a page or light through a window, you are sensing quanta of</p><p>photons. Now what, in fact, is a quantum of energy? In modern physics, a</p><p>quantum of energy is considered a probability field. This means that</p><p>probability, the way we describe different degrees of certainty—as in our</p><p>Figures 2.1 through 2.3 above—actually underlies all of reality. Although in</p><p>everyday life we don’t usually consider this type of probability, it is, truly,</p><p>beneath all of our experience, all of our energy and information flow. And</p><p>consider that mass—like this book you might be holding in your hand or the</p><p>floor beneath your feet—is actually very dense energy. In the world of</p><p>probability, “dense energy” means a commitment, a flow, of possibility into</p><p>actuality.</p><p>Our bodies are made of molecules, which are assemblies of atoms,</p><p>which are comprised of subatomic particles, which are ultimately densely</p><p>packed quanta. This means that even before our bodies were conceived,</p><p>even before complex life forms evolved, there was the emergence of</p><p>probability and certainty from possibility and uncertainty—form formed</p><p>from a formless space of being, the sea of potential, into higher degrees of</p><p>commitment, into form as certainty.</p><p>In my four books, The Developing Mind, Mindsight, Mind: A Journey to the</p><p>Heart of Being Human, and Aware, I proposed that mind is an emergent</p><p>property of embodied and relational energy flow; this flow arises—emerges</p><p>—within our skin-encased body and brain (embodied flow) and within our</p><p>relationships with people and the planet (relational flow). Embodied flow</p><p>literally means “how energy flow occurs within the skin-encased body and</p><p>its brain in various manifestations,” such as the electrochemical energy flow</p><p>of neural activity and a wide range of molecular processes and their</p><p>chemical energy transformations, all distributed throughout our somatic</p><p>systems. Relational flow indicates energy that is shared between people and</p><p>between individuals and the natural environment with which they are</p><p>fundamentally connected. In this way, embodied can be considered</p><p>“internal” or “inner” with respect to the individual; relational can be</p><p>considered “inter” or “between” as the sharing of energy and information</p><p>we can call a relationship or relational connection. A center of experience—</p><p>of energy flow—can have an inner and an inter spatial location that we</p><p>designate as embodied and as relational. We have named the whole of the</p><p>inner and inter connections of flow “intraconnected,” from the perspective</p><p>of the whole system of energy and information flow. In simple symbols: Me</p><p>is inner; We is inter; MWe is intra.</p><p>Seeing the mind as emerging from energy flow also gives us insights</p><p>into how our sense of self, our experience of identity, and the ways we</p><p>come to belong—or not—can be understood from this consilient</p><p>perspective. The mind emerging from energy, seen as probability, helps us</p><p>understand our mind’s facets of consciousness, subjective experience, and</p><p>information processing. What’s more, it illuminates how we come to</p><p>organize our own unfolding as self in the world.</p><p>For us to deeply address who you and I are, our self, our identity, our</p><p>belonging, we need to take care not to merely reinforce our own</p><p>perspectives, our own sense of certainty. To try to see beyond our</p><p>preconceptions, gathered through a lifetime of development, we need to</p><p>think beyond the views we currently have, to consider new ways of</p><p>approaching how our mind constructs a view of reality and then</p><p>communicates that view via the flow of energy.</p><p>Whether as concerned individual citizens of Earth or professionals</p><p>working in mental health or in the broader fields of well-being, education,</p><p>social justice, environmental science, or public policy, considering these</p><p>deep foundations in the science of energy can help us imagine and</p><p>implement innovative and impactful solutions for the problems we now</p><p>face.</p><p>If the hypothesis we are considering in this book is on the right track—</p><p>that the contemporary construction of a solo-self, isolated from others in</p><p>our human family and from the family of all living beings, is a significant</p><p>source of our modern pandemics—then taking on an intraconnected energy</p><p>flow approach to self, identity, and belonging might help us create real and</p><p>lasting impacts toward a more integrative way living together here, now, on</p><p>Earth.</p><p>The Force and Matter of Life</p><p>Quanta organize into atoms, which, by assembling into molecules, enable</p><p>their interactions to form self-organizing clusters of complex structures.</p><p>Some of those assemblies make membranes that enfold their inner contents</p><p>into what will become the basic unit of life: the cell. Cells have outer</p><p>boundaries that enable their inner structures and processes to be embraced</p><p>and protected, organized and directed; these membranes maintain life by</p><p>determining what comes in and what stays out of the cell. As a result, inside</p><p>and outside, inner and outer, are a defining feature of what Western science</p><p>considers “life.”</p><p>Another of the many defining features of life is replication. Cells</p><p>developed the molecular machinery to reproduce themselves: nucleic acid</p><p>sequences, RNA and DNA, provide a molecular library of nucleotides that</p><p>form a template and map from which sequences of amino acids are</p><p>constructed into the protein structures</p><p>such as those that, combined with</p><p>many other molecules (such as lipids), form the cytoskeleton and machinery</p><p>that enable and empower the life of a cell, now and across generations.</p><p>Some of these cells organize into larger structures, realizing their</p><p>potential to form organs and systems of an organism, creating bodies that</p><p>we call plants, fungi, or animals. And some of these various body designs</p><p>coalesce their potential to form thought, feeling, and memory and to tap</p><p>into complex states of consciousness—whether a vertebrate, like us</p><p>humans, or an invertebrate, such as the octopus. While some of us may be</p><p>quite relational and thrive in social connections, as explored for human</p><p>beings by United States Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy (2020) in his book,</p><p>Together, all living creatures nonetheless intuitively act on, and depend on,</p><p>basic experiences of separation and replication.</p><p>The challenge we have as living creatures consequently can be boiled</p><p>down to this: As we take on our form of actuality as living beings, our</p><p>membrane-encased cells and our skin-encased bodies become devoted to</p><p>maintaining the separateness that maintains the integrity of that body or of</p><p>that cell. Yet the more we have committed to the certainty of our individual</p><p>composition—in this case, the form of a living entity—the less access we</p><p>may have to possibility of other forms, other choices. When we envision the</p><p>unit of life as the singular cell or individual organism only, we may lose the</p><p>expanded possibilities that arise from that individual being a part of a larger</p><p>whole system—a cell as part of a healthy body, an individual connected</p><p>within a larger social and ecological system.</p><p>An Identity Lens: Inner and Outer and a Narrowing of</p><p>Belonging</p><p>What is the self? Is the self our skull-encased brain? Our skin-encased</p><p>body? Is who we are, the wholeness of being human, more than being an</p><p>individual? Might a wider view of this center of experience, that which we</p><p>call “self,” possibly encompass not only the body but also the larger</p><p>systems in which we are fundamentally intraconnected?</p><p>If a renegade skin- or membrane-encased living (sub)system acts as if</p><p>the overall system in which it resides is not part of its self, life is threatened.</p><p>In bodily terms, we experience this as an “autoimmune disorder” in which</p><p>the body attacks itself; and, as we’ve discussed, we also call other forms of</p><p>such an excessive differentiation “cancer,” an out-of-control growth of one</p><p>type of cell that is detrimental to the system as a whole. When we</p><p>differentiate and do not live with linkages, as the intraconnected nature of a</p><p>living system, the system as a whole suffers. Our mental construction of a</p><p>solo-self may be analogous to a cancer in modern society, cultivating and</p><p>reinforcing renegade growth of separate, disconnected selves, now running</p><p>amok, out of sync within the larger system of our biosphere called Earth.</p><p>Many of us in modern cultures may think of others not like us and of</p><p>nature as outside of “us”—a personal manifestation of the cellular</p><p>distinction formed between inner and outer. As life forms have evolved into</p><p>ever more complex organisms, this central theme of inner and outer has</p><p>remained for billions of years. As human beings, this fundamental division</p><p>of life into what is inside versus what is outside allows us, as living entities,</p><p>to survive. Knowing what is me or not me not only keeps me alive but also</p><p>influences the human constructions of categories, concepts, and symbols we</p><p>use to name, identify, and shape how we belong. For example, if someone is</p><p>walking along a trail with some friends and considers their body and this</p><p>social group as part of their identity, they may feel a deep sense of</p><p>belonging in the experience of being with this group of people. If others</p><p>who walk by are of a different race, implicit racial bias may lead this</p><p>someone to see those individuals as “other” and part of an out-group—and</p><p>to treat them with distance if they’re apparently neutral or with hostility if</p><p>they are judged to be a threat. Furthermore, if the natural world in which</p><p>this person is walking is not sensed as “part of them”—if they do not feel a</p><p>belonging to the forest in which they are walking—then what is to deter</p><p>them from leaving trash behind and treating the natural world as a garbage</p><p>bin—an unfortunate but frequent consequence of this narrow sense of</p><p>identity and belonging?</p><p>As we became social creatures, we relied on our connections to one</p><p>another for our survival. Belonging to selected members of our species—</p><p>those human beings in our personal family, those in our village whom we</p><p>know and trust—involves a neural computation of determining in-group</p><p>membership and distinguishing this from out-group status. In this manner,</p><p>we constructed an extension of the life-protecting function of the cell’s</p><p>membrane by ascertaining who is in and who’s out. Are you in my in-</p><p>group? Or are you an outsider, someone from the out-group, apart from</p><p>“me” and from the plural of me, “us”? The ascertaining of group</p><p>membership has meant survival for social species for millions of years.</p><p>Yet how do we, as conceptualizing human beings, come to determine</p><p>such belonging, the ways we feel connected, linking us to something more</p><p>than the skin-encased body into which we are born or even the restricted</p><p>social groups in which we grow and develop? How do we grow beyond</p><p>individualistic and even interdependent self-construal toward a</p><p>metapersonal construal of a self that embraces a membership with all of</p><p>humanity—not just those like us—and within all of nature?</p><p>If we start with a cell, we might say that a cell’s membrane defines what is</p><p>inside or outside, what is the cell and what is not. If that cell is part of a</p><p>multicellular organism, part of a body, such as a muscle cell in the heart, it</p><p>is connected with other cells in organized formations functioning as</p><p>systems. A system is composed of components and their interactions with</p><p>one another. The constituent elements of a cloud, for example, include</p><p>molecules of water and air; the components of our brain include neurons</p><p>and glial cells, such as microglia and astrocytes; the parts of a cell include</p><p>the molecules of its membranes, its cytoplasm, and its organelles. These are</p><p>all systems and collections of systems within systems.</p><p>Systems can be sensed. You and I can sense energy flow as the five</p><p>inputs to the body—hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch. And we can</p><p>sense the energy flow within the body as sensations of muscles, bones, and</p><p>internal organs. We perceive these sensations within awareness in at least</p><p>four dimensions: across time and the three dimensions of space—length,</p><p>depth, and height. What we perceive and name as time really means change,</p><p>our awareness of something being like this now, and then like that then. In</p><p>this way, we can sense the parts of a system and how these parts exist in</p><p>space and time, how they exist in spatial dimensions and how they change.</p><p>And we can even get a sense of a connection of the parts to each other</p><p>within these systems that our eyes may not be able to see, that our intellect</p><p>may not, yet, have been taught how to conceive or name. The aphorism we</p><p>“need to believe it to see it” reminds us that beyond the proof of “needing to</p><p>see it to believe it,” if we do not have a mental model enabling us to</p><p>conceive the reality of systems connections, our perceptual filters related to</p><p>what we do believe—a linear view, for example—may ignore sensory</p><p>patterns that actually exist. The result is that we are perceptually blind to</p><p>those systems connections that are outside of our particular mental model of</p><p>the how the world works. We literally are unable to see what is right in front</p><p>of us. An analogy may be that of a fish being unable to perceive the water</p><p>in which it lives. Some, like my colleagues Mette Boell, Peter Senge, and</p><p>Otto Scharmer, might call this ability to perceive systems as “systems</p><p>sensing”: seeing the deeply interwoven nature of the tapestry of reality.</p><p>From this sensing we</p><p>are able to gain what they call “systems awareness”</p><p>and engage in “systems thinking” as we now perceive the patterns of</p><p>connections, and the patterns of patterns, as they emerge from the flow of</p><p>systems as a whole.</p><p>When we divide and disconnect from a larger sense of identity as a</p><p>system, when we perceive and believe the totality of self is the part, we lose</p><p>a broader belonging that each of us is capable of experiencing—a wider</p><p>sense of being intraconnected in life. When we do not sense how we belong</p><p>to larger systems, when we deny the reality of this unseen, intraconnected</p><p>nature of the world, we come to live a partially true life, a life of separation.</p><p>What is the system of you? What does “you” actually mean—where do</p><p>you begin, where do you end? When are you? Is your self the body, or is it</p><p>the larger systems in which the body called “you” lives? And are you</p><p>present not only in these systems across space now but also across the</p><p>unfolding of change, what we’ve collectively named “time,” with terms like</p><p>“past,” “present,” and “future”?</p><p>As a first step, suppose we expand this sense of the you of who you are to</p><p>include identity across one dimension that we are familiar with, the</p><p>dimension of time. Let’s see how identity—the characteristics that identify</p><p>a center of experience—looks throughout our ancestral history and across</p><p>species. If we are to identify one characteristic of who you and I are across</p><p>time, we might say that we are comprised of matter. This narrows us from</p><p>the belonging in the whole of reality—from being a part of the process of</p><p>energy transformation, formless into form, possibility into actuality. Terms</p><p>such as “eternity” and “infinity” attempt to capture this wide-open expanse</p><p>of possibility. In science we propose that the emergence of form as matter,</p><p>the condensation of energy, has an estimated history of about 13 billion</p><p>years, ever since the Big Bang or whatever process “began” existence of</p><p>matter in this material world in which we live, including Earth, our solar</p><p>system, our Milky Way galaxy, and all the galaxies we live within, in the</p><p>totality of matter, the matter of the universe. We have moved from</p><p>identifying with wide-open possibility, our origins (if we can consider that</p><p>notion), to an identity as matter across space and time.</p><p>As living beings we’ve moved even further away from the eternal and</p><p>the infinite—layers of experience that nevertheless remain with us, even</p><p>beneath awareness, as part of our identity—and moved from the whole</p><p>universe of matter, which was another layer, to another criterion of our</p><p>identity: living. This narrows the focus of our belonging to the subgroup of</p><p>energy—a subset of reality—that is a bit more modern: that collection of</p><p>forms we call living matter. Now we have living ancestors—3.5 billion</p><p>years of them.</p><p>If we continue up this probability axis, focusing even more narrowly and</p><p>constraining our belonging, we might say that part of our identity as</p><p>animals began about 800 million years ago with the emergence of sponges;</p><p>and then developed further 530 million years ago, when our vertebrate</p><p>ancestors arose in our evolutionary history. Somewhere around 310 million</p><p>years ago, we left our fish and amphibian forebears and inhabited the land</p><p>as reptiles. Then we attained fur and gave birth to our offspring as mammals</p><p>about 210 million years ago. This is a rough overview of our belonging in</p><p>the evolutionary journey from prelife days to living as mammals in the air-</p><p>borne world of this planet.</p><p>Based on fossil evidence, it appears that somewhere around 55 million</p><p>years ago, our order of primate ancestors, a grouping that includes monkeys</p><p>and the great apes, appeared within the class of mammals. Our family of</p><p>hominins may have begun to roam Earth sometime around 6 to 8 million</p><p>years ago, coming to walk upright for most of the time and facing forward</p><p>as we distributed ourselves around the globe. The genus of Homo,</p><p>sometimes broadly called “humans,” seems to have evolved on Earth</p><p>somewhere around 5 million years ago, and some studies place the</p><p>appearance of our species—what we’ve come to name Homo sapiens, the</p><p>ones who not only know but know we know, sometimes called the “wise</p><p>ones”— in Africa sometime between 350,000 and 130,000 years ago. We</p><p>and our Neanderthal cousins used tools and lived in groups.</p><p>We have evidence that around 40,000 to 30,000 years ago we began</p><p>expressing our mental representations as art through drawings on cave walls</p><p>and that about 15,000 years ago we began helping others who would have</p><p>otherwise died from their injuries. These findings suggest that our minds</p><p>had developed enough by this time to enable us to think about life and to</p><p>communicate in symbols what we were perceiving and conceiving. Plus,</p><p>helping others suggests we could sense another’s suffering, think through</p><p>what might help, and then carry out that action—fixing a broken leg, for</p><p>example—in the present moment to improve a future outcome. All of this</p><p>suggests the likelihood of compassion and empathy and the ability to</p><p>conceive of time as past, present, and future.</p><p>All of life functions as a deeply intraconnected system of nature—</p><p>connected across the dimensions of what we call space and time. This living</p><p>system is our biosphere. At the broadest belonging to the living world here</p><p>on Earth, we can see that we are fundamentally woven into that biosphere—</p><p>we are nature. Within the magnificent biodiversity of the many species of</p><p>living beings with whom we share our common home, this wondrous blue</p><p>dot, planet Earth, we have a range of evolutionary lines of growth—distant</p><p>from and closer to us—that includes all of life and that can be defined in</p><p>narrower and narrower categories, such as the one ending in our species,</p><p>human beings. In whichever ways we choose to focus on our ancestry, we</p><p>can sense our connection across time, as we belong to life as an individual</p><p>component within any of a range of subsystems of this larger whole of the</p><p>biosphere across space, time, and species. This illustrates a fundamental</p><p>point: By identifying which features we choose to highlight, we determine</p><p>which group we belong to—that is, part of the infinite reality of possibility;</p><p>a component of the universe of matter; or one among all living beings, all</p><p>animals, all vertebrates, all mammals, all primates, all human beings;</p><p>connected to people who share the immediate ancestry we name as ethnic</p><p>group or race, to those in your community, to individuals in your personal</p><p>family, or connected only to the person living in the skin-encased body you</p><p>were born into—the individual bodily source modern culture delineates and</p><p>declares as your “self.”</p><p>We living beings on planet Earth all descended from common ancestors.</p><p>In more recent times, we can say we are direct descendants of a mammalian</p><p>line. Mammals are social creatures, but many other living beings are</p><p>collaborative as well. Even single cell organisms, such as amoeba, bacteria,</p><p>and fungi such as yeast, can function as colonies of massively interlinked</p><p>systems. The multicellular mycelia of fungi form crucial networks in the</p><p>forest soil, and trees of the forest have intricate communication channels</p><p>providing ways to protect and nurture other trees in a deeply intraconnected</p><p>web of life. Although the human brain may divide our experiences into</p><p>categories of separation, nature functions as a profoundly interwoven</p><p>system, not as separate groups in isolation. The term “intraconnected,”</p><p>emerging as a linguistic symbol from this human body, Dan, after being</p><p>immersed in a forest, reminds us of the perspective of the whole rather than</p><p>just the one, separate component isolated in its identity, even if it is</p><p>interacting with the system’s parts.</p><p>As we narrow our boundaries for a sense of “belonging,” choosing</p><p>criteria from open possibility transforming into actuality—energy flow in</p><p>the universe—to densities of energy called matter, to living beings, to</p><p>animals, to mammals, to primates, to the level of human beings, we can see</p><p>how our concepts of membership—of</p><p>belonging—begin to shift. The</p><p>criteria we choose to determine our identity directly define our belonging.</p><p>This capacity to shift the focus of what criteria we choose is what we will</p><p>call an “identity lens,” which we can adjust from a narrow focus on our</p><p>body or brain alone to a wide-angle perspective, seeing who we are as</p><p>fundamentally intraconnected within the whole energy system of the</p><p>universe. Our belonging follows this focus of our identity lens, constricting</p><p>our groups of belonging with a narrow focus and broadening our belonging</p><p>with a wide-angle view.</p><p>In these fundamental ways we can see how there are many dimensions to</p><p>identity and belonging. The good news about this identity lens is that we</p><p>can adjust it—we don’t need to choose one level of identity and belonging</p><p>over another because they are each real, and each have their importance.</p><p>Does focusing on being a member of all living beings mean we no longer</p><p>belong to a wide-open field of possibility—or to the manifestation of that</p><p>potential as inanimate matter? Does narrowing the focus of our identity lens</p><p>mean the wider focus is no longer part of the reality of our self? Our</p><p>identity lens can shape our center of experience as self, shifting how we feel</p><p>we belong; and we can widen or narrow that focus with our intention.</p><p>Taking care of our body—sleeping well, eating well, nurturing our body</p><p>and caring for its needs, enjoying our body—is our identity lens focusing on</p><p>the inner self, our identity within our skin-encased body that we get to keep</p><p>for this personal lifetime. We can feel fully connected to our body, and</p><p>within that inner sense, we feel whole. And we are also the whole system,</p><p>and we can come to sense this wider identity and broaden our belonging</p><p>across space and time with a wide-angle focus that is also real and is just as</p><p>important.</p><p>As we move forward from the space of potential into atomic form and then</p><p>form as living beings, we move into ever more committed probabilities</p><p>toward actuality in the world. If our identity lens is wide-angle enough, we</p><p>can see that we are the whole of this intraconnected system of reality,</p><p>formless into form, across species, across time, across space. It is within our</p><p>intraconnected wholeness that we most broadly belong. As we learn the</p><p>skill to cultivate this wide-angle view, we are empowered to sense our</p><p>collective journey from possibility to actuality, the flow of energy that is the</p><p>essence of experience, the core of being.</p><p>While we may—perhaps out of necessity, perhaps out of learning—focus</p><p>at times more tightly on a more narrow range of identity and belonging,</p><p>let’s underscore that the choice is ours: We can harness the flexibility of our</p><p>identity lens to sense this broader view and learn the art of widening our</p><p>perspective on who we are and with whom and within what we belong.</p><p>Opening to this wider range of possibilities is our birthright. Learning to</p><p>adjust the focus of this lens of identity—from narrower to wider inclusion</p><p>of myriad scales and times—lets a new way of sensing the self emerge,</p><p>opening our identity and broadening our belonging as we move forward,</p><p>together, here on Earth, with intention and choice.</p><p>CONCEPTION AND BIRTH</p><p>We are calling the experience of reality “the flow of energy.” A subset of that reality</p><p>is the emergence of form from a formless space of potentiality, which is</p><p>indicated on our 3-P diagram as the plane of possibility. One potential</p><p>manifestation of that form from this formless open space of possibility is</p><p>matter, the condensation of very dense energy; and a further subset of that</p><p>form, that is, of matter, includes all living beings—life on Earth and in other</p><p>locations in the Universe in which life forms may live. For human beings,</p><p>our life form is contained within the somatic, skin-encased system we call a</p><p>body. As we move forward in our exploration of the development of self,</p><p>identity, and belonging, we should take care not to make the common</p><p>“mistake” of modern times: the narrow identity lens view that who “you”</p><p>are is only your body. It does matter how we define linguistic terms, these</p><p>words as symbols, because they reveal and reinforce underlying concepts</p><p>and categories that shape our lives directly. If the terms “you,” “I,” and</p><p>“me” are used to indicate the inner self, then yes, “you are your body” and</p><p>“I am my body.” You might point to your body and say, “This is me!” Yet</p><p>what we’ve been exploring is that the self is not just with this inner aspect</p><p>of subjective experience, perspective, and agency; your self is also inter, as</p><p>we’ve suggested in our journey, and this means that your identity, your</p><p>belonging, your self, are bigger than the body alone, broader than the brain</p><p>in that body; neither skin nor skull block the flow of energy and</p><p>information. The wholeness of that flow, inner and inter, is what we’ve</p><p>named the intraconnected flow of MWe. We continue our discussion here</p><p>with the emergence of one aspect of your self, the individual you of your</p><p>inner self. It’s an important starting place in the narrative of you, but not the</p><p>whole story of your identity and belonging, or even of your self.</p><p>A Body Form</p><p>Let’s look at the odds of you becoming you in the body you were born into.</p><p>Of the billions of eggs and the trillions of sperm that existed at the moment</p><p>in what we call time, on this planet we’ve named Earth, one egg</p><p>encountered one sperm, and the complements of nucleic acid templates, the</p><p>strands of DNA of the chromosomes of each of these unique gametes,</p><p>entangled themselves in their double helix molecular formations to continue</p><p>your family’s genetic legacy of our human heritage, a weaving of all the</p><p>ancestors of your mother and all of those of your father to become a single-</p><p>cell conceptus, with its membrane now encasing a united singularity of</p><p>being, as two cells become one.</p><p>Along with some of those genes you’ve inherited came non-nucleic acid</p><p>molecules, clusters known as methyl groups and histones that determine</p><p>how the genes they interact with express themselves. They function as</p><p>epigenetic regulators, shaping protein production and ultimately bodily</p><p>form and function. These epigenetic regulators can be affected by the</p><p>environment experienced by your parents, and your grandparents, and</p><p>thereby directly affect the you that you become. In your own body’s</p><p>lifetime, experiences you have interacting with the environment or learning</p><p>to shape your own inner mental processes will also directly impact how</p><p>ongoing epigenetic regulation unfolds, altering things such as how you</p><p>respond to challenging life events with resilience or with distress and</p><p>inflammation.</p><p>Your nascent body formed in this miraculous moment of union of all</p><p>these factors. Of the nearly infinite possible matches, that one sperm and</p><p>that one egg were your beginnings. Yet as we explored in the previous</p><p>chapter, that single cell conceptus has the long history of all living beings</p><p>embedded in the nucleic acid library passed down from your ancestors; it</p><p>also has all the epigenetic regulators embedded from your parents and their</p><p>parents as well as all the species known to be your ancestors and all the</p><p>cosmic events known to create the conditions in which the building blocks</p><p>of your ancestors could form. In this sense, you are not just your body now;</p><p>you are your ancestors too.</p><p>The body serves as an inner center of sensation, perspective, and agency</p><p>—this is the inner flow of energy and information, our inner self. Our</p><p>genetic and epigenetic heritage confers a reality of history that will directly</p><p>shape your experience of this inner self as a center of being, a center of</p><p>experience that will unfold as your body grows. While your “embodied</p><p>brain,” the nervous system extending throughout your body, is not yet</p><p>formed at conception, your genetic information carries with it a long history</p><p>of ancestors and the lives they led as a type of narrative of the past, your</p><p>ancestral narrative. Just as narrative links past, present, and future, this</p><p>ancestral story exists, without words and mostly</p><p>without our awareness,</p><p>through our bodies as we live into the narrative of our current lives.</p><p>As we develop after conception, somatic systems prepare us for our life</p><p>ahead, including the embodied brain that will enable us to form identity, to</p><p>experience a sense of belonging, to become many versions of self in this</p><p>world. Later on, as we develop in childhood, we even learn to focus a lens</p><p>of identity and shape our own becoming. Before we leave the uterus and</p><p>join the world out in this air realm surrounding us all, the growth of our</p><p>body is influenced both by our inheritance and by the watery womb in</p><p>which we are growing. The information from our ancestors—our ancestral</p><p>narrative—and the experiences we have in the womb as our nervous system</p><p>grows will shape how our body develops, including the brain, which has</p><p>ways to remember all that is happening.</p><p>Our Embodied Brain</p><p>The origin of the cells of the nervous system reveals a surprising</p><p>developmental history: The single-cell conceptus grows into many cells,</p><p>soon with an inner layer and an outer layer. Just as, eons ago, atoms</p><p>assembled into molecules and then coalesced into self-organizing clusters</p><p>that developed membranes to encase their inner contents into the basic unit</p><p>of life, this moment of differentiation—when an inner and outer layer form</p><p>—represents that fundamental distinction in our lives: inner versus outer.</p><p>The outer layer, the ectoderm, is destined to become the enveloping skin,</p><p>the boundary of our body’s form. Part of this outer layer folds inward to</p><p>create a neural tube, the origin of the nervous system. This tube will</p><p>become the spinal cord and will send neurons out to connect all the major</p><p>organs and to grow in complex ways inside the head. This web-like set of</p><p>networks exists not just in the head but throughout the body, comprising</p><p>what we are calling the embodied brain.</p><p>In fact, in our bodies we have three “brains,” or parallel distributed</p><p>processing (PDP) networks: one around the gut, one around the heart, and</p><p>one in the head. The only PDP processor with linguistic abilities is the head</p><p>brain, so later, as we grow and develop language, the head brain names</p><p>itself, not surprisingly, the brain. As neuroscientist Antonio Damasio (2018)</p><p>notes, the head brain evolved in our lives as the third brain, in service of the</p><p>other two and of the whole body.</p><p>PDP processors can compute energy flow patterns into information. A</p><p>parallel distributed computer, for example, can reason and learn from</p><p>experience. (This is not what your serial-processing home computer is</p><p>capable of doing, you might be relieved to know.) When we realize that our</p><p>body has PDP network capability in more than just the head’s collection of</p><p>neural networks, we gain insight into how the whole body is involved in our</p><p>mind’s construction of information from energy flow—what we call</p><p>cognition. This is the somatic origin of the statement that the mind is</p><p>broader than the brain. The mind is fully embodied.</p><p>And yet the mind is also relational. As an emergent property of energy</p><p>flow, mind emerges not just from within our bodies, but between the body</p><p>and the world “outside”— beyond skull and skin. In later chapters we will</p><p>see how this energy flow can also be shared among individuals, and with all</p><p>of nature, extending beyond our skin, embedded in our relationships with</p><p>one another and the larger world in which we live. Even beyond being</p><p>“enskulled,” our mind is not just fully embodied, it is deeply and</p><p>fundamentally emerging from our relationships as well.</p><p>The ectodermal origin of the fully embodied brain suggests a fascinating</p><p>implication: Just as the skin is the life-preserving barrier between inner and</p><p>outer, the nervous system is always at the interface of the inner and the</p><p>outer as well.</p><p>The words that the labeling, language-loving head brain constructs to</p><p>name this distinction, phrases like “self versus other” and “us versus them,”</p><p>may parallel our primary experience of inner versus outer. With a</p><p>fundamental origin of our sense of self constructed by embryologic history</p><p>and by genetics—and by reinforcement in our language usage—the body’s</p><p>role as a defining center of experience begins early in our lives. We can see</p><p>how self versus other, inner versus outer, us versus them each may have at</p><p>their origins a survival stance of life versus death, cohered versus chaotic,</p><p>certain versus unpredictable.</p><p>To understand the wholeness of the embodied brain as a series of</p><p>systems within systems, it helps to use not linear thinking but systems</p><p>thinking. Linear thinking is useful if we are working on a plumbing</p><p>problem, for example, to stop a leak: There is a hole here; let’s patch it and</p><p>stop the loss of water. Systems thinking is needed if we are to glimpse</p><p>larger systems, such as a house as a whole or a house within a</p><p>neighborhood within a city within a state within a country within a</p><p>continent within a global ecosystem. If we do not think beyond linear</p><p>causality and come to sense, perceive, conceive, and act in systems terms,</p><p>we will only be plugging metaphorical holes and never help resolve the</p><p>underlying problems within our systems on this planet. We could, instead,</p><p>identify factors that may be inhibiting the healthy function of our systems</p><p>and then make intentional interventions at a systems level to release the</p><p>self-organizing system’s innate capacity to flourish. This would be using</p><p>systems awareness to harness the power of what we’ll call “systems</p><p>intelligence”: the innate capacity of complex systems to self-organize</p><p>toward harmony as they adapt and learn if they are allowed to differentiate</p><p>and link, enabling the interdependence of their parts to flourish.</p><p>In a biodiverse ecosystem, for example, we may find that pests are</p><p>digging up the roots of trees in an orchard we’ve planted. We can try to kill</p><p>those pests with poisons, but we may find that we’ve now eliminated the</p><p>food source for another member of the ecosystem that was keeping other</p><p>inhabitants in check. Choosing the direct linear approach—poison the pest</p><p>—not only poisons the people who eat the fruit but also depletes the system</p><p>of that “pest,” causing another shift that can lead to the collapse of other</p><p>inhabitants, and on and on. Instead, using a systems strategy, such as</p><p>introducing an appropriate living organism that keeps the pest in check,</p><p>helps the whole system flourish and thrive.</p><p>Studies reveal that as the soil and its surroundings become filled with</p><p>living biodiversity, the system’s own intelligence takes over and the</p><p>biological system self-organizes to optimize its functioning. If we grow</p><p>only one crop, if we let the living soil die from poisons in a linear effort to</p><p>“stop a pest,” we actually lose this vital, innate systems intelligence of the</p><p>natural world—a system is intraconnected as a whole.</p><p>Simply Being and an Implicit Memory of Wholeness</p><p>As a fetus—a continuously fed growing body floating in a constantly body-</p><p>temperature bath—there is no need to eat or breathe: Our mother’s body</p><p>does the vital work to meet all of our needs while we are simply being. As</p><p>our nervous system grows, the connections among its basic cells, the</p><p>neurons, will change the strengths of their linkages in ways we believe</p><p>construct memory—an experience that has become encoded and stored and</p><p>that is retrievable at some future moment. We likely remember, in what is</p><p>called “an implicit level,” this state of “being at one with the uterus,” with</p><p>nothing we need to do, only to simply be. We were a system with the uterus,</p><p>at one, simply being.</p><p>The implicit memory of this state of being whole may parallel the feeling</p><p>of the space of being discussed earlier, which is also in our ontological—the</p><p>way we come to be—origins. We can see here our two facets of experience</p><p>in which we have the birthright of existential wholeness: a sea of potential,</p><p>the quantum state of wide-open possibility; and a womb state of resting at</p><p>one with the uterus, in a state of wholeness.</p><p>That state of being whole, of the sea of potential (the formless</p><p>source of</p><p>all form), can serve as our image for how we can rest in the wide-open</p><p>possibility of being before committing to any specific form or type of doing</p><p>as a body of action in the world. In this perspective of the whole of being,</p><p>intraconnection is being whole. With this wholeness of being, this being</p><p>whole, fixed distinctions between I versus you, us versus them, self versus</p><p>other have no meaning because such distinctions do not exist in the systems</p><p>reality of intraconnection.</p><p>This reality that the growing fetus lives in—one reality with at least the two</p><p>facets: the sea of potential and the systems wholeness of the womb—invites</p><p>us to consider that perhaps a longing for a sense of wholeness, to rest in a</p><p>space of being, may relate to these two facets. This sense of being whole</p><p>may arise both from the quantum microstate of connection and from</p><p>memories of the womb environment of just being. And once we are out of</p><p>the womb, we might implicitly remember and miss this sense of wholeness.</p><p>This feeling of something missing may be more than a fantasy, more than a</p><p>misplaced longing; it may in fact be an implicit memory of something real,</p><p>a glimpse reminding us of the womb and perhaps the less visible microstate</p><p>realm of reality, a reality that stays with us—even if beneath our everyday</p><p>awareness—for the rest of our bodies’ lives. And in this way, the longing</p><p>we sometimes feel for wholeness and to simply be—to not feel fractured</p><p>and alone, separated from the rest of reality, nor forced into the continual</p><p>“doing” of survival—may be a longing to access our birthright, to return to</p><p>a wholeness of being.</p><p>The nervous system remembers, before and below conscious thought,</p><p>through changes in the connections among its basic cells, our neurons. This</p><p>nervous system becomes activated as energy flows through its webs of</p><p>interconnected cells—this is how our brain encodes experience. These</p><p>activated neural linkages can store that firing pattern and, at a later time,</p><p>retrieve a firing pattern similar to, though never exactly like, the pattern that</p><p>fired during the encoding.</p><p>Memory can be defined as how an experience at one point leads to a</p><p>change at some future point. Research suggests that early in our lives, at</p><p>least in the final months in the womb, the nervous system is mature enough</p><p>to encode experience, store it, and then retrieve some representation of it at</p><p>a later point. The developmentally first and most fundamental layer of</p><p>memory is called implicit memory. These implicit memories become</p><p>available in the last months in the womb and influence us for the rest of our</p><p>lifespan, enabling us to harness networks of bodily sensation, perception,</p><p>emotion, and, later on, behavioral actions known as procedural memory. An</p><p>important feature of this implicit layer of memory is that no particular kind</p><p>of conscious attention is required to firmly establish these encodings.</p><p>When these pure implicit memories are retrieved, they activate the</p><p>nervous system in a pattern similar to the time of encoding. The difference</p><p>between this and explicit memory is that in pure implicit form, the memory</p><p>is not labeled or tagged with a sensation of, “Oh, I am remembering</p><p>something from the past.” Retrieval of pure, implicit memory creates a state</p><p>of neural activation similar to the original experience and without being</p><p>labeled as a recollection.</p><p>For example, if a toddler was bitten by a cat, the perception of that</p><p>feline, the emotion of fear, the bodily sensation of pain may all be fully</p><p>encoded into implicit memory and then stored in the connections in their</p><p>brain. At that early age, the development of another part of their brain, the</p><p>hippocampus, has not yet occurred and therefore the experience may remain</p><p>in pure implicit form. Even in older individuals, blocking the function of</p><p>the hippocampus can enable implicit memory to remain in its unintegrated,</p><p>pure state of storage. Later, a month or a year or decades later, in this child’s</p><p>life (or the life of an older individual with impaired hippocampal encoding),</p><p>they might encounter another cat, perhaps of the same color or size, and this</p><p>can serve as a memory trigger, and these implicitly stored memories can be</p><p>automatically retrieved—and as pure implicit memory reactivations, they</p><p>are not tagged as coming from the past. Thus, in the here and now, they</p><p>would feel the pain as a bodily sensation, see aggression in the cat—</p><p>perhaps in magnified form as a toddler might perceive the original feline</p><p>attacker—and feel the fear of the encounter in the present moment; none of</p><p>these sensations, perceptions, or emotions would feel like a memory being</p><p>recalled, rather an experience happening now.</p><p>You may imagine how baffling this form of retrieval can be for some</p><p>people, as it makes them feel they are experiencing something that is truly</p><p>happening now, even though it is, in fact, an implicit recollection of</p><p>something that happened in the past. This can explain flashbacks during</p><p>certain painful moments of unresolved trauma, and this just may be a root</p><p>source of a longing we may have for wholeness, a longing for something</p><p>we seem to perceive through a foggy filter of the past, some thing or some</p><p>time we cannot quite pinpoint, a sense of simply being at peace, a feeling of</p><p>resonance. This feeling may be an implicit echo from our past time in the</p><p>womb—and a glimpse, perhaps, into the plane of possibility that rests in the</p><p>infinite present in the microstate realm of our lives.</p><p>In the womb, implicit memory encoding of just being involves sensory,</p><p>bodily, and emotional memory networks that elicit a feeling of being at one</p><p>with … something—the uterus, the universe.… There would be no sense of</p><p>“Oh I am remembering now,” just the bodily feeling of the experience of</p><p>wholeness itself. And when we sense the disparity between our busy lives,</p><p>out here in this air-filled world, and this feeling of being whole, included,</p><p>just being, it is only natural that our longing would intensify. Is there some</p><p>way we might access the space of being, the sea of potential, and the state</p><p>of being whole, at one with the uterus, that we long to return to or to find</p><p>anew? Is our longing to belong arising from these facets of wholeness so</p><p>that we implicitly know the peace of being fully accepted and the fullness</p><p>and joy of simply being?</p><p>From Being to Doing</p><p>The transition from simply being in the uterus to needing to “do” in post</p><p>uterine life is huge—the life we lead after birth stands in monumental</p><p>contrast to resting in the flow of experience in the womb. While every</p><p>membrane-encased cell has been on a mission to live and has been busy</p><p>with its intracellular processing, the body as a whole system has never yet</p><p>had to focus its energy on intentional efforts to achieve anything in</p><p>particular—this is the underlying sense of our bodily self as simply being as</p><p>opposed to as having somatic, body-wide systems that are driven to</p><p>accomplish something, to do something to survive. This shift from being to</p><p>doing is filled with a new sense of urgency, a new drive to survive.</p><p>The prebirth state of our body system likely has within its experiential</p><p>memory the shift from spacious sensations and free movement during the</p><p>weeks and months after conception to a restricted feeling as our body grows</p><p>to fill the uterus. Then our world suddenly changes: whether by vaginal</p><p>birth or by caesarian section—we experience the abrupt shift from an inner,</p><p>warm, watery womb to a world filled with new sensations. Bright lights</p><p>strike our retinas; breezes with various temperatures and odors flow over</p><p>our skin, through our nose, and into our lungs; compressed airwaves strike</p><p>our ears as sound; textures and pressures create new tactile sensations on</p><p>our skin; and compounds on our tongue create tastes we’ve never</p><p>experienced.</p><p>These are new energy patterns, reaching us from outside our skin-</p><p>encased body for the first time. In the womb we had no need to distinguish</p><p>our fetal form from the uterus. Our identity could include a wholeness of all</p><p>—we were one</p><p>with our uterus/universe, experienced and embraced without</p><p>boundary. Now, suddenly, our skin membrane surrounding our somatic self</p><p>is interacting with a new world, with new energy patterns, and now this</p><p>distinct, physically disconnected and differentiated collection of mass, the</p><p>body, begins experientially defining who it is within this new world.</p><p>With these new sensations, the body picks up energy flow from “outside” of</p><p>itself and interprets it, which means that we now distinguish between</p><p>internal, within the body, and external, outside the boundary of the body’s</p><p>skin. Every cell of our body—for eons, from the beginning of life as we</p><p>define it—has made this membranous distinction; now our somatic body</p><p>extends that basic inner-versus-outer contrast, using the skin as our defining</p><p>“membrane.”</p><p>And we also begin experiencing entirely new sensations from within our</p><p>body—somatic sensations directly related to our survival. We feel an innate</p><p>drive to breathe. An intense inner feeling of hunger arises, accompanied by</p><p>an energetic push, a drive to eat. The pangs of needing nutrition and oxygen</p><p>are new—for in the womb, all was provided via the umbilical cord. And our</p><p>waste products were also filtered out, as automatic maternal processes</p><p>maintained us without our having to do a thing. There was no need to eat,</p><p>breathe, or eliminate—we could simply be, and all was taken care of.</p><p>In terms of an experience of self, identity, and belonging, you and I—</p><p>individuals here in the world where we live and communicate among our</p><p>relations—can draw only on implicit memory to imagine how the center of</p><p>experience we’ve named “self” is now profoundly different from what we</p><p>experienced in the prebirth time.</p><p>Refocusing Our Identity Lens from Linear to Systems</p><p>After birth, our body’s nervous system continues to develop as it</p><p>experiences, records, and links the interactions of our somatic body with the</p><p>energy flows from the “outside” world. As occupants of a body with an</p><p>embodied PDP-brain that is growing in a linear, narrow identity-lens-</p><p>focused culture, our conscious awareness of these flows may be shaped to</p><p>manifest in linear terms rather than in systems terms: My body is here; it</p><p>types something now on this page. You read these words; you have a</p><p>response. That is a linear sequence of cause and effect between a me here</p><p>and a you there. We may interact, yes, but we are fundamentally separate in</p><p>this linear worldview.</p><p>A systems perspective, in contrast, captures how we become aware of</p><p>and even sense how intricate nonlinear processes of mutual influence</p><p>underlie the unfolding of experience. This systems perspective is much</p><p>harder to articulate with linear words, especially considering that nouns</p><p>make up the majority of words in English and other modern languages. This</p><p>majority is different in many Indigenous languages, such as those of the</p><p>Potawatome of North America or Aboriginal dialects in Australia, in which</p><p>verbs are dominant. Interdependent, multidirectional relationships are also</p><p>much more difficult to measure and more challenging to illustrate in a</p><p>drawing or diagram. But since the end of the twentieth century, we’ve</p><p>developed the computational power to detect and illuminate the underlying</p><p>synergy of systems-functioning using mathematical analyses that enable us</p><p>to understand interactions such as how clouds move through space, how</p><p>crowds interact, and how environments function as complex systems. Those</p><p>insights have revealed a powerful mutuality of influence that is</p><p>multidirectional, not only linear in causation, and an emergence of</p><p>something greater than the sum of the system’s components which are</p><p>profoundly important to respect and support in the deeply connected</p><p>systems in which we all live.</p><p>In the transition to life after birth, a linear view becomes part of our way</p><p>of living, perhaps in all infants regardless of our cultural setting. We feel</p><p>hungry, we call out, a caregiver comes to feed us, we feel satiated and good</p><p>—that’s all a linear sequence. It’s a view that serves us well in many</p><p>situations, it’s just not the whole story of how the world works.</p><p>Linear thinking that views cause and effect relationships among</p><p>separated parts can be a practical way to live that has survival benefits in</p><p>meeting our needs from the viewpoint of the body as a center of experience</p><p>—the inner self. If the individual continues to hold this linear perspective</p><p>alone—if the inner self is the only self—then the larger reality of being a</p><p>part of interwoven layers of systems may be lost to both perception and</p><p>conception. If the embedded information messages of the family and the</p><p>larger culture continue to reinforce that individuality, there may be little to</p><p>challenge this survival-focused, singular view of individuality of the self;</p><p>we don’t even know, from this encompassing linear processing, that what</p><p>we know is not all that can be known.</p><p>Our lives are really part of a larger overall set of interacting processes</p><p>that affect us by affecting our caregivers: their current environment and</p><p>their own life history. Learning to sense these influences helps us see in</p><p>systems terms. From a linear point of view, our identity is as an entity, a</p><p>noun-like thing fixed and separate from the rest. This is the origin of the</p><p>solo-self. From a systems perspective, our identity is more a verb—a</p><p>dynamic nodal point in a system of energy and information flow happening</p><p>through us, through the body node, as part of a larger whole. As we’ve</p><p>discussed, it may be that, for many reasons (including our survival drive for</p><p>certainty and the self-reinforcing top-down constrictions of linear</p><p>processing and thinking of ourselves as nouns), we are likely to take—or</p><p>mis-take—the node of the body to be the totality of self rather than to</p><p>identify both the inner bodily node and the inter system as comprising our</p><p>true self.</p><p>Once we are born, the reality of living in a body—a large accumulation</p><p>of molecules we can call a “macrostate”—becomes a dominant part of our</p><p>lives. While the microstate, quantum realm never disappears, the macrostate</p><p>realm may come to dominate our perception and, in modern cultural</p><p>settings, to be reinforced as the only view that is real. Yet our lens of</p><p>identity can shift not only from a narrow to a wide angle, from our somatic</p><p>body to our connections through time and space to all aspects of the</p><p>universe; we can also shift it from macro to micro.</p><p>The body is a real entity that requires action to survive: to breathe to bring</p><p>in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide; to eat when hungry to bring in</p><p>nutrients; to drink to maintain physiological equilibrium and hydration; to</p><p>defecate and urinate to remove toxins; to sweat or shiver to maintain body</p><p>temperature. But we are born helpless, and therefore, as relational</p><p>organisms, as mammals, we need connection to survive as well—</p><p>connections with people and connections with nature, with the planet. Each</p><p>of these needs for survival entails sharing energy flow. When that flow</p><p>provides for our physiological and relational needs, we thrive. Infants</p><p>without physical care certainly wither and die, but so do infants without</p><p>human attachment. Without connection to nature, our mental health suffers</p><p>—we become distracted, depressed, and disconnected.</p><p>For these survival-rooted reasons, out in this new, post-uterine world,</p><p>doing to connect—to other people, to nature—becomes a matter of life and</p><p>death.</p><p>INFANCY</p><p>As we humans evolved an upright posture, as my sometimes sore lower back,</p><p>especially after that horse accident can attest, our hips and spine adjusted in</p><p>ways that not only put us at risk, but also resulted in a narrowing of the</p><p>birth canal in females that necessitated our offspring make a relatively early</p><p>departure from the womb so that the newborn’s body could make the safe</p><p>passage out into this new world. We enter this shockingly different, air-</p><p>filled world with an immaturity that makes us very dependent on our</p><p>caregivers for survival. In fact, the term during which human offspring,</p><p>from infancy</p><p>through childhood and adolescence, are dependent on their</p><p>caregivers is one of the longest periods of any mammal. What this means</p><p>for brain development is that genetic and epigenetic factors will continue to</p><p>impact early neural growth at the same time as direct experiences—the flow</p><p>of energy and information—contribute to shaping the function and growing</p><p>structure of our immature brains. We become who we are from a starting</p><p>place of essential relational connection that remains important across the</p><p>lifespan.</p><p>Networks, Motivation, and Emotion</p><p>As somatic sensations stream through our body, energy flows throughout</p><p>the interconnected nervous system we call our embodied brain, with its</p><p>web-like tapestries woven around our intestines, enveloping our heart, and</p><p>filling our head. The flow of energy through these interconnected, parallel</p><p>distributed processing neural networks can be called “neural firing.” This</p><p>activity entails electrical energy flow as ions move in and out of membranes</p><p>of the neuron. As the ionic flow of electrical charge reaches a synaptic link</p><p>with a downstream neuron, neurotransmitters are released to carry the flow</p><p>to the next neuron. The flow to a neuron may consist of either inhibitory or</p><p>excitatory input or both from many other neurons, which links via the cell</p><p>body and its many dendrites; and the neuron then sums this input and either</p><p>fires an action potential (when excitatory input is greater than inhibitory)—</p><p>or does not (when inhibitory input is greater than excitatory)—down its</p><p>single axon to send the energy flow on to the cell body and dendrites of the</p><p>next receiving-neuron’s membrane.</p><p>This electrochemical energy flow emerges as patterns of neuronally</p><p>distributed firing that we call “neural representations.” Our embodied brain</p><p>can enable us to experience bottom-up conduition—as close to a pure</p><p>energy flow in the body as something can possibly be, such as hearing the</p><p>breeze blowing through the trees or feeling grass between your toes. These</p><p>representations also enable us to use top-down constructions to name these</p><p>bottom-up sensations—we literally re-present air streaming through the</p><p>forest, to ourselves and to others, as the linguistic symbol, breeze.</p><p>We are creatures living in a body, so from a certain perspective,</p><p>everything our nervous system does, including bottom-up conduition as</p><p>sensation, is really a translation of energy flow into information—that air</p><p>blowing by the body is the air itself; once we’ve sensed it, even before</p><p>we’ve perceived it or named it, it is no longer the air blowing but rather our</p><p>body’s experience of the air blowing.</p><p>Poets attempt to use words to name the sensation that occurs even before</p><p>the top-down construction we call perception. We can try to use words and</p><p>even their rhythm and patterns in an attempt to get beneath, before, or</p><p>beyond the construction of words themselves. And yet, whereas the</p><p>conduition of sensation is influenced by our body’s anatomy, with our</p><p>particular variety of senses and their capacities, our mental construction—in</p><p>its many shapes and forms: perception, conception, cognition, action—is</p><p>molded more by our head-brain’s neural connections, many of which are</p><p>constructed from prior learning. Our perceptions are shaped by our</p><p>experiences—this is why we call this a top-down process. Bottom-up</p><p>indicates the most direct input from our “lower” sensory organs as it moves</p><p>upward; top-down means that prior events have shaped how we filter input</p><p>through the “higher” neural mechanisms to influence what we experience</p><p>from the “top”—from prior experience.</p><p>And from our perceptions, we construct symbolic representations, such</p><p>as images, ideas, and linguistic language. These are all ways energy is in a</p><p>formation that stands for something other than itself—it is information, in</p><p>this case, filtered by what we’ve learned, molded by what we believe. This</p><p>is the origin of the notion that “we see what we believe”—what we perceive</p><p>is not what we sense—it is what we’ve come to believe is true, not</p><p>necessarily a clear view of what is real. Thus, sensation is conduition, and</p><p>all the rest is construction. Our experience of self—with its direct subjective</p><p>experience, perception, and agency—weaves both bottom-up and top-down.</p><p>Conduition is our experience of simply being; construction is doing things</p><p>with that conduition, such as when we construct our memories and our</p><p>mental models. Both construction and conduition are necessary—neither is</p><p>better than the other; each is linked to living a full life.</p><p>Both conduition and construction shape our sense of self, identity, and</p><p>belonging. When we sense energy flow in the body, we use the term</p><p>“interoception.” When we sense movement of the body, we use the term</p><p>“proprioception.” Together we can refer to these two types of sensation as</p><p>body awareness, what in Western science we call our “sixth sense.” The</p><p>first five senses—hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching—are how we</p><p>take in energy streams from outside our body. The sixth sense, body</p><p>awareness, is how we are conscious of energy streams inside our body.</p><p>Sensing these energy streams from both outside and inside our body is vital</p><p>to our well-being. In the appendices, the Wheel of Awareness and the</p><p>Integrative Movement practices invite you to dive deeply into the</p><p>conduition of the senses with the focus of attention and the movement of</p><p>the body. One aspect of those experiences is learning to distinguish</p><p>conduition from construction and then link them in the process of</p><p>integration across a range of domains.</p><p>In the brain, layers of neural networks carry out and organize different roles</p><p>and patterns of our conduitive and our constructive processes. With about</p><p>one hundred billion neurons and an average of ten thousand connections</p><p>linking a given neuron to other neurons, the head’s brain—the enskulled</p><p>brain—is extraordinarily complex. Its number of connections exceeds the</p><p>number of stars in the sky, and the number of possible on-off firing patterns</p><p>is greater than the proposed number of atoms in the universe. This organ is</p><p>so complex it can even name itself: the brain.</p><p>A useful model to understand the brain’s basic layering is the hand</p><p>model of the brain (Figure 4.1). With your fingers enclosing your bent</p><p>thumb to form a fist, your fingers represent the cortex, the outer layer of the</p><p>brain. This is our mapmaking region, the one that makes neural</p><p>representations of sensory input and translates them into perception,</p><p>thought, memory, narrative, belief, and planning to carry out actions.</p><p>Beneath the cortex are many important regions, including the limbic and</p><p>brain stem areas. In the hand model, your thumb represents the limbic area,</p><p>which has a left and right side, as does the cortex above it. Though the</p><p>limbic area, which comprises the hippocampus, amygdala, and cingulate</p><p>gyrus, is not a single structure, its components share similar neurochemistry</p><p>and evolutionary histories, so we can discuss the interrelated processes of</p><p>the hippocampus and amygdala, for example. The structures within this</p><p>historically named limbic region help us to assess the meaning of</p><p>experience, to direct our attention, to form memories, and to mediate some</p><p>aspects of emotion.</p><p>Continuing downward anatomically with the hand model of the brain,</p><p>the palm of the hand symbolizes the evolutionarily older region, the brain</p><p>stem, which connects to the spinal cord. The brain stem is at least three</p><p>hundred million years old and is sometimes referred to as the “reptilian</p><p>brain”; the two hundred-million-year-old limbic area is sometimes referred</p><p>to as the “old mammalian brain,” and the cortex, also known as the</p><p>neocortex, is the “newer mammalian brain.” The brain stem area mediates</p><p>basic bodily needs, such as respiration, digestion, heart function, and the</p><p>wake–sleep cycle. The brain stem also dominates how we react to threat,</p><p>mediating the fight, flight, freeze, or faint reactions, or “4F” reactivity,</p><p>when we face life-threatening challenges.</p><p>Figure 4.1 Hand model of the brain.</p><p>As</p><p>you are reading or listening to these words, you are using your cortex</p><p>—the outer fingers wrapping around the rest of the brain. If you are seeing</p><p>these words, for example, the energy of light streaming into your eyes</p><p>passes through your optical nerve and ultimately arrives in the occipital</p><p>lobe at the back of your cortex. There, patterns of neural firing are coded</p><p>into neural representations that enable you to visually perceive these words.</p><p>If you are listening to this as an audiobook, the energy of soundwaves, as</p><p>movements of air molecules, is striking your ear drum, displacing that</p><p>membrane and translating kinetic energy into electrochemical energy flow</p><p>in the acoustic nerve. This leads to neural firing in the side areas of your</p><p>cortex, the temporal lobes, where the sensation of sound is constructed into</p><p>the perception of hearing.</p><p>For language, a complex set of processes, especially centered in the</p><p>temporal lobe on the left side of the cortex, enables you to decode the input</p><p>from your eyes and ears into the meaning of language, empowering you to</p><p>turn those visual or auditory sensations into perception, comprehension, and</p><p>action as expression.</p><p>Our entire body has many energy flow patterns, sensed with</p><p>proprioception and interoception—what we can collectively call bodily</p><p>sensations. Some sensations emerge from the PDP networks around the</p><p>heart and gut, which also convey sophisticated energy and information</p><p>beyond the conduit of sensation itself— and are the source of the phrases</p><p>“listen to your heart” and “tune into your gut.” Our heart and gut offer</p><p>insight, intuition, and even wisdom that the third brain, the enskulled brain,</p><p>can act on—but may often ignore. Each of these processes is fundamental</p><p>to what we mean by the term “embodied brain.” Given that the heart and</p><p>intestines are lower than the head brain’s cortex, and that we refer to the</p><p>areas in that enskulled brain that are below the cortex as subcortical, we</p><p>might be wise to cultivate and integrate all of these under that broad term,</p><p>“subcortical”, to name and recognize these neural messages and invite them</p><p>into our reasoning and decision-making processes. In this way, the</p><p>reasoning that is often dominated by the head brain’s cortex can become</p><p>more integrative as we learn to listen deeply to this sensory, nonlinguistic</p><p>inner subcortical world—to tune in to our heart and our gut feelings.</p><p>During the first days of extrauterine life, a set of subcortical networks that</p><p>drives our inner experience and outer action becomes quite active. These</p><p>motivational systems drive us to connect, to protect, and to correct—to</p><p>make relational joining, to keep us from harm, and to right a wrong.</p><p>Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp (1998; 2009; 2010) has written extensively</p><p>about what we’re naming here as connect, protect, and correct and describes</p><p>the subjective feeling, or emotion, of these motivational systems in these</p><p>three ways: sadness and distress at separation are represented by the GRIEF</p><p>system; fear as an anticipatory anxiety is represented by the FEAR system;</p><p>and anger as a drive to be empowered, to have agency to right a wrong, is</p><p>represented by the RAGE system.</p><p>These subcortical systems play a central role in what we can name as our</p><p>“emotional life” and they help direct our cortically mediated consciousness.</p><p>And our cortex also helps construct our emotional life—our subcortical</p><p>inner systems and our cortically mediated top-down processes weave</p><p>together to form the feeling “tone” of our ongoing experiences.</p><p>For a young child, these subcortical systems direct some of the first inner</p><p>states and drives to action that arise in our awareness:</p><p>GRIEF system: feeling forlorn → drive for connection</p><p>FEAR system: feeling fear → drive for protection</p><p>RAGE system: feeling fury → drive for correction</p><p>The drive to connect can have a subjective sensation ranging from mild</p><p>loneliness to being sad, forlorn, or despairing. The drive for protection, to</p><p>be safe, has sensations along the spectrum from feeling unsettled, anxious,</p><p>or fearful to panic or terror. The drive to correct a wrong is our motivation</p><p>to be empowered, to be an effective source of action; this system can give</p><p>rise to feelings ranging from mild irritation to anger, fury, or rage.</p><p>In this way, the sense of a center of experience, of being and of doing—a</p><p>sense of self—is shaped by these fundamental subcortically mediated</p><p>motivational systems and the emotions and behaviors they enact from the</p><p>very beginning of our experiences outside the womb. The subjective</p><p>sensation, perspective, and agency of self are molded from the inside, in</p><p>part, by these inherited subcortical motivational networks. This is a brief</p><p>glimpse into the internal somatic architecture that shapes our emerging</p><p>sense of experience from our earliest days. As we grow, these same</p><p>mechanisms, whether we are aware of them or not, continue to influence</p><p>not only what has meaning in our lives but also the focus of our attention</p><p>and the interactive behaviors we have within interpersonal relationships.</p><p>Doing and the Construction of Perception</p><p>Living in a body after birth requires, in the words of my colleagues Laura</p><p>Baker, David and Denise Daniels, Jack Killen, and my self—in all its inner</p><p>and relational layers—that we “work for a living.” We must do to survive.</p><p>While this doing often involves simple linear acts of survival, such as eating</p><p>when hungry and sleeping when tired, seeing the fundamental nature of</p><p>life’s experiences through the lens of energy flow can help us make sense of</p><p>the often hidden and more complex ways we live in a systems reality.</p><p>Experience is the flow of energy. Sometimes that flow is direct, as</p><p>bottom-up conduition, like water through the conduit of a hose: raw,</p><p>unfiltered, without re-presenting or symbolizing something. Other times</p><p>this flow of energy gets constructed based on our prior learning, as a top-</p><p>down form of filtering what we sense as we build categories, concepts, and</p><p>symbols. As with energy conduition, mental construction can be internal,</p><p>and it can be relational. Information processing, known as cognition, is</p><p>shaped by neural processes inside our body, and information sharing, the</p><p>communication formed by relations we have outside our body, connect us</p><p>with people and the planet. This spectrum of inner and inter ways of</p><p>symbolizing energy into information fits with the cognitive science view of</p><p>our mental constructions as enacted and embodied, as well as beyond the</p><p>body, as they are extended and embedded in our relational worlds.</p><p>With 3.5 billion years worth of ancestors—500 million years of</p><p>vertebrate evolution, 200 million as mammals, and about 50 million years</p><p>as primates—we share many internal bodily structures that form how</p><p>energy flows in our lives to help us survive. These networks motivate our</p><p>behaviors and shape our internal sense of being alive, our feelings and</p><p>sensations, and that tapestry of what we’ve named “meaning” and</p><p>“emotion.”</p><p>If we didn’t have motivational systems in the body to get us to breathe,</p><p>eat, drink, and connect, we would die. These somatic systems enabled our</p><p>ancestors to survive and to reproduce, passing on their genetic codes—</p><p>libraries of molecular information that determine how our bodies grow and</p><p>develop. We share the drive to breathe, for example, with our vertebrate</p><p>ancestors (including reptiles and mammals); the drive to connect, we share</p><p>with our mammalian relatives. We share social hierarchies with our primate</p><p>cousins, and then, as human beings, we share language use and childrearing</p><p>by living as sophisticated collections of individuals that collaborate as a</p><p>group. To enhance our survival, we harness a process called “alloparenting”</p><p>in which we share care of our youth with a select few members of our</p><p>community. You and I, together, have inherited all of this.</p><p>Alloparenting introduced to our lives the benefit of sensing the mind of</p><p>another person—their intentions, emotions, mood, attention, awareness—so</p><p>that we could learn to trust them, or not, with the</p><p>vital care of our precious</p><p>offspring. This mindsight—the capacity to sense the inner mental lives of</p><p>others with empathy and compassion—then evolved, one perspective</p><p>suggests, to be applied to our inner life as well, enabling us to have insight:</p><p>an inner perspective on the nature of our own minds. This rich internal</p><p>source of subjective textures offers us the capacity to construct an inner</p><p>notion of self and identity, whether a narrow one that might come to limit us</p><p>or, if we harness mindsight’s power effectively, one with a wider-angle</p><p>focus that actually enriches and liberates our lives. It’s up to us whether our</p><p>own experience of self, identity, and belonging hurts or helps the systems</p><p>that we are, the systems in which we all live.</p><p>Inner and Outer: Self and Other</p><p>We need one another. When we are hungry, we call out for food; when we</p><p>are lonely, we call out for connection; when we are distressed, we call out</p><p>for soothing. This social connection can be seen as an exchange of energy</p><p>and information: one we call communication. Besides relational needs, the</p><p>body needs sustenance—food, water, warmth—to maintain physiological</p><p>homeostasis, the balancing of the body’s basic somatic functions.</p><p>Nurturance, then, is about both material and relational needs being met by</p><p>others in our lives. We are interconnected entities living in space and time.</p><p>We survive by honoring the interdependent nature of our reality, not by</p><p>ignoring this fundamentally connected essence of who we are. This is the</p><p>reality of our lives; it is especially prominent in our early childhood years,</p><p>when our dependency on others leads to life or death. As an intraconnected</p><p>living system of Earth, these interwoven needs for one another remain</p><p>throughout the lifespan, across time, space, and species.</p><p>From the moment we enter the womb, we need our mother, our</p><p>caregiver, to enable us to survive, grow, and thrive. As mammals, we are</p><p>born into the world needing a connection with our primary attachment</p><p>figure, our mother. As human beings, we share this attachment with more</p><p>than just the mother inside whose womb we grew—the process of</p><p>alloparenting enables us to live collaboratively as a community, a collection</p><p>of people whose mindsight abilities help us connect with one another’s</p><p>inner mental lives, from the inside, as well as through external behaviors—</p><p>what we can see with our eyes, our physical sight. Our genetically shaped</p><p>social brains need this interpersonal connection: Relationships provide the</p><p>experiential foundations of joining that not only keep us alive but also mold</p><p>how our brain grows, enabling us to thrive.</p><p>When relational connections are integrative—when we are honored for</p><p>differences and when compassionate linkages are created—our brain’s</p><p>integration grows. Integrated brains enable optimal regulation to unfold:</p><p>how we regulate our attention, how we experience our emotions and moods,</p><p>how we manage our thoughts, memories, relationships, behaviors, and</p><p>morality—each of these depends on neural integration. The simple</p><p>intraconnected reality of energy flow and well-being, for us as human</p><p>beings, is this: Relational integration stimulates the growth of neural</p><p>integration, which is necessary for optimal regulation.</p><p>Neural connections emerge in two fundamental ways: experience-</p><p>expectant and experience-dependent. Expectant development involves our</p><p>DNA encoding the growth of our neural networks very early in life, even</p><p>without outside input, such as our visual and auditory sensory systems. The</p><p>growing neural systems, in every member of our species, expect that this</p><p>form of input will be received. For example, our visual system expects to</p><p>receive light and to, with this input, further develop our ability to see; our</p><p>auditory system expects to receive sound and to further develop our</p><p>hearing. These are experience-expectant neural systems.</p><p>As we experience unique events in our lives—such as learning to ride a</p><p>bicycle or hearing a certain type of music—the input received will activate</p><p>genes, enabling new connections to grow among neurons. The growth of</p><p>neural connectivity based on novel experiences is called experience-</p><p>dependent development. This growth in connectivity depends on specific</p><p>experiences that are unique to each of us, experiences that our systems</p><p>cannot expect to happen for every member of our species, as experience-</p><p>expectant development. Learning to ride a tricycle is one example: We can</p><p>develop the memory and skills to ride, build these into our synaptic</p><p>connections that link neurons into networks for memory, and lay down the</p><p>myelin sheaths among interconnected neurons for skill building. But not</p><p>every child will have that experience. These networks, constructed from</p><p>scratch, are in these ways initially stimulated by gene expression following</p><p>the flow of energy into the nervous system, which are then developed and</p><p>maintained by neural activity that is activated by repeated experience. This</p><p>is experience-dependent neural growth.</p><p>Overall, the impact of experience—energy flow—on neural connectivity</p><p>leads not only to neural firing, to neuronal activity in the moment, but also</p><p>to gene activation and changes in neural connectivity in the long-run. In</p><p>other words, neural firing can lead to changes in neural anatomy by changes</p><p>in neural connections. This change in neural structure stimulated by</p><p>experience is called neuroplasticity. The focus of our mind on energy flow</p><p>patterns, originating from inside or outside the body, can harness this power</p><p>to change brain structures involved in that experience of neural activation.</p><p>A convenient way to remember this process is by the phrase “Where</p><p>attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows.”</p><p>Our relational connections, by which our brain’s integration grows,</p><p>manifest as our attachment patterns. Attachment—how we attach</p><p>relationally to our caregivers and how they bond to us—likely involves both</p><p>experience-expectant and experience-dependent aspects of our</p><p>interconnecting neural systems.</p><p>As discussed extensively in the five-hundred-page textbook The</p><p>Developing Mind, research-based findings indicate that self, identity, and</p><p>belonging both reflect and impact how we, individually and collectively,</p><p>create integration in our lives. Trained as an attachment researcher and</p><p>working as a psychotherapist, I have found attachment science to reveal</p><p>powerful, empirical ways we can understand how relationships influence us</p><p>early in life as well as throughout our lifespan—and not just in our</p><p>individual lives but in how we function as a human family and as a family</p><p>of living beings together on Earth. How we develop a sense of self, how we</p><p>experience identity, how we come to belong, each of these are shaped by</p><p>attachment experiences in our personal family life; in turn, similar relational</p><p>processes may be the foundation for how we experience self, identity, and</p><p>belonging in our public and planetary lives.</p><p>We need our attachment figures: our caregivers. How others meet our</p><p>needs influences two fundamental things: our immediate experience (e.g.,</p><p>how our hunger or soothing needs are met, or not) and how we adapt to that</p><p>experience, to do the best we can to survive (with withdrawal, anxiety, or</p><p>confidence). A way to summarize what research has found regarding these</p><p>direct and indirect impacts of attachment in our lives is: safe + seen +</p><p>soothed = secure. When we are safe, seen (our internal world is sensed</p><p>accurately), and soothed—and when the rupture created by their absence is</p><p>reliably and readily repaired—we then develop an internal sense of security.</p><p>We grow a sense of self within the relationships we have early in life.</p><p>During our earliest years, we develop a sense of inner I or me and a</p><p>relational we—a sense of inner and inter—that uses the body as its spatial</p><p>reference point. As we develop, we come to include another category, the</p><p>not-me, or “other,” giving rise to the common distinctions of me versus you</p><p>and us versus them.</p><p>Better Together: Relationships, Emotion, Meaning</p><p>to transform a destructive path into a</p><p>constructive one. This is how we can transform challenge into opportunity.</p><p>While in this moment we might feel despair and hopelessness, guilt and</p><p>confusion, we can work together, with knowledge and skills, to move</p><p>beyond these states of paralysis and fear into ones of choice and change. We</p><p>can learn to dance with challenge rather than dread it.</p><p>The human mind is open to growth across the lifespan. And it is the</p><p>mind that creates human culture. If modern culture has been creating a</p><p>distorted, constricting, and unhelpful notion of self, this may be the mental</p><p>construct our minds, now awakened to this error, need to change. Cultural</p><p>evolution proceeds much more rapidly than genetic evolution; we have the</p><p>potential to make the urgent changes we need to make if we can accurately</p><p>identify the issues at play and the helpful practices we can now enact to</p><p>transform how we live in the world. If how we have constructed what the</p><p>self is, what our identity and belonging are based upon, is the source of</p><p>many of the troubles we now face—then we can now change this pattern</p><p>and move in a more integrative pathway forward.</p><p>The mind shapes belonging, identity, and self. If we clarify the mental</p><p>lens through which we see the self and deepen our understanding of identity</p><p>and belonging, we may be able to shift how we live and then create a path</p><p>that cultivates more personal, public, and planetary health for us all. We are</p><p>proposing that many of the challenges to global health we now experience</p><p>in multiple ways across humanity—what can be called pandemics, a term</p><p>that means involving all people, something affecting humanity—are caused</p><p>by a limited and limiting view of “self.”</p><p>One form of pandemic we currently face is infectious disease—COVID-</p><p>19, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. But many pandemics</p><p>affect us now. Another pandemic we face today is social injustice: the</p><p>dehumanization and marginalization that emerges from in-group</p><p>domination over out-groups that are subordinate in the social hierarchy. A</p><p>third pandemic is environmental destruction: we now live in the</p><p>Anthropocene era, when human activity is having devastating consequences</p><p>for life on Earth and the environments that sustain us. A fourth pandemic is</p><p>of misinformation and polarization, made rampant with the internet’s</p><p>capacity to create self-sustaining bubbles of isolated information sharing. A</p><p>fifth pandemic is of attention addiction, the draw of our attentional focus</p><p>toward compelling states of endless comparison and competition and the</p><p>ensuing feeling of inadequacy, inferiority, and incompleteness.</p><p>And there is a sixth pandemic, one addressed in great depth in the pages</p><p>that follow: the modern cultural, or what some might call Western, view of</p><p>an isolated, separate identity—the solo-self. While this perspective may</p><p>have originated in the West—in European-originated colonialist nations—it</p><p>has now spread around the globe so extensively that a geographical</p><p>indicator may no longer apply to this wide-spread cultural construction of</p><p>self. This solo-self is not just the inner, private aspect of who we are but</p><p>rather the concept and belief that the totality of our identity is separate from</p><p>others, especially other, not “like-me” people, as well as separate from other</p><p>nonhuman species—apart from nature. The consequences of this</p><p>excessively differentiated identity and the disconnection from belonging</p><p>that it creates are responsible for much suffering, both as the chaos and</p><p>rigidity we may experience internally and as turmoil in our relational lives</p><p>—states that arise from a nonintegrated way of being in the world. By</p><p>“relational,” I mean the way the bodily, inner self is connected to other</p><p>people and to the planet, the whole of nature. These connections, involving</p><p>patterns in the exchange of energy and information, may not be as visible to</p><p>the eye as is the body, but they are equally real. When we live as a solo-self</p><p>and ignore these important yet invisible connections, we experience our</p><p>identity as centered predominantly in the body, and we feel relationally</p><p>connected only to those who are like-me.</p><p>This solo-self pandemic, one of the main topics of our journey, clearly</p><p>has a negative impact on each of the other five pandemics—and may be a</p><p>fundamental source of them. In this book, we will explore the nature of our</p><p>modern experience of separation, of the solo-self, and then consider</p><p>pathways that offer the potential for large and lasting positive impacts on</p><p>how we construct our sense of self, identity, and belonging that can help us</p><p>in our individual, interpersonal, and planetary lives as citizens on Earth.</p><p>This is the mission of our journey. If this is something that intrigues you,</p><p>if it is something that feels compelling and relevant to your life and to your</p><p>work, I hope you will find the expedition ahead meaningful, interesting, and</p><p>useful.</p><p>The solo-self is our mind’s construction; it develops through key</p><p>developmental milestones, alongside and within us, as we mature and move</p><p>out into the world. For this reason, in this book we will take a lifespan</p><p>approach to these foundational aspects of our lives and how they emerge as</p><p>we examine how we might turn these challenges into opportunities for</p><p>growth to harness ways to develop a more helpful experience of self in the</p><p>world. Windows of change in human development are not only moments of</p><p>vulnerability but potential invitations for transformation in life. This is true</p><p>for both our individual lives and for this collective moment of upheaval in</p><p>how our modern societies are evolving. The acronym VUCA has been used</p><p>to refer, initially by the military and later by journalists, to the volatile,</p><p>uncertain, complex, and ambiguous nature of the times we live in. It is</p><p>understandable that anxiety, despair, and depression can arise from the</p><p>challenges these VUCA conditions present. But we can find a path to</p><p>transform those increasingly present reactive states into more receptive</p><p>modes of being as we move, together, toward a healthier way of living. In</p><p>many ways, this is how we can “get our acts together” in both meanings of</p><p>that phrase—to awaken our minds individually to the importance of</p><p>liberating a more integrative sense of self, and to collaborate in facing the</p><p>shared challenges ahead by addressing the fundamental mental processes at</p><p>their root.</p><p>Social activist and author Bryan Stevenson has stated in his film, Just</p><p>Mercy, that “Hopelessness is the enemy of justice.” And we can state the</p><p>corollary of that wisdom: Hope is the steward of justice. When we aim to</p><p>shape our individual and cultural evolution, reflect on the nature of self,</p><p>have agency, work together and follow a pathway with a purpose, we</p><p>generate hope and cultivate positive changes in the world. Challenge</p><p>becomes an opportunity for learning and growing together.</p><p>If the perspective of the solo-self—the concept and belief that the totality</p><p>of one’s identity is separate from others, or others who are not like-us—is</p><p>indeed at the root of many of the difficulties we now face, we harness the</p><p>potential of our individual and collective minds to construct our experience</p><p>of self in a broader and more integrative way to cultivate lasting positive</p><p>change.</p><p>Language Can Liberate</p><p>It may be helpful to reflect briefly on the terminology regarding what has</p><p>been named the “modern” societal view of a solo-self. In the study of</p><p>cultures, group dynamics, information processing, brain functioning, and</p><p>even physics, we discover that, broadly speaking, we can view reality by</p><p>focusing on its component parts, and we can see reality as comprised of the</p><p>relationships among these parts. While it may sound simplistic to divide our</p><p>human perspectives in this way, it is consistent with much of what</p><p>researchers see, and it is a useful place to start identifying differences in</p><p>how we construct not only our perceptions of the world, but also the belief</p><p>systems and ways of living that follow those views of reality.</p><p>If our goal</p><p>Relationships are crucial in determining our brain’s growth as well as our</p><p>sense of self, a center of our experience of being alive—our sensation,</p><p>perspective, and agency. But what is a relationship? What does it mean to</p><p>have a relational self, a relational connection, to be a “we” beyond an inner</p><p>“me”?</p><p>A foundational way of defining a relationship is as the sharing of energy.</p><p>Our communications and connections are all about energy streaming</p><p>through our lives—how energy is shared. Within these bodies we are born</p><p>into, we have several ways to connect our inner world and the relational</p><p>world in which we are embedded. Our actions transmit energy, as we move</p><p>through our environment expressing ourselves and exchanging material</p><p>things in our world, and our sensory systems receive energy from our</p><p>environment—as photons, sound waves, chemical energy for taste and</p><p>smell, kinetic energy for touch. When we communicate, we share energy</p><p>and information flow between one another. Even the exchange of objects, of</p><p>matter, is an exchange of energy, because matter is highly condensed</p><p>energy. All relationships are a sharing of energy.</p><p>As bodily sensations emerge, regions of the brain that connect the body</p><p>to the subcortical regions, such as the limbic and brain stem areas, move</p><p>this flow of neural energy to the cortex. In many ways, what we come to</p><p>call “emotion” can be defined as the integrative flow of energy from the</p><p>body through the subcortical areas to cortex. Emotion can be seen as a shift</p><p>in integration, embedding within its contours meaning, sensation, and</p><p>relational connection: We experience emotions as directly related not only</p><p>to our relationships but also to our bodies, including regions of the brain</p><p>that establish value or meaning.</p><p>Studies have shown, for example, that the same region of the brain, the</p><p>dorsal section of the anterior cingulate cortex, is activated with the</p><p>experience of both somatic pain and social rejection. The cingulate is</p><p>considered an interface between the prefrontal cortex and limbic areas—</p><p>each of these regions is fundamental to weaving together emotion, meaning,</p><p>and our relational worlds. In this manner, the structure and function of our</p><p>brain reveal the overlap of the social with the somatic, the relational with</p><p>the internal, inter with inner.</p><p>You may have noticed that relationships, emotion, and meaning in our</p><p>lives are intimately interwoven within the tapestry of our subjective</p><p>experience. Separating emotions from meaning, separating relationships</p><p>from emotions, separating meaning from relationships—such attempts to</p><p>isolate any one of these from the others, for many of us, is just not possible.</p><p>These experiences are biologically woven into the fabric of who we are.</p><p>Seeing emotion as a shift in integration reveals how energy flow can be</p><p>differentiated and linked. Recall that complex systems self-organize</p><p>optimally by balancing differentiation on the one hand with linkage on the</p><p>other. As we’ve seen, when differentiated components of a complex system</p><p>are linked, they do not lose, in the process we are calling integration, their</p><p>unique individual features. Integration is more like a fruit salad than a</p><p>smoothie—it is not a homogenous, uniform blending of parts. It is from an</p><p>integrative balance of differentiation and linkage that emergence arises,</p><p>enabling a synergy in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.</p><p>When that flow of our lives as complex systems is internally integrated,</p><p>we find purpose in what we are doing, we find meaning in life, we</p><p>experience a sense of inner peace, of wholeness, of well-being. And when</p><p>our flow of energy is integrated with our environment, within our relational</p><p>lives—when we are honored as unique individuals yet are linked to others</p><p>and nature without losing our inner integrity—we have an integrative</p><p>relational world, an inter-self that we experience as what we might call the</p><p>FACES flow of harmony (Table 4.1). And the opposite of this harmony, a</p><p>nonintegrated flow, would be its reverse: IMIDU.</p><p>When energy and information flow are integrative—when there is</p><p>linkage and differentiation, a flow connecting differentiated parts—a sense</p><p>of well-being arises. Energy flow happens inside our bodies, including the</p><p>brains—the PDP processors—in our gut, heart, and head. And information</p><p>flow happens between our bodily, inner self and “others,” within our</p><p>relational selves—the world of energy flow outside these bodies we are</p><p>born into. Integration happens within and through the connections we have</p><p>—within the body, with other people, and within the natural world. It’s</p><p>helpful to keep in mind that neither skull nor skin limit energy and</p><p>information flow; this flow is who we are—and it has an inner location and</p><p>an inter location. In this way, it is all our self. The question is: Can we</p><p>widen our lens of identity to see this broader belonging and to embrace a</p><p>subjective experience, a perspective, and agency of self that is beyond the</p><p>boundaries of our skin encased bodies?</p><p>Table 4.1 Contrast of Integrated (FACES) to Nonintegrated (IMIDU) states</p><p>Integrated Nonintegrated</p><p>Flexible Inflexible</p><p>Adaptive Maladaptive</p><p>Coherent Incoherent</p><p>Energized Deenergized, depleted</p><p>Stable Unstable, unreliable</p><p>If we are excessively differentiated, without linkage—if we are</p><p>disconnected, acting without awareness beyond the separation of our solo-</p><p>self—then rigidity, chaos, or both are likely to arise. Yet if we are not</p><p>differentiated—if we have no internal facet of our identity, no somatic</p><p>center of experience, no bodily boundaries; if we are unable to find an</p><p>internal integrity and instead we melt into homogeneity—then we are also</p><p>in a nonintegrative state. Both differentiation and linkage are needed for</p><p>integration to emerge.</p><p>With an integrative relational self, the inter flow of energy and</p><p>information feels whole, feels at peace. It is a generative connection, filled</p><p>with compassion, collaboration, and creativity. When we are immersed in</p><p>the generative relational connections of secure attachment, our sense of self,</p><p>inner and inter, is filled with harmony and becomes resilient, able to</p><p>approach challenges with flexibility, adaptability, coherence, energy, and</p><p>stability. This is living as an intraconnected system. These are the</p><p>developmental origins of a resilient self, inside and out, inner and inter.</p><p>Developing a Core Self</p><p>Energy and information flow are the fundamental essence, or “stuff,” of</p><p>experience. We’ve discussed that, even before we were conceived, this flow</p><p>can be identified as the stuff of the universe, what “reality is made of.”</p><p>Even before life established itself within molecular assemblies encased by</p><p>cellular membranes, energy existed as the movement from possible to</p><p>actual. Even before molecules were made from more basic building blocks</p><p>of atoms, energy flow was the essence of reality.</p><p>Reflecting on these fundamentals of the world in which we are born</p><p>reminds us of the unique experience of being a life form, of being</p><p>conceived, of growing in the womb, of having a body. Yet each of these</p><p>states did not entail a sense of self as separate from the rest of our reality, a</p><p>self that is separate from our own surroundings. If “self” is a term we are</p><p>fundamentally defining as a center of experience and if experience is energy</p><p>flow, then what, exactly, constitutes “a center of experience”? What is the</p><p>localization, the central source, of energy flow?</p><p>If this center is defined only by the boundaries of the skin with a</p><p>narrowly focused lens of identity, our sense of belonging is restricted and</p><p>our experience of self becomes a nonintegrative process. True, we have a</p><p>body that serves as an important, differentiated facet of experience, yet this</p><p>is not the whole of what constitutes a center of our experience. Yes, we</p><p>have an inner center of energy flow, a flow centered in the body. But we</p><p>also have an inter center, a self that is fully relational. Perceiving self as</p><p>emerging from inner and inter energy flow, we can clearly see how there is</p><p>both an</p><p>inner and an inter facet of self.</p><p>You and I are on a journey in the universe, tracing emergence from the</p><p>plane of possibility to quanta to atoms to molecules to cells of life and then</p><p>to conception and development in the womb, and then to birth, when we</p><p>transition into the air-filled, relational world. We are the stuff of the</p><p>universe, even though we now have a body. The bodily based self is very</p><p>real—it’s just not the whole deal.</p><p>And this body into which we are growing, this somatic center of</p><p>experience, has features that shape energy flow—this is our inner self. The</p><p>inner flow of energy is one foundation for our “sense” of self. “Sense” here</p><p>is a subjective feeling, a felt, sensory reality of a center of experience,</p><p>comprising both a core inner self and a relational self.</p><p>The Core Self</p><p>Some, such as child psychiatrist Daniel Stern (1985), consider our</p><p>experience of the inner self to be a “core self,” with features of affectivity,</p><p>agency, continuity, and coherence. In this developmental model, we are,</p><p>beginning in the first years of life, filled with an emotional tone of the</p><p>unfolding experiences with which we live that can collectively be called</p><p>“affectivity.” We also have a sense of being the center of action—of free</p><p>will, if you will—a body that moves in the world, a self in that body that</p><p>has agency. Affectivity and agency can have a continuity to them, linking</p><p>events of experience across time and space. When this continuity has a</p><p>wholeness and integrity to it, a sense of experience, called “coherence,”</p><p>emerges—a sense that experience is vibrantly held together and there is a</p><p>matching of our expectations and our sensations.</p><p>This concept of coherence overlaps with Jaak Panksepp’s SEEKING</p><p>system that drives us to make sense of experience—to find coherence in</p><p>life. Our larger sense-making, coherence-sculpting journey is likely related</p><p>to the top-down constructive processes that let past experience, as a</p><p>memory filter, shape current sensation into perception. This would be the</p><p>inner sense of self that arises in the first years of our life outside the womb</p><p>and continues to be a key part of our entire lives: we are sense-making</p><p>beings. This is the core self’s affectivity, agency, continuity, and the</p><p>emerging sense of coherence that we construct as we seek to make sense of</p><p>life. Each of these four foundational experiences influences the others.</p><p>Our attachment relationships directly impact the development of our</p><p>core self—and these are remembered via neuroplastic changes that alter the</p><p>structure of our brains. With security, integrative communication—in which</p><p>differences are honored and compassionate connections cultivated—leads</p><p>to affectivity that feels whole, agency that feels empowered, continuity that</p><p>fits together across time and experience, and coherence that has a sense of</p><p>harmony. When we are safe, seen, and soothed, and ruptures are repaired</p><p>when they arise, we develop security. Secure attachment emerges with</p><p>integration relationally and cultivates integration internally. With the</p><p>various forms of insecurity in contrast—what we can name as “nonsecure”</p><p>forms of attachment to avoid the misleading connotation of the term</p><p>“insecure” as something being deficient in the individual, rather than a</p><p>relationship being suboptimal—these foundations of the core self can each</p><p>be compromised and lean instead toward chaos and rigidity. Nonsecure</p><p>attachment arises with impediments to relational integration and the ensuing</p><p>compromises in internal integration. Like a river, harmony is the central</p><p>FACES flow, bound on each side by the IMIDU: chaos on one bank,</p><p>rigidity on the other.</p><p>The foundations of a core sense of self are an important way to describe</p><p>the inner experience of I or me, the inner self. While some suggest we have</p><p>an “observing I” that is distinct from a bodily experience of self—for</p><p>example, at times of distress we may say, “I need to get myself together”—</p><p>here we will use a broader notion of “me” or “I” to indicate the inner</p><p>experience of self, one that includes both this observational capacity to be</p><p>aware and the sensations and mental constructions that we can be aware of.</p><p>From this perspective, for us here, the core self encompasses the various</p><p>internal senses of identity and belonging, our range of self-defining</p><p>experiences that comprise an inner centering in the body.</p><p>The Relational Self</p><p>In subjective experience, we can feel connected to our inner life, and we</p><p>can also feel connected to other people and to nature—our relational life. In</p><p>this connection, our self as a center of experience shifts to include both the</p><p>inner and the relational. Each are important, and each contributes to our</p><p>overall experience of identity and belonging. The inner and the relational</p><p>self-experiences share the notion of self as a center of experience.</p><p>Recall that we are defining experience as energy and information flow.</p><p>The following review of the features of self captures this sense of flow as</p><p>both inner and relational centers of experience, the foundation of what we</p><p>are naming as self, inside these bodies we are born into and centered in the</p><p>relational worlds in which we live:</p><p>Sensation or subjectivity: the felt texture of experience, the feel of</p><p>energy flow</p><p>Perspective: the perceptual direction, the point of view of that flow</p><p>Agency: the actions that arise from that flow, a source of motion</p><p>Together, our subjective sense, perspective, and agency as we experience</p><p>and interact in our physical and relational world—as our core self within</p><p>our body and our relational self, initially within our family in our home and</p><p>later in our community and environment—make up our center of</p><p>experience, our self. As we will see as we explore further, these experiences</p><p>of an inner core self and of a relational inter self are continually shaped by</p><p>experience—by energy flow—that both influences and is influenced by the</p><p>emergence of identity and belonging across the lifespan.</p><p>TODDLERHOOD</p><p>In our first years of life, we connect through our five senses to the world around us,</p><p>the world of our caregivers. The inner sensations of our body ignite a drive</p><p>to survive, and we can feel anger and rage when we don’t get our way, fear</p><p>and anxiety when we sense danger, sadness and forlornness if left isolated</p><p>and alone. A glance, a smile, a reassuring tone of voice, a hug—each of</p><p>these are the nonverbal signals of energy flow that give us the information</p><p>we need to reduce our states of distress and come to feel whole again.</p><p>A World of Words</p><p>In the first years of life, the brain will take in these repeated patterns of</p><p>communication that connect and redirect us—our inter-regulation—and use</p><p>them to build circuitry for more autonomous soothing. This is what is often</p><p>called “self”-regulation but may, for our purposes, be more accurately</p><p>called “inner regulation,” to avoid reinforcing the concept that self indicates</p><p>the body alone and to disentangle our modern culture’s narrow-lens view of</p><p>what the self is. With this as our framework, we can say that inter regulation</p><p>shapes our inner regulation skills.</p><p>Some writers suggest that these nonverbal relational processes are</p><p>dominant in the circuitry of the right side of our two-sided brain. By</p><p>differentiating the left and right sides of key areas of the brain, our</p><p>ancestors achieved more complexity in function—enabling them to become</p><p>more adaptive. The cortex and the limbic areas have left and right sides, and</p><p>in human beings the right side dominates brain activity and growth during</p><p>the first few years of life. Interestingly, not only are nonverbal signals</p><p>perceived and expressed via the right hemisphere, but inner soothing is</p><p>dominant on the right as well.</p><p>One way these two sides differ, as we’ve described earlier, is in the focus</p><p>of attention. The right side of the brain mediates a broad focus of attention;</p><p>the left is dominant for narrow or more tightly focused attention. Plus,</p><p>somatic (bodily) input is dominant on the right, whereas language—the</p><p>words we use to linguistically</p><p>symbolize experiences and to communicate</p><p>—is dominant on the left side for most individuals. Thus, self, identity, and</p><p>belonging are shaped in part by the neural asymmetries we humans have</p><p>inherited that involve both sides of the brain in somewhat distinct ways.</p><p>Understanding these differences and how they can become linked into an</p><p>integrated whole can support us in using these asymmetric skills and</p><p>propensities in a helpful manner.</p><p>For example, emotion is present on both sides of the brain, not just in</p><p>one hemisphere or the other. Creativity requires both sides of the brain.</p><p>Living a full and effective life requires both sides of the brain. Left being</p><p>different from right does not imply superiority of one side over the other but</p><p>helps us understand, in a conservative way, how the asymmetric</p><p>architecture of our brain increases our neural complexity, impacting both</p><p>the conduition and construction that make up our mental experiences. The</p><p>tendency to simplify these differences into broad, and at times inaccurate,</p><p>generalizations in the popular literature may have led to an understandable</p><p>pushback from neuroscientists, who urge us to avoid such</p><p>misunderstandings. Nevertheless, the science of asymmetry can be quite</p><p>illuminating, informing us of the challenges we may sometimes face in</p><p>achieving what we can call bilateral integration: the honoring of the</p><p>differences between the sides of the brain and facilitating links between</p><p>them that do not lessen their unique contributions.</p><p>When we then apply these fundamental inner neural asymmetries to our</p><p>relational lives, all sorts of previously mysterious patterns become</p><p>comprehensible—and even changeable toward a more integrative way of</p><p>being. (See The Developing Mind for a deep dive into the background</p><p>science itself; here, we will simply apply that science to our understanding</p><p>of self, identity, and belonging.) As the right hemisphere grows</p><p>connections, enabling the core self to experience its affectivity, agency,</p><p>continuity, and coherence in what we can call integrative ways, the left</p><p>hemisphere is learning and growing in very important aspects as well. The</p><p>left hemisphere begins to grow more and become more active after the first</p><p>year or so, as it begins our lifelong journey of learning the reception and</p><p>expression of language. The communication utilizing nonverbal signals—</p><p>facial expression, eye contact, tone of voice, posture, gesture, the timing</p><p>and intensity of response—in their receiving and sending is dominant in the</p><p>right hemisphere. Studies show that the inner, reflective stance of the right</p><p>side is counterbalanced by a more outward focus of the left: the left hand,</p><p>controlled by the right hemisphere, tends to soothe the body, whereas the</p><p>right hand, controlled by the left brain, reaches out to the world. In addition</p><p>to this grasping with the hand, we also grasp with our linguistic symbols—</p><p>dominant in the left side of the brain in most individuals, even for most of</p><p>those who are left-handed.</p><p>Ultimately, the side of the brain doesn’t really matter. Science suggests</p><p>that what does matter is our specialized modes of processing information,</p><p>of taking in streams of energy and, from that conduitive flow, constructing</p><p>an assembly of energy patterns into information, particular forms of</p><p>symbols—energy patterns with specific meaning beyond the energy flow</p><p>itself. When such information processing is capable of being “dis-</p><p>associated” in its anatomic and functional segregation, then its associated</p><p>mental activities can also be somewhat independent in their unfolding.</p><p>These modes, what we are calling a “right mode” and “left mode,” are quite</p><p>distinct. By honoring these differentiated modes for their unique qualities,</p><p>we support their linkage to and integration with each other. Some aspects of</p><p>right-brain activity may contribute to left-brain-dominant functions, so we</p><p>would say this right-brain activity is a part of a left-mode function. Using</p><p>the term “mode” captures the verb-like activity of the brain, helping us see</p><p>the full mental and relational experience more clearly, even when each side</p><p>may contribute in various ways with its constructive and conduitive activity</p><p>during a given event.</p><p>Right mode is dominant for nonverbal communication, both its</p><p>expression and reception; left mode is dominant for linguistic use of</p><p>language. Right mode is dominant for inner reflection, including bodily</p><p>awareness and autobiographical memory—recalling the self in time. Right</p><p>mode also appears to be dominant for sensing context, seeing the broader</p><p>relatedness of parts in a whole.</p><p>Left mode, conveniently, is dominant for the following functions that, in</p><p>English, begin with the letter “L”:</p><p>Logic—syllogistic reasoning seeking cause–effect relationships</p><p>List making—like this one we are making here</p><p>Literal thinking—taking words at their concrete meaning rather than</p><p>seeing the gist or meaning between the lines</p><p>Language—using words to express and understand reality, helped by</p><p>the left mode’s more narrow focus of attention</p><p>In some ways, as we’ve discussed briefly before in our WELCOME</p><p>chapter, the left mode seems to be dominant for a narrow focus of attention</p><p>on details and in finding schemas or mental models that it can then</p><p>summarize in a word. These linguistic symbols are a surface level of shared</p><p>meaning, representing concepts and categories beneath the words</p><p>themselves. We have the categories of animate or inanimate, for example,</p><p>and the concepts that emerge from the notion of some things being alive</p><p>and others not. How we interact within the world is shaped directly by these</p><p>categories and concepts; and the words we use reflect those underlying</p><p>mental filters as well as express them, shaping how “others” and even our</p><p>“selves” view and interact with the world. If we see the world as an</p><p>inanimate place that is only a space in which our animate human bodies</p><p>exist, we will treat the “external environment” one way. And if we see the</p><p>system of life on Earth as a living system, an animate intraconnected whole</p><p>of which we are a part, then we might treat the world with more respect and</p><p>care than those people in modern times who treat it as a trash can.</p><p>As a writer, I know first-hand this left-mode penchant. In some ways, the</p><p>conversation we are having here is an attempt to use words in a traditional</p><p>way—prose form within paragraphs composed of sentences with words and</p><p>accepted punctuation—to explore and challenge the mental models</p><p>imparted to us by the very linguistic left-mode language I am using. If I</p><p>were writing poetry, or even composing lyrics to a musical score, we might</p><p>see this message as integrating left-mode language with the contexts and</p><p>textures of the right mode’s broader attention and with the evoked, bodily-</p><p>sensed feelings, immersing you more in the timing and tone of the</p><p>nonverbal world.</p><p>Young children learn both right and left modes of conduition and</p><p>construction, yet left-mode words organize so much of both our relational</p><p>and our inner experiences of self. Words don’t just express what we</p><p>experience, they actually shape how we experience life itself. This is how</p><p>the brain’s top-down processes shape perception and conception. Balancing</p><p>both left and right modes in our lives—both left-mode language and right-</p><p>mode inner and relational experiences—can lead us toward a more</p><p>integrative way of living if we can find ways, worded or not, to both</p><p>experience and express this integration.</p><p>Narrative and the Stories We Learn of Self</p><p>The construction and modification of information from the flow of energy,</p><p>within us and between us, follows the route from category to concept to</p><p>symbol. Categories are how we divide up the energy patterns we perceive</p><p>into groupings. These groupings underlie our concepts—what we conceive</p><p>and believe, the fundamental filters of our conceptual minds. And words are</p><p>the most common symbolic form we use to share our concepts with one</p><p>another.</p><p>In our early years, words become associated with these deeper mental</p><p>mechanisms, a languaging</p><p>process where the linear array of linguistic</p><p>symbols gives birth to our narrative self. When I was a research fellow in</p><p>narrative science, I took a class with visiting professor Jerome (Jerry)</p><p>Bruner, an esteemed pioneer in the field of cognitive science. Jerry taught</p><p>us that a story can be considered a linear telling of a sequence of events that</p><p>emerges from our relational lives. This telling includes both a landscape of</p><p>action, the things you could see with your eyes that are happening in the</p><p>story, and a landscape of consciousness, the things that are happening out of</p><p>visual perception, within the mind—what you can perceive with mindsight.</p><p>We also learned that stories were initiated by a violation of our expectations</p><p>about life, such as an accident, a shift in usual behavior, or a change in</p><p>environment. To make sense of such challenges to our mental models of</p><p>how life is supposed to be—models generated by our top-down filters—we</p><p>use our narrative processes to make sense of that violation, to place it into</p><p>some sense-making relationship with our life’s journey.</p><p>Years ago in my training, building on the science of memory and</p><p>narrative and inspired by such researchers as Endel Tulving, Katherine</p><p>Nelson, Robyn Fivush, Eric Kandel, Larry Squire, and Dan Schacter, I was</p><p>deeply curious about how narrative relates to our well-being. I wondered</p><p>how narrative might be a central feature not only of our development but</p><p>also of how we function in the world and construct our culture, our</p><p>relational world itself. Narrative combines several of the fundamental self-</p><p>shaping processes we’ve discussed: a drive to seek coherence, to make</p><p>sense through narrative; the role of mental models in shaping our lives; and</p><p>the function of our “self-knowing” awareness, our autonoetic</p><p>consciousness. Narrative and autonoetic consciousness, or insight into the</p><p>self across space and time, are both mediated in the brain and guided by</p><p>relational experiences. As a new narrative scientist in formal research</p><p>training, I was deeply inspired by these wonderful researchers to try to see</p><p>how all of this—memory, narrative, relationships, the brain, culture—might</p><p>fit together into some coherent picture of how our mind, sense of self,</p><p>identity, and belonging emerge in consciousness within our individual lives</p><p>and in our collective lives.</p><p>As early as the first years of life, language, a sense of time, and other</p><p>aspects of mental growth enable the narrative self to develop a self-knowing</p><p>awareness that weaves representations of experience as autobiographical</p><p>memory—a sense of the self in time—into a kind of foundation of self-</p><p>knowledge. This self-knowing awareness, or autonoetic consciousness, is</p><p>self-reinforcing both within the individual and within our relationships with</p><p>family and within culture.</p><p>Over time, our narrativizing capacity develops features, described by a</p><p>range of scientists, including:</p><p>a way to organize experience within a set of mental models of the self</p><p>that filter experience as it is laid down into memory;</p><p>pathways of self-knowledge that involve a continuity of self over</p><p>time, of mental time travel;</p><p>a matching of values and goals with actions and a sense of self in the</p><p>world;</p><p>an evaluative process assessing the attributes of the self; and</p><p>a sense of connectedness to one’s inner life, to interpersonal</p><p>relationships, and within nature.</p><p>Each of these aspects of the narrative self are relevant in helping our</p><p>emerging life story to become more organized, to enhance self-knowledge,</p><p>to match meaning with actions, to shift to more constructive evaluations of</p><p>the self, and to deepen our relational connections. When I reflect on the</p><p>many individuals whom I’ve had the privilege to work with as a</p><p>psychotherapist over the last thirty eight years, I realize that, within our</p><p>professional relationship as we came together to make sense of a person’s</p><p>life, I felt like I was integrating my own life experience too. In this way, and</p><p>in many others, we can see how our narratives are co-constructed within our</p><p>connections with one another.</p><p>The narrative self bridges our experience of an inner self and a relational</p><p>self. And while the narrative self is not the totality of who we are, our</p><p>capacity to sense and shape our sense of self in these many ways is a</p><p>fundamental part of who we are and how we grow. Our narrative self can</p><p>learn to weave a life story that builds on the important, core, inner self, and</p><p>then widens the narrator beyond the inner to include the differentiated but</p><p>linked interpersonal world as well as the natural environment that surrounds</p><p>us; and even more, if we open our sense of self, we come to experience that</p><p>nature, in fact, is us. Imagine if parents at home, teachers in school, peers</p><p>on the playground, and, later on, in work and society were to co-construct</p><p>such an integrative life narrative. If instead we only learn a narrative of</p><p>separation, the self becomes constricted. If we explore our identity and</p><p>expand our belonging and sense of self beyond the body being the only</p><p>center of our experience, we come to feel more coherent and connected as</p><p>we differentiate and link our inner and relational selves into an integrative,</p><p>intraconnected narrative of who we are.</p><p>The neural correlates of this self-knowing awareness, this mental time</p><p>travel that connects a self across past, present, and future, include aspects of</p><p>the prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex—part of what we call</p><p>the “default mode network,” or DMN. This is that set of interconnected</p><p>regions that we discussed earlier as possibly having been temporarily</p><p>knocked out of commission following my horse accident in Mexico. The</p><p>neural connections of these mostly midline areas of the DMN are</p><p>considered the brain’s way of constructing a sense of narrative self,</p><p>embedding top-down memory and emotions into a repeating, self-</p><p>reinforcing pattern of sensation, perspective, and agency that we come to</p><p>call “I” or “me.” Studies reveal that our narrative self is sculpted from the</p><p>interpersonal communications we have—exchanges of energy and</p><p>information with our caregivers, friends, teachers, and the larger culture in</p><p>which we live. In these ways, we learn the story of who we come to narrate</p><p>our self to be.</p><p>In other words, if we are taught that we are separate, we will encode,</p><p>store, and retrieve memory representations of a self that is, for all intents</p><p>and purposes, a separate entity. Then, using this self, we build a story of</p><p>who we are—the summed narratives of our lives that we use to make sense</p><p>of our memory of experiences. And this story reinforces this view of</p><p>separation. Sometimes we experience “violations,” unexpected departures</p><p>from that learned mental model of self as separate, and then we try to make</p><p>sense of these ruptures within our existing narrative self’s perspective. We</p><p>thus are vulnerable to closing our minds with these narratives of separation,</p><p>to explaining away potential, new ways of living until they conform to our</p><p>prior expectations.</p><p>With a learned model of separation, our DMN is driven to attain</p><p>certainty, the certainty of self-as-noun, and it inserts its own, self-</p><p>reinforcing way of living into the narrative we are telling ourselves about</p><p>who we are. We then re-store and re-encode this reinforced narrative into</p><p>our memory, which then influences our own reflections in those sense-</p><p>making mental models that form the structure and shape the content of our</p><p>narratives. But what we are encoding is not random behavior—we are</p><p>encoding how we interact with ourselves, with others, and with the natural</p><p>world in ways that are themselves shaped by our narrative. Often without</p><p>realizing it, we convince ourselves we are who we think we are.</p><p>I recently had an internet-based dialogue with neuroscientist and</p><p>psychiatrist Judson (Jud) Brewer. Jud had discovered that when meditation</p><p>helps quiet the excessively activated DMN of individuals who are anxious</p><p>or depressed—who feel disconnected and despairing—these individuals</p><p>feel a shift to being filled</p><p>with a sense of kindness, connection, and</p><p>curiosity. The DMN appears to be an important circuit needed for these</p><p>healthy qualities. Yet when the DMN is excessively differentiated—not</p><p>linked and therefore not integrated with other regions of the brain—the</p><p>result is impaired integration, which makes us prone to chaos and rigidity.</p><p>Being open—having an open awareness or a beginner’s mind—lets us be</p><p>curious about the world as we embrace the mystery of life’s uncertainties.</p><p>Being and feeling connected, the subjective sense of being at ease, at ease</p><p>in one’s inner life and relationships with others and the larger world of</p><p>nature, correlates with well-being. And being kind—filled with a sense of</p><p>universal positive regard, honoring one another’s vulnerability, having the</p><p>vital force of love suffuse our inner and interactive ways of being—is an</p><p>integrative outcome of well-being.</p><p>If these states of being connected, curious, and kind are natural ways to</p><p>be happy and healthy, why aren’t we integrative merely as a natural state of</p><p>being alive? If integration is the natural emergent way we optimize self-</p><p>organization, why wouldn’t linking differentiated parts, in the complex</p><p>systems that are our relationships and our embodied brain, just naturally</p><p>happen? What gets in the way? One reason is the push for certainty. In</p><p>modern culture, even before our earliest school days when we write our</p><p>name on a piece of paper to identify “who we are,” we are rewarded for the</p><p>top-down certainty of our narrative self’s capacity to construct a noun-like</p><p>identity.</p><p>What would happen if that narrative self was instead more fluid than a</p><p>clearly defined, constructed noun-like entity, more like an open, flowing</p><p>sensory experience of the bottom-up? If we were born into such an open</p><p>awareness, we could embrace the curiosity of identity that opens us up to a</p><p>more verb-like unfolding of events—we could let go of expectation and</p><p>embrace uncertainty. I was a newcomer to formal mindfulness training</p><p>when I wrote The Mindful Brain, a work in which I wondered if that state of</p><p>receptivity and wonder might be expressed with the acronym, COAL, as we</p><p>were curious, open, accepting, and loving. COAL may be the attributes of</p><p>what the space of being is comprised of, a state of wonder and receptivity.</p><p>Upon leaving the womb, certainty becomes equated with safety and</p><p>survival. With our anticipation-machine brains, we seek patterns of energy</p><p>and extract information from them in order to make life predictable and,</p><p>what we might later call, understandable. Predictability means we can</p><p>anticipate what will happen next with at least some degree of certainty. And</p><p>if we can be certain, we can be safe because we can predict and prepare—</p><p>we can survive. In these ways, certainty can become a life-or-death matter.</p><p>How might we balance these two trends—the push for certainty as noun</p><p>and the reality of uncertainty in life as verb?</p><p>Our need for certainty reverberates with the continuing messages of</p><p>separation—me or you, us or them—that we receive in our relationships, at</p><p>home, at school, in the media, and then even in our own reflections. Each of</p><p>these processes can go on automatic pilot, outside of reflective awareness,</p><p>and we come to believe separation as a self is true. In these modern times,</p><p>we may rarely question the validity of the definition of self as existing only</p><p>in the body. This is the developmental and relational origin of the</p><p>contemporary, fast-paced, disconnected-life narrative of the solo-self, which</p><p>may be at the root of many of our inner and relational challenges to well-</p><p>being. We may long for the wholeness of that space of being beneath the</p><p>surface of our awareness, yet outwardly, even to our own consciousness, we</p><p>may be living out the narrative of a macrostate, matter-based story of a</p><p>separate, solo-self.</p><p>When language limits us, our narratives constrain us. And yet we can use</p><p>language to liberate us as well, to create narratives that free us. One simple</p><p>strategy is to realize that a linear narrative of self as a noun-like entity says</p><p>the self lives in the body only. Yet when we expand this limited narrative to</p><p>include relational, verb-like, unfolding events as also the self, we can have</p><p>an integrative narrative that includes both realms of reality of life, both as</p><p>noun and as verb—we do not need to choose one over the other; MWe are</p><p>both.</p><p>Our challenge, as we try to make sense of our world and try to use words to</p><p>communicate with one another—in childhood and beyond—can be seen as</p><p>follows: How do we keep a “beginner’s mind” like that of toddlerhood, one</p><p>that is free from expectations, an open state of awareness not constrained by</p><p>that “flimsy fantasy of certainty” that keeps us from the fullness of being?</p><p>We can keep a childlike, innate curiosity, kindness, and connection alive</p><p>as we develop past the early years of life—and as adults we can recapture it.</p><p>We can nurture our fundamental capacity for open awareness; the love of</p><p>caring, positive regard, and compassion; and that sense of inner and</p><p>relational connection which underlies a thriving life. We can intentionally</p><p>strive to take on the categories, concepts, and symbols of separation that</p><p>may pin us down as noun-like things in our modern culture. These mental</p><p>constructions, in the form of top-down filters, mental models, and narratives</p><p>we live our lives into, can severely limit how we experience life, keeping us</p><p>far from the rich rainbow of color that is our bottom-up birthright as ever-</p><p>changing, verb-like living beings. As Louise Glück (2012) wrote, “I was</p><p>once more a child in the presence of riches and I didn’t know what the</p><p>riches were made of” (p. 366).</p><p>Play, Presence, and Possibility</p><p>We have been exploring how experience is energy flow. That flow happens</p><p>inside our body, and it happens between our body and our surrounding</p><p>environment, connecting us—our bodily me—with people and with the</p><p>planet. As we grow in the early years of life, our brain learns, developing</p><p>top-down filters that make it increasingly challenging to see what is truly in</p><p>front of us—in front of our eyes, yes, and in front of our lives. This also</p><p>means that energy flow patterns streaming through our embodied brain—in</p><p>our head and in our whole body, including our heart and intestines—</p><p>influence the parallel distributing processor of this extensive, weblike,</p><p>interconnected neural system as we learn. Some of the things the PDP</p><p>learns are mental models, or schemas. These are basically how the pattern-</p><p>detecting PDP system summarizes across events and identifies a repeating</p><p>feature of experience, and then generalizes that detected pattern across</p><p>experiences. This is how we learn.</p><p>In the first five years of life, we learn, paradoxically, how to move from</p><p>being at one with the uterus—from a life without separation and only</p><p>connection—to a life alone in a body. How sad it sometimes feels; at other</p><p>moments, how filled with opportunity to find connection, with the</p><p>excitement of discovery and joining. We find that our body needs other</p><p>bodies within nature to survive and thrive. We discover ways to connect not</p><p>only with our life-affirming caregivers but also with friends. A separate</p><p>“me” becomes joined as a “we” in widening circles of connection—close</p><p>friends, playmates, acquaintances. And we learn to join in play, discovering</p><p>the joy of laughter and creation as we collaborate and lose ourselves, or lose</p><p>our separate selves, in this flow as a spirited, intraconnected whole.</p><p>Notice how learning is not just acquiring input and storing it as</p><p>information, like putting more books in a library. Learning entails molding</p><p>how we organize this information, where and how we place the books.</p><p>From those categories, we extract concepts; and with these categories and</p><p>concepts, we create symbols—we write more books based on the books</p><p>we’ve acquired in our library of knowledge. And what we learn shapes how</p><p>we learn—a self-reinforcing self-construction process.</p><p>Let’s consider this view of how we learn—not just in the early years</p><p>but</p><p>throughout life—in light of our physics perspective of energy as the</p><p>movement from possibility to actuality and relate this to our drive for</p><p>certainty and even to our experience of awareness itself. You may recall the</p><p>probability diagram from the chapter EMERGENCE, wherein degrees of</p><p>probability are degrees of certainty—different wording for the same</p><p>process: Wide-open possibility means low probability and low certainty;</p><p>high probability, the same as high certainty, means lower possibility.</p><p>On the diagram in Figure 5.1, the position with lowest certainty, the</p><p>lowest probability, is in the plane of possibility. In discussing this diagram</p><p>with physicists, as mentioned earlier, this point on the graph corresponds to</p><p>what they describe as the quantum vacuum, or sea of potential. In the</p><p>example in EMERGENCE, before I chose my word from all possible</p><p>words, we were in the plane of possibility; as I chose narrower and</p><p>narrower subsets of all words, probability rose on the y-axis, the probability</p><p>distribution, until I stated my choice and achieved the highest probability:</p><p>100 percent certainty. This corresponds to the physics definition of energy</p><p>as the movement from possibility to actuality.</p><p>Figure 5.1 Energy flows from Point A, all possible words from which I could choose, to</p><p>Point A-1 when I choose a single word; or from Point B, all possible words that begin with</p><p>“o,” to the choice at Point B-1; or from C, all possible named oceans, to the choice at Point</p><p>C-1.</p><p>We can now name these positions on the probability distribution</p><p>spectrum (the y-axis; Figure 5.2): Open possibility is in the plane of</p><p>possibility; higher degrees of probability are plateaus—greater likelihoods,</p><p>but not complete certainty, like Points B and C in Figure 5.1; maximal</p><p>certainty, that is, 100% probability, is represented as a peak.</p><p>The 3-P diagram, and this 3-P framework, so named because of the</p><p>words peaks, plateaus, and plane, set up a vocabulary that you and I can</p><p>now use to communicate these ideas, a language we can share in the story</p><p>of this framework, to explore how bottom-up processes get filtered by top-</p><p>down mental models and how they restrict which further energy flow</p><p>patterns we will manifest as actualities. In other words, experience is energy</p><p>flow, and this flow is transformed into narrowed conduition or constructed</p><p>information by filters that we here are calling plateaus, and these filters</p><p>determine which particular peaks, or actualities, arise.</p><p>Figure 5.2 The 3-P diagram.</p><p>Figure 5.3 shows how we can use the 3-P diagram to illustrate energy</p><p>flow. The x-, y-, and z-axes represent all energy that is free to move from</p><p>the plane of possibility to a peak. Some peaks arise directly from the plane</p><p>of possibility, without any filtering by plateaus. Other peaks arise from a</p><p>given filtering plateau. Peaks that arise directly from the plane, from infinite</p><p>possibilities, are how we might envision a beginner’s mind: free of filtering</p><p>plateaus, capable of bottom-up emergence into actuality—an openness of</p><p>mind not constrained by prior learning. In contrast, only a limited number</p><p>of peaks can emerge from a given plateau: Ironically, learning filters, or</p><p>limits, what can arise into actuality. Such actualizations, such plateaus and</p><p>peaks, are constrained subsets of what is possible, filtered by prior learning.</p><p>The more we know, the less we may see.</p><p>Figure 5.3 Using the 3-P diagram to illustrate energy flow.</p><p>We have many types of plateaus, many forms of filters, that give rise to</p><p>particular peaks. Some are things we’ve learned, such as how to throw a</p><p>ball or how to play catch. Some are distinct states of mind that shape the</p><p>sense of self we experience in that particular moment, what some might call</p><p>“self-states.” A propensity toward sadness—an example of a factor molding</p><p>an individual’s ongoing subjective experience, perspective, and even</p><p>agency—may construct an enduring “state of mind” we would label as a</p><p>“self-state” that, as a pattern over time, we might use to characterize their</p><p>“personality” or their proclivities that define “who they are.” Another</p><p>illustration of a self-state might be a set of skills, such as the ability to</p><p>dance or play tennis, that would be filtered through a plateau to enable the</p><p>felt sense, the perspective, and the agency of action for such activities. Each</p><p>of these can be represented by a plateau, each with its particular subset of</p><p>filtered peaks manifesting as actualities in how we feel, perceive, and act in</p><p>the world (Figure 5.4).</p><p>Figure 5.4 Examples of plateaus we learn, which enable a filtered, and therefore</p><p>necessarily constrained, set of possible peaks to manifest.</p><p>Figure 5.5 is another example of how the 3-P diagram can help us</p><p>envision categories, concepts, and symbols and how they serve as top-down</p><p>filters. In this example, our learning that the self is separate is illustrated as</p><p>a lower, foundational plateau—a mental model we use to build other</p><p>schemas of reality, shown here as smaller plateaus arising from it, from</p><p>which limited sets of peaks, filtered initially by the lower plateau, can arise.</p><p>Each layer of a plateau constrains our experience of life—for better (as in</p><p>protection and efficiency) or for worse (as too limiting or imprisoning)—</p><p>and attempts to provide a sense of predictability and certainty in our lives.</p><p>A low-lying plateau over the plane of possibility can be seen as a category</p><p>our mind constructs, such as the division of self versus nonself. This</p><p>division of the world into “like-me or not like-me” and “us or them” can be</p><p>observed in humans as young as a year and a half. In one study by Karen</p><p>Wynn and colleagues (2012, 2013), for example, fourteen-month-old</p><p>children were asked which cereal they prefer, oatmeal or cornflakes. The</p><p>children were then presented with puppets who preferred either the favored</p><p>cereal or cereal the child disliked. The puppets then left, and after an</p><p>interval, each puppet returned in different settings to evoke the child’s</p><p>emotional and behavioral reaction to the puppets. The children clearly</p><p>treated one puppet kindly and with affection, and they showed signs of</p><p>dislike to the other puppet and treated it harshly. Which puppet do you think</p><p>these subjects treated kindly?</p><p>Figure 5.5 Categories form foundational plateaus, from which conceptual plateaus arise.</p><p>If the issue were about resource allocation and not wanting someone to</p><p>take the cereal one prefers, you might imagine this competitive drive would</p><p>cause the young subjects to mistreat the puppet who enjoyed the same</p><p>cereal as they. That would make sense from a purely survival perspective,</p><p>one based on limited material resources. But that is not what the researchers</p><p>found. Instead, the children treated the puppet that liked the same cereal as</p><p>they more kindly. Even at this early age, we seem to ask the question, “Who</p><p>is like me and who is not?” We treat those who are like-me, those who share</p><p>similar mental models as expressed as preferences and proclivities, with</p><p>more kindness and care. And we do not want to be friends with those who</p><p>are not like-me.</p><p>Even the term “like,” at least in English, has a dual meaning: to be</p><p>similar (one thing is like another), its antonym being unlike, or dissimilar;</p><p>and to find agreeable, enjoyable, to favor, to be pleased by, its antonym</p><p>being to dislike or hate. In this way, we see, built into the English language,</p><p>the notion that we favor what is similar to us, that we like those who are</p><p>like us. The root of this term from old English is the Germanic term</p><p>“lician,” meaning “to be pleasing.” Words convey deep meanings even</p><p>when we aren’t initially aware of the symbolic messages in their underlying</p><p>concepts and categories.</p><p>In this way, we can see that our experience of plateaus of self-identity,</p><p>features that define “who we are,” shape our sense of belonging: those</p><p>individuals don’t belong to my in-group because they don’t like the same</p><p>cereal as me, but you are in my in-group because we like the same things—</p><p>or, later on, because we believe the</p><p>same things, or look the same way, or</p><p>make any of myriad other choices the same way that I do. These</p><p>preferences can be embedded within the states of mind represented by the</p><p>plateaus on the 3-P diagram.</p><p>The 3-P diagram can also be applied to other aspects of our mental life.</p><p>This next proposal comes from an extensive survey of more than fifty</p><p>thousand people who have now engaged in a practice called the Wheel of</p><p>Awareness, which you may have been practicing from the appendix, and</p><p>which we’ll explore in more depth later on. This reflective exercise enables</p><p>us to differentiate the knowing of being aware, represented by the hub of a</p><p>metaphoric wheel, from that which can be known, illustrated by points</p><p>along the rim. Then, when we apply our attention to these points on the rim,</p><p>symbolized by a spoke on the wheel, the knowns become both</p><p>differentiated and linked to one another—they become integrated. In an</p><p>advanced step, attention is turned inward to the hub itself, to focus on pure</p><p>awareness, sometimes experienced as the letting go of attention, as</p><p>dropping into open awareness.</p><p>Some fascinating outcomes from the experience of becoming aware of</p><p>being aware—the awareness of awareness or, more simply, resting in pure</p><p>awareness—have been described by participants in the Wheel practice (for</p><p>more detail, see my books Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human</p><p>and Aware). Reports of mental experience seem to correlate well with this</p><p>visual portrayal of how the mind might function along degrees of</p><p>probability in the 3-P model. In Figure 5.6, mental experiences, like a</p><p>thought, an emotion, or a memory, are represented as peaks. The processes</p><p>of thinking, emoting, and remembering are illustrated as cones beneath the</p><p>peaks. A plateau represents various mental processes, such as a state of</p><p>mind, mood, or intention. These states contain mental models that are</p><p>activated in that moment, in that situation or context, and that filter which</p><p>peaks arise from that state. After practicing the Wheel of Awareness,</p><p>individuals reported their experiences of being in the hub—the awareness</p><p>of awareness—using terms like “empty yet full,” “wide-open expanse,”</p><p>“connected to everything and everyone,” “bliss,” “joy,” “God,” “timeless,”</p><p>“infinite,” “peaceful,” “home,” and “love.”</p><p>Here is a simple hypothesis: The experience of being aware emerges</p><p>when the energy probability position is in the plane of possibility. This idea</p><p>might be wrong, it might be partially correct, or it might be accurate. This</p><p>hypothesis fits with the descriptive terms people use to describe the</p><p>wordless experience and the science-based notions of the characteristics of</p><p>the microstate, or quantum realm of reality. And it fits with aspects of the</p><p>wisdom teachings from a wide range of spiritual, religious, contemplative,</p><p>and Indigenous traditions as well, including those we discussed in the</p><p>Wisdom Traditions section of the WELCOME chapter, from Buddhist</p><p>practices to the experience of being a part of nature that Indigenous cultures</p><p>around our planet, from North America to Australia, have taught for</p><p>thousands of years. In many ways, as discussed earlier, the consilience</p><p>underlying this hypothesis weaves recent perspectives of Western, modern</p><p>science in a way that matches ancient wisdom. Consilience does not prove</p><p>this or any hypothesis to be true; it simply supports its potential truth and</p><p>encourages future explorations and applications to be developed to see if</p><p>the proposed framework is both accurate and useful. Over these decades so</p><p>far, as I explore in The Developing Mind, there is much support for this</p><p>framework to be both valid and of practical benefit. We can see the</p><p>common ground of this 3-P framework: It fits with a wide array of</p><p>disciplined approaches to understanding our reality, it is consilient, and it</p><p>allows us to then build a common conceptual foundation that welcomes</p><p>many ways of knowing into a collaborative conversation. One approach is</p><p>not better than another; each is different, and each has something to offer us</p><p>in finding this common ground to move our selves, our ways of literally</p><p>constructing selves, forward in a generative, integrative direction that</p><p>promotes well-being on Earth.</p><p>Figure 5.6 3-P diagram of mental experiences reported by people practicing the Wheel of</p><p>Awareness. See text for description of the probability position and its associated mental</p><p>experience.</p><p>When we speak of “beginner’s mind” and “dropping beneath the filters”</p><p>of our top-down mental models that define and confine how we construct</p><p>and experience self, we can envision this as accessing the plane of</p><p>possibility. When we see this plane as the portal through which integration</p><p>naturally arises, we can envision how the release of energy from the learned</p><p>filters enables integrative differentiation and linkage to emerge, to permit</p><p>the natural drive of self-organization to arise, instead of being blocked by</p><p>potentially restrictive and rigid plateaus. The plane of possibility can thus</p><p>help us understand how connection is cultivated with an open, loving</p><p>awareness, with what we can call “presence.”</p><p>When we pay attention to something, it can enter consciousness; and when</p><p>it does, it has the potential to attain longer-lasting stability as it activates</p><p>neuroplasticity, growing new neuronal connections, sometimes making new</p><p>neurons and laying down more myelin sheath to strengthen connections,</p><p>and sometimes changing our epigenetics, all regulating how we learn in the</p><p>future. Recall the adage, “Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and</p><p>neural connection grows.”</p><p>In our discussion of identity, then, this means that the more a life story—</p><p>a plateau, in our 3-P diagram, shaping and restricting which peaks can be</p><p>filtered into being—restricts which thoughts and attitudes arise, the more</p><p>that narrative reinforces its own beliefs. If we are trapped within such</p><p>limiting plateaus, the peaks that can arise in our lives are severely</p><p>constrained, as what can arise from the freedom of the plane of possibility</p><p>is now restricted by this tightly woven filter of a narrative of a fixed, noun-</p><p>like entity identity. In day-to-day life, we may never even be aware of this</p><p>limitation, nor question the notion that our sense of self and our boundaries</p><p>of belonging are being constricted, not conscious that our own, learned,</p><p>constructive mental process has created a limiting life story, perpetually</p><p>self-reinforcing and self-affirming.</p><p>From a mind point of view, our drive for certainty may have us cling to</p><p>these plateaus and their peaks. Yet the freedom to live more fluidly as a self</p><p>that is evolving more as a verb-like emergence would arise directly from the</p><p>plane of possibility.</p><p>Even this hypothesized 3-P framework itself could initiate a self-</p><p>reinforcing process, so we should keep a doubting mind active while we try</p><p>out new ideas and see how they fit with our experience of reality. That’s a</p><p>powerful challenge, to be open and question any absolute sense of certainty,</p><p>any yet-unquestioned confidence in the accuracy of our beliefs and</p><p>convictions. We might need to access the plane of possibility to become</p><p>more comfortable with uncertainty—whose synonyms are freedom and</p><p>possibility. These are all the mechanisms beneath the “flimsy fantasy of</p><p>certainty,” the longing to know for sure how things are, that commonly</p><p>limits our identity and narrows our belonging. To avoid such a constriction</p><p>in identity and belonging, we may need to become open to uncertainty and</p><p>to not try to control outcomes but let experience come—we can decide to</p><p>wander.</p><p>Energy flows in patterns. These patterns have at least five features that</p><p>include their contour, location, intensity, frequency, and form. For example,</p><p>a high-pitched sound has more cycles per second—a higher frequency—</p><p>than a low-pitched sound. In the brain, waves of electrical energy sweep</p><p>through the neural networks in ways we can measure with</p><p>electroencephalogram technology and its more recent computer analyzed</p><p>rhythms, detecting oscillating patterns of</p><p>waves in what are known as</p><p>harmonics. From the perspective of the harmonic modes of the brain, we</p><p>might say we need to shift our harmonic repertoire to retain the diversity</p><p>that childhood offers in maintaining a beginner’s mind in life. As children,</p><p>our brain is wide open to enable a range of harmonic waves to sweep</p><p>through us, much like a conduit of energy flow. As we grow, as we gain</p><p>more experience, as we learn more, we come to see less, to be less open, to</p><p>do more, and be less. Now our brain has limited harmonic patterns and it</p><p>actively constructs its own reality. This is illustrated in our 3-P diagram as</p><p>how a set of learned plateaus limits which peaks can arise—in the brain,</p><p>this translates to which harmonic waves are possible. This is our common</p><p>challenge as we grow through childhood as human beings: to embrace the</p><p>freedom of uncertainty without collapsing under the pressure to know with</p><p>certainty—we need to live more from the plane of possibility. This does not</p><p>mean living in the plane only; it means living from the plane—finding a</p><p>way to keep that open state of harmonic diversity—the flows of waves of</p><p>energy that are diverse, a wide-open energy field—available to us as the</p><p>formless source of all form as we move through our lives.</p><p>Part of a poem by Louise Glück (2012) may speak to this challenge, as</p><p>the world shifts, changes, and no longer exists, “It has become present:</p><p>unending and without form” (p. 428).</p><p>Many States, Many Identities</p><p>The mind becomes organized within a given moment in something we can</p><p>call a “state of mind.” From a harmonics perspective, this sweeping process</p><p>recruits particular intensities, localizations, and frequencies into a</p><p>spatiotemporally—space and time—distributed set of energy flow patterns.</p><p>These spatially diverse, anatomically distinct regions of the brain become</p><p>active within harmonic waves during a brief time span that we will call a</p><p>“moment of now,” clustering together these activated neural nets into a</p><p>repeatable pattern of neuronal activity.</p><p>Dan Stern (2004) has argued that this “moment of now” is about five to</p><p>eight seconds; other scientists suggest briefer periods of clock time,</p><p>depending on the harmonic firing patterns and which regions they recruit.</p><p>This harmonic can be considered a neural correlate of what we are calling a</p><p>state of mind. The subjective side of this state is a sense of something</p><p>holding together, of being cohesive, in that moment. After many episodes of</p><p>similar activation—multiple repetitions of matching harmonic sweeps—</p><p>these energy patterns, comprising “moments of now,” may promote a sense</p><p>of continuity. If the state holds together in harmony, in the moment and</p><p>across moments—if it is both cohesive and has continuity, as well as having</p><p>an integrative wholeness—we say that state of mind has coherence.</p><p>We can use the acronym COHERENCE to remember and describe this</p><p>synergetic, integrative state:</p><p>Connected: a subjective term often used to describe the feeling of</p><p>joining, of being a part of something, of belonging.</p><p>Open: the expansive sense of inclusion, of feeling receptive to</p><p>whatever arises, moment by moment.</p><p>Harmonious: literally, the quality of synergy emerging from the</p><p>linking of differentiated parts—being integrative.</p><p>Emergent: the sense of being a verb, not fixed like a noun, of arising,</p><p>moment by moment, in fresh ways, perhaps difficult to control or</p><p>predict.</p><p>Resonant: the quality of being influenced by something but not</p><p>becoming that thing—we can resonate with the parts of a group yet</p><p>not lose our uniqueness, just as strings on a guitar resonate with one</p><p>another without becoming each other.</p><p>Engaged: the sense of meaning and purpose, the sense of life energy</p><p>driving us to be a part of the whole.</p><p>Noetic: that sense of knowing as conceptual wholeness—things</p><p>making sense, fitting together, being consilient, and having common</p><p>ground across ways of knowing.</p><p>Compassionate: the state of mind in which we are open to and can</p><p>feel suffering—within our own body or that of another being—and</p><p>then consider ways we might help reduce that suffering and take steps</p><p>to alleviate it.</p><p>Empathic: the gateway for compassion, which includes empathic</p><p>resonance as we feel another’s feelings, empathic understanding as we</p><p>cognitively imagine what it might be like to be the other person,</p><p>perspective-taking as we see from another’s point of view, empathic</p><p>joy enabling us to rejoice in another’s success and happiness, and</p><p>empathic concern—the caring about another’s suffering as the</p><p>doorway for compassion to be engaged.</p><p>States of mind can have cohesion, continuity, and coherence, but they don’t</p><p>always. In some states, all three of these features are well developed; in</p><p>others, one or another feature may be developed to some level but the</p><p>others not. When a state repeatedly emerges in our lives—what we can call</p><p>a “self-state”—it directly influences our sense of self not only in that</p><p>moment but across time, influencing our identity and belonging.</p><p>When we come to appreciate the many self-states of mind we enter</p><p>throughout our lifetime, we come to understand that we also have many</p><p>identities that define our diverse boundaries of belonging. These persistent</p><p>and impactful states directly shape our sense of self—or selves or self-states</p><p>—as these repeating patterns of harmonic sweeps directly mold our center</p><p>of experience with cohesion and continuity, determining our subjective</p><p>sensation, perspective, and agency within each of our diverse states of</p><p>mind.</p><p>States go way beyond the boundaries of the skull, involving many</p><p>systems in the body, such as our gut, our heart, and our muscles. This is</p><p>why we use the term “embodied brain”: to remind us of this whole-body</p><p>feature of our mental lives. And states of mind even extend beyond the</p><p>boundary of the skin, recruiting activity from the world around us,</p><p>especially other people. This is how we interpersonally resonate with</p><p>others. You might sense this yourself in ways a certain feeling arises when</p><p>you meet a friend or return home to family. These “relational fields” that</p><p>you sense can be coherent or incoherent, depending on the circumstances</p><p>and the people involved—a single person’s presence can shape a relational</p><p>field in powerful and often hidden ways. You might also feel this relational</p><p>field when you enter a room with a group of people and suddenly your</p><p>inner state of mind shifts in response to what you feel is going on in the</p><p>interpersonal communications in the room. Some people call this specific</p><p>form of relational field a “social field”; others call this the vibe in the room.</p><p>We also have a state that resonates not just with people but with the</p><p>whole of nature—plants, fungi, animals, our natural environment—so that</p><p>we feel joined within the intraconnected world in which we live. Studies</p><p>reveal that when we take time to be in nature, to stroll through a forest or</p><p>walk along the beach, we increase our sense of well-being. When we feel</p><p>connected within nature, we are happier and healthier. With the “self-</p><p>expanding” emotions, traditionally called “self-transcendent,” we</p><p>experience this broader belonging as we feel gratitude, compassion, and</p><p>awe. These states transcend the solo-self view and allow our center of</p><p>experience, our self, to be broader than the brain, bigger than the body.</p><p>Each of these self-expanding emotions, generated from shifts in</p><p>integration, increases both our differentiation and our linkage. Awe,</p><p>gratitude, and compassion generate an emerging sense of integrative</p><p>synergy—we can feel that resonance, be that resonance, in which the whole</p><p>is greater than the sum of its parts. We become the whole.</p><p>Who we are is the whole; the system in which we live is the self; and the</p><p>inner facet of self is but one aspect of the intraconnected whole. We feel</p><p>connected and we feel coherent. We are interconnected from the view of the</p><p>bodily self, and we are intraconnected from the sensation, perspective, and</p><p>agency of the whole. MWe might call this our “intraconnected state.”</p><p>States allow us to function</p><p>in an organized, efficient, and resourceful</p><p>manner. If I am getting ready to hike a rainy hillside on a blustery day, my</p><p>state of mind will enable me to prepare for muddy slips along the trail. If</p><p>the weather is sunny and dry instead, I take the same hike but do not need</p><p>such a vigilant state of mind—I can be more relaxed and let my mind</p><p>wander without risking injury. States enable us to be in the world and adapt</p><p>in the most energy efficient and functionally effective manner we can. This</p><p>is one reason we have many states: there are many conditions of life for us</p><p>to engage with. This is also why we need to have the vital capacity to</p><p>intentionally adjust our identity lens and shift our sense of belonging to fit</p><p>our conditions as needed. Today, facing the challenges of modern times in</p><p>our world of disconnection, we have a deep and pressing need to</p><p>intentionally expand the limited and limiting view of the solo-self in order</p><p>to widen our lens of identity, broaden our belonging, and, in these ways,</p><p>increase the synergy of integrative living on our intraconnected planet.</p><p>Security, Epistemic Trust, and Our Relational Self</p><p>In the early years of our lives, our relationships of attachment shape our</p><p>sense of self as we grow, and they continue to mold our many facets of self</p><p>across the lifespan. With the elements of secure attachment, in which we</p><p>feel safe, seen, and soothed, the core self emerges with a sense of wholeness</p><p>in its affectivity, agency, continuity, and coherence. With this integrative</p><p>security, our narrative self expands its way of making sense of life’s events</p><p>as we construct a coherent story of who we are in the world. With security,</p><p>a relational self grows the capacity to connect, to belong within a “we”</p><p>without losing the integrity of a “me”—our inner, core self. If our lens of</p><p>identity is flexible, we can move among these facets of self and embrace the</p><p>layers of our belonging as we connect within our inner bodily self and as</p><p>our relational selves, which have interpersonal connection and connection</p><p>within the whole of nature. We come to feel connected within and between.</p><p>One process that is woven with security of attachment—as we develop</p><p>resilience in each of these three aspects of self-experience: the inner core,</p><p>the narrative, and the relational inter self—is something researchers call</p><p>“epistemic trust.” When people in authority share with us information and</p><p>perspectives that correspond with our experience of the true nature of</p><p>reality, we develop epistemic trust: we can trust that what they say is true.</p><p>Within attachment relationships, this communicative authenticity conveys</p><p>to us a sense that we can relax into an ease of well-being, that there is a</p><p>shared sense of reality that is accurate and can be relied on to interact with</p><p>the world in predictable, trustworthy ways. This is epistemic trust.</p><p>Relationships that engender epistemic trust enable us to build a relational</p><p>self that feels safe, a narrative self that can accurately make sense of life,</p><p>and a core inner self that feels whole and coherent. Violations to epistemic</p><p>trust in foundational attachment relationships early in life—when a young</p><p>child is presented a view of reality by their caregiver that is inaccurate and</p><p>does not soothe and comfort—generate an unsettling feeling of dis-ease.</p><p>The core self feels incoherent, and the narrative self is unable to make sense</p><p>of life, yet the relational self may try its best to fit into the unsettling view</p><p>presented by the attachment figure. In this setting, joining-as-a-we</p><p>sacrifices the internal integrity and coherence of our core and narrative</p><p>selves. Coherence involves the experience of being connected; with</p><p>violations of epistemic trust, we come to feel disconnected and incoherent.</p><p>As we grow, authorities beyond our parents, such as teachers,</p><p>organizational leaders, and public figures, can also present to us versions of</p><p>reality that are not accurate. As we live with the modern culture view that</p><p>the self is separate, that who we are is a separate entity living in isolation,</p><p>might this also generate a form of epistemic mistrust? Could such distorted</p><p>views of reality and the ensuing mistrust, even beneath the surface of</p><p>awareness, lead to vigilance for danger, an unsettled feeling that something</p><p>just isn’t quite right? While we might strive to fit in, to act as if what we are</p><p>being told is accurate and true, when the message is inaccurate and false,</p><p>then this method of contorting our lives to fit in will manifest incoherence</p><p>and dis-ease.</p><p>When we don’t feel whole, we may come to feel activated in our</p><p>subcortical motivational networks. With anger, we can feel empowered with</p><p>agency to right a wrong: our drive to correct. With fear, we can feel the</p><p>need to defend ourselves from danger: our drive to protect. With sadness,</p><p>we can feel the need to reach out to others: our drive to connect. Yet if we</p><p>are told that the self is only separate—if we experience this break in</p><p>epistemic trust—our three subcortical circuits of distress may become</p><p>repeatedly activated to various degrees, and, unique to each of us, often a</p><p>particular circuit is activated more than the others. Without knowing why,</p><p>we may be prone to anger, fear, or sadness. These survival drives, if</p><p>activated with enough intensity, may shift us from being in a brain state of</p><p>receptivity, with trust and safety, to one of reactivity, with mistrust and a</p><p>sense of danger. On high alert for threats to our survival, we then</p><p>continually enter the reactive states of fight, flight, freeze, or faint,</p><p>hindering our ability to connect—within our inner bodily self and with our</p><p>relational selves of interpersonal relationships and the whole of nature.</p><p>If society can experience a collective parallel to our individual</p><p>development and attachment, we may gain insights into both our own</p><p>personal experience from our family of origin and our sense of belonging</p><p>within our community and culture. How might attachment patterns be</p><p>relevant for us as a modern society—if we were to see everyone as siblings</p><p>of our human family?</p><p>As a quick review, parents or other caregivers interact with their</p><p>children, and that relationship, that connection, is called attachment.</p><p>Attachment is not a feature of the child nor of the caregiver—it is a feature</p><p>of the relationship between the child and the attachment figure. This</p><p>relationship can be broadly categorized as one of four recognizable forms,</p><p>three nonsecure and one secure:</p><p>Avoidant results from shutting down and becoming disconnected and</p><p>arises when our attachment figures do not provide us with the</p><p>experience of being seen and soothed.</p><p>Ambivalent results from the revving up and being flooded by our</p><p>attachment needs when our caregivers are inconsistent and intrusive;</p><p>we learn that we can’t rely on them to meet our needs on a reliable</p><p>basis—sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.</p><p>Disorganized results from being terrified and becoming fragmented—</p><p>a dissociation that arises when our attachment figures are the source</p><p>of fear and we have two incompatible circuits simultaneously</p><p>activated: one drives us toward our attachment figure to seek</p><p>protection, and the other drives us away from our attachment figure,</p><p>the source of terror.</p><p>Secure results from being seen, soothed, and safe. When our</p><p>caregivers offer these qualities on a relatively consistent basis, and</p><p>ruptures to any of them are readily and reliably repaired, we develop</p><p>an internal mental model of security.</p><p>Attachment research has long shown that these mental models of</p><p>adaptation, these patterns of attachment, are changeable across the lifespan.</p><p>As an attachment researcher who has applied these scientific findings to the</p><p>practice of psychotherapy for over thirty-five years, I find it exciting and</p><p>deeply rewarding to consider using the same principles of healing—of</p><p>becoming whole—to address our larger cultural challenges, expanding on</p><p>these lessons of individual growth. We can move toward the integrative</p><p>healing of security at any point in our lives—within the</p><p>attachment of our</p><p>personal family and, perhaps, in our attachment within our larger human</p><p>family as well.</p><p>If we see our larger world, our human cultures, as versions of family life,</p><p>perhaps the ways we feel safe, seen, and soothed and have the experience of</p><p>epistemic trust and coherence can illuminate how community-belonging</p><p>may offer a deep sense of relational security and wholeness. Perhaps this is</p><p>what a broader belonging emerges from. If 1) we recognize tendencies from</p><p>these attachment patterns; 2) this recognition leads us toward a coherent,</p><p>secure sense of self, identity, and belonging—for ourselves and our culture;</p><p>3) we learn, together, to offer ways of being safe, seen, soothed, and secure;</p><p>and 4) we acknowledge ruptures and make repairs as life unfolds, then</p><p>perhaps we can move beyond the reactions and adaptations we acquire in</p><p>our nonsecure attachments, not only in our family of origin but also in our</p><p>cultures. Parenting toward security is not about perfection, it is about being</p><p>present. Perhaps the lessons from the science of foundational familial</p><p>relational connections can guide us as a larger human family, and family of</p><p>all living beings, to move toward the vibrancy of connection and</p><p>collaboration of authentic belonging within trusting, secure relational</p><p>attachments throughout our intraconnected living world.</p><p>SCHOOL YEARS</p><p>For the next dozen or so years of our lives, we leave our family homes to join peers</p><p>and teachers in a system of experiences we call education. Whether in the</p><p>setting of community school, of an apprenticeship in the community, or of a</p><p>home-guided learning journey, the systematic imparting of knowledge,</p><p>skills, values, beliefs, ethics, morality, and habits of behavior and thought</p><p>shapes the self we experience, the identities we develop, and the senses of</p><p>belonging we come to embrace.</p><p>The Tree of Knowledge, the Knowledge of Trees</p><p>When we consider mind as a fully embodied and fully relational process—</p><p>an emergent property of energy flow arising from a system—we can see</p><p>how the mind emerges in a synergetic way from energy flows, both within</p><p>our body and between our body and the world in which we are embedded.</p><p>“Synergy” refers to how the whole is greater than the sum of its individual</p><p>parts. In recent studies of forests, we’ve come to learn how the synergy of</p><p>trees involves deeply interwoven care in a tapestry of what Janine Benyus</p><p>describes as mutualisms: “Now we know that it’s not just one plant helping</p><p>another; mutualisms—complex exchanges of goodness—are playing out</p><p>above- and belowground in extraordinary ways” (Hawken, 2017, p. 213).</p><p>As we link differentiated components of a system, we integrate that system,</p><p>and synergy is the natural emergence that arises as the components interact</p><p>with one another in creating the system as a whole. What we learn about</p><p>integration from the wisdom of the forest may be just the mutualisms that</p><p>will help us identify what has gone wrong and how we can now course-</p><p>correct in our human journey on this planet.</p><p>A proposal from interpersonal neurobiology is that the human mind has</p><p>four facets (Figure 6.1), each of which may be a synergetic outcome</p><p>emerging from the embodied and relational flow of energy:</p><p>subjective experience, or the felt texture of existence;</p><p>consciousness, which allows us to be aware of that felt sense of being;</p><p>information processing, in which energy flow symbolizes something;</p><p>and</p><p>self-organization, a property of complex systems.</p><p>This fourth facet, self-organization, is the source of the proposal of</p><p>integration as health.</p><p>You may recall the FACES flow—being flexible, adaptive, coherent,</p><p>energized, and stable—from the chapter INFANCY. This is the flow of</p><p>harmony. The FACES flow is the manifestation of optimal self-</p><p>organization. While mathematicians suggest that this is how the complex</p><p>system maximizes complexity, we can get an everyday feeling for this flow</p><p>with the simple example of walking down a path. We differentiate our left</p><p>leg from our right leg as each carries out its special roles; yet each is linked</p><p>in the overall experience of walking as we step forward, carry the weight of</p><p>the body, and release as we bring the leg forward again. Imagine if instead</p><p>each leg functioned without being linked—or if each functioned without</p><p>differentiation. Instead of walking harmoniously down the path, we’d be</p><p>stumbling along as if we were intoxicated or hopping down the path like a</p><p>pogo stick, up and down. Differentiation and linkage enable a complex</p><p>system to achieve this flow of harmony—how the system optimizes its</p><p>capacity to adapt and even to learn. The term “integration” we are using</p><p>here refers to a very specific balance between differentiation of components</p><p>as individual elements and their linkage into a synergetic whole. As we’ve</p><p>discussed, integration entails the integrity of the individual components</p><p>even as they are linked to one another; integration is not blending or making</p><p>homogenous—it is a very special way we create a whole that is more than</p><p>the sum of its parts, more than the addition of different things together into</p><p>one. Integration enables that “something more” to emerge in an optimal</p><p>FACES flow.</p><p>Figure 6.1 The four facets of the mind, each proposed to emerge from the embodied and</p><p>relational flow of energy.</p><p>Many, if not most, contemporary schools emphasize the achievement of</p><p>designated milestones, evaluated by standardized measures, rather than the</p><p>encouragement of curiosity, individual creativity, and collaborative</p><p>learning. In many ways, each of these three—being creative, curious, and</p><p>collaborative—are each created by and facilitate the synergy of integration.</p><p>Being creative entails weaving differentiated ways of approaching</p><p>challenges. Being curious involves a fascination with the many</p><p>differentiated knowns of life and seeing their linkages. Being collaborative</p><p>comprises optimal relational flow with the linking of many differentiated</p><p>viewpoints and that creates something more than any single participant</p><p>might be able to offer. Sadly, the love a young child has for connecting</p><p>internally and interpersonally, for integrating in life by exploring new ideas</p><p>and discovering how the world works, may be squashed beneath the</p><p>pressure to achieve the certainty of predetermined outcomes of success. Is</p><p>modern education promoting the fiery spark of integration’s curiosity,</p><p>creativity, and collaboration, or the drive for certainty in the accumulation</p><p>of an isolated learner? In conforming to such cultural norms and</p><p>expectations, curiosity, collaboration, and the courage to be wrong can</p><p>collapse.</p><p>We each learn in our own way, yet a standardized approach to education</p><p>does not accommodate the inherent individual proclivities of learning that</p><p>each of us carry. Such an approach offers little room for identifying a</p><p>child’s unique propensities to build on those strengths or to help each of us</p><p>develop differentiated ways of contributing to the collaboration of the</p><p>whole. Often, this approach does not develop our natural systems</p><p>intelligence.</p><p>One of the constricted ways we learn is the common approach of</p><p>teaching about the world in a simple, linear fashion: A leads to B leads to C.</p><p>Reality comprises not only these linear sequences of causation but also a</p><p>larger mutuality, one we can perceive with a systems lens: reality is made of</p><p>systems with deep interconnectivity and interdependence of their many</p><p>layered components, ones that, when seen through the lens of the whole, are</p><p>intraconnected—knowing this is natural systems intelligence.</p><p>What gets in the way of harnessing this natural systems intelligence? I</p><p>propose that our mind’s vulnerability to striving for predictability and</p><p>certainty, revealed in our modern history of categorizing, classifying, and</p><p>symbolizing the solo-self as our unquestioned yet nonintegrated identity—</p><p>our restricted belonging, getting fixed in a narrow lens of identity—is what</p><p>gets in the way of letting our thriving nature blossom.</p><p>In other terminology, we attain an illusion of certainty</p><p>is to clarify how we tend to perceive the world, we will be</p><p>able to see opportunities clearly and make conscious choices to act and</p><p>move forward in life as members of a truly global family if we have an</p><p>intraconnected sense of self, identity, and belonging. Using words in a book</p><p>is a challenge in that these linguistic symbols—how we communicate in</p><p>this literary format—are themselves limiting; on the other hand, words can</p><p>be liberating. They are limiting in that they become static terms, printed in a</p><p>format that sometimes is not relationally engaging, open, or receptive to</p><p>change. Yet words can free us to name something and then see it, together,</p><p>in a frame of perception that gives us the power to change how we have</p><p>been living, should we choose to make such intentional changes,</p><p>individually or even collectively as a modern human culture. Cultural</p><p>evolution is driven by such changes in perception, belief, and ways of</p><p>living.</p><p>In putting language to perception, belief, and behavior, we can say that</p><p>when we narrow our focus of attention to the parts of a system, we are</p><p>“reducing” reality to parts rather than seeing the whole. In this way, we are</p><p>“analyzing”—literally down-breaking (ana-lyzing); or breaking down—the</p><p>whole to study its components. That reductionist view, or what some might</p><p>call a linear perspective, has great utility even though, if taken as the totality</p><p>of reality, it can be quite limiting. Taking a linear perspective, we may lose</p><p>the context of a moment and instead see only the separate part or parts. In</p><p>contrast, we can also have a wide perspective, take a more contextual view,</p><p>and see the relationships among the parts, and even focus on the patterns of</p><p>how those relationships reveal an interdependence in their interactions.</p><p>Perceiving patterns of interactions is part of what can be called a systems</p><p>view—in contrast to a nonsystems, or linear perspective. Some would say</p><p>that a nonlinear, contextual, systems view reveals how something emerges</p><p>from the interactions that is greater than the sum of the parts— a synergy</p><p>arises, like the wetness of water that is not experienced with individual</p><p>molecules of water. The mathematical study of complex systems reveals</p><p>that emergence is a fundamental part of nonlinear, chaos-capable, open</p><p>systems. Such complex systems have diverse parts, connections among</p><p>those components, and interdependence of the parts to one another, and</p><p>from these features arise the self-organizing, emergent processes of</p><p>adaption and learning.</p><p>With the human brain’s processing of energy flow into information, we</p><p>do see these wholistic, contextual, pattern-recognizing, relationally focused</p><p>systems perceptions unfolding in different neural network calculations than</p><p>the individualistic, noncontextual, detail-driven perspective of separation.</p><p>These distinctions in neural processing may help us understand how such</p><p>different worldviews—one of systems or one of separation—may be held in</p><p>mind with a purity and conviction that make the belief system have a sense</p><p>of completion; of being true and the whole story. This distinction may offer</p><p>insight into the contrast of the separate-parts perspective of modern Western</p><p>medicine and science compared to a wider view of consciousness and mind</p><p>as emergent aspects of complex systems. One worldview sees the identity</p><p>of the part as fundamentally complete, a closed system; the other perceives</p><p>a part as one aspect of a set of deeply interwoven relational connections, an</p><p>open system. Some researchers would cringe at the suggestion that these</p><p>distinct perceptual frameworks occur in completely separate areas, on one</p><p>side of the brain or the other; others would concur that there truly are</p><p>distinct “modes” of perception, wherever their neural processing occurs.</p><p>With perceptual mechanisms that appear dominant on the right side of the</p><p>human cortex, we can suggest that a “right mode” of information</p><p>processing sees the context and relational connections whereas a “left</p><p>mode” narrowly focuses in on details of the parts. Both modes have an</p><p>important role to play in being in the world and each contribute to a way of</p><p>living with wholeness. The key is to differentiate them and link them both</p><p>—to integrate them—so that a synergy arises and the self-organizational</p><p>capacity for seeing both the parts and the whole emerges. In this way, we</p><p>can highlight the importance of integrating these two distinct ways of</p><p>knowing as one of a narrow, closed, disconnected, independent,</p><p>individualistic view compared to that of a wide, open, connected,</p><p>interdependent, collectivistic perspective. They are distinct modes of</p><p>perceiving, however they may be constructed within the brain, and likely</p><p>underly the different modes of constructing the experience of self.</p><p>You can choose whichever terms most resonate with your way of</p><p>understanding things at this moment in our journey, and this may change as</p><p>we move along in our conversation. Some might see the disconnected,</p><p>closed perspective as dominating the “Western” view of what is historically</p><p>termed a colonialist, settler stance; this is in contrast to the knowledge of</p><p>Indigenous peoples and their practices along with the independent</p><p>discoveries of the contemplative perspectives of what some might call an</p><p>“Eastern” point of view. I once presented a question using this East versus</p><p>West terminology in a meeting with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, who</p><p>then vehemently—but mindfully—pushed back and urged me not to use</p><p>what, in his view, was an outdated and no longer appropriate geographical</p><p>distinction given the influence of this “modern” thinking on those in both</p><p>the western and eastern parts of the planet. For this reason, I’ll use the term</p><p>“modern” to indicate this narrow focus of attention on individual parts in</p><p>contrast to the contemplative or Indigenous perspectives that broadly focus</p><p>on the relationships among the parts: contrasting the mental construction of</p><p>a closed, separated, disconnected view of reality with one of an open,</p><p>systems, connected sense of the world.</p><p>Separation and systems; disconnection and connection; closed and open:</p><p>Each are important in our lives. The deep dive into the details enabled by a</p><p>narrow focus of our attention can yield much about the world, allowing us</p><p>to analyze a virus, for example, and decipher its nucleic acid composition to</p><p>construct a vaccine to protect billions of lives. The narrow focus of the left</p><p>mode is vital for living in our world. The wide perspective of our right</p><p>mode lends a distinct but equally important way of perceiving aspects of</p><p>reality. A broad, systems view, however it is processed neurologically,</p><p>enables us to perceive patterns in systems and reveals, for example, how</p><p>marginalized individuals are unjustly impacted by not only the effects of a</p><p>viral pandemic, but also the impact of environmental degradation. These</p><p>systems perspectives can empower us to see the interdependent whole and</p><p>how we, individually and together, can then act to create a flourishing and</p><p>fair world for all.</p><p>I’ll be speaking directly to you throughout the pages ahead, inviting you</p><p>to reflect on how you sense, perceive, and act on issues related to your own</p><p>experience of self, identity and belonging as we move along. Hopefully our</p><p>sharing these ideas will help us draw on both a narrow and wide focus of</p><p>our attention and the language we use will liberate us to create the life we</p><p>then can consciously choose. In order for me to be fully present in this</p><p>experience too, I’ll try to offer my own reflections on these experiences as</p><p>we go along, with the intention of inviting you to be fully present in this</p><p>exploration as well. Once, language left me, and my own experience of self</p><p>was shattered the summer just before my twentieth birthday.</p><p>Losing to Loosen: Personal Identity</p><p>The experiences of me, this person called Dan—the person who is typing</p><p>these words as your companion along the journey of this book—began in</p><p>the cultural setting of the United States in the second half of the twentieth</p><p>century. I am</p><p>with a noun-like</p><p>construction of a solo-self; we free our self and ourselves from this</p><p>vulnerability by welcoming the reality of self in its verb-like emergence.</p><p>The related experiences of identity and belonging can then either become</p><p>constricted, as ones of a fixed, noun-like separation—me here, you there—</p><p>or they can become free to be integrated as the inner and inter nature of</p><p>subjective sensation, perspective, and agency widen and emerge across a</p><p>lifespan of joining in the synergy of self, within and between.</p><p>But if the mind, as shaped by our immersion within the messages of</p><p>modern culture, is indeed getting in the way of life thriving on this precious</p><p>planet because of these understandable susceptibilities to clinging to</p><p>certainty, then with the mind’s own intention and awareness, we can</p><p>directly name and then reframe these vulnerabilities as opportunities for</p><p>growth. We can learn to let our natural systems’ intelligence blossom and</p><p>let our innate capacity to live an intraconnected life on Earth be fully</p><p>realized. This is a possibility, and perhaps a promise, of what an integrative</p><p>education and an intentional, integrative cultural evolution might do for all</p><p>of us in our shared world.</p><p>Comparison and Competition, Connection and Collaboration</p><p>“Comparison is the thief of joy,” President Theodore Roosevelt once said.</p><p>For author and humorist Mark Twain, comparison is “the death of joy.” You</p><p>might think, “Isn’t it natural to compare oneself to others?” Recall the study</p><p>where children preferred the puppet that liked the same cereal as they did?</p><p>These children were assessing who is like-me and who is not, liking the</p><p>former and disliking the latter.</p><p>Comparison to others often begins when siblings enter a household.</p><p>Once we are in a school setting, the ways we fit in shape our experience of</p><p>self, as do the expectations of our peers, our teachers, and the curricular</p><p>demands. We come to evaluate the goodness or badness of who we are</p><p>based on how we measure up to others, how we achieve our class</p><p>milestones, how we function on the athletic field. Sadly, these comparisons</p><p>with other selves can lead to a loss of the joy-in-discovery that we call</p><p>curiosity, the love of learning; and this can seriously hamper a child’s</p><p>natural drive to explore. In this way, the linear construction of individuality,</p><p>its accompanying comparison—competition, and sense of something</p><p>lacking, something being wrong, can curtail our natural systems</p><p>intelligence, the systems-knowing of how to live with ease within a</p><p>complex mutuality of beneficence.</p><p>Activist and author Lynne Twist (2017) has noted three toxic myths of</p><p>modern society, views that are widely held, yet not just inaccurate—but</p><p>lethally so: 1) scarcity: there is not enough; 2) more is better; and 3) that’s</p><p>just the way it is. The unconscious and false thinking of this combined</p><p>unexamined mindset, she proposes, is a prescription for the troubles we</p><p>now face on our planet. As Twist explains, “Scarcity is the mindset of</p><p>separateness” (Twist, January 19, 2022, Costa Rica). As I heard those words</p><p>she spoke during a wellness seminar where we were both teaching in Costa</p><p>Rica, the lessons from another citizen of that courageous and innovative</p><p>country, Christina Figueres, along with her colleague, Tom Rivet-Carnac,</p><p>reverberated in my mind. Their experiences as architects of the 2015 Paris</p><p>Agreement for climate mediation are described in their book, The Future</p><p>We Choose. Three mental attitudes or mindsets, in their view, are needed to</p><p>help humanity achieve the needed practical steps to reverse climate change:</p><p>1) optimism; 2) abundance; and 3) regeneration. Finding the consilience</p><p>between their two approaches, we can see that: a) with optimism we can see</p><p>options that were not initially in view and regain a sense of hope and a</p><p>practical path with purpose; b) with the mindset that the world, with</p><p>reciprocal ways of being with nature, can be both sufficient and filled with</p><p>abundance; we can then c) release our approach from sustaining a growth-</p><p>at-all-costs goal to one of regeneration, and then liberate a built-in</p><p>reciprocity of how we consume and produce on our planet.</p><p>If we come to realize these three dimensions of our overall mindset</p><p>(which I couldn’t help placing into the acronym, OAR), we can row our</p><p>boat with optimism, abundance, and regeneration down the river of</p><p>integration; the flow of harmony in the world. In this perspective, we</p><p>become grateful for life. Life echoes in these reverberant, consilient ways</p><p>when we open to its mysteries and the reality of the often-invisible threads</p><p>that weave us together in our intraconnected wholeness. As an example, the</p><p>documentary filmmaker, Louie Schwartzberg, sent me the new, full-length</p><p>film on being grateful before its finalization. In that beautiful artistic</p><p>demonstration of our deep connections was Lynne Twist being interviewed</p><p>by Louie, who states this (Schwartzberg, Gratitude Revealed, 2022,</p><p>February 15, minute 30, used with permission): “When you’re in touch with</p><p>enough, it overflows into natural abundance, not excess, not waste, but</p><p>natural abundance out of which generosity is a normal, flowing way of</p><p>being because you feel totally interconnected with everyone else.” In that</p><p>same film, teacher, dancer, and storyteller Luisah Teish states: “We have a</p><p>lot to be grateful for. I just wish that we had enough gratitude to overcome</p><p>greed and selfishness.” Gratitude, compassion, and awe are considered</p><p>transcendent emotional states, ones that help us transcend the solo-self and</p><p>that may bring us to the plane of possibility; that space of being aware</p><p>where new options are waiting for us—and where we find our deep</p><p>connections with one another. As Twist continues: “When you are in touch</p><p>with generosity, you are in touch with the eternal. Every time we tap into</p><p>the eternal, to the sacred, it’s timeless, time actually stops. Don’t insult</p><p>Creation with your human arrogance, be grateful for the miracle that is your</p><p>life. That’s the source of generosity, of prosperity, of gratitude, and of</p><p>fulfilment. It’s one of those places where we express love. And there’s</p><p>nothing quite like love because that’s what it is all about.”</p><p>We can be hopeful and realistically optimistic that there is the potential</p><p>for natural abundance—not a scarcity— in our world, and we can aim</p><p>toward the reciprocity of regeneration. With these proposed OAR aspects of</p><p>our minds set toward integration, we can cultivate a new way for modern</p><p>humanity to live among all living beings on Earth, transforming from a</p><p>mindset of separateness and comparison to one of connection and</p><p>collaboration.</p><p>Culture involves patterns of communication within a community, and</p><p>communication is the sharing of energy and information. A generative</p><p>learning culture, one that promotes the integrative sharing of energy and</p><p>information, helps us develop both differentiation and linkage. Such a</p><p>generative learning culture taps into our natural systems intelligence and</p><p>integrative learning, promoting what Boell, Senge, and Scharmer (2019)</p><p>call systems sensing, systems awareness, and systems thinking. Harnessing</p><p>systems intelligence empowers the principles of integration at the heart of</p><p>an intraconnected synergetic whole.</p><p>We can cultivate integrative communities that build an integrated</p><p>identity in which an embodied “me” is differentiated and linked within a</p><p>relational “we.” When we access nature’s innate systems intelligence, we</p><p>embrace the mutual belonging of living as intraconnected, expressed within</p><p>the linguistic symbol of our integrative self as MWe.</p><p>Inner and Outer: Private and Public</p><p>Attachment relationships begin at home. We turn to our caregivers to</p><p>achieve the four S’s: being safe, seen, soothed, and thus secure. The ways</p><p>we adapt at home are then carried into our school experience. Studies</p><p>suggest that we will bring to school the attachment pattern we adopt with</p><p>our primary caregiver, and we evoke from our teachers a similar pattern of</p><p>response. If our needs are met at home and we have</p><p>an inner model of</p><p>security, we are more likely to ask for help at school when we need our</p><p>teacher’s support. If we have avoidance at home and our needs are not met,</p><p>we are more likely to act in independent ways, not asking for help when we</p><p>need it. And if we have ambivalence in our attachment—if our needs are</p><p>inconsistently met, and sometimes others’ emotions intrude on our own</p><p>state of mind—then we may seem excessively needy with our teachers,</p><p>unable to find a balance between trying on our own and seeking help when</p><p>we need it.</p><p>Our sense of belonging in interpersonal fields of connection can range</p><p>from tightly knit to wider concentric circles, perhaps beginning with our</p><p>caregivers at the center, then our closest friends, and then to social</p><p>friendships, peers, and acquaintances. Our belonging ranges broadly, from</p><p>our most intimate relationships to those that feel more distant. Certain close</p><p>circles of connection can also reflect our patterns of attachment, as we</p><p>transfer our need for caregiving attachment figures as we leave childhood to</p><p>close friends and to romantic partners, those to whom we turn when we are</p><p>distressed. Our identity is shaped by these important attachment</p><p>relationships throughout our life, which form but one set of circles of</p><p>connection that create our sense of belonging in the world. These fields of</p><p>connection may be formed by our identity lens as it ranges from up-close</p><p>and narrow to more distant and wide-angled. We can see then how the</p><p>experience of self as sensation, perspective, and agency is shaped by both</p><p>by our identity-lens focus and the ensuing circles of belonging in which the</p><p>“I” of our individual, inner self becomes woven within the “We” of our</p><p>relational self. When the fields of connection include an ever-widening</p><p>embrace encompassing all living beings, we come to an identity as a</p><p>fundamental part of nature and belong to the intraconnected whole of our</p><p>living planet.</p><p>If our genetically evolved brain, immersed in family and societal messages</p><p>of separation, leads us to the false belief and inaccurate perception of the</p><p>solo-self, the self only embedded in the skin-encased body, then our circles</p><p>of connection and compassion will include only those nearest us, only those</p><p>similar to us who we identify as “like-me.” We will then express intense in-</p><p>group identification and out-group exclusion, with the consequent social</p><p>inequities, racism, and genocide and with the whole of our natural</p><p>environment seeming to be “outside” of who we are. Sound familiar? A</p><p>narrow lens of identity constricts our circles of belonging. We know from</p><p>research that when we place an individual into the out-group category, even</p><p>when distinguished by what seem to be the most subtle signals of</p><p>separation, we shut off our circuits of compassion. This neural vulnerability</p><p>contributes to the construction of the solo-self, both as singular “self” or as</p><p>plural “in-group.”</p><p>Yet our species evolved in cooperative groups, immersed in the</p><p>collaboration of alloparenting and community life, not isolated as solo-</p><p>selves. If in education we direct the growth of the minds of our youth to</p><p>embrace a wider focus in our lens of identity, widening their circles of</p><p>compassion based on a broadening of our belonging, we might bring such</p><p>shifts in identity and belonging into the larger culture, beyond the pages of</p><p>this book, beyond the curriculum in schools. The challenge is to develop a</p><p>growth mind-set, that state of mind Carol Dweck (2006) has suggested can</p><p>empower us to see the opportunities for growth in the face of difficulties,</p><p>and not collapse as we might with a fixed mindset in which we see</p><p>challenges as revealing our weakness. With a growth mindset, these</p><p>contemporary challenges can be experienced as an opportunity to learn and</p><p>grow in our collective efforts to change. But change how? In the</p><p>conversation of this journey that you and I are on, we are considering the</p><p>notion that integration is what is missing in modern times and that finding a</p><p>way to integrate identity—to differentiate and link our experience of self</p><p>and belonging—may be a path to consider taking, together. While genetic</p><p>evolution takes time, cultural evolution is much more rapid—and it can be</p><p>intentionally directed.</p><p>What might be our shared intention? To focus on how human</p><p>development, shaped in homes, schools, work, and our larger society, can</p><p>be guided toward a systems-intelligent way of living.</p><p>The Stories of Our Lives, the Lives of Our Stories</p><p>You may recall from the chapter TODDLERHOOD that narrative is</p><p>initiated when there is a violation to expectation, what scientists call a</p><p>“canonical violation.” A “canon” is a general law or principle by which</p><p>something is judged—it sets our minds in a certain stance about what to</p><p>expect in life. The stories of our lives are how we wrestle with expectations</p><p>and how the world conforms, or not, to these filters of experience. When</p><p>something doesn’t go the way we’ve learned life “should” be, we tell a</p><p>story about what happened and the mental experiences of those involved, in</p><p>an attempt to make sense of what happened and why within our</p><p>understanding of how life works. This helps us learn from experience and</p><p>convey that learning to others, sharing our knowledge and lessons of life for</p><p>the betterment of the whole.</p><p>While narrative is useful, we’ve also seen how it can imprison.</p><p>Expectations act as top-down filters that funnel experience into mental</p><p>constructions based on what happened before. This is how a tightly woven</p><p>plateau in our 3-P framework filters the peaks that might arise in a limited</p><p>and limiting manner. These mental models then shape how we think the</p><p>world actually is, determining which peaks emerge and become the “stuff”</p><p>of which we are aware. Because we come to perceive what we believe, this</p><p>adds a sense that it is accurate, that it is true—just the “way things are.”</p><p>Having a narrative self that constructs stories means that after initial</p><p>sensory input—the initial conduition—the more experience we have in life,</p><p>the less we will actually truly see: We get lost in our own beliefs, caught up</p><p>in our own life story. Narrative and belief shape perception.</p><p>The mind’s own self-reinforcing processes make understanding our</p><p>narrative-self crucial in freeing us to approach unlearning ways of living in</p><p>the world that have been, even unknowingly, limiting and unhelpful, and</p><p>then freeing our narrating minds to find new stories for us, new ways of</p><p>making sense, individually as well as collectively as a family of humanity</p><p>living within our shared natural world. These autobiographical narratives,</p><p>or stories of our self, are literally the stories we tell, to ourselves and to</p><p>others, of who we are. Such narratives, as studied by attachment</p><p>researchers, can be viewed as cohesive (i.e., stick tightly together) and as</p><p>coherent (i.e., resilient and flexible, recognizing reality’s pleasant and</p><p>unpleasant components). A cohesive yet incoherent narrative may be</p><p>somewhat logical, yet often deny or restrict aspects of reality in order to</p><p>hold itself together. Our innate drive to make sense by linking differentiated</p><p>elements of our own life history can be restricted by a strictly cohesive yet</p><p>noncoherent life narrative.</p><p>Neuroscience has identified a network within the brain that violates a</p><p>previously established belief of that field: The canon that divided</p><p>anatomical regions of the brain have clear and distinct functions, such as</p><p>perception here, motor action there. This canon-violating network</p><p>comprises what have been named “mirror neurons,” which have both</p><p>perceptual and motor properties and are activated when we watch another</p><p>creature’s actions. For example, in one study if a researcher or another</p><p>monkey ate a peanut, the same motor neurons of a monkey watching or</p><p>hearing this action became activated as if they were eating the peanut. A</p><p>single neuron was involved in both perception and motor action, hence the</p><p>name, “mirror neuron”—because there is a mirroring of perception and</p><p>action in one cell. Later research</p><p>revealed that groupings of this type of</p><p>cellular function, “mirror neuron systems,” are distributed widely</p><p>throughout the human brain. While this finding is still controversial, the</p><p>implications of the mirror neuron system are relevant for our discussion of</p><p>self, identity, belonging, and the stories we tell internally and collectively.</p><p>We imitate others’ behavior and feel their feelings as a natural part of our</p><p>relational selves. With behavioral imitation, we prepare, or prime, our</p><p>motor system to imitate an action we are perceiving, and then we can enact</p><p>a similar motion. With state simulation, we shift our own internal state,</p><p>including bodily physiology and emotional processes, to resemble that of</p><p>the individual we are perceiving. Mirror neuron functions offer us one way</p><p>to understand how we resonate with one another in both subjectively felt</p><p>experience and agency—they directly link our experience of self beyond</p><p>the skull and skin. And if we are unaware that we have made this shift in</p><p>priming and in feeling, if we don’t come to realize that our current internal</p><p>state is due to the input from another and not solely from our internal source</p><p>of self, we may become confused, perhaps akin to being fused as a “self”</p><p>and an “other.” The role of the mirror neuron system in enabling us to join</p><p>without becoming the other, to differentiate and to link, may be an</p><p>important way we distinguish between individualism at one extreme and</p><p>collectivism at the other. If we keep our “self” totally distinct, if we don’t</p><p>soak up the inner states of others in our emerging experience, we may be on</p><p>autopilot as separated; if we lose the distinction of a bodily self from others’</p><p>experiences, then the perception of the other individual may flood us with</p><p>state simulation and behavioral imitation and we become fused rather than</p><p>integrated. Perhaps the fear that drives individuality in modern times is this</p><p>dread of losing one’s own differentiated being. The idea and practical</p><p>implication of the two components of integration—differentiation and</p><p>linkage—may support an integrative path forward, avoiding the extremes of</p><p>both disconnection and fusion as individualistic and collectivistic polarities</p><p>of identity.</p><p>These findings also suggest that our embodied nervous system uses the</p><p>overall body, with its physiology and brain states, to resonate with others,</p><p>and then that resonance of the body acts like an antenna and amplifier—</p><p>often beneath awareness. We sense another individual; those sensations</p><p>soak into our perceptual processing. And if we interpret another’s state as</p><p>having organization, an intention, we have a way to predict what is likely to</p><p>happen, and we prime ourselves to initiate action as imitation or to simulate</p><p>state as emotional resonance. This is how we can join as a we without</p><p>losing a me.</p><p>If you dance with a partner, you may feel the music linking you with</p><p>your partner; the continuing flow of a slight tilt of the head or pressure on</p><p>the arm allows two to become one, with a synergy linking you. If you play</p><p>music in a group, you may feel that resonance in your differentiation as you</p><p>play your instrument and yet linkage in the overall piece. If you sing in a</p><p>choir, you may feel the harmony arise as the differentiated voices become</p><p>connected with melody and rhythm. These are states of joining, moments</p><p>when we (perhaps engaging our mirror neurons) temporarily and willingly</p><p>suspend our sense of an individual self to allow us to expand our self-</p><p>experience and let go of separation. We share the subjective sensation, join</p><p>in perception, and have agency on behalf of the synergetic whole. This</p><p>capacity enables us to choose to be in the flow of joining within the</p><p>intraconnected wholeness of the relationship.</p><p>When we perceive another person as having a subjective experience, we</p><p>make our own mindsight map of that individual’s inner state. Mirror</p><p>neurons may be a part of that process, enabling us to sense the mental state,</p><p>the intention, the mood, the meaning of an organized state of being within</p><p>another, and then to map that state onto our own physiology and mental</p><p>states.</p><p>Mindsight maps come in at least three fundamental forms: a “me-map,”</p><p>our own inner state; a “you-map,” the inner state of another; and a “we-</p><p>map,” the state of the collective. A me-map lets us know how we are</p><p>feeling internally, what our individual intentions are, what our emotional</p><p>meaning is in that moment. A you-map lets me infer from my me-map what</p><p>is going on inside of you. These are maps of the internal state with the body</p><p>as the spatial reference point. A we-map plots the system that is us, a</p><p>relational identity, and our intentions, sensations, and emotional meaning as</p><p>a collective unit.</p><p>A we-map is how we represent the relational we, referred to as a</p><p>“relational field.” This is the relationship as a center of experience—the</p><p>source, the location, of energy and information flow. We-maps help us use</p><p>systems-sensing and systems-thinking to become aware of the</p><p>interdependent, interactive, interconnected, interlaced connections of parts</p><p>—to sense the intraconnected whole.</p><p>When we are under threat, we increase our in-group versus out-group</p><p>evaluative process, and we treat those in the in-group with more kindness</p><p>and those in the out-group with more hostility. If we deem an individual to</p><p>be not like-me, the circuits of empathy and of compassion are shut off—</p><p>they literally become inactive. We stop resonating with that person, shutting</p><p>off connection. In mindsight terms, this means we do not make mindsight</p><p>maps of that person and we do not perceive that person as having a mind. In</p><p>relational terms, we dehumanize them—they stop being human and they are</p><p>no longer a part of our we-map. In this way, we constrict our own lens of</p><p>identity and restrict our own belonging. This may be one means by which</p><p>the threat of scarcity creates the mindset of separation.</p><p>By becoming aware of and naming this vulnerability, perhaps we can</p><p>reframe it and widen our lens, broaden our belonging. We could use our</p><p>mindsight maps to see all people, not just those like-us, and we could see</p><p>the self in all species, not just in humans. This may be how we move from a</p><p>mindset of scarcity to that of optimism, abundance, and regeneration—the</p><p>OAR we need to row our biodiverse boat from disconnection and disaster</p><p>toward connection and thriving. Perhaps we can use these mindsight maps</p><p>to create a sense of self—a center of experience—within the system as a</p><p>whole, a living, breathing ecosystem of life on Earth. While this</p><p>vulnerability that constricts our lens of identity is part of our human history,</p><p>does it need to control our destiny?</p><p>Our awareness of the inner and inter processes shaping the continual</p><p>emergence of our experience of self, identity, and belonging can offer the</p><p>opportunity to cultivate more internal and relational well-being, if we</p><p>choose. What is this choice we face? Automatic mechanisms, built into the</p><p>tendencies of the human embodied brain, can push us toward a restricted set</p><p>of “like-me” criteria when determining “in-group” versus “out-group”</p><p>membership. Without awareness, teachings of a noun-dominant culture—as</p><p>conveyed at home, in school, in society, through ways we communicate</p><p>with one another on the street, at work, on the internet—can restrict our</p><p>self, limit our identity, confine our belonging.</p><p>To live more fully and freely, to address the major pandemics of our</p><p>times effectively, we can choose instead to cultivate an awareness, to</p><p>intentionally become conscious of these current forces at play in our lives,</p><p>so that we can have the capacity to override these inherited ways of</p><p>dividing and the learned messages of separation we take on as true.</p><p>What does awareness permit us to do? The human brain has neural</p><p>networks that enable identity to be constructed using a narrow or a wide-</p><p>angle lens, to constrict or broaden our belonging, to limit or expand the</p><p>defining experiences of what we call our “self.” Awareness permits choice</p><p>and empowers change. If the</p><p>message of modern times is one of the solo-</p><p>self, a belonging confined to only those “like-us,” with “us” narrowly</p><p>defined, then we will construct a life of isolation and division. Awareness</p><p>enables us to move past these contemporary constructions of separation, an</p><p>excessively differentiated life, toward an integrative way of living, honoring</p><p>the gifts of each individual while at the same time linking as a collective</p><p>whole.</p><p>Who we are with such awareness can be freed as a dynamic verb-like</p><p>emergence, liberated from the stagnant, stifling limits of a linear, noun-like</p><p>construction of self. Fear of fusion, of becoming lost in the experience of</p><p>joining, or dread of disconnection and being completely isolated and alone,</p><p>may be the pendular emotional extremes that push us toward that flimsy</p><p>fantasy of certainty, the longing to know, noun-like, who we really are. Yet</p><p>embracing uncertainty may be what “becoming aware” is truly about,</p><p>accessing that plane of possibility in which we can realize that the</p><p>synonyms for uncertainty are openness, freedom, and possibility. Choice</p><p>emerges from that plane of possibility from which consciousness arises.</p><p>And so, our choice begins with opening awareness. But what comes</p><p>next? To move beyond a construal of self as separate, we can learn from the</p><p>millennia old wisdom of Indigenous teachings and contemplative practices,</p><p>which are supported by more recent explorations in modern science, that a</p><p>systems view of reality illuminates a world of deeply interwoven parts—a</p><p>reality of interconnection of components that, seen from the whole, is</p><p>intraconnected. When we think in linear terms, our focus of reality is</p><p>primarily on its parts. A systems view enables us to sense the subjective</p><p>experience, take on the perspective, and have the agency of a verb-like me</p><p>and we, a dynamic unfolding of an interacting whole. As MWe’ve seen,</p><p>integrating the inner me with the inter we creates the intraconnection that is</p><p>MWe.</p><p>In this awareness and its systems sensing, it becomes possible to let go</p><p>of the illusion of solidity and certainty, to let go of vulnerability that drives</p><p>us to cling to linear and noun-like notions of self, and to instead open to the</p><p>freedom of verb-like becoming. That’s a shift that can feel disorienting at</p><p>first, yet ultimately grounding as we come to live the truth of how things</p><p>actually are. With this shift in sensation, perspective, and agency, with this</p><p>shift in self, what arise are the inner, the inter, and the intra as an ever-</p><p>changing emergence in the flow of energy and information. Instead of</p><p>constructing an appearance of separation, we feel the reality of</p><p>intraconnection. Instead of viewing the nodal body as the self-alone, we</p><p>come to see the body as a rich conduit, or part, of that whole—the inner</p><p>part; and we add to that internal reality not only the interconnections with</p><p>other parts, but the intraconnection as we come to embrace the system-as-a-</p><p>whole from the experience of self, identity, and belonging. Me is the inner;</p><p>We are the between, the inter; and MWe are the intraconnected whole.</p><p>The body and its brain may construct a sense of self as separate, that, in</p><p>our school years, may continually be reinforced by messages we receive in</p><p>the process of education. But if we realize how neuroplasticity enables the</p><p>brain to change at any age, then we can see how our mindsight maps can</p><p>also change as we widen the angle of our identity lens. Consilient in many</p><p>ways with Robert Kegan’s theory of an “evolving self” (1982, 1994), and</p><p>with the movement through stages of ever more complex capacities to sense</p><p>the mental states of self and others, here we are exploring not stages but a</p><p>continuum of mindsight-map making abilities that build across</p><p>development from the inner mapping of self-experience as “me-maps” to</p><p>the representations of the inner states of others as “you-maps” and of the</p><p>relational whole as “we-maps.” The interpersonal neurobiology framework</p><p>of development we are exploring suggests that integration is the heart of the</p><p>drive to ever-more complex states of a system’s flow. Self-organization</p><p>naturally emerges toward harmony with the FACES flow of being flexible,</p><p>adaptive, coherent, energized, and stable. How we learn to adapt to our</p><p>family of origin with acquired attachment patterns, to attempt to fit in to</p><p>school life, and later to cultivate a role in society will each become the top-</p><p>down ways we’ve learned to be and behave in the world. We soak in the</p><p>inner world of others by way of the social brain’s various networks,</p><p>including mirror neurons and our mindsight map-making circuits that are</p><p>continually shaped by our experiential immersions, especially in the social</p><p>world. In these ways, we come to focus our identity lens on sensations,</p><p>mold our perceptions, and enact our agency by what we’ve learned in self-</p><p>reinforcing ways. When modern messages of isolation and the need to be</p><p>certain repeatedly shape our experience of self as separate, the self-</p><p>organizing flow toward the harmony of a FACES life may be compromised</p><p>with such impediments to integration, and unsettling experiences of chaos</p><p>and rigidity may emerge within our personal, public, and planetary lives.</p><p>This may be the unfortunate—but changeable—outcome of the solo-self in</p><p>modern times.</p><p>With respect, intention, and purpose, we can learn to recognize our</p><p>vulnerability to living separately as noun-like solo-selves throughout our</p><p>lives; beginning in our homes, extending to our schools, and then moving</p><p>out into society. We can rise above that vulnerability and move to a</p><p>healthier, fuller, integrative identity honoring the inner body and the inter</p><p>relationships and the reality of the whole. We can, together, acknowledge</p><p>where we’ve come to now, and then, with intention, move our shared</p><p>construction of self to a more integrative way of living.</p><p>ADOLESCENCE</p><p>During our first dozen years of life, we tend to have a brain that soaks in all the</p><p>lessons we are exposed to, growing new synaptic connections that help us</p><p>remember our experiences, learn social skills to adapt and cope, and take on</p><p>the worldview we are taught. But as we move toward our second dozen</p><p>years, our brain begins to take on a new growth strategy: As we leave</p><p>primary school age and prepare for middle school and beyond, our brain</p><p>growth will enter a stage of remodeling.</p><p>Adolescence is a time when identity and belonging will be a primary</p><p>focus of our growth. We begin to experience quite distinct ways of being—</p><p>our public personas—that reveal the different roles we play in various</p><p>settings within the different social groupings we find ourselves drawn to,</p><p>such as the classroom and out on the streets. Our membership within those</p><p>groups will in turn alter how we experience our identity. Identity shapes</p><p>belonging; belonging shapes identity.</p><p>One of the deep challenges of shifting from preadolescence into</p><p>adolescence is the movement away from our birth parents as we start to turn</p><p>to our peers for comfort and connection. Our inner sense of life’s order, the</p><p>image of the world as we were told it was supposed to be, will become</p><p>shaky as we begin to question the nature of reality and even the meaning of</p><p>life itself. Why are we here? What if what we’ve been told about the world</p><p>is not true?</p><p>In adolescence, a new awareness of the major pandemics confronting us</p><p>may emerge—the challenges of a virus, of social injustice, of polarization,</p><p>of attention-addiction, and of environmental destruction—and we can come</p><p>to feel inspired to make a difference or overwhelmed and driven to avoid</p><p>such knowledge. Yet during this tender time—this transition from the</p><p>dependency of childhood to the responsibility of adulthood—we may have</p><p>few resources that encourage us to consider that the inherent validity of</p><p>what we’ve been taught, what we’ve been told about the self being separate,</p><p>is even something to question. The sixth and underlying pandemic, that of</p><p>the solo-self, may not even come into view.</p><p>The ESSENCE of Adolescence</p><p>Seen in many species besides our</p><p>own, adolescence involves fundamental</p><p>challenges and opportunities as well as a core set of features that shape our</p><p>individual experience across the lifespan. The essence of adolescence, and</p><p>perhaps even health throughout our lives as well, as I suggest in</p><p>Brainstorm, can be symbolized with the term “ESSENCE” itself:</p><p>Emotional Spark—the passion to fully feel a wide range of emotions</p><p>Social Engagement—the connection to join and collaborate</p><p>interpersonally</p><p>Novelty-seeking—the courage to try new and sometimes risky things</p><p>Creative Exploration—the imagination to envision and innovate in</p><p>new ways</p><p>The ESSENCE of the adolescent period is to cultivate this passion,</p><p>connection, courage, and imagination in ways that support our growth and</p><p>the greater good. During adolescence, the brain prunes down some</p><p>connections and strengthens others. This important brain remodeling creates</p><p>these ESSENCE features, which can last a lifetime through which they</p><p>continue to support our health and resilience as we create integration inside</p><p>and out.</p><p>During adulthood we may let go of our imagination and live a life</p><p>focused primarily on what is, rather than creatively exploring what might be</p><p>or even considering what could or should be. Yet keeping imagination alive</p><p>in our adult lives lets us free our brains to become active in many ways that</p><p>support our health. When we are imaginative, we open to new possibilities,</p><p>we reflect on our values, keeping what has meaning for us, we find purpose,</p><p>and we rethink habits that are unhelpful or based on inaccurate information</p><p>and beliefs. These creative explorations even include you reading this book</p><p>and considering these components of your own ESSENCE and how they</p><p>might be nurtured, or rekindled if they have dwindled, so that passion,</p><p>connection, courage, and imagination can help support your journey from</p><p>this moment forward.</p><p>If you find that some of the features of this ESSENCE are missing in your</p><p>life, the great news is that you can reclaim your ESSENCE at any time—I</p><p>once worked with a person in his nineties who was able to do just that.</p><p>Thanks to neuroplasticity, our brain can continue to grow throughout our</p><p>life: Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection</p><p>grows. The neural correlates of living a life with ESSENCE is a more</p><p>integrated and integrative brain—and that neural integration, research</p><p>reveals, is the best predictor of our well-being. It’s a win–win situation:</p><p>Integration empowers our ESSENCE, and our ESSENCE builds</p><p>integration, throughout our lifespan.</p><p>When we approach adolescence, something starts happening in our brain</p><p>that will make the sense of who we are—our identity—begin to change</p><p>from what we knew in our early years. To whom and to what we belong</p><p>also begin to shift. We feel one way with some friends, another way with</p><p>peers in school, and even another way with kids on an athletic team. Studies</p><p>in the setting of the United States show that in the beginning of these</p><p>second dozen years of life, we have these different self-states but are not</p><p>very aware of them. In the middle of these years, around ages fourteen and</p><p>fifteen or so, we start to become aware of these distinct states, but we are</p><p>still not clear about how to handle them. And then in our later teens, in the</p><p>middle part of adolescence (our brain continues remodeling deep into our</p><p>twenties), we may be faced with leaving home.</p><p>But for those of us in households that are more comfortable than the</p><p>“outside” world, why in the world would we want to leave? Yet nature</p><p>needs us to leave, needs us to mix with other nonfamily members, for the</p><p>benefit of our potential offspring and our species. What has nature done to</p><p>get us ready for that transition?</p><p>Adolescents who have tapped into the four components of their</p><p>ESSENCE—emotional spark, social engagement, novelty-seeking, and</p><p>creative exploration—are more likely to be ready to leave. Emotional spark</p><p>can be thought of as the passion that serves as fuel for evoking motion—</p><p>that’s one way to think of the term “e-motion”: evokes motion. The</p><p>downside of this spark is intense waves of emotions, and the meanings that</p><p>are woven with them, which can feel overwhelming at times—</p><p>unpredictable moods and waves of feelings that are hard to understand or</p><p>contain. But the upside is the reward of a meaningful and exuberant life.</p><p>How we learn to ride those waves of emotion is essential for harnessing our</p><p>emotional spark.</p><p>We are also driven toward social engagement. In the wild, an isolated</p><p>adolescent is more likely to become a predator’s lunch—social engagement</p><p>means survival. Connection to peers helps us get ready to leave home and</p><p>face the adult struggles awaiting us. The downside of this need for social</p><p>connection and belonging is that we may cave in to peer pressure,</p><p>sometimes letting go of morality to gain membership. The upside is that,</p><p>during the adolescent period, we learn the life-affirming, health-promoting</p><p>social skills we’ll need for a lifetime.</p><p>Another way nature readies us to leave home is by increasing our drive</p><p>for novelty. Nature gives adolescents an inner drive to seek out, or at least</p><p>tolerate, conditions that are unfamiliar, risky and unsafe at times, and filled</p><p>with uncertainty by shifting our remodeling brain to change the reward</p><p>circuitry that uses the neurotransmitter dopamine. This vertically distributed</p><p>group of networks is an interconnected set of neurons that extends from our</p><p>cortex down into our limbic area and our brain stem. When dopamine is</p><p>secreted, we feel satisfied; when dopamine is depleted, we may feel a drive</p><p>to do something that releases it again. During adolescence, nature shifts</p><p>these dopamine levels. Some findings suggest that the levels of dopamine</p><p>release are higher during adolescence so that we are rewarded even more</p><p>for trying new things—novelty is one of the best activators of the reward</p><p>system. Other studies suggest that our baseline levels of dopamine may be</p><p>lower during adolescence, inducing us to feel restless, like something is</p><p>missing, and like we need to do something, try something new—like</p><p>leaving home!</p><p>Another shift nature has created is centered more in the limbic and</p><p>cortical areas that assess risk and reward, a process called “hyperrational</p><p>thinking.” This change creates more focus on the positive aspects of an</p><p>activity and minimizes our focus on any downsides of actions we consider.</p><p>When an unfamiliar and uncertain world presents us with the unknown, the</p><p>dopamine drive for novelty and the hyperrational thoughts emphasizing</p><p>potential positive outcomes each help us overcome hesitation.</p><p>During adolescence we also experience a drive to move beyond what</p><p>adults have told us about the world, to experience creative exploration, to</p><p>help us use this tolerance for uncertainty to explore our possibilities and use</p><p>our imagination. But is there a downside to this imagination? Perhaps a</p><p>sense of disillusionment that the world we are handed is not what we</p><p>imagined it could be, or a feeling of disappointment, despair,</p><p>discouragement, and disconnection? How we move through these feelings</p><p>into realistic optimism and practical idealism—how we come to see that the</p><p>cracks in our systems are in fact where the light may come in and guide us</p><p>forward—is how our imagination and our sense of creative exploration can</p><p>empower us. This is the upside of creative exploration: to reach for the stars</p><p>while our feet are firmly planted on the ground.</p><p>Romance, Relationships, Identity</p><p>An important, emerging set of experiences shaping our identity and</p><p>belonging involve gender and sex: gender role, gender expression, gender</p><p>identity, and sexual orientation.</p><p>“Gender role” is a phrase used, especially in the past, to indicate what is</p><p>expected of us by our culture based on the sex we were assigned at birth.</p><p>For example, if you have an X and a Y chromosome, like me, you likely</p><p>have external sexual features—your genitalia—that made the delivery</p><p>clinician and your parents call you a “boy”; and if you have two X</p><p>chromosomes, you likely</p><p>were born with genitals that made these people</p><p>call you a “girl.” Some individuals are born with what are called</p><p>“ambiguous” genitalia, which make it unclear which gender they should be</p><p>assigned at birth; the term “intersex” is sometimes used for this situation.</p><p>Other individuals have extra chromosomes, such as XXY, or genetically</p><p>induced effects on hormones that create an inconsistency between their</p><p>genetic makeup and how they look (their phenotype). These and other</p><p>factors in our physiology affect our “assigned sex.”</p><p>“Gender expression” is a term for our outward manifestations of gender.</p><p>The Human Rights Campaign offers a glossary of important, carefully</p><p>articulated wording for these issues of identity and belonging, including</p><p>gender expression: “External appearance of one’s gender identity, usually</p><p>expressed through behavior, clothing, haircut or voice, and which may or</p><p>may not conform to socially defined behaviors and characteristics typically</p><p>associated with being either masculine or feminine” (Human Rights</p><p>Campaign, 2022).</p><p>Gender expression is often generated and judged by cultural</p><p>expectations. When I was young, people around me expected me to like</p><p>trucks, which I did, and sports, which I did not. People expected me to</p><p>enjoy being competitive on the baseball diamond, which I generally was</p><p>not, but I loved dance—which meant I was one of only two males in a high</p><p>school dance class with fifty adolescent females. That was a great situation</p><p>as far as I was concerned, even though the males in my grade thought I was</p><p>odd. We can say that I did not conform to their expectation of my gender</p><p>expression.</p><p>As we can see, the gender expression that others expect of us and the</p><p>gender role others assign us don’t always match with our own proclivities,</p><p>often because of something quite distinct happening within us. Inside, a</p><p>distinct feature of our identity is our gender identity—how we identify</p><p>ourselves in terms of gender. When I was an adolescent—in the United</p><p>States in the second half of the twentieth century—there seemed to be only</p><p>two gender identity choices: male or female. Since then, there has been a</p><p>cultural shift toward recognizing that this binary set of male or female is</p><p>actually a mental and social construction, an artificial division of gender</p><p>category that is not consistent with the reality of a spectrum of gender</p><p>values that we can and do experience. The Human Rights Campaign states</p><p>this succinctly in its definition of gender identity: “One’s innermost concept</p><p>of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither—how individuals</p><p>perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One’s gender identity</p><p>can be the same or different from their sex assigned at birth” (Human</p><p>Rights Campaign, 2022).</p><p>A gender identity at odds with one’s assigned sex can happen for several</p><p>reasons. A brief review of sexual development in the womb is illuminating.</p><p>Typically, all fetuses begin with a female brain. Fetuses with XY</p><p>chromosomes develop testicles, which secrete the hormone testosterone,</p><p>which enters the bloodstream and reaches the head, where it “masculinizes”</p><p>the brain. The result is that certain proclivities can be created by subtle</p><p>shifts in brain connectivity—invisible to a scanner—shaped by hormone</p><p>exposure in the womb. In other words, a radiologist or researcher looking at</p><p>a structural brain scan won’t be able to ascertain the gender identity,</p><p>assigned sex, or other gender features of that individual. For example, if a</p><p>young fetus with two X chromosomes is exposed to excessive androgens</p><p>(e.g., testosterone)—such as from the mother’s adrenal glands and/or due to</p><p>certain medical conditions—that fetus’s initially female brain often</p><p>becomes masculinized. Alternatively, if for some reason testosterone in an</p><p>XY fetus does not cross the blood brain barrier, even if this hormone is</p><p>secreted by the testicles, that brain may remain more or completely in its</p><p>original, female state. In other words, these changes in brain structure and</p><p>function are not all-or-nothing—they range across a spectrum from no</p><p>masculinization to a huge amount. For these reasons, unlike the usual</p><p>binary states of the appearance of the genitalia, the brain develops along a</p><p>remarkably broad spectrum and can be something other than only male or</p><p>female.</p><p>My own assigned sex is male, and my internally determined gender</p><p>identity—shaped in utero, we believe, by my masculinized brain—is male.</p><p>In this way, some might call me “cisgender,” as the Human Rights</p><p>Campaign defines it, “a term used to describe a person whose gender</p><p>identity aligns with those typically associated with the sex assigned to them</p><p>at birth.” You might say that my identity as male enabled me to belong to</p><p>the group called “males,” but that story is much more complex, as you’ll</p><p>see shortly.</p><p>Even in my youth, I knew individuals who felt that their inner sense of</p><p>who they were, their inner identity, did not conform to this division—this</p><p>forced choice—of male or female. The Human Rights Campaign offers a</p><p>term that would have been welcome by those friends back then:</p><p>“nonbinary,” which they define as</p><p>An adjective describing a person who does not identify exclusively as</p><p>a man or a woman. Non-binary [sic] people may identify as being both</p><p>a man and a woman, somewhere in between, or as falling completely</p><p>outside these categories. While many also identify as transgender, not</p><p>all non-binary [sic] people do. Non-binary [sic] can also be used as an</p><p>umbrella term encompassing identities such as agender, bigender,</p><p>genderqueer or gender-fluid. (Human Rights Campaign, 2022)</p><p>As you can see, our gender identity, along with our gender role and gender</p><p>expression, greatly influences our overall sense of identity. And we have a</p><p>fourth facet to our experience of self, belonging, and identity: sexual</p><p>orientation. Here is the Human Rights Campaign’s definition for sexual</p><p>orientation: “An inherent or immutable enduring emotional, romantic or</p><p>sexual attraction to other people” (Human Rights Campaign, 2022). Our</p><p>attraction is oriented to certain types of people—the “type” might be those</p><p>of a different gender or those of the same gender. To describe a range of</p><p>orientations, the Human Rights Campaign suggests such terms as</p><p>“bisexual,” “gay,” “lesbian,” “same-gender-loving,” “pansexual,”</p><p>“straight,” and, for those who experience no sexual attraction, “asexual.”</p><p>When we use the adolescent experience of growth and change to</p><p>illuminate these important facets of identity, we come to respect how</p><p>challenging it can be for a range of individuals. First, these new sexual and</p><p>romantic feelings can be so intense that they overwhelm us. Second, since</p><p>adolescents are typically deeply relational, engagement with others to</p><p>explore the romantic attraction and sexual interactions can make us feel</p><p>very vulnerable. Third, as we learned in the chapter INFANCY, because</p><p>social rejection is mediated by the same brain region as physical pain—the</p><p>dorsal anterior cingulate cortex—this vulnerability and the inevitable</p><p>misunderstandings, miscommunications, and rejections that may happen</p><p>can feel very painful. Fourth, as our culture’s messages of gender role</p><p>match or don’t match our gender expression, there may be a sense of being</p><p>accepted or rejected by the larger social group called society. Finding</p><p>membership—the experience of belonging and being fully accepted as an</p><p>authentic you, wherein the inner you and the outer you can match and are</p><p>seen and respected by others—can be tricky and risky for any of us. Fifth,</p><p>while we are growing as an adolescent and trying to sense how we feel,</p><p>these distinct facets of our life—including assigned sex, gender role in the</p><p>larger culture, gender expression, gender identity, and sexual orientation—</p><p>each play an important part in our sense of belonging.</p><p>Timeless Wisdom, Timely Action</p><p>Consider your own positionality in this life: How do your various facets of</p><p>self-experience shape your identity and how you belong within the cultural</p><p>contexts in which you live now or where you’ve lived</p><p>before? Have you</p><p>found that you can, with intention, focus your lens of identity to see close-</p><p>up and then widen it to sense a larger identity, a broader belonging, beyond</p><p>your body or beyond those whose bodies look like yours? How has sensing</p><p>your identity, from both its internal sources and the external constructs from</p><p>community and culture, felt to you? How has having an awareness of this</p><p>inner and inter aspect of what shapes your experience of self—your</p><p>sensation, perspective, and agency—influenced your life?</p><p>If you’ve known for a long time or are just now realizing for the first time</p><p>that you’ve been in a state of mismatch between your inner sense of identity</p><p>and your inter sense of belonging, in what ways have you compromised</p><p>your behavior? How have you acted, what of your authentic self have you</p><p>hidden, to protect your life from rejection? Have there been moments when</p><p>you’ve experienced confusion about who you are from trying to fit in with</p><p>what the world expected you to be? Has that adaptation stayed with you in</p><p>your public life? How has it influenced your private life?</p><p>While these issues may first present themselves in intense ways during</p><p>adolescence, they stay with us for the rest of our lives. If we’ve been</p><p>marginalized, if our external identifying features have caused us to be</p><p>mistreated, dehumanized, disrespected, or rejected, how have we handled</p><p>that? For some this feature would be a sex assignment of female in a male-</p><p>dominated world; for some, this feature would be skin that has color in a</p><p>white-majority society. These impacts can be direct—the pain of that social</p><p>rejection—and can also include how we’ve tried to adapt: what we’ve done,</p><p>in the best ways we know how, in our attempts to survive and thrive. As the</p><p>documentary film High on the Hog reveals, we carry the journey of painful</p><p>marginalization and dehumanization forward across generations while</p><p>adapting as best we can.</p><p>In a culture that implicitly values white skin over dark complexions,</p><p>male sexual assignment over female, and heterosexual attraction over other</p><p>sexual orientations, a huge percentage of our population may be</p><p>experiencing significant marginalization. For those of us in privileged,</p><p>nondehumanized positions in our culture, it is our duty, our moral</p><p>responsibility, to be an active participant in bringing protection and</p><p>empowerment into the world—to live with absolute integrity. One meaning</p><p>of this integrity would be, essentially, to aspire to bring integration, in all its</p><p>forms, into the world.</p><p>Integration has this simple foundation: We honor differences, and we</p><p>cultivate compassionate linkages. This means that we attempt to wake up to</p><p>and move beyond any automatic, autopilot racial and/or gender biases and</p><p>learned, top-down filters, and toward a more inclusive way of living, of</p><p>being aware, of behaving, of inviting a mutuality of belonging and</p><p>participation. This means not just tolerating differences but learning to</p><p>thrive because of differences. In a prime example of consilience, a broad</p><p>range of sciences, with a wide array of perspectives, agree that when we</p><p>have more diversity, we have a richer, more complex, more adaptive</p><p>system. In our diversity, we can achieve more, solve more, flourish more.</p><p>Integration reveals how optimal self-organization, creativity, and well-</p><p>being are founded on thriving with diversity. But it goes further than only</p><p>having space for lots of differences: integration is the linkage of those</p><p>differentiated components. We link with compassionate communication. We</p><p>link by being interested in the experiences, perspective, and empowerment</p><p>—the self—of all members of our system.</p><p>Our experience of adolescence directly engages our subjective sensation,</p><p>perspective, and agency—our emerging self—in examining the internal and</p><p>relational foundations of identity and belonging. Gender, race, sexual</p><p>orientation, religious beliefs, and many more features of our unfolding</p><p>selves each impact who we see our self to be and to whom and to what we</p><p>belong during this important period of brain remodeling. When integrated,</p><p>we emerge from our adolescence feeling whole and ready to take on adult</p><p>responsibility, to participate and to bring to the world a full sense of who we</p><p>are. With such integration, our identity and belonging weave the authentic</p><p>differentiation of our inner sense of self that is fully accepted with our inter</p><p>sense of who we are. We are both a “me” and a “we.”</p><p>MWe, as an integrated identity, brings a sense of broader belonging,</p><p>expanding beyond the individual alone to also embrace the cultural</p><p>relational field that is MWe. MWe seek a way to have both the broad</p><p>belonging and the integrated identity that allow for the wide focus of</p><p>attention on our overall world, while at the same time honoring the</p><p>importance of our individual, narrow focus on our inner, personal</p><p>experience. MWe invites both the integrative linkage of connection and the</p><p>differentiation of individuality.</p><p>As discussed in the WELCOME chapter sections “Wisdom Traditions” and</p><p>“An Ancient Invitation for Modern Times,” for thousands of years the</p><p>teachings of Indigenous cultures and of contemplative practices have</p><p>focused on the importance of seeing our place in life as woven within a</p><p>larger whole—what we, in contemporary science terms, would call a</p><p>systems perspective. The susceptibility of the human brain to mistaking the</p><p>body—a part of the whole—as the sole center of self is not only an old</p><p>proclivity of our human lives, it is a dangerous mistaken identity if we lose</p><p>the larger systems view of our wholeness. Yes, our self, identity, and</p><p>belonging are shaped by the inner bodily experience of this manifestation</p><p>into actuality, this flow of energy that gets about one hundred years to live</p><p>on Earth. We are descendants and ancestors of a long line of animals, a</p><p>family member of all living beings; we are fundamentally interwoven with</p><p>all life: here, now, there, and then. We are also the emergence of energy as it</p><p>flows from possibility to actuality, manifesting in this bodily lifetime with</p><p>our personal identity, and at the same time a part of the intraconnected</p><p>whole of not only all of life, but all of reality.</p><p>As discussed at the beginning of our journey, most Indigenous traditions</p><p>—from the Tayuna of South America to the Aboriginal peoples of Australia</p><p>—emphasize the importance of the individual belonging to community.</p><p>One’s identity, in these wise teachings, is bigger than the boundary defined</p><p>by the body and is a part of all humanity. Our human belonging, Indigenous</p><p>knowledge suggests, is even broader than our connections within humanity</p><p>—it extends to embrace all of nature. We are siblings of the family of all</p><p>living beings on Earth. Regaining that balance, individually and as a</p><p>society, will bring connection back into our lives while retaining the equally</p><p>important ways we thrive with our diversity.</p><p>The fundamental mechanism of integration potentially underlies how</p><p>systems function well in our world to promote harmony and health. By</p><p>delineating the differentiation and linkage components of integration, we</p><p>gain a practical way to identify sources of chaos and rigidity in our lives—</p><p>individually, socially, and ecologically—and to take action to liberate the</p><p>various levels of impaired integration at the root of these forms of suffering.</p><p>Our contemporary cultures may mold our modern minds toward linear</p><p>thinking and away from systems wisdom across the lifespan —which can</p><p>become set in adolescence, creating lifetime patterns—yet whatever our</p><p>place in life, our positionality, our developmental stage, we can participate</p><p>in this move toward integration.</p><p>Preparation for Separation and Change</p><p>Adolescence helps us prepare to separate from the familiarity of home, to</p><p>move out into the world, to widen our lens of identity so that we can</p><p>embrace a larger set of experiences that will define us, expanding our</p><p>circles of connection, broadening our belonging. This preparation draws on</p><p>our ESSENCE so that our passion fuels our emotional</p><p>spark, our drive for</p><p>connections establishes social engagement to support us as we venture off,</p><p>our courage enables us to seek novelty and take on new experiences, and</p><p>our imagination empowers us to creatively explore the world. There are</p><p>downsides to each of these four foundations: feeling overwhelmed by our</p><p>emotions, feeling pressured to conform in order to belong, being harmed by</p><p>risky behavior, and experiencing disillusionment upon seeing the world as</p><p>different from what we imagined. Yet we can hold on to this ESSENCE to</p><p>enrich us for the rest of our lives—and to help us dispel the myth of the</p><p>solo-self in modern society.</p><p>As adults we carry the view that we’ve worked hard to find our niche in</p><p>life, we’ve settled into the world we’ve adapted to and are now trying to</p><p>maintain, and we may feel threatened by the ESSENCE of adolescents, the</p><p>next generations, who challenge the status quo. While our adult brain may</p><p>long for things to remain the same, evolution has programmed adolescents</p><p>—teenagers and individuals in their twenties—to have passion, to crave</p><p>collaborative connection, to express courage and imagination, which can</p><p>make us feel uneasy. If we, as adults, have forgotten our ESSENCE, whose</p><p>core features help us live a vital and integrative life, we eschew these</p><p>characteristics when we see them in others, adolescent or adult, who</p><p>challenge business as usual.</p><p>Yet, drawing on the three deep subcortical pathways to correct, connect,</p><p>and protect, described in the INFANCY chapter, we are also empowered to</p><p>move beyond the deeper survival reactions of fight, flight, freeze, and faint.</p><p>Yes, the world’s pandemics—and adolescents’ intense desire to feel their</p><p>ESSENCE in response to them—can make us feel threatened. And this</p><p>threat is about issues of life and death. Our challenge ahead is to move</p><p>beyond this sense of threat, to support one another in liberating ourselves</p><p>from the automatic pilot states of reactivity, and cultivate a receptive state</p><p>of mind that enables us to find solutions, working together—to enable our</p><p>collective ESSENCE to address these existential threats to all life on Earth.</p><p>As adolescents ready themselves to leave home, they take these</p><p>foundations of development into their lives and effectively take Louis</p><p>Pasteur’s advice: “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Knowing these facts</p><p>can help us find a way forward, away from the comfort of our settled,</p><p>established world, beyond the business-as-usual fixation in our modern</p><p>culture. As we relearn important skills of connection, as we become more</p><p>aware of our inner mental lives and learn to live beyond automatic</p><p>responses in thought and behavior, we can intentionally tap into our</p><p>capacity to bring integration into the world. MWe all need to support each</p><p>other’s ways of finding and maintaining our ESSENCE and to empower</p><p>each other in the collective journey of both our human family and the</p><p>family of all living beings as an intraconnected system of Earth.</p><p>LEAVING HOME</p><p>At home and during our early years of education, we build the foundation for a shared</p><p>mental construction of reality as our brains are molded by the messages we</p><p>receive about the nature of the world. This “home life” may also be a</p><p>metaphorical business as usual (BAU) developmental phase for our current</p><p>state of cultural evolution. BAU is home base for both children and adults.</p><p>Adolescence may be that window of opportunity for letting go of the</p><p>familiarity of home, for us individually, and of the familiarity of BAU, for</p><p>us collectively. In our first dozen or so years of life, we learn how the world</p><p>is and what knowledge and skills we need to survive. Adolescence, in</p><p>preparing us to leave the familiarity of home, offers us a chance to rethink</p><p>what has meaning in life and to imagine how the world can be and how we</p><p>think it should be.</p><p>Then we leave home. This moment in life—leaving home—presents us</p><p>with a deep challenge: to try to survive based on skills learned from home</p><p>life, yet on our own, away from home base, but with our peers—a world</p><p>that may require much more than our homegrown learnings. For humanity,</p><p>the metaphoric notion of leaving home might require a similar set of skills</p><p>beyond BAU, a new way to perceive that may invite us both to unlearn our</p><p>home-base learnings of BAU and to learn anew with a wider lens on reality.</p><p>If this proposal of seeing the transformation of adolescence as truly</p><p>parallel to what is now challenging us as a species is useful, what can we do</p><p>to remodel our selves to handle these contemporary challenges well and</p><p>cultivate not only resilience but also a regenerative way of living? Can we</p><p>harness the ESSENCE—as a developing human family—to have the</p><p>emotional spark and passion, the social engagement and connection, the</p><p>novelty-seeking and courage, and the creative exploration and imagination</p><p>to move beyond BAU and create the world our intuition and wisdom deeply</p><p>know we need?</p><p>Figure 8.1 Mindsight lens.</p><p>A Mindsight Lens</p><p>To begin the journey of leaving home, we need to stabilize a lens through</p><p>which we take in experience. A simple visual metaphor is that of a camera</p><p>to imagine how we sense the energy flow of experience—a “mindsight</p><p>lens” (Figure 8.1). Just as a camera lens focuses the energy of light from the</p><p>surrounding world, the mindsight lens focuses our attention and takes in the</p><p>energy flow from what we focus on inside, in our mental lives. If the lens is</p><p>unstable, what we sense will be blurry—unfocused, lacking detail, unclear,</p><p>and indecipherable. If we stabilize the lens, we can focus what we see and</p><p>take in details with depth and breadth, the images are clear for us to</p><p>perceive.</p><p>How do we stabilize the mindsight lens? Continuing the analogy of the</p><p>camera, we can use a tripod (Figure 8.1), comprised of three legs:</p><p>1. Openness—being receptive to what is</p><p>2. Objectivity—sensing input as objects of the mind</p><p>3. Observation—knowing there is an agent of sensing</p><p>Openness is a state of receptivity to taking in whatever arises with minimal</p><p>filtration of what emerges; letting go of expectation and prior learning as</p><p>best we can. Objectivity is the capacity to perceive that what we are taking</p><p>in is a product of the mind—an object—that we can then see from a bit of</p><p>distance rather than becoming lost in it with fusion or confusion.</p><p>Observation empowers us to have layers of attention. One layer might be on</p><p>the energy flow being shared with our inter-self, the relationships we have</p><p>in our connections with people and the planet; another layer would keep in</p><p>direct touch with our inner-self, our internal flow of energy and information</p><p>within the body. This observational capacity lets us choose where we focus</p><p>our attention, lets us adjust our lens of identity, to use the contents of this</p><p>awareness in integrative ways and then to select, moment by moment,</p><p>adaptive and flexible behaviors in response to our rapidly changing world.</p><p>When we stabilize our mindsight lens with openness, objectivity, and</p><p>observation, we can work directly with our own vulnerabilities, including a</p><p>proclivity to be on autopilot with such issues as implicit racial bias and with</p><p>our reactive states of fight, flight, freeze, or faint. We can also become</p><p>aware of the automatic tendency to be taken over by the three subcortical</p><p>networks of distress, creating anger, sadness, and fear, that drive us to</p><p>correct, connect, or protect. With a stabilized mindsight lens of openness,</p><p>objectivity, and observation, we can more clearly see maladaptive</p><p>attachment strategies of survival that may activate when we are under</p><p>stress.</p><p>In many ways, stabilizing or strengthening our mindsight lens is the</p><p>fundamental skill we all need: individually, to be ready for the world when</p><p>we leave the familiarity of home, and as a human family, to transform our</p><p>BAU cultural habits and to collectively address the pandemics we face</p><p>today.</p><p>How do we stabilize and strengthen our mindsight lens? What challenges</p><p>do we face in learning these core capacities? How might we learn how our</p><p>individual minds—our own</p><p>sense of self, identity, and belonging—support</p><p>or hinder how we work collectively to see the world clearly and to move it</p><p>in a positive, integrative direction?</p><p>If we are holding on to a fixed mind-set, we may feel—individually and</p><p>perhaps communally—as if these conditions we face, these challenges in</p><p>modern life, reveal our failure. While we may cling to what is familiar and</p><p>convenient, deep inside, beneath awareness, we may have a sense of</p><p>hopelessness and despondency. A fixed mind-set can bring up the</p><p>helplessness and despair of what is called a “shame state.”</p><p>This feeling of shame, which many of us hold deep inside, carries with it</p><p>a belief that we are fundamentally inadequate as we are, flawed in some</p><p>essential way, perhaps defective in our core. Shame can be so painful that it</p><p>often persists beneath our awareness, yet the mental model—the plateau of</p><p>a shame state of mind in our 3-P framework—continues to filter our</p><p>thoughts, emotions, narratives, and behaviors, limiting which peaks of</p><p>actuality are allowed to emerge.</p><p>A state of mind is depicted in our 3-P diagram as a plateau, with its</p><p>specific emotions, thoughts, memories, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors</p><p>represented as those peaks arising directly from it. In this diagram, a “state</p><p>of shame” can be seen as a filter that selectively engages negative mental</p><p>activities—from thinking to actions—that reflect this state of mind in which</p><p>the inner self is viewed as defective. Plateaus—our states of mind—can</p><p>often be beneath awareness, yet their outcomes—the peaks of emotion and</p><p>memory—can preoccupy the mental life of the individual.</p><p>Figure 8.2 The plateau of shame.</p><p>Those of us who have a sense of shame may also have a sense of</p><p>helplessness. Unlike with guilt, when we’ve actually performed a wrong act</p><p>—a past behavior that we can correct in the future—with shame we feel and</p><p>believe that we are inherently inadequate or fundamentally flawed and that</p><p>there is nothing we can do about it. For those of us who experience this, an</p><p>intense conviction that such beliefs are accurate makes even simple</p><p>conversations like this one painful and for this reason often avoided.</p><p>Whatever fixed plateaus we’ve developed from our experiences and</p><p>whatever ways to best adapt to life’s challenges we’ve learned, if these</p><p>states of mind are too rigid, if they do not permit access to the many other</p><p>ways of being that arise from the plane of possibility, then we may feel</p><p>imprisoned by the past and stuck, prevented from moving forward. Even the</p><p>BAU of how we’ve learned to be and act in the world, including the</p><p>business as usual of the solo-self of modern culture, may be an underlying</p><p>plateau that constricts our ability to move ahead in our individual and in our</p><p>collective lives on Earth. Finding access to the plane of possibility—the hub</p><p>of our metaphoric Wheel of Awareness—offers one way of visualizing how</p><p>we might approach the challenges ahead in a more effective and enduring</p><p>manner. For those who practice the Wheel, as perhaps you have been</p><p>exploring from the Appendix, learning how to access the hub offers a</p><p>practical tool for building resilience as we, individually and collectively,</p><p>work to bring more integrative growth to our world and confront the many</p><p>pandemics that challenge us in these modern times.</p><p>From Grief to Growth</p><p>Leaving home invites us to reimagine who we are and who we might</p><p>become. Sometimes that reflective process gives rise to a deep sense of</p><p>sadness that what we thought we had—security, certainty, solidity—was</p><p>just an illusion our minds created in an effort to do the best we could. In the</p><p>awareness of the plane of possibility, we may come to sense the plateaus of</p><p>expectation and the specific peaks of thought and emotion we planned to</p><p>have in our life. Yet for us as a human family, moving forward may involve</p><p>sensing what environmental philosophers Glenn Albrecht and colleagues</p><p>(2007) have named the “Earth emotions”—including that of solastalgia, the</p><p>feeling of longing we sense in our bones for a biodiverse planet that now is</p><p>dying away: “distress that is produced by environmental change impacting</p><p>people while they are directly connected to their home environment”</p><p>(Albrecht et al., 2007, p.S95).</p><p>Grief is necessary for us to grow in the face of loss, and we must make time</p><p>for grief. For example, activist and systems scholar Joanna Macy, in her</p><p>approach called the “Work That Reconnects,” first invites participants to</p><p>grieve the loss of the world they thought they once had to become fully</p><p>open to the world as it is. This first step of grief is necessary for growth and</p><p>for us, as individuals, to be present for the world and to have openness,</p><p>objectivity, and observation. And this grief enables us to work together to</p><p>see the world’s challenges, the many pandemics we face, and to find</p><p>solutions to social injustice, misinformation and polarization, attention-</p><p>addiction, environmental destruction, and even a rapidly spreading virus,</p><p>which all compromise our well-being as siblings in the family of life on</p><p>Earth as “planet people” (Macy and Johnstone, 2022).</p><p>To permit us to feel all that is emerging, we can envision the capacity of</p><p>the hub of the Wheel of Awareness being strengthened as we build</p><p>resilience by expanding our awareness. Recall that the hub of the</p><p>metaphoric wheel symbolizes the knowing of consciousness, of being</p><p>aware. If we have a limited size container of consciousness, then a life</p><p>stressor will make our awareness overwhelmed, just as a tablespoon of salt</p><p>in a cup of water is too salty to drink. If we had a much greater size</p><p>container for our awareness (if instead of a thimble- or espresso-cup-size</p><p>container, which many of us may have, our awareness was expanded to be</p><p>one hundred gallons in size), we would have the capacity to manage that</p><p>stressor, just as one hundred gallons of water with a tablespoon of salt</p><p>mixed into it is drinkable—the salt is undetectable. For us to resiliently and</p><p>creatively approach the challenges our world now faces, we need to become</p><p>receptive to the emotional experiences that arise. We can begin to do this</p><p>using practices that open our awareness, letting us feel fully the grief of</p><p>what we’ve lost and thence become available to embrace the possibilities of</p><p>what can become. This is how we “train the mind” to prepare us for the</p><p>work ahead—to build stress resilience by “expecting the unexpected” (Epel,</p><p>2022).</p><p>Keeping our inner mind healthy to take on the challenges of contributing</p><p>to a vibrant inter-mind is essential. Research reveals that doing “three-</p><p>pillar” mind training (Figure 8.3) can build our well-being in empirically</p><p>demonstrated ways. Doing such a practice on a regular basis, for a</p><p>minimum of about 12 minutes a day—a daily dozen—has positive effects</p><p>on our well-being, increasing integrative function and structure in the</p><p>head’s brain, including helpful growth of (1) the corpus callosum (linking</p><p>the two cortical halves); (2) the hippocampus (linking dispersed memory</p><p>systems); (3) the prefrontal cortex (linking the anatomically distinct regions</p><p>of the cortex, limbic areas, brain stem, and body and interlinking these with</p><p>input from other people—the social world of other embodied brains); and</p><p>(4) the interconnections of the connectome (interlinking, in function and</p><p>structure, distinct and anatomically separate areas of the brain). These are</p><p>four ways we structurally and functionally develop neural integration—the</p><p>linking of differentiated parts of our embodied brain. Studies by Smith and</p><p>colleagues (2015) suggest that a more integrated brain, as evidenced by a</p><p>more interconnected connectome, robustly predicts many measures of well-</p><p>being. In addition, as summarized by Villamil and colleagues (2019),</p><p>studies of practices involving the various components of three pillar mind</p><p>practice result in improvements in several measures of physiological well-</p><p>being, including: 1) decrease in the stress hormone cortisol; 2) enhanced</p><p>immune system functioning; 3) improved cardiovascular health; 4)</p><p>diminished systemic</p><p>inflammation via modulations in epigenetic regulation</p><p>of the inflammatory response; and 5) optimization of telomerase, the</p><p>enzyme that repairs and maintains the vital ends of the chromosomes, our</p><p>telomeres. Overall, these improvements (especially the last one) show that</p><p>what we do with our mind’s attention and awareness can slow the aging</p><p>process and enhance medical well-being.</p><p>Figure 8.3 Three pillars of mind training.</p><p>One way to get in your daily three pillars is with the Wheel of</p><p>Awareness practice I describe in the TODDLERHOOD chapter (and</p><p>explore in more detail in the WHEEL appendix). Perhaps you’ve been</p><p>trying out the Wheel practice during your journey with this book. If you</p><p>haven’t, you can get a sense from the description that this practice includes</p><p>strengthening the focus of attention, opening awareness, and building kind</p><p>intention toward the inner, inter, and integrated self. While the research has</p><p>generally been done on different, separate practices for each of the pillars,</p><p>the Wheel of Awareness combines all three in one flowing experience. If</p><p>you try this or any practice that integrates the three pillars, you may come to</p><p>see this as a practical way to open your awareness to intraconnection, to</p><p>feel your relational sense more fully, and to access the wisdom of systems-</p><p>intelligence in your life.</p><p>Lessons from the Wheel of Awareness</p><p>The Wheel of Awareness practice has several steps. Briefly (see the</p><p>WHEEL Appendix), in this reflective exercise one envisions the center of</p><p>consciousness—the knowing of awareness, of being aware—as a hub of a</p><p>metaphoric wheel, surrounded by a rim that represents a wide range of what</p><p>we can become aware of (the knowns), which are linked to the hub by a</p><p>singular wheel spoke, representing the connection between the knowing and</p><p>the known. In the practice, attention is systematically focused and directed</p><p>along the rim; with practice, this strengthens our awareness, our sense of</p><p>connection, and our ability to focus our lens of attention across a wide</p><p>range of experiences.</p><p>When I began teaching the Wheel of Awareness outside my therapy suite</p><p>—with students, therapists, and workshop participants—something very</p><p>powerful emerged: Existential angst began to melt away. Feelings of being</p><p>whole, of feeling at ease, began to fill participants’ lives. While I knew</p><p>from clinical practice that the Wheel of Awareness was helpful for specific</p><p>impairments to integration, which took the form of trauma or anxiety, I</p><p>didn’t know what to expect from a broader, nonclinical group using this</p><p>integration-of-consciousness practice.</p><p>To share these observations and their implications for our discussion of</p><p>self, identity, and belonging with you, let me walk you through an advanced</p><p>step of the practice (see Figure 8.4): After focusing attention on each of the</p><p>first three segments of the rim, we now bend the spoke around and aim it at</p><p>the hub itself, at our knowing. For some, the visual image of turning the</p><p>spoke was helpful, and for others it was helpful to visualize the spoke</p><p>reaching out to the rim and then pulling back to the center. These images</p><p>guided their experience toward becoming aware of awareness, dropping</p><p>into open awareness itself.</p><p>Each morning when I do the Wheel practice, I experience a shift of</p><p>various sensations—each day is different from the last, yet all involve the</p><p>experience of subjective sense (felt texture of experience, the feel of energy</p><p>flow), perspective (the perceptual direction, the point of view of that flow),</p><p>and agency (the intention and action arising from that flow, a source of</p><p>motion—even if just in moving the spoke around the rim or back to the</p><p>hub). Immersion in the hub has a sense of openness, timelessness,</p><p>connectedness; a perspective from wholeness; an agency that feels not of</p><p>action but of a center of possibility, of potential action without motion. In</p><p>these ways, each of the three aspects of “self”-experience we’ve been</p><p>exploring shift during the practice of the Wheel—sensation, perspective,</p><p>and agency unfold in new ways each day and in emerging ways throughout</p><p>the elements of the practice. Practicing the Wheel of Awareness enables a</p><p>fixed, noun-like self-experience to expand and transform toward a more</p><p>verb-like emergence.</p><p>Figure 8.4 The Wheel of Awareness: The standard practice (top) shifts attention,</p><p>emanating from the hub, along a range of locations to various categories of knowns,</p><p>represented along the rim. An advanced step (bottom) turns the spoke back onto the hub</p><p>for the experience of open awareness, of being receptively aware and of being aware of</p><p>awareness.</p><p>As I described in the TODDLERHOOD chapter, this practice may be</p><p>permitting the mind to experience the plane of possibility in pure form—not</p><p>aware of something, just aware. And in this state, there are no entities, only</p><p>verb-like events, unfoldings that are massively interconnected from the</p><p>perspective of each event and intraconnected from the perspective of the</p><p>unity of the diversity of the whole. The experience has a feeling that the</p><p>Wheel practitioners’ commonly reported phrase, “empty-yet-full,” attempts</p><p>to capture. This directly felt experience has been shared by so many people</p><p>that I began to explore research findings beyond brain studies to determine</p><p>if there might be a scientific view that is consistent with this subjectively</p><p>felt sense of fullness; this open, connected, timeless state. The discoveries</p><p>of physics and the notion of the sea of potential—the “formless source of all</p><p>form” as a mathematical space known as the “quantum vacuum”—might</p><p>help us understand what the energy state, the probability position, of pure</p><p>awareness may be arising from, embedded in, or inherent to. Odd as it feels</p><p>to write this, the findings suggest that the knowing of consciousness, the</p><p>experience of being aware, may be an emergent aspect of the quantum state</p><p>of maximal uncertainty—the plane of possibility in our 3-P diagram—the</p><p>generator of diversity from which all manifestations emerge.</p><p>If we empower ourselves to live life from the plane of possibility and to</p><p>intentionally cultivate our relational sense, we can liberate ourselves from</p><p>the often-constricted vision of persistent plateaus and their limited</p><p>definitions of various versions of the solo-self, singular or plural. We can let</p><p>peaks arise directly from the plane, unfiltered by those innate or learned</p><p>plateaus of separation that segregate and constrict our potential. We can</p><p>thus liberate ourselves to participate freely and fully in the integrative flow</p><p>of a compassionate and kind world, the birthright of us all.</p><p>Science, Spirituality, Subjectivity</p><p>How do we come by the experience of being mindful, of opening our</p><p>awareness to a wider sense of who we are? Not long ago, my friend Jack</p><p>Kornfield asked me this question when we first met, and for reasons I did</p><p>not understand at the time, I brought up the horse accident I shared with you</p><p>early in our journey. A few hours later he called me, and during our</p><p>conversation he said something like, “Do you realize that people try for</p><p>decades to achieve what you got by accident?” That made no sense to me, I</p><p>told Jack. “People meditate to loosen the grip of their sense of self as</p><p>separate. Meditation frees you from an illusion of separation—that is a</p><p>basic teaching of Buddhist practice.” I hadn’t spoken much about the</p><p>accident in the decades since turning twenty, but I had always wondered</p><p>about the feeling of freedom I had felt—whether it might be from a brain</p><p>injury or existential awakening or something else. It felt energizing, and</p><p>somehow relieving, I told Jack, to share this experience with him.</p><p>“Welcome to the family” he said.</p><p>Over the years I’ve learned, partly through my relationship and teaching</p><p>with Jack Kornfield, about the contemplative tradition of Buddhism, and as</p><p>I’ve mentioned, I’ve had the opportunity to teach alongside his Holiness,</p><p>the Dalai Lama. The insights I’ve gained from these and so many other</p><p>individuals from various Western, Eastern, and Indigenous traditions</p><p>struggling now between writing “I” in the first-person way, to</p><p>speak of “my” experience, or as “Dan,” in the third-person perspective, as if</p><p>you and I could refer to him and “his” experience. Let’s start with the third-</p><p>person perspective here, and then switch back to first-person after this</p><p>initial exploration. Dan was born in a body with an XY chromosomal make-</p><p>up, a genetic male, and happened to identify mentally as male, so one might</p><p>call him “cisgender”; Dan had a heterosexual orientation—he was sexually</p><p>attracted to females—and had pale skin, and in this way was identified with</p><p>the mental and social construction of race often known as white. Dan was</p><p>born into a social context that had the features of the dominant grouping, a</p><p>privileged position in the United States in which he felt his identity—a</p><p>white, heterosexual, cisgender male, born into a middle class family—was</p><p>accepted. The family and body that Dan was born into—the context, the</p><p>“positionality” of this person called Dan—and the fact that his identity</p><p>aligned with where he was situated, meant that he did not need to think</p><p>about his position in society nor whether it might limit anything he might</p><p>wish to do. That is privilege.</p><p>Right at this moment, inside this body, is such a push to avoid using</p><p>words like I, me, or my. It feels as if these words contradict one of the</p><p>premises of our journey: the importance of a broader, intraconnected sense</p><p>of MWe. Yet to embrace the integrated components of me and of we, the</p><p>differentiation of each is necessary—and so it now begins to feel right to</p><p>offer a first-person perspective on self, identity, and belonging and see</p><p>where MWe can go with that. Moving back now to a first-person</p><p>perspective, I thank you for being together in this exploration and invite you</p><p>to reflect on your on positionality in life and the social worlds in which you</p><p>grew and now live.</p><p>I was a child filled with curiosity and wonder about our world, excited as</p><p>much to be with people as I was with the various animals and plants that</p><p>populated our backyard. After public primary and secondary school—in</p><p>which my proclivity toward dance and my aversion to competitive sports</p><p>may have made me not fit in with the expectations of a young American</p><p>boy, my empowerment to act on these preferences demonstrated my</p><p>privilege: I was accepted when I applied to enter the girls’ modern dance</p><p>class in high school. I attended a private university (where my father was a</p><p>college professor and my mother had received her master’s degree in</p><p>education before becoming a vice principal at my high school—after I left).</p><p>So, you can see we were and are an educated clan, filled with ideas and</p><p>trained in modernity through the lens of Western education. This is the</p><p>positionality and the perspective on reality in which I grew. My experience</p><p>of self, my sensation, perspective, and agency (which I like to refer to as my</p><p>“SPA of self” to readily recall these core components) was shaped by the</p><p>context of the culture in which I was born and raised. In a position of</p><p>privilege, I never felt that my identity would limit how I might pursue what</p><p>had meaning in my life.</p><p>Just as in my earlier education, in college I did well academically,</p><p>learning in a linear, reductionistically-oriented way how to analyze, from</p><p>the viewpoint of Western science, the components of whatever topic we</p><p>were focusing on in narrow detail. I’m sure that mental exercise activated</p><p>my left mode a great deal. I majored in biochemistry and did my honors</p><p>research on chemical reactions in fish that enabled them to move to their</p><p>new saltwater surroundings after hatching in freshwater. While the larger</p><p>question was “How does this species of fish survive in the new, oceanic</p><p>world?”, the work focused on how an oxygen molecule was added to a</p><p>trimethylamine molecule by an enzyme, which we were desperate to find in</p><p>the kidneys and liver … and did. But even in the excitement of that linear</p><p>expedition where details about the molecules mattered, I had a nagging</p><p>feeling that there was something more, a bigger picture view. With that</p><p>burning curiosity filling my belly, I took a tai chi chuan class, studying how</p><p>the symbolic movement of this ancient dynamic mindfulness practice could</p><p>embody the philosophical principles of Taoist thought; at the same time, I</p><p>worked on a nighttime suicide prevention hotline and joined the ballroom</p><p>dance team. But even with all those attempts to broaden my experience in</p><p>college, likely trying to access and exercise my right mode to balance out</p><p>my life, I had the painful feeling of not belonging at the school or with my</p><p>fellow students. The predominant thought seemed to be, find a job that pays</p><p>well and move along. Something didn’t feel quite right; and perhaps that,</p><p>too, was my privilege, to even question that commonly accepted line of</p><p>thinking. I was intensely doubting what I was told, and I tended to question</p><p>everything, which bothered teachers a bit, I imagined, and seemed to</p><p>alienate me from many of my classmates.</p><p>Where did I belong in life? Ever since I became a teenager, I felt I</p><p>belonged by the side of the creek, way up in the canyons carved through the</p><p>hills of West Hollywood, miles from my small Spanish style home in the</p><p>flats of Los Angeles, where I lived with my parents and brother, who was</p><p>three years older than I. Even before I was an adolescent, when I was out in</p><p>nature, I felt deeply relaxed and at home. I identified as a living being and</p><p>felt the animals and plants were my siblings. Though I knew I was a person,</p><p>not a mushroom or mulberry bush or mouse, I simply felt at home with the</p><p>newts and birds along that creekside more than I did with the teenagers in</p><p>junior high or with my high school or college classmates later on. I loved all</p><p>living things, including people; I just felt disconnected from my peers and</p><p>didn’t quite understand how to engage in the social setups that seemed to</p><p>dominate adolescent life. I was so fascinated with the world and living</p><p>beings that I chose to study biochemistry after high school. My love for fish</p><p>landed me a research assistantship looking for that enzyme that let them</p><p>survive their development from river to sea. I suppose on some level I was</p><p>looking for answers to questions I couldn’t even articulate then: how we</p><p>live in one state, and then how we survive the transition from that state to</p><p>where we are growing toward—the fundamental question of development.</p><p>My son, Alex Siegel, composed a song called “Good Leg” that expresses</p><p>this sentiment exactly: “I had too many questions for all the answers I was</p><p>told.” In many ways, this is what our conversation is about—how do we</p><p>grow and change in changing times?</p><p>In college as a biology student, I took a class on video ethnography—</p><p>studying other cultures through the lens of documentary film. I was</p><p>fascinated to become immersed, even at a distance, in the various world</p><p>views and ways of living that the human mind could construct in the</p><p>different social settings that we call society and culture. I was so inspired by</p><p>the anthropology teacher of that course that I chose to sign up for a summer</p><p>project with him to study the impact of modernization on the Indigenous</p><p>cultures in rural Mexico. The Miguel Aleman Dam was to be expanded, and</p><p>the loss of land and livelihood for the local people in the surrounding</p><p>villages was of concern to the United Nations and its World Health</p><p>Organization. I was intrigued by my teacher’s invitation to leave the safety</p><p>of the classroom, to go out and live in another culture. Under my</p><p>professor’s leadership, a group of us went to study various aspects of</p><p>community life in Mexico. My team focused on health care—we were to</p><p>investigate the healing practitioners and how they interacted within the</p><p>medical care system of the region. We arrived and met in Tuxtepec, a large</p><p>town hundreds of miles south of the huge metropolis of Mexico City, and</p><p>then two of us on the “folk healer” team—a colleague from the UN and I—</p><p>were transported to a small village, dozens of miles away,</p><p>as</p><p>well as what I’ve learned directly from immersion in meditative reflection</p><p>have opened the door for me to find consilience—a common ground—</p><p>beneath a range of religious traditions. What strikes me so deeply in the</p><p>wide-ranging and fascinating conversations I’ve had among the broad array</p><p>of religious, spiritual, Indigenous, and contemplative thinkers is how the</p><p>consilience among these various ways of living and thinking, ways of being</p><p>in this life, illuminate how we can discuss identity and belonging.</p><p>Yet collaborative conversations across these traditions, according to</p><p>those I’ve had the opportunity to share these ideas with, seem to be rare.</p><p>I’ve even encountered the notion that any narrative we have is false:</p><p>Everything is everything, all is one, and to divide it in any way in a story</p><p>you come to believe is true is an error—a form of “dualistic thinking” that</p><p>keeps one from discovering the truth of the whole. Others—such as some</p><p>within the Buddhist tradition (e.g., the Dalai Lama and Zen master Thich</p><p>Nhat Hahn), where nondualism is sometimes discussed—express a view</p><p>that we have what might be called a “relative,” “conventional,” or “close-</p><p>up” perspective and we also have a broader, “ultimate” or absolute</p><p>perspective. They believe each is valid, both are important: The close-up</p><p>view corresponds to our narrow focus of self-experience, and the broader</p><p>view, to our wide-angle focus as a part of the universal whole.</p><p>An integrative view embraces the differentiation of elements and their</p><p>linkages in a synergistic whole as the way in which complex systems</p><p>optimally self-organize to achieve the most adaptive, flexible, coherent,</p><p>energized, and stable states—to flow in harmony. Self, identity, and</p><p>belonging have an inner facet, an inter facet, and an intra facet. Each are</p><p>important, each with a role in our lives. We sense these facets through</p><p>adjusting our identity lens from narrow—within—and broad—between and</p><p>among—opening to the integration of self and belonging as an</p><p>intraconnected whole.</p><p>Is this a story of our inner self, the preoccupations perhaps of a head-</p><p>brain that is driven by a compulsion to make sense, to construct a narrative</p><p>we hope will coherently embrace reality? Yes, perhaps it is. Yet this is our</p><p>legacy, as human beings, as a narrative species: We are born into a body, an</p><p>animal body, a somatic reality with a long, long ancestral history. Denying</p><p>that reality, as Melanie Challenger (2021) suggests, is a denial of our “being</p><p>animal” that has dire consequences for us individually and collectively. The</p><p>head-brain’s susceptibility to construct an identity as separate when</p><p>reinforced by linear thinking and cultural messages of individuality can</p><p>make us prone to limiting our belonging, to disconnecting from other</p><p>members of our human family, to believing we are separate from not only</p><p>other species of animals, but from all of nature. Believing we are separate is</p><p>a limiting story—a narrative we on this journey are naming as a violation of</p><p>epistemic trust—a story that, if taken as the whole truth, can explain the</p><p>suffering we are living in, the suffering we are creating from the false</p><p>narrative of self-as-separate.</p><p>As a story-telling species, then, we can reflect on where we are and even</p><p>come to recognize—to re-think—how our own modern narrative of self,</p><p>identity, and belonging have led us astray from living a life of health. We</p><p>can intentionally course-correct; it is not too late. Awakening to our</p><p>mistaken identity as a solo-self, we can now construct anew what the term</p><p>“self” really indicates: inner, inter and intra facets of sensation, perspective,</p><p>and agency. We can cocreate this awakened story as we move ourselves,</p><p>with intention, openness, care, and collaboration, into a future that is not</p><p>something we passively report about but that we can live into and create</p><p>with purpose and meaning.</p><p>Stories do not have to limit us or deceive us; it is through the co-</p><p>construction of narratives that we create culture. And culture can evolve.</p><p>Narrative itself is neither good nor bad—stories are the way we remember</p><p>and construct our lives; it is the nature of those stories, not the narrative</p><p>process, that will determine our present and our futures. What will be the</p><p>new story of our human family emerging in these challenging times? What</p><p>integrative narrative of our lives as a family of nature—beyond members of</p><p>our personal family and even of our human family, as an intraconnected</p><p>family of all life on Earth—can we feel and live into?</p><p>Sometimes our narrative propensities, imbued as they often are with a drive</p><p>for the safety of certainty and predictability, can get in the way of co-</p><p>constructing a coherent story of our identity and who we are capable of</p><p>collectively and individually becoming. When we investigate the stories</p><p>about mindfulness from neuroscience, we glean clues as to what might be</p><p>challenging us, as a species, to take on the necessary developmental</p><p>changes to face our contemporary conditions. The positive impact of</p><p>mindfulness meditation—learning to focus attention, to open awareness,</p><p>and (part of this definition, for some) to cultivate kind intention—can be</p><p>correlated with quieting an overactive DMN, that default mode network we</p><p>discussed earlier as a mostly midline set of cortical regions in the brain.</p><p>Since an overactive, highly differentiated DMN is associated with anxiety,</p><p>depression, and preoccupation with the solo-self, when we free our self</p><p>from that prison, we come to feel connected within and connected between.</p><p>An integrative, well-balanced DMN plays a critical role in our well-being,</p><p>contributing to our insight and our empathy as a gateway for compassion.</p><p>When the DMN’s pathways are excessively differentiated and not linked</p><p>well with the overall networks of the brain, this contributes to the chaos and</p><p>rigidity of nonintegrative living, a source of disconnection and suffering in</p><p>our lives.</p><p>Mindfulness training that includes focusing attention as well as opening</p><p>awareness and cultivating kindness—what we’ve named “three pillar mind</p><p>training”—can help reduce our stress levels and has been shown to increase</p><p>compassion. These findings suggest that training the mind in more</p><p>integrative ways than only focusing attention for a brief period of practice</p><p>helps us embrace the wider sense of self we need to support prosocial shifts</p><p>in behavior. Some preliminary studies in need of further elaboration suggest</p><p>that our self-construal may directly impact how these trainings influence</p><p>our development of prosocial behavior. If we have an individualistic stance</p><p>compared to an interdependent self-construal, as Michael Poulin and</p><p>colleagues (2021) suggest, we may not be as likely to reach out to help</p><p>others even if our attention is briefly trained to be more focused. If further</p><p>research verifies this observation, then aiming to construct a wider self-</p><p>construal, combined with mind strengthening practices, may be helpful as</p><p>we strive to cultivate a more collaborative and compassionate world.</p><p>In the seemingly distinct field that studies how we respond to exposure</p><p>to nature, researcher Dacher Keltner and colleagues (2003, 2016) have</p><p>found that feeling awe leads to an increased sense of belonging and</p><p>connection—and to prosocial behaviors. In my discussions with Keltner, we</p><p>explored how the historical term “self-transcendent emotions” for the</p><p>grouping of awe along with gratitude and compassion might be more</p><p>appropriately named “self-expanding” emotions. Collective findings in the</p><p>study of awe and the impact of self-construal on prosocial behavior suggest</p><p>that a key may be not to lose, to go beyond, or “transcend” the self, but to</p><p>expand the self—dissolve the domination of the solo-self and integrate our</p><p>identity by opening to the many layers of self-experience, close-up and</p><p>wide-angle, as we broaden our belonging and move from being a noun only</p><p>to living life also as a verb.</p><p>Sometimes we want to figure out what we should be doing to help. This</p><p>makes sense in our body-oriented world—let’s</p><p>deep in the</p><p>foothills of the mountains that divide the country down the middle, with the</p><p>Pacific Ocean to the west and the Gulf of Mexico to the east.</p><p>The hills were glistening green, summer just arriving in this old</p><p>community in which people from the Zapotec and Chinantec cultures lived</p><p>together peacefully. I found the local village health center, which was run</p><p>by a Western medical doctor from Mexico City. I interviewed this physician</p><p>and several of the foot doctors, as they called them: local members of the</p><p>community who served the roles of paramedics and nurse practitioners. My</p><p>next task was to investigate how the dam’s influences had interfaced with</p><p>the more traditional approach to medical care, the curanderos or folk</p><p>healers, since the dam was constructed.</p><p>One healer, La Reina de los Hongos, the queen of the mushrooms, was</p><p>widely known and lived a few mountain ridges away in the neighboring</p><p>state of Oaxaca; we arranged to borrow some local horses to make our way</p><p>to interview her the next day. At around five in the morning, a band started</p><p>playing outside our window—a group of musicians entertaining the farmers</p><p>who would come weekly for a local market. By six in the morning, it was</p><p>time to rustle out of bed, have some eggs and chorizo for breakfast, and</p><p>then head out to the horse ranch down the road to get set up to set out for</p><p>our trip to see the mushroom queen.</p><p>I remember seeing the three horses they brought out from the corral. My</p><p>UN colleague and the fifteen-year-old boy from our house took the first</p><p>two, older and larger, horses; I got on the smaller, younger horse, and off</p><p>we went. When we left the main road and headed up into the hills, I saw a</p><p>wide trail, flat at first, bordered on one side by the lush brush and on the</p><p>other, a ravine. I recall the excitement of the adventure, loving being back</p><p>on a horse, going on a journey of discovery. Our young companion yelled</p><p>out, “Vamanos!” And away we went.</p><p>The next thing I remember is the image of a large syringe, which the</p><p>medical director was holding up to my face, and being in the clinic that I</p><p>was studying. The doctor laughed and said, in Spanish, that I could get</p><p>some gold teeth to fill in where my teeth had been broken, and they would</p><p>try to fix my nose and repair my arm.</p><p>I would later piece together, from what the doctor said and then what my</p><p>colleague told me, that while my horse was at a full gallop, the saddle</p><p>loosened and my whole body turned to the horse’s belly, and he apparently</p><p>ran even faster then, with my feet caught in the stirrups and dragging my</p><p>head across the stones that lined the road, for over a hundred yards. They</p><p>thought I must be dead—or, when they heard my moans, that I had at least</p><p>broken my neck with all the banging along the rock-strewn path.</p><p>I did break some bones and lose some teeth, which ultimately got fixed</p><p>up. But I also lost something that sparked a lifelong shift for me: I had</p><p>broken my sense of personal identity—I had no idea who I was! And I had</p><p>no idea what anything was! For about the next twenty-four hours, although</p><p>I was wide awake and I could eat and drink (even past the broken teeth and</p><p>swollen face), I was immersed in a wordless world.</p><p>I remember being served a meal that day in the back room of the clinic</p><p>that they had set up for recovery. The round object that I now call a plate</p><p>shimmered at its edges. The colors of what I’d now call vegetables were</p><p>bursting from their origins—reds were red gone wild, greens melted into</p><p>purple hues. Their flavors were hilarious, intense, almost shouting out with</p><p>a music of taste, texture, and smell. The water was wet, filling the mouth,</p><p>smooth going down into the body. Resting there, feeling a fullness, sitting</p><p>back just watching the colors streaming through the window—dots, then</p><p>lines, that for some unknown reason made laughter arise. And you might</p><p>think that, with all these injuries, I’d feel pain, but somehow I felt joy. It’s</p><p>hard to describe this now, but for those twenty-four hours things just …</p><p>happened—things were just things being things, happenings happening.</p><p>I recall, after a dozen or so hours, asking my UN partner who I was. It’s</p><p>strange now to write this, but how could I even know there was someone to</p><p>be known if I no longer had an “I” that had a name as knower? Whatever</p><p>allowed that state to exist, I kept repeating the question, “Who am I?” I</p><p>recall that my companions didn’t think this was amusing at all, just</p><p>confusing for them—and they had the patience to tell me: “You are Dan.</p><p>You had an accident. You will be okay.” And then, moments or minutes or</p><p>hours later, I’d ask the same question again and receive their same patient</p><p>response, but it just didn’t seem to sink in.</p><p>That is, until the next morning. I woke up back in the room where I’d</p><p>been staying, with light streaming through the same windows where, early</p><p>the morning before, the local musicians had woken me up before that ill-</p><p>fated horseback ride. “Ill-fated or a gift?” I wonder now. I once again had</p><p>the experience of knowing my name: Dan. And I could recall the history of</p><p>who I’d been, how I got to Mexico, and a bit of what they told me had</p><p>happened beneath the horse’s belly.</p><p>But when I got back home, I wasn’t the same. Researchers would later</p><p>discover the role of a circuitry located mostly at the midline of the brain:</p><p>the default mode network, or DMN. It is possible that the repeated</p><p>knocking of my head against the stones along the path temporarily shut</p><p>down this integrative network, disallowing any constructive, sense-making</p><p>efforts of my life narrative. Studies would later reveal that there is a mutual</p><p>inhibition between these midline “me” circuits and the side sensory</p><p>channels of the brain: The more we let go of the preoccupations with</p><p>personal identity, the more we are open to the free flow of sensation. We</p><p>also later learned that both mindfulness meditation and certain medical</p><p>interventions, such as the careful and controlled use of psychedelics, can</p><p>promote a sense of connection and awe and also markedly reduce the</p><p>DMN’s activity, even when it has been overly active, as in states of</p><p>depression and anxiety. Having a family member who suffered from</p><p>addiction, I had a psychological “allergy” to the use of any mind-altering</p><p>substances. But through this accident of being dragged over the rocks, I</p><p>guess you could say I had accidentally fallen into my own version of getting</p><p>“stoned.”</p><p>IntraConnected</p><p>After that head injury, I somehow had a more open sense of who “I” was—</p><p>a sense of self that felt more fluid, more flexible and receptive to things that</p><p>arose in my unfolding life, and that strangely felt freer, more present, more</p><p>connected to whatever was going on. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that</p><p>I had a different sense of who I wasn’t: The name, Dan, almost felt like a</p><p>joke if it was how others, or my now opened sense of self, would try to</p><p>indicate the totality of my identity—of who I was. After my bones and teeth</p><p>were repaired, I may have looked the same from the outside, but inside</p><p>there was a kind of freedom that for decades I would attribute to some quirk</p><p>of a knock on the head, or perhaps some existential “wake-up call” to live</p><p>life with less worry and fewer preoccupations after nearly escaping more</p><p>serious injury, or death.</p><p>I went on to finish college, and then attended another private institution</p><p>of higher learning, Harvard Medical School. There I continued the life of</p><p>privilege that comes with having a body with the features of a white,</p><p>cisgendered, heterosexual male, journeying a life further down the road of</p><p>living without worry about my identities of gender, sexual orientation, or</p><p>race. Even in the positionality of my education, I had the opportunities of</p><p>privilege—being trained, now, to become a physician at an esteemed</p><p>research institution. Whatever blind spots I inevitably had from such a</p><p>position of privilege, I was blind to them; I had, and still have, blind spots</p><p>for my blind spots—the ultimate challenge of not being challenged because</p><p>one identifies</p><p>with the majority.</p><p>Yet even in this situation, I still felt I didn’t belong. Perhaps the lack of</p><p>focus on our inner mental life of that medical culture made me feel even</p><p>more alienated. As I would describe later in several books, including</p><p>Mindsight and Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, after my</p><p>second year I dropped out of medical school because of this feeling that</p><p>something just wasn’t quite right. I didn’t think much about that horse</p><p>accident back in Mexico, but as I share this with you now, that shift in a</p><p>sense of personal identity likely underlay that restless feeling I had that</p><p>something did not feel real, did not quite fit with the deeper reality beneath</p><p>the surface of how people seemed to be going about living their lives. After</p><p>considering a number of alternative professional pathways, from salmon</p><p>fishing to dance, and coming back to Los Angeles to reflect on where life</p><p>had brought me, I decided to return to my medical training. I made up the</p><p>term “mindsight” to help me remember that the subjective life of our mind</p><p>is quite real and very important. Perhaps with that word in place, I’d be</p><p>empowered to not cave in to the pressure to conform to what seemed to be a</p><p>mindsightless world of medicine at the time.</p><p>After medical school, I trained initially in pediatrics—pursuing my</p><p>interests in human development—and then switched over to psychiatry to</p><p>deepen my understanding of being human, how the mind shapes our sense</p><p>of self, and how we become who we are. Years later, I would join up with a</p><p>team that was studying how to develop a “systems awareness” and move</p><p>beyond the linear, narrow, disconnected way I had been trained to think in</p><p>college and medical school. One outing of that group was a week-long field</p><p>trip out in nature.</p><p>High up in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, John P. Milton’s “Way of</p><p>Nature” program offered an exploration of Indigenous wisdom teachings</p><p>from around the world, combined with discussions of nature and our</p><p>relationship with the environment. As part of this experience, we spent</p><p>several days in silence, each of us in our own isolated spot along the</p><p>mountain trail. During this time I experienced the sense that my separate,</p><p>personal identity had vanished—the sensory flow of the water of the creek,</p><p>the wind through the leaves, the sun, the clouds, the turning of day to night,</p><p>I experienced all of this as a flowing whole, and this bodily self that was</p><p>called Dan was only one aspect of the totality of the identity that was</p><p>somehow much bigger than the body and that encompassed the trees, the</p><p>creek, the clouds, and the whole of the flow of reality.</p><p>In stark contrast, sometime the next morning as I was in that blissful</p><p>state, a colleague trotted by and exclaimed, “Hi Dan!” In an instant, my</p><p>personal identity swooped back in, along with a shift in feeling that my</p><p>body was now an isolated container of “my” experience. Although I</p><p>cherished the prior silence, when I envisioned him disturbing our other</p><p>colleagues further down the trail, I decided to use my voice and called out,</p><p>waving him back. I reminded him of the rules—no contact with others, no</p><p>communication, and no leaving our separate, designated camping areas.</p><p>For most of the rest of that day, my sense of being isolated from the</p><p>forest, from nature, remained—until the sun hit the tops of the distant trees.</p><p>The rays poured through their waving leaves, and the glorious rainbow of</p><p>colors filtered into dances with the wind; the gurgling of the small waterfall</p><p>at the creek’s edge became woven with the sounds of the breeze; the light</p><p>slowly dimmed as the sun set, and the stars appeared—expanding the sense</p><p>of being across space, across time. And the feeling of just being there, just</p><p>being, remained for the rest of the time. It was, truly, a time of rest from the</p><p>exhausting illusion of separation that living as a solo-self can often be in</p><p>our modern, everyday lives.</p><p>When those enchanting, awe-filled days came to an end, I wandered</p><p>back down the trail to join our group as we came together to share our</p><p>experiences. Instead of feeling alone, for each of us, the independent</p><p>experience felt more like “all-one.” The trees, the sky, the water of the</p><p>flowing creek, these were not separate from identity—these were who we</p><p>were in those days at one with the world. Though terms like</p><p>“interdependent,” “interconnected,” “interrelated,” “interbeing,”</p><p>“interactive,” “interwoven,” and “interlaced” are sometimes used to</p><p>describe this way of being a fundamental part of nature, it was a struggle to</p><p>find words to describe it that actually felt right.</p><p>Just days before that retreat in Colorado, I had been with with a group in</p><p>the Fishlake National Forest in Utah, where we became immersed in a</p><p>grove of 47,000 quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) trunks. These trunks</p><p>—which on the surface appeared to be distinct, separate trees—were</p><p>actually sprouting from a common root ball, that of a massive singular</p><p>organism. DNA testing has revealed that these trunks are a single tree,</p><p>commonly known as Pando, and it is among the largest, and oldest, living</p><p>beings on Earth.</p><p>And so, as I tried to find words to express this experience of identity I</p><p>had alone in the wilderness in Colorado, after the Pando immersion in Utah,</p><p>the term that seemed to feel right was not “inter,” as in betweenness, but</p><p>“intra”—a withinness of identity and belonging, It was the feeling of being</p><p>intraconnected, linked within a fabric of life—not a sense of a separate</p><p>“me” that is connected to the trees, but rather a sense of connectedness</p><p>within a whole.</p><p>I wouldn’t find out, until I typed that word, “intraconnected,” into a</p><p>Word document and the word processor continually changed it to</p><p>“interconnected,” that it was, in fact, not a word in the English language.</p><p>It’s best to avoid creating new words unless we need them; and here it</p><p>seemed we needed some term to capture the connectivity within the whole</p><p>—and so the term “intraconnected” was born.</p><p>Over the many years since my accident, I had become deeply committed</p><p>to understanding the nature of our minds and how a sense of self emerges in</p><p>our lives to shape the experience we have of identity and belonging. The</p><p>conversation I invite you to join me in within the pages of this book is an</p><p>exploration of how we might come to discover, or perhaps recover, how to</p><p>regain our sense of wholeness, how to live with a more integrated identity</p><p>and a broader belonging than that of the contemporary, disconnected sense</p><p>of solo-self, how to reclaim our intraconnected place in the world—how our</p><p>sense of self can become intraconnected, linked within a fabric of life.</p><p>Certainty in Identity as Entity</p><p>My parents named me Daniel when I was born. They called me Danny, and</p><p>in school my friends used that name, as did my teachers; but my driver’s</p><p>license had the birth certificate name Daniel and, later, so did my college</p><p>degree and tax forms. I was rewarded for being certain: certain of my name,</p><p>certain of how to spell words and how to add numbers, certain of how to</p><p>repeat facts, grammar, science, history. Certainty must have aligned with</p><p>my brain’s reward circuitry, because it became an unquestioned place of</p><p>familiarity and comfort.</p><p>Certainty also meant predictability and safety, so my deep survival</p><p>circuits may have felt quite relieved, too, to have a firm name designating</p><p>this certain belonging and identity, the certainty of a self I could rely on.</p><p>This center of perception, this something we come to call “self,” comes to</p><p>have a name, a specific way to identify itself as an identity and in this way,</p><p>in the drive to experience belonging, to become a member of some group in</p><p>our environment.</p><p>Our brain is an anticipation machine, feeling safe in its capacity to</p><p>predict what is likely to occur next. This brain seeks out patterns, extracting</p><p>fundamental features of what we see. This “top-down” processing lets us</p><p>learn from the past to shape what we anticipate will happen next, in the</p><p>future, based on these patterns we’ve detected in the past, whereas our</p><p>“bottom-up” processing more directly senses things as they are for us at this</p><p>moment. From these bottom-up sensations, we construct myriad forms of</p><p>perception and cognition—our thoughts, memories, and beliefs about the</p><p>world. These constructions in turn exert top-down influence. In this way,</p><p>we come to perceive what we believe, the result of the top-down layering of</p><p>our mental constructions affecting how we experience reality.</p><p>The self can become one of these top-down constructions: We believe</p><p>the self to be what we have learned it is, and this belief then shapes our</p><p>perception of the self—our sense of self is based on what we believe it to</p><p>be. This is called self-reinforcing (no pun intended).</p><p>If we learn to perceive the world with a narrow focus on the details of</p><p>the individual only, our self will be constructed from this narrow view and</p><p>will then be experienced as an entity—a separate thing, a noun. Not only</p><p>will we experience our self as emanating from the body alone, but the</p><p>“environment” in which our body exists may not be sensed as a living,</p><p>breathing, broader source of belonging in which the self is intraconnected;</p><p>instead we will perceive it as a container outside our self, and agency will</p><p>not be in service of the welfare of that external container. Nature would not</p><p>be included in how we would define or experience our self. If instead we</p><p>learn to perceive the world from a broad focus of attention on the</p><p>relationships among parts and on the patterns that emerge from these</p><p>relational connections, then we’ll experience a self that emerges from the</p><p>systems in which we live: the body, the interpersonal relationships, the</p><p>whole of nature. We’ll have a subjective sensation, a perspective, and an</p><p>agency—our SPA of self—centered in these layers of interacting systems,</p><p>as unfolding, connected verb-like events, not as a noun-like separate entity,</p><p>alone in a disconnected world. MWe are personal, public, and planetary.</p><p>In these ways, our perception of the world and construction of self are</p><p>molded by what we’ve learned to anticipate and predict based on how</p><p>we’ve come to focus our attention, narrow or broad. The self that is</p><p>reinforced and repeatedly shaped by this narrow or broad attention is</p><p>experienced as separated or as connected. From a view of the individual, I</p><p>—my identity and the reference point of my belonging—am me, this body,</p><p>this center of sensation, perception, and action which in modern culture we</p><p>tend to have named as “self.” Yet from the view of the system, I am the</p><p>whole that this body is just a part of: the whole system is my self, the body</p><p>only a node in that larger whole. If sensation, perception, and agency are the</p><p>defining elements of what we are naming as self, then how do these become</p><p>formed in our lives? This we will explore through the lens of human</p><p>development. Here we can begin with the notion that the top-down, learned,</p><p>constructive process is a self-forming and self-fulfilling way in which my</p><p>experience of myself is construed, created, and perhaps at times constricted</p><p>by the very anticipatory processes that reinforce their own predictions—</p><p>they are self-organizing entities. How we construct this self will continually</p><p>reinforce its own features, as isolated and disconnected, as an aspect of</p><p>interdependent, interconnected systems, or perhaps as self being the</p><p>intraconnected whole system of reality.</p><p>Let us, you and I, keep this question in mind: Is the sense of self always</p><p>a construction? Is simply being, or simply being aware, a flowing</p><p>experience of sensation, perception, and agency that is not constructive, but</p><p>instead arises as a self-experience that emerges in a bottom-up manner? If</p><p>this is true, then would this be a “true self” that sometimes lays hidden</p><p>beneath a learned, top-down constructive mechanism? Was this the basis of</p><p>the experience I described after the horse accident, and in the all-one time</p><p>in the forest in Colorado: a losing of the top-down and a liberation of the</p><p>bottom-up experience of self? Is a sense of an individual personal identity</p><p>(in this case, a person named Dan) a top-down construction, and the</p><p>experience of intraconnected wholeness of identity a more direct bottom-up</p><p>realization?</p><p>If, instead, both the inner self and the inter self are each comprised of</p><p>both a bottom up flow, as through a conduit we can name “conduition,” as</p><p>well as construction, so that the subjective sensation is a direct flow of</p><p>conduition and the perception and agency are outcomes of construction—in</p><p>both our internal flow and our relational flow—then we can see that self-</p><p>experience has a constructive element to it. The fundamental question, then,</p><p>is how can we construct the most integrative experience of self possible to</p><p>promote well-being in our world?</p><p>One possibility is that a self-reinforcing loop becomes automatic,</p><p>persistent, and tenacious as the top-down construction of a separate,</p><p>personal identity. With such a separate identity, there is a quality of being</p><p>contained in, controlled by, and enclosed within a cloak of individuality that</p><p>has the qualities of predictability and stability, the qualities we attribute to</p><p>entities that, in the English language, we might refer to as “nouns.” There</p><p>may even be a “holding-together” quality, a feeling of something being</p><p>cohesive. This may be proposed to be the underlying origin of a solitary,</p><p>separate solo-self. This sense of self has a solidity to it, the sense of being</p><p>an entity, something with boundaries defining and surrounding it: a</p><p>cohesive, separate, independent thing that we linguistically name as a noun.</p><p>Dan I am.</p><p>I was not raised to think in more bottom-up ways of experiencing the</p><p>self as a “verb,” as an action instead of a thing, as dynamic instead of fixed</p><p>and certain. This more connected aspect of a verb-like self has a distinct</p><p>sense of less predictability and control—it is not closed in separation but</p><p>open and ever-changing in dynamic, interactive ways. Instead of this more</p><p>fluid sense of self, we often live in what we can identify as the disconnected</p><p>view of modernity: Who I am, what I am, how I am, are all reinforced as a</p><p>noun-like thing—something I can hold, an entity, a thing with the</p><p>appearance of top-down certainty. That constructed sense of certainty has a</p><p>benefit in that it helps me feel safe in a world that holds certainty in such</p><p>high esteem. This is the world in which I grew up in the United States of</p><p>America, a land that, anthropologists tell us, hosts the most “individualistic”</p><p>culture on the planet.</p><p>In contrast, some studies have described other cultures, such as the</p><p>traditional way of living in Japan, as “collectivistic.” In fact, one study by</p><p>psychologists Richard Nisbett and Yuri Myomoto (2005) compared</p><p>Japanese born-and-raised individuals with those whose parents were from</p><p>Japan but were raised in the United States and revealed that the groups had</p><p>distinct ways of perceiving a photograph of an aquarium scene. One group</p><p>consistently noted the features of a prominent fish, identifying its various</p><p>fins and their textures and colors. The other group saw the whole scene,</p><p>noting the big picture elements of plants and rocks that made up the</p><p>aquarium environment. Which group do you think was which? Culture</p><p>shapes how the brain learns to decode incoming information, the top-down</p><p>ways we construct what we perceive are what we call the mental</p><p>construction of perception: Individualistic ways of seeing lead to seeing</p><p>individual features with a narrow focus of attention; collectivistic cultural</p><p>practices lead one to construct a perception of the whole with a wide focus</p><p>of attention.</p><p>In Indigenous cultures throughout the world, as we’ll soon discuss, life is</p><p>viewed more as interdependent interacting elements across the continuum</p><p>of space and time. The cultural passage of both knowledge and ways of</p><p>perceiving through the oral tradition itself enables a sense of self to become</p><p>embedded in systems of deeply interwoven parts and the individual is often</p><p>seen as woven into the tapestry of a larger</p><p>whole, a whole broader than the</p><p>body alone. Though these Indigenous practices, found around the world,</p><p>grew in geographic isolation from one another, they often share common</p><p>ground in seeing humanity as woven within all of nature—not owning the</p><p>landscape nor dividing it into parts, but as custodians of the living system of</p><p>nature as a whole.</p><p>These cross-cultural findings reveal how self, identity, and belonging are</p><p>constructed aspects of human life and how the human mind, as it creates</p><p>culture, directly shapes its own sense of self-experience. We can express a</p><p>question that emerges from these findings directly this way: Is the narrow</p><p>focus that creates a noun-like solo-self producing a constructed sense of</p><p>self? In contrast, is a wider focus yielding access to a more flowing, verb-</p><p>like SPA experience of sensation, perspective, and agency? In other words,</p><p>is isolation an outcome of a constructed filter of perception and self-</p><p>reinforcing agency, whereas interdependence is sensing reality more clearly,</p><p>felt with a bottom-up sense of coherence, sensing directly from the</p><p>“ground-up,” even before the constructive processes of perception and</p><p>agency? For this body called Dan, immersion in a family, educational</p><p>system, and then larger society each emphasized separation and the</p><p>appearance of a solid, solitary, noun-like self—Dan—that was not in</p><p>question. And then, that horse accident changed this constructed illusion of</p><p>noun-like existence for this body and immersed the ensuing perception in a</p><p>verb-like unfolding, without solidity, that ironically felt more grounded in</p><p>reality, albeit fluid and flowing without closure or certainty. This sense</p><p>might correlate with a systems reality of deep intraconnection and would</p><p>feel coherent, consistent with the deeply connected nature of the world and</p><p>“our place” within it.</p><p>The Western-derived, now-modern, global, contemporary pressure, this</p><p>cultural push to perceive self only as a noun, makes us vulnerable by its</p><p>inaccuracy, its error in perception and conception, which may be more than</p><p>misleading, as we will explore throughout our journey in this book. This</p><p>seeing ourselves only as a discrete noun may be an outright blunder; it may</p><p>even be a lethal lie, a misguided and dangerous story that we unwittingly</p><p>tell our selves and live our lives by, to our own detriment.</p><p>But the good news is: If the mind’s constructions create this perception</p><p>of the solo-self—this isolated sense of identity that struggles to recognize</p><p>connections that it cannot see even though they are already there—the</p><p>mind’s capacities can also identify this mistake and course-correct, in both</p><p>our personal and our public lives. This is how we can turn this VUCA</p><p>moment of challenge into an opportunity for change.</p><p>The compelling feature of the contemporary emphasis on a solo-self</p><p>construction is its promise to fulfill the longing for certainty, the drive for</p><p>predictability that creates clear boundaries and a belief in an illusion—that</p><p>is, “I” am a solid, noun-like entity with features and definitions of who and</p><p>what I am that are essentially predictable. Yet that illusion of certainty, as</p><p>attractive as it may be to our anticipatory, prediction-driven brains, is also a</p><p>trap compelling us to desperately attempt to live lives with an unfulfillable</p><p>fantasy based not on reality but on a contemporary consensus about a noun-</p><p>like nature of the self, leading us down a destructive path of disconnection</p><p>and delusion. “A delusion?” you might ask, hearing these words, as you are,</p><p>from a psychiatrist. Yes, a belief not consistent with reality. Disconnection</p><p>and the delusion of self as separate, self as noun alone. Perception and</p><p>belief are constructions, and if the mind makes a deep error in this</p><p>constructive process, the result would be distorted perception as illusion, or</p><p>false perception and belief as delusion. If this delusion drives the plotline of</p><p>our autobiographical narratives, as I see so often in my psychotherapy</p><p>practice, we can get caught up in the cloud of confusion the delusion creates</p><p>as we base our life’s decisions on erroneous reasoning and make misguided</p><p>choices. This is true not only for individuals but for our modern societies</p><p>and their schools, businesses, and governments as well.</p><p>You may be thinking that viewing the experience of self-as-separate as a</p><p>delusion is too strong a position to take; a psychiatrist overstating his</p><p>clinical assessment of our cultural situation. Yet this view is consistent with</p><p>thousands of years of teaching in Indigenous and contemplative traditions,</p><p>and a scientific conclusion from one of our leading scientific thinkers. In</p><p>helping address the grief of a father who had lost a child, these were Albert</p><p>Einstein’s words (1972):</p><p>A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, “Universe,” a part</p><p>limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and</p><p>feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical</p><p>delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us,</p><p>restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons</p><p>nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by</p><p>widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and</p><p>the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this</p><p>completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of</p><p>the liberation and a foundation for inner security. (New York Times,</p><p>March 29, 1950, p. 1)</p><p>In modern life, these narratives of separation often close us down, and we</p><p>cling to our expectations and a “flimsy fantasy of certainty,” as</p><p>multidisciplinary artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed names it, in order to</p><p>maintain our sense that all is right in our world: Certainty is predictability;</p><p>predictability ensures safety; safety means survival. This drive for certainty</p><p>as safety and survival is especially true when we are young, profoundly</p><p>vulnerable, and dependent on others to live. The phrase “flimsy fantasy of</p><p>certainty” is part of a quote in the entryway to the Brooklyn Public Library,</p><p>where I first saw Rasheed’s words: “Having abandoned the flimsy fantasy</p><p>of certainty, I decided to wander.” Are you open to wandering with me in</p><p>exploring the nature of the reality of who we are?</p><p>My purpose in our conversation here is to awaken us from our slumber,</p><p>from the separate solo-self’s autopilot, its noun-like self-reinforcing</p><p>isolation, and to rejoice in our revelation of the reality of a self that is</p><p>broader than any one individual as we integrate our identity and broaden</p><p>our belonging into the wider world of our life on Earth.</p><p>Wisdom Traditions</p><p>This journey exploring how the self is constructed in our lives invites us to</p><p>focus not only on what we know, but how we come to know. In the travels</p><p>of this person called Dan, my starting place—that is, being taught by my</p><p>parents in the culture of the United States—lead to an implicit,</p><p>unquestioned view of self as separate—the noun-like, entity-identity,</p><p>restricted-belonging that emerges from living as a solo-self. The I of that</p><p>life perspective moved beyond family and friendships that were also</p><p>immersed in this view of self into professional education; Western science</p><p>became my focus and worldview. I was fascinated with how the world of</p><p>empirical knowledge—what we could learn from close observation,</p><p>experimentation, hypothesis testing, idea challenging, and theory generation</p><p>—constructed our sense of what reality is like; my fascination with life lead</p><p>me to study biology, focusing on biochemistry and the molecular</p><p>mechanisms underlying living beings. Years later, psychologist and author</p><p>Adam Grant (2021) would explore the value of such a scientific approach—</p><p>which always keeps a doubting mind active and challenges our own</p><p>assumptions—in his book, Think Again. In adult development, this stance</p><p>of being open to shifting our own perspectives is part of the evolution of the</p><p>self which is described by researchers Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey (2009)</p><p>as a self-transforming mind, one with the “mental</p>
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- ual alternativa apresenta um exemplo de organização que, apesar de não ter fins lucrativos, possui objetivos econômicos?
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- assinale a alternativa que indica a ferramente de qualidade que é recomendada para ser utilizada para priorizar as falhas
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- Plural of nouns
Perguntas dessa disciplina
Grátis
Grátis
ENIAC