What if I was to tell you that, in the history of humanity, we have never ever been more separate from ourselves and our world than now.
Does this speak to you? Do you sometimes feel that you have everything and yet there’s still something missing? Do you sacrifice your health for getting ahead in the world? Have you received some tragic news by email and yet continued to bash out more emails. Are you striving for a time when you are completely independent and don’t need anyone for anything?
This would appear to be the norm.
In his book the Ascent of Humanity, Charles Eisenstein describes how we have been on a journey of separation for the last five hundred years. In fact, we are so separate that we see our bodies as something to carry our heads around, we see people as competition to our survival, we see the world as a resource for us to satisfy our needs.
Our mindset has been programmed by modern science. Darwin fed us the the theory of natural selection and “survival of the fittest”, Newton reduced our world to a machine made up of inert atoms; and Descates separated mind and body with “I think therefore I am”. All of this is like an invisible software running in the background of our worldview.
So what? Why does any of this matter? On a grandiose scale, we are being told that this current worldview is making it possible for us to destroy our environment - as all matter is just matter and no part of us; but perhaps more interestingly though is what does this mean on a personal level; what happens when we see the world as us and them, me and other; when our values revolve around being self sufficient, needing no one, proving we can do it alone, stand on our own feet.
From my coaching experience, I witness extraordinary loneliness, confusion, sadness, a sense of being lost and often a questioning of “what is wrong with me”, “what is the point of all this?” along with words such as disengaged, disconnected and disenfranchised.
I wonder if it isn’t time to reboot.
Something practicalIf you are of the belief that you are a separate, self sufficient entity, can I suggest a very simple exercise to challenge this - put your hand over your mouth and pinch your nose.
Breathing is an extremely powerful exercise and immediately connects us to the world. If ever you are feeling anxious, fearful, panicky, breathing will immediately calm you down; if ever you are feeling off centre, off balance, breathing will re-centre you. This can be done during an uncomfortable conversation, in a heated meeting, before a speech.
Simply do the following:sit upright in a chair with your back nice and straight, head looking out, shoulders relaxedplace your feet firmly on the groundplace your hands on your legs, palms facing uptake three deep breaths in and out
Something going onIt is my belief that we all have a yearning to feel part of the whole; to love ourselves and the world as one entity and not to separate the two out. It is for this reason that at Because It’s There, we use outdoor challenges as the framework for our coaching engagements; we immerse ourselves in a learning that reconnects us with our body, emotions and mind. We start to notice our relationship with food, sleep and exercise; with the time of day, month and seasons; with light and dark, hot and cold; we notice very quickly how our language defines our reality - Oh this is impossible, this is too risky, I can’t.All of this is part of the rebooting process.
