Insights and Information on cultural aspects
Why do so many people feel so “out of sorts” in today’s world?
Because it has grown so complex it can be hard to find our balance.
This causes us to feel “stuck”. How can we change this? Find out more below.
Take the first step to find out more here
Self-preservation: the protection of oneself from harm or death, especially regarded as a basic instinct in human beings and animals. (merriamwebster.com)
Self-preservation is a skill that is important for life to continue, it’s what helps us anticipate risk and keep us safe. This historically instinctual habit seems inherent, something that will simply kick in when necessary. However, this skill is connected to our emotions, as most human concepts are, and anything that deals with emotions can be manipulated and twisted if we are not careful.
Self-preservation is something I know a lot about, for while I was born during a time of relative peace, my own personal life was full of dissonance, chaos, and ambiguity. My parents divorced when I was six; a messy and angry divorce full of hurt feelings and a lot of pain.
Adults surrounding me during this time were young, inexperienced, and grew more and more self-absorbed as time went on, focused solely on finding their way out of the hell they had created. I could feel, even at six, that this path they were traveling was too much for them, and I “knew” they would be unable to help me in my quest: my quest to not just stay alive, but to explore and understand the world, and to become a happy, well-adjusted person who lived a meaningful life.
In order to combat this war zone that constantly affected my life, I started to tap into my self-preservation. Planning for the future became my life, learning as much about the outside world as possible was my duty, so that I could create the best possible life and fortify it against any chaos that could disrupt it.
Things grew worse as my parents separated and new adults entered my life. Stepparents that either wanted to hurt me, control me, or act spitefully towards me became overbearing; heavy blankets that threatened to crush me before I was able to reach my dreams. Still, I soldiered on, knowing that someday, if I could just keep pushing forward, I could be far away from them and anyone that hurt me. Gratefully, my self-preservation muscles grew strong and resilient.
In my life, self-preservation was my savior. I learned what I needed from books, movies, television, school, and I learned what NOT to do by watching almost everyone around me. Admittedly, not everyone was horrible all the time. Bright spots popped up providing me solace and love at different times of my life, but often were fleeting or intermittent, and soon enough the blanket of tyranny was back again.
Self-preservation became my saving grace and helped me to not only create a life I love dearly but (probably more importantly) become the person I am today. Resiliency took time, and I stumbled a lot, but having that vision of what I wanted my life to become really helped me face my fears AND my failures as I moved through time.
Perhaps one may feel that this is the end of the story. A story of triumph, of learning, of strife and perseverance. While I hope that my story brings a speck of inspiration to others in a similar experience, my story must be balanced with the nuance necessary for our environment today.
Self-preservation can be a helpful ingredient to pull us from despair and help us achieve our goals. However, too much self-preservation can lead us to an insular, wary, suspicious existence if we are not careful. Earlier I mentioned that I grew up in a time of relative peace. It was my internal world that was at war.
Our environment is an important part of the equation as the right thing at the wrong time can cause disastrous results. While doing the hard work of becoming who we are meant to be, we must have a safe space to run to when that work becomes exhausting. Having only my internal world to fight but an external world of peace allowed me to retain and strengthen the necessary Moxy I would need to survive my internal chaos, while still reaching out and connecting with the world around me. Remember the bright spots? That was what I was hoping to recreate consistently in my world. Remember the media that I absorbed? Much of it was extremely age-appropriate while sharing a world of connectedness, caring, adventure and peace.
We do not live in that same environment today. Our outside world is chaotic, fear-inducing, and full of the unknown. Environments of this sort can cause our connections to break down, and we shrink our physical world. We close ranks in order to keep our loved ones safe. Adding even more self-preservation to this equation pushes all of us further into our homes and creates enemies everywhere.
Throughout these hard times, we need to remember that our connections are what make life worth living and add to our overall well-being. Technology cannot save us from this fact. Humans will always need each other even we would like to wish this were not the case.
People are starting to feel abandoned. Abandoned by their governments, their communities, their neighbors, friends, and families. This can make us want to run away, hide away, and only deal with what is right in front of us.
The kicker is that this is a good place to start.
The issue is, this is no place to stay.
Gaining a better sense of self-preservation to get your “ish” together is necessary during hard times. Times where resources are tight, life is difficult, and chaos reigns. Today, we live in a world where distractions are overwhelming. Where you can find anything and everything you would want to “feel good” allowing us to disregard our conscience and our need for self-preservation. Similar to the frog slowly boiling in the pot, our self-preservation can be overwhelmed with slow, consistent pain.
So please, do look inward to deal with emotional baggage, define dreams, and create a vision for the future.
However, remember to balance that with the relationships we need to help us remember we are a species that thrives when we have connection. Disconnection leads to isolation, depression, added anxiety, and shortens our lives. So, how do we balance self-preservation and connection?
*Create Your Culture – We like to think about culture in terms of food, clothing, and holidays, but culture starts with our beliefs, values, and attitudes. Take a look at this picture – each of these concepts can look different depending on where we live.
How would each of these concepts be described in your life? If you have never thought about a concept before, do research before going with your gut feelings.
*Define your Tribe – Think about all of the relationships you had 5 years ago, how many still exist in your life today?
Research has shown that the pandemic has decimated our weak ties – “people that live on the periphery of our lives”. Those people that added something nice to our day, or friends we do not talk to often, are just as important to keep us tethered to humanity as our everyday tribe members. Weak ties can help us exercise our empathy muscles in new ways, keeping them in shape for when we really need them.
Change is hard. Fighting against the overwhelming barrage of distractions is difficult. This is why our world is dying. But there is hope. We can both strengthen our self-preservation AND keep our connections strong, we just need help to see how. The old templates we were taught will not work as effectively any longer. We must find new ways to create our path forward. We all want a world where we feel comfortable, where we feel cared for and about, where we can live our purpose. Following the Essential Elements of Life can provide a new template to bring about that future for us all.
If you, or someone you know, is struggling with all of the change, finding difficulty dealing with emotional pain, hurt feelings, or distractions please check out our programs and see how we can help.
Copyright 2022 – Maven Source International, LLC
America is exhausted.
Not just exhausted, but overwhelmed with fatigue.
This isn’t something new. We have been tired for one reason or another for decades, but the issue has only grown exponentially in the past few years and has skyrocketed during the pandemic. Many books have been written about how we need more sleep (think The sleep revolution), and advice on how to get more sleep (put your phones in another room, get a better mattress), but the fatigue I am talking about is different than just a lack of sleep. It is an exhaustion of our current system, a rejection of our current way of life. America’s fatigue is presenting physically, but stems from a mental and an emotional exhaustion that we have not yet come to terms with.
Too much fatigue, hyper-fatigue, is dangerous to the psyche and the soul, our society and our world. We are in danger of crossing a line from which we may never return, so it is important to understand the concept of fatigue: why it is dangerous, where it comes from and how to relieve it so we can move forward towards Belonging and a better future for all.
Humans do not function well under a state of fatigue. Fatigue is the inability to exert the necessary physical force one would expect their body to reasonably accommodate. (skybrary.areo) Mentally, fatigue leads to a general decrease of attention and the lack of ability to perform complex ( or worse, simple) tasks with efficiency. Fatigue causes our emotions to run out of control and present in the most negative ways: crankiness, irritability, frustration, aggression, etc. People break down in times of great fatigue, we don’t want to eat, we often cannot sleep, tears come at no notice at all and relationships suffer greatly.
People who are fatigued should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery, but they should also not be allowed to make tough decisions, be in charge of others, or be expected to solve problems until they have rested and recuperated. Fatigue can take time to expel, and often requires multiple days of rest and even sometimes counseling before it will fully dissipate. The fact that we are allowing a mass fatigue to perpetuate throughout our society is irresponsible. The fact that we cannot recognize it is scary.
Americans have always pushed the envelope when it comes to “making the most of our time” or “living like there’s no tomorrow”. Our country was founded on the principle of always wanting more: more freedom, more land, more choices, more resources, etc. The benefits of this mindset is that we seek growth and always want to achieve greater heights, however, even with the best of intentions this concept provides false expectations. Unending growth is just not possible. We cannot take and never give, we cannot work and never rest, the law of the universe is that we must stay in balance. One of my favorite explanations of this is from ‘The sword in the stone‘ where Merlin explains to Wort that balance makes the world go round.
In our current world we believe that we can say NO to this guiding principle and use the concepts of money, technology and size to stress and stretch and warp the environment to strive for constant growth. Americans glom onto these concepts as guiding principles to a good life. Ideas such as “big is best”, “only the strong survive”, “money makes the world go round” and “technology is inherently good” (unless your enemy wants it too) are catch phrases that we live by with little regard for the fact that anything else could be true.
We have given our leaders the ability to trick the system because what we want is more important than what is best for all. What we do not realize is what we give up in return for this foolishness. Like Pinocchio and the boys on Pleasure Island, we are in danger of turning into asses if we do not mature enough to realize that unending money, pleasure, partying and fun is only part of the equation. In fact, we are already seeing the repercussions of our folly in our current environment by the sheer amount of different types of fatigue we are currently experiencing.
The myriad of collective fatigue we are experiencing can be separated into the following categories: Fatigue of Change, Fatigue of Expectations, Fatigue of Decisions, Fatigue of Emotions
Many of these fatigue experiences have similar sources and can also be linked back to the distractions of money, size, technology and our unending quest for pleasure. Exacerbated by the fact that we have not yet reassessed our social contract, we are also struggling to connect with what our country and society stands for. People without a country, people without beliefs and culture that tie us together, are forced to go it alone and that isolation and fear only adds to our fatigue. Our lack of connections strengthens the fatigue as we have nothing left to recharge our soul but our piles of stuff. Worse yet, we have lost our connections to the past and most ideas have lost their meaning. Without meaning and without history we are in danger of becoming nothing.
Change is a tough concept, but one we continuously face. Change can be exhilarating if we choose it, but excruciating if we do not. Often, changes come at us and make us feel that our ENTIRE world is being turned upside down. This allows the panic and fear emotions to creep into our psyche and craft an unrealistic view of our environment. Living in a time of unprecedented dynamic change, its not hard to see how many people could be struggling with all of the differences they are faced with every day. Struggling against change causes fatigue, struggling to create change does the same.
The world has awakened and erased the borders that so many conservative Americans had tried to keep in place. Those who had created a bubble around their lives in order to keep change at bay are now struggling through ambiguity and with a feeling of loss. Not so much that they don’t want others to have what they have, but more a fear of losing what they have or maintaining their planned future for their children. Whether or not these fears are irrational or unfounded, intercultural misunderstandings and a lack of awareness and understanding in general have created an uneasy, unfamiliar environment that this group is struggling to rebalance.
Others formerly ostracized for different reasons have now gained a sense of power and are ready for change and opportunity. While happy with the change, it feels like a constant fight; one that brings with it waves of weariness, anger, and pain. Change feels too slow at times, but also can bring surprise when the boundaries once believed to be static are constantly pushed by those wanting even more.
Lastly, a worldwide fatigue has grown from the mishandled and misunderstood pandemic still plaguing us all. Not sure who to listen to, what to believe, or even what to do, many have simply given up and are living with a “Que sera, sera” mindset. Unfortunately for many, this turns deadly and is often irreversible. Still, “revenge” is the new norm whether due to a new appreciation of life or a subconscious death wish and our insatiable desire for “normal” is exacerbating so many other fragile systems in our lives. See how dangerous fatigue can be?
Our fatigue has also led to broken down systems in other ways. Our expectations of what life can bring, of how we should treat each other, of expertise and what it means, how we should care for ourselves – all of these have been turned upside down and often we live in a land of opposites compared to the world that existed in my childhood.
We are tired of being polite, tired of having manners, and do not understand why life was ever so stuffy and controlled. Decorum has lost its meaning in many ways, and often we are only concerned with how others made US feel, not the other way around. We have expected so much of ourselves that we cannot go any higher. Men must be soft, but still able to be aggressive or protect their family at the drop of a hat, women must be superwomen able to do everything a man can do; biology be damned. Overtly, these ideas are not unreasonable in theory, but the expectation of always being ON and never being able to stop is contributing heavily to our mental health epidemic.
Expectations are also overblown in terms of what we are supposed to care about. Empathy is great, I highly recommend it, but we expect ourselves to be able to constantly care about the entire globe every day. An extremely unreasonable expectation, it has caused us to go around the bend all the way back to having to recreate awareness. While humans are a compassionate species, evolution takes time and the invention of the television and the internet have not happened so long ago that our emotional capacities are able to keep up. Trying to care continuously, always being faced with someone somewhere needing care, has stressed our capacity to the point it has broken. This has caused us to turn inward and unleashed a tidal wave of selfishness that is circling the globe. If we cannot care about everyone then we decide to care about no one.
The overabundance of data, media, and options has choked our ability to make decisions. The instability of our leaders and the constant disagreements between experts has left us feeling cheated, and caused us to stop listening to anything but our darkest selves.
Those out of work are struggling to make the necessary decisions to make ends meet, those who never stopped working are exhausted due to living in two worlds. Work has become so hard that many people have left, some without any idea of what the future has in store. Anything is better than what we have now, they think, but have no idea what they really are searching for and no idea how to make the decisions to get them there.
All of these stressors have cracked our desire to feel. Fatigue of empathy, but also fatigue of emotions in general. We do not want to cry, and little makes us laugh. Anger wears us out and creates a hole in our heart unable to be filled. With everything going on we have no one to share it with because we constantly feel misunderstood.
Depression is cured for a bit only when drowning in wine, drugs or streaming services. Eating comforts, but then we feel guilt and then back to depression we go. Relationships have grown so hard that we would rather not try. Why open up and try to connect when we will have more trouble dealing with both of our emotions that we do with our own?
Even those determined to go out, to live a normal-ish life, feel ostracized by the masses and angry that they have to deal with all of this. They “revenge” themselves in any way they can, but little brings back the joy they remember from before covid. Those unlucky enough to have it rough before find it even harder to find hope for the future.
As we have seen, a world-wide lockdown is not possible, neither for our psyches nor our economy, so what else can we do to get our rest? How do we regain our balance and dissipate our fatigue? By being very specific about our path to healing.
The first thing we must do is re-center our Empathy. Instead of caring about everything, or only caring our ourselves, we must reassess our empathy circles. Perhaps that is just you until you can heal, but have a plan to add others back as you do. Maybe focusing on yourself still allows you to open your circle a bit including your partner, your child(ren), your pets, your family or a friend as well. Keep the circle small until you can feel your strength returning. Make notes about other ideas, people, events, or concepts you care about. As your capacity grows, as you start to regain your health, add them back slowly as you are able. Yes, some things need our assistance now, but overstressing and not being able to act because we are too tired does no one a favor.
We can learn to coexist with change, examine our expectations, deliberate tough decisions and embrace all of our emotions, i is possible and I know the way. With help we can start to regain balance, feel less fatigued and more energized, and gain fulfillment in our lives. The answers to our fatigue are found in the concepts of the Essential Elements of life and they can help us regain our health and our strength. Learning them, understanding them and integrating them into our lives helps us create a path towards longevity, happiness and contentment.
Next time we will discuss another element necessary to create an environment of Belonging that leads us towards Integration. Until then, please take care and get some rest 🙂
I know divorce. It was a concept introduced to me at age six, when my young parents succumbed to their desires for more and decided to dissolve their marriage. The most destructive event in all of our lives, it threatened to destroy not only our family, but each of us involved either by choice or circumstance. Divorce is not something to be taken lightly, so when I see our leaders asking if America should get divorced, or that many citizens are ready for secession, appalled or astounded doesn’t begin to describe my feelings. Flippantly, we throw around this heavy word, with little regard for neither the horrific experience nor the externalities divorce creates. Want to know what is in store if we decide to tread this path? Perhaps after our journey today, some will be a bit more careful when discussing “America’s divorce”.
Divorce was still a relatively rare concept when I was young, at least in small towns across America. In fact, my best friend and I were the only school mates in our grade to experience this concept personally in elementary school. Thankfully, her parents divorced after mine, so they could learn some lessons on how to be more civil, but divorce is almost always difficult, even under the best of circumstances. So many tears, arguments, screams and nightmares come with the experience of divorce – the more emotional the players, the more dangerous the game becomes. A time of great change and great learning, my childhood stretched my emotional capacity to its limits and forever changed my trajectory in life, but I can only imagine how hard this time must have been for my parents.
Together since 20, at 26 they became the first of their friends, and more than likely their relatives, to experience the concept and head into the painful unknown. Being the first, they knew no teachers able to guide them through this extremely tumultuous time. Unbeknownst to them, they were riding a social “tidal wave” as the concept lost its taboo and peaked in the 80s.
As a child, I was a victim of my parent’s divorce, so bear little to no responsibility and instead dealt with choices outside of my control. For my parents, they were the stars and the spotlight belonged to no one else. A harsh hand dealt to two people who had longed to feel special all of their lives. They were the ones who had to make the choice to upend our family, to admit they were inside a mistake that neither were able to fix, to see that there was no future that included both of them together. They had “failed” and no one could save them. To fail with no hope for redemption is a brutal experience for a human being, the harshest type of accountability we can experience.
The pain of emptiness is all consuming. Having something one day, then waking the next without it, gnawed at my insides and created a hole that took years to refill. Divorce makes it terrifying to trust anything or anyone. When your family is broken, your safety and belonging are challenged and one must recreate a solid ground alone. Hesitancy, anxiety, fear and uncertainty fill the psyche and become a constant enemy that fights viciously to overtake one’s soul.
Yet, I consider myself one of the lucky ones in the entire experience. Overall, I still had love. I loved them, they loved my brother and I, so even though we were breaking a part I didn’t have to to lose those emotional bonds; they would just be different. Of course, this mature understanding of the situation did not come easily. It took years of research, therapy, schooling, and maturing to come to terms and heal, and it left lasting scars. Scars, however, that I find bittersweet and am grateful for as they combined to create who I am today, and now allow me to see the situation from multiple perspectives.
We think divorce is an easy way out. Americans today are happy to talk about what the land will look like in a civil war, how we want people who think differently to die, how great it would be if “X group” didn’t live in America any more. Those are the thoughts of children. Those are the thoughts of privileged people who have never experienced a group or family dismantled. Those are thoughts of humans who have either never experienced real loss, or are so spiteful for how much loss they have experienced that they want all to suffer along with them.
My parents were young, inexperienced at life and had no connections equipped enough to bridge the gaps that existed between them. Their reality became full of distrust, fighting, and pain; a perceived source for all of their unhappiness. They believed the only way forward was to fail together and dissolve the union. Their coupling had grown so toxic that the only path forward was to separate. Believing they were too different to bridge the gaps, they made the choice I believe they regretted for much of their lives. The strange thing is, they didn’t devolve because they were too different. Sure, they see life differently in some ways, but the thing that broke them was the fact that they were too emotionally the same.
Both inadvertently ached for the same thing. An ache that created a shared commiseration that was unable to be filled by the couple they created. The bond they shared was ultimately the same thing that pushed them apart. Neither of them felt they had ever really experienced unconditional love and support. They wanted what most of us want…someone to recognize what made them special.
Neither realized the depth of the hole this left in themselves or each other. This lack of realization meant they were unable to fill these holes within themselves or each other. Over the years, this continued to cause anger, frustration and ultimately resentment. They were unable to see that the same insecurities that plagued them also existed within the other. Even if they had, their age and lack of experience left them unequipped to help the other.
Of course, back in the mid-80s neither understood this. All they really understood is that they felt unappreciated and unloved. They were not getting what had been promised, because they did not understand the promise in the first place. It started with little things: slights, jokes, and spending less time together. It grew to outright cheating, and then anything to impose the same hurt they were feeling. Hatred was easier than fixing anything, blaming was easier than admitting anything, and so came the divorce. Each were convinced the issue was with the other, and both claimed to be the victim. They never really looked inside to see their contribution to the problem, and neither fully understood their affect on the situation. Neither wanted to see the shared pain, misery and confusion that they both had caused.
Americans think this is what they want. We like to feel we are ready for war. But that’s because we watch too much unrealistic media. Divorce is a breakdown of a shared culture. It happens when we not only stop getting what we want, but it starts to feel impossible to get what we need. The problem with America today is that our wants and needs are all mixed up. We need to redefine and reassess what matters. Take stock in what we have and really think about the importance associated with whatever we feel may be missing.
Divorce is a cool war, not a cold one. Everything is okay until it’s not. We can live on our phones talking smack to each other, feeling happy at the zingers we sling, and all is fun and games until both sides want to control the same thing. The first time both parties desire the same thing tensions rise and anger flares. In a divorce, the law takes over and the fights take place between lawyers and mediators, with violence a rare occurrence. This will not be the case if our country divorces. If our country divorces the fights will take place on the streets, in our neighborhoods and our cities with little regard for the law.
This divorce will be messy. While our country once had many neighborhoods whose inhabitants saw life from a similar vein, those borders have turned to vapor and diversity crisscrosses our land. America has been restructured based upon preference and much less based upon necessity or segregation. People live where they like: city/country/suburbs, hot weather vs. cold weather lovers, etc. All races, sexes, genders, shapes and sizes fit within each of our segments and Americans of all kinds live side by side.
What on earth do we think this would look like if any groups tried to secede? Who will give up their coasts, town squares, city councils and other aspects of life to move elsewhere and take up sides to fight a silly war? Ideas are grand, awareness is good, but action often looks different in practice. We need to be realistic. We need to take a breath. Let’s all be a bit more mature than my young parents exploring love and family for the first time.
Groups at odds must first be understood if we want to erase their anger. Our hurt drives us towards hate. Hurt that comes from many places: changes that are too quick, or not quick enough; intercultural misunderstandings; dreams that feel out of reach; assumptions about our character; a lack of trust and/or empathy in our daily lives. Many of our people are suffering from feelings they struggle to understand, and emotions they are unable to diffuse. While it is unthinkable to believe one blog post can help bring clarity to these issues, I will humbly offer one strategy that has helped me and mine create a strong culture of trust. My hope is that this suggestion could help one or more people out there, and the more we can help the less chance we have of tearing our country apart.
The AFDA method helps to transition our emotions to something manageable and proactively provides a path to harmony.
A – Admit – In order to solve anything, we must first admit what is happening. Identify and define the issue to provide clarity to the emotions one is feeling.
Example: I am feeling hurt because my spouse over talks me when I am sharing things I feel are important. This hurt makes me doubt myself and resent them.
F – Forgive – It’s totally okay to feel any emotion one feels. All emotions are human and natural and we do not have to be perfect. Our feelings do not make us unsavory. Our spiteful actions spawned from our emotions cause our shame or self disappointment.
Example: It is totally okay that I feel these emotions. I am human and deserve to be listened to because I matter.
D – Decide – Decide what you want. Do you want to be right? Do you want the other person to admit they were wrong in their actions? Do you want things to change? What should it look like? REMEMBER: It is often not possible to be right AND get what we want. It is important to choose which is the most important part in order to be successful.
Example: It is important to me to fix this because I do not want to feel this way any longer. I should find a way to share this with my spouse in a constructive manner to help us move forward together. Even if I am the victim, and did nothing to cause this I need to take control of the situation as my happiness is up to me. If I do not speak about this, or find a way to fix it then I am allowing myself to live in a vicious cycle that will cause me pain.
A – Act – Put your decision into action. Divide the action into steps if necessary and reassess along the way. REMEMBER: Action often needs repetition to create new habits. Do not be discouraged if things are not fixed right away. Keep repeating this process, if necessary, until you get the desired results.
This is the start of our Belonging – understanding the problems in order to create the necessary solutions. Seeing our part and doing our part to help change things for the better. Please join me next time when we dive deeper into our bridging our gaps and uncover additional ingredients necessary to raise our vibrations and scale Maslow’s hierarchy.
©Maven Source International, LLC 2021 – All Rights Reserved
Heading into survival, all bets are off. Fear rules the day, and wariness presents itself in all interactions. Scarcity abounds and life becomes a daily fight to make it to the next morning.
As a country, we are heading towards a collective Survival experience at breakneck speed. Our illusion of control is beginning to melt away, and our desired state of prosperity is fading due to the sheer amount of incidents that are becoming difficult to ignore. Emotions have taken hold of our psyches, more negative than not, and our connections to each other are paper thin, dangling over ever growing flames.
Survival is not usually a chosen state. In fact, it is a state that many fear and strive to stay away from at all costs. When Survival is at our door our anxiety heightens and depression claws at our throats making it difficult to swallow. Our dreams of safety and comfort are no longer a possibility and we are faced with the choice of running, fighting or falling into a strong state of denial.
Every day more Americans are slipping into this state as we wade through an ever growing trend of epidemics. At the time of this writing we are dealing with: a worker shortage, inflation, water shortages, supply chain breakdown, collective trauma from the Covid-19 pandemic, opioid & overdose epidemics, our failure in Afghanistan, discontent with China, wildfires in the west, floods in the east, plus upticks in crime, suicide, murder and aggression all at the same time.
These stressors may not even be understood by a large swath of our populace, but one needs not to watch the news or even be online to feel the heavy blanket of aggression, fear, frustration and strife that is covering our country. Feelings that we cannot process because they are not understood are the most dangerous we can have as they often cause us to lash out uncontrollably in ways that we would never imagine.
We need to find a way to release the anger, and who better, we think, than to target those who believe in a different world view. Debates turn into fistfights, we scream dirty words at each other online hoping to crush the receiver with little care that there is another human on the other end of the line. We are in dangerous territory, and one where few of our populace has any idea of how to survive if this shit gets real.
If we continue down this path, things will eventually bottom out. Perhaps it is inevitable. Common knowledge tells us that it is only by hitting rock bottom that we achieve clarity and can then progress towards something greater. That may be true, and for many IS true, however those who see this as a “win” tend to forget that hitting rock bottom first starts with a path full of self destruction. Very often bringing one to the brink of death. On a larger scale, this path is exponentially worse, bringing about war and the collapse of society.
Why, if so many tragedies are in our midst, can we not see what is headed our way and correct ourselves?
The biggest reason we cannot see what is headed our way is our belief in ourselves as a people and as a nation. Since birth over the past few generations we have been bred to have an overwhelming sense of belief in America and its people. We live in a country that loves to be in love with ourselves. American exceptionalism is often seen as a matter of fact. Ask most Americans, no matter what “side” they are on and they will agree that we have the strongest economy, the strongest military, and freedom, God, and democracy seem to thrive here more than anywhere else.
Americans tend to believe the fairy tales and heroic episodes that Hollywood creates. Heroes constantly triumph over dystopian rulers and other evil doers that would cause us pain and give us hope that we will see the same endings in real life. Our written history latches onto our successes (WWII, Civil rights, the moon landing, etc.) and mitigates our failures ( the Vietnam war, slavery, the war on drugs, etc.) finding reasons to explain away our mistakes rather than learn from them.
This tendency for optimism also expands to our own lives, especially when it comes to our survival. One in five people do not believe we will ever have an apocalypse, and of those who do a large amount (42%) believe they would survive a week or more during one.
Many of us like to fantasize that we are the ones who will kick it into gear. We will be a leader, or at least second in command, making the hard choices, finding supplies and survivors, banding the group together when things get tough. At the same time, only about 17% of Americans have a plan today if an apocalypse should occur. I suppose it is possible to survive without a plan, living by one’s wits and a little bit of luck, but I’m not sure if that many people are witty or lucky.
Many examples of what this new normal could look like are foreshadowed in our world today. Take Lebanon for example: their economy collapsed under the weight of multiple catastrophes and the government finally succumbed to their (often self inflicted) wounds. Whenever we hear that a government has collapsed it probably brings with it images of buildings destroyed, terror running rampant, people running fearfully for their lives, but in real life it can be much more quiet and unassuming.
Looking at Lebanon can provide us a window into what we may have in store for us if we continue heading down our path of divisiveness, greed and ignorance. Lebanon’s citizens headed for the same civil war that other countries balanced on the border of in the 60’s and 70’s, and due to a lack of interference from the outside world, this civil war lasted until the 1990’s. While we were waking up to the internet, they were waking up to a new beginning of hope and peace. That uneasy peace between the people is now on the edge of failure once more as the country has slipped into a place of survival.
How did this happen? The world was convinced that Lebanon’s worst days were behind them as they worked their way past their civil war. Soon after the tribulations it became touted as “a vacation spot, a tourist mecca, home to a thriving middle class” it was a beautiful, vibrant country that felt like it had weathered the worst that fate had to offer. Underneath, however, they were still being plagued with insolence, corruption and greed, creating an economy more similar to a house of cards.
Then in 2019, a huge explosion that destroyed much of their grain reserves became the straw that broke the camel’s back. The government lost confidence in itself and disbanded, banks froze withdrawals, medicine availability dropped, periodic blackouts are the norm. 70% of the population doesn’t have enough food or money to buy food, and people are waiting in gasoline lines for hours a day with no luck and little hope.
Their country is experiencing a collapse that could lead to them becoming a failed state. A series of events, both intended and by accident, that slowly deteriorated a society’s belief in itself and created a slippery slope for the populace. While this is happening in a smaller middle eastern country, we must not be so arrogant to think the same situation couldn’t or wouldn’t happen here.
Our size, our money, and our standing in the world allows a type of myopia that is dangerous. Focusing only on ourselves it is hard to see that our country has already broken into multiple pieces. The size of those pieces allow a mass delusion of comfort, but make no mistake, the pieces are still cracked and severed.
We may believe that we are invincible, but if we are not careful reality may be quite different than we imagine. Especially seeing as we have made and continue to make similar mistakes. We prop things up continuously, allowing our economy and our government to be hollowed out. Our constant desire for more our only saving grace to keeping this system intact. While our pasting and stapling have seemed to stave off the worst thus far, do not be fooled. Our apocalypse is on the horizon, in fact it is already here, and will feel more like a slow moving death.
Jared Diamond, a renowned anthropologist predicted this slow road to societal failure in his book Collapse: How Societies choose to fail or succeed in 2015, when discussing the possibility of a collapse of the United States. He says “Much more likely than a doomsday scenario involving human extinction or an apocalyptic collapse of industrial civilization would be “just” a future of significantly lower living standards, chronically higher risks, and the undermining of what we now consider some of our key values“. (Diamond, 2015)
Lebanon’s shared culture and collectivism has allowed them to stave off mass chaos, but war is already on the streets and is only getting worse. Our unshared culture and home grown division will push us to the brink more quickly, at each other’s throats like a couple in the throes of a horrific divorce. In order to stop our forward progression towards destruction, we must first decide that our countrymen and women are friends, not foes. Only by bridging our divides can we stem this path towards destruction. This means creating a new social contract where we are all bound together by the things we have in common, and distancing ourselves for a time from that which divides us. We can create a path towards Belonging. The work will be difficult, but worth not losing our country or ourselves.
Next time we investigate this path towards Belonging and the necessary ingredients we need to activate in order to move towards a more peaceful environment.
What if the answers to solving our problems are right in front of us? Maybe we just need to take another look. Reaching into the past, seeing ideas another way, can help us uncover how best to move forward. This has been my focus for the past few years, and here I will attempt to describe my findings in the plainest way possible. This series will dive into the details of Maslow’s theory, what it is, where it came from, and most importantly, how it can be used to help us understand the mysteries of our current environment. Using this as a prism, we will examine our past, the path we took collectively to arise at our present, and what our options are for our collective future. Part One provides an overview of the theory and sets the tone for the remainder of the series.
Many people have heard of, or have even studied, Maslow’s hierarchy, but often it is nothing more than a mention of human behavior or a short blurb in a text book. Rarely do we truly understand it at it’s depths, or what it really looks like in practice.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is an idea in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A theory of Human Motivation” in the journal Psychological Review. Wikipedia
Comprised of five levels: Physiological needs (aka Survival), Safety, Belonging, Esteem and Self-actualization, Maslow’s hierarchy is seen as a way to explain our trek through life. Seen as a pyramid, each level can be compared to a video game, where each level must be completed prior to focusing on the next. Each level is so consuming that even if the needs above are offered the subject may ignore or not understand them as they focus on the level they are working to satisfy.
As with most things, each level comes with their own tradeoffs, as well as repercussions to ourselves and our place in society if we are unable to meet them.
Normally, Maslow’s theory has been focused on an individual perspective; something each of us work through during our lifetime. However, I believe that throughout history, all humans have worked to fulfill these needs both individually and as a group (comprised of one’s family, community, nation and/or world) in both conscious and unconscious ways.
Our world is an organism, and has many attributes that we could ascribe to a human being. Many theorize that we also have a shared consciousness affected by our feelings, thoughts and actions. Our world can grow to be harmonious or hellish depending on what we value, how we treat each other and what we digest. Just like we need to keep our own bodies healthy, it is extremely important for us all to keep our nations healthy as well. Given the ability to be healthy and find fulfillment, we then collectively are able to have empathy for our neighbor and want our citizens to attain their highest and best.
However, when our bodies are sick we do not function well and become divisive and angry. Illness leaves us often unable to think clearly and we portray negative emotions such as anxiety, fear, stress, depression and judgement. The same happens to our society when we have an inordinate amount of people in our community that are unwell and are struggling to be well. When we have many who are unable to achieve the basic needs in life, feel safe and feel like they belong, we will all suffer the consequences sooner or later. This is why it is important to study our society as a whole using these theories to provide us a lay of the land.
Seeing the world in this way allows us to formulate an understanding of the problems we face. While one theory is not the entire answer, this theory allows us a place to start. We will discuss other theories in future series and compare and contrast their affect on our world. As we see the connections and overlaps, we can start to construct a holistic view of where our nation is struggling and how best to overcome these obstacles to self-actualization. Seeing the truth of the matter helps us to create plans that allow us to diminish these issues.
For example, the Essential Elements of life focuses on helping our Explorers navigate the levels of Belonging, Esteem and Self-Actualization. With our Finding Fusion programs we help people to shed the layers of stress, find fulfillment and create a balanced life. Knowing where you, your community and your nation are at collectively helps us see where to start. Learning the necessary skills to move up the levels can help us find other ways to raise our collective vibrations and create a collective future that works for everyone.
Next week – Part Two – Our current level is Safety
©Maven Source International, LLC 2021 – All Rights Reserved
We humans are locked in an ever growing battle of emotion vs. logic, of instinct vs. calculation. One exacerbated, manipulated and stretched as we work to understand our world’s intricacies and harness technology beyond our means. This battle has many layers: the one within ourselves, another within our communities, and a layer that includes our entire globe.
Nowhere on this planet is this battle currently more stark than within the United States of America. Here, the battle has been portrayed as one where either side wants to win at all cost and banish the “other”. For decades this war has been building, more than likely longer than we all would like to think (or agree) that it has been in existence. This battle has grown to consume every aspect of our lives, nowhere is safe, and it presents in many forms: racially, educationally, politically, etc. Even those who live far from population centers have been forced to choose sides; even those who stood in the “middle ground” for many years are now painted with their team colors, often against their will. This battle can break us, and it’s already happening, but there is a way to stop it.
First, it must be said – We did this to ourselves; no outsider pushed us to these limits. After so many decades of slicing and dicing the populace, pitting us all against each other for multiple reasons, our country has become an environment of confusion and anger where only the zealots feel confident in their ideas. Zealots who work to pick us off one by one to choose our destiny. To date, anyone who has tried to fix it has done little but fail or incite us more.
This constant incitement has caused our populace to grown tired, worried and frustrated; a group desperately in need of mediation, but so raw with their hatred of the “other” (no matter how it is defined) that it seems only war can exhaust them into a truce. But even war will not fix this situation. War would produce a winner, maybe, but with neither side mature enough to create a vision that would bring us peace it would all be for not. Either side, should they win, would only enact more pain on the whole.
Interestingly enough, both sides feel they are the one fighting for “good”. They believe they are activists for their constituents, their brethren, bringing awareness to the plights their population is facing. Both sides believe they know best, yet constantly fall victim to “confirmation bias“. Leaders on each side believe they are fighting for a better life, but in truth, they are fighting for their “way of thought”. More precisely, they are fighting the age old argument of emotion vs. logic, but few even know this is so.
Today, there seems to be only two acceptable ways to deal with emotions in America: one is to allow them to rule you, to succumb to their whims and bleed them everywhere you go; the other is to put them into little structured boxes and feel them as appropriate when appropriate and never a stray one allowed.
Neither of the proposed outcomes are conducive to our well being or longevity as a nation or as a people, but many people will believe that either is the only way to survive. At the end of this explanation I will make sure to share some actual solutions to this problem, but first, lets start out by examining each of these tribes and their outlook on life.
People from this tribe have their feet planted firmly on the ground. They tend to prefer lots of open space, most of the time have an affinity for nature, and work to keep a connection to Mother Earth. SotE people don’t dislike technology but really only prefer enough of it to add a thin layer of help to their lives. Working with the Earth in multiple ways (ex. getting their hands dirty for pleasure or as a profession) is preferred to sitting at a computer. Intuition is strong within this tribe and they tend to allow their emotions to sit at the surface of their skin. Emotional Intelligence training comes from the rest of their group, interconnectivity helps them to learn “how to act”. Limited structure is necessary to assist this group in honing their emotional intelligence, too much structure stifles their creative nature. Education is looked at in two ways:
SotE people like to gain fulfillment by excelling in the basics – solid home, good family, strong community ties, providing their strengths to help the group succeed, etc. They take pride in what they have created and how well they have succeeded in creating a happy community and family. SotE people do not expect life to be easy, but instead see their path full of little challenges that are worth the struggle due to the lessons they will learn about life. Time moves too quickly for this group and change can be difficult. Change is difficult for a SotE member because of the need to constantly “regression test” their creations (i.e. their lives and communities) to ensure stability. Loyalty grows with each interaction and takes repetition and time. This can be off-putting to both “outsiders” and members that do not easily fit in the tribe’s way of life. Often those who confuse the SotE feel slighted or ostracized, leaving before a new comfort zone can be created. This group will be wary in the beginning, but once proven trustworthy their loyalty is unmatched and they become great advocates on your side through thick and thin.
The Salt of the Earth tribe has been manipulated by cunning members (or non-members) who want to create a “left-behind” mentality or those who tell them something is missing. Their emotions are easy to rise and exacerbate and when they feel they are missing out they grow resentful. Guilt is easy to come by in the SotE tribe. Little pressures them more than their children wanting more than they can provide, especially when comparing themselves to the Air and Sky tribe. They often do not feel many of the excess luxuries of life are necessary, but when the world tells them they are “wrong” or “backwards” for those beliefs the embarrassment creates the anger we see today.
This group now believes that they are being asked to give up their way of life and that no one really understands them. Their feelings are hurt because the Air and Sky people tend to disregard things they cherish, paint them as “black and white”, and see their connection to emotions as “childish”.
This group loves to push limits, to constantly strive for change and looks to technology as an answer to solutions as well as the means to most ends. Where the SotE people look to the past for answers, this group is future bound. They trust scientific discovery, facts, and figures over intuition and often see emotions as a hindrance to achieving their goals. Constantly progressive, never settling for the “now”, they live for the future and are excited for it to happen. Belief in education is strong, and certifications, degrees and letters after one’s name are extremely important to be allowed in the upper echelons of the clan. They believe that we are here to understand the Universe, not only to understand it but to conquer it and rule over it (with a generous hand, of course).
Those who thrive in this society have a high intellect, the ability to dampen their emotions, and a desire to discuss endlessly the deep ideas of the universe. They are great advocates when you convince them of your cause (with a lot of facts!) and often have the connections and drive to take any idea to the top. Family is important, but at times as a means to an end, and chosen family (or brother/sisterhood) is often more important than blood relations. Emotional intelligence is learned from books, calculated to achieve a goal and used to control one’s relationships. Commitment is less solid here, as there is always something else to try, another goal to achieve another thing we COULD do. Time never stops and that works for this group because the present can get boring and stale.
This group has been manipulated by those weakening boundaries and allowing an “anything goes” environment. Bringing unlimited options, distractions, and possibilities this forward-thinking group continues to push all limits trying to find the end of any given path. This is great for those who crave to be at the top, with the most resources, even at the expense of achieving goals that could be destructive to humanity. Manipulators come in the form of people who push the envelope and snub them when they haven’t done everything they COULD whether or not they should.
The Air and Sky tribe believes that due to their achievements and intelligence they should be able to dictate and rule others who are “less evolved”. Pandora’s Box is always opened with little regard of whether or not it may be beneficial. They believe in structure and rules that inform every citizen of how to act and what to do, and because logical people created this structure it must be the most logical setup possible. There is no going back, only moving forward. Air and Sky people’s feelings are are hurt because they do not understand why those less fortunate, those that they fight for, are often still not happy with their solutions. If the dots connect, and the plans make sense and seem fair, why can’t people submit to their ways and just be happy.
So you can see what a mess we have. Two sides that see the world completely different pushed to the extremes by manipulation further exacerbating their differences and driving a wedge between them that may become too difficult to bridge. HOWEVER, towards the beginning I promised some hope to help us move forward and this I will share with you now.
At this point, there may be some of you out there who are confused or even frustrated after reading this analysis because you were neither a full member of the Salt of the Earth tribe or the Air and Sky tribe. You may be thinking ‘I don’t fit fully in either of these groups; this lady must be insane’. If so, I congratulate you because you are already on the way towards helping to solve this problem. Our minds have the ability to hold both of these groups inside at once, but as we are born with a natural capacity towards one or the other we need to activate the will to balance the two.
In order to bridge the gaps between these two tribes, we first must decide that both sides are necessary. We need to find the positive in each of these ways of thinking. Accept that each has relevance, and each is a bit nuts at times. Neither are better than the other; both have merit and are necessary for a well-balanced relationship with our world, with each other and within.
Only then will we grow curious about the other. Only then will we reach out to understand and by understanding create growth within our own souls. Like Yin and Yang, both are necessary to experience the whole of life, each one loving the other in order to fully understand and thrive.
It takes a bit (or a lot) of humility to move in this direction and humility only comes when one feels safe. In order to feel safe and be able to show vulnerability we must have trust. Trust only comes from believing that the “other” has both side’s best interests at heart or at least in believing that this is possible. Doing this work takes bravery. Please be brave enough to stand with me and take the first step. Seek out others who belong to the tribe that scares you the most. Ask “why?” and then absorb. Work to open the other side of your mind, let it make you feel uncomfortable and question what you feel. See the wool pulled over our eyes, the distractions and manipulations that divide. Reject them often. Become the first stone to roll down the hill. Pave the way for others. It’s worth it, I promise.
©Maven Source International 2021 – All Rights Reserved
Culture matters.
Ignoring culture is why we have failed multiple times overseas
(Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan….).
Ignoring culture is why our race relations are poor,
the reason there is a class divide, and why we just cannot seem to get along.
Why we have lost our way and why we are disconnected from one another.
Culture provides a template for our lives and these templates are very different depending on where one’s ancestors are from; formed in different environments at different periods of history and with different goals.
We talk about culture a lot today, but often the lines are blurred and many times we fail to understand the depths of the concept. For many, culture is difficult to differentiate from one’s identity and we often conflate the two ideas.
Identity is a singular term made up of multiple layers that include a person’s nature, nurture, behavior, outlook, beliefs, values and motivations. Culture is the sharing and overlapping of multiple identities to provide a template of what is expected and accepted within a group.
Culture becomes an agreement; a creation of a “social contract” within which people create comfort zones. It is the foundation from which individual identity is created, regardless if the outcome is one of confirmation or deviation.
Culture is a layered concept consisting of two levels:
When many cultures interact within the same environment we get “Intercultural Relations” and many times the initial meetings are not pretty. Intercultural relations cause friction, confusion and change: concepts many humans run from on a regular basis. Perceived commonalities (such as sharing a language) often confuse us even more as we cannot understand why we cannot understand each other. We need assistance to bridge these divides and only by understanding what is really going on will we be able to fix our current situation. Intercultural Relations can help us find the answer.
When multiple cultures interact we are dealing with different ways of thought. Our brains are actually working differently, seeing different patterns and solutions to fix our shared problems. Coupled with the ability to turn off intuition, this power allows for different ideas, concepts and viewpoints even when the information coming in is the same.
Historically, when things were much more separated, this wasn’t as much of an issue. People could live their daily lives without having to constantly justify why they thought they way they did. However, today’s world is much smaller. In our ever diversifying environment, we are growing quite familiar with the ability for people to see the same facts, ideas and/or concepts and come up with different outcomes and perspectives. This causes friction, and can grow to become dangerous. Confusion like this leads to breakdowns within groups. Misunderstanding causes separation within a community.
Motivation, patience and consideration are necessary to “code-switch” enough in order to understand someone on the opposite end of the spectrum. Unfortunately, motivation, patience and consideration are in short order in today’s world. A lack of these concepts contribute heavily to the overwhelming turmoil, frustration and pain in our society.
My partner and I experienced this throughout our decade-long courtship. Belonging to an intercultural, inter-ethnic, interracial, and intersexual relationship is difficult. Many who live these realities struggle to the point of exhaustion. These differences between us are only the start. I am an introvert, and he is extroverted. Little bothers him, but I am extremely sensitive. I like sweet, he likes spicy… you get the picture. Today, I look at all of these differences with a lot of love because we have figured out the way to make all of this work. At its core, our relationship is based upon a love of anthropology, a desire to understand the human experience throughout history and at its depths, plus a huge dose of chemistry, respect and understanding…and, it doesn’t hurt that he is pretty hot.
Hot or not however, he is difficult to handle (as am I at times) and the amount of disagreements we have had over the years could fill Lake Superior. We went to battle over everything: politics, religion, every aspect of American society. Even the importance of the yin skills like empathy and emotional intelligence were debated. (Thankfully, I won those battles, but it took a long time).
How did we get past these differences? First, we needed to make the conscious decision that we were going to do this together. Second, we needed to gained comfortability with each other. Lastly, we needed to mature. Over time, and a lot of discussion, we were able to compare, contrast and dissect all of these different attributes that made up both our identities and our cultures.
We discussed the merits and disadvantages of passive-aggressive or overt communication; how time, risk management, and expectations influenced us in our upbringing. We approached problems differently, and often disagreed on how to best use our strengths to build our life. He looks at things from a stance of power. I work through problems from a more strategic position. He looks at the world as a place ripe for the taking. I strive to make the environment pleasant for all.
Neither of these ways are better. Both are important and blending the two ways of being is powerful. Starting from a singular point of view, and learning the majesty in each other’s viewpoints and approaches helped us gain an unmatched sense of control over life.
What was our prize for all of this hard work? Initially, a level of comfort. A place we could call our own. A gameboard where we could that played by our shared rules. Shortly thereafter, this comfort zone became a circle of trust. Trust allowed us to commit to each other. Finally, over time, we were able to create our own unique culture. Our home. These conversations allowed us to fully understand each other and our shared journey started to become fun. Experiencing someone who thinks so differently became our shared puzzle, one we could learn from and grow with. Very few barriers now exist, which makes us able to kid, be frank and even piss each other off because we are tied together by what we have created together. It belongs to both of us.
It is not only possible to understand other cultures and other ways of thought, it is possible to blend different cultures together into something new, to recreate a combined culture that can be balanced with aspects of all of our unique perspectives. This is what we must do together in our society in order to regain our footing.
We need to reconnect, relearn how to trust, and most importantly learn a bit of humility to allow us all to come together. With help we can dismantle our culture war and rebuild a shared culture that appreciates everyone and works for us all.
How do we do that? By first understanding ourselves. Make the ethereal concrete, define our culture, and fully understand why we are who we are. We really are at a point where we don’t have much choice or even much time left. Not doing this we will only continue to falter and fail. This is why the Essential Elements of life were created. To provide the explanations, information and tools to help Explorers find their way. The only way to the other side is through, and we can guide you in the right direction. We know it because we have lived it.
©Maven Source International 2021 – All Rights Reserved
Navigate our Complex World Successfully 