Tag: health

  • On isolation.

    Isolation is a state of mind. It is an interpretation of our reality – a story we tell ourselves.

    We can be in a romantic relationship and living in a densely populated, vibrant metropolitan city surrounded by people we call friends, and still feel incredibly alone and isolated.

    Conversely, we can be wandering on our own through the mountains without ever seeing another human being, and not experience the corrosive emptiness of isolation.

    Isolation is ultimately about a sense of connection – how we perceive and experience the feeling of being connected to the people and world around us. And like everything else we experience, this is dependent on the stories we tell ourselves – the narrative we create and feed.

    It’s only by nurturing our connection with ourselves first – the self that lies beneath the rubble of our traumas and those we’ve absorbed from others – then that which we have with the people and world around us, will we be able to immunise ourselves against the feeling of being alone and isolated.

    In large part this requires gaining an understanding of the forces that are influencing us and what we project into the world, as well as how we respond to that which echoes back. It requires seeking out that which lies buried in our subconscious – covertly and efficiently maintaining a prison within which we unwittingly reside, and liberating ourselves from it.

    Ironically, prolonged physical isolation is one means by which we can achieve this. It forces us to sit with our daemons. It creates space for us to reflect on the connections we have and those we have lost. It affords us an opportunity to consider how we engage with the world around us, how it engages with us, and what we might need to do to experience meaningful, deep connections with others.

    The fact we are being guided by forces we are unaware of means we cannot simply will connection into existence. We must first understand these forces and then release ourselves from their grasp.

    There are many tools we can explore and utilise for us to achieve this, but if we can learn to experience the moment more fully, we not only make ourselves more immune from influence from our past, but are also less likely to form new limiting and distorted beliefs. We make ourselves more receptive to opportunities to connect and can to see the person in front of us more clearly.

    To feel connected – loved, supported, acknowledged, valued, respected, seen – is one of the most beautiful aspects of the human experience. We must choose connection over isolation – both physical and perceived, imposed and self-imposed – as much as we possibly can. As we evolve, then so too will the criteria for us to feel connected, and so it is something we must work on every day we are fortunate enough to be alive in order to continue experiencing it.

  • Being human.

    We are all children existing within ever-ageing bodies. Who we are now has been formed and moulded by the experiences of our childhood. Those experiences dictate how we act and function as an adult. Whether we like it or not, no matter what age we are, our thoughts and actions are heavily influenced by what we experienced as a child, and how those experiences were managed.

    We may be conscious of the mechanism and root of some of the influences, and lack or suppress any awareness of others. There are some influences we simply have no conscious control over.

    Trauma at a young age can cause the over-development of the amygdala, which plays a very significant role in processing emotions and in fear responses, and the under-development of the prefrontal cortex, which plays a role in emotion and social regulation.

    This means the very structure of our brain influences – dictates even – how we respond to certain situations and stimuli. With the brain being elastic, we do not have to be a slave to our childhood traumas, but until we are able to find a means of addressing the impact they have on us, we are beholden to them.

    When we reflect on our younger selves – be it 5 years ago or 25, we should therefore do so with love and empathy, and a knowledge that we were not fully in control of our responses and reactions to certain situations, and dealt with a given situation as best we could under the circumstances that existed at the time, and who we were at that time.

    Free will is a fallacy.

    Being human is to be a collection of mind and body influenced by internal and external forces, many of which we have no direct control over. All we can do is explore those elements of our being, each at once both unique to us, and identical to everyone else’s, and work to gradually shape ourselves into the best versions of us we can be, through healing ourselves and world around us.