Thinking back, most of us can remember the relatively carefree days of childhood. When getting lost for hours playing a videogame or staying up all night had zero consequences. If you were tired, you slept. If you were hungry, you grabbed something from the kitchen. For most, the biggest concern was dodging schoolwork. However, as we age, our mind has the power to gloss over things. It can cast a shadow that dims the difficulties we have faced.
The two minds theory talks about our experiential mind and our narrative mind. The experiential mind lives in the moment and is how we think and feel as the world plays out around us second by second. The other, the narrative mind, consolidates a life of experiences into one cohesive story. This mind tells us who we are, how we got there, and serves as our measuring stick for new events. It is also said that the narrative mind tends to “average things out” and forget how painful a single event can be.
The theory discusses an example from a study in which women were surveyed immediately following childbirth and then again some years later. As it turns, most women reported the experience to be significantly more traumatic at the time than all those years later. It was suggested that the narrative mind had done its job well, tempering the excruciating pain of childbirth against a lifetime of other hardships.
The more pain we experience, the more pain we can handle – no pain, no gain? We can understand that to a point, but are there no limitations? Is there not something wrong when the hardships of life become enough to turn the mind against itself? A truck has payload specifications for a reason; do we assume the human mind is free of similar limitations?
Looking back again at childhood, most can see the narrative mind and its influence. The pressure to fit in, the demand to produce and achieve, the painful process of trial and error for every situation, enduring the cruel behaviours of others. Not entirely forgotten but calmed and blurred by the passage of time. The pain of a joke at your expense can seem minimal when compared to the pain of struggling to pay your bills or feed your kids. Does the narrative mind coupled with a society that supports the disconnection of humans works to blind us from what might be our biggest challenge – satisfying our humanity?
Our Biology
A quick flip through a textbook on evolutionary biology shows that humans are essentially that same from a biological perspective as we were tens of thousands of years ago. There hasn’t been a ton of change in the way our blood pumps, the structures of our brain, or the hair that grows on our heads.
While much about human beings remains the same, a quick scan of our environment reveals differences that are impossible to miss. Where once there stood trees, now there stands a building. Where there once was a lake, there now lays a fountain. We now have gargantuan masses of disconnected individuals in place of small, connected communities. It seems our society missed the hint when zoologists started changing “cages” into “enclosures”, working to emulate the environment that an animal is best suited for. Instead, our society seems to prefer the development of an enclosure designed to squeeze humanity out of us – to painful effect. So, what option does this leave us when it comes to our mental health?
If you are like most of us, you’re far too bought in. You recognize the days of living in the woods as hunter/gathers are long gone (most are not even allowed to pick the raspberries that grow in the parks nearby). We like the convenience of our car, to plan trips with family. Yet, we recognize that to do those things, standing on the front lines of societal change is not always possible or realistic when it comes to getting what we want out of this life.
So, what to do? Rely on your humanity. As a species, we appear to be endlessly adaptable. We have spread across the globe and even off the planet! Each move forward has come in the face of adversity. Humans have worked to integrate these new challenges, their causes, and implications in a way that allows us to move on to the next level. At some point, however, we developed a blind spot. We failed to acknowledge that when the disconnect between our biology and our means of forwarding momentum becomes too great, the strength of humanity becomes its weakness. We become hyper-vigilant and self-defeating.
A story…
Two cavemen are sitting on some rocks talking. One says to the other I have awesome power. I can look into the future and see danger before it comes. This is helpful because it keeps me safe.
The other caveman says, well, how do you know it works? And the first man responds, the other day before we went hunting, I noticed that the deer were looking around scared, and there were some animal remains on the ground. I could see into the future and knew there was a good chance of a wolf being around. Just then, a wolf pack charged out after the deer, and we were kept safe because I knew to stay back.
The other caveman was impressed and asked how he could develop this power. He was told to practice. He was instructed to imagine all the scenarios that could cause harm, and then he could keep an eye out for them. And with this, the second caveman left to practice.
The second caveman had not been heard from some months later, so his friend searched. He arrived at his cave to find that his friend had died alone, quite some time ago. Struck with the sadness of his loss, he wanted answers and so sought out his friend’s family. Finding them, he asked what had happened. Why were you not there?
The man’s family said that he had returned one day and begun talking of all the world’s dangers. Wolves, bears, and the cold. This worried the man’s family because these things rarely ever seemed to be a problem. The man had carried on, beginning to imagine all sorts of perils that may lay ahead.
That’s terrible, said his friend. What happened next? The man’s family said, well, eventually, we had to leave. He was scared and mistrustful of us, and we were tired of him.
While hurt by the loss of his friend, he couldn’t help wonder what had gone wrong. After all, this power had been nothing but helpful to him. He asked the man’s family one last question… what danger was it that finally got him? The answer… well, he avoided the bears and wolves; the cold was no problem because he never left the cave. We couldn’t hurt him because we weren’t there – my guess: He forgot he needed water.
The first caveman went straight to the stream for a drink.
Much like the caveman who passed away in the story above, we have become highly skilled in imagining the threat. Many of us spend our days thinking about, preparing for, and skillfully navigating what might happen down the road. Hoping to avoid the hazards, perhaps even decades before they come to pass. Unfortunately, even though you get better the more you use a knife, you also become more likely to cut yourself.
The world moves fast, and the human species has done its best to keep up. The innate adaptability has been stretched, and we are starting to see fraying at the edges of our wellbeing. Specialized skill sets aimed at getting the job we want, the income we want, and the lifestyle we want have left us hopelessly ill-equipped to satisfy the unforgiving requirements wired directly into our DNA.
There is hope, however. We can learn from the surviving caveman. We can rediscover the long-lost ‘Human Needs’ and eliminate our blind spots by integrating this new knowledge. Then we can rely on our rationality and adaptability to move forward as fast as ever.
There are steps you can take on your own to start empowering yourself for success.
Self-Care – Best said by the Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you might just get what you need”. The idea of the perfect life balance and self-care routine is typically impossible in the reality of this world. The solution is to drop the idea of perfection and re-evaluate priority. Incorporate the truth that humans do better when we have a healthy life balance and take care of our bodies. Something is better than nothing. Take some time to evaluate what is realistic for you and create strategic and effective means of attaining it. We like SMART goals for this!
Mindfulness – While we could go on forever about the benefits of mindfulness, for most the mere mention of the word is enough to cringe. But please know that Mindfulness is not just yoga, deep breathing, and meditation. There are many other effective practices and strategies that we can all benefit from if the traditional formats are not your preference.
Education – Finally, we can benefit from the existing knowledge regarding human needs and our species. Use any reliable source of information possible to learn about what humans need to thrive. Work to create the internal environment that is most conducive to sustainable forward movement. Some books that discuss this in greater detail are Sapiens by Yuval Harari, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, and Atomic Habits by James Clear
If you’ve found this interesting, we encourage you to pursue reconnecting with the biological human and we are always happy to help you along the way.