We Need Each Other
We relate, therefore we are.177
~harbeen arora
Our deep kinship and interdependence with one another are illuminated by celebrated neuropsychiatrist and best-selling author Dr. Dan Siegel. Dr. Siegel is also Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, codirector of the Mindful Awareness Research Center, and director of the Mindsight Institute. His innovative, relational theory of mind-body wellness includes a third element: our relationships. This way, each individual becomes what Siegel calls “more than me, but a part of we.” 178
According to Siegel, everyone we relate with is part of our extended nervous system. “The brain is the social organ of the body, where one hundred billion neurons reach out to other neurons,” he says.179 Tom Oliver, author of The Self Delusion, corroborates this, writing that the new science of social networks shows we are all so interconnected it’s unclear where one person’s mind ends and another’s begins.180 I am part of you, and you are part of me. Our minds and bodies are therefore not entirely our own; their very integrity relies on others. We need meaningful relationships for healthy minds, healthy bodies, and a healthy world. We can’t be whole without each other. The profound effect on and need we have for each other also speaks to the vital importance of healing our hearts, so we can treat each other more kindly.
A Plural Self
Dr. Siegel includes our relationship with the natural world in his plural definition of the self, which forms what he collectively terms a “neurobiology of we.” 181 In addition to our relationship with other humans, we experience nature as an intrinsic part of who we are. This makes sense, since we have evolved as intimately with the natural world as we have with each other. Oneness with nature and its rhythms, which occurs outside as well as inside us, is also fundamental to holistic medicine’s founding tenets and a plural sense of self. According to Siegel, nurturing this interdependence makes us less likely to destroy the planet. He says:
If I say the self is defined as this body, then I can just use up all the resources on the planet and why would I give a hoot? In fact, we know that when you have a sense of self that’s separate, what do you do? If you know there are limited resources, you gather them up for you and your family as much as you can because you don’t know when they are going to run out. You don’t actually try to help out the bigger picture.
If the self is defined as a singular noun, the planet is cooked. But if we can be really creative, collectively, and find a way to develop in this generation, and absolutely the next generation that takes over stewardship of the planet, that [sic] the self is in fact a plural verb, so that we can allow kids to be raised to know that “I” am more than “me,” and I am connected to you, but I am a member of “we” … we’ll have a different outcome, because then caring for the planet is not something you have to scare people into doing .182
Highlighting Dr. Siegel’s views, the American Psychological Association (APA) has reported an increase in mental illness attributed to climate trauma, and simultaneously recommended robust interpersonal ties for climate change resilience.183 After all, humans have evolved for millennia in tightly-knit communities of support and accountability. Modern, capitalistic culture, with its emphasis on the individual and our resultant collective isolation, has eroded the integral support networks that Siegel says support the health of our nervous systems and a sustainable sense of self and ecology. Nurturing a fertile “neurobiology of we” with one another and the natural world, along with healing through emotional trauma, comprises a robust triangle of resilience.
Yin-Yang Consciousness
Dr. Siegel’s interpersonal notion of the self parallels the holistic worldview of Chinese medicine. We can apply the dialectical model of Yin and Yang to understand Dr. Siegel’s discussion in an overarching, integrative context. His pejorative description of the self as just a “body” correlates with the excessively Yang qualities of individuality, narrow-mindedness, unreasonable selfishness, isolation, and unhelpful fear. At times, perhaps we’ve all felt disconnected, self-obsessed, trapped in our own skin, and unable to connect and share. Some of this is reasonable and adaptive, but not when it becomes our unconscious default. A more Yin sense of self, on the other hand, is represented by open-mindedness, sharing, connection, and trust. These capacities also require collective maturity and responsibility consecrated by sacred permission; otherwise corruption prevails. Yin and Yang support one another when a sustainable me feeds a regenerative we, and when we feeds back into me.
According to Chinese medicine, healing results from the mutual support of Yin and Yang. This model of interdependence is inherently paradoxical because it holds a dynamic tension of opposites in wholeness. In fact, Yin-Yang theory says that wholeness can exist only when we integrate relative opposites. Consider a romantic partnership. A healthy sense of self (individuation) contributes to an integrous and empowering relationship. Reciprocally, a robust relationship further supports both partners’ individuation and sharing of their unique gifts.
Yin and Yang attributes are not inherently wrong or right, good or bad; all are valuable when appropriately expressed. They become problematic when excessive and unchecked. This nonbinary, both-and, black and white relationship—in contrast with a non-regenerative black or white separation—is imperative to practice in thought, feeling, and action. Western individualism represents excessive Yang snuffing out regenerative and cooperative Yin. Some everyday examples might provide more clarity:
1. Individuality, a Yang attribute, is a strength when balanced with contributing to community, a Yin attribute. Individuality cultivates uniqueness and specialization, with which we contribute novelty to the whole. In turn, the whole (say, in the form of others’ help, viewpoints, comfort, and attention) enriches our individuality, which again enhances our contribution to the whole.
2. Narrow-mindedness and determination, both Yang qualities, are important for focus and progress. Open-mindedness and an appreciation of what’s around us, both Yin qualities, help better inform our worldview so we can discern and be wise in our focus. The result: outdated, unhelpful ideas fall away (Yin) while new ones take root and proliferate (Yang). Yang focus informed by Yin collaboration effects sustainable progress and collective justice.
3. Joy and fear also share reciprocity. Joy, a Yang emotion pertaining to the Fire phase, is arguably a goal—the flower—of life. But joy must be sustainable to safeguard the welfare of everything around it. Otherwise, joy becomes overly exuberant, too selfish and mindless, and can exhaust itself. Fear, a Yin emotion pertaining to the Water phase, aids joy by keeping joy in check and aware of its surroundings and limits. Fear alerts us to what threatens our welfare and generates the care of protection (aided by the energy of anger), while wisdom informs us how to act in order to preserve ourselves and ecological balance. But too much fear paralyzes and destroys our aliveness. Joy keeps fear in check by curbing fear’s tendency to shrink and diminish. Together, joy and fear create a balance of expansion and contraction, carefreeness and caution, that promotes thriving.
These ontological dialectics are examples of helpful positive feedback loops. They represent Yin and Yang transforming into one another, promoting the cycle of interdependence and revolution—our lives in harmony with the world around us, represented by the clockwise turning of the Yin-Yang symbol from Yin to Yang and Yang to Yin, ad infinitum. We foster this model when we are at once individually empowered and growing with others. Unhelpful, excessive behaviors are curbed while cooperative ones proliferate, modeling the death (decline) and rebirth (prolificity) process of regenerative relationships. This contrasts with the damaging, unchecked, linear, positive feedback loops of Yang-progress and consumption that are tearing down our world today—exponential adverse change arising from unsustainable obsession by individuals and organizations—that jeopardize the Yin of eco-human wellness. In this scenario Yin and Yang separate and no longer interrelate with one another, leading to unnecessary decay and demise.
While Yin-Yang reciprocity applies to human dynamics, it originated in the natural world. Today, in a forest or garden, what dies fertilizes new growth, which in turn dies and becomes compost to nourish more new growth. Round and round, this is the endless cycle of death and rebirth for which both light and dark rely on one another to curb and enhance the other. Thus is born the middle path, the integrated result of embracing the natural flow of highs and lows, excesses and deficiencies, and everything in between.
When we consciously participate in this process, we contribute to the greater good by cultivating depth and inclusivity, creativity and flourishing. Cultivating our personal gifts (Yang) to directly benefit the world (Yin) is paramount during climate crisis. A dangerous imbalance of global Yang dynamics has precipitated climate chaos and we must ensure our Yang endeavors—our work, creations, and consumption—directly help mitigate emissions and enhance the biosphere. How might you apply the core aspects of your own work and leverage your talents and privilege to help heal climate breakdown?
Excessively self-absorbed individuals view life as a personal indulgence project, as opposed to a compassion-based transformation process. This manifests in a failure to initiate via sacred permission, and fosters an ontology informed primarily by impulsive Yang principles with little input from the more difficult, wisdom-rich, and collective-oriented Yin. We have swung too far to the archetypal masculine Yang for far too long, and a compensatory, judicious swing to the feminine Yin is called for on all fronts.
Yin-generating endeavors include creating community, building fertile soil with organic amendments, growing food without poisons or excessive machine pollution, minding and caring for our bodies, emotional healing, conservation of all kinds, and embodied experience generally. Healthy Yang acts such as resistance, rebellion, and bold activism to halt fossil fuel expansion and promote social and environmental justice must accompany these Yin endeavors.
An Unlikely Patient
As a holistic medicine practitioner, my remedies derive from the Earth. One day, several years ago, it struck me: if the Earth is not well, the foods and herbs I use to heal can’t do their best job. Also, when we pollute the environment, we simultaneously embed illness in ourselves. This means we are banging our heads against the wall trying to become healthy. And our medicine, to a degree, is but a Band-Aid. Medicine, and any measure of holistic wellness, must include and foster the integrity of the natural world and the welfare of all humans—all of which affect our own well-being. Earth justice and social justice—vying for a true, thriving community of we—are therefore powerful medicine for climate cure. Since Chinese medicine seeks root cures for disease, I have had to step outside the traditional purview of even this “alternative” medicine to practice the radical medicine to which I am called. To this end, my healing practice over the last decade has increasingly taken the form of environmental activism: focusing more on climate cure than individual cure. While this change has resulted in a big pay cut and personal sacrifices, it has been a rewarding calling to live in alignment with our times.
The passion of embodied care mirrored in the Yin-Yang symbol as the integration of light and dark fuels my activism. Such passion is distinct from the unilaterally light-bearing, growth-obsessed, dysregulated and patriarchal Yang version that is excessively addicted, needlessly distracted, and unreasonably self-centered. This misuse of passion has contributed to our planetary crisis by ignoring its dark-revering, compost-making, sacred feminine Yin aspect, which curbs maniacal growth in favor of renewal.
When both women and men tend to the feminine (Yin) aspect, we begin to rebalance deranged masculine energy (in each of us) run amok. Recognizing we all possess both masculine and feminine qualities can help us ease perennial gender wars and begin to cooperate more wisely and efficiently. Instead of forever pointing fingers at the opposite gender, we can work toward integrating what Jung called the animus and anima. Animus is the masculine aspect of a woman’s psyche and anima the feminine aspect of a man’s. This respective Yang-within-Yin and Yin-within-Yang provides a window into identifying hidden shadow dynamics (explored in Chapter 7) so we can recognize our brothers and sisters in every living being and stop endlessly blaming one another and ourselves. This approach could help us uphold women’s rights and generate a more compassionate and integral global community from the inside out.
In addition to the Yin-generating practices mentioned just previously, less obvious Yin-nourishing activities include developing genuine and intimate relationships, communicating deeply and clearly, doing what we love that also serves the whole, and embracing our failures and shortcomings. When we bolster healthy Yin, we buffer the distorted and perverse passion of Yang, informing its excesses with wisdom. Thus, Yang is appropriately humbled (humble shares the same etymology as humus) by Yin. This leads to a more responsible, sustainably aligned, dark-informed Yang-light, with an enhanced ability to nurture and respect life rather than to burn up the planet.
Taking to heart the unconscious dynamics that lead to careless and destructive behaviors against the Earth has transformed my environmental activism into sharing more about inner activism and building community. This is a path for becoming able (never mind wanting to) create a healthier world from the ground up.
Regenerative Psyche
Dr. Siegel’s relationship model of the plural self encourages more community (Yin) to balance the destructive, excessive individualism (Yang) of Western culture. His holistic sense of we embraces a “trialectic” of self in relationship with both human and nonhuman community, which in turn creates an intimately connected biosphere. When we come into fertile relationship with ourselves by recycling pain into beauty, we forge a regenerative psyche and lifestyle that fertilizes the world with Yin-Yang care in action.
At the same time we provide for ourselves and our immediate family, we are caretakers for the natural world and our extended communities well into the future. This aligns with an ethos common to that of many indigenous Americans: that our actions must benefit the next seven generations. Wilma Mankiller, the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation, said, “… Leaders are encouraged to remember seven generations in the past and consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.” 184 A similar eco-psychological view is shared by best-selling author and psychologist Jordan Peterson: “I think that truth is the highest value, although it has to be embedded in love. What I mean by that is that truth should serve the highest good imaginable. For me, that is what is best for each individual, in the manner that is simultaneously best for the family, and the state, and nature itself.” 185
Notice the balance of Yin and Yang from both these integral thinkers: In Mankiller’s, the past is Yin and the future is Yang; for Peterson, personal gain is Yang, which he says must be balanced by the Yin of love and goodness for others. By example, applying this wisdom to procuring food means choosing food with a small carbon footprint that is also organic, whole, pesticide-free, and produced by fair-trade standards with minimal packaging and waste. This way, what nourishes and pleases us equally benefits the land, air, and those who produced it.
As a mindful ritual, we can remember what we procure for personal gain relies on the effort of others, including the Earth. In my early twenties, before eating, I would acknowledge and thank the Earth for the food on my plate, as well as trace the path of as many ingredients as I could and all the helping hands that brought it to my plate. This prayer could easily take half an hour, for which I simultaneously practiced great patience! Eventually, I shortened the blessing as I embodied and integrated its care. It was illuminating to entrain myself to the life story of wholesome, nourishing food (Yin) so easily taken for granted in our overly-processed (Yang) culture.
Operating from a sense of we requires the ability to see beyond our primitive survival fears, our entitled egos, and our proclivity to gather up resources only for ourselves and family (pingback to Dr. Siegel). For this to happen, we need more than a conceptual understanding of we. We must embody heartfelt connection with other members of our plural self—other humans, the natural world, and our abandoned inner selves.
Our capacity to develop sustained intimacy requires emotional depth. Emotional depth requires clearing our pain so we can connect more deeply. Connecting more deeply with both ourselves and others relies on good communication, which we develop from our triangle of resilience relationships. We initiate more intimate connections by reaching out for support and connection and letting ourselves receive the qualities of acceptance, attention, appreciation, affection, and allowing. These qualities of embodied loving are what Dr. David Richo calls the “Five As.” 186 Because effective communication depends upon thinking critically, the latter is also essential for building community. In her article in The New Yorker, best-selling climate change author Elizabeth Kolbert corroborates: “Reason developed not to enable us to solve abstract, logical problems or even to help us draw conclusions from unfamiliar data; rather, it developed to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.” 187
When you and I feel supported and connected with others, we can more easily work through and let go of our heartaches. Conversely, when we go within to clear our hearts of personal pain (Yin), we can more easily open up to others (Yang) and experience life-sustaining connection. This inward-outward reciprocity creates an upward spiral, a positive feedback loop of deepening integrity between me and we. The more we let go, the more deeply we can connect; the more we connect, the more comprehensively we can heal our hearts. The result is a web of caring for our world. I’ve been fortunate to experience this kind of enriching connection living in community with others, in support groups and group therapy, in intimate relationships, in activist groups, and in growing food with friends.
Tending to our emotional wellness by working through the pain of our adverse childhood experiences and smaller “t” traumas is largely an inner, Yin affair. So is intimately connecting with nature and one another. Beyond personal satisfaction, the goal of inner work is to create justice and compassion for others. All these endeavors require and build essential Yin and Yang capacities. Each facet of resilience enhances the other, true to Yin-Yang’s guiding principle of the interdependence of apparent opposites. Inner work affects the quality of our actions, while the effects of our actions impact our inner lives. When implemented with wisdom, each continuously informs the other. Back and forth, inward and outward, we turn and grow, just as the seasons transform into one another year after year and the invisible, global Yin-Yang symbol smiles and thrives. This is the deep transformation we need to holistically heal all our relationships to both weather and curb climate catastrophe.
• Exercise •
Chapter 10 Journaling
Take out your journal or notepad, place it in front of you, and write out your responses to the following prompts.
Reflection
1. Do you have a strong network of climate-aware friends whom you feel seen, accepted, and nourished by? Do you want more people like this in your life? If so, does anything stand in the way of developing more intimate connections?
Action
2. If you desire more climate-aware community, in which of the following ways might you bolster community support? Which of these suggestions do you want to enact?
• Join or create a climate change support group in your area (Resource 5: “Climate Change Café”).
• Join a Facebook climate change discussion/support group.
• Begin opening up to friends you think might be amenable to discussing climate crisis.
• Join an environmental justice group, like Extinction Rebellion, or other strike group in your area to make friends and join the cause.
• Spend time in nature with friends and loved ones. If you don’t have time in your regular schedule, plan your next vacation to be in nature with others in a low carbon footprint way, such as camping.
• Post on social media or in a group email to friends that you want more community, especially around climate change issues.
Visualization/Journal
3. Sit quietly and let your awareness sink down into your body. How does your heart want to connect with others? What does it look like, what does it feel like, what key elements need to be included for it to be great? Register the image: maybe draw and/or journal about its qualities and meaningful elements.
177. Arora, “We Relate, Therefore We Are,” 63.
178. Siegel, Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: an Integrative Handbook of the Mind, 42–7.
179. de Llosa, “The Neurobiology of ‘We.”
180. Oliver, “The Age of the Individual Must End – Our World Depends on It.”
181. de Llosa, “The Neurobiology of We.”
182. Siegel, “The Neurological Basis of Behavior, the Mind, the Brain and Human Relationships.”
183. Sliwa, “Climate Change’s Toll on Mental Health.”
184. Minthorn and Chávez, Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education, 88.
185. Peterson, quoted on Instagram September 18, 2019.
186. Richo, How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Relationships.
187. Kolbert, “Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds.”