Being Human
SEARCHING
Being human is to SEARCH and then grow and learn (or unlearn) until we embody the discovery.
The best, is soulful searching that invites a bit of rebellion.
Most of Us Are Searching
BEING HUMAN is HARD, at least parts of it are for most of us.
There’s a lot to deal with, sort through, move past, learn from, and become.
Deep down we want Better Selves, Better Lives, and a Better World.
But, we don’t always know what will move us in that direction.
We want the change. But it’s all too easy to try something and loop back to where we started because we were unknowingly focused on the wrong things, tried a quick fix, hit a hard spot, didn’t see progress fast enough, or we simply didn’t know what we didn’t know. (Haven’t we all been there many times!)
It’s all part of the human and the REBEL SOUL’s journey…
To try and learn from what doesn’t work and try again, and again. UNTIL.
Until we learn to go in the right direction and learn how to get ourselves there.
About the SEARCH
It can be helpful to understand more about the SEARCH so we can see ourselves more clearly, have more self-compassion, and journey with more recognition of reality.
The SEARCH is deeper, wider, and longer than we realize. It’s not about attaining or becoming one thing.
It’s about the ongoing journey of becoming fully human with an empowered self and an embodied soul. This happens as we grow and master meeting different needs, stretching into developments, and expanding further into enhancements. There are usually a few rebellions along the way).
We think it’s a prerequisite to understand the SEARCH in order to better support it in ourselves and others.
The SEARCH is…
Diverse
We each have unique realities of nature, nurture, environments and wide-ranging influences that shape us and our search.
Complex
We’re remarkably layered in the things that come together as our thoughts, feelings, behaviors and overall functioning.
Plural
There’s no single answer. Being fully human involves many different needs and developments. Each one is part of the answer.
Inequitable
Our human starting places (nature, nurture, environments, influences) are very different making the journey significantly inequitable.
Scaffolded
We have to crawl before walking before running. Likewise we need to have stability within ourselves before we can soar.
Uncomfortable
Growth involves some fear, discomfort, uncertainty, painful recognitions, and letting go to make room for a better self, life and world.
Effortful
Changing ourselves or our circumstances isn’t easy. It’s take a hero’s intention, humility, heart, courage, action, grit, and faith.
Incremental
Most change happens in bite-sized pieces and bit by bit consistent practice that builds into bigger changes and occasional leaps forward.
Continual
It’s a long series of mastering various needs & developments and moving ourselves into more conscious operating places.
Rippling
The development, enhancements and higher consciousness cascades like dominos into other areas of self and life and the world.
Easier with Supports
We all need inspiration, guidance, resources, and others searchers to journey alongside.
Satisfying
When our effort takes hold and we experience changes in ourselves, our lives and/or the world, it’s very rewarding.
Deb
Your encouragement and inspiration has guided me towards a deeper understanding of myself and others. Thank you is not nearly enough for the gift you have given me… to discover and understand and to be who I am, and who I was meant to be. I was overcome that someone could reach in and read me so well. However, you may have done that- Thank you.
Change and Transformation
Because there is significant diversity in our starting nature, nurture, environments, influences and the degree to which needs are fulfilled and developments are supported to unfold, people begin their adult journey in different places.
I like to believe that most of us are wired to change and transform (although I know this is definitely not the case for everyone).
The most deeply rooted pull to change is the pull of SOUL (hence the name SOULCHANGE).
Areas of Rebellion
As humans we need to transform in many different ways to become Better Selves, create Better Lives and contribute to a Better World.
So much of our SEARCHING is:
- Realizing that life is full of varied circumstances and people (including us) who function in different ways and different levels.
- Recognizing that some people perpetrate upon or otherwise harm others, victimize them, devalue and diminish them with dysregulation, dysfunction, and defendedness, or disregard them in their unempathetic, controlling, chaotic, ego-centric, or generally disconnected wake (intentionally or unintentionally).
- Figuring out with compassionate self-honesty how we are actually functioning.
- Taking responsibility, getting supports, and doing the everyday growth and practice to humbly become better selves and move ourselves to a better place.
- Coming into a willingness to see our role and rippling affect in our lives and in the world and work to make it better.
We can be motivated to change and transform for all kinds of reasons such as having remorse over harm caused to others, recovering from our victimization, dealing with our pain, meeting our needs, addressing a dysfunction, wanting a better life, or seeing the world burn.
They are six main areas of rebellion.
Growth and transformation in any area of rebellion impacts the other areas.
Better Self by Resolving Victimization and Survival
Ending our victimization requires shifting many things to develop enough self so that we access support, expect more, and start protecting ourselves.
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Climbing out of survival involves changing many things that slowly release us from our dysregulation and survival adaptations (including those that harm others).
Better Self by Breaking Away from Toxic Ego and External
Moving past toxic ego requires many shifts that dissolve our fearful, entitled, self-interested, ‘othering’ patterns so our connected and considerate self can emerge.
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Recognize and release toxic ego and external messages that disregard, distort or dictate the terms of our inherent worth and place in the world relative to others.
Better Self by Ensuring Needs and Cultivating Developments
Ensuring our needs supports us to be healthy and whole, and fuels our development, whereas compromised needs thwart functioning and development.
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Unfolding, growing or addressing arrested developments supports our healthy expression, capability, contribution and creating and relating in our lives and the world.
Change is fueled by internal SEARCHING, growth and transformation, quiet and not so quiet rebellion, and then becomes reflected in the external (or counteracts against it.)
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Better Self by Embodying Enhancements and Soul
Embodying enhancements involves shifting dozens of interrelated things to expand and express a higher level of soul and conscious relating and creating with ourselves, in our lives and in the world.
It may or may not involve a belief in or relationship with a higher power and does not require one.
Creating Better Lives
Intentionally living to reflect what is conscious and what truly matters now and in the long term rather than what is selfish, susceptible, sure, shiny or short sighted.
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Bettering our lives relies on first bettering ourselves and then patiently and persistently threading higher and healthier thinking, feeling and doing into our work, relationships, hobbies, finances.
Contributing to a Better World
Living from shared responsibility for the larger world and contributing to moving it toward a more conscious place (starting with ourselves) that supports everyone equitably and the world itself.
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Bettering the world relies doing what is ours to do alongside others in easing pain and suffering, improving conditions, and challenging harm and inequity.
Another area of rebellion would be shifting patterns of perpetrating upon others, but since perpetrators don’t typically seek change it is not included.
Needs, Developments and Enhancements
There are many different theories or models about human needs and developments related to different areas, e.g., cognition, emotional maturation, self determination, spirituality, etc.
In considering everything, it seems there are three levels including needs, developments, and enhancements.
There are many ways to understand and organize things. This is just one way.
Of course, even if we don’t grow in all the possible ways, attaining some core things can be game-changing e.g., autonomy, a regulated nervous system, grit, empathy, personal responsibility.
Needs
Needs are required to support overall health and well-being and also to promote developments. For example, it will be difficult to develop stability without having our needs for necessities of life, safety and security, and care and belonging fulfilled.
As children, we are dependent on others to fulfill these needs because we cannot meet them ourselves. Furthermore, we need people to meet these needs in a manner that allows for our increasing development through time.
As we grow up, we take over the responsibility to meet these needs, for ourselves, and in partnerships within the closest and most important relationships in our lives and within the context of our communities and societies.
Necessities of Life
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clean air and water | nutritious food | adequate and restorative sleep | hygiene | homeostasis of body and nervous system (rest & digest) | basic clothing | shelter relative to environment
Stimulation, Stillness and Support
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experiences that promote expression and development | freedom from stimulation and pursuit- space for curiosity and peace | time for enjoyment | value for achievement | support through inquiry, challenges, coaching | allowing consequences
Safety and Security
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protection from harm and neglect | structure of peace and consistency | felt sense of safety & security | reasonable levels of stress | surrounding of morality | resource security: housing, food, education, neighbourhood, healthcare
Sense of Community
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experience of community | mutual responsibility for community and larger society | mindful tending of members | sharing in the common good and needs of many | addressing and restoring societal violations
Care and Belonging
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significance, feeling needed, valued, seen and known | commitment and availability | dependability | closeness and connection | steadiness, soothing, comfort, support | space to be honest and forthcoming | trustworthiness | intimacy
Sacred Sustenance
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recognition of spirit-soul | connecting through solitude, relationships, nature | experiences of beauty, goodness, mystery | support to navigate existential issues | space for seeking and meaning making | exposure to different belief systems and practices
Regard and Reciprocity
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recognition of dignity | treated with good will | regard for uniqueness and contribution | respect for autonomy | freedom to express ideas and feelings| acceptance and allowing | involvement and influence
Developments
We have a biological tendency for adjustment and development. We are inherently designed to grow.
As a result of our needs being met and ongoing learning and growth, developments unfold and become realized.
The developments or expressions that occur are foundational and inform the basics of how we relate and create with ourselves, important others, the areas of our lives, our communities, and the larger world.
Stability
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self-sustaining with self-care and meeting one’s needs | resourcing one self and one’s life | healthy lifestyle | developed stamina, strength and vitality | physicality, healthy body awareness, body image, and appropriate physical and sexual sharing
Relationality
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caring attachment with safety, security, commitment, appreciation, acceptance, allowing | empathy for others | trust | exchange with reciprocity, generosity, communication, and conflict resolution | interdependence and navigation of togetherness and separateness
Adaptability
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coping, state regulation and vagal tone | response flexibility | movement through uncertainty, change, and loss of control | temperered and embodied non-reactiveness | fortitude and growth in the face of fear, change, loss, adversity, and failures
Civilness
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regard for dignity, needs, rights, capacities of others | citizenship, recognition as part of the whole, contributing to common good | tolerance, openness to differences, refraining from judgements | contribution of meaningful work, giving to those in one’s closest circles
Emergence
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agency, autonomy, self-reliance, confidence and capability | self-expression and competence | purposefulness with deliberate action | self-discipline, motivation, diligence and determination | responsibility, reliability, trustworthiness, choice making, and lived consequences.
Spirituality
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soul’s expression and integration while surrendering intellect and ego| beliefs and practices | higher connection and experiences of deeper presence | awakened soul and soul learning beyond physical reality | embodied source and nurturing soul qualities
Integrability
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authenticity, self-reflection, integration of changing selves | self-regard based in self-knowing, considered compassion, humility, and self-love | emotional capability | perspective and enriched thinking | character, conscience, courage, and integrity
Enhancements
With continued learning and growth, enhancements are possible. To enhance is to intensify, increase, expand, or further improve the quality, amount, or strength of something; to take something to a higher level.
The enhancements are considerably dependent on having a base of needs and prerequisite developments (e.g., a regulated nervous system, reasonably healthy sense of self, distress tolerance, delayed gratification, critical thinking, a moral compass) from which to further scaffold from. Without this, operating from enhancements is fleeting.
In many ways, the enhancements are the result of further access to the soul, further expression and integration of the soul within the personality and/or of the soul transcending the personality. (This does necessarily involve belief in a higher power).
With each bit of enhancement, relating and creating become increasingly conscious.
Growth
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A process of change, learning and/or transformation that repeats over and over again relative to our former selves. Its absence looks like thwarting, stagnation, or regression that requires recovery, while its presence unfolds into expansion.
Cooperativeness
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A stance of accepting the current reality without resistance and coming together from interdependence, mutual honoring, understanding, and contribution in the pursuit of achieving something on our own, with others, and in the world.
Empowerment
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An individual stance of authentic worthiness, claiming needs and rights and gaining courage, confidence, and capability, while affording and supporting the same to all others inclusively as individuals, and within systems and structures.
Knowing
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An expansive process in relationship to curiosity and attaining a clearer, fuller, deeper, richer experience with awareness, insight, intuition, meaning, deeper truth, wisdom, and embodied understanding starting with the self and soul and moving outward.
Responsiveness
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Intentional involvement, responsibility, and love in action fueled with consciousness and full accountability for our intentions and consequences in all directions within ourselves, our relationships, our lives, and in how we touch the world.
Wholeness
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Recognizing and holding the whole, as well as the parts of the whole, and their relationship to one another while seeking a state of fullness, integration, and unity, not just within ourselves as individuals, but our relationships, our lives, and in the world.
Connectedness
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Healthy, balanced, love-filled presence, experiencing, embracing and engaging from the interrelatedness of all things within the self, with others, with the larger world, and with the sacred in whatever form that is understood and experienced.
Wonder
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A stance with life that reflects seeing, appreciating, and holding what is playful, precious, still, beautiful, glorious, broken open, life-affirming, awesome, meaningful,and magnificent, and allowing it to comfort, surround, penetrate, absorb, and enliven us.