Why this work matters and why it matters now…
Let’s face it, we are in a bit of a mess….
wax lyrical about the shit show that is the world currently, the problems that children and families face, the reality of climate change and the mental health crisis, the inadequacy of the system etc
make it bleak then give them hope
Our human evolved needs for surviving and thriving
Humans need connection. It is as simple and as complex as that. We have evolved to have such sophisticated brains that it takes 25 years for them to develop. Yes that’s right, we don’t have a fully developed brain well into conventional adulthood! The environment we need to reach our full human potential is one rich in connection with other people, the natural environment and ourselves.
The ‘deal’ we have made with evolution is that in order for our heads to be small enough to be born through our pelvis, we do most of the development of this huge brain outside the womb. If we were to be as developed as other mammals at birth we would need another 18 months in the womb. Much of that brain development happens in our relational connection to others. We need positive, warm affirmative connection to build the connections that fully develops our brains.
As a result we are born immature, helpless. We are unable to move independently, search for food, find safety. How on earth have we managed to survive so successfully? The answer to this (and most other questions it seems) is relationship. We have a life giving connection with our main parent. They do everything for us, not just meeting our obviously physical needs for food, warmth and shelter, but our equally physical need of emotional connection that will literally form our brain and nervous system which creates the foundation for everything that we will do in our lives.
I say our ‘main parent’ because for survival and healthy development we need a dependency relationship with one adult who will meet all our life and death needs for nurture and care. The story doesn’t stop there though. It’s not a job for one person alone. That adult needs to be surrounded and supported by a community of family, friends and neighbours, who share the physical and emotional work of bringing up children and meeting the needs of the whole village. That community of people needs to be supported, held and nourished by the natural environment they live in. The earth, water, sun and air that is our perfect habitat through millions of years of evolution. Our lungs need clean air, our cells need clean water, our guts need food grown in rich soil. It is an extraordinary thing that this even has to be said. How we have lost our way! We are simply not equipped with what we need to raise a child alone or even in a couple, and so far away from the land we belong to. No wonder it is so hard to live in the industrialised world. Our basic needs as humanity have been sacrificed for the sake of our continued drive in the global north for economic growth at the expense of so many others trapped within or outside of the western capitalist model of society.
If we really understood the implications of this history of human development we would live radically differently. The systems that have been built by European colonialist cultures that have dominated the world are destroying us all. Accelerating climate catastrophe is already causing mass extinction of millions of species and the destruction of the very things we need to survive as humans. Even in the face of devastating fires, hurricanes, soil erosion, floods that are killing people in increasing and terrifying numbers, the rich are getting richer
through the relentless pursuit of profit and power. Cultures based on misogyny and white supremacy are strangling the life out of us all and yet remain unremittingly popular.
We need to change. That is no longer a choice. The future is uncertain and the world our children are growing up in will be unrecognisable from anything we have ever known. It is urgent that we understand what it is that our children need in order to become resilient and adaptable to change and to meeting adversity.
The heart of all of this is our deep need for warm and caring relationship from before we are even born. It is the separation from this deep need that has caused this catastrophe. Coming back to it is the only way we can save the world. And we can…together.
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The change we need
Three steps to change
Warm attachment to our children
We need to commit to kind, warm, allyship with our children. To realise that their whole lives depend on our friendliness. That there is nothing we have to train them to do. They already have everything they need to know inside them, waiting to unfurl in the right environment. Our job is simply to provide them with security and warmth.
Like a sunflower seed that has every one of its glorious petals already encoded in its DNA. It simply needs the right place in the garden. Nobody needs to tell a sunflower how to grow and it will never become a rose or a lavender bush no matter how much you shout, cajole and coerce. Environment is everything, relationship is everything. If we leave a sunflower seedling in a damp shed it will do its absolute best to grow. It will make the most of every drop of water that drips into its pot, every dim ray of light that makes it through the cracked windows. But it will be frail and fragile, distorted as it tries to bend itself towards the sun.
For children, their sunshine is their mother’s warm attention, their father’s holding arms. This is not a currency, to be withheld or offered according to the child’s obedience but a deep necessity, the basic building block of humanity.
Warm connection to ourselves
We need to recover our warm connection to ourselves. To heal the damage done by generations of separation from our basic needs. We need to learn about how our nervous systems truly work, to recognise the trauma we carry that cuts us off from ease and joy, that makes us reactive and out of control in the presence of our children. We can learn to see clearly what stands between us and our easy love for our children, what makes it so hard to put into practice the kindness that we have committed to.
Three decades of neuroscience research has given us so much information about how to do this work, this healing. We, particularly in the privileged West, are ridiculously fortunate to have so many resources and teachers who can gently show us the way. We can learn how to rewire our fraught nervous systems in simple daily practices, we can find help in tuning into the map of our embodied life experience, and gently untangling the confusion and pain.
It is now abundantly clear that we cannot do this alone, any of it. We are tribal animals, we do not exist except in a network of relationships. Our whole lives, every cell of our being has been shaped by relationship, for better or worse. Warm connection with people who care about us is essential for recovery and thriving. So a big part of this radical work is to gather around us a community of care. A radical version of the village we always needed but have forgotten. Deep interdependence and support. This is now completely counter cultural and we need to work hard to rebuild the conditions for true tribe.
Reconnecting with the natural world
We need to rediscover our connection to the natural world. Our home. Our bodies have evolved in the context of the earth under our feet, in the wild challenge and beauty of nature.
This work starts with remembering that we are animals on this earth, that nature is not a recreational activity for Sunday afternoons, or a handy resource to mine for fossil fuels, but the only place where we can survive, the meeting of our deepest needs for life. We need to find ways to reconnect with the natural world outside the doors of our insulated houses, outside the bounds of our cities and outside the artificial boundaries of our nations and continents. Planting a tree or campaigning for climate action, walking barefoot on grass or sand, or standing up to protect the forests across the world.
We have become separated from the land and we need it back. We are not whole without our wider family, the animals and birds we share the land with, the trees and plants which provide for all our needs, the insects which make human life possible. A small child staring in wonder at a line of ants, watched fondly by a loving parent is directly linked to the survival of life on earth. There is no separation. We must remember that. It is the only way.
Indigenous communities recognise this and there is much we can learn from them.
