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“With my breath, I touch the planet with the inside of my body.”
In nature, everything is connected.
The inner and outer in our lives are always already connected – as humans, we are connected to other people, to nature and to the planet in everything we are involved in – in everything that happens in life.
This connection unfolds through a wide range of natural circulations and recirculations, for example via breathing and the heartbeat, where life-giving oxygen is distributed throughout the body. After which waste products are recirculated from the entire body. Or through the absorption of nutrients from liquids and foods, which are recirculated as urine and feces.
We are always – and always have been – embedded in a comprehensive local ecosystem. We are – and always have been – dependent on the material cycles of the biosphere.
Homo sapiens – a social species
Far back in evolutionary history, we evolved as social beings. Each of us is designed to be part of a group and in communities. All the most important biological and psychological functions we exhibit as a species are about connecting part and whole – about us contributing to our shared survival and reproduction. To our shared sustainability.
The glue in any sustainable group is the security and trust that creates cohesion.
Communities unfold in complex societies through connection, reciprocity, and predictability.
Ecology of the nervous system
We are born with the prerequisites for contact – and secure attachment in the first years is crucial for our chances of survival, as individuals and as a species.
A large part of the processes that control our body and nervous system are linked to neural circuits that accompany engaging with and understanding other people in social contexts. This overall system of social engagement physiologically connects the brain, face, and heart. The social processes we engage in are largely translated through the senses – vision, hearing, skin, and voice – and through physiological and emotional tuning via the heart and autonomic nervous system.
It's all about connecting the inside and the outside. Our biological and psychological inside with our external contacts and the world in general.
Living assets
Life and that which promotes life are the central value in a future sustainable society, where sustainable processes and activities are characterized by the fact that they can be carried out over and over again without harming or destroying.
The ethical and existential perspective – the responsibility to deal with the fundamental challenges of life – is basically rooted in everyday life in a local life. Where life and life processes are the overriding objective at all levels. Where responsibility for the planet and the responsibility to live a personally developed and balanced life go hand in hand. And where listening sincerely to all of life's signals – internal and external – is as natural as sleeping and eating.
Sustainability as a phenomenon will, when it concerns us humans, be a practice, a way of living guided by a systemic, existential and ethical perspective, where personal responsibility and co-responsibility for the whole are two sides of the same coin.
The way forward
We can choose to become better at listening to the signals from our bodies, emotions and thoughts that we already more or less unconsciously use to orient ourselves. Together, these signals tell us what is going on inside ourselves and in the social contexts we are part of. Living systems make themselves known by listening to feedback from within the system itself and from the environment.
A daily, contemplative practice that increases contact with oneself, with one's body, emotional system and consciousness speaks of, and is in itself part of, inner, personal sustainability. When we encounter the outside world from such a deeper place within ourselves, we have the opportunity to create a deeper, more durable and whole connection between ourselves and our relational, social and systemic, holistic sustainability.
The article was first published in Børns Livskunskab.
Photo: Jeremy Bishop/Unsplash
Michael Stubberup, cand.mag and head of SYNerGAIA.
Co-founder and Vice Chairman of The Children's Life Skills Associationb. He has 20 years of experience as a manager. Established SYNerGAIA Rehabilitation in 1999 and is currently the acting chairman of the board. At the same time, he has been responsible for development and further training in SYNerGAIA Innovation. Together with Steen Hildebrandt, he has also founded Sustainable Co-Creation. Michael is part of The growth center permanent teachers.
➳ You can read more posts by Michael Stubberup here.
