The Deeper Dimensions of Human Wellbeing
Let’s start by defining human wellbeing. Wellbeing is the feeling you get when you can satisfy the needs of the stage of psychological development you are at, and the stages of psychological development you have passed through where you may still have unmet needs. If you can satisfy these needs, you will feel happy and content. If you find yourself struggling to satisfy these needs you may feel frustrated, angry, sad, or depressed.
The following diagram and table show the developmental tasks at each stage of psychological development and the needs you must satisfy to feel a sense of wellbeing. The age ranges refer to the time in your life when each stage of development normally occurs. Most people never get past the differentiating stage of development. They spend their whole lives trying to survive, keep safe and feel secure. You can find a full description of the stages of psychological development in this article.
Babies experience wellbeing when they feel cared for; when they have food in their stomachs, and all their physiological survival needs are met. Children experience wellbeing when they feel safe, protected, and loved. Teenagers experience wellbeing when they feel seen by their parents, and when they feel recognized and accepted by the members of their peer group.
Young adults experience wellbeing when they feel they have freedom, independence, and autonomy, and be responsible and accountable for their lives. Mature adults, in their 40s, experience wellbeing when they feel they have a meaning and purpose to their lives. Mature adults, in their 50s, experience wellbeing when they can connect with others in empathic relationships and make a difference in the world. Seniors, experience wellbeing when they can contribute to the wellbeing of others, to their families, and to the people in their local or global community.
The source of the feeling of wellbeing
The fundamental question we must ask, to understand what wellbeing is, is how does the feeling of wellbeing arise? We know that we feel wellbeing when we can satisfy our needs/desires at the stage of development we are at, but what is the source of this feeling?
The source of the feeling of wellbeing in the early stages of development (as a baby, a child, or a teenager) is the satisfaction of the needs of the ego.
The source of the feeling of wellbeing in the adult stages of psychological development is the alignment of the motivations of the ego with the desires of the soul.
Ego reality vs. Soul reality
During the first three stages of development, our minds are focused on the needs of the ego. At the fourth stage of development, we begin the transition from focusing on the needs of the ego, to focusing on the desires of the soul. At this stage of development, we must find an answer to the question, who am I outside of the parental and cultural conditioning that enmeshed me during the first part of my life? Am I an ego, focused on my own self-interest, or am I a soul focused on the common good?
I believe every human being is an energetic soul experiencing life in a physical body in a material three-dimensional world. The energy field of the soul is our primary identity. The soul created the psychic entity we call the ego to protect itself from the pain of separation it experiences in three-dimensional material awareness. The body is the material manifestation of the soul’s energy field. The soul identifies with the energy field; the ego identifies with the material body. The ego is not aware that it is the creation of the soul. The ego’s will to survive reflects the soul’s will to be present in three-dimensional material awareness. We let go of the will to survive when we feel totally blocked in meeting our ego’s needs or prevented from meeting our soul’s desires — when we are living without hope of ever meeting our needs or desires.
The ego’s needs are to survive, keep safe, and feel secure. The soul’s desires are to self-express, connect, and contribute.
The first signs of our inability to meet our ego’s needs are anxiety and anger. The first signs of our inability to meet our soul’s desires are sadness and depression.
The ego and soul live in two parallel but intimately connected worlds — the ego lives in a material world and the soul lives in an energetic world. These are two psychic structures housed in the same body/energy field.
The reason the ego is mostly unaware of the soul’s energetic reality is because of the limited number of vibrational frequencies the body can perceive and our lack of attunement with our feelings. We live in a multiple dimensional energetic world, but our physical senses can only recognize a small band of frequencies. Our soul is attuned to a much broader band of frequencies.
For you to lead a fulfilling life, the first thing your soul must do is to ground itself in three-dimensional material awareness. It delegates that job to the ego. The ego attempts to keep us alive, to keep us safe and to help us to feel secure. Once the soul is established in our physical reality — when the ego can satisfy what Abraham Maslow called our deficiency needs, then we begin to focus on fulfilling our soul’s desires — to fully express our unique gifts and talents, to connect with others in empathic relationships, and contribute to the wellbeing of our fellow souls (humanity). The fulfillment of these desires is why the soul is incarnated into your body.
If you struggle to meet your survival needs, you will find it difficult to self-express. If you struggle to meet your safety (relationship) needs, you will find it difficult to connect, and if you struggle to meet your security (self-esteem) needs, you will find it difficult to contribute.
The soul is an individuated aspect of the universal energy field that links us all together. It comes from a world of love and connection. The natural energetic state of the soul is peace and harmony — a pure sense of wellbeing. The only thing that can disturb the soul’s reality is the conscious and subconscious fears of the ego.
The journey of the soul
The soul’s journey into three-dimensional material awareness begins at conception when the soul takes possession of the energy field of the fertilized human egg. The soul is the dominant interface of the embryo for the first three months of life.
Once the body-mind (the reptilian mind/brain) forms and the embryo becomes a foetus (after three months of gestation), the body-mind becomes the dominant interface with the material world and the soul mind becomes the subconscious of the body-mind.
The main preoccupation of the body-mind is survival. It attempts to do this through the process of homeostasis. The purpose of homeostasis is to maintain the life support functions of the body. In the material world, this involves maintaining the chemical balance of the body. In the energetic world, this involves balancing the body’s seven energy centres.
The first experience the soul has of being in a material world are the physical sensations experienced by the body-mind. Some of these experiences are positive — life-enhancing and some are negative — life depleting. The soul experiences life-enhancing experiences as love energy, and life depleting experiences as fear energy. Thus, whenever the foetus’ or baby’s survival needs are met, the soul experiences the energy of love, and whenever the foetus’ or baby’s survival needs are not met, the soul experiences the energy of fear.
Around the age of two, sometimes earlier, when the emotional mind (the limbic mind/brain) takes over from the body-mind as the dominant interface with the child’s environment, the soul experiences the feeling of separation. The sense of oneness that the foetus and the baby experienced begins to disappear. At this point, the energetic instability associated with negative sensations of the body-mind and the emotional mind (fear) causes the soul to protect itself by creating a psychic buffer we call the ego.
After the emotional mind has become dominant, the body-mind becomes the subconscious of the emotional mind, and the soul mind becomes the unconscious.
Later, around the age of about seven or eight, the rational mind (the neocortex) begins to take over from the emotional mind as the primary interface with the child’s environment. At this point, the emotional mind becomes the subconscious, the body-mind becomes the unconscious, and the soul mind becomes the super unconscious.
The ego-mind develops in three stages: first, it tries to learn how to survive in its physical environment with the help of the body-mind; then it tries to learn how to keep safe in its social world with the aid of the emotional mind; lastly, it tries to learn how to feel secure in its physical and social world with the aid of the rational mind.
Only when the ego-mind has begun to learn how to survive, keep safe and feel secure in its physical and cultural framework of existence — when it has started to master its deficiency needs, does the soul mind begin to re-emerge as a psychic force in our life. What prevents or blocks the soul from reappearing are the fear-based beliefs the ego developed about meeting its deficiency needs during the first three stages of development. If these conscious, subconscious, and unconscious beliefs are strong — deeply embedded in our psyche — then it will be very hard for the soul to re-emerge.
The re-emergence of the soul as a significant force in our lives occurs in four stages. We open the door to the soul at the individuating stage of development by letting go of the personality mask we learned to wear during the first three stages of development — becoming who we truly are by overcoming our fears.
The second stage of soul activation (the self-actualization stage of development) involves finding, accessing, and developing our unique gifts and talents. This occurs at the self-actualizing stage of development. This is the stage when we begin to find meaning and purpose to our lives. We are now beginning to align with our soul’s motivations.
Some exceptional individuals whose gifts have been nurtured from a young age are able to do this much earlier in their lives. This does not mean they have reached the self-actualizing stage of development; they still need to pass through the previous stages of development so they can learn to meet their deficiency needs and align their ego motivations with the soul motivations.
The third stage of soul activation (the integrating stage of development) involves connecting with others in empathic relationships and using our gifts and talents to make a difference in their lives. At the fourth stage of soul activation (the serving stage of development), we begin to lead a life of selfless service by contributing to the wellbeing of our family, our community, humanity, or the planet through our deepest compassion.
During the four stages of soul activation, our sense of identity progressively expands to be more inclusive of others. All sense of physical and material differences disappears. Eventually, we become one with everyone and connect with all there is.
The difference between ego awareness and soul awareness
Viewed from the perspective of the ego, the fundamental properties of the material dimension of reality are time, space, and matter. By conjoining time and space, we create the illusion of separation; by conjoining time and matter, we create the illusion of death and decay; by conjoining space and matter, we create the illusion of physical forms and mass. Together these concepts align with the classical three-dimensional material interpretation of reality explained by Newtonian mechanics and the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.
Viewed from the perspective of the soul, the fundamental properties of the energetic dimension of reality are timelessness, omnipresence, and energy. Because the soul has no awareness of time and space the soul experiences a sense of oneness and connection. Because the soul has no awareness of time and matter, it lives in a constant state of present moment awareness. Because the soul has no awareness of space and matter, the soul experiences changes in the frequency of energetic vibrations in the body, in other people, and in its surroundings. Taken together, these concepts align with the quantum scientific interpretation of reality. In the world of the soul, everything is wave-like with many different frequencies of vibration — the energy dimension; in the world of the ego, everything is particle-like with different densities of matter — the material dimension.
In the material dimension of reality, the ego lives in a world limited by time and entropy — the gradual decomposition of matter. Therefore, it believes in death and decay. Because it believes in death and decay, it experiences separation (when the body dies). Because it believes in separation, it believes in limitation. Because it believes in limitation, it experiences lack (I don’t have enough), and believes it has needs. Because it believes it has needs, it experiences anger when its needs are not met in the present moment, and it experiences anxiety when it believes its needs might not be met in the future.
In the energetic dimension of reality, there is no time and space. Because there is no time and space, the soul is in a constant stage being and connection. Because it lives in a constant state of being and connection, it experiences oneness. Because the soul lives in a world of possibility and abundance, it does not experience limitation. Every thought of the soul is an act of creativity. It creates whatever it needs through its thoughts. Because it has no needs, it has no fears, and its primary experience of the world is unconditional love. Although it has no needs, the soul does have desires. It incarnated into your body to self-express, connect, and contribute. Every time the ego makes a decision based on its fear-based beliefs, it blocks the natural expression of the soul.
Because it lives in a field of love, the natural state of the soul is energetic equilibrium. When we let the fears of the ego influence our thoughts, we experience energetic instability and the amount of love energy we can project into the world decreases. The energy associated with the emotion of fear and anger, which the ego experiences when it believes its needs might not be met, is experienced by the soul as a lack of love and leads us into a world of separation.
Unmet ego needs → Anger/Anxiety/Fear → Lack of love → Separation
The source of our lack of wellbeing is energetic instability caused by the lack of alignment of the ego’s motivations with the soul’s motivations.
When our minds are dominated by the ego’s fears our mental wellbeing is compromised. Thus, the level of our ego soul alignment — the degree to which we experience energetic equilibrium — directly impacts our feeling of wellbeing. Thus, we can state that ego-soul alignment leads to energetic equilibrium, which in turn leads to mental and physical wellbeing.
Ego-soul alignment → Energetic equilibrium → Mental and physical wellbeing
References:
Richard Barrett, A New Psychology of Human Wellbeing: An exploration of the influence of ego-soul dynamics on mental and physical wellbeing.
Barrett Academy E-Learning Course: Consciousness
