What Needs to Happen For You to Start Caring
How to ignite genuine concern for the world
Credits: Big thank-you to Thomas Pollak for helpful suggestions and resources, and to Teju Ravilochan for this inspiring article which informed the section about Siksika.
Arguably, the biggest problem of our times is that we don’t care enough. That’s why we keep failing to fix problems we technically have solutions for.
How often do you have the means to help — an elderly neighbor, the climate, someone who’s been targeted with a racist joke — but, you brush it off, telling yourself that “they’ll be fine”?
I don’t blame you — I do it, too. On one level, it’s a natural self-protection mechanism. When you’re presented with too many problems that seem overwhelming, “switching off” is the easiest way to deal with emotional discomfort.
But with the current state of the world, if all we do is act from a place of self-preservation, it may not end well. Martin Luther King recognized it decades ago:
“Through our scientific and technological genius, we’ve made of this world a neighborhood. And now through our moral and ethical commitment, we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers — or we will all perish together as fools.”
We created a global village of interconnection — now, we must learn to live up to it. But how? What exactly needs to happen for people to start treating each other as brothers and sisters?
If you’re someone whose heart is open to these questions, you’re in the right place. This article is an attempt to map out what exactly needs to happen in your human journey for you to start caring.
Table of Contents
You Don’t Have to Live With Perpetual Tension
The Siksika People: A Culture of Interconnectedness
An Overview of the Path to Interconnectedness
How does each milestone change your mindset?
· 1. Secure life base
· 2. Awareness of physical body
· 3. Agency over attention
· 4. Self-regulation
· 5. Positive regard for yourself
· 6. Skillful communication
· 7. A sense of healthy community
· 8. Reverence for nature
You Don’t Have to Live With Perpetual Tension
Most people live a dual experience. Different cultures recognized it over millennia using different concepts.
- The Christian tradition speaks of a carnal body and immortal soul.
- Buddhist scholars conceptualized the Elephant and the Rider. The Elephant represents the unconscious, reactive mind, while the Rider is the rational mind that tames the Elephant.
- Emile Durkhein spoke of the profane and the sacred as two distinct planes of human existence, often present in myths.
These are just a few examples — many more ideas like these exist. While words and languages used to describe them differ, the bottom line is the same.
On the one hand, you live in a mortal body whose biological functions are optimized to survive. On the other, you have consciousness enabling you to dream, conceive new ideas, envision a better world and a better you.
For the sake of this discussion, I’ll speak of these as two forces. Let’s call the first one the instinct for self-preservation. When it comes to the second, I think of it as the drive to self-actualization.
By self-actualization, I mean becoming the best person you can be. This includes reaching your full potential when it comes to your skills, intelligence, and physical body. But first and foremost, self-actualization is about being the best you can be to others — and finding personal liberation through that.
Albert Einstein put it well:
“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty.”
The problem is that we often see self-preservation and self-actualization as being at odds with each other. Either I save my energy and rest — or, I help a neighbor. Either I buy cheap stuff on Amazon for my convenience — or, I try to reduce waste, don’t buy, and feel deprived.
This way of thinking creates tension. We’re continuously torn between our “lower” and “higher” motivations. But this mindset isn’t innate — it’s a product of our culture. We can see that by looking at those societies that managed to integrate self-preservation with self-actualization, while creating more balanced social structures.
One of them is the Siksika (Blackfoot) people of North America — the nation that inspired Abraham Maslow to create his hierarchy of needs.
The Siksika People: A Culture of Interconnectedness
The Siksika are a First Nation now located in Southern Alberta in Canada. According to Wikipedia, in 2009 there were around 6,000 members of the Siksika Nation.
Maslow arrived in their land in the summer of 1938. His initial intention was to test universality of his theory that assumed dominance of some people over others. But, he was in for a big surprise.
He did not find the Siksika trying to dominate each other. Instead, as Teju Ravilochan says:
“he discovered astounding levels of cooperation, minimal inequality, restorative justice, full bellies, and high levels of life satisfaction. He estimated that ‘80–90% of the Blackfoot tribe had a quality of self-esteem that was only found in 5–10% of his own population.’”
What did that look like in practice? The wealthiest people were considered those who gave the most away. Children were treated with respect and trust from an early age. Those who broke social agreements were given a chance to redeem themselves, rather than exiled from the group.
Maslow concluded that in Siksika’s culture self-actualization wasn’t a luxury — it was the baseline. And, it wasn’t so much pursued for individual satisfaction as it was the foundation of their social structure.
For Siksika, self-actualization was a prerequisite to a healthy community. That’s why the community made sure to support individual wellbeing and growth. It was clear that only healthy, happy, resourced individuals could contribute to a thriving collective.
A major difference between the Western and First Nations perspectives makes itself apparent here. Dr. Cindy Blackstock, a member of the Gitxsan Nation, created this illustration to visualize it:
This image points to the problem we face as well as to the solution.
The problem is that, in the West, we look at the individual separately from their environment. We aspire to self-sufficiency in meeting our needs but we ignore one “tiny” detail — it’s impossible. Whether we see it or not, our livelihood depends on others and the system we’re embedded in.
The solution is a change of culture. We need to start seeing a human being as part of a bigger system. We need to be ready to receive from, but also contribute to that system. This is where self-preservation and self-actualization can meet.
Since we can’t change our culture with a magic wand, we need to start the process from the bottom-up. That’s the paradox: we need to rely on individual change, on a large enough scale, to create critical mass for system change.
Here’s how you can play your part.
An Overview of the Path to Interconnectedness
Intellectually understanding interconnectedness isn’t enough. You need a direct experience of it.
This is what opens your mind and heart, and makes caring a natural extension of your being.
To reach such a way of being, you need tweaks to your psychological wiring and nervous system. Think of it as an adaptation, an upgrade of your “operating system.” You need a more refined way of processing information about yourself and the world, one that benefits both you and others.
How do you establish that? One way of thinking about it is moving through a number of milestones. In human development, milestones are psychological and cognitive points of no return. Once you’ve experienced a milestone and digested it, you can’t help but see the world differently.
With each milestone, you get closer to the mindset akin to that of the Siksika. You feel safer in the world and more comfortable in your skin. You feel less urge to protect yourself and have more willingness to give to others. Over time, self-actualization becomes a way of self-preservation — and vice versa.
In my experience, a milestone consists of three parts. They often — but not always — follow this sequence. A milestone may:
- start as a transformational experience
- unfurl as a practice, and
- get integrated into a way of being.
Here’s how these components interact with each other.
Transformational experience
Transformational experience often happens first. It can be a spontaneous or intentional event which gives you an experiential insight into a new possibility. For example, you notice that you can change your emotional states by using deep, conscious breathing. From now on, you know it’s a possibility and you’re more aware of your power.
Practice
Once you’ve had a transformational experience, you can choose to practice it. Through practice, you gain a deeper understanding of how it benefits you and others, and how to recreate it “on demand.” Following the example of breathing, you may commit to daily evening practice of conscious relaxation — such as Wim Hof Method, Jacobson Relaxation Technique, or another modality.
Practice and transformational experience can also happen in reverse order. Sometimes, you need to spend time practicing first, so you can have a transformational experience. As Timothy Wilson put it in Strangers to Ourselves: “One of the most enduring lessons of social psychology is that behavior change often precedes changes in attitudes and feelings.”
Way of being
If you practice it enough times, your milestone turns into a way of being. When you master the experience of regulating your emotions through breathing, you can use it whenever you need. It becomes intuitive, rather than something you need to put effort in.
This will likely impact other areas of your life. For example, you may start taking more social risks because you have a reliable tool to fall back on if you feel rejected or hurt. You become a more open, outgoing person just because you’re not so dependent on others to make you feel good.
Now that we know how milestones happen, let’s look at what they are. In this part of the article, I’ll map out the ones I’ve encountered on my path — and which are also backed by research and other thought leaders.
1. Secure life base
“Life is best organized as a series of daring ventures from a secure base.” — John Bowlby
I’d love to say that anyone can start their journey to interconnectedness, anytime. But this wouldn’t be fair. First, we need to acknowledge that your socioeconomic situation plays a part in that journey.
Self-improvement culture loves the notion that “growth happens outside of your comfort zone.” But if you’re outside of your comfort zone all the time — for example, you live in poverty — this will not encourage you to embrace a “growth mindset.” Instead, it will keep you in survival mode.
History knows people who cared for others even when their own livelihood was compromised. But these are exceptions rather than the norm. Most of us need to feel a sense of safety and have their physiological needs met to be able to extend themselves to others.
2. Awareness of physical body
“The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch.” — Bessel van der Kolk
In the West, we are so conditioned to praise the thinking aspect of the mind that we forget the body-mind. Even the phrase “body-mind” sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it? In our common understanding, the mind is still separate from the body — and, often seen as superior.
Meanwhile, the body has its own intelligence — evolutionarily much older than the analytical brain. The body developed first. Only after it grew increasingly complex, it started needing the brain to help manage its processes.
This is in line with Buddhist thought, which sees thinking as one of the senses. It exists alongside hearing, seeing, smelling, touch, and taste. It’s not superior — just another tool of cognition.
Putting the thinking mind back in its place is important to develop sensitivity to bodily sensations. They are crucial sources of information that we can’t overlook if we want to progress on our journey.
3. Agency over attention
“We do not know what a thought is, yet we’re thinking them all the time.” — Ani Tenzin Palmo
Along with body awareness grows a sense of presence — what’s often described as “being in the moment.” This involves not only feeling your body, but also agency over your attention.
Unless you train it, your attention is prone to jump from one object to another. It’s an evolutionary feature. The ability to rapidly switch attention in response to sudden danger used to be far more important than sustained focus.
But if you live a typical modern lifestyle, it’s probably safe enough to keep your focus on one thing. In fact, it’s usually safer to be mindful than mindless. Consider someone who crosses a busy street absent-mindedly, versus someone who’s paying attention to the traffic. Who’s safer?
Beyond physical safety, being able to direct your attention allows you to master your mind. As the old adage goes, “energy flows where attention goes.” You can choose whether you want to spend time blaming, complaining, looking for solutions, focusing on gratitude, or turning the problem into a joke.
You can only make these kinds of choices when you have agency over your attention. These have real implications for what kind of person you’ll become.
4. Self-regulation
“Heal. So we don’t have another generation of trauma passing itself off as culture.” — Anonymous
If you put together the awareness of your body and the agency over your attention, you have the tools to regulate your emotions. This is no small accomplishment.
Self-regulation gives you an opportunity to change unconscious patterns and heal trauma. Virtually all of us have been traumatized, either through big T or small t trauma. This means your body may respond to fairly mundane situations as if they were very dangerous.
Self-regulation enables you to rewire those patterns. You’re no longer at the mercy of your boss, your mother, or your partner when it comes to how you feel. You can recognize when your nervous system is unnecessarily activated— and bring it back to safety using breathing, movement, or other techniques.
This skill is indispensable on the journey to interconnectedness. You can’t have genuine concern for others when you feel threatened yourself. The moment you know how to get yourself out of a trigger, you gain capacity to hold space for others.
5. Positive regard for yourself
“Searching all directions
with one’s awareness,
one finds no one dearer
than oneself.” — Rājan Sutta
During a conference in Dharamsala in 1990, Sharon Salzberg asked the Dalai Lama what he thought about self-hatred. His eyes narrowed in confusion: “Self-hatred? What is that?”, he asked.
Almost anyone raised in the West knows what self-hatred is. Many people struggle with low self-esteem to the point of loathing themselves, which blocks interconnectedness.
Teju Ravilochan sees the measure of self-worth as one distinct difference between Maslow’s theory (and Western paradigm) and Siksika’s view of the world. While in the West self-esteem is something we need to “build”, First Nations see it as natural:
“While Maslow saw self-actualization as something to earn, the Blackfoot see it as innate. Relating to people as inherently wise involves trusting them and granting them space to express who they are (…) rather than making them the best they can be. For many First Nations, therefore, self-actualization is not achieved; it is drawn out of an inherently sacred being who is imbued with a spark of divinity.”
It’s hard to care for others when you don’t care for you. Kristin Neff’s research on self-compassion confirms that. Neff speaks about common humanity as a vital ingredient of self-compassion, as it allows you to feel more connected to others who suffer and make mistakes just like you.
6. Skillful communication
“Most communications are sequential monologues. I make my talk, you make your talk, and so on. But a third thing enters every communication, and that is “us.” — Susan Piver
The milestones we named so far were mostly individual. Now, we enter the realm of interacting with others: skillful communication. This is obviously a huge topic, so we’re only touching the essentials.
What I want to highlight is the power of authentic communication. Authenticity means that you express yourself open and honestly, while also caring for the experience of other person.
According to the Authentic Relating model, communication can happen on three levels. Each moves us closer towards more authenticity and connection.
Level 1: Informational
This is where we exchange practical information, ask what’s for dinner, and discuss details of a project. Not much personal connection happens — this level is intended to serve practical purposes.
Level 2: Personal
Personal level is sharing how you feel about the informational level. For example, you may tell someone that your partner left for a week-long work trip — that’s information. But when you start sharing how you feel about that, it becomes personal. This initiates connection because it requires some vulnerability.
Level 3: Relational
The relational level is most conducive to connection. We enter it when we share what’s arising in us here and now, in this particular interaction. For example, saying “I’m relieved you changed your mind because I didn’t actually feel like going on that trip” is relational communication.
Relational communication zeroes in on the impact we have on each other. By naming how your experience is connected to mine and vice versa, we become more aware of our interconnectedness.
7. A sense of healthy community
“I realized that if I didn’t risk rejection to create community, I wasn’t going to get community.” — Sara Ness
It’s hard to feel interconnected if you don’t have people around you. But it’s one thing to have a handful of one-on-one friendships. It’s another to feel a part of a community.
Humans are wired to connect with others within tribe-like structures — you probably heard a version of this before. That’s because a community can meet a variety of human needs. The Siksika understood and practiced this very well.
Community psychologist Dr. David McMillan names four components that contribute to a sense of community:
- Membership — or, a sense of belonging
- Influence — knowing that you make a difference in the group, and the group makes a difference in your life
- Integration and fulfillment of needs — trusting that your needs can and will be met through shared resources
- Shared emotional connection — sharing a common history, experiences, and place, which grounds you in the same reality as other community members.
A healthy community is one that encourages healthy behaviors, beliefs, and relationships. In other words, it helps you become the person you want to become. It could be that your “default” community — e.g. your workplace, hometown, or school — doesn’t serve that purpose.
In that case, your journey to interconnectedness might require you to re-shape your existing community, to find, or to build a new one. It’s important you’re part of a tribe that supports your growth.
8. Reverence for nature
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” –John Muir
Finally, there’s something to be said about being connected to the bigger picture — the natural world. This is where feeling interconnected comes in its purest form.
My reverence for nature developed when I lived in the French Alps — or, that’s when I had my transformational experience. Nature was stunning and I had plenty of opportunities to go on solo hikes. I experienced awe more regularly than ever in my life. From then on, it became instinctive to nurture my connection to the Earth.
I believe awe was the main feeling that helped me develop my sense of interconnectedness at the time. There is more and more research on the prosocial effects of awe and other transcendent emotions. Studies show that experiencing them increases our concern for others and make us more generous.
At some point, we must learn how to deeply appreciate the complex web of life we’re a part of. It’s what keeps us connected to ourselves, each other, and the bigger picture. I was lucky enough to learn it in the French Alps — but now I see it can be found anywhere. You can experience it by paying deliberate attention to plants, insects, animals… and your own body.
That’s where we come full circle. The milestone of connecting to your physical body can be a part of reverence for nature, and vice versa. Your body is nature.
Getting to that insight is what interconnectedness is.
How to Start Your Journey to Interconnectedness
The journey to interconnectedness is a story of personal transformation.
The path of human development is to meet increasingly more complex needs and act from higher motivations. Over time, this shifts your identity from individual self to self-as-a-part-of-the-collective. This second identity is what makes thriving societies, such as the Siksika Nation.
In other words, the more developed you are, the more you care. The quest of personal growth is as much about you as it is about your community. That’s because if you’re contributing to a healthy community, then you’re also taken care of.
This is where the forces of self-preservation and self-actualization meet.
If you have a secure life base, you can start your journey towards interconnectedness now. CivLead can help with that. We’re a community of changemakers who want to maximize their impact while living a fulfilling life.
If you want to hear more from us, follow our Medium publication or fill out the Changemaker Quiz below. We hope to see you in our community!
