Layer 2 Taking Care of Ourselves

It’s worth considering the various ways in which we need to take care of ourselves, and we need to just do it without becoming obsessive about it. We need to take care of ourselves physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and socially. We also need to recognise, exercise and look after our instinctual selves. We need to think long and hard about just what our instinctual selves might be, and what instinctual intelligence might be.

So that's all fairly straightforward, isn’t it? We’re three dimensional beings. These six aspects, the ones just listed, are the end points of three axes that run through our selves, our multi-faced selves, and our lives. Our lives are this simple, and this complex.

These six aspects and these three types of intelligence make us what we are, and what we’re not. In order to survive and thrive we need to be aware of them, take care of them, develop them and polish them.

We also need to keep ourselves in balance. We can be all thought and no instinct, or the other way round. We need to have lots of both in order to become the best we can be.

Have you ever met some poor sod who was all action and reaction, with little or no capacity for thought and reflection? Ever seen a baby? Ever seen an infantilised adult? The baby is wonderful. The other one isn’t.

Or have you ever met someone who was all thought and reasoning, forever plotting and scheming and planning, with no capacity for spontaneity, no authenticity, and no positive driving instincts? This is the domain of the psychopath, the mad professor, or anyone with excessive desires for control - over themselves as well as others.

How easily we confuse thoughts, feelings and emotions.

We could all benefit from some greater clarity, if only so that we have a common language for building understanding, and raising the levels of our different intelligences. So let’s try this.

Clearly, thoughts belong on the first axis. As do their opposite, our instincts, which often trigger swift reactions - flight, fight, freeze and fuck. Not much thinking involved in any of those. Basic instincts.

Emotions are on the second axis, which reaches from the highly and exclusively personal and emotional to the highly social and impersonal, or the purely collective. Love, hate, fear, jealousy, and all the other emotions are located here. Our social interactions with others are the source of great joy and great misery. On the other hand, to be anti-social or non-social can be lonely, painful, boring and frustrating, whilst privacy and solitude can be restorative and enjoyable. (This is no paradox. This is yin and yang.)

Feelings are on the third axis. They’re the product of our physical senses, and our metaphysical or spiritual capacity for awe and wonder. To look, to see, to touch, to taste, to smell, to hear - to experience the sublime and the ineffable that can never be captured in a thought or an emotion, let alone a word or a sentence or even a book, or a blog. That’s Satori. Wonder-ful.

How do you feel? Open your eyes. Consider the stars and the sunset. Smell the roses. Taste the coffee. Tune in to the music of the spheres. Walk in the sun. Touch or kiss someone special. Now how do you feel? You don’t like roses, or coffee? Pick and choose your own special sensual delights.

So you never feel a sense of awe and wonder at the beauty and mystery of life, the universe and everything? Don’t worry. There are millions on earth who are struggling to develop some spiritual intelligence. To become physically and metaphysically intelligent. Millions of two-dimensional people, flattened by life, squashed and restricted by circumstance.

Most of us have a problem with hanging on to the notion that life is wonderful. Those satori moments tend to be quite fleeting in a world that leaves few opportunities and too little time to open ourselves up to them. Too little time or opportunity to sit quietly and do nothing, or to walk on a beach or a hillside or beside a river by ourselves or with a lover or our children, at sunset or sunrise, or any other time we choose. Many of us feel we have no such choices.

I realise now what’s always on my mind. The axe I constantly grind. Those three axes. Those three dimensions. That particular model of our psyches. That little piece of the jigsaw, that small step on the road - at least my road - towards enlightenment. Back on the road again.