Last week, I shared the ironies of stumbling into the self-help section of a bookstore, purchasing a book to validate my ‘self-actualization’…. Meanwhile research suggests our individualistic culture has gone too far. This radical individualism leaves us feeling disconnected, preventing us from appreciating our deep interdependence with others in families, communities, and across humanity.
If you missed last week’s post, check out PART 1. Let’s pick up where we left off...
Humans, together.
So, how do we think more collectively?
To start, if I were to redesign my local bookshop, I’d sandwich the ‘self-help’ section with books about the most mesmerizing views on earth, or the story about the egg. Books that spark awe.
I’d pepper the store with reminders of all the ways we can loosen our ego's tight grip on our worldviews. Awe is a scientifically-proven-powerful-ego-dissolving force. Awe has an uncanny way of quieting our noisy internal narratives and dissolving the borders of selfhood. Neuroscience reveals that awe actually reduces activation in the brain's default mode network - the part in our brain tied to all that self-referential thinking we get so caught up in.
By diminishing ego dominance, awe makes room for us to truly appreciate our deep interconnection with others. Interestingly enough, research shows awe makes people more likely to refer to themselves and others differently by using inclusive terms like "human" or "person" rather than attaching to isolated identities. This isn’t just a vocabulary switch. Awe awakens a selfless sense of belonging to the collective whole. Its gift is a state of selfless connection vital for catalyzing change across systems.
True change requires transcending the myth of the fully self-sufficient individual.
I love how Social Innovation Generation has defined systems change. They speak about systems change as "shifting the conditions that hold the problem in place." It occurs on three levels:
Structural - changing policies, practices, resource flows
Relational - transforming relationships, connections, power dynamics
Transformational - evolving mental models, worldviews, beliefs
The deepest level is transformational change. But our focus on independence, compartmentalization and individuality restricts this level of change.
If the deepest level of systems change is challenging existing beliefs and worldviews, research suggests awe can loosen our grip on stubborn convictions.
Climate action, for example, depends on transcending individualism to see our interconnection with the planet. Something as seemingly ‘simple’ as activities like night walks in nature can build collective care.
Ecologist Chris Salisbury counters this lonely individualism by leading "wild night outs" reconnecting urbanites with nature's awe through darkness. He isn’t just taking people on walks. He is re-enchaing them. He takes groups to remote forests free of light pollution, surrounded by active wildlife. Without distraction, people attune to nature's ancient rhythms as infinite stars blaze overhead.
There, a sense of separation dissolves. People start to grasp the impacts of artificial lights disrupting woods and creatures after dark and it sparks renewed commitment to reducing light pollution in the linked habitat we share.
I can’t help but believe that the ability to re-enchant the world around us opens the door for the transformational systems change we need.
As we open to awe, we open to each other.
When exposed to awe, people become more willing to compromise on views they've clung to as universal truths. Awe somehow reminds us how much we still have to learn, while shifting our focus away from compartmentalization (trying to understand the world through labels or straight lines!).
Systems change of any kind requires embracing a shift in placing our ‘self’ within the context of the world around us. Awe can spark this shift - to open up to the interconnected nature of both the challenges our planet is faced with and the solutions. As we open to awe, we open to each other.
In this way, awe can lead us from isolation back to understanding our place within the whole.
With kindness and curiosity,
Laura
PS. Eggs anyone?