While I was standing in my kitchen, chatting with my partner a few weeks ago, I was telling them about the most recent neuroscience study I had read about humans. In that moment something really fell into place for me — humans are hardwired for love.
I feel like I should have already known this, but somehow knowledge seems to first enter through the mind. Only after having experienced and studied something for years does it finally sink down into the body. In that place where your soul embodies it.
But it makes sense that it would take some time to really come to know this. We in this society are raised to believe otherwise. Even with everything I know about history, healing, and science, people will still try to tell me we are selfish, competitive, violent animals. As though it were some fact. Even though many of the facts I know prove otherwise.
The myths of today tell us every “man” for “himself.” (Funny how it’s just men?) And apparently everyone knows it’s “a dog-eat-dog world.” (Where are these dogs who are eating each other?) Or, “Only the strong survive.” (What kind of strength are we talking about?)
But history and biology tell us something different.
I remember coming across this anecdote from cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead many years ago on Tumblr. It may have been one of the first historical takes I read that really started to change my mind about the way the world has been made.
Outside of altering the way I perceive the world, it struck a chord in me. Like stirring up a memory, hidden deep within my bones. Upon hearing this story, I assumed this caretaking happened only a few centuries ago. Instead, I found that it occurred long ago, “between 36,000 to 38,000 years ago” to be exact. Before the Neanderthals had died out. I learned that this was a fracture so bad, that even in today’s society it takes around 12 weeks to heal and typically needs surgery. And this wasn’t the first case of early humans taking care of each other.
There are multiple instances of people who were disabled so badly that there was no way they could have survived without being cared for. That there was also no economic reason to keep them alive. Some of them were blind, with withered arms. Yet ancient humans nursed and cared for them, kept them alive sometimes into old age. These instances date as far back as 1.77 million years ago.
Lately, the extent to which our symbolic language impacts our biological realities has been changing the way I approach the world. Hearts and minds are symbolic to the point of being life-altering. Science is proving to me that we are naturally built for love and connection. That our health is literally dependent upon us treating each other well.
One example that stands out to me is the connection between love and heart health. When I work on someone who has recently experienced love-loss, I perceive it like a heavy weight on the heart. I can feel their grief like a cloud of smoke in their lungs. Makes it feel like it is hard to breathe. Then we can typically pinpoint where the grief originates from and we start to create the conditions to release this pressure. Which is important, because we are now starting to see the physiological ramifications of these emotional wounds to the heart.
It is becoming more well-documented that children who are emotionally neglected have higher rates of heart-disease as adults. This isn’t just something that happens in “abusive” homes. Many people who grew up in households where their physical needs were tended to, the emotional ones were left behind. Many great quotes and supporting evidence can be found here.
There are also studies showing that people who suffer from mental illness are at increased risk for heart disease. These issues are specifically amplified by the different intersections in which we live, meaning the societal structures we have created which harm certain groups of people then create the conditions for disease. Basically, if you are told either directly or indirectly that you are not important, the body takes that in.
Finally, many of you may also be familiar with the psychologist Gabor Maté. In his studies he has found: “The very same brain centers that interpret and feel physical pain also become activated during experiences of emotional rejection. In brain scans, they light up in response to social ostracism, just as they would when triggered by physically harmful stimuli. When people speak of feeling hurt or of having emotional pain, they are not being abstract or poetic, but scientifically quite precise.”
It’s what we have been practicing in energy medicine all along — treating the mind and the body as though they are not separate, knowing they are intrinsically linked. Beyond that, the body keeps a record of what happens to us. As Carolyn Myss says in her book, Anatomy of the Spirit, “Our biography is our biology.”
This doesn’t mean you are doomed though; there are ways to repair and heal these experiences and stories. It’s what has motivated my work for the past decade. What I learned early on about healing through a spiritual and emotional lens, is what neuroscientists are now starting to prove — much of what ailed me was due to the ways in which we treat each other, how we live our lives, and the relationship we have with ourselves.
Let’s dive into what I just said a little deeper, because there can be a tendency to take that last sentence and make it the fault of the individual. Goddess knows I did that to myself when I first started. Only recently did I remove the root seed of, “Being good means good things will happen to me.” (Conversely, being “bad” means bad things will happen to me).
Being “good” is subjective, varies from culture to culture, and is not governed by the universe. There is no cosmic force interested in moral retribution. Morality is made up by humans. That morality does, however, impact the way we treat each other and therefore affects our health.
Our bodies and minds are biologically built for connection, love, trust, and pleasure. Of course pain is in there too, but as a way to notify you that something is out of balance. Not because you did something wrong, not because you were bad. Which means we as people can decide to move in a way that supports life, allows it to thrive, instead of harming each other.
There is no way around it, we need each other. We can work on a certain number of issues alone and that is sometimes absolutely necessary, but working alone will not help us heal completely. I didn’t raise myself. I didn’t create this society myself. I am not nourished only talking to myself. We learn from each other, we are reflected in each other, we help each other, we heal one another.
We have to do this together.
Because ultimately, just like there is no separation between the body and the mind there is also no separation between me and you. This is one of the reasons why I can see into your energy-body when you allow me into that space. It is why when we see someone suffering we feel it too. We can sense when someone is angry, sad, or joyful. The more we drop into our hearts and unlearn the ideas of separation then we become more psychic and we also heal at a greater rate.
Independence is a fallacy. Zero-sum game is not real. Our bodies know it, our brains know it. However, our conscious minds deny it because of the predominant stories we tell each other.
So why do we believe differently?
It’s a boon to an economy which is fake and made up anyway. Many of us are aware that we have been trained to think of ourselves as deficient in some way. We are told we are ugly, uncool, or dumb. We are all getting old. These things are “bad,” they say. No one will love us, want to listen to us, or be around us if we don’t do something about it. Separating us further, creating that sense of lack even more, when all we needed was some love and connection.
It’s sort of revealing to understand that the whole economy thing is even built on exploiting our loving and community-minded traits. We want to be seen as worthy by others, so we will be accepted, so we will have love and connection. However, the way this situation often plays out is with trends that change so fast there’s no way to keep up. We will always keep trying to be the person who can be loved, instead of just experiencing that love.
Until we decide to give that up.
Because it’s all a lie. I’m sure I am not telling you anything you don’t already know. Still, we must keep reminding each other. Society at large is really great at telling its own stories. We have to tell new ones. Old ones, really. Ancient. The stories of our ancestors.
When we are seen, listened to, and cared for our bodies literally heal — physically. Just like when the body feels physical pain and fragments when the emotional self is neglected, it also feels pleasure and can come back into wholeness when fully seen and accepted.
It’s both heartwarming and heartbreaking to see people in my healing space, crying because they have been witnessed in full for possibly the first time ever. You might think this is an anomaly, but it happens more often than not.
“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.” ― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
What I have also learned over the years is that the stories we tell ourselves are the stories that shape our reality. These stories guide our everyday decisions. Stories like the belief that love has to be hard, or that we are undeserving of love. The stories that tell us we must suffer to prove we are worthy. Stories that say people will only love us if we become what they want. Stories that say we cannot love ourselves because that would make us selfish. Stories that say we cannot love ourselves because it does not fit into some category a salesman created for us.
And now we know that these beliefs and experiences also influence our health.
Healing is the work of uncovering these stories and then telling new ones. As far as I understand, there is no such thing as “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad.” There are only decisions which lead us toward more creativity, connection, exploration, care, and joy and then there are decisions that lead us toward depression, loneliness, anger, and despair.
Yes, love seems to be the biological norm, but it doesn’t matter if we don’t choose it.