Our instinct for survival is more than just fight or flight.
Here is the Mind-food version of my most recent podcast from "The Human Experience" which you can listen to on Spotify-
If you would prefer to listen to the podcast, click here.
I'm Pam, welcome to the Human Experience Podcast. If you would like to know more about me or any of the topics that you listen to on this podcast, please go to www .pampoole.co.nz.
So today's podcast is called Our Instinct for Survival is more than just a fight or flight response.
So whether we like it or not, as humans we have core needs that require recognition and fulfilment to survive and to maintain general wellbeing. These needs, need to be met both internally by ourselves and externally by others. Only having one or the other is not sufficient.
We are designed to need others to get these needs met. Now we can meet them for ourselves absolutely, but that on its own is not enough. We also need to have those same needs met through relationship with others or in relationship with others. This is essential to our physical, emotional, mental health.
So we are born with physiological needs for air, water, food, shelter, sleep, warmth. Without them, we cannot survive for long. But so long as we get these met to some degree, we can survive. However, when we receive these needs, at individually required levels with minimal effort, we can thrive.
Initially, these needs are met by others, we are not able to source them for ourselves. At the time of birth, it's impossible for us to meet these needs for ourselves. So from before birth, we rely on others who we have a connection with to survive, of course initially that's via the umbilical cord.
Then, at birth, we are completely reliant on others for our basic physiological needs for a good portion of our early lives. In fact, some would say for at least half our young lives, so up until adulthood, half of those lives.
We are designed to rely on connection with other people and their connection to us. Now this need for connection is one of our core needs. It is as instinctual as fight or flight. It is part of our survival response.
As we age, we can meet most of our physiological needs. In fact, in truth be told, probably all of our physiological needs. But this piece of our survival DNA actually impacts more than just the physical. Because like the fight and the flight response, it is also connected to, relevant to, and impacts our emotional and mental well -being.
Ok, so we're born needing the physical help and receiving the help. We are also born with sensory needs, a need for touch, for taste, for smell, for hearing, for sight, if we're blessed with all five. So we are designed to both want help and to want to help. To give and to receive in relationship with other people or beings or both.
Now how this looks over time and the give and take of it significantly changes day to day and as we get older. However, to deny this need for others, to deny that it exists is unhelpful. We don't need a lot of people to meet these needs, but we do need people.
Who those people are can change over time and as that saying goes, you know, people come into our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Now I believe in being self -responsible. For any of you who know me, know my work, I'm a life coach and an equine assisted learning practitioner. For those of you who know me in those roles, you know that I believe in being self -responsible for my experience of life. I am not always successful at this endeavour by the way, but it is what I aim to do day to day. I also believe in being self -responsible in my relationship with others, so I don't rely on others to meet my needs. But that does not mean I don't need others.
So we all need human connection sometimes. Again, it's a core need to feel connected to others. We need to feel seen and heard and valued. It makes sense that when we feel connected to someone, it is because we see them as valuable. You know, we listen to them. We see them. It makes sense that their opinion matters to us. That their feelings about us matter to us.
To give ourselves a hard time because we look for validation outside of ourselves from those we feel connected to or from those who matter to us is actually rejecting a core need. It's like resisting the fight flight response.
Now, do we rely on validation from external sources? No, that's not what I'm suggesting. Do we find people who see us as valuable and is it important that we see ourselves as valuable? Yes. So connecting with people who make it easier to see our own value, who see us as we see ourselves, who truly want to listen to you, is what draws us to people.
It's what draws us to connect with others. But it is only half of the equation. You must also want to listen to you. To really see you and to recognise your own value. Because if we don't, then we are drawn to people who also don't.
This is why it's so important to decide what this looks like for us first. It's why it's essential that we can give this to ourselves before we seek it from those that are important to us or those that we're connected to. But we are still going to need it from others.
Now the conundrum here is that this natural instinct to seek validation, this need that we have to seek that from those we feel connected to, can backfire if we have an unkind or unhealthy or unhelpful view of ourselves. Because then, then we'll be drawn to people who validate that view of ourselves and we find ourselves looking for connection and validation from people who actually don't share our values. Who don't see the value in what we see the value in.
If you're a person who struggles with self worth or seeing your own value, it can be helpful to consider what you have observed and or liked or desired in other relationships because chances are if you can see these and if you see that and you know that you are more likely to be able to see these in yourself you can nurture that in yourself and then you can actually begin to feel an appreciation for those things that you value in yourself. To listen to that and to let those values guide you within the relationship you have with yourself and then of course that flows onto the relationships you have or choose to build with others.
I hope that you've found this helpful in understanding why as humans we are both independent and dependent and the internal conflict that these can create for us.
It's lovely to be independent. It's important to be independent and it's important to recognize that we will still need others. To be connected and separate.
All right. You know where to find me.
If you'd like to discuss this further or get more information www .pampoole.co.nz
Life Coach and Equine Assisted Learning Practitioner. Have a great week. Bye for now.
