Heroes@Home: When what's best for me is we.

In my last post, we explored the balance between individualism and interdependence. Understanding the dynamics between these two existential ways of being is not only important during a crisis, but it is essential to living a robust life. When you understand when to act independently and when to act interdependently, life eases. It entails recognizing when acting for the benefit of the whole also benefits you as an individual, as well as when acting as an individual benefits you but may harm others. Ironically, when you exercise good judgment in this balance of solo versus in concert, you become less harshly judgmental of yourself and others. So, how does one get in tune with this delicate balance? Let’s start by examining needs at the individual and group levels. A good way to think about this is your personal needs and the needs of your partner, family, your neighborhood, your workplace, your community, your region, your country, and, yes, our shared home – earth.

Getting our needs met depends on not only having a healthy relationship with ourselves, but mutually beneficial relationships with others. Every day we negotiate these relationships to take care of our families, our communities, and ourselves. We have commitments to our individual wellbeing as well as the collective wellbeing as members of society. From a systems perspective, the matrix that yields relational integrity of individuals and communities relies on self-respect and mutual respect, much like interstitial fluid bathes tissues in the human body. One might argue that systems work best when the relationships between individuals and the communities in which they are members are functionally healthy. Functional health depends on constructive feedback that enables individuals and communities to evolve in ways that are mutually valuable (we will explore values in a future posting) in meeting individual and group needs.
Let’s explore needs, yours and your communities’, through two different lenses – a psychological lens and a philosophical lens. These two lenses are tempered by the realities of human development in childhood through adulthood. The first, psychological lens is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1943), which he originally presented in his Theory of Human Motivation. Maslow has presented needs in a five-tier triangle (Figure 1).


Figure 1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
By FireflySixtySeven - Own work using Inkscape, based on Maslow's paper, A Theory of Human Motivation., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36551248





In the five-tier model, the foundations of the triangle are basic, physical, individual needs like air, food, water, and shelter. Moving up the triangle, physical needs shift toward relational needs, increasing in complexity like love, belonging, and esteem (self and from others).  In the 1970s, Maslow refined his model to include enhanced needs, which added tiers and distinctions to his existing model as shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2. Maslow’s Expanded Hierarchy of Needs            Figure 3. The Chakra System

Figure 2. Sullivan, R.G., Dwyer, M.F., & Rogers, K.N. (2016). Conceptual frameworks for human interactions with public lands in the western United States. Argonne, IL: United States Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory.  Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Sullivan6/publication/301698819_Conceptual_Frameworks_for_Human_Interactions_with_Public_Lands_in_the_Western_United_States/links/5723725008aee491cb3772ae/Conceptual-Frameworks-for-Human-Interactions-with-Public-Lands-in-the-Western-United-States.pdf
Figure 3. The Chakra System.
Nearents, J. (2014). The Chakras: A Practical guide to everyday life. Retrieved from: https://www.slideshare.net/JenniferNearents/chakra-basics

In Maslow’s expanded model, the needs progressively move toward personal growth, self-actualization, and transcendence. This progression recognizes and reflects wisdom from Eastern philosophies. Energy centers represent needs in the subtle body found in ageless meditative practices like Tantra and esoteric Hindu traditions, like kundalini yoga and the chakra system. The latter is illustrated as seven major energetic wheels, starting at the base and working upwards, as well as several minor ones. Figure 3 shows this system simply, so you can see the parallels with Maslow’s hierarchy – a bridge between psychological and philosophical models.

Why is understanding the bridge between these models important? The bridge illustrates the interplay between individual and collective needs, in the context of psychological and philosophical meanings that we can relate to and understand as dynamics in our daily lives. These models help us make sense of our individual experience and the shared human experience. While there is so much depth to explore in these models, one lesson is clear. In sum, we cannot get all our individual needs met on our own. In other words, no one is an island. Thinking such is foolish. If we are to progress toward attaining higher levels of needs, such as love, self-actualization, and legacy, we need relationships gained through communities. As much as we would like to believe the myth so many films, particularly Westerns, we are not ruggedly, independent cowboys out on the range. We develop individual skills we share with society for mutual benefit and reciprocity – safety, security, satisfaction, growth, and prosperity.

In this pandemic, it is critically important to remember that your individual safety depends on your consideration (your behaviors) of others’ well-being as much as others’ consideration of your health. View it as a version of the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have done to you.” If you expect others to respect you, respect others. Right now, this is how we keep our communities safe for you and everyone. We all drive on the right side of the road not only because it is the law. It makes sense to avoid accidents and ensure traffic flow. Likewise, mindfulness of your behavior in public is vital to public health. Being a hero at home and using preventative measures when we must go out, we mitigate the burden on medical professionals and resources for survival. We really are in this together.  By doing your part, more of us will be here to celebrate when the sun finally breaks through the clouds.

For more information contact Mary at [email protected].