How to be exactly who you are naturally meant to be and do exactly what you are naturally meant to do, in the system of systems you belong to.
The reason why people suffer so much is because they do not honor their true nature.
— Nick Keomahavong, Buddhist monk via YouTube
When you talk about nature, do you tend to think of it as a separate, different entity from yourself? Why would you not be natural, or part of nature? What else is “here” but nature? And if you acted as though you were not part of nature, how could you possibly affect it?
As a sustainability leader, you put in place policies and programs to protect and use nature wisely, to restore and regenerate nature. This includes social programs to increase equality of rights, abundance, and the well-being of others. But what about yourself?
Well, you, and all of your parts, and all of your creations, are part of nature and affect nature one way or another, whether you like it or not, whether you are conscious of it or not. But the extent and quality of your consciousness concerning these facts greatly affect whether your presence and impact are beneficial or not to life on Earth, including yourself.
You, as one individual entity, are part of the system you inhabit — the ecosystem, the social system, the economic system, the entire system at any scale! Your team, as one entity, is part of the system. Your organization, as one entity, is part of the system. It works the same way as for the leaf, the tree, and the forest. And whether you are an oak or a dandelion matters to the entire system.
Whether you are an individual, a team, or an organization, YOU have a very specific nature and a very specific role within your various systems and the whole. You cannot serve the other entities in your systems well, and they cannot serve you well, and there cannot be any healthy system “there” if the nature and role of each part is left unknown and unmastered.
The Buddhist monk is right: human beings do not honor their nature. And that is a big problem. I do not know if the butterfly is conscious of being a butterfly and playing the role of a butterfly. I do not know if the bee is conscious of her service when she pollinates flowers. We can observe that they can make mistakes and learn better, though. But I know that we human beings, for some – also natural – reason, must find out who we really are and what our specific role is in our relationships, teams, communities, and the whole of nature, so that we can play our own specific part optimally.
The way that you make sense of nature and design and implement programs to change anything in nature all depend on how you interpret what you perceive. Everything you decide and do depends on what you think about and how you feel about what you observe. And what you think and feel about nature, or any one of its parts, depends on your personality, your genes, your culture, your values, what you were brought up believing, and how your feelings were trained to feel in any given situation.
Most sustainability leaders and organizations are too focused on outer realities.
They fail to make sure that the instrument through which they see these realities, and with which they attempt to change the same realities — their own individual and collective bodies and minds — is operating well enough. They act as though their own system is not part of the entire system. In psychology, this phenomenon is often called fragmentation and causes pain, disease, and irrational behavior.
As a result of this huge gap in consciousness, most sustainability leaders are currently leading us all in the opposite direction to where we need to go. The scorching temperatures and other current adverse climate events, and the latest values of the world sustainability indicators, are all proof that we, as a collective, are still moving towards worse, not better.
You have a unique filter through which you see and interact with nature. We all do. Where is your filter dirty and distorted? Where is it clean and clear? All of us grow up believing vast amounts of incorrect information about ourselves and the world that our parents, teachers, caregivers, and others have shared with us — because they did not know better either. Since this filter is part of us, we do not always see that it could use some cleaning unless we see it somehow reflected to us, for example, by someone else giving us feedback. We all have unclean filters, and it is easier to see somebody else’s incorrect beliefs than our own. Obtaining feedback about our behavior is one way of learning about our blind spots and an essential component in an endeavor to get to know ourselves. There are many other ways to know oneself, some of which I address in my other articles and books.
Many scientific disciplines study the human being generically. All of them can continue to inform your journey of self-discovery: neuroscience, biology, psychology, anthropology, nutrition, etc. Start with one and proceed. Keep an open and questioning mind at all times. Practice the new knowledge in your daily life.
But if you want your sustainability programs to address the right issues and succeed, you must go beyond what is generic, know your own unique nature, and integrate this knowledge into everything else you know. And then, you must embody and enact – live – your nature as best you can.
What makes you different from everybody else?
What are your deep values?
What are your default patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing?
What is your own trauma inheritance and emotional baggage?
What are your specific gifts?
What can your body uniquely perceive or do that another cannot?
By engaging in a journey to discover who you are, you will gradually uncover and correct the beliefs stored in your mind that are affecting everything in your life. You will learn to understand the world very differently, and also to change your worldview frequently. You will be able to understand the difference between your ego — the persona you project in the world — and your true self. You will learn to care for your ego, no matter how many mistakes your ego may have made, still makes, and will make. You will learn from success and failure how to gradually align your ego with your true self and with the needs of the whole. You will feel greater alignment and coherence in your body, like a straight line of ease and relaxation from top to toe.
The more you question and align, the better your body and mind will function. There will be less distortion in your perceptions, thoughts, entire body, and mind. You will start to see yourself, your unique services, systems, the world, and nature as they really are. You will consciously lead your part in evolution.
As humans actively seek to know and integrate their own individual nature into the whole of nature — particularly their senses, feelings, and emotions, which have been vastly underestimated so far — they have a better chance of serving nature well, and being served by nature well. Should we not do that in sufficient numbers, bigger catastrophes will occur on Earth, and the human species may become extinct.
You must agree to become as conscious as possible of all realities, including, and especially, how your mind is filtering information through prejudice, and making toxic, fixed associations between concepts, people, and all things. You must accept that your fear, your shame, and your anger are managing you more than you manage them. You must look inside the Pandora’s box of your mind and body, clean up the junk, and replace it with flowing brilliance on an ongoing basis if you want to increase your chances of changing others and the world.
Have you started your self-discovery journey? Please share with us some of the wonders of your true, unique nature!