How to be exactly who we are naturally meant to be and do exactly what we are naturally meant to do, in the system of systems we belong to.

“The reason why people suffer so much is because they do not honor their true nature”.

—Nick Keomahavong, Buddhist monk via YouTube

THE STORY:

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 affect it?

As a sustainability leader you put in place policies and programs to protect and use nature wisely, to restore and regenerate nature. You also put in place social programs to increase equality, abundance, and the wellbeing 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 in nature – 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 you influence.

You, whether you are an individual, a team or an organization have a very specific nature, and a very specific role inside of your system. You cannot serve the other entities in your system well, and they cannot serve you well, and there cannot be a healthy system “there”, if the nature and role of each part is left unknown and unmastered.

 

THE PROBLEM:

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 about 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 us human beings, for some – also natural – reason, must find out who we really are and what is our specific role 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 anyone 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 – are 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 latest values of the world sustainability indicators, are all proof that we, as a collective, are still moving towards worse, not better.

 

THE SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION:

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 told us – because they did not know better either. Since this filter is part of us, we do not typically 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 getting to know ourselves.

In addition to feedback, there are plenty of other ways to know oneself, some of which I will address in other articles.

Here, my main message is that if you want your sustainability programs to address the right issues and succeed, it is essential that you get to sufficiently know and understand your unique self and your unique filter. You must know your own unique nature and integrate this knowledge into everything else you know. And you must embody and enact it as best you can.

How? We must first know what is unique to us as an individual:

• What makes me different from everybody else?
• What are my deep values?
• What are my default patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing?
• What is my own trauma inheritance and emotional baggage?
• What are my specific gifts?
• What can my body uniquely perceive or do that another cannot?

By engaging on a journey to discover who you are, you will gradually uncover and correct the beliefs stored in your mind which are affecting your body and behavior.

By doing so you will learn to understand the world very differently. 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 and still makes. You will learn from mistakes and how to gradually align your ego with your true self and with the needs of your system. 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 entire intellectual and emotional mind. You will start to see yourself, your unique services, systems, the world, nature, as they really are. You will consciously lead your part in evolution.

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.

The opposite of fragmentation is integration. How integrated are you?

As sustainability professionals actively seek to know and integrate their own individual nature into the whole of nature – particularly their feelings and emotions – they have a better chance of serving nature well. Should we not do that fast enough, bigger catastrophes will occur on earth and humanity will be one of the species to become extinct.

If you seriously want to change the world for the better and succeed in doing that, you must have the courage to face and accept your arrogance and deep ignorance. You do not know all the myriad cognitive biases, traps, and illusions you fall for and into, multiple times per day. You do not know all the mistakes you make moment after moment.

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 to change others and the world.

Have you started your self-discovery journey? Please share with us some of the wonders of your true unique nature!