“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.’ – Oscar Wilde.
What is personal development?
This topic is inward-looking, concerning our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual (although labelling and defining this one is difficult) health and well-being. However, these things influence, and are influenced by external factors such as environment, information, community and work.
To be able to live low-impact lives, we have to be able to reach a certain level of personal development that’s very difficult in modern society. Is personal development subjective, or are there universal indicators, regardless of cultural background, age, ethnicity, gender, physical condition etc.? And can we really look at personal development just as individuals, separate from the effect of, and our effect on, nature, our community and other people? Let’s look at the four types of well-being mentioned above:
Physical
Physical development is about our bodies, but also the physical world and our interaction with it. Individual development is a bit pointless if our species is destroying the ecosystem of our home planet. So it’s about maximising physical health, but not the quantity of physical, material things we possess. We reject personal development as a means to make more money so that you can buy more or bigger things. This isn’t ‘development’, just materialism. However, for many in the world, personal development involves a struggle to obtain adequate food, water, shelter etc.
Mental
Mental development represents intellectual growth – the truth-seeking of philosophy, not just knowledge acquisition or training. Philosophy also encompasses ethics and critical thinking, tapping into a bank of human experience that includes socialisation and moral teachings.
Emotional
Human emotional well-being depends on co-operation with others in communities. We, along with all primates, are social animals – it’s not possible to develop as an island – only together with your fellow humans. It takes a ‘village’ to raise a child, but also to maintain emotionally-balanced adults.
Spiritual
Spiritual development will mean different things to different people, and isn’t really measurable. Life is ‘just a ride’, as the late Bill Hicks used to say, and apart from the fact that spirituality is the opposite of materialism, perhaps the best we can do is to come to peace with the fact that as humans, we can recognise it when we feel it, without being able to define it precisely or to ascertain any deeper purpose in life.
Maslow
It’s difficult to leave out Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) from an introduction to personal development. His famous ‘hierarchy of needs’ is shown here, with physical needs at the bottom and self-actualisation at the top. However, you don’t need to have the lower levels covered to achieve higher ones – for example, you can be spontaneous, creative and moral without having sex, or even enough food, and you can have self-esteem in a war zone (i.e. without bodily safety).
Religion
The core messages of the main religions are not contradictory (although this isn’t necessarily reflected in the official organs of those religions). The Vedic Scriptures spoke of the Oneness of everything (which cutting-edge science appears to support), and the need to let go of ego to reunite with the Oneness. The major religious prophets focused on ways to do this – Taoism stressing harmony, balance with nature and the rest of existence; Buddhism, enlightenment; Christianity, love; and Islam, submission. Similarly, Quakers stress simplicity, truth, equality (of opportunity, rather than of unique talents) and peace.
All these teachings appear self-evidently beneficial (even ‘submission’ – understanding that we all have to submit to death; we’re all going back to nature, to the Oneness), but the system that we live under negates these core religious messages and instead promotes the domination of nature, hedonism, competition and materialism.
What are the benefits of personal development?
Physical
The benefits of physical development are health (and therefore less stress on health services), resilience, greater capacity for physical work and for survival in case of disaster. Plus living with physical simplicity means a lower impact on nature.
Mental
Mental development means more critical thinking – crucial in identifying and dealing with the problems that are heading our way in a world in which nature is degrading so rapidly. It means an increased capacity for problem-solving, for onesself, one’s community and for humanity.
Emotional
Emotional development can mean greater personal resilience in the face of stress, grief or suffering, and stronger bonds in community, with better relationships that can make conflict resolution easier, resulting in more peaceful communities, and ultimately, reducing the risk of war.
Spiritual
However you define it, spiritual development can promote non-materialism and inner and outer peace.
In combination, overall personal development can mean less depression and anxiety, more respect for ourselves and for each other, greater autonomy, more creativity, more cohesive communities and more diverse ecosystems. We can all contribute to an upward trajectory in which we can develop people, society and our species, so that we can move towards evolution rather than extinction or stagnation.
What can I do?
The basis of a low-impact humanity is individuals. It’s ultimately down to each of us to develop ourselves, in an ongoing process that lasts a lifetime. First, love yourself. This may be difficult if your self-esteem was damaged by childhood experiences. Therapy might help (in fact, it really can’t hurt – for anyone), including nature therapy.
By opposing the norms / rules of the current economic system, we can try to:
- live in harmony with nature (when the norm is to consume as much as possible);
- seek enlightenment / think philosophically (when education is becoming more vocational);
- love and co-operate (when the norm is to compete, as individuals and nations);
- explore spirituality (when the norm is to make money and be materialistic).
We’ll be healthiest if we live the kind of life that evolution prepared us for – with physical exercise, healthy food, plenty of rest, strong community, work that’s creative, useful and appreciated by our peers and connection to the natural world. We still have prehistoric bodies, minds and emotions, but we have to use them in a space-age society that they’re unprepared for.
Here are some things we might do in an attempt to develop physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, although of course all these aspects of personal development are intimately connected.
‘It’s just a ride.’
Physical
For the body, this means:
- exercise: mix cardio, resistance and stretching for stamina, strength and suppleness;
- diet: Michael Pollan’s advice is ‘eat food, not too much, mainly plants’; and if you make sure it’s fresh and mainly unprocessed, you’ll find it difficult not to get enough protein, fats, carbohydrates and vitamins (avoiding the need for expensive supplements);
- fresh air, sleep and avoiding toxins in both food and surrounding environment;
- some obvious ‘don’ts’ – smoking, drinking too much etc.
Your brain is part of your body, and looking after yourself physically benefits your mind (and your emotions) too.
It’s also about our effect on the physical world. We can live more simply by downshifting and living in harmony with nature. A very important part of personal development is bringing our individual ecological footprint to one planet or less.
Mental
Mental health is reliant on physical health, caring relationships and meaningful work. Mental development involves philosophy – reading, talking, thinking, learning – not just education to slot into the economic system. Studying political philosophy will help you understand the nature of democracy in the modern world.
Emotional
Here are some ideas for emotional development:
- embed yourself in a community – emotional well-being is all about relationships, so deal with others with compassion and integrity;
- reduce your exposure to media (including soc media) that invites you to compare yourself negatively to other people;
- be compassionate with yourself, not angry – no self-flagellation for not doing well enough, which leads to depression and shame;
- go for a walk in nature;
- think of all the people who’ve loved you, liked you, respected you, helped you;
- don’t accept any form of domination, and don’t try to dominate.
Spiritual
If you accept that life is ‘just a ride’ and that we have to submit in the end, there’s an argument that true spiritual development is about preparing for death – memento mori. When we look back, what will we think of our contribution? Does our work benefit our community and other people; is it in harmony with nature, or does it contribute to social and environmental damage? If so, the time to change is now. Don’t be afraid of failure – see it as a learning experience. You only live once (maybe).
System change
It can be argued (and we are arguing) that modern consumer capitalism has a negative effect on nature, on philosophy, on community and on spirituality. Nature is being eaten by our economy; philosophy has been superseded by economics; corporate branches suck wealth out of commmunities; and materialism is encouraged over spirituality. Every type of meaningful personal development is made more difficult by the current system.
Human well-being depends on system change. Psychiatrists ‘fix’ people damaged by the stress, alienation, bullying and lack of community caused by the economic system, only to throw them right back into the same system. Healers of all kinds perhaps have a duty to at least comment on our socio-economic system. It’s not enough just to ‘cope’ with it – to thrive, we’re going to need to change it. We think that ‘personal development’ should first focus on helping to create a sustainable world where everyone has access to the basics of life, before providing affluent people with expensive books and course programmes for professional development without challenging the status quo.
The views expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily lowimpact.org's
2 Comments
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1idris August 5th, 2019
hello I have a few ideas but briefly a few topics I often see, I hope it helps in someway.
The Mind:
I would suggest outlining the concept of paradigms. A few techniques for the reader to intentionally examine the makeup and origins of their deep internal beliefs/assumptions. How to change unwanted beliefs in order to effect desired behaviours/actions.
The body:
Food/Nourishment- techniques of how to conciously regain an understanding of flavour-feedback reactions e.g what is the information Im getting as I eat this? Am I meeting the bodys nutritional wants-listining to its messeges etc OR rather giving it what I think it wants.
Pain -what is this pain telling me e.g. can I do something constructive to remove -or lessen it. A disscussion on our (in generall) societys attemts not to address the root causes of pain but mitigate through numbing/distraction.
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2Dave Darby August 28th, 2019
Idris – good thoughts, thank you