To address climate change we have to shift our core psychology: an outline
To save the world we have to save ourselves
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I knew that environmental pollutants could enter into the cell membrane
I knew that environmental pollutants could enter into the cell membrane and change the shape of the receptor, making it looser and sloppier, and often wondered how this might affect the transfer of information so necessary to run the delicately balanced systems. It had to have some effect on what is essentially a self-organizing system, one that is processing tremendous amounts of information at incredibly rapid speeds.
happiness is what we feel when our biochemicals of emotion
...happiness is what we feel when our biochemicals of emotion, the neuropeptides and their receptors, are open and flowing freely throughout the psychosomatic network, integrating and coordinating our systems, organs, and cells in a smooth and rhythmic movement. Health and happiness are often mentioned in the same breath, and maybe this is why: Physiology and emotions are inseparable. I believe that happiness is our natural state, that bliss is hardwired. Only when our systems get blocked, shut down, and disarrayed do we experience the mood disorders that add up to unhappiness in the extreme.
When stress prevents the molecules of emotion from flowing freely
When stress prevents the molecules of emotion from flowing freely where needed, the largely autonomic processes that are regulated by peptide flow, such as breathing, blood flow, immunity, digestion, and elimination, collapse down to a few simple feedback loops and upset the normal healing response. Meditation, by allowing long-buried thoughts and feelings to surface, is a way of getting the peptides flowing again, returning the body, and the emotions, to health.
Every one of the zones
Every one of the zones, or systems, of the network—the neural, the hormonal, the gastrointestinal, and the immune—is set up to communicate with one another, via peptides and messenger-specific peptide receptors. Every second, a massive information exchange is occurring in your body. Imagine each of these messenger systems possessing a specific tone, humming a signature tune, rising and falling, waxing and waning, binding and unbinding, and if we could hear this body music with our ears, then the sum of these sounds would be the music that we call the emotions.
The concept of a network, stressing the interconnectedness of all systems of the organism
The concept of a network, stressing the interconnectedness of all systems of the organism, has a variety of paradigm-breaking implications. In the popular lexicon, these kinds of connections between body and brain have long been referred to as “the power of the mind over the body.” But in light of my research, that phrase does not describe accurately what is happening. Mind doesn’t dominate body, it becomes body—body and mind are one. I see the process of communication we have demonstrated, the flow of information throughout the whole organism, as evidence that the body is the actual outward manifestation, in physical space, of the mind.
A network is different from a hierarcical structure
A network is different from a hierarchical structure that has a ruling “station” at the top and a descending series of positions that play increasingly subsidiary roles. In a network, theoretically, you can enter at any nodal point and quickly get to any other point; all locations are equal as far as the potential to “rule” or direct the flow of information.
The mind, then, is that which holds the network together
The mind, then, is that which holds the network together, often acting below our consciousness, linking and coordinating the major systems and their organs and cells in an intelligently orchestrated symphony of life. Thus, we might refer to the whole system as a psychosomatic information network, linking psyche, which comprises all that is of an ostensibly nonmaterial nature, such as mind, emotion, and soul, to soma, which is the material world of molecules, cells, and organs. Mind and body, psyche and soma.
The three classically separated areas of neuroscience, endocrinology, and immunology
The three classically separated areas of neuroscience, endocrinology, and immunology, with their various organs—the brain; the glands; and the spleen, bone marrow, and lymph nodes—are actually joined to each other in a multidirectional network of communication, linked by information carriers known as neuropeptides.
Understanding mental health with systems thinking
a simple holistic perspective on the complexity and importance of mental health