As human beings we are social creatures. Our survival has always depended on not necessarily being the strongest or fastest mammal out there, but being able to work as a team and a community to slay the mighty mastodon!
As an infant, what reinforced our sense of protection and stability was looking at the face of our mother or father. As a child, we develop empathy through mirror neurons. When we see someone making a facial expression, we can start to feel that expression as it is similar to our own makeup. This is why we often identify or empathize with people who look more like us. Our nervous system is established based on the people that we surround ourselves with, their facial expressions and intonation.
The small muscles of the face as well as vocal chords and inflections of tone are what make up the longest nerve in the body, the vagus nerve. It is often called the wandering nerve because it runs from the medulla oblongata all the way through the digestive system, where it interfaces with the enteric nervous system, or nerves of the gastrointestinal tract. This forms a communication network with our gut microbiome, letting us know when we are hungry, thirsty or identifying a “gut” feeling of uneasiness around our visceral system.
A resilient nervous system is largely dependent on a tonified vagus nerve; this is what is responsible for taking us out of fight/ flight or sympathetic nervous system, and back into rest and digest, or parasympathetic nervous system. We can activate our vagus nerve by singing, chanting, toning, gargling, self-massage, and acupuncture. Because inhaling activates our sympathetic state, and exhaling activates our parasympathetic state, we can extend our exhales much longer than our inhale to balance the nervous system. Other ways to activate our vagus nerve include cold water therapy, shaking, or intermittent fasting.
Much of our communication is nonverbal. According to Dr. Mehrabian, only 7% of what we communicate actually has something to do with the verbal message. The rest is nonverbal and has to do with body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions. This is interesting considering the amount of communication we rely on through text and email. If communication is so dependent on intrinsic factors of our nervous system, are we really communicating with one another? Are text emojis enough to convey the feelings that we have around our words?
During this pandemic, we have strictly limited our social circle to our family, while covering our faces out in public. When our faces are covered up, we lose a lot of the small muscle fibers that help us to convey ourselves to others. The consequence I believe, is a severe lack of empathy with the inability to visualize our mirror neurons in other people. The result seems to be a lot of public unrest, pent up anger and frustration, outward displays of violence, and a lack of cohesiveness and community that once used to exist when we were able to gather together in a public space.
While it is important to protect the health of the public, what are we losing as a society by being afraid? Are there ways that we can expand our empathy and understand each other by reaching out to each other that goes beyond just verbal communication? Perhaps we can opt to communicate with our loved ones via phone or facetime as opposed to text. We can sing or hum to ourselves to harmonize our inner ecosystem. We can smile from our eyes next time we are in public wearing a mask. As a human species, we need each other to thrive and take on the proverbial mastodon!
An exercise in empathy
When we envision a loved one, family member, or a pet, we start to shift our heart into a state of coherence. This means that the heart is synchronized with the breathing, blood pressure, and brain waves. The feeling of appreciation, compassion, and love shift the heart and mind into a state of balance that can actually affect others around us (our heart has an electromagnetic field of at least three feet). When our heart is in the state of coherence, it also matches the electromagnetic frequencies of the planet.
https://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/10/04/7-38-55-rule-personal-communication/
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