Underneath the programming of our modern minds is a courageous, joyous, and savage spirit. This spirit can guide us towards personal freedom and healing.
Our conditioning as modern civilized humans blocks all of us to some extent from following this spirit to live our strongest, truest and freest lives. Virtually everything we believe has been programmed somehow into our minds, and the modern mind has a lot of extra layers of cultural programming that weren’t needed in our natural state. We all come from different ancestries, cultures, families, ethnic groups, socioeconomic groups, and schools, so each of our minds is complex and unique. However, underneath these superficial differences, deep in all of histories we find strong survivors with much to teach us about freedom.
For our distant ancestors survival was a dangerous, uncomfortable and often consuming challenge. Life kept us very engaged in the present moment and deeply connected to our brothers and sisters and our natural environments. We lacked the luxury to devote much attention to non-survival pursuits but we also lacked space for many thoughts that make us miserable. Today many of us spend most of our time focusing on concepts, fixations, or thoughts about ourselves that have no place in nature.
As modern humans we are blessed with the opportunity to pursue our inspirations without having to devote most of our time and effort to survival. Because our modern “realities” are actually composed mostly of fictions, we have tremendous control over our state of mind and our beliefs. Our fears and sources of unhappiness and stress are just stories and we are the editors. Just like computers our minds can be reprogrammed but it can be a difficult, scary and confusing process. Although there are some stories that appear to generally make people unhappy and might actually drive us to extinction (for example, beliefs in inequality, desires for “wealth” and material possessions, and beliefs that we must act and live in certain ways in order to be accepted), we all have different answers about which beliefs and values work well for us and which ones cause us distress. We usually have a bunch of confused and competing priorities and desires in our heads. Maybe we want adventure and strength but we also enjoy our comforts and modern technologies. We might love variety but we also want expertise. In the face of such natural tensions, it makes sense to deeply learn ourselves and let go of many things as we optimize our own happiness. This process takes some thinking and reflection, but it mostly centers around connecting with our inspiration and with our essential primal selves.
Participating as athletes in nature is one powerful way to do this. Nature is the ultimate healer and liberator. Ocean waves, roaring rivers, fresh snow, desert rock, and crisp mountain air can rinse away a lot of thoughts and fixations that aren’t serving our most inspiring lives. Looking up at the stars reminds us that the stories we tell ourselves about our self-importance are just a bunch of lies. We learn equanimity as our most difficult moments become our sources of strength and our greatest fiascos and setbacks become our greatest stories. Outdoor sports hurl us into the driver’s seat and into the right now. Campfires are great for finding community and burning away old sorrows, disappointments, frustrations and wounds. The sunrise reminds us to just go live each day with a full heart.
The sting of unrealized potential and an itch to charge into nature are indications of an unanswered primal call for freedom from certain modern stories holding us back. Whether we choose to answer that call or let it ring is up to us. For those who do take the call, we’re here to help at Indigenous Strength. Ironically, when we connect deeply with our primal truths and drop some of our modern fictions we become much stronger and more effective at playing the game of life in the modern world. More importantly, we start to free our spirit and join the wildest dance of our lives.
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