The Dance Between Self and Environment
As a person we experience ourselves as an individual mind and body that has individual thoughts and emotions. Then there are our surroundings; the environment. The environment is made up of everything that is beyond our body. We can draw a clear line between ourselves and the outside world.(sort of, but for sake of argument I will create this construct)
I would like to discuss the relationship between an individual and its environment. Let’s dive into how they influence one another. I will explore how to manage transformation, and the pursuit of well-being in regards to self and environment.
Many self help ideas posit that we must relinquish our search for external validation and must learn to cultivate self love yada yada; that we must find everything we need within us regardless of what environment we are in. Now, I believe this is extremely valuable information, but it is a partial truth that risks implying that the environment doesn’t matter as much as it’s proven that it does. It might lack acknowledgement to how influential one environment might be compared to the next. It also doesn’t emphasize how an essential component of individuation is actualized in relationship to others. And by others I mean all of nature, not just other humans.
You in one environment compared to another comes with a set of different thoughts, reactions, impulses etc. And everyone has a unique perception so two people have variability in how they react to the same environment.
The higher the scarcity of healthy stimulation there is in your environment, the stronger the urge will be to turn towards supernormal stimuli such as social media, video games, television etc. But when we are surrounded by people and projects and trees and activities that are meaningful, oddly enough we end up thinking about our phone a lot less.
Being resilient to your environment and having sovereignty of your state of being is great, but why fight an unnecessarily hard battle against an environment that you could also work to change.
In the sphere of transformation it is very important to evaluate how your personality is intertwined with your environment. Being in a certain place, surrounded by certain people and culture and weather and buildings will always have influence on a subconscious level. We can go through a full day in auto-pilot almost completely controlled by external stimuli. Subconscious and hardwired stimulus and response. The conditions of our environment influence your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. If you want a change in your life it must fundamentally involve a change in the thoughts you think, the emotions you feel, and the behaviors you exhibit. All 3 of these categories of character influence one another. It is necessary that you become familiar with how your environment impacts you.
So an important question to ask is, how much should we work on changing ourselves vs. changing our environment? The answer is that only you can know based on your specific circumstances. What is important to remember is you don’t want to be fully dependent on an environment for your wellbeing, and you also don’t want to ignore efforts towards choosing a healthy environment to be in.James Clear in his book Atomic Habits talks about how even a simple change like setting your gym clothes out the night before so that in the morning you see them and are more inclined to go work out. Many tiny tweaks to your environment can go a long way in the outcome of what choices you make. One study shows that even just having your phone on your desk will lower productivity.
The task to take on is one of first deciding what you want your experience of life to be and then doing both the inner work of transformation and outer work of locating yourself in an environment that is conducive to your goals.
Ultimately drawing borders between self and environment as two separate things is a mental construct that is a false perception, yet there is a reality of distinction between individual things and them having flexibility in their relationships. So maybe a more accurate framing is how do we navigate the relationship between self and environment?
Getting a clear map of who you are and how you are influenced by your environment is a good place to start. We should establish a spectrum where on one end you are utterly controlled, completely a victim of your environment, and at the other end is complete resilience towards your environment; full agency over your response to stimuli. The more we can move towards the latter the healthier. But it is always context dependent because it may be a good thing to not react to being stuck in traffic but what about when someone gets you a gift?
Environmental psychology is a profound branch of science that shows how influential our environment is. Especially on deeper and more subtle levels. There is something called broken windows theory which shows how if there are broken windows and graffiti in a neighborhood then crime will go up, but if you repair the windows and clean up graffiti etc. then the crime rate will instantaneously drop. This indicates that human behavior is dramatically influenced based on the content of their surroundings.
Another experiment done by Harvard in 1981 took 8 men in their 70s to a monastery where they pretended it was 1959. The furniture, the tv, the newspapers were all from 1959. There were no mirrors, only pictures of these 8 men as their younger selves. The results showed improvements in their physical capabilities, eyesight, and even their appearance looked younger. It is safe to say that their environment literally signaled genes that produced younger biology. Yet it wasn’t only their environment but their beliefs and perceptions of their environment. The fact of the matter is they had both a shift in environment and belief which served as a positive feedback loop.
The tag line of epigenetics is that the environment signals the genes, yet two people can be in the same environment and because they are at different places on the spectrum I described earlier, they aren’t impacted equally. You mustn't be a victim to your environment yet you must also seek to place yourself in an environment that is supportive of how you want to think, feel, and behave. It doesn’t seem wise to be lopsided too much in either direction.
Ultimately I can confirm to you I have experienced the truth of how I am a different person in different environments. Being with my parents vs being with friends vs being at temple vs being at a festival. Different contexts activate different versions of me. I have experienced transformation away from home only to return to old problems popping back up from the old environment and I’m sure you have as well. The space and place we inhabit can strongly influence us and it is up to us to control how we respond. Being isolated in an apartment in a dense city vs. being in nature among humans you truly feel connected to can be like night and day in how you experience yourself. Even if you are resilient to your environment, why choose an uphill battle when you could be in an environment that is more supportive. Sometimes we don’t have a choice in which case it is highly beneficial to attempt to master your environment and excavate any potential lessons from your challenges.
Beni
