Being Human Is Enough! You Are Enough
Every day, in some subtle and, often not-so-subtle ways, we’re told we’re not quite enough. Not strong enough. Not thin enough. Not calm, smart, productive, or confident enough. The metrics shift, but the message doesn’t. It’s reinforced through advertising, workplace targets, school reports, social media filters, even well-meaning self-help, all suggesting we’re a few steps short of being okay.
This constant striving can erode our sense of worth. It places “wellbeing” just out of reach, as though we need to earn it through transformation. But, what if we took time individually and collectively to consider what it is to be a human being, and what some of the universal features, or standard specifications are to be human? Maybe we’re not only enough, maybe we’re far more resourceful and capable than we realise. Perhaps we’re all already carrying more strength, insight, and possibility than we’ve been led to believe.
We know that there are many different makes and models of humans, but essentially we all have a set of ‘specs’ that are universal. Our evolution has seen incredible discoveries and achievements, as well as destruction, and devastation. We have the capacity to harness love and connection, and the tendency to disregard what we know and override the awareness that builds and supports community.
In creating Emotional First Aid training, I started with the idea that being human with all its mess, beauty, diversity and unpredictability is enough. But this is not a conclusion. It’s the foundation. When we zoom out and look at the bigger picture of what it means to be human, we start to see just how connected and capable we really are. Letting people know that life is happening to us, we are reacting as best we can, and trying to navigate our emotional worlds.
There are estimated to be 8 billion people living in the world today, a figure that is hard to get your head around! But if we were all to hold hands we would make a chain that circled the world about 200 times. We are all homo sapiens and have been on the planet for around 300,000 years. We share 99.6% of our DNA with one another and share the same DNA as our ancestors all those hundreds of thousands of years ago.
So, for context, there were people interacting, experiencing and expressing their feelings – the same ones we feel today, way back then. We have been trying to make sense of them and find ways to explain or address them for all of that time. This is not our first rodeo, and whilst there are new advances in neuroscience and psychology, a lot of what is being proven confirms the wisdom of many cultures and beliefs from all around the world.
There is so much we can learn from history, from cultures and practices that have been wrestling with feelings and emotions for hundreds of thousands of years. Not that they have all the answers, but they show us that our emotional worlds are diverse, and what makes sense to us and helps us to live well is unique to every one of us.
And for even wider context, we share DNA with all other life forms. We are part of the rich tapestry that is the living world. We are very much part of it and made of the same core materials. Sharing 30-40% of our DNA with broccoli and other plants, 60% with bananas, 60% with fruit flies and 98% with chimpanzees our closest animal relative.
If we are able to appreciate these core connections and shared foundations, maybe we can remind ourselves of how rich we are, and how connected to the world that is our home. Remember that we are an animal, a life form like everything else, we are all trying to live, survive, to grow, to thrive and to help our species to do likewise. And, perhaps this reminder can help us to embrace the diverse ways we do this, and worry less about narrow definitions and concepts of right and wrong.
For, like other mammals, we are wired for safety, for connection, for nurture. We get overwhelmed, we seek shelter, we signal distress. And just like other animals, we don’t always need explanations, sometimes we just need rest, reassurance, or the quiet presence of another being, or just to be able to react. Because, whilst thinking is certainly a gift that as humans we possess, it is instinct and reactions that often keep us alive, since our reaction times have been measured as twice as fast as a thought!
When it comes to exploring human emotion in our training, we start our journey with what we understand to be the only universal truths about our emotional worlds. These are that we all have a body, we all have feelings and we all live a life. Each of these three elements is so complex alone that none is fully understood. In acknowledging this, we can see that each of these aspects is interacting with the others every moment of every day, even before we are born, or conceived! This is because trauma and adversity have been shown to be intergenerational, and we all possess characteristics from our ancestors. Such is the complexity and diversity of a human being, there are no other universal truths when it comes to making sense of our emotions.
No model, label, or diagnosis can fully capture this. But it means that everyone has an emotional world and everyone deserves the chance to understand, explore and navigate it; to see ourselves not through deficits, but through depth. And if we are able to acknowledge and even celebrate this depth, we can recognise and reinforce the shared qualities that make us human, as well as the unique aspects of all people that have been created in the exquisite alchemy at the intersection of bodies, feelings and lives. We have diversity in many forms and we can respect and celebrate them all.
There’s a myth that wellness, or wellbeing is a destination, that you reach it by becoming more resilient, more mindful, more regulated, more anything. But much of this is rooted in performance and productivity, not real lives.
What if we stopped focusing on being better versions of ourselves, and started focusing on appreciating ourselves? This is something that, in the training, people find so difficult. We have had groups of strangers come together in sessions, and if we ask them to identify their strengths people find it easier to list a stranger’s strengths than identify their own!
In EFA, we speak of three human superpowers, Compassion, Curiosity, and Creativity. These are not skills to master, but are already within us, waiting to be recognised, supported and utilised. They help us relate, respond, and repair, both with ourselves and others. This is where connection begins: not in perfecting ourselves, but in accepting our humanness. Celebrating it and harnessing it. Calling them ‘The Three C’s’, we ask people to see them as their compass. This is because if you are able to use them you are never lost; you are able to explore, and devise new and creative ways to go where you want to go, or just survive.
In life things happen to us over which we have little or no control. It is the acknowledgement of this that reconnects us with the reality of being part of the tapestry that is life. We train people to honour and respect the truth of, their own, and other people’s stories – those that link their emotional struggles to the things that have happened, or are happening to them.
In the training we ask people to see their emotional world as unique and that their world will have climates just like the earth has weather climates. For example a family home may be warm, nurturing and aiding growth, or it may be stormy, unpredictable and violent. Using the climate metaphor is similar then to power and threat in the PTMF. We ask people to find respect and kindness for the things that they had to do to survive in harsh climates.
We ask people to consider the emotional climates that exist, or existed in their emotional world. How they have had to adapt and survive in the climates they have found themselves in. To respect their stories and the things they have had to do to survive, or to do their best to get through.
The things that happen to us are largely outside of our immediate control. We react to survive threats, real or perceived, and we try to make sense of things so that we remain safe and connected to others. This means that contrary to many current models and systems, we are not in control of everything that happens to us, or our immediate reactions to them.
If we are able to accept this, we can liberate ourselves from the heavy burden of responsibility that many are asked to carry. Instead, we can break down that word of burden and split it in two, with it becoming response ability. This immediately transforms it and makes us ask whether we have the ability to respond or, whether the person we are asking to take more responsibility has that ability, and whether we can learn or teach the skills that might enable us or them.
Additionally, we can take care of our bodies and all the incredible ways that they keep us alive and responding to our real or imagined threats. For it is our whole body that is performing this function, from the tips of our toes to the tops of our heads.
So where does all this leave us?
Maybe not with a tidy answer. But perhaps with something better: the permission to pause. To stop chasing an unreachable version of ourselves, and instead reconnect with who we already are, with our bodies, our feelings, and our lives, in all their glorious imperfection, their infinite complexity and never-ending possibilities. We, you, and I are amazing, talented and full of knowledge and potential, just by being a human being and living a life.
If we can do that, if we can look at ourselves and each other through the lens of what makes us human, rather than what we lack, we change the story. We move from “how do I fix myself?” to “how do I care for myself?” or from “what’s wrong with me?” to “what’s happened to me, and how can I respond?” “What resources or strengths do I possess because I am human, or have I learned because of the things that have happened to me?”
That’s why we say in Emotional First Aid that Being Human Is Enough. Not as a slogan, but as a foundation, one that’s ancient, tested, and shared.
You are not a project to be completed. You are not a machine to be optimised. You are a human being, carrying a life full of experience, emotion, and capacity. And so is everyone else.
And that, in itself, is enough, and more than that, it is extraordinary.
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Mad in the UK hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.