Have you ever watched someone get clubbed in the
testicles and found yourself cringing abruptly,
whether you’re a man or a woman?
Or have you ever witnessed someone go under the
knife in the operating room and as the doctor
splits open the skin, you start to feel nauseous
and need to look away?
And have you ever noticed a stranger about to
make the biggest mistake of their life and you
feel yourself crying out “NO! Don’t do it!”
Conversely, when your favorite team scores the
final winning goal, do you ever jump out of your
seat with elation, screaming “we won, WE won”?
Or after the hero of the film vanquishes the
evil villain in the most spectacular martial
arts showdown, do you ever leave the theatre
with a sense of victory in your heart, pride in
your veins and some karate moves pulsing in your
body?
And when you observe a formidable display of
beauty and skill, like when the dancer or singer
hits the peak of their form, be it a perfect
triple axel jump or a climax of musical
brilliance, does your body not fly in similar
exultation?
Why on earth do we respond so emotionally and
physically, when these things are happening to
someone else? Is it empathy or innate
compassion? Is it the cathartic effect of an
active imagination? Is it… monkey see, monkey
feel?
Well, according to research in the field of
neurology, it is. Since the 1990’s,
neuroscientists have identified sets of neuron
circuits in the brain called Mirror Neurons.
These sets of neurons seem to carry templates
for specific actions, intentions and feelings.
When they studied the brain activity of macaque
monkeys, they saw that the identical sets of
mirror neurons would fire whether the monkey was
performing the action or simply watching others
doing the same action. Mirror neurons are
capable of producing a direct internal
experience and thus bring an understanding from
mere observation.
Further investigation showed that the mirror
neurons also responded strongly to the
intentions and emotional components of an
action. Motions that had clear context,
intention or emotion, activated the neurons more
intensely than actions that had no context,
intention or emotion. When they transferred the
experiments to see if humans had similar mirror
neurons, the same results came in.
For example, when volunteers smelled a repulsive
odor and experienced the feeling of disgust,
certain parts of the brain were activated. When
these volunteers watched a film clip of someone
else expressing disgust, the same neural
structures were engaged. The expression of
disgust has important survival significance
because it is an indication that whatever was
tasted or smelled was not edible and possibly
poisonous. If your friend Indiana Jones scoops
some monkey brain into his mouth and gags with
revulsion, you might suddenly feel compelled to
stick with the vegetarian selection.
So yes, monkey see, monkey feel. This mirror
system lets us experience what others are
feeling and hence we gain a more visceral
comprehension. Besides being a survival tool, it
offers insight into 3 important human functions.
First: it reveals some of the mechanics of how
we learn. We don’t just learn by doing, we also
learn by observing because the mirror neurons
allow us to conceive of the action from within.
Second: this built-in empathy allows humans to
truly relate as social creatures. Friendship,
love and emotional bonds are more easily forged
and solidified through this tangible connection.
The phrases “I feel you” or “I know what you are
going through” or “I’m laughing with you” gain a
whole new dimension of significance.
Third: These mirrors appear to be noteworthy
biological factors which support spiritual
growth and evolution. As we literally feel
other’s pain or pleasure, we can make
increasingly elevated moral choices not based on
potential punishment from an agent of authority,
but from a place of mutual understanding. When
we look back at the poor guy who had his balls
smacked, the sports team who won or the amazing
performer who inspired us to new heights, we can
now comprehend that we are physically and
emotionally wired to share the experience. For
better or worse, in sickness and in health, in
love and war we are truly connected.
Perhaps the concept of “broken mirror” neurons
can throw some light regarding the emotional
disconnection or lack of empathy apparent in
children with autism and in other cases of
anti-social behavior, with the extreme being
sociopathic conduct. We cannot underestimate how
much our ability to sense other people’s
suffering is a crucial element in the
development of ethical or compassionate
behaviour. Clearly, emotional intelligence is
separate from IQ intelligence. The serial killer
known as the Santa Cruz Strangler had an IQ of
160, a certified genius. When author and scholar
Leonard Wolf asked him how he could murder these
people, was there no pity at all for his
victims? The strangler said that he had turned
that part of himself off, because if he’d been
able to feel their distress, he could not have
killed them.
Perhaps the research has not yet looked at how
we manage to de-activate our mirror neurons.
Psychologist and author Daniel Goleman agrees
that our default wiring is to help others. But,
he speculates that we can disable or enable
compassion depending on where our focus is
placed. If we are overly pre-occupied with
ourselves, we do not notice another person’s
predicament or pain. If we can open up our
awareness to include others, then our empathy
can be engaged. He tells the story of how he
noticed a man slumped on the side of the subway
station during rush hour, while hundreds of
people stepped over the man without a glance or
reaction. However, the moment that he stopped to
speak to this man, many others stopped as well
to offer their help. All it took was one person
to stop and notice.
What other times have we witnessed suffering
from the corners of our eyes and continued on
our merry way? On what occasions do we choose to
ignore the firing synapses of our built-in
empathy? As we look at history, we can see how
humanity has collectively looked the other way
while entire cultures were subjected to slavery,
starvation, degradation or extermination. From
the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the cotton
fields of the American South, from the gas
chambers of Auschwitz to the devastation of
Iraq, these are places where people were being
stripped of their humanity yet onlookers did not
want to look at this kind of nakedness. Perhaps
we prefer the Playboy channel?
However, when 9-11 hit America, the whole world
was watching. The western media was more than
happy to show us repeated scenes of terror and
get our mirror neurons all fired up, with no
place to go except down. Our innate desire to
help was immediately channeled into a campaign
of fear. Fear, I’m afraid, is the other way we
can disengage our natural compassion. When we
are gripped in the tentacles of terror, it
appears that we can override our empathy and
ignore the pain of the so-called “enemy”.
Now let us look at a different historical event,
one where the hand of fear was tucked away and
instead, the flowers of empathy were allowed to
bloom: The Tsunami of December 26, 2004, one of
the worst natural disasters in history. It
struck Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand
with a heavy blow, with an energy release that
was 1500 times greater than the Hiroshima atomic
bomb. The tsunami also struck the heart of
humanity across the globe with the force of
potent compassion. Communities across the world
united and collected roughly $7 billion in
humanitarian aid. In fact, donations from the
public often outnumbered the money from
governments or charities. For example, in the UK
alone, the public donated about 330 million
pounds (nearly $600 million US) which outweighed
the donation by the UK government.
But the world media would still have us look the
other way. There are strategies in place to keep
us either very entertained or very afraid. If we
are busy with the next big fad or if we are too
busy struggling to survive, then we have no time
or energy to pay attention to the man who has
fallen to the wayside. If the four pillars of
Individualism, Consumerism, Capitalism and
Narcissism can hold up the illusion that all is
well, then we can keep trotting on the treadmill
of distraction with our blinders on. Monkey
don’t see, monkey don’t feel.
Buy this! Sell that! Do whatever it takes! Get
to the top! Survival of the fittest! Every man
for himself! Even the incredible popularity of
Reality TV is a reflection of our society’s
pre-occupation with the epic struggle to win as
an individual, at all costs and at all odds. It
is about division and separation. Me against
You. There is a war in our psyches and there is
only ONE winner in mind.
Yet amidst all this separation, there are some
very deep communal experiences happening.
Discontentment and disillusionment keep
sprinkling into our awareness. Despite our
ability to look away, despite our blessed
distractions, despite our so-called ignorance…I
propose that we do feel everything. No matter
how much we occupy ourselves with the bills, the
job, the family and the busy details of our
individual lives, I believe that we can feel the
rest of the world on some other level. Some
might consider this a new age idealistic notion
but many visionary scientists have talked of the
collective energetic field that is shared by all
species of life. UK author Rupert Sheldrake
coined the term morphogenetic field in his work
as a biologist and there have been many studies
involving the psychic connection between plants,
animals and humans. In quantum physics, divided
molecules continue to respond to each other
despite incredible separation in time and space.
What happens in the field, stays in the field?
On some level of consciousness, I trust that we
are feeling everything that is happening in the
world or in the cosmos for that matter.
And in that realm of awareness where everything
is felt, I believe our society is trapped in a
collective experience of shame: shame that we
haven’t paid enough attention, shame that we
haven’t done enough, shame that we’ve been
subjugated by fear, shame that we’ve been
engrossed in distractions, shame that we haven’t
been standing in the fullness of our power and
integrity. How do we live with all this shame?
Perhaps a better question to ask is: what is the
function of shame? Physiologically, the
archetypal body position of shame is one of
fear, submission or surrender. If you are a dog,
you put your tail between your legs. If you are
a human, you hang your head low and avert your
eyes to the ground. In the wild, you would be
killed. In a more civil society, you would be
enslaved.
Every emotional state can be measured as a
viable frequency (energy moving in cycles per
second) and in David Hawkins’ book Power versus
Force, SHAME is placed at the very bottom of the
scale of emotions because it was the lowest of
all frequencies. It is the worst state that a
human being can occupy because energetically, it
is the closest to death that we can get. When
someone is experiencing long-term shame, the
worldview is one of misery, the prevailing
feeling is of humiliation, and the predominant
thoughts are of suicide.
However, shame is not necessarily an emblem of
humiliation or a flag of surrender. I see it as
the great messenger of a major turning point.
For under the weight of shame, we are pushed to
make a life or death decision: do or die. Now if
this isn’t a precursor for a quantum leap of
evolution, then it’s at least the catalyst for a
leap of action. In fact, I propose that shame is
a paradoxical spiritual tool for pushing us
upwards, even as we are wallowing in the rock
bottom. When our faces are smeared in the dirt,
when we are left without devices or
distractions, when we are laying in the pool of
our own helplessness, the painful reflection can
push us to one of 2 choices: to die in this pit
or to rise up from the mire with dignity. Like
the sacred lotus flower, we can transcend the
muddy origins and reveal our true nature, one of
infinite grace and beauty.
If the desire to live is thus resurrected, then
as we stand up, we pass through the initiation
of Anger. Psychology states that anger is an
expression of emotion that actually lasts only a
few minutes at a time. In fact, all emotion is
actually of a very short duration. Emotion is
ENERGY in motion and if we were to be fully
present with whatever emotion was moving through
us, it would pass relatively quickly. It is our
fear that can lock it into our bodies. As we
contract and refuse to allow the emotion to
complete its flow, it lodges into our cellular
structure and begins to wreak havoc. If we can
release fear or judgment and simply allow the
feeling to pass through us, then we can process
any emotion in a safe and timely manner.
Anger serves an evolutionary purpose as well. It
moves us to action, it compels us to make
changes, it brings a dose of revitalizing
energy. It leads us out of shame and begins to
reconnect us with our inherent strength and
convictions. This is a great healing. Whereas
Shame is the seat of self-loathing, Anger is the
ticket back onto the train of self-respect and
the destination is Pride. Pride is the reward
when you can lift yourself out of shame. Pride
is the landmark that shows you have overcome a
struggle. So far, we have been so focused on the
weaknesses of the human beast that we have
started to abhor its very footprint. Instead, if
we can focus on the essential beauty of
humanity, then we can begin take pride as a
collective, as a species and as guardians of
this sacred planet. Only when we can take pride
in who we are, can we begin to live in integrity
and compassion. It is our focus that has been
misplaced. Instead of a narcissistic absorption
with the mini-me, let us reconnect to the
greater We.
Another quantum leap is occurring right about
now. There is a growing movement that has
decided it will use the power of peace to move
us forward. It is a rising consciousness that is
reaching a critical mass and it proclaims that
we are ONE. We are bonded together in this
infinite field, sensing and feeling each other
in the most minute ways. Mirror neurons are but
one biological piece of this puzzle which is
beginning to reveal a vision of humanity that is
kinder and gentler.
A healer once told me that she felt it was Love
that held the bonds of our atomic structures
together. What bond is stronger than love
itself? Well, science may prefer to call it zero
point energy, the stuff that supposedly
permeates the field and is holding this entire
matrix of reality together. Like it or not, we
do live in a matrix which connects us to each
other on all levels: from quantum space to outer
space. We cannot escape what happens in the
Middle East. We cannot run from the
ramifications of our own ghettos and
disenfranchised. They are us, we are them. The
internet itself is a manifestation of the mirror
neural net, where we can look into the lives of
others and feel compassion for what is happening
on the planet. We are living in a reality that
keeps reflecting the vibrations that exist
within each of us. The wars that occur outside
are amplifications of the battles inside each of
our minds.
Thankfully, the new consciousness that is rising
is guiding us past the confusing neural pathways
of the brain and into the vaults of the heart.
For in the heart, we will find that there is no
conflict. There is simply a deep knowing. There
is only the wish to unite, to create harmony.
There is a clear and unfettered vibration of
love that is not a mere ideal, but a tangible
presence. Inside this unified field of the
heart, we like the idea of co-creation instead
of competition. We relish the idea of equality
instead of hierarchy. We are not afraid to see
each other. We are not afraid to look in this
mirror, because it is LOVE itself that looks
back upon us. So let those mirror neurons keep
firing because Monkey see, Monkey feel. (No
monkeys were harmed in the writing of this
piece.)
