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We Are Made To Adapt

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This morning I was watching a media segment on the war in Ukraine. A brave young Ukrainian soldier was being interviewed while blasts from bomb attacks were happening in the background. He briefly turned toward the action and back to the camera. What he said was truly amazing. “It’s o.k., we humans were made to adapt”. While I’m sure he wouldn’t want to choose the situation he has found himself in, he has given himself a sense of agency. His perspective showed his willingness to process his surroundings and action his body for the coming day.

In essence we are changeable creatures. Susan Willson, a women’s health writer, states that when scientists finally unraveled the human genome sequence they found fewer genes than they expected. They also found that humans haven’t changed dramatically in their make-up since they first appeared on Earth. Far from having a multitude of genes that are instrumental in changes in our body, our fewer genes continually change and adapt to the environment in which we are placed in this world. The process makes each of us a unique product of nature and nurture.

Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash

This has positive ramifications for our ability to learn from experience. While we do come with traits that are wired into our DNA, a larger proportion are malleable through self-awareness and learning. The information we take into our brain, the memories we instill, the emotional residue of our experiences and our sense of self can each evolve over our lifetime. Therefore, negative experiences in the past can be ‘re-framed’ to see a clearer picture. We can learn from life’s lessons and discard thought patterns and beliefs that are no longer personally relevant.

‘You can pull any thread and unravel the universe’

Susan Willson

Learning plays a key role in how we perceive life. Each of us sit somewhere on the optimism: pessimism spectrum of human perspective. Yet the genetic component of this trait is minor. We have opportunities to shift our view of life through conscious awareness of the world around us.

Dr Rick Hanson talks about this process as ‘Taking in the Good’. Looking each day for the positive experiences that are happening in our lives right under our noses. The mundane and ordinary. The comfortable bed, the nourishing meal, the joy of being with the people who love and support us each day. When we notice these things more, with a sense of gratitude and appreciation, we train our mind to continue this quest of finding what’s good about the world we inhabit.

Life will still throw challenges and difficulties our way. How we respond matters, just like the brave young Ukrainian soldier. By widening our view to see both the positive and negative aspects of life it can become more balanced and realistic. We can bring inner resources such as strength, resilience, empathy, skilled assertiveness and a sense of belonging to the situations we find ourselves in.

Appreciate that you have come into this life with your body prepared to adapt to its environment. Some things are uniquely genetically a part of you. Others are malleable and have the ability to change. Each day is an opportunity to shift your perspective on life, making small adjustments in your thoughts and actions. Increasingly noticing positive experiences and using them to gain perspective and grow inner resources to face the inevitable negative experiences of life.

Lifelong Learning

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When you look at a young child or baby engaging with their world you see a role model for learning. They have a natural curiosity even for the smallest and most mundane things. They come equipped with the capacity to learn and much of their learning happens while engrossed in play. It’s a joy to watch children mesmerized by something new, their faces showing intrigue or their bodies filled with energy and at times laughter and delight. We are witnessing them taking in the learning experience fully.

We now know with imaging of the active brain that we continue to learn throughout our lives. Our brain network changes as we interact with the world. Neuroplasticity of the neural network of the brain allows for brain connections to strengthen and alter as each piece of information rapidly passes through. The neurons that fire together, wire together. While some of our ability to learn is encoded in our DNA, a larger portion of our learning is gained from our interactions with the world.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

“Learning is not a spectator sport”

B. F. Samuel

For beneficial changes to occur in our brain we need to be active participants in exploring our world and willing to change our perspective over time. As we learn, we can enhance the connections by doing the following: –

Talking about what we are learning – sharing it with others, hearing different perspectives in order to modify and enrich our own understanding. In educational theory, a slightly more competent child can support the learning of another, ‘scaffolding’ the next step in their understanding. When we discuss our learning with others as adults the potential for scaffolding continues to exist.

Writing about it – gaining clarity and perspective on what we know. Seeing how our thoughts and beliefs change over time. Potentially finding solutions to challenges we are facing by examining our written thoughts.

Applying it to our daily lives – physically ‘doing’ what we are learning to increase competency and skill development. If what we are learning is relevant to us, it becomes both enjoyable and meaningful. We are self- motivated to repeat what we are learning and move toward the satisfaction of mastery.

Relating it to past experiences – Building upon our understanding and knowledge. Seeing patterns from the past in our learning. What has worked and what hasn’t worked. What was relevant in the past but is no longer relevant. This helps us to find new ways of interacting with the world.

Feeling what we are learning fully in our minds and bodies – by using our thoughts, emotional responses and sensory perceptions as we learn. What are our desires and end goals in our learning? What actions will increase our learning? These strategies help us enrich our knowledge and make it part of who we are.

Overcoming the negativity bias in our learning

As humans we have evolved a mental negativity bias. We hold onto the negative past experiences and continue to feel them fully in our mind and body. It is very hard to stop going over all the minute details of a negative experience. Inadvertently, as we ruminate over the past, we strengthen the brain connections that hold particular memories. Replaying the story, embellishing and modifying the version each time. In the end, this allows the negative past view to stick like Velcro in our mind being both expanded and absorbed.

The positive experiences in our lives are harder to grasp onto. While some are major highlights such as holidays and celebrations many are quite mundane and ordinary. We are often surrounded by examples of them around us each and every day. Rather than sticking like Velcro positive experiences tend to be more like the Teflon surface of a pan, easily slipping away.

“The brain is an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one”.

Charles Sherrington

To take in the good things in life requires us to slow down and observe the world around us. Much like a child. Once we can focus our attention to our surroundings its easier to notice and savour an experience. It might be the comfort of our warm bed when we wake up, a delicious breakfast, the sun on our limbs as we walk the neighbourhood, the satisfaction in connecting with others throughout our day.

The first step is to notice the good facts. Make a mental or physical note of examples of the good things happening as you go about your day. Expand the good facts into good experiences by spending as much time as possible savouring them. Engage your thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations to immerse yourself more deeply in a few of the good facts you come across. What is novel and different in what you are observing? How important and relevant is this good fact to your life as a whole? It is not unusual to find a sense of gratitude, contentment and love emerge from the experience.

Regularly focusing on the what’s good in your life helps to shift your focus toward noticing more positive examples. You are reinforcing your perspective on the good in life. There will still be negative experiences and challenges to deal with, but your mind will learn to overcome them with inner resources you have been developing. Having a wider perspective on life will also help you appreciate the balance of positive, neutral and negative experiences you are navigating in your day.

Throughout life we continue to learn. When we take more note of the positive, beneficial experiences we have it supports our own well-being. In the process we build more inner resources to meet the inevitable challenges we face in life. We also develop skills to support others.

What You Yearn For

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Yearning is a powerful sensation. It incorporates what we long for, crave and desire in this lifetime. In many ways it limits us, as we don’t feel completely satisfied with where we are in any given moment. In other ways, it is a major motivator for striving for what we believe is truly important to us.

“Tell me what you yearn for and I will tell you who you are. We are what we reach for, the idealized image that drives our wanderings”

James Hillman

So what do you yearn for?

  • Is it the sense of feeling safe and at peace with your relationships and surroundings?
  • Is it longing for a sense of deep life satisfaction? The ability to be authentically yourself and to pursue those things that really matter to you.
  • Is it feeling a sense of being loved and deeply connected to others.

These by-products of our basic needs – for safety, satisfaction and connection, are shared by a most of us. They make us feel a sense of calm and contentment. They make life worth living and give us purpose. When met, they soothe our mind and body.

We come into this world completely dependent on others to supply these basic needs. To feed, clothe, comfort and engage with us. Over time we acquire inner resources and recognize strategies to meet these needs for ourselves. Not in perfect ways, but in ways that we hope move us closer to our ‘idealized’ expectation of life. The gap between what we perceive as our current reality and our desires is where our yearning resides.

Photo by Cornelia Ng on Unsplash

For women, midlife and menopause are opportunities to reassess their lives. It’s a natural transition where in a sense we are becoming different ‘beings’. Our hormones and bodies are changing. Our worldly priorities are also evolving. It almost feels like the cycle of caterpillar to butterfly where we transform the notion of who we are. A midlife reset.

It is not an easy one as we become increasingly aware of the reality of aging and our impermanence. Previously we could ignore the obvious signs in our busy lives. But sooner or later we are confronted with ourselves in the mirror. The ‘fork in the road’ moment of denial or acceptance of who we are. That doesn’t mean not striving for well-lived years ahead and maintaining our health and well-being. What it may mean though is adjusting to enjoying life in different ways. Mindful of balancing our energy and activity. Making sure we maintain good nutritional and sleep habits.

Midlife is also a time to take stock of what we believe about ourselves. Susan Willson in her book Making Sense of Menopause provides some wonderful wisdom and questions to ponder. She speaks of the analogy of a ‘string of pearls’ where each bead is a story we believe and talk to others about our lives. Often these particular stories of the past are repeated and become a solid part of our sense of identity. Yet what if we had chosen different past stories to focus and identify with? Perhaps we would also have a different sense of our current self. Her thought provoking questions about what has informed our ‘life story’ are insightful work.

I recently did her ‘string of pearls’ exercise and found many of the beliefs I had about my own life were either no longer relevant or previously could have been replaced with alternate views. While it wasn’t an easy exercise it did give me a wonderful awareness that I could, in a sense, refresh my life story. Knowing that gave me a beautiful sense of control of my current view of myself and my life. It also helped me to crystallise what was still important and purposeful looking ahead.

What we yearn for in life is where our emotional work is. To examine and if needed discard what is no longer relevant and know we can re-write beliefs we may have carried for a long time. We can string a new set of pearls to represent our life. Time is precious and knowing authentically who we are allows us to choose the path ahead with more assurance and certainty.

Give me Peace

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Three of our basic needs in this life are safety, life satisfaction and connection (Dr Rick Hanson, Foundations of Well-Being). Our need for safety is the most important as it has a long evolutionary history that pre-dates us as humans. It also becomes our default if it is not being met. Not much else counts until we can feel a level of safety, comfort and inner peace in our lives.

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

The ‘safety’ structures of the brain sit the closest to its base and our spinal cord. This gives the safety system a freeway like, basically automated, passage to transfer signals between our brain and body. It’s a strong connection. We have all felt at some time the tingling sensations of fear, the pang of a broken heart or the churning of a nervous stomach.

Our brain is continually scanning for threats. Many of them so subtle and unconscious that we are unaware that we are both giving them off to others or receiving them internally ourselves. Our sense of danger in the modern world often comes from social cues such as indifference, criticism, rejection or disrespect. We pick up the subtle, or not so subtle, body language and tone of voice of others and make quick interpretations of what we believe is true. As a result, we continually build up impressions of others, favorable and unfavorable, that influence our ability for love and connection – another of our basic needs.

I have recently had the uncomfortable situation of triggering strong emotions in someone else. While I felt I was going about my day as normally as possible I kept looking for cues that this obviously distressed person needed my support. I was feeling uncomfortable and out of my depth and in response mistakenly distanced myself from them. They interpreted my behaviour as indifference and uncaring. I am not surprised going over the day’s happenings. I was functioning in my own world, as we all often are, quite oblivious to the needs of others.

Yet for this person the inner turmoil was also brewing as inner anger. All they needed was my physical touch as a hug or a listening ear to hear their distress. Something I failed to see and more importantly failed to respond to before it escalated. We have since talked and I’ve apologised.

“We believe that our thoughts and emotions are reasonable responses to some solid outside reality. Lesson number one is that there’s no unified, single reality out there.”

Ruby Wax – A Mindfulness Guide for Survival

Due to the subtlety of our influence on others we are going to continually, in at least minor ways, trigger them. We’ll get interactions wrong and cause them to feel uncomfortable and unsafe around us. It is the challenge of being human. We are all unique, so what we think, feel and react to will also be unique.

Is there ways you can feel safer and help others feel safer in your presence?

Communication is key: –

Recognising that you are feeling triggered is a signal to explore and express your feelings. For some people this is possible in the moment. For others, who need time to process the inner sensations and find the words to express themselves, it may take longer. Always keep the conversation open if the hurt is still present.

Try to refer to how you are feeling using ‘I’ statements. Take pauses where needed and allow silence for each person to process what has been said. Practice really listening to the other person’s words and body language rather than focusing on what you plan to say next. Avoid shaming or blaming the other person. It is likely they have little awareness of the effect their actions have had on you.

Practice Self Care: –

When triggered by others or even digesting the impact of hurting others continue to look after yourself. Give yourself loving kindness for any emotions that arise. Know that being human is difficult and we are all capable of being hurt and hurting others.  Retreat if you need to and look for healthy ways to soothe, nurture and calm your mind and body.

Express Your emotions: –

Everyone is different. Some need to talk to other people to make sense of their inner thoughts and sensations. Others prefer to write things down. One method to use is writing free flowing words, straight from your head onto a piece of paper. Even if they seem to make no sense, they are better out of your head and external to your body. Burning or tearing up the paper is a helpful and cathartic action if you don’t want to be constantly reminded of what you’ve written. If you receive hurtful words from others you are allowed to acknowledge and dispose of them in the same ways as those you write to yourself.

Emotions can also be expressed and released by body movement and voice. Actively shifting body energy through moving is healing. Humming and singing relieves stress and even yelling into the open spaces is powerful and cathartic for releasing anger safely.

Create healthy boundaries: –

Sometimes the kindest way to deal with emotional triggers is to maintain a distance. It may be temporary or you may decide to move away from the relationship all together for your own mental health and well-being. If relationships are to be maintained and thrive respect and clear expectations are important. They are key to sustaining healthy ongoing connections with others.

As a baby, the ‘vehicle’ or means of helping us feel safe is our primary caregiver. Usually that is our parents. We are relying on them to supply all of our basic needs. The older we get the more we experience life and find our own inner resources to deal with situations that trigger our need for safety. In a sense we become responsible for finding our own inner peace.

We will never get it perfect either for ourselves or in our relationships with others. In accepting this, realizing that we are each doing the best we can at the time, we go a long way to achieving that peace.

March 2026
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