Health Beyond Civilization

This rigorous self-examination that is the foundation of self-healing would not be complete without an exploration of the psyche — your personality, your motivations and interests, your flaws and weaknesses as well as your strengths, your hidden talents, your breaking point.

Far from the narcissistic self-obsession that many may associate with such introspection, this is eminently practical work.

Whether we realize it or not, many of us growing up in this civilization have adopted the deep-seated belief in a division between body, mind, and soul. Even if we believe intellectually that the mind can affect the body and vice versa, it’s often not until we have personal experiences that demonstrate the connection convincingly that that belief begins to erode. But all indigenous peoples believed in what we think of as spirits and the supernatural as crucial elements in healing; if we seek to emulate our ancestors, we have to acknowledge that there may be truth in their beliefs, and seek to reorient ourselves according to ancient wisdom, rather than the other way around.

Moreover, as civilized human beings we’ve all developed a quite complicated, contradictory, and difficult-to-deal-with set of psychological dynamics, and if we’re truly serious about taking stock of who and where we are in order to assess our resources and our limitations, so that we can know best how to proceed with the re-indigenizing process, then introspection is an important step to take.

On a more mundane level, you won’t last a week in the woods, let alone a lifetime, without knowing your psychological limitations. Psychological obstacles can be as detrimental, or even more so, to the rewilding process, or any process that requires a fundamental shift of consciousness, than physical hindrances.

In the year I spent in the woods, I found that it wasn’t the physical rigors of “roughin’ it” that were the most troublesome. No, nearly universally, the most powerful thing that derailed people’s attempts to thrive in long-term wilderness living were powerful addictions and emotional cravings for civilized comforts — sugar, salt, tobacco, air conditioning or central heat, a nice meal in a restaurant.

Little emotional quirks, cravings, and attachments that seem insignificant in good times (the flippant “I’d kill for chocolate right now”) become magnified the more intense a situation becomes. If you’re unprepared, the regular coffee habit you think you can kick today will reveal itself to be an addiction that’s your number one reason for not stepping into the woods forever tomorrow. Something as seemingly innocuous as fear of the dark, which is easily remedied in civilization by a flick of the light switch, can become an unstoppable monster when the only bulwark between you and the long winter nights is a bed of coals and the stars.

Mental problems like addictions or obsessions, or even “subclinical” things like repressed anger, are among the most destructive and insidious of imbalances, the more so because they often go unrecognized or stigmatized due to people’s idea that “it’s all in your mind,” which in turn is based in the idea that the mind isn’t as “real” as the body. Yet these psychological issues are no less a threat to your well-being than a purely physical disease like hepatitis or a physical injury like a broken bone. And you carry these problems with you wherever you go.

So before you start thinking about going beyond civilization, you’d better be clear about the ways in which you’re bound to it.

The dark side of our attempts to transcend a system that both confines and secures us is that we must step outside a safe and familiar comfort zone, and in so doing we can easily lose our bearings. The better we know ourselves in unfamiliar territory, the easier it is to stay balanced and find ways of surviving and even thriving.

In his book based on Toltec practices introduced by Carlos Castaneda¹, The Teachings of Don Carlos, Victor Sanchez writes,

Although everyone has energy, we find that average people’s energy is totally consumed in the routine acts of their lives, as determined entirely by their past. All of our energy in ordinary life is already invested within the confines of the known, leaving nothing for the exploration of the unknown. Any new undertaking on our part, if it is outside what we normally do, requires “free” or available energy to accomplish. This is the reason for the enormous difficulty facing an ordinary person wishing to change or to create situations distinct from those that make up the “normal” in his or her life: there is no energy “available.”

On the other end, if you can become aware of, focus on, and magnify your psychic strengths, you have that much more of a chance to manifest your potential as a human being in challenging circumstances. Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor, wrote about hale and hearty men dying in the concentration camps from a catastrophic loss of will to live, while much weaker people survived because their will was stronger.

At either end of the spectrum, it’s clear how critical the psyche is to health.

The task of establishing a baseline includes the process of assessing ourselves in our psychological entirety, in order to see the ways we can improve. All of our negative habits and ways of thinking, acting, and being sink our energy into things that are not useful and get in the way of going where we want to go. Establishing the baseline means providing ourselves with the prerequisite knowledge that will allow us to find ways to break free, while in the process becoming mentally and emotionally healthier.

So here’s the procedure that I use.

1. The Journal

Get a journal, and make a list. The list will be composed of all of the negative characteristics (things that you consider negative or flawed) about yourself that you can think of.

In examining your failures, habits, passions, instincts and other ugly character traits, you have to observe a hard, honest, but also
compassionate attitude towards yourself. Be relentless, but don’t embellish or exaggerate.

Contemplate your past; put yourself back into different situations you’ve been in and remember how you behaved then, and what mistakes or failures occurred in the various situations. Make notes of all your weaknesses, down to the finest nuances and variations. Dig deep. The point is to know yourself.

The more you discover the better; a goal of at least 100 items is recommended.

Obviously this type of work is very personal and private. Your journal is for your own use only, and must not be shown to anybody else.

 

2. Setting Prioities

Next, divide your list into three groups.

In the first group you will enter the most significant qualities– those that influence you strongest or happen at the slightest opportunity.

The second group will list those qualities occurring less frequently and in slighter degree.

In the last group, record those faults that happen only now and again.

 

3. Positive Qualities

Repeat the whole procedure with your good qualities.

 

By doing all of this, you will have two “mirrors” of yourself, one that reflects your negative self and one that displays your positive self.

The goal of this is to get a clear understanding of who you are and where you stand. It is an excellent way of getting broad sense of balance and self-knowledge, which are foundations for any sort of meaningful growth.

From here you can move forward to practical work, which will be discussed at a later date. Here, it’s just important to establish the baseline.

 

Footnotes

1 I’m aware of the apocryphal nature of Carlos Castaneda’s work. But if you examine the work of Victor Sanchez, who makes no grandiose claims or tall tales but has done actual extensive and documented fieldwork with indigenous peoples in Central America, you’ll find his works altogether refreshing.