How to Be a Human Being

In this hustle and bustle world, have you actually forgotten how to be a human being?

Today after thinking about all the millions of people who simple plow through daily life with their jobs, their fears, their insecurities, their addictions, and more, I started to wonder…have we forgot how to be human beings? Of course, I know that being human is something we can not simply avoid…we simply just are. My reference to “being human” is more about being in touch with our lives, our bodies, our minds, to live life fully and to absorb life like a sponge.

Is working a 40 hour work week, with mountains of debt, huge amounts of daily stress, and improper health really being human? Is that really a way to live our lives? To me it isn’t, and so in this article I’m going to give you multiple pointers to get back to being human. Back to being the way you were meant to be…alive and vibrant! Life doesn’t have to be black and white, dull and grey. Life should be like a vibrant technicolor movie. Sure, this may sound unrealistic, but it really isn’t.

Your life is what you want it to be. What you expect from life you will get from life. If you expect it to be hard, difficult, always full of problems…then just like a magnet, that is what you will get. Your view and outlook of yourself and your life are the key to your happiness and how to be a vibrant human being.

Now I know everyone is going to have things they struggle with and I’m not saying someone can have the perfect life without anxiety, some debt, a sagging belly and more. But, you CAN eliminate many of these things if you simply DESIRE too. There is a huge difference from “needing” to eliminate the negative or unhealthy things in our lives versus “wanting” or using desire to change. If you desire change, you simply WANT to change. If you feel like you need to change, then that is nearly equal to someone standing over you and telling you that you must change or you simply think that you need to change according to society norms.

So let me ask you, what do you desire to change in your life?

What is clouding your daily life and stripping you of being a vibrant human being?

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” - Albert Einstein -

After a lot of thought and examination of what is at the core of being a human being, I have come up with a list of points that will show you simply…how to be a human being (again). Even if you take one of the following points below and implement it into your daily life, you may just find things shift a bit, your happiness may rise, and your stress and worries my stumble a bit. The points below are meant to help you shake lose the grime of our daily lives and reveal our inner sense of being a human being the way we were meant to be. Yes, many of the points are simple, but how effectively do you do them? How often do you apply them?

Never underestimate the power of simplicity and the changes it can have on your mind, body and life.

Ok, let’s get to it. Let’s get you back to being a vibrant, fully living and breathing human being again!

Step One: Feel Your Emotions

It’s amazing how many of us walk around emotionally disconnected. It’s almost as if we have grown callous to the world around us or desensitized. Everyday we see, hear or read horrific news in the media and yet, it has gotten to the point that we are not even affected by it emotionally. We have become emotionally dead. What use to shock us or touch our hearts now simply breezes by like a whisp of air. Many things don’t even register in our minds or bodies anymore.

But the beauty of being a human being is actually feeling our emotions.  There are many creatures that crawl this planet who are alive, yet don’t have emotions. In fact, being human sets us apart from other species simply because we can feel our emotions, think, and problem solve. But how often do we really tap into our emotions? I think many of us have simply forgotten how to do this fully and we are cutting this fruitful and blissful aspect out of our lives.

What good does living life do to us if we have put a wall around our emotions and simply neglect them?

Of course, if we are human, we are going to have emotions. But my point is the act of awareness in feeling emotions. In many ways, we may subconsciously not want to feel emotions because they are too painful or “icky” to face. And trust me, there are plenty of emotions that can be scary or unsettling. You and I both know that. Life is the perfect catalyst to create or invoke emotions in us that we don’t want to face. One of the biggies is the fear of death. Another is the fear of public speaking (which has been found to be at times even more fearful in people than death itself!)

Emotions play a HUGE role in our happiness and health. Candace Pert even proved how emotions have a significant impact on the physiological body and mind. Her work and book, Molecules of Emotion, was simply groundbreaking and I highly recommend reading it if you haven’t. Mind blowing stuff.

Two more books and pioneers in field regarding the power of emotions on your health, mind and body are John Sarno and John Ruskan.

• Dr. John Sarno is the Professor of Clinical Rehabilitation Medicine at the New York University of Medicine and is the originator of TMS (tension mysositis syndrome). He has authored many fantastic books on the way the mind can actually create pain in the body as a way to distract the mind from dealing with, what it perceives, to be scary or harmful subconscious emotions. Dr. Sarno has had an interest in this for decades as a doctor and as time goes by, his principles and theories are becoming much more accepted in the mainstream of mind-body medicine. Just read the reviews posted by readers for his book, The Mindbody Subscription and you can simply see how much of an impact he is having on people. If you are “emotionally dead” and have chronic pains in your body, you may want to check into TMS and Dr. Sarno.

• John Ruskan is another pioneer on the effect of emotions on the body and mind. He created a type of psychotherapy called EMC (Emotional Clearing) that was developed in the 80′s but has since spread throughout not only Europe but also in the US. Emotional Clearing is a simple technique that allows our suppressed negative emotions to be presented by the subconscious. The conscious awareness created by the technique leads to a natural clearing of these suppressed conditions that otherwise can influence perception and behavior.  His book, Emotional Clearing is one of my all time favorite books on emotions. Simply a fantastic read if you are into this type of information.

Let me briefly explain to you how you can start to feel your emotions today. Many people may think or be told that they are “really in touch” with their emotions because they can verbally talk about how they feel or think about things. But simple articulation is not the same as FEELING your emotions.

Thinking about how you feel is NOT feeling. Feeling is all about AWARENESS.

Feeling your emotions is purely physical…not mental. Now don’t get me wrong, emotions and images may pop up on your mind as they become unsuppressed…but when you feel emotions, they are physical. You will FEEL tension in the body, you will feel physical sensations, etc. When this occurs, you know you are on track.

How to feel your emotions and set your subconscious free
(aka “how to purge emotional sludge”)…

• Once a day, take 10 minutes or so and simply sit and breathe. Close your eyes, and breathe through your belly and allow yourself to relax.

• Next, ask yourself, “What am I feeling?” or “What am I feeling emotionally?”

• Simply allow those questions to resonate within you and simply become aware of how your body is feeling.  You can do this by using the method of body scanning and becoming aware of any tensions in your body. Many common places are in the face, neck, shoulders and lower back.

• Once you have located areas of tension, simply breathe and be aware of them and allow your mind to be blank. Continue to breathe and if you start to feel little “blips” of sadness, anger, or past images come to mind, simply allow them and let them rise. More than likely, this may not happen right away. Remember, certain emotions are repressed for a reason…you don’t want to face them. So allowing them to surface may take time.

Clearing out buried emotions and learning how to feel them again, will help you become more in touch with life and all the sensory pleasures it has to offer. Your body and mind is like a tea kettle, the more you store (repressed emotions), the more they will eventually boil over and scream (anxiety, physical pain, etc). But once you can clear them and free them, not only will you feel lighter, you will create more emotional space for new positive feelings and emotions to fill your life.

Now to step two…

Step Two: Connect With Other Humans

“People need people”. One way to be human is to connect with your fellow human beings on a regular basis. This takes the form of close friendships, relationships, your co-workers, or even a stranger who needs some spare change. Without our connection to others, we simply would not survive emotionally or physically. In our society there are people who are introverts and extroverts, but at some level, everyone connects with someone. You may only have one close friend, or you may have 5 basic friends…either way, you are connecting.

When your connection with other people starts to decrease, you are stopping being human. Do you play with your kids on a regular basis? Do you kiss your husband or wife daily? When is the last time you and your best friend just went out and did something fun?  Take time to connect with those around you and get outside of your world and into theirs, and you will find that life is interesting and fulfilling when you do so.

Other ideas on how to connect: take a cooking class or art class, say hello to the next three people you meet today, write a letter to someone you have lost touch with, do volunteer work for the needy, start a blog and connect with your readers, go for a walk at your local park and say hello to others, visit an online forum or chat room that is related to a hobby you enjoy, make a new friend, buy a new pet, start a book club, etc. There are a thousand different ways you can learn to reconnect with your fellow humans, why not pick something small and start? See how it makes you feel inside. See how it makes you feel even more alive.

Step Three: Find Your Passion

A life without passion is not a life. If you are only living your life to live and survive, then you are not living the way life was meant to be lived. When you can find passion in your life, you will create a purpose. When you have purpose, you have happiness. What is your passion?  What do you enjoy doing so much that when you do it, you lose complete track of time? Whatever it is, learn to squeeze it into your life more often. You may want to use some of the suggestions I stated above where I describe other ways you can reconnect with people.

Your passion may be painting, writing, exercising, meditation, cooking, collecting, etc.

What do YOU really like to do?

Every human being has a deep underlying passion about something in life. The key is to find it, and DO it.  My personal passions are disc golfing, jogging, music, writing this blog, creating, and much more. Many are very simple to do, but I find them very fulfilling when I do them. I try to surround my life with them as much as I possibly can. What makes life even better is when you can surround your life with your passion and also make a living from it. In almost every type of passion, if you look deep enough, there is a way to do this. The key is focus and persistence.

Connect with being human by finding something you are passionate about…it will make your life worth living.

Step Four: Realize There is Only One of You

On this planet there are billions and billions of people. Some short, some fat, some talented at music, some talented at being a couch potato. The point is, everyone is different and there is no one exactly like YOU. Once you realize that there is always going to be someone smarter, someone more fit, someone who can do XYZ better than you…yet you accept this, happiness will soon follow. The thing is, you are unique. That alone sets you above the rest.  There is no need to continue to be someone that you are not, and that is the rut that many of us fall into and it creates a life pattern of unhappiness. Self-acceptance is so vital to your well-being that it should be taught in elementary school (or at least, emphasized and embedded more than it currently is).

Learn to celebrate and emphasize your differences, and most of all, what you ARE good at. That is what makes you special, and most of all…human.

Step Five: Contribute to Mankind

If you are a living and breathing human being, it is nearly impossible to go about living your life without contributing to it. You may do this in the most mundane ways. It could be what you contribute at your job, your family and friends, even your local church if you are a member. But you can also think of it this way, your contributions to mankind may not be an ongoing contribution. It may be as simple as lending a hand to a neighbor, or doing a favor for a friend one afternoon.

The main thing is to contribute in one way, shape, or form. You might teach kids a new skill, you may publish an article or paint a fantastic painting that people may admire. Or, you may create and contribute the great American novel. Your abilities are vast, tap into them.

No contribution is a small one, they all matter. The key thing is when you DO contribute to your fellow human beings, ask yourself, “Is this a positive contribution?”. If it is, you are doing the right thing and walking down the correct path in life.

I truly believe in karma and that what you give, comes back to you. If you contribute and put out hate into the world, hate will come back to you. If you contribute things that are good and positive, the same will soon be knocking at your doorstep. Give something of yourself to others around you and you will learn to feel good, to feel human.

Step Six: Learn to Love Yourself

Ahh…I’ve saved the best for last. Learn to love yourself. If everyone in the world could do this one humanistic thing, the world would be a much better place. Why? Because when we don’t love ourselves, we can’t really fully love others. And when we don’t fully love others, chaos and hate emerge among other things.

Most of us tend to push ourselves to be something that we are not, or can’t ever be. This, once again, comes down to self-acceptance. In fact, self-acceptance and learning to love yourself go hand in had. Without acceptance of who you really are, you can not fully love yourself.

So let me ask you…why would you NOT love yourself?

Many of you may answer with something like…

• “I’m not a very nice person”
• “I’m overweight and people think I am fat”
• “Everyone around me is smarter or prettier than I am”
• “My friends seem to have everything more together than I do”
• “How can I love myself when I fail at everything”

My next question, in response to the questions above would be, “What can you do that will change what you don’t like, why does it really matter, and if it does…what is stopping you?” The key thing is to realize those things we can change, and those things we can’t. Even if you weigh 300 pounds and know you need to lose weight, it makes no difference because you can still love yourself just as you are.

Bottomline is, you are human. You are perfect the way you are, because if you think about it, what exactly is “perfect” anyway? Perfection really does not exist…it is only a mental illusion of what we hold to be TRUE, when in fact, it isn’t. There is no guidebook or rulebook that is the Bible for perfection that sets the rules…you do, ultimately. This is your life.

Start allowing yourself to accept who you are and to be more kind to what you say and do. Watch the inner chatter, the voice in your head that seems to belittle you and learn to simply step back and observe the thoughts as that…thoughts. That is all they are, they are not real.

To be human is to love. In fact, love is what makes life worth living. But before you can start to love the things around you, you have to start at step #1…loving yourself.

Posted on July 6, 2009