Published by Pan Macmillan
How you define a human being is probably the most important thing about you. Not only does it determine how you treat other human beings, but also how you treat yourself. This is the opinion of Australian psychologist, Steve Biddulph, who has more than 40 years’ experience in this field.
In his book Fully Human: A New Way of Using Your Mind, he explains in layman’s terms how our sensory system is at the core of our humanness. It is what sets us apart from other mammals, he says.
Biddulph is known for his bestselling parenting books Raising Boys, Raising Girls and Manhood, to name a few. In his latest offering, however, he focuses on the human race in general and, in particular, on what he calls our ‘super sense’ – an early alert system, so to speak, or a signal produced by the body to awaken our deepest feelings. It is our mind’s job to then process the signal in order to direct our response. According to Biddulph it is only by optimising all the levels of our sensory system that we can reawaken our ‘super sense’ to bring wholeness back into our life.
He likens our sensory system to a four-storey mansion: our physical first reaction is the ground floor, our awareness and emotional response are the second floor, and our mind is the third. The fourth floor or ‘roof garden’ is where we connect with our spirituality. The challenge is to move freely through all four floors of your mansion in order to create a more powerful, integrated and spacious life for yourself.
In an easy-to-digest manner, Biddulph takes the reader through the meanings of each section. It soon becomes clear that by only using your rational mind, the early warning signals first felt by the body, such as a gut feeling that something is not right, are completely ignored. The rational mind also doesn’t pay emotion or feeling any mind, as it were, and by further neglecting to consider our connection to the bigger whole, it restricts and hinders any development of our ‘super sense’.
Although we believe ourselves to be the most advanced species to ever walk the planet, Biddulph’s book points out that we are, in reality, extremely limited in the way in which we use our minds. He uses himself (he was diagnosed with Asperger’s in his fifties by a psychiatrist friend) as an example. While writing the book, he started taking notice of his own operating system and by making a concerted effort to check into all four storeys – body, emotions, mind and spirituality – more regularly, he found himself to be more present, more mindful and more in control of his life.
He says people that are in touch with their ‘super sense’ can be spotted easily. They have a bearing of being fully grounded, unhurried, and able to give focused attention. Their manner signifies that they take themselves – and life – lightly and are protective. are pro These people are the non-conformists among us who are totally true to themselves.
While discussing the different aspects of our sensory system, Biddulph interrupts himself three times with special sections wherein he applies the skills he outlined in previous chapters, to address some of what he sees as the ‘real world problems’ in the world today. These sections, or breakouts as he calls them, were particularly enlightening to me and I found myself nodding along with each of them.
The first issue he tackles is the toll taken by intergenerational trauma, which he believes to be one of the biggest hindrances to human happiness, peace and cooperation. His second breakout section addresses what he calls another fundamental problem in the world today, that of ‘messed up men’, and how it is possible to establish a life-affirming, gentle and kind maleness. In his final breakout he tackles the issue of mindfulness and the value of living in the present. Failure to do so, he says, leads to a society living by the misconstrued notion that happiness lies at some future time.
This book may seem ambitious in the myriad and varied subjects it tackles, but he does it seamlessly in an easily understandable and digestible manner. And through the use of accessible metaphors, interesting anecdotes and easy exercises, Biddulph effortlessly drives his argument home: that to be in touch with your body, feelings, mind and spirit in a holistic way, will make you ‘fully human’.
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