Mindful Destruction: How Self-Improvement Can Add Superpower To Bad Societal Design

If we become more attuned without changing the worldviews that drive our existing society, are we not just getting better at social destruction?

Set Your Pulse: Take a breath. Turn your attention to your body and release any tension. Breathe slowly into the area of your heart for 60 seconds, focusing on feeling a sense of ease. Stay connected to your body as you read. Click here to learn why we suggest this.

---

If you like our writing, feel free to click the ❤️ so more people can discover us on Substack. We’d also love to hear from you in the comments.

---

How many times have you heard something to the effect of: “If only everyone became more mindful or meditative, we’d make the world a much better place.”

I think it’s true to some extent. People generally become kinder and more open when mindful, but would this solve the issues caused by our societal design? Likely not.

Being a good meditator or engaging in spiritual practice and changes in societal design aren’t necessarily connected.

As I’ve suggested for a while, to create a world focused on human and natural thrivability (one and the same,) attention needs to be intentionally placed.

In my CE Insight from last weekend, I resurrected a piece I wrote in 2014 about changing conversations. In that piece, I discussed my perspective on how culture is born, and how culture subsequently informs human action within society.

I will share a relevant excerpt below:

“If we imagine culture as the values and belief systems that become normal for a group of people, or even an entire country, we can see how they determine how we understand ourselves and our place in the world. These values also determine how we make meaning and define purpose in life. 

From here, culture informs how we design and coordinate the actions we take.

If our attention is always placed on the old ways of doing things, the old ways of knowing and being - our conversations will always be the same and continually reinforce old patterns and actions.” 

Two key takeaways from this:

1. The way we see our world and choose to design our social infrastructures is a reflection of culture. That culture is driven by the stories we believe about who we are. We find purpose and meaning based on the combined stories of what culture sets forth as valuable and what we do within the society culture has built.

2. Conversation is the driver of shared awareness and exploration of possibility. Conversation can shape culture and thus shape change. To change our world we need to change conversation.

Specific to point 2, just because we are more mindful, well, and meditative, doesn’t mean we are suddenly changing the conversation around societal design.

The good news though, something is emerging in people that is not making them feel good about our existing culture and social design. People inherently know there is a problem, but aren’t sure what to do about it.

This is often referred to as a meaning crisis.

In an attempt to fix that problem, self-help strategies, including mindfulness, meditation and other wellness practices have emerged to ease the pain. But they are often sold in the context of helping people cope with the difficulty of the world, or even giving people an edge over others by becoming less stressed and more efficient at playing the game.

The Rise of Wellness

The rise of wellness in our society is apparent right now, and don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing. Mindfulness, presence and contemplative practices are a big part of solving the meaning crisis if we can apply them in specific contexts.

I remember learning about mindfulness in 2006 when I was working with a counsellor about wanting to leave College.

I was 18 or 19 years old and wasn’t happy being in college. I felt I had to be there because everyone around me told me “That’s what you have to do.”

I knew I was smart enough to stay and I loved learning, but I have never liked the structure of schooling and felt like it was getting in the way of what I cared about.

My counsellor taught me mindfulness techniques and ways of coming to understand my own feelings in order to make my own decisions. At the time, they were very powerful and exactly what I needed to free myself from my current pain. Some of those tools have become a part of my life since.

The key for me at that time was that something deeper was trying to emerge from me, and mindfulness and introspection helped me explore and step into the unknown.

I expanded my exploration of mindfulness, spirituality, and consciousness even more from 2009 onwards. It was a way for me to deeply understand myself and my potential, and ask the big life questions that were important to me.

Why is our world designed the way it is?
Why are humans and nature not thriving?
How could we design our world to make it thrive?

When I would talk about these tools back then I got weird stares from most people. It’s funny because, many of these ideas have been around for thousands of years, yet were only more palatable in other areas of the world or in Western spiritual circles.

Today though it’s different. Conversations around wellness and mindfulness have grown to become virtually mainstream.

Mainstream Wellness: Framing is Everything

I want to re-iterate again so it is clear: the rise in cultural awareness around wellness is necessary and important. More on this soon.

Massive corporations are introducing mindfulness programs to their employees. It is estimated that around 50% of large corporations offer some sort of mindfulness training to their employees. And while this is great for them to feel better and have less stress, which is needed, there is another side to this I believe we have to watch out for: some people/corporations are actually just becoming better at extractive economies.

First off, corporations are still going to measure everything based on how it increases or decreases job performance and profit. Some programs are successful and some aren’t. But let’s look at it deeper.

Imagine the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or all of the oil companies are incorporating mindfulness programs. Stress is reduced in their workplace and people now have access to greater creativity and work potency, are they not just going to get better at old outdated ideas involved in the maximization of profit and environmental destruction?

Imagine Google, YouTube, and Facebook all have these programs, which most do, are they suddenly going to stop censorship, spying on users, and data extraction? Or might they come up with better ways of censoring? Chances are, increased creativity will be applied to their current ways of thinking, not new ones.

If you spend enough time in the entrepreneurial space you will often find people hell-bent on trying to get an edge over everyone else. Cold showers, saunas, meditations, ice baths, microdosing, psychedelic journeys… all of this is being done to be BETTER at business and defeat their competition. Maybe even to get over that 6 or 7 figure hump.

Being successful in your business is not an issue, in fact, it’s necessary right now. Too often people try to pretend money is not important in our current moment. It is. It’s very important. If conscious companies don’t have a budget they die, and so does their influence. In the short term, people need to invest in the world they want to see, not hinder it by suggesting it shouldn’t be allowed to make money.

However, the point I’m making above about the context wellness practices are being used, especially in the West, is that a mindset of symptom management or hyper-individualized dominance, without regard for the effects of actions, is still the primary driver.

It’s a subtle point, but an important one. Without changing the worldviews that drive our culture and societal design, wellness practices may just make us better at our current game. We end up avoiding the actual cause of our social issues by trying to feel better in the ‘mess,’ or seeking to dominate others while the mess is happening.

The eerie part is many entrepreneurs I’ve shared time with at meetings, masterminds, and retreats know exactly how to say the RIGHT things to sound like they are trying to create a better world, but in reality, they are still just looking out for their own social dominance and financial empire. Their actions speak much louder than their words.

The old worldview is still emerging but with a new mask.

A Different Proposal

In order to help emerge a new story and thriving world, I believe we need to consider using mindfulness and wellness as a driver for an emerging future, not as a mechanism to create dominance or cope with our existing world. And see how this can change the conversation around societal design.

Our world will not change overnight, and some magical flash from the sun isn’t going to just shift everyone’s consciousness and magically emerge new systems. Instead, we are the creators and the makers of our social structures - just like it always has been. Welcome to the playground called Earth.

This means in order to shift, we must explore how we as individuals are going to do that.

One core principle for me is for us to be clearer, stronger and more attuned as individuals. Connected to our hearts with an open mind and a strong desire to truly listen and feel ourselves, each other and the nature of our situation. Simply put, inner transformation and skill-building is important.

Another core principle is the need to better understand the nature of our world, its systems, and how they are interconnected with our consciousness. Drivers of social issues are not simple to understand much of the time as our social systems are complex.

Awareness is the beginning of both principles. To be aware of our own inner transformation, thinking, state of being, presence etc… is to practice mindfulness and self awareness.

To explore the nature of our existing systems, converse with others, and take in the perspectives of all stakeholders, requires a willingness to show up in that capacity. That requires action and conversation driven by mindfulness and self awareness.

Both represent approaching our world from a different level of consciousness. Full circle, both help us change the conversation that creates our culture.

In that context, mindfulness is used as a driver of an emerging future, not as one to simply become better at the old strategies of wealth hoarding and social dominance. Further, a new worldview emerging through conversation can change the values we place on human beings. Instead of gushing over rich millionaires and billionaires, we can see humans and their value outside of money, popularity and fame.

When we think about mindfulness and wellness today, is it leading to meaningful change and the building of a more thriving and regenerative world? Or is entrepreneurial and corporate power still stuck in high-profit mode, maybe with ‘sustainability’ as a goal?

I downplay ‘sustainability’ intentionally here. I don’t believe it’s enough. To simply keep something alive doesn’t seek to explore its living potential more deeply. It leads to doing the bare minimum and changing the bare minimum.

To summarize, I don’t believe in the all-out rejection of our existing moment as it’s needed right now. Global change will be a transition, it will take time, and having one foot in the old world and one in the unknown is necessary. I believe that addressing both mindfulness and social transformation together is a key part of collectively exploring and emerging a thriving future.