We are primates

...and sometimes it feels good to remember that.

Abstract representation of a woman jumping in a wave of different materials

I was in a coaching session, and my client told me she wanted to make decisions more with her body, and less with her head. She felt that her mind was heavy with everything she had to do, and often found it hard to choose for herself rather than out of social pressure.

After a moment of reconnection with her body, what came up was clear: the rest of her wanted to be outside. To feel the environment, the rocks, the sea. To lie on the ground, to move, to run. Her body was asking for simple things, physically rich and full of life — very different from her screen-bound daily routine.

Then came the mental part’s reaction:

“But I can’t just do that! I have so many obligations!”

The rest of the session was about exploring that part — the one that needed to experience the world in three dimensions, outdoors, with fewer ideas and fewer words. We explored how that could be the real answer to her wish to think less when making decisions.

We are mammals, primates. Our bodies evolved for tens of thousands of years in an embodied, moving relationship with the world, full of sensory stimulation. Everything in our biology, physiology, and neurology is optimized for a dynamic connection with our physical environment.

Abstract representation of a human body running through elements

I don’t know about you, but from that perspective, spending most of our lives sitting down, barely moving our fingers in front of a bright screen, overstimulating our cognition… doesn’t seem very natural.Yet that’s the experience so many of us live, year after year.

What we call “vacations” are perhaps the only moments when we truly reconnect with the kind of life we evolved for. And yet we treat them as privileges, reserved for those who have “earned” them — those who can afford the luxury of living as nature intended, for just a few days a year.

Abstract representation of the Sun through a steep valley

Everything in us was designed for something we now consider a luxury.

Does that speak to you?And from that angle, what does it make you want to do?

Shall we talk?