If You’re Stagnating, Look to a Different Discipline

Seeing illusory divisions is hindering our ability to heal

Anna Mercury
6 min readSep 26, 2023
Photo by Redd F on Unsplash

The contemporary Western perspective is one of perceiving false divisions. We’ve been raised in a world that sees the mind as separate from the body, the self as separate from the collective and the human as separate from the natural. We divide up the world along these lines into disciplines and specializations, areas of influence that we imagine don’t touch each other.

Bit by bit, we’re coming to understand how wrong we’ve been. Medicine is now coming to understand the body and mind as two aspects of an interconnected system. We now know that emotional trauma can cause long-term physical illness, and that physical imbalances in the digestive system can cause serious mental health conditions. We’re unraveling the way collective psychology influences personal psychology, and seeing the limitations of personal healing without collective change.

The false separations are slowly breaking down, but if you’re living in a Western culture today, you were still raised to see the world as divided into distinct spheres of influence, spheres that interrelate far more than we know. That means, when it comes to solving problems, healing from pain or illness or finding answers to persistent questions, we’re often only…

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