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Spiritual Fulfillment and Neuroscience

Spiritual Fulfillment and Neuroscience Natureza Gabriel Kram

At the global launch of the Restorative Practices Alliance, I facilitated a dialogue about the human heart involving Ilarion “Kuuyux” Merculieff (an Indigenous Unangan elder from Alaska who is president of the Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways) and Dr. Stephen Porges (a psychophysiology researcher and a leading global expert on the relationship between the autonomic nervous system and behavior). Although approaching the topic from seemingly distant directions — Ilarion from the perspective of indigenous wisdom and Stephen from neurophysiology through polyvagal theory (which he developed) — and using different words and framings, they were, remarkably, saying the same thing.

Indigenous people call modern, Western society the upside-down or inside-out society. They say we have reversed all the laws of living. In modern, Western society, the mind tells the heart what to do. To live in right relationship with All That Is, the heart needs to tell the mind what to do. Dr. Porges says the same thing in a different way: Only when we feel safe at an embodied level can we turn on the social engagement or connection system that is the gateway to connection and relationship, and only when this happens can the heart run the brain.

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