From Whence We Came, Part 3

The Ancestral Mind: Reclaim the Power
by Gregg Jacobs, Ph.D.

(Page 3 of 6)

During the past three decades of mind/body research, most scientists have focused on the body, not the brain, exploring such phenomena as the hormonal response to stress or psychological states such as anxiety. When I entered graduate school in the early 1980s I was more intrigued by how mind/body techniques exert their therapeutic effects in the brain itself. I had already spent four years working in a hospital's biofeedback laboratory, helping patients to alleviate stress-related health problems such as headaches, gastrointestinal problems, and anxiety. Later, I began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Deaconess Hospital at Harvard Medical School, where I expanded my research to include the mind/body treatment of insomnia. The fellowship included treatment of children and adolescents in the Behavioral Medicine Clinic at Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital in Boston, where we used biofeedback and relaxation therapies to help children manage a variety of stress-related medical complaints, such as chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, and headaches.

During the years that followed, as I continued to pursue my research and clinical work, the evidence mounted to confirm unconscious emotional processing in the Ancestral Mind, as did evidence of the AM's direct connection to neural pathways that promote healthy mind/body interactions. It became clear to me that a primary evolutionary function of the Ancestral Mind has always been to steer us toward things that elicit positive emotions such as joy. Because such emotions are central to health and well-being, which are in turn fundamental to our very survival, natural selection provided us with an innate drive to experience them. It's our modern preoccupation with the Thinking Mind and its strictures, as well as our alienation from the Ancestral Mind, that blocks this natural propensity.

As we examine the role of these two minds in the world today, we're faced with a painful contradiction. Only a small percentage of humanity takes part in the comfort and security, and the full material benefits made possible by the efforts of the Thinking Mind. And yet we can see that many who do have those benefits are left dissatisfied by the TM's narrow preoccupations and their unintended consequences. Meanwhile, the global economy aims to extend the TM's "benefits" to everyone. Westerners are busily striving to make every culture in every corner of the world run according to the same clock, turning away from ancient traditions of family and village, and embracing the TM's preoccupation with material advancement.

Now, I certainly do not want to suggest that anyone be denied a higher standard of living. My concern, rather, is this: If material advancement means extending the tyranny of the Thinking Mind by removing every last vestige of the Ancestral Mind, where will that leave the human race? Unless we learn to better integrate the two, the future promises little more than billions of stressed and alienated people sitting atop a pile of consumer goods that cannot begin to make them healthy or contented. We must begin to make a concerted investment in the AM and its values, one as committed as that which we have invested in developing the TM.

If we are to improve our lives and see our way toward a more fulfilling future, we must strike a greater balance between thought and emotion, Thinking Mind and Ancestral Mind, as well as establishing an equilibrium between the negative emotions that modern life forces upon us and the positive emotions that are our birthright, and that can help us overcome those negatives. We need to grasp fully the scientific evidence that we are not just creatures of abstract reasoning but also emotional beings who need a more direct experience of life to remain healthy-a far more direct experience than what comes to us filtered through the linear and often anxious Thinking Mind. It is when we temporarily silence our Thinking Mind that we reestablish an essential link with the mental world in which our distant ancestors evolved over millions of years. Like reconnecting with a wise friend that we once knew intimately but from whom we've been cut off, we need to get back in touch with this other, much healthier mental state.

The choice is not an "either/or." The Ancestral Mind is a resource that balances and mitigates the harmful qualities of the Thinking Mind; it doesn't replace it. It is possible to live in a high-tech society-we don't seem to have much choice-while also living a greater part of our lives in touch with the healing properties of the Ancestral Mind. But the fact remains that our mind has not caught up with our technology. We now live in a world very different from that which our mind was designed to inhabit-and the conflict is killing us.

By the time you finish this book, you will have gained the knowledge and skills you need to access the Ancestral Mind and to harness its power. I've tried to make the techniques for getting back in touch with this ancient part of ourselves easy to incorporate into your life, putting their benefits well within reach. By reconnecting with the Ancestral Mind, you should be able to achieve a deeper dimension of daily existence that will give you:

• a greater ability to take charge of stress and unhealthy mind/body interactions

• an improvement in cardiovascular disorders, insomnia, chronic pain, and gastrointestinal problems

• more energy and vibrancy in daily life

• an improved self-awareness, inner strength, and self-esteem.

A by-product of these techniques is that they actually quiet and clear the Thinking Mind, improving the ability to focus and concentrate in daily life. Thus, reconnecting to the Ancestral Mind can actually help us to achieve the fullest potential of both minds, improving problem-solving, creativity, performance, and productivity, as well as our general health and well-being. What I hope you will find here is a key to open the door to a new level of consciousness, one that allows you to move toward self-actualization by using your mind's capacities to the fullest.

© 2003 Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Gregg D. Jacobs, Ph.D., is assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, senior research scientist at Harvard's Mind/Body Medical Institute, a research scientist at the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at Harvard Medical School, and the author of Say Goodnight to Insomnia.