Overcoming Climate Havoc with Inner Development from Deep Nestedness

With climate havoc, many are realizing that an emphasis on policy and institutional change has been inadequate to foster needed changes. Consequently, activists have determined that something more is needed, specifically psychological transformation. However, discussions of inner development typically focus on adult transformation, overlooking when inner aspects of being are seeded and how they are cultivated in early life. The focus of this article is on how species-normal nurturing in babyhood is essential for fostering the inner capacities needed. The lifeways of egalitarian hunter-gatherers who represent 99% of our genus history show us a different human nature, one with full inner capacities and behaviors to match. We also find a different context for living, deep nestedness, comprised of communal, intergenerational, spiritual, and ecological nestedness. Communal nestedness in the early months and years of life sows healthy inner capacities; when experienced throughout life, it meets basic needs and sustains a cooperative human nature. With intergenerational nestedness, ancestral wisdom is maintained into the future. Spiritual nestedness keeps individuals and communities aligned with universal energies. Ecological nestedness undergirds respectful partnership with local landscapes and nature’s ways. Deep nestedness is humanity’s species-normal pathway for wellness, integrating inner and outer dimensions for responsible, regenerative lifeways. The misdevelopment of human nature that occurs in modernized societies where nurturing has been eroded has contributed to climate havoc. Must we return to hunter-gatherer lifeways to counter climate havoc? No, but we need to understand which aspects of the species-normal lifeway are critical for the restoration of human capacities.