Adjusting an Identity Lens:
Facilitating a Great Turning
This class can be attended live or via the on-demand recordings. All class times are posted in Eastern Time / New York time zone.
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These Master Classes are offered exclusively for Embody Lab Members.
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ABOUT THIS MASTER CLASS
Who are you? What comprises the essence of what you might call your “self”? How is your identity—the features that you or others use to define who you are—currently shaping your experience of belonging, of being a member of something larger than your individual experience of being alive?
These are not merely academic questions, but actually may be at the heart of how we can effectively address many of the contemporary challenges we face on the planet—the pandemics of racism and social injustice; misinformation and polarization; digital-attention addiction; the climate crisis; and even the pandemic of COVID-19. Each of these challenges may be worsened, if not caused, by a view of the self as only emanating from the body alone: the “solo-self.”
In this Master Class, Dr. Dan Siegel will address these current challenges by considering how modern culture shapes our experience of self, these questions of identity and belonging are addressed through the lens of the interdisciplinary framework, interpersonal neurobiology, that uncovers the common ground, or consilience, shared among Indigenous knowledge, contemplative insights, and empirical western science to explore how humans develop identity and belonging across the lifespan. This dive into the subjective experience, perspective, and agency at the heart of our experience of self –the “SPA” of self-experience—reveals that we may not only be who we are so often told we are in modern culture—separate selves emanating solely from the body alone, with a mind emanating only from the skull-encased brain: the isolated, solo-self may be a mis-taken identity.
Even more than merely being wrong, reinforcing the experience of self as a separate noun-like entity may be a lethal lie—an error in what families, schools, and society may be continuing, without awareness or even intention, to cultivate in our lives. Learning to adjust what the book introduces as an “identity lens” from its narrow focus to a widened view can expand how we experience the self, integrating our features of identity by linking the differentiated body we inhabit with the larger relational world of our belonging in our connections with other people and with nature. This broader belonging, integrated identity, and synergy of self—an experience of sensation, perspective, and agency that is larger than its individual parts—empowers us to re-cover a more connected and rewarding way of living on Earth. Consistent with the wisdom teachings of Indigenous knowledge and contemplative practices from around the globe, science can now join in the messages of opening our sense of who we are to address these major challenges of our modern times.
When we expand our sense of self, widen our identity, and broaden our belonging, we open the course of human evolution toward a new way of living that promotes a greater good. In this way, we are linked to one another as a relational We as we are interconnected from the perspective of the individual part, the Me. Taken as a whole, this integration of Me plus We as a MWe cultivates the experience of being intraconnected from the perspective of the system as a whole, enabling us to live with a more inclusive sense of self that promotes well-being throughout our individual and collective lives.
ABOUT YOUR TEACHER
DR. DAN SIEGEL
Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute which focuses on the development of mindsight, teaches insight, empathy, and integration in individuals, families and communities.
Dr. Siegel has published extensively for both the professional and lay audiences. His five New York Times bestsellers are: Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence, Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain, and two books with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D: The Whole-Brain Child, and No-Drama Discipline. His other books include: The Developing Mind, The Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology, Mindsight, The Mindful Brain, and The Mindful Therapist. He has also written The Yes Brain and The Power of Showing Up with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D. Dr. Siegel also serves as the Founding Editor for the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology which currently contains over seventy textbooks.