Hello. This is my first time posting. I have been a member for about two weeks. I recently bought the ILP Starter Kit. I live on Vancouver Island off the west coast of Canada.
I am interested in discussing the subject of how one applies the AQAL model to a practice of individual social wellness. To understand what I mean by social wellness, which is not a branch of sociology or any other university curriculum, you will need to read on a bit.
I have been studying Ken’s work for some years now but I am a newbie re AQAL. One can read a good deal of his earlier work without getting the AQAL message. It was when I read “A Theory Of Everything” that I first really got it and decided to pursue it.
It certainly blends with my work in the area of social wellness because I see social wellness as a component of ILP. What I am feeling very much a newbie about is how to apply the AQAL model to a practice of social wellness. So as I work that out, hopefully with some feedback from others, I will document that process here.
Some disclosure here so you know who you are dealing with: I do not have a degree of any kind. I have however given myself a Ph.D. in the Arts & Sciences from the University Of Public Library. I am a published poet and a singer/songwriter and you can buy my CD from Amazon.com. I am also Vice President Of Operations and Human Resources at an Elearning company where I am responsible for about forty staff.
After this post, and hopefully some responses, I will return to start working through the exercise of applying AQAL to the subject. I assume this will take months, partially because I am learning AQAL as I am doing this. By the way, I have found in my own work both personally and professionally, that ‘simple’ is usually most ‘effective’. So I will be working out an application of AQAL here that any regular person will be able to grasp. Like the ILP Starter Kit approach.
Please note that the reference to “Social Circles Canada” below is the organizational model I decided to apply to the problem. I decided to use a proprietary model for reasons of control, not profit.
What follows is copy of a free public talk I give on a monthly basis. It will give you a good overview of what I am on about and where I am coming from. It starts with a story…
The Parable Of The Stranger
There was a woman whose village was destroyed. Only she survived. She had become a stranger and now all the land was strange.
She took her few belongings and went out seeking to find others, that she might start a new life, for she knew that alone she would perish.
She came to the outskirts of a village but suddenly she was stricken with fear that she might not be welcomed, she might even driven away or worse. So she did not approach but carried on.
In time she came to another place, and this time she was more care worn, so she approached closer. At the edge of the village she asked a woman she met where she might find the village elders, but the woman did not understand her. She tried many words and she gestured, but still the woman did not understand and soon turned away. She stood alone there at the edge of the village and realized, she would not find a new beginning here. She was not understood nor was she welcomed. So she left and carried on alone.
Still yet she came to a village by the sea. As she approached the elders came out to meet her. They bid her welcome but straight away asked her of her faith. She told them she followed the faith of her fathers. They told her she must forsake her old faith and take up theirs if she wished to enter. So she left that place.
At last she came to a small village, much like the one she had called home. As she approached, the villagers came out to meet her and extended a welcome to her. She found to her delight that they spoke a language much like her own and they understood her. They asked her to sit with them and offered her food and drink. They asked her to tell them how she had come to them. As she spoke they nodded in agreement, for in those days her story was not unusual, and indeed she found out that the whole tribe had only a few summers ago settled here. They welcomed her to stay and to make a new life with them if she wished.
One day, after she had been living in the village for many years, as she stood up from her work she saw a woman alone approaching the village. Immediately she called to her family and friends and together they went out to welcome her.
-------------------------
The story is of course the experience of many, if not most people today. According to the US Census Bureau, currently 25% of Americans live alone. At some point we find the world we knew has vanished and we find ourselves without the connections and sense of belonging we once had. So we try this and we try that but the tragedy is that seldom do we ever find again what we are looking and hoping for. We have become, in the words of Vance Packard, “a nation of strangers”.
Unfortunately, as if the feelings associated with this lack of social wellness were not enough, there are a number of detrimental health effects. Over the next few minutes we will look at some of them, explore the issues and finally I will put on the table what I think is a viable and realistic solution. First of all…
What is Social Wellness?
How many close friends do you have and how often do you spend time with them in person. That’s it. That’s my definition of Social Wellness. Yes, I say “MY” definition because unbelievably, despite the fact that there is plenty of research to prove that social wellness is essential to our physical and mental health, there is no common definition of it.
Those two metrics – how many and how often - will tell a great deal about your mental and physical health. A third metric, how many new friends have you made in the past year, will indicate whether your social wellness is improving or on the decline.
For optimum health the MINIMUM answers should be:
How many close friends do you have? Four or more.
How often do you spend time with them in person. At least once a month each (one per week).
How many new friends have you made in the past year? More than one.
The majority of North American’s lives do not meet these minimum requirements.
Why is it important?
Social, psychological and medical research has demonstrated conclusively that there is a direct correlation between the degree to which a person feels connected to others and their physical and mental health. Here are some of the most commonly known effects of NOT feeling a connection to others:
- Generally decreased physical wellness i.e. lower energy, more frequent colds
- More frequent bacterial infections and longer recovery times
- Greater likelihood of chronic illness i.e. heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.
- Shorter life spans (in some studies by as much as decades)
- Increased likelihood of depression
- Decreased level of happiness in general
- Less likelihood of employment, career progress and material success
Since social wellness effects every aspect of your life to such a dramatic degree, I would say its pretty important. And the older you get the more important it is particularly because these effects are insidious i.e. you don't realize you are becomming socialy isolated until you are.
Why does this disconnection from others have such an impact?
Clearly for these terrible symptoms to occur we must be engineered in such a way that our survival is dependent upon our connectedness - we are only really a healthy organism when we feel we are a part of a group.
In zoological terms, human beings, like whales, wolves and chimpanzees, are pack animals. The organism is not the ant, it is the ant-hill. It is not the bee, it is the hive. It is not the whale or the wolf or the man or woman, it is the pod, the pack and the tribe; that is the real organism. The individual health, happiness and prosperity of the members are dependent on the strength of the social connections in their respective groups.
The key to understanding the pack/wellness relationship is that pack animals find food and defend themselves as a group. They cannot do it alone and they know it. So when they are socially isolated they feel stress. Chronic stress does devastating damage to the body. 25% of us are under this form of stress. This is a major health problem.
Our way of life since we left the village, has steadily eroded our connections. We live now in a world of cubicles, apartments, ear buds, dark glasses, chat rooms and TV. We are cut off from one another. We are to busy multi-tasking to connect at a deep and personal level - the level that speaks to the part of us that says we are there for each other and we will care for one another. The level that tells us we are safe.
Some individuals are more likely than others to neglect their social health
In addition to the impact of technology, three levels of existence can contribute to an individual finding themselves with a diminished circle of friends – they are the biological, sociological and psychological.
The biological level is your personal DNA. You were born with a certain nature and if you are a shy person you are naturally going to meet and connect to less people.
The sociological level is your culture of origin. If you come from a culture where eye contact is not encouraged, or where “good girls” don’t talk to strangers, you will naturally find it much more difficult to connect socially.
The psychological level is your personal conditioning, the behaviors you have learned over your lifetime. If you have conditioned yourself to spend the majority of your time in activities such as reading or watching TV, you will again naturally connect to fewer people.
But the main reason we neglect our social health is that no one ever told us how important it is!
Think of how many books and other resources there are available regarding dietary issues and exercise? Every medical professional on earth chants the mantra of diet and exercise. How many books and resources are there about mental health? How many doctors, societies, businesses, and government bodies are dedicated to these aspects of our health?
You can go out and go directly to a resource to address you physical or mental health needs. You will be able to easily find a doctor, a book, or a club or a fitness center. But where are you going to go to improve your social health?
Now lets look at the upside.
What are the benefits of social wellness?
Generally increased physical wellness
Less frequent illness and shorter recovery times
Less likelihood of chronic illness i.e. heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.
Longer life spans
Less likelihood of depression
Increased level of happiness in general
Increased likelihood of employment, career progress and material success
Any person would want these benefits. How are we going to get them?
Amazingly, its really quite simple. Developing social wellness is, like physical exercise, largely a matter of knowledge, effort and practice. Social science has shown that relationships are primarily the result of proximity. Certainly there are many other factors determining relationships but the most reliable predictor is proximity, the mere fact of being physically close to another person, of encountering that person on a regular basis.
That is why when we are lonely we seek out a group of some kind to join. We instinctively know the two rules: we must get in close physical proximity to others and we must do so on a regular basis.
The problem with the “find a group and join it” strategy is that the group has an agenda which you must accept in order to be accepted. Since many people find this unacceptable, either to begin with or after a while, this strategy often does not offer a long term solution.
How does Social Circles Canada help?
Social Circles Canada and its members have the same agenda as you do, connecting to others. Its a new kind of health club, in this case instead of providing a gym full of equipment, we provide frequent and varied activities for our members. Members will meet each other on a regular basis. Friendships will develop naturally. It will develop its own culture which will garner its members a sense of belonging. People of similar age or interest will gravitate to each other and we will facilitate that process.
All that is required is the initiating and facilitating of the regular activities. We will develop an educational program I already have outlined to help members connect more easily. I have worked in management and human resources for many years and I want Social Circles Canada to be an organization that values one thing above all – people and relationships.
This point marks the end of my public talk. If you are still with me and want to see how I am living the practice you can visit my socialcircles.ca. website. I facilitate every event you see on the calendar. Also I have the inevitable blog linked from that site. In the blog is lots more information about the stress/isolation connection. My personal website is rbateman.com
As I mentioned earlier in this post, I will return to begin working out how to apply AQAL to the practice of social wellness.
Rick Bateman
Founder
Social Circles Canada - A New Kind Of Health Club
socialcirlces.ca
+48° 25' 43.45", -123° 20' 10.20" (hint: Google Maps)