BALANCING THE ANIMAL
AND SPIRITUAL
by Dr. Daniel A. Bochner
We are animals!!! Well, I don’t believe that’s completely true. But
it is the fact that we are animals, who are also spiritual beings, that I
believe makes psychology an interesting subject. I will not go too far into
the spiritual aspect of things, but instead, let’s look at our nature as human
beings from a point of view that attempts to understand that we are in
balance between self and community. By “community” I mean everyone
(our family members, our neighbors, our fellow citizens) who is not you.
Although I will not talk about spiritual matters here, generally speaking our
spiritual nature is expressed most clearly through the way we commune
with others. We commune with others more or less adequately or
fulfillingly based on our ability to balance our animal nature with our
spiritual nature.
Human beings have three equally important motivators that are akin
to animal needs. We have a need for self-protection that, in its extremes,
makes us either aggressive or fearful. We have a need for sustenance
that, in its extremes, we experience as either a starved feeling or a
voracious, consumptive feeling. And we have a need for relatedness that,
in its extremes, we experience as either loneliness or a sort of
fragmentation of responsibility (for the needs of others). The more
unbalanced these needs of the self, the more uncomfortable they are, and
thus the more motivating they are.
When we experience any of these extremes, we are very likely to
overcompensate by behaving in the opposite direction. The very
frightened often become very dangerous. The very hungry often become
rapaciously voracious. The overly responsible often avoid others so as to
avoid more responsbility. When we are out of balance within ourselves,
we make use of our relational environment in a desperate way to bring
ourselves back into balance. That desperation results in so much pain and
sorrow as we hurt the ones we love, either by hurting ourselves (anything
from not treating ourselves well to actual self-injury) or directly violating
our relationships with them in some way (being mean or taking advantage,
etc...).
As you might have started to notice, the animal needs of self-
protection and sustenance have emotional and relational aspects. We
experience our emotions in a way that is quite similar to actual animal
drives. In fact, long after we can be confident that we are physically safe
and have enough food, we continue to fear the judgment or loss of others,
and we continue to become angry about the loss or judgment of others.
We also continue to pine away for others and make many mistakes in our
own judgment based on the experience of extreme hunger for others.
In fact, only when we are able to balance the relational and
emotional aspects of our animal nature can we start to balance our
loneliness and responsibility fragmentation through relatedness. That is,
we sometimes try to hold down our unbalanced animal nature by taking
too much responsibility for others due to guilt about the harmful nature of
those animal tendencies. We also sometimes avoid that unbalanced
animal nature by remaining distant from others so they won’t know that it
exists (due to shame about its harmful nature).
But when we balance our animal needs through relational contacts,
when we communicate our needs, weaknesses, and hurts to others, and
demonstrate our willingness to help them and accept their needs,
weaknesses, and hurts, we then become able to balance our loneliness
with responsibility and vice versa. When we are balanced in our relational
contacts, with our community, our spiritual nature starts to flow in a give
and take with our community and the world.
It is also important to understand how we can help to develop these
tendencies in ourselves and others. By treating yourself in a kind way, by
recognizing your animal tendencies and allowing them to be acceptable,
you will start to accept yourself. You do not have to act on your animal
tendencies, but denying them makes it more likely that you will act on
them in uncontrolled ways that are more shameful to you than mere
thoughts. If you accept yourself, then you are more likely to accept
others, which helps them become accepting, balanced people themselves.
By expressing your own needs, weaknesses, and desires, you also keep
those near you in check, since those who love you will take the
responsibility they should take when they hurt you or have something you
need.
When you stop to think about it, our communal nature is actually
part of our animal nature. Once upon a time, and I believe it is still this
way, our connection to each other was as important for survival as self-
protection or sustenance. In fact, self-protection and sustenance were
much more likely in a group setting, which is the darwinistic reason for
our developing such heightened awareness of responsibility and a need for
others. When we accept and understand our animal tendencies, including
our biological need for connectedness, we become one with our
communities.
We are always alone and always with others at the same time, but
our community always includes us as one of its parts. By expresssing our
true nature through communication of our emotions we take our place in
our community in a healthy, animal/spiritual balance, and we have a
healthy influence on all that surround us.