Dealing With Social Exclusion

Description

Many of us can feel at the "fringe" of society because we have different ideas or lifeways than the mainstream. When this leads to loneliness and feeling excluded, it can become mentally damaging. Here is how to transform your situation and begin to develop and use social networks consciously.

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Music is "The Woods" by Silent Partner.

Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods

Video Transcription

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greetings friends somebody asked us to do a video on social exclusion this this experience that a lot of us feel of being marginalized or outside of our culture and the effects that has how we can turn this around so this is perhaps a bigger thing than we might realize and I think affects all of us to one degree or another wanting to belong or sometimes even making a decision that isn't in alignment with our values but because the whole group is doing it oh well all the girls are going out for a drink after work and even though I said I was gonna cut back on the alcohol I'm trying to lose weight at all and then everybody's going and there's kind of some pressure and so I think in different places in our life this fear is really present even when we might not realize it it's chickens on the ground that you might be hearing so that's that little sound underneath this is important to point out what you said because it's it's not just when we do feel it in our personal lives right I might be trying to quit drinking and then I feel that social pressure to go and drink with my friends and if I don't am I gonna be in that group anymore are they gonna think I'm strange so that gets in the way of our own personal development we also see this working on a huge global scale you know you look at what happened with the whole Nazi thing in Germany all kinds of people following into this and we've seen this in psychological experiments to where just to fit in the group people will do things to each other that are surprisingly brutal

the reason this is happening is that I think you know we all have this this natural desire to be part of a tribe I think about like alone right that survival show and what we're seeing there is an experiment in some element of solitude in which we see that often the toughest thing for people is not it's not food or this or that but it's just being outside of a social context and we get to see it here a tree while the University - for 90% of the people that come here by far the greatest challenge that they face is missing the people that they love missing that group that tribe that they're part of I think an interesting point that you brought up is this tribe sense and I feel that at least in my opinion we maybe don't realize we have that that we truly in I feel like it's in our genetic makeup we are social people we survive because we're a tribe and if you don't belong to a tribe you think about primitive cultures if you were outcasts that came your dad you are done for it worsened right so we will do anything to belong the problem comes in this modern at least Western culture of United States of America and certain other places that are westernized where it is independence individualization above all else so what we have is B be this little I am a rock I am an island pea a shell unto yourself so that you don't need anyone I mean we expected of our kids from the day we were born if your baby sleeps fine by themselves in another room hurry you've got a great citizen there if they are needing more time on your body more time with people they don't want to sleep alone than that's a problem but really even if you look back again to primitive cultures we all live and slept in a very close working community where we supported each other and being alone is extremely unnatural for the human species in my opinions so what we're seeing is this dissonance inside of us where we have this natural tendency to be social creatures yet the message especially in the United States has been one of that rugged individualism you should be able to be totally individual function by yourself and that's really this illusion we're given you know you put somebody out in the woods by themselves for a little while and you quickly find out how individual they really are I think we need to bring social media into this because you know a big part of this is also that today our our tribe right is not just family and friends but it's extended out into this this new around you know in human evolution of social media and we're talking this morning about how this is a very different sort of relationship in other words the way I project myself in social media can be a lot different right people don't have to see one another and you're not face to face or even hearing someone's voice necessarily but because it's just this screen and there is no emotion you can't see how the other person is responding we just do things that are probably out of character for some of us it's you know I've heard someone say that human communication is you know it's like 10% words and you know 90% body language and so you take out that face-to-face interaction and a lot of the the moderate miss removed so in other words I might be expressing my feelings about something and if we're face to face you're gonna see my body language that I have some doubts about it I'm Russ with this in my mind and that might lead to some really interesting conversations have changed both of us but on social media I just can project words and that allows me essentially to become much more extreme and it brings out that extremeness and I think that's a lot of what we're seeing today is this social media we just it's bringing out in some ways sometimes the best but often the worst of our human nature as we try to interact and finding your sense of tribe then it's it's much the same with social media as we've seen historically with with religion with political kind of affiliations where as I go in and I'm trying to become a part of this group I'll almost do anything to belong and that feeling of tribe is so much that even if that group is doing things that really in my heart I don't agree with I may find myself changing my behavior just to fit into the group we need a sense of tribe it is essential to us and there are places on social media that are great places to connect where you can learn where you can share where you can grow there are religious groups there are political groups there are causes out there that are valuable to us however we have to be the discerning ones so the good news is that we can come at the whole tribe sense the whole social connection from the rewilding perspective which is reconnecting with our inner nature where we have the answers and that might require some solitude and a chance to figure out who we really are it might require some courage to say actually this is what I believe in and I'm going to stand up to it but we have inside of us the knowledge of what feels right to us and we have the awareness that we can choose which tribes we want to cultivate for ourselves we can create around us these people in this community that actually supports us and helps us to grow this is the key and it's it's kind of funny I think the solution to this problem is it's all part of a big paradox and the paradox is this that here we live in this culture that celebrates individualism on the surface it says you should be individual but in reality those that system at urging towards individualism is geared in a way that we've all become you've heard that term sheeple right right just following and so message become individual the reality become a follower at all costs do whatever we say so from the rewilding perspective again a paradox we're urging towards community and saying okay we admit the tribe is important community is vital to us but in today's world the paradox is that we need to cultivate some amount of our inner individuality and by that we mean your your inner strength your inner conviction your values that are the priority for your life that you want to live from so as you embark on your journey of self-discovery and creating a strong foundation of integrity of who you are then you start to project out around yourself and the result is that you're going to attract people into your lives that kind of adhere to those those same values right and you're gonna actually maybe start to change the people around you I'm thinking of our friend Ryan in this who totally inspired us not sure if you're watching this Ryan but so Ryan was I'm not gonna go super personal here but he was into some stuff that just was not serving him in a big way and he began to make some changes big difficult changes big difficult changes in fact I believe that he chose to step away from his tribe at the time of his personal social group to say look I need to find my strength inside myself and I'm not getting it right necessarily from the interactions I'm having with all of the way my life is going including the people that are here and he stepped back and started examining what was important to him and the the changes within a year that he created it himself

were amazing just you know physically you look at him you're seeing a different person emotionally mentally incredible changes now it's you know the last we heard from him he was stepping back into his former social circles and what was happening is instead of people shunning him like oh you're not part of the group anymore which I believe anybody yeah I mean are people gonna accept me back but he created a integrity inside of him that other people could feel and he found some of his friends coming up and saying hey how can I make these same changes what did you do share with me help me out so in creating you know by giving that attention to ourselves creating that inner foundation that inner strength then we reach out and we shift and we change and transform the community around us and it doesn't have to be like in Ryan's case it doesn't have to be abandoning the people that you formerly were associating with but it might mean being away from them for a while so you have the space the time to forge yourself to make these changes and then to step back in and people are gonna see when you have that leadership quality when you are living in a way that's integrity that's in tune with yourself we're gonna be attracted to that and it's going to inspire them to do the same thing inside of themselves of course it's also perfectly acceptable to to realize where we have ended up is a long journey that perhaps we weren't maybe we were on autopilot while it was happening

and suddenly and the people around us are not the time that we need anymore and it's also perfectly acceptable to say okay I need to step back maybe I am gonna select some different people maybe I'm gonna reach out to that friend from a long time ago who was really interested in some of the things I now want to do with myself there have been I think a number of great people in the world who have said who you surround yourself with will create and have an effect on who you are and I think it's important to realize that we have within us a certain power to make the choices it's a little bit like what media are you gonna let into your life why are you choosing that media what food are you gonna let into your body and why are you choosing that it's the same with our tribe what tribe are you choosing because that also is part of your overall holistic health and your ability to expand and grow and become even more aligned with your own inner nature so if you want to transform this change it for yourself it's a it's a pretty clear route first looking at what your in your social impact is who you're surrounding yourself with and making some changes there if you need to and and it can be virtual sociality in the sense of maybe it's you know a book by an author who is going to inspire you or watching some videos by somebody that you think of as part of your tribe you know even if you never meet them but also surrounding yourself with like-minded friends you know that are gonna gonna be trying wild-animal gonna jump in and say this just sort of came to me but it almost seems like if I examine my friends within my life they're all role models for me they have something within them that I want to be like and I want to be around them because they inspire me and so they're inspiring role models if you could choose your friends to be inspiring role models then you're creating a great foundation for yourself that's that's important because I you know I've said like-minded a couple of times and that can be a double-edged sword and if you surround yourself like-minded people

the chemistry people that reinforce your current bias yeah so when I'm saying like-minded when I'm really meaning is like-minded in the sense of your that's a new term light hearted people okay so you know looking out those people that inspire you that you you know what I'm talking about here which is that that those people that you look at and you're like this person and bodies what I you know have inside my heart who I know I really am even if I'm not acting that way on the outside bring out the best yeah yeah so the second part of that then is that self work realizing that if you build your own foundation you're gonna be changing the people around you you're gonna be attracting in different people you're gonna be and changing yourself you're actively transforming the social group around you and that spreads right that's where we can make a personal change inside of ourselves it's gonna reach out change the rest of the world because you know even if it's just a tiny tiny tiny little change this stuff adds up I changed myself that changes the friends around me the changes in them that's gonna reach out into the air it spreads so I have one more thing that I want to bring up what if I feel that I'm an introverted person mm-hmm and I'm scared of social interactions I don't have many friends or any friends that I feel like I perhaps I'm really and meshed in social media because that to me it's it's a pseudo tribe but at least it's there how can I create some friends how can I make some choices that bring me into a place where I am surrounded by that that that's so important because there's so many people marginalized right now and just like put into the little dumb piles it might be your sexual preferences or it might be your religious views or or it might be the way you look whatever it is a lot of us especially if we have that introverted quality I mean that's me actually interesting - that can just put us into this little box where we feel all alone so for those people what can we do I think the first thing that's helpful to realize is that you actually aren't alone there has got to be at least one other person who is experiencing the same thing as you and in fact probably a lot of people who are feeling the same feelings of alienation or whatever it might be and to know that out there in the world are people that have a similar sense as you do and they're feeling not so alone you can begin to make steps you've got to be careful in this and I'm just gonna bring this up because we're seeing you know groups of people that do feel marginalized and you go and you become part of a medium your social media group that is a similar mindset and then you can start to all just get angry together like hatred and anger and so so yes connecting with those other people that might be feeling marginalized but doing it with that that's where that self work first is really important doing it with that sense of integrity I'm not gonna go join this group just so I have a sense of tribe that's what gets us into trouble you're gonna go join this group and I'm going to change it from within I'm realizing that that group is there because there's other people feeling the same as me they're feeling shut out and I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna be a voice for connection for deeper connection because here's a little secret

everybody's almost everybody's always gonna say almost almost everybody out there just feeling pretty darn insecure almost everybody out there is feeling marginalized in some way and a lot of the people that you see that are the most confident looking and they're well dressed in they're just talking and these are walls you know these are masks that we humans wear in order to not show that fearful thing inside of us so if you are feeling marginalized or put out in a way you're in very good company because you're in the company of all the rest of us who are feeling like we can't let our true selves out without being judged so then we put on some kind of mask you no matter how downtrodden you been you can shift your inside you can make changes I mean we get to see this happen with people where they just you know might be you somebody that just is so down and out and yet when they say okay I am going to find my foundation I'm gonna find my integrity when they do that they themselves shift the people around them and they might go and even become part of a group that is starting to go in the direction of hate and they'll start to be a voice to change that even if they get booted out of that group because of that they've made a little impact that made a little change and over time hopefully that's gonna make some real transformations if you feel that you're alone now you don't have many friends and one hand you could consider yourself from one perspective lucky because you don't have a negative social group that you now have to somehow distance yourself from you can think of yourself as forging yourself anew and starting to select some people you want to get to know better

based on their qualities based on good things we talked about and you can begin a new and fresh you simply have to pluck up your courage a bit and make some conversations about things that are interesting to you and and notice mm that person doesn't make me feel great don't need to engage with them anymore this person was really fun maybe I'll invite them out for a cup of coffee we can talk about that more and so if you think that hey Here I am and I'm just fresh being able to begin this new tribe for myself then you are at this wonderful place where you're going forward and you don't have to worry about baggage from the past so that's one thing the second thing is we talking about groups out there where people feel marginalized put down if that's not your calling go and volunteer I cannot tell you how grateful that people can be that you're there to help them out with something whatever it may be and again it could be a volunteer organization that you believe in and you think oh my gosh yeah you know pick a nature-based one I really want to go out and I want to help them or you could pick something humanitarian or it could be your own volunteering to a neighbor to a friend it could be anonymous but once you start doing that and you start participating in those groups of people you start finding people who are like-minded in that sense or heart minded heart minded maybe that should be anyway like hearted whatever you start to find people that can then become part of your tribe who also

to give to the world who are also looking outside in themselves and what a great place to start forming friendships and support know what a great way to get your feet wet into becoming more social because it can be anonymous so if I'm really scared of social interaction I can go out I can do good I know I'm changing people's lives I don't even have to step into the spotlight at first if I don't want to share your methods of connecting with others

have you felt marginalized or if you felt excluded socially and how have you changed that while sharing your wisdom your experiences in the comments you're gonna help others and start this ball rolling it's a big topic a big topic and we're only touching the top of it so please share and become a part of it

thank you for watching talk with you soon

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