What does it mean to be human?

The beautiful intricate creatures that we are. So simple and so complex… The sum total of evolution bringing us to be who we are today. Whilst on a personal scale created through the sum total of our experience and through genetics. If we break ourselves down we can divide ourselves into our physical body, our mental body, our emotional body, and our spiritual body.

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The physical body, apparent to the eye and touch: Musculoskeletal system, nervous system, blood, skin, hair., etc. Perhaps it’s what gives this sense of identity separate to everything else. Allowing us  to physically move through space; the vessel which allows us to creatively express ourselves. A tool through which we can manifest our thoughts and dreams into this physical reality. This sense of separate identity is what gives this sense of I (and though there is much ego bashing going on in this spiritual reality, the ego has its purpose) its what keeps the accumulation of all our experiences united, what gives shape to a unique expression of Being, unique ideas, unique thoughts, unique creations. Adding to the variety of this beautiful life. Creating more and more possibilities for the evolution of life and consciousness as a whole.

The mental body: the domain of the mind where thoughts reside. The rational, the analytical, the problem solver, the hypothesizer, the fantasizer. The mind is probably another part of our BEingness that gets a bad rep from time to time. And yes if we are only living from the mind we can become unbalanced, yet if we can bring it into balance with the heart, so that it doesn’t take over and take the lead, and instead harness it we can bring it to good use. So what is the role of the mind? We can rationally recall and analyse our experiences.. and from this deduct what is efficient, what’s not, what works for us, and what doesn’t; and thus grow, evolve, and learn to live to the best of our ability. We can relive stories over and over in our head so as to traumatize ourselves (total waste of energy and time, yet we do it over and over again). We can plan and speculate about the inifinite possibilities of things that can happen in the future (can be useful to some extent, but only so far). Or we can use it  to come up with creative solutions to problems we are trying to solve, or even in the creation of art.
 
And then comes the emotional body. Sometimes we supress it while others we allow it to flow liberally and freely. We are capable of experiencing such an array of emotions: sadness, joy, fear, excitement, happiness, desperation,.. And that is one of the delights of being human, this capacity to feel.. Yet it seems often, perhaps through cultural upbringing or through negative experiences we learn to suppress our emotions, and that’s where blockages are created. This resistance to whatever it is we’re feeling is what causes us to not enjoy our emotions, what causes sadness and anguish to be a burden and stands in the way of us fully experiencing and expressing our happiness and joy. For when we allow ourselves to simply feel emotions are fluid they come and they go like the tides of the ocean. However when we resist this natural fluidity emotions stagnate and remain for longer than they need.
 
And finally the spiritual body, this sense of belonging, of being part of something greater than the individual self; be it family, a community, friends, the planet as whole, or the universe. This sense of having a purpose, this sense of being more than an isolated individual. That inspires us to grow and evolve and to become the fullest expression of our beingness. This is an element that contributes to the joie de vivre, an excitement for being alive. For when we don’t feel this when we feel disconnected and isolated, that’s where depression comes along right? And then of course none of the body’s exists independently of each other, in fact it can be counterproductive to view them as separate for each one affects the other. When were stressed we might get sick, when we feel disconnected form the world we become emotionally depressed, when we seriously injure ourselves we might become sad.. and so on..
 
So these are but a few of what makes up a human being.. and then each human being, what makes us each unique and individual is the sum total of evolution, our ancestry that came before us, and the sum total of our own personal experience in this life time. Which makes us who we are today..
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So yes, we are all each unique indivual expressions of humanity, yet at the end of the day, in essence we are all the same, we all come from the same place, we are all brothers and sisters in this life. So if we can remember this, to communicate from the heart, from one human Being to another. Drop the barriers we uphold to protect ourselves we can further accelerate this growth, this evolution. For when we come together, combine our unique traits we can create so much more and so much variety than that which any of us could accomplish on our own.