The world is feeling very uncertain. The order that has more or less lasted since the 2nd world war feels under siege. Along with political unrest there are the obvious changes to our climate that are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Permanency has never been guaranteed but a familiar future was something expected by most of us.

Where we will end up and what life will look like for us here in Australia – no-one knows.

I’ve just finished reading A Letter to Layla by Ramona Koval. I really enjoyed this book for many reasons. Dispersed throughout the text are engaging interactions with her granddaughter Layla which carry the seriousness of the subject matter with a playful lightness. Ramona does a broad sweep of the history of the evolution of Homo Sapiens and a glimpse at possible futures.

Oddly it felt mildly comforting to read that the humans of today may evolve into a very different being in the future. For me, the often made comments hypothesising about brain changes as a result of our relationship to technology didn’t feel as alarming as they had before I read A Letter to Layla. I’m not really sure why, I think it might have to do with the resilience of ‘the Homo’ in all its evolving forms.

Part of her research was tracking this evolutionary process and noting the significance of when we started to be able to care for each other, possibly alongside developing a relationship with dogs. When did we learn to love and care for others. This took me right back to the work of Humberto Maturana and his work around what it means to be human; as mammals we are love dependent. We have young who are completely dependent on the care of another. When this is done well enough, like other mammals we play. For young mammals a lot of this play is relational and mimics skills required for adult life.

Unique to Homo Sapiens when we are loved enough, in terms of being accepted as a valid other, our play enables the development of abstract thinking and embedded within this are problem solving abilities.

Part of what Ramona does throughout A Letter to Layla is track where our curiosity and problem solving abilities takes us. We are a curious animal and a problem solving animal. The question in my mind is how can we hold onto and trust that as a species we will mostly move in a direction which is underpinned by love and not hate? I’m not talking about romantic love, I’m talking about the kind of love that enables an ability to still have a relationship with people who disagree with you. To be able to say “I don’t agree” and not be considered an enemy – is an act of love. That ability to agree to disagree and hold onto curiosity about the difference. Now this is great in theory but when emotions are escalated and cortisol starts surging it’s not always so easy to achieve.

Always hold in mind that trauma creates a thinking disability. Even a minor distressing event can create the inability to think and act as one might in calmer circumstances.

People who have experienced long term traumatic events, especially as children, have not received the biologically essential love – and so do in effect end up with a ‘thinking disability’ and often lose trust in their ability to judge and make decisions and/or become dogmatic bullies.

With this in mind it feels important for all of us, but particularly those of us in caring roles, to find ways to soothe our own panic. Only then can we help our clients, friends and family to trust their ability to adapt to whatever the future holds and develop faith in their curiosity and problem solving abilities.

Clarity around where your power lies and not wasting energy on things we can’t change is also important. How to keep our eyes on sources of love, no matter how small is the current challenge for us all. Not to be naively minimising bad behaviour which inadvertently supports hate, just taking time to feel what warms your heart: a beautiful tree, or sunset or being with loved ones. Sounds easy but sadly are incredibly difficult to do.

A conversation with my own 10 year old grand daughter over Easter on a beautiful autumn day – whilst happily playing in the sand, she said: “I’m frightened there is going to be another world war.” My response: ” I am too, none of us know, but at the moment we can enjoy being on the beach.” Which we did…