Contents of Article
- 1 Why we seek to know the knowing of the known: The quest to understand Self and Other
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Why we seek to know the knowing of the known: The quest to understand Self and Other
What is it within us that drives us to know, to understand, to unfold the why and the how of our Self, of Others, and of the World around us?
It almost seems a paradoxically redundant question, for we are, by human nature, inquisitive beings. One might think of a young child stepping out into the World with open eyes and an unrelenting curiosity, seeking the why and the how of the natural World.Yet, though we are inherently curious, the questions we ask as adults often rest not in the natural World itself but in the why and the how of Other beings and their doings. Perhaps it is the why and the how of human action that perplex us most of all.
These are the questions that scream, swirl, and linger. They touch our souls with an almost unbearable intensity. They carry pain and turmoil: the why and the how of the atrocities caused by the cruellest among us. They disorient. They disquiet. And, quite often, no answer ever truly satisfies.
What if the answers we seek lie not in the answers themselves, but in the very motivation to know? What if what we long for resides within the drive to know the knowing of the known?
It is this motivation, this deep current of drive, that we explore here in the hope of offering clarity amidst the confusion and inner turmoil of why and how.
This clarity unfolds through the physiological, psychological, and relational characteristics of body and mind as they mediate the phenomenological experience of being. These characteristics emerge through the interaction of:
- the embodied, affective, and neuroceptive energy and information arising within the primary processes of the body and midbrain
- the receptive, relational, and regulatory energy and information arising within the secondary processes of the midbrain and right hemisphere
- the discerning, semantic, and sense-making energy and information arising within the tertiary processes of the interplay between the right and left hemispheres
More simply, clarity emerges through understanding the sensory, perceptive, and interpretive motivations behind the uniquely human nature of seeking to understand why and how we do what we do.
The sensory and motivational elements of our drive for why
From a neurobiological standpoint, our capacity to seek and sense safety is vital for surviving and thriving. Such seeking and sensing can be seen as an embodied, affective, and neuroceptive flow emerging within the primary processes of the body and midbrain. This flow of energy and information is deeply tied to curiosity and to the satisfied sense of mastery that comes with learning and the felt experience of embodied knowing. More crucially, this knowing serves, at a sensory level, our essential human need to predict and to protect Self and Other.
Beneath perceptive awareness, our sensory systems continuously take in the World. All senses, internal and external, scan for safety, danger, and life-threat cues. While the environment shapes much of this scanning, it is primarily through the evaluation of Others that subtle changes prompt the first sparks of awareness and arousal. We attune to movement and intention. We detect facial expressions, tones, vocalisations, postures, and micro-movements — all contributing to an appraisal of trustworthiness.
Within our neuroceptive systems of protective predictive processing, a feedback loop monitors, mediates, and modifies interoceptive shifts in emotion regulation and visceral homeostasis. These shifts are motivational. They involve the arousal or inhibition of autonomic states in preparation for defensive actions of approach or avoidance. Shaped by past learning and informed by the moment-to-moment sense of Self, Other, and World, these shifts prime us for action. They are governed by a threat-biased propensity, an adaptive mechanism that enables rapid processing of potential harms.
Yet these neuroceptive and interoceptive propensities are about more than anticipating threat. Understanding the why and the how of Self, Other, and World — even at a sensory level — enables us to preserve proximity to those who offer protection and the resources necessary for survival.
In the context of seeking and sensing what is vital for surviving and thriving, it is our physiological, psychological, and relational curiosity that propels us toward cultivating an embodied knowing and a felt sense of security within and between Self, Other, and World.
The perceptive and connective elements of our drive for why
Aligned with our capacity to seek and sense what is vital for survival is our capacity to receive and perceive such relationally. Neurobiologically, as social beings, we hold a natural proclivity toward maintaining connection. As the flow of energy and information rises through the midbrain toward the right hemisphere, secondary processes mediate and shape implicit relational internal working models. These models crave coherence and predictability. They long for stability, which correlates with the affective and neuroceptive elements of felt safety.
As interdependent beings, understanding Self and Other facilitates the pursuit and preservation, at a perceptive level, of the relational proximity needed for protection and prosperity. Yet our capacity to create coherence through internal working models paradoxically does so by filtering our hopes, fears, and unresolved yearnings through past relational dynamics. Our perceptions, while emerging from present-moment affective and neuroceptive sensing, are often distilled through past experiences and expectations. Though frequently inaccurate, this filtering allows us to navigate separation and maintain connection. We assess and test cues of safety. We adjust arousal toward approach or avoidance. We regulate, to some degree, in relation to the availability of the Other.
This is a relationally organised form of protective predictive processing. In conjunction with sensory elements, it enables us to monitor, moderate, and modify patterns and intensity of energy and information within and between Self and Other. Understanding the why and the how of Self, Other, and World, even at this implicit level, organises the sensory flows of energy and information, orientating and connecting us in both distress and delight.
In the context of perceiving what is vital for surviving and thriving, it is these physiological, psychological, and relational internal working models that propel us toward cultivating a lived phenomenological experience within and between Self, Other, and World.
The interpretive and conceptive elements of our drive for why
As with our capacity to seek and sense, and to receive and perceive, so too is our capacity to interpret and integrate sensory and perceptive energy and information into narrative constructs. From a neurobiological perspective, as meaning-making beings, our interpretations may be seen as a semiotic (signs and symbols) and semantic (logic and language) form of communication. As energy and information flow from body to midbrain, from midbrain to right hemisphere, they then move into the left hemisphere, where tertiary processes conceive semiotic and semantic meaning. These higher-level processes, in collaboration with primary and secondary processes, allow us to create embodied relational meaning through logic and language.
This capacity for meaning-making, coupled with innate curiosity, satisfies our need for coherence. Coherence brings a sense of safety through predictability and stability. Understanding Self, Other, and World affords us, at an interpretive level, a sense of past-to-present-to-future belonging through communicative meaning-making.
This felt sense of relational belonging increases our capacity to survive and thrive through cohesive discernment. As cortical systems integrate sensory and perceptive flows of energy and information, we create a narrative — an image of Self-in-relation-to-Other and Self-in-relation-to-World. This narrative, conceived to keep us connected and protected, paradoxically also allows us a sense of autonomy and control, though it can create subjective variations of reality.
This too is protective predictive processing. It enables us to sift, sort, and select patterns of sensory and perceptive energy and information logically and linearly. Understanding the why and the how of Self, Other, and World, especially at this explicit level, allows us to “figure it out” in ways that maintain cohesion and protection. Such interpretations may include the internalisation of self-blame that shields an Other’s harmful actions, self-criticism that keeps us aligned with the expectations of Others and World, or the justification of distance or harmony-restoring choices. Each interpretation, even if only subjectively accurate, sustains a sense of Self with coherence.
In the context of interpreting and integrating what is vital for surviving and thriving, it is the physiological, psychological, and relational conceptions we create that cultivate a secure sense of what is known — the capacity to discern and name, with rigour, what exists within and between Self, Other, and World.
The Quiet Pulse of Why
To seek the why and the how of our Self, Others, and the World is not an acquisition of thought; no, it is a rhythm of our very being. It is the pulse of survival and the quiet hum of belonging. From the first stirrings of sensory curiosity — that same curiosity once alive in the wide eyes of a child — to the delicate flow of perceptive connection, and finally to the layered interpretations that gift us narrative coherence, this seeking is not separate from life itself. It is life, moving in its ever-emergent essence.
At its core, this drive is protective. It keeps us near those who can hold us, safe enough, secure enough to thrive. It is connective, drawing us to meaning, pulling us toward the felt sense of being known, by Others, and by our Self. And it is, perhaps most profoundly, creative, shaping the stories we live by, the stories that let us gather past, present, and future into a single breath of coherence.
And though we may never fully answer the deepest questions that swirl and press upon us, the questions that linger, that disorientate, that disquiet, though we may never fully satisfy the seeking that lingers deep within us: it is essentiality in the seeking itself that most matters. In the very act of asking, in the embodied sensing, the relational perceiving, and in the meaning-making of interpretation, we are already doing what we are inherently designed to do…
We are not only seeking to survive,
We are seeking too truly live.
To live in connection,
To live with protection,
To truly belong.
And to authentically keep becoming through the drive to know knowing of the known.
Welcome, my name is Chele, I am a therapist primarily specialising in Trauma – specifically as it presents as Burnout and Breakdown. As a psychotherapist & PACFA & CCAA Clinical Counsellor I work individually with beautiful humans such as yourself who feel alone, lost, confused, & overwhelmed; those of you who are longing for something different.
As such, I offer my knowledge, skills, and inherent gifts with ears that listen to hear, and a heart open to receive who you are, no matter the suffering you bring; to support you in an exploration of how your past has impacted you and the ways that shows up presently. Together we will rediscover your hope and your sense of Self; we will reconnect you to what matters reclaiming the joy and delight in life you so deserve.
I welcome you to view my services or connect with me to explore how I can assist you in your journey.
