Are we promoting healthful adaptation or stress-induced conformity?

Why is it cliche to say, "The more things change, the more they stay the same?"

Because whatever change we as humans deal with, the human brain remains the same.

That's why I created my Hippo Critters characters, to help explain the complex human brain in a simple (and humorous) way...

Hippo is our conscious prefrontal cortex

Hippo represents our conscious high-functioning PREFRONTAL CORTEX that powers comprehension, critical thinking, compassion, creativity, impulse control, and emotional regulation. What we often fail to realize is that this part of the brain isn't fully developed until around the age of 25 (years after our adolescent brains start to think we know it all as we begin to comprehend the complexities of life). While it's important to challenge and exercise those healthful neuropathways as the brain develops, it's also important to challenge and exercise in healthful ways, with realistic expectations, recognizing that different brains also develop in different ways.

Bird is our unconscious amygdala

Bird represents our unconscious emotion-driven AMYGDALA that fuels our stress response. The amygdala is fully developed at birth to ensure our survival, and therefore receives neurological signals FIRST and FASTER, which is why it takes energy away from the prefrontal cortex when triggered to activate our sympathetic nervous system.

Easier said (consciously) than done (unconsciously)...

This is why it's SO EASY to say we should include and accept people different than us (whether in appearance, in thought, in belief, in feelings, or in behavior) when we don't feel stressed or threatened.

Yet SO HARD when those who appear, think, believe, feel, or behave differently than us trigger our unconscious stress response and inhibit our higher functioning consciously thoughtful mind.

This is where diversity, equity, and inclusion practices often go off the rails, when we focus more on forcing people to conform to a certain way of thinking, feeling, or behaving, and focus more on making people uncomfortable (i.e., stressed) than addressing and teaching how to navigate our unconscious stress response. This might be more difficult for some than others, especially depending on the neurological state and stage of their brain, that is not something to shame (that contributes to STIGMA) but something to understand, care for, and embrace as diverse human beings trying to navigate this stressed-out complex world.

Without this awareness and understanding, we are destined to repeat and reinforce the same old unhealthful habits and unconscious pattern (which is why it can feel like we're going BACKWARD and caught in a toxic cycle).

It's time to promote and practice mental fitness

This is why understanding brain health, mental function, neurodiversity, and mental fitness practices are ESSENTIAL to healthfully and effectively embrace, promote, and achieve diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, safety, and belonging to empower every person to feel and do THEIR best, whatever their "best" might be---to promote health by reducing stress.

(Follow Hippo Critters on Instagram for more functional awareness comics.)