Different But The Same

In this week's episode of Quintessentially Mental: The Podcast, SureEyes sits down with Nicola Cooper to talk surviving trauma.

Transcript

SureEyes: [00:00:00] you're listening to quintessentially mental a podcast hosted by SureEyes, please note that this host is not a mental health practitioner or professional, and this podcast is not made for treatment of any mental illness. Hey, y'all this is quintessentially mental and I'm your host sureEyes. Today's episode is titled different, but the same.

[00:00:31] Inspired by my reflection on the, my many travels. Um, I've been fortunate enough to travel the globe extensively. There there's maybe one or two continents I haven't had the good fortune to be able to visit, but I've, I've traveled to at least 50 plus cities, um, around the. And one thing I've noticed and during all of my travels is that despite all of our differences, as people, despite, you know, our, um, culture, language, uh, aesthetic, climate, uh, interests, etcetera, you know, despite all of the differences that we might have, um, as, as individual.

[00:01:26] Fundamentally, we have a very shared, human experience and human need. We all, what I find, you know, having, having traveled and met people from different parts of the world, what I've noticed is we all have a very acute sense of wanting to belong, wanting to be loved. Um, A friend of mine always used to say, look, we all just want to eat, drink dance, have sex and be happy.

[00:02:00] Um, you know, and while those, those things might not be, be the same. I think it illustrates the point that as human beings we fundamentally have, um, you know, Shared experience where we can connect on, on things deeper than just, you know, the surface level. And so, and so what I want to uncover really during this episode is how.

[00:02:29] We connect as human beings. How do we connect, um, you know, using tools, especially in our current climate or rather in the COVID climate, you know, how do we use things like social media to connect? You know, the there's quite a few social media, mental health, um, accounts where positive messages are spread, where people are able to engage in conversation around mental health and mental wellbeing.

[00:03:05] And my question is, you know, does this make us feel more connected? Um, do we then feel like we have a shared experience? Do we feel less alone? Do we feel more supported? Um, I know that, you know, one of the, one of the core traits of human beings is that we are social beings. Um, growing up, my mom would always say to me, no, man is an island.

[00:03:33] Um, obviously in my child's mind, I was like, obviously we're not a piece of land surrounded by water, but as I. As I grew up and I understood the, um, you know, the, the meaning behind it, the fact that we weren't meant to be alone, we weren't mean to, um, navigate this world alone. That we, we do lean on other human beings for connection, for support.

[00:04:05] Similarly, I met a designer years ago in my, in my previous life. When I worked for design Indaba, I'm not, she's either a designer or kind of trained analysis at, um, analyst. And she mentioned, you know, she, she, she curated an exhibition with. It was called talking textiles. And through this narrative, she, she kind of pointed out that throughout our social media experience throughout our, our world becoming more virtual, becoming more technologically advanced, we were actually losing touch with what it means to be human, what it means to, um, You know, actually feel emotionally connected, um, being able to communicate with people verbally.

[00:05:01] Um, in-person non-verbally um, I think there's the, the stat that says that, you know, our, our nonverbal communication makes up 70% about total communication. And so this idea of the need to...