The Mud on the Wall – From Survival Memory to Emotional Intelligence
- Brainz Magazine
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Written by Gemma Gains, Director
Gemma Gains is a Space Holder and Facilitator in the world of healing and transformation. She specializes in the subtleties of reading and harnessing energy.
From flickering cave walls to modern boardrooms, humanity has always navigated threat, survival, and belonging. This article reflects on what ancient images reveal about our nervous systems today, and why emotional intelligence and community may be the missing link in how we lead, live, and endure.
The cave wall
Imagine, if you will, a flame-lit cave, the flickers of light unveiling a dynamic image of two- and four-legged creatures dancing together. The light playing over the image lets your eyes believe that the picture is moving. The earthy tones of the image feel safe and warm. There is a child-like wonder crossing your face as you disappear into the picture.
A moment in time, recorded on stone for lifetimes. A moment that, as modern man, we view through the lens of fear, danger, and survival.
From cave walls to nervous systems
Through our perceived safety, I feel it is impossible to look at images made thousands of years ago and be sure of what was communicated. We are the farthest away from nature and our true humanness that we have ever been.
There is a pretty heavy storyline that fear once kept us alive, and now it keeps us small. I believe, from my own personal battles with morality, that we could benefit from a rewrite.
As humans, we are wired for threat detection, but the four-legged creatures are extinct, behind bars, or hiding from us in the evaporating wildernesses.
Survival mode is efficient, until it isn’t
Survival priorities are speed, protection, and reactivity. This saves lives in crisis. When we orient ourselves from this state, it is harmful to relationships and status and costs us time and money.
You can use an enormous amount of energy when you are fighting for your life. This is not conducive to long-term living. Survival, when efficient, is quick, intense, and then over.
When the perceived threat is out of sight, but the body senses it, this keeps us in a heightened state with no end. Relationships collapse. Businesses burn out, and leaders cannot sustain.
Emotional intelligence equals capacity, not “soft skills”
I was told recently that the only information people will spend money on to learn is that which would save them time, money, lower risk, and give them status.
A tsunami of strategy content seems to have flowed into our current reality, dealing with all the problems and issues we have as humans. The perceived threats. Promoting productivity, terrified that we may spend some time creating something.
I work with people from all different backgrounds, classes, and sectors, and the reality of their conundrum is always the same, they lack emotional intelligence. EI is completely overlooked in our society because it cannot be measured or quantified.
EI is not niceness. Capacity leads to long-term thinking and better decisions. Pigeon-holed as being “airy-fairy” and pointless, EI is put on the back seat for strategy, statistics, and measurable outcomes.
We are all leaders. Team players. Wanting the best for ourselves and our communities, whether at work, rest, or play. But how can you lead what you don’t understand?
Artificial intelligence vs lived intelligence
We are all using AI to some degree, time-saving, staff cost-saving, and outsourcing tasks to tech. So much information at our fingertips, a source to bounce ideas around and calculate in seconds what would take our brains a while.
Making people and their agency obsolete. People don’t feel important, necessary, or engaged. Getting the most out of people has nothing to do with statistics and everything to do with loyalty, trust, reciprocity, and understanding. Intimacy and belonging.
We are in an age of breathtaking possibility. The knowledge we have access to is vast, through time and space. But our morality seems more at risk than ever.
When life starts “life-ing”
Humanity has never followed the plan. It can’t by its very nature. Systems fail, illness happens, we can strategise, but the possibilities cannot all be eventualised. Planning for a future that has not happened yet, from low capacity, lacks abundance.
Our internal capacity is the thing that holds when plans break. A leader who can stay consistent in the face of crisis will be the one people trust. As a parent, we plan, but what our children will learn from us is how we handle things when they fall apart. Our colleagues, staff, and customers are all our children, looking to us to captain the rough seas.
Authority is not given trust without humanity. It does not matter whether you are building a home, a company, or a brand. Having trust in your ability to withstand complex emotional storms is your fail-safe.
The cost of disconnection
Unfortunately, most modern societies are built on control, dominance, competition, and possession, which erodes community. An “us and them” attitude causes further separation.
Often, there is no one to call if things go wrong, and we are taught that asking for support is weak. That having problems is due to fault and blame. The options when things do go wrong have also been designed and created from this same fear.
In my own experience of approaching services available in our society for help, I now understand why so many never seek out support. Overloaded with policy and procedure, with little to no compassion or dignity, you are left “outcast” from the tribe in modern terms.
Return to the cave painting, the forgotten detail
The painting in the cave didn’t show a lone hero, a single creature out in life on its own. It clearly depicts the tribe. Whether they were dancing, running, or hunting, they were moving together. In coordination.
With a shared vision, shared meaning, and a shared experience. So important that it lasted for thousands of years.
The threat that we face in modern days is not illusory. It is very much present. Where is the tribe? Survival was never individual. It was communal.
Community as the original wealth
Before money, wealth, and success were measured in trust, cooperation, and shared protection. Our competitive society keeps us in a scarcity mindset, squabbling for visibility, market shares, followers, offers, opportunities, and resources.
Our key performance indicators need to have different headings, repeat customers, loyal teams, resilient families, and supportive communities. Emotional intelligence is strategic to legacy building, not just for individuals but for society.
Creation vs opposition
I have personally seen so many businesses and movements fail because of the orientation of their leadership. Fighting, reacting, or separating from something. Fear-based thinking has a short-term life plan. No one can sustain in survival mode.
For example. When disciplining children, you can shout and tell them off in the moment. It will stop them maybe once, but it teaches them nothing, and the likelihood of it happening again is high.
Threatening, dominating, or controlling anyone is not a long-term strategy. Meeting them on their level and figuring out what they need will settle the “problem” for a lifetime.
Not only are you teaching in the moment, but you are also creating a legacy with your child, giving them a skill to carry into their life. This is a skill to train through staff and communities.
Learning how to live
We have learned how to live in perpetual survival mode. When we look at the world around us, whether in the cave, at images left to us by creatures we no longer are, or by the modern cellular society we have created, we see fear.
Let this article be a stark reminder that the thing that sets us apart from the creatures we share the earth with is our capacity to understand it.
No one taught us how to exist in a world without four-legged creatures to dance with. Our humanity is failing us without the creatures we used to run with. Full of energy, we lived in symbiosis with our fellow nature. What if we didn’t fear the creatures at all? We are animals too.
Now stuck in hunt mode, braced for threat, hungry for sustenance, and longing for the fires of community to burn again.
I know in my bones when I have been my happiest, most contented self. I see the image so clearly. Gazing across fires, surrounded by humans, eating, laughing, talking, singing, and dancing. Looking into eyes while we tell stories and debate life and all its musings.
Do you?
Read more from Gemma Gains
Gemma Gains, Director
Gemma is a space holder, guiding you as a compassionate, protective, and dedicated shepherd through the subtle energies of your field. With patience and wisdom, Gemma uses her intuitive card readings, deep conversation, and body work to help release blockages and heal generational traumas, realigning your energetic flow. Drawing on principles of quantum physics, Gemma can help you understand how your inner world reflects your relationships with yourself, others, and the Earth. As your unwavering guide, Gemma is dedicated to supporting you in returning to a "right" relationship with yourself, while leaving you with full autonomy over your healing journey. Her intention is to empower you to reconnect with your true self and cultivate harmony within your body, energy, and the world around you.
