Human nature is spiritual.1 When fully mature, human beings are driven to reduce suffering and increase healing for ourselves, other people, other living creatures, and the earth. This true nature naturally arises from the integrated human brain.
So why have philosophers, religions, and popular culture so often concluded that human nature is bad or evil? Because they have based their assessments on adults living from their immature minds.
The quadrune mind model, developed by Tom F. Shadid, Ph.D. and Kerri Shadid, states that at any given moment, adult human beings may be behaving, feeling, thinking, or living from one of four minds: the infantile mind, the childish mind, the adolescent mind, or the Grownup mind.
Although the traits of our three immature minds2 are developmentally appropriate in infants, children, and adolescents as part of the human developmental process, they represent an immature level of consciousness in adults. As such, behaviors, emotions, and thoughts that arise from these minds are not indicative of our true nature as human beings. Only the Grownup mind can integrate all four minds, turning them into a holistic four-minds-in-one, and use all the capabilities of our human brain and being to express our true spiritual nature.
Unfortunately, afflictions, which are all too common, can interrupt this integration. Some afflictions, such as childhood trauma or the society in which we live, may keep us more or less “stuck” at an immature level of consciousness most of the time, while others, such as acute stress in the world or in our lives, may temporarily regress us to one of our immature minds. Neurologically, this happens when our prefrontal cortex is unable to integrate our brain regions and networks so that we can respond flexibly and fluidly to the world.
When we are “stuck”3 in an unintegrated immature mind, we may feel like we are missing out on the joy, connection, and spiritual growth that life has to offer. Only by becoming a parenter4 for our immature minds and integrating them through healing our brains can we access our Grownup mind and live our purpose as human beings.
Our spiritual human nature calls us to reduce suffering and increase healing for all beings and the earth. If a behavior, emotion, thought, or way of being does that, it is spiritual, whether it takes place at home, at work, in a traditional house of worship, in a psychologist’s office, or on the subway. The spiritual Grownup mind understands and lives the fact that everything is interconnected and equally worthy of compassion, love, and wise action.
Our purpose in our lifetime is to promote the expression of the Grownup mind in ourselves, those with whom we have relationships, and our societies at large by becoming a healing parenter in the world.
Thus, the quadrune mind model makes spirituality not some special add-on to life for a chosen few but the ultimate reason to live for all of us. One that, once we have regular access to our Grownup minds, comes as easily as if we were born to do it. Which of course, we were. That’s the whole point of it being our true human nature.
We invite you to read the QM Primer to learn more about each of our four minds, the quadrune mind model, and what it means to fulfill the purpose to which we are called by our spiritual human nature. We hope you’ll explore our Essays and 80 Aphorisms for a deeper dive into many aspects of the quadrune mind model, as well as our compilation of Value Statements. If you have any thoughts or questions about the quadrune mind model or are interested in study groups, workshops, or presentations, please reach out to us.
Disclaimer: All content on quadrunemind.com is intended solely for educational purposes only.
- We define being spiritual, which is synonymous with living from our Grownup mind, as being integrated—both internally in our brains and minds and externally through interbeing—which creates in us the calling to reduce suffering and increase healing for all beings and the earth through our behaviors, emotions, thoughts, and lives.
- The infantile, childish, and adolescent minds in adults.
- As we discuss in the Quadrune Mind Primer, the mind we are using from moment to moment can change, even when our minds are not yet integrated by our Grownup mind. However, some people may get “stuck” functioning more or most of the time from a certain immature mind because of afflictions. However, this does not mean that they are permanently stuck at that level of consciousness, as also discussed in the QM Primer.
- The idea of being a “parenter” is covered in greater detail in the QM Primer.