Relational Mindfulness, Wise Adult, Adaptive Child

Relational mindfulness means being aware of and caring about the impact of my behaviors on the people around me as well as the impact on myself.

RLT describes “first consciousness” as the automatically arising state that we find ourselves in when there is some signal of threat, conflict, or discomfort. Our initial automatic response stems from our sub-cortical brain and is all about personal safety and survival. So, when we feel potentially unsafe, our immediate biological reaction is to essentially not care about impacts on others and to be all about ourselves. (This is an over-generalization.)

An “Adaptive Child” self is a “part” of us or a habitual response or a mechanism that “knows” how to navigate and survive difficult or threatening situations. We learned effective strategies for making it through our childhood circumstances. Those strategies generally involved some degree of disconnection from our feelings, needs, and wants, and some degree of disconnection from others – or a pattern of remaining connected to others in a way that doesn’t allow for a sense of peace and safety.

Having successfully survived our childhoods, our adaptive child parts continue to use the same strategies on our behalf in our adult lives and our adult relationships. “First consciousness” is more or less synonymous to “adaptive child.”

RLT describes “second consciousness” as the state of mind and body that is centered in the pre-frontal cortex, where we are able to see circumstances from a place of curiosity and relative neutrality. “Second consciousness” is more or less synonymous to “Wise Adult.”

Humans tend to default to one flavor or another of adaptive child consciousness until they consciously learn to move themselves from that state into a wise adult state, until they learn to shift from a subcortical brain state into centering the prefrontal cortex. Religious and spiritual practices, meditation, mindfulness practices, martial arts, music, and dance are all resources that can support our moving into a wise adult state.

Relational mindfulness involves noticing when we are in an adaptive child state and intentionally redirecting ourselves into a wise adult state.

This is not necessarily either easy or simple. Note that some adaptive child states have the appearance of being very neutral and easy-going, because being neutral and easy-going may have been the safest strategy in our formative years.

Some adaptive child states clearly appear to be off, because they have us treating other people with unpleasantness. However, in some adaptive child states we will be quite pleasant, kind, and generous to others, yet we will be unpleasant to ourselves.

So, you can’t necessarily quickly assess whether you or another person is in an adaptive child state or a wise adult state simply from a cursory look at their words and actions.

Here is a resource that can help you to assess whether you are in an adaptive child “first consciousness” state, or whether you are in a wise adult “second consciousness” state. These are characteristics or qualities found in adaptive child states and wise adult states.