Make it stand out
Personal Growth
Each of us strives towards a better self. Our actions and perceptions are set in course through the situations that we pass through in life. To some extent, those situations that we pass through, become us.
Through new awareness about ourselves and the world and through modifying our relations with others, we can overcome the situations that have shaped us. MASL promotes growth oriented personal work, allowing each of us to be better versions or ourselves in the end.
The Biological Context.
MASL views the biological context as being paramount to understanding the human experience. Our biology is impactful in every level of human experience, with biological structures underlying our basic capacities to experience the world and all other contexts.
The Family Context
and significant relationships.
Humans are remarkably frail for the first years of life. We require daily support and care from others, which occurs for most of us in the form of family. Family serves as our first social network early on in life. For a period of time, we are almost entirely dependent on family.
Later in life, we seek to construct “families” of our own, in the form of significant relationships, important friendships, or through having or taking in children of our own.
For better or worse, it is our earlier experiences of family that we draw from as we develop these new relationships.
The Community.
Community life includes the circumstances that we find outside our door. How we see our neighbors, classmates, and general communities in early life and how we are received by them can set expectations for self, the world, and others throughout life.
Community life becomes increasingly significant after we enter school, and as we seek to develop independence from home.
Culture.
Culture sets the framework for much of our socialization and can be quite impactful upon our development. For many of us, culture exacts an almost invisible influence. Culture sets the norms and expectations that we then in turn impose upon the whole world.
As we become aware of the existence of cultural differences in others, we begin to understand how we too are products of culture.
Society
and Social Order.
Society places demands and expectations upon us that apply more or less to everyone. The need to work is one such expectation. When an individual is unable to work or when work is not available, hardships ensue.
Our mechanisms for governance become a means to meet needs of individuals and groups living in society, however government does not necessarily operate with these interests in mind. The nature and character of local, national, and global government has implications for our lived experience over the course of life.
Spirituality
and meaning making.
Faith belief is fostered at the levels of family, community, culture, and social order. Emerging research has also identified genetic correlates to religiosity, suggesting the influence of biology on faith life.
For many, spirituality and religious thinking are deeply engrained patterns that were reinforced throughout life. However, even persons that grew up outside of faith systems or who have learned to become skeptical of faith belief have higher ordered meaning making processes that shape their experiences in the world and that inform our approach to life.