The Evolved Nest

Breaking the Cycle illustrates our capacity for breaking our current Cycle of Competitive Detachment and returning to the pattern of 95% of our human history: a healthy, peaceful Cycle of Cooperative Companionship. Breaking the Cycle is based on the multi-award-winning book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture, Wisdom.

Join Darcia Narvaez and Lisa Reagan for a discussion of the Evolved Nest's short films, Breaking the Cycle, Reimagining Humanity, and the Evolved Nest: Nature's Way of Raising Children. Watch the films and visit their websites for resources below. 

Bring your questions and insights to the live discussions!

Save the Dates!

April 9 at 6 p.m. ET REGISTER

May 15 at 11 a.m. ET REGISTER

June 16 at 5 p.m. ET REGISTER

July 8 at 4 p.m. ET REGISTER

August 20 at 2 p.m. ET REGISTER

From the immense Whale to the intriguing Octopus – all Animals share with humans brain structures and processes that give us the capacities for life’s rainbow of experiences: consciousness, thinking, feeling, loving, and dreaming. 

Perhaps most importantly, we share common ways of raising our young: what is called the evolved nest. Evolved nests are practices that nurture physical and psychological wellbeing. Each child is “nested” with mother, family, community, and the rest of Nature as one seamless whole. Passed from generation to generation over millions of years, each Animal’s nest has been perfected to meet and match the needs of their young. Nestedness is evolution’s way of ensuring that everyone thrives. Each Animal’s evolved nest shares basic similarities but also unique differences. 

The Evolved Nest: Nature's Way of Raising Children is the second short film in a series that includes Reimagining Humanity and Breaking the Cycle. This short film in an accompaniment to the acclaimed book, The Evolved Nest, by Darcia Narvaez and G.A. Bradshaw.

The goal of this film is to expand human imagination, based in deep history and transdisciplinary science, about human potential. We have not always been so stressed, disconnected and mindlessly destructive. For most of our species existence we have lived in cooperative companionship. The film illustrates what this looks like. 

Human societies are built from individuals who begin life in relationship. The quality of community support for meeting children’s basic needs influences the state of health the child carries forward in all systems.  Undercare in early life leads to less health in childhood and adulthood and a basic sense of disconnection—a Cycle of Competitive Detachment. This is not humanity’s heritage. Over 95% of our species history was spent in a Cycle of Cooperative Companionship, where children’s basic needs were met, leading to wellbeing in childhood and adulthood, with a deep sense of connection and skills to keep the cycle going.