A movie, not a snapshot
By [the help of] God I will praise His word; on God I lean, rely, and confidently put my trust; I will not fear. What can man, who is flesh, do to me? PSALM 56:4 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
The mind struggles with the word "not".
Our brains are much more apt to just go and run with whatever input it receives. Which is why we should carefully guard against what content we consume.
It is comically demonstrated by homophones.
Take this wonderful exchange in Alan Alexander Milne's work of Winnie-the-Pooh.
The context of the scene, is that the gang except for Piglet, have fallen into a deep hole. A trap set for a mysterious creature called the Backson which has kidnapped Christopher Robin…
Rabbit: Can you tie a knot?
Piglet: I cannot.
Rabbit: Ah, so you can knot!
Piglet: No, I cannot knot.
Rabbit: Not knot?
Pooh: Who's there?
Rabbit: Pooh!
Pooh: Pooh who?
This power of the mind was demonstrated to me by a teacher who said, "Don't think of an elephant dancing in a pink tutu".
My brain immediately generated that image completely ignoring the 'not'.
Break out
Why is it important to consider the brain’s inability to think in negatives?
Picture a fancy hotel. You have won an all-expenses paid trip to your number 1 bucket list destination. Even if it is high up on a mountain or some remote fairly untouched wilderness location, you arrive and notice a huge revolving door regulating access to the premises. Now imagine being stuck in that revolving door.
Going round and round.
Unable to enter or exit.
When you are stuck reliving a traumatic situation, you are caught in a revolving door. Going round and round, moving but not going anywhere.
The point of harnessing this ability of the mind, is to reset your brain when you are stuck in circular thinking. Often due to a traumatic event.
Stuck with very difficult emotions and unable to get out of the revolving door.
The shock value of being passively influenced as your brain ignores the ‘not’, helps to get you out of a blockage.
This was especially handy to me whilst in school and stuck during a test or exam situation. In other words, when I have struck a blank. I knew vaguely the answer was something like this or that, but just couldn’t put my finger on it.
Shock.
Reset.
Boom!
Clarity.
I sometimes use it now to help break out of writer's block.
This power is wonderfully illustrated in the following piecomic by John McNamee:
It's the shock value of someone saying something that completely goes against the flow of thought.
For example, great leaders transform organizations by thinking ‘inside’ the box - Lars Sudmann1
Negativity Bias
Our brains have a negativity bias. A survival mechanism to ensure unpleasant or deadly experiences are avoided and pleasant experiences or surviving ones, are repeated.2
But in the modern world, rarely do you have to 'run for your life' from some kind of predatory wild animal.
The problem is that your mind causes your body to manifest your thoughts.
Especially negative thoughts due to our bias. If you are constantly thinking about everything that can go wrong, your body goes into a survival mode, triggering a mechanism that overloads your system with cortisol. The fight or flight hormone.
An email from the boss or a difficult client should not cause your heart rate to go through the roof. It's just zero's and one's…
Consider this. In the list of the top 10 most common fears, number 3 on the list is having a 'fear' of public speaking. Just behind the fear of dying3.
Seriously? People rank public speaking that high?
The point is our fear or anticipation of negative experiences are often way worse than the actual experience.
Wired together
Neurons responding to the same stimulus connect preferentially to form “neuronal ensembles.” Psychologist Donald Hebb laid out his compelling “assembly theory” of how the brain achieves this feat in 1949.
Concisely, "Neurons that wire together fire together".4
Imagine a highway in your brain that goes to a bad place. The neurons that were wired together or established due to bad or traumatic experiences. If it was a single event, it would be a dirt road. But each time you relive that experience in your head, it becomes more developed to the point of being a 5-lane highway. If there are no off ramps, you can easily be triggered onto a one-way trip to a really bad place and get stuck there in an emotional revolving door.
The opposite is also true giving weight to the whole positive thinking mantra. The more you enforce the neurons of a positive experience, the more easily it will fire.
Therefore, broadening the positive neuronal ensemble.
In the beginning of this process, it will establish positive off-ramps from the negative highway. Which will save you from going to the bad place, but later on, you can rewire that negative or traumatic ensemble to go to a good place just as easily as you were triggered to go to a bad place.
Resulting in a forgotten highway. Demolished or repurposed due to the brain’s neuroplasticity.
How to accomplish the rewiring?
It starts with savoring good things. Enjoying good experiences. Reliving them cements what psychologists call emotional grounding5.
The next step is gratitude.
The three main influences of gratitude are psychological, physical and social.6
Psychological benefits include positive emotions, thoughts and increased self-satisfaction.
Physical benefits include a stronger immune system, optimum blood pressure and better sleep-wake cycles.
Social benefits include better communication, more empathy and stronger interpersonal relationships.
Savoring and gratitude are the shift that needs to happen for a life surviving in fear to a life thriving in an abundance mindset.
A lot of foreshadowing in the Bible considering the amount of times God commands us: "Do not fear!" Note, it’s 61 times in the King James Version of the Bible.7
“Enjoy the little things. For one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” - Robert Brault
The name of the game
Don't judge a book by its cover.
Let's change that to rather be the positive statement.
Judge a book by its content.
This should apply to people as well. People like to name things, and we often apply labels to almost everything in order to quicken our processing of the immensity and complexity of the world we live in.
Abstraction is the name of the game. Symbolism.
Sometimes people are marked by negative labels. Placed on them by the community, the culture or in the worst case their family. These labels do not take into account that people are living, breathing, organisms that grow. That change.
We are defined by our collective experiences of the world that form us on an ongoing basis.
This is where one of our greatest gifts lie.
We have free will. Homo sapiens. Thinking man.
We can choose how to respond to the world. In a lot of cases, we can be pro-active to mitigate negative or bad experiences. We experience life and our gift of freewill allows us to choose how we respond.
Life is a movie, not a snapshot. To put it bluntly, it is an ongoing story that is still unfolding.
Not just a poster.
Where have people tried to freeze you in a poster?
What wrongs have you had in your past where a name was given that has stuck for many years or even the rest of your life?
In my early professional career, I was in two consecutive companies that flopped during the 2008 - 2011 financial global crises8…what was my new name?
Destroyer of Companies.
A somewhat mythical name and one I wish I could take as my own. I mean imagine the possibilities!
The consulting services sales pitch:
Do you have competition you need taken "care of" but not in the Mafia kind of way?
Let our services help you! Your abstract and legal demolitions specialists.
Destroyer of Companies Ltd.
…but no. I am not the sole factor in 'that' story.
The greatest gift from my past is mental fortitude. How to keep things together when going through the challenges that life throws at you.
People have told me that I am very peaceful. That's probably because of what I have gone through in my life.
As one of my friends used to say, "Pressure creates diamonds."
A new name
How do we go about distancing ourselves from the labels of the culture?
In Disney’s The Lion King, after the main character, Simba, has fled his past and lived a life void of his destiny and responsibilities, there is wisdom shared by the previous generation, his father, resulting in a moment of deep introspection…
Mufasa’s Spirit: Simba, you have forgotten me.
Adult Simba: No. How could I?
Mufasa’s Spirit: You have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the Circle of Life.
Adult Simba: How can I go back? I'm not who I used to be.
Mufasa’s Spirit: Remember who you are.
In the book of Revelation in the Bible, there is a reference to a “new name” and a “white stone”. What if it isn’t a new name per se, but your true name?
Revelation 2:17
To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.
The white stone symbolizes purity and righteousness, and the new name represents a fresh start, or a new identity given by God. This promise is meant to signify a personal and intimate relationship with God, where the new name is known only to the recipient.9
Let's dive a little deeper into the meaning of the white stone and the new name.
The word psephos10 translated as stone, was used in voting. A white pebble meant yes, and a black stone meant no.
The word onoma11 translated as name, however it can also refer to authority or a cause and has also been used to refer to someone's reputation. More specifically, it was used to indicate the manifestation or revelation of someone's character.
According to Hebrew notions, a name is inseparable from the person to whom it belongs, i.e. it is something of his essence.
So, God is voting on you! On your essence. He knows you by name and has cast His vote against your character.
Whom do you vote for? Usually someone that champions your cause and shares your values.
Thus paraphrased, ‘child of God your Father believes in you’.
True freedom comes not when we define ourselves by other people’s perceptions, but when we submit to God and let the Author of our lives define every facet of our being.
Dear Reader, may you have cultivated mental fortitude from your walk of life. A life that has born the fruits of will and strength to live above and beyond any cultural labels forced upon you. Especially any negative labels placed on you by the culture, community or even family. Choosing to rather live from your true essence. The essence which was designed by the God who has cast His vote on His image reflected in you and your character. Believing in you to make the best of your life.
Salute!
Strong's Greek: 5586. ψῆφος (pséphos) -- a small smooth stone, a pebble (biblehub.com)
Strong's Greek: 3686. ὄνομα (onoma) -- a name, authority, cause (biblehub.com)