Your brain is involved in everything you do. -Daniel Amen, M.D. and author.
Negative Attack
So who questions you? Your teacher? Your parents? Your spouse? Your kids? Probably all of them on a regular basis and then some. Maybe they don’t do it out loud, but rest assured they do it, especially when they don’t agree with what you say or how you say it. When they do get up the courage to challenge your spoken thoughts, you might even get a bit worked up and feel attacked, but maybe it’s those feelings that should have us questioning ourselves.
So what if we’re spewing a bunch of negativity? Do we even realize that it creeps in or is it happening to us at a more subconscious level? Where does the stuff come from? Our emotions? Are emotions caused by external events or are the inbred? Is it possible that we’re hard-wired for a little bit of the positive and negative mixed together that eventually cheats to the bad side? What about a physical trauma? Can that create a mess of negativity?
The ANTs
According to Doctor Daniel Amen’s book, Change Your Brain Change Your Life, there’s no question that there are many direct physical links to negativity. He also counsels his patients to beware of ANTs or Automatic Negative Thoughts as they can inflict serious medical trauma to the deep limbic system of the brain. He challenges them to understand that ANTs are literally brain pollution that need to be exterminated.
The first step to getting rid of the problem is to recognize it even exists. Notice the words you use. Do they blame? Do they express negative absolutes like “I Never”? Are they predictors of doomsday around every corner? How about mind reading all the negative thoughts other people are having about you? It’s all really nonsense that most of us engage in at some point. So how do we slow it down?
Thankfulness…the attitude of gratitude. For what? The good things only? How about the tough times and the trip-ups that teach us too? Why aren’t we thankful for all of it?
Just up the road a bit from where I live, the Pilgrims gave thanks. They had plenty of ups and downs, especially in the first winter when many of them didn’t even survive. To this day you can go there and witness the rugged conditions those early settlers had to endure.
Nevertheless they were thankful. They were free to live and worship as they saw fit. Nobody telling them how to think. They made plenty of mistakes but found meaning in all of it.
So how about you? Are you grateful that people like that came before us and struggled immensely to chisel out greater opportunity for future generations? Is your life really that hard? Look around and I bet you’ll find somebody today struggling like an early American settler. Be thankful that you have what you do and reach out with your talent and your resources to help.
Thanksgiving is a time to recognize the blessings that you really have but might have forgotten…so slow down, take inventory and be thankful!
No man means all he says and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought it vicious. -Henry B. Adams (1838-1913) Journalist and member of the Adams political family.
My mother was always threatening to wash my mouth out with soap when I was a kid…so I challenged her with a wee bit of vulgarity. Not only did she keep her promise, she upped the ante by coming after me with a mop in an attempt to clean me up once and for all.
Obviously since I’m still talking about it, the impact and lesson was important. At first blush, it might seem as simple as a parent trying to reel in the rebellion of just another wild kid pushing the envelope, however, the key point is that I never realized the words were having a much greater negative impact on me than my mother.
I’ve come to realize that although the brain is wired a certain way upon birth, it can be changed either over time or in an instant during a traumatic event. Regardless of the circumstance, we tend to attach great emotion to any situation and create a picture in our minds…a virtual movie. That movie is then added to our in-brain library and plays both on-demand or consciously and automatically or subconsciously.
When anything dominates our mind, we feel compelled to give it life through words. If the emotions are positive we tend to use wonderful words to release the movie to the public, often times in a very conscious way. However, what if the movie is a tragedy filled with pain and suffering? Who wants to talk about that…throw that thing in the back of the library and lock it down. Not so easy.
The salvation of a man is through love and in love. -Victor Frankel (1905-1997) Author of Man’s Search For Meaning and concentration camp survivor.
What would you do if you were locked in a concentration camp? Ironically, Victor Frankel did just that…he concentrated. You talk about somebody who really knew his subject by living it! It’s hard to even fathom that somebody could find the strength to focus enough and chronicle his thoughts during such duress, but doesn’t that perhaps make for the best time to learn…when you’re constantly pushed to the brink of death.
How would you transcend the circumstances? How could you grow wings and fly away? With your mind! Frankel found that those that were able to continue to fight and carry on were those that never lost hope. Others that decided to simply fade away would succumb to a last simple pleasure such as smoking a cigarette and die. So how did the survivors find their hope?
Frankel tells the story of a particularly brutal night marching in the wind as a fellow prisoner mumbled, “if our wives could only see us now.” A simple statement that in the context of a life of freedom might be passed off as a simple musing, but it struck Frankel like a lightning rod of understanding.
For that moment in time, he realized how much he loved her and contemplated where she was and if he would see her again. The desire alone to see his beloved wife helped Frankel find meaning in his life even at the lowest point. The love itself gave Frankel a tremendous “why” as he continued to persevere; but what if there was no loved one to contemplate. Frankel found other love pathways as well.
How much talent is hidden throughout the tiny cracks in society? Somewhere deep in the woods somebody is running through the hills just because…the next extreme marathon champion. Locked in a room some kid is playing the guitar and singing to the mirror and has no idea how great she really is. A scientist is somewhere locked down in a lab questioning the methods he’s been taught and is experimenting with logic and putting simple things in a new order…maybe sitting on the cure for cancer?
They’re everywhere! So why don’t we see them. Even with the explosion of the Internet, we still don’t see all the talent emerging that we should. Not everybody wants to jump on YouTube and be seen. Why?
We all tend to underestimate any talent that we have. We’re afraid to jump off the cliff and find that we really can fly. Some of course do. We call them Mavericks…risk takers. We watch them and marvel at their self-motivation. How do they do it without a push? Maybe they found a way to embrace the fear. Maybe the fear they feel is actually the rocket fuel that propels them to push their talents.
Yet for most, we need a push or at least a constant reminder. So this is a call to arms. Go out and encourage somebody to get on the stage, to express their thoughts without fear of embarrassment. Stay right next to them if that’s what it takes. When they get knocked down wipe them off and push them right back up.
Let’s stop hoping talent emerges, let’s go on the hunt for it and call it out. Free the talent!
Studying, reading, accumulating information. Sure it’s all part of the learning process, but so what if that’s where you stop unless your life’s goal is to become an expert theorist. The key is in the doing of the thing.
Start by taking an inventory of why you started your search to being with. Why did you suddenly seek out that knowledge? What was it that you were hoping to discover? When you did begin to dig, what new level of awareness did you achieve? Did you feel satisfied about your new awakening?
Your new consciousness alone can make you feel like your part of the “in-the-know” crowd, but beware that you will not be satisfied staying there as you watch the doers leave the group and move to the next level…in fact, you might become downright angry…with yourself.
Becoming a doer will come at a very high cost. You’ll have to break the old you. The persona that you’ve always been will not be good enough. So how will you break free? You have to really want better. You must be willing to sacrifice comfortable and throw caution to the wind.
Why not? Fear? Of what? Is it really a matter of life and death, which would be the ultimate push? Maybe if it was you’d have no choice but to get it done, so why not act as-if it is!
Is the concept of Ethics in business an impossibility without an absolute moral authority? For the last several weeks, I’ve participated in a class in Ethics as it relates in particular to the current economic meltdown.
The debate seems at times to go around in circles akin to the chicken or the egg, which comes first ethics or profit? Furthermore, who can even benchmark an ethical standard if there is no absolute moral authority? These are some very challenging questions that are at the very root of business and life.
Many industries subscribe to a code of ethics, but isn’t it really an individual decision on a daily basis to live that code? How easily can the most ethically based foundation be rattled by the opportunity for windfall profits and is the consumer just as responsible for turning a blind eye and playing the game too?
Maybe we should visit Bernie Madoff in jail and ask him why so many ethical people compromised those standards. The conclusion is simply that ethics must constantly be worked on, but might be generally impossible to draw out in individuals obsessed with individualism…also know as an unbridled drive for profit at any expense.
What do you think?
