Paradigm, continued
I finally have (hopefully) enough time to finish my post! I'll repeat what I already said, since my next thought flows together. For ease of reading, I'll put anything new in italics.
"Paradigms power perceptions, and perceptions power emotions. Most emotions are responses to perception - what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too. So check your perceptions, and beyond that check the truthfulness of your paradigms -what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn't make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe. The more you live in the truth, the more your emotions will help you see clearly. But even then, you don't want to trust them more than [you trust God]" (The Shack, Wm Paul Young).
I see this clearly illustrated in my own life. The paradigm I too often live by lately is that my life is too difficult that that too many expectations and responsibilities are being thrown at me. This drives me to perceive any setback or struggle to be unfair and to be more than I can handle. Therefore, I am quick to feel anxious, stressed, angered, impatient.
If I can switch my paradigm from "this is too difficult; I can't handle all of this" to "with God's help, I can and will make it through this time in my life, and will enjoy it. I have been given so many blessings," my perceptions will likely change and so will my quick emotions. My expectations of each moment will decrease, as will my frustrations when things don't go smoothly, or when I need to do something I really don't feel like doing, and I will not feel like I'm being treated unfairly. I may begin to enjoy moments I now find only tolerable or mildly amusing, and better tolerate situations I now find to cause stress and impatience, thus allowing my emotions to be more often the enjoyable kind and less often the depressing kind.
A friend who has anxiety issues says that those of us with anxiety and depression start at a certain level of anxiety or stress, whereas most people start at a much lower level; therefore, it takes less to push us over the maximum threshold to tolerable stress or anxiety. To make matters more difficult, our maximum threshold may be lower than the average person's.
What is the cause of the heightened baseline level and lowered maximum threshold? Is it genetic - something we're born with and cannot change, controlled by biochemical forces? Or have we, through training ourselves and our brains, developed unhealthy paradigms and perceptions and influenced our neurochemistry through repetitive behavior and thoughts, creating neural synapses and changing the balance of neurotransmitters and endocrine hormones to reflect these disordered paradigms, biasing ourselves toward further stress, anxiety, and depression? The most obvious answer is that the truth lies somewhere in between.
I took a class (NOI, "Explain Pain") just over a week ago regarding chronic pain, which has implications for emotional "pain" such as depression and anxiety, in that physical pain looks just like emotional pain on brain mapping diagnostics, and the same neurotransmitters and endocrine hormones are involved. This class has given me hope that the plasticity within our brains allows for changed neurochemistry adequate for our stress response to become more normalized, thus decreasing at least the extent of depression and anxiety. The instructor said that our brains are self-constructing and constantly changing, according to input and our changing paradigms, beliefs, and experiences. Our brains adapt to our thoughts, experiences, and expressions of self. He told us that processes in our brains can be modulated, "turned up" or "turned down," by cognitive mechanisms such as anticipation of a dangerous, stressful, or unfair situation, or by expectation of smooth sailing, as well as by humor (thus "laughter is the best medicine"). So, in the case of someone with anxiety, anticipation of a stressful situation primes us for further stress and anxiety. Now, since our brains can adapt to cognitive mechanisms (thoughts, or "self-talk") as well as beliefs and experiences, it follows that changing a paradigm, and thus changing our perceptions, can have a powerful impact. It can actually cause new synapses to form to reflect this new paradigm, and allow the old, unused synapses to die. Our instructor says this can happen quickly, even over the matter of days. Even so, habits run deep, as does any genetic influence involved in depression and anxiety. And, just as synapses can quickly form to reflect a new found optimism, they can also form to reflect a return to pessimism. So those of us who suffer from depression and/or anxiety must remain diligent in continuing in a positive paradigm.
Interestingly, our instructor also went over the steps of a conceptual or paradigm shift, steps that will likely take more than a few days and slow the process substantially. These steps typically occur after paradigms and perceptions are challenged and include the following:
1) The person is not ready for a change
2) Getting serious about making a change
3) Making a plan
4) Taking action
5) Working at it
6) Change happens.
Obviously, the length of time allotted to each of these steps varies with each person, and a person may stall or just stop during any of these steps. But, despite neural connections changing fairly quickly and easily, common sense says that these steps must be completed before a true paradigm shift and adequate neural adaptation can take effect. And, in the case of depression an anxiety, step 6 may be accompanied by an indefinite continuation of step 5, due to possible genetic predisposition and the general stress that is an unfortunate part of our lives. So we must be sure not to get too complacent or impatient, and be sure to continue relying on God at all times.
In short, this is not a magic "cure" but is based in medical research and does promise to work if approached with perseverance, hope, and prayer. I have been working on this myself for 10 days, and while I have seen a few backslides, I have seen a change in myself as well - and during the most trying time of the month. That also gives me hope.
"Paradigms power perceptions, and perceptions power emotions. Most emotions are responses to perception - what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too. So check your perceptions, and beyond that check the truthfulness of your paradigms -what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn't make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe. The more you live in the truth, the more your emotions will help you see clearly. But even then, you don't want to trust them more than [you trust God]" (The Shack, Wm Paul Young).
I see this clearly illustrated in my own life. The paradigm I too often live by lately is that my life is too difficult that that too many expectations and responsibilities are being thrown at me. This drives me to perceive any setback or struggle to be unfair and to be more than I can handle. Therefore, I am quick to feel anxious, stressed, angered, impatient.
If I can switch my paradigm from "this is too difficult; I can't handle all of this" to "with God's help, I can and will make it through this time in my life, and will enjoy it. I have been given so many blessings," my perceptions will likely change and so will my quick emotions. My expectations of each moment will decrease, as will my frustrations when things don't go smoothly, or when I need to do something I really don't feel like doing, and I will not feel like I'm being treated unfairly. I may begin to enjoy moments I now find only tolerable or mildly amusing, and better tolerate situations I now find to cause stress and impatience, thus allowing my emotions to be more often the enjoyable kind and less often the depressing kind.
A friend who has anxiety issues says that those of us with anxiety and depression start at a certain level of anxiety or stress, whereas most people start at a much lower level; therefore, it takes less to push us over the maximum threshold to tolerable stress or anxiety. To make matters more difficult, our maximum threshold may be lower than the average person's.
What is the cause of the heightened baseline level and lowered maximum threshold? Is it genetic - something we're born with and cannot change, controlled by biochemical forces? Or have we, through training ourselves and our brains, developed unhealthy paradigms and perceptions and influenced our neurochemistry through repetitive behavior and thoughts, creating neural synapses and changing the balance of neurotransmitters and endocrine hormones to reflect these disordered paradigms, biasing ourselves toward further stress, anxiety, and depression? The most obvious answer is that the truth lies somewhere in between.
I took a class (NOI, "Explain Pain") just over a week ago regarding chronic pain, which has implications for emotional "pain" such as depression and anxiety, in that physical pain looks just like emotional pain on brain mapping diagnostics, and the same neurotransmitters and endocrine hormones are involved. This class has given me hope that the plasticity within our brains allows for changed neurochemistry adequate for our stress response to become more normalized, thus decreasing at least the extent of depression and anxiety. The instructor said that our brains are self-constructing and constantly changing, according to input and our changing paradigms, beliefs, and experiences. Our brains adapt to our thoughts, experiences, and expressions of self. He told us that processes in our brains can be modulated, "turned up" or "turned down," by cognitive mechanisms such as anticipation of a dangerous, stressful, or unfair situation, or by expectation of smooth sailing, as well as by humor (thus "laughter is the best medicine"). So, in the case of someone with anxiety, anticipation of a stressful situation primes us for further stress and anxiety. Now, since our brains can adapt to cognitive mechanisms (thoughts, or "self-talk") as well as beliefs and experiences, it follows that changing a paradigm, and thus changing our perceptions, can have a powerful impact. It can actually cause new synapses to form to reflect this new paradigm, and allow the old, unused synapses to die. Our instructor says this can happen quickly, even over the matter of days. Even so, habits run deep, as does any genetic influence involved in depression and anxiety. And, just as synapses can quickly form to reflect a new found optimism, they can also form to reflect a return to pessimism. So those of us who suffer from depression and/or anxiety must remain diligent in continuing in a positive paradigm.
Interestingly, our instructor also went over the steps of a conceptual or paradigm shift, steps that will likely take more than a few days and slow the process substantially. These steps typically occur after paradigms and perceptions are challenged and include the following:
1) The person is not ready for a change
2) Getting serious about making a change
3) Making a plan
4) Taking action
5) Working at it
6) Change happens.
Obviously, the length of time allotted to each of these steps varies with each person, and a person may stall or just stop during any of these steps. But, despite neural connections changing fairly quickly and easily, common sense says that these steps must be completed before a true paradigm shift and adequate neural adaptation can take effect. And, in the case of depression an anxiety, step 6 may be accompanied by an indefinite continuation of step 5, due to possible genetic predisposition and the general stress that is an unfortunate part of our lives. So we must be sure not to get too complacent or impatient, and be sure to continue relying on God at all times.
In short, this is not a magic "cure" but is based in medical research and does promise to work if approached with perseverance, hope, and prayer. I have been working on this myself for 10 days, and while I have seen a few backslides, I have seen a change in myself as well - and during the most trying time of the month. That also gives me hope.
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