Handling Adversity With Grace - Episode 5

Welcome to the MAKES SENSE podcast, where we apply the science, art and philosophy of sense making to the things that make you go Hmmm? Those most pressing thoughts and discussions going on in our minds today. The Makes Sense Podcast is an expense free service with the intention of helping you execute on the concept of changing the way you look at things, so that the things you look at begin to change. 

Today we’ll MAKE SENSE of ADVERSITY Handling Adversity with grace and how to become that version of yourself that is impeccable to your word and follows through with your commitments. No matter what.

CONNECT WITH Dr. JC Doornick - https://zez.am/makessense 

SHOW RESOURCES and REFERENCES:

• Joe Rogan Podcast with David Sinclair - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUwd-D94pzE 
• A Man's Search For Meaning Book Victor Frankl - https://amzn.to/3SzrE7s 

SHOW NOTES:

My intention of this episode is to arm and equip you with a shift in perspective about your relationship with adversity. When I say adversity I am referring to your adversity not necessarily mine. This is a healthy place to begin this discussion as it uncovers the first step towards handling adversity. To recognize that adversity is both defined and in existence due to your own observation of it. Think that one through. Would adversity exist in the absence of you taking note of it? I mean, an event is just an event until you label it as adversity, yes? Why is this important? Well what if your sense making machine is faulty or glitched? And there is a high chance it is, due to your programming right? Remember that virtual reality suit, and your sense making machine is what you’re using to label these events. Its responsibility is perceiving and processing everything? Is it safe to acknowledge that adversity only exists due to our perception and labeling of it?

See, handling adversity is not just learning how to cope with it and move through or past it..Those can be valuable skills to adopt yet until you understand where adversity comes from and what it represents FOR YOU rather than TO YOU, you will always be fighting an endless war. Lets learn what adversity is, where it comes from and how it both harms and helps you.

First, I want to share an interesting distinction that might help.I was listening to an episode of the Joe Rogan podcast with guest David Sinclair, a 53 year-old Harvard Biologist who claims to possess a biological age that is a decade younger as a result of practicing a plant based intermittent fasting regiment. Although I am fascinated with the concept of fasting, I heard him make mention of an observation that motivated me to create this episode on Making Sense of adversity. When Rogan asked him how he justifies eating a 2,000 calorie meal once a day for dinner then fasting for 24 hours after as being more beneficial than spreading that 2,000 calories out over small 50 calorie meals, Sinclair had this response

“Because going back 6 million years, our bodies were designed or evolved to respond to adversity. And we’ve removed that from our lives because it feels good. But we need adversity to be resilient and fight disease.”

Isn’t that fascinating? To embrace adversity as something we were not only designed to handle but something we actually require to thrive and be our best? Does that help? Yes, this means that without adversity, we are at a disadvantage.

I believe the challenge we face with adversity is in how we have been programmed to look at and define it. So if you are struggling with adversity, it's not your fault and there is hope.

The Webster Dictionary defines adversity as a state or instance of serious or continued difficulty or misfortune showing courage in the face of adversity. 

This is where the struggle with adversity begins. Its very definition paints it as a difficulty or misfortune. In our society, we take our kids and lock them in a box called the classroom, handing their education over to institutions, teachers and textbooks generated by who? We just assume that this is the right thing for them. Why do we accept this? Because we, as parents, have our own lives and responsibilities to provide for the family. A roof over their heads, beds to sleep in, have a little fun here and there and then pay for those schools. At varying degrees of acceptance with this system, we are forced to trust this system and hope that it sets them up for success and does little harm to our kids. Meanwhile, their vulnerable and susceptible brains continue to develop and begin to hardwire all these lessons about science, mathematics, history, language and how to perceive and survive in life. When it comes to adversity, they learn to avoid it and if they have a teacher that goes the extra mile, learn how to persevere and grow through it. We refrain from doing too much investigation into all this as we haven’t got the time nor energy with all we have on our plates. So we trust the system, pull our cars up, drop them off for the day, then pick them up hoping it all went well.  Can you see why so many are turning to homeschooling these days? Call it a healthy decision or not. It is the only way you can maintain control of what your children are consuming and what they are exposed to so it makes sense to me why so many move to that model. My personal strategy at this time is to have my children attend school and make a point to sit and discuss what they learned and encourage them to challenge everything before they allow it to wire into their operating system and sense making machine. Yes parents, this means at the end of your long day, we can’t just pick them up, help them with homework and feed them. We must ask them questions and teach them to do the same.

Why is this stuff  important to recognize? We're talking about the idea of handling adversity with grace here. How can we begin to do that without understanding what we've been taught and hard wired to know about it? What we are talking about is program awareness perception. Simply becoming aware of our programming. How it was formed and how it impacts our sense making system. In this case, how it impacts our perception and response to adversity.

It reminds me of the vaccine controversy. When I was younger on break from Chiropractic school, I thought it would be cool to show up at a popular bulk food and household supply chain one day when they were offering free flu shots. Leaving my opinion out of this particular topic of discussion, my intention was to study the behavior of those in line and expose how powerful their programming was in prompting them to make decisions. I presented myself as a student doing his thesis on the topic of human behavior, with a specific interest in how we make decisions for our families during times of adversity. I presented this scenario to create space for those I would interview to want to share their opinions. I had an audio recording device and simply asked random people “what they were online for?” They said free flu shots. I then asked why THey said it's flu season. I asked when does that start and begin? THey said they weren't sure? Then I asked who was giving the flu shots. They said they weren't sure but assumed it was some sort of health professional? Then I asked, what is in a flu shot? They said they weren't sure.

Disclaimer. On this podcast we make a concerted effort not to share our opinions on topics like our school systems, politics, religion and vaccinations. When we interview guests or interact with listeners, we feel that everyone believes what they believe and we respect and honor that. My opinion is not relevant here. My intention is to simply help you become more conscious human beings and recognize where you got these ideas and why you came up with your opinions. They were for the most part taught to you. 

Where do we go in this discussion from here? Your perception of adversity is merely that. A perception. And your perception making machine has been programmed by your MFTPSE. If your desire is to learn how to handle adversity with grace? Your first step is that program awareness perception. To understand that your current perception of it is your best guess based on what you’ve learned about it.  In my four step Interface Response System, we learn to take note of our knee jerk programmed thoughts and feelings about what we see, then insert a spacer or pause on them knowing that they may be flawed and can produce an inefficient perception and response to the stimulus. Placing us in what I call the eye of the storm. A space in between the stimulus and our response to it, where we have the opportunity to look at it with a more conscious, rational and logical mind. Thus triggering a more effective and goal supportive response that helps us stay on track and follow through with our original plans to move forward. I have created an online course for the interface response system that can be found in our Makes Sense Academy, as well as dove deeper into it in my book, Makes Sense, solving the mystery of why shit happens.

A big moment of clarity and distinction came from a fantastic book and story i read. In his book, A Man’s Search for Meaning, Author Viktor Frankl shares a miraculous story of both resilience and perseverance through the trials and tribulations of being a prisoner in the Nazi Death Camps under the reign of Hitler. It's a must read yet its highlight that's relevant to this discussion is how he came to not only survive the traumatic event but find his way to forgive those that did him harm. His secret? He speaks about the “space between” the stimulus or adverse event and your response as being the secret to handling adversity with grace.

So in summary, handling adversity is only difficult due to your relationship and perception of it. If you find yourself struggling with adverse and hard times, there is a good chance it is due to your current operating system and sense making machine’s interpretation of it. Not necessarily it itself. By learning to implement the tools in my interface response system and embracing things like David Sinclairs insights on how adversity is not only necessary but the catalyst for evoking the best version of you, we can learn to stop surviving during times of adversity and start thriving. Happy hunting my friends. I hope you are blessed with tons of adversity today so you can be your best and kick some ass. 

Remember, if you learned something today, please, give it away. That is how its gonna stay. Consider sharing this podcast or our makes sense academy community and join the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Hope to see you in our community soon.