Tag: maturity
Protected: “Holy Indifference”? Oh, Buoy! (Series: Part III)
Are you Skipping “Brain Pain” but picking the Plague?
Most of us don’t realize that we spend a bunch of time avoiding a familiar “Brain Pain”.
Just below our radar, but deeply connected with our emotions is an unsettling sense that something isn’t right.
That’s because it isn’t. Though it’s a normal sensation it’s not well-received.
We order and reorder things to avoid this feeling. But, it persists. And, it’ll make us do the strangest things.
Simply put: This “brain pain” happens when we try to hold two or more conflicting ideas together.
It’s officially called cognitive dissonance.
Unidentified, you don’t like it either.
But, in fact most of life and love is full of paradox and contradictions. All the great thinkers and spiritual masters speak of it.
The big problem?
Our cognitions don’t live together in a good jive and comfortable harmony. Our ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions have pointy and mismatched edges and we keep wanting things to piece together nicely like a glossy jigsaw puzzle.
Instead of feeling and living with dissonance, we try to avoid it or reduce it. Anything from changing our beliefs to be in keeping with the situation (to make it bearable), to reducing our regret through irrational justification, to reaffirming our bias even if a logical reason is absent. We are very irrational creatures and the more we think we are NOT the more irrational it is.
(It’s dissonant to be a partially rational creature, see?)
In wanting everything to “make sense” we pick fiction and live by figments instead.
You do it. I do it.
What’s worse?
The social pressure to relieve this sort of brain pain will blast toward us from everywhere. Maybe nowhere more powerfully than from our leaders. People in the pulpit, or the podium, power players in the board room or on news and media outlets they let the zingers fly that force you to inconsistently choice a faulty form of consistency. On cable television and radio of all stripes it’s a full-blown-plauge.
Everyone will try to sway you to give up the dissonance and see it their way (which they call “the right way”). It makes them feel better. But, the dissonance is part of reality just like it is part of jazz music. Not every note sounds just right or fits together seamlessly. It’s off-pitch and off-tempo. It’s very hard to predict.
How tricky! How disconcerting.
It is a mark of maturity to accept that reality is chock-a-block with inconsistency and incongruence. (That’s worth reading again.)
Though it can be unnerving, an abiding peace can yet remain in what seems a spongy place. This place is a good and useful tension of balance. It’s very hard to find and even harder to keep.
So, what about you?
Think about the things that create the discomforting feeling of dissonance for you.
• What are they? (relationships, finances, politics, tragedy, redemption?) Narrow it down to one or two big ones, for now.
• Have you been dodging logic or minimizing regret for the fantasy of consonance because you want to avoid the pain (and reality) of dissonance? Let’s be honest.
What could you hold in dissonance and balance that you haven’t been?
(Thank you for reading today. I would love if if you would share this post. Also great? If you would sign up for the next post in the sidebar.)
xo
-Lisa
Are you a mature Leader? {Mary DeMuth on Being a ‘Deeper Leader’}
Are most leaders mature?
“whaa WHAH!”
(That’s the “nope” sound from Sesame Street in case you’re wondering.)
A deeper leader leads from a place of integrity and maturity.
I’m very happy to be partnering with Evangelical Seminary to bring greater awareness and dialogue to the topic of Leadership and Spiritual Formation. Their new (part distance/part in-person cohort learning method) under 2 year graduate studies program prioritizes spiritual maturity in leadership training, and in our culture, it’s sorely needed.
I’m looking into getting a second masters degree. That’s how good this program is.
Are spiritually mature leaders important to you?
If so, there is an excellent opportunity to associate with the leadership resources launching at ES, and participate in promoting and nurturing spiritually formed leaders through a new variety of approaches. First of all you can help spread the word by sharing the information and resources you find at ES, and through their social media outlets. Articles, events, forums, go-to resources, guest writers, and more is coming.
Also, a synchroblog is in the works for the 2nd September (soon!) on the topic. Learn more on the Evangelical Facebook page or their website this week and next. (I will also post updates here.)
You can join in and be a part of something BIG.
If you are a leader and have a tribe or a blog, you can submit articles for consideration for a featured guest post spot at the Deeper Leader blog sponsored by ES. (Use the contact form on the right to express your interest.) This will pair you with some amazing professions in the the field of leadership, spiritual formation (sometimes called discipleship), leadership studies at the graduate level, and help nurture a whole new generation of better equipped leaders.
The first featured guest writer in this new phase is unveiled today! It’s none other than prolific author, the “living uncaged” Mary DeMuth. Read her contribution on leadership here.
5 Ways to Get Whatever you Want
1. Shun Meaningful Relationships
- The problem with interpersonal intimacy is that it diminishes one’s ability to hone self-centeredness. Once others start to matter you sometimes have to take them into consideration. Two Words, people: Lone Wolf.
2. Don’t Get Married/Stay Married
- One of the first things you learn, and then continue to learn repeatedly through the years, is that marriage puts your selfishness under a looming, bright, hot spotlight. There is no need to build those skills of negotiating compromise, because unfettered selfishness is crucial to consistently getting what you want.
3. Don’t Be A Good Parent
- From birth children are needy. Constantly, one must put his children’s welfare ahead of his own. Even one’s ambitious and preferences routinely are relegated to second priority, or much worse. All this practice of deferring weakens you, so you hardly ever get whatever you want. I’ve seen this happen a ton of times.
4. Don’t Commit to People or Ideals
- Believing in something, or being loyal, severely compromises your abilities to get whatever you want. One minute you’re doing something nice for someone, or some cause, and the next minute your going well out of your way. Talk about getting derailed!
5. Don’t Grow Compassionate
- As people elicit your pity, or draws you into some sort of endearment, it lights the fuse on the bomb that will eventually explode your efforts to get whatever you want.
If you can avoid all these trappings, you will probably grow expert at getting whatever you want. Of course don’t expect anyone to like it, or like you. As a kind of plague to those in your world, you will continue to seek meaning, but only find it rarely; and even then it will be fleetingly.
Have you been harmed selfishness?