{"id":405,"date":"2014-01-30T13:31:44","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T13:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=405"},"modified":"2014-08-12T23:08:28","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T23:08:28","slug":"its-time-for-my-mind-to-drift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/its-time-for-my-mind-to-drift\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Time for my Mind to Drift"},"content":{"rendered":"

I normally use a life experience or story to illustrate the meanings and take-a-ways from a theoretical book.\u00a0 But in the case The Social Animal<\/em> by David Brooks, the book is the story and I have to come away with the theoretical meanings and take-a-ways.\u00a0 Insights and tidbits of stimulating information flowed from every page but the storyboard format allowed for engaging reading.<\/p>\n

Based loosely upon the social agenda of the unconscious mind, Brooks shares why we do what we do and why we want or don\u2019t desire to act in certain ways; by ourselves, in groups, in stressful and non-stressful situations in all age periods of our lives.<\/p>\n

He says that as we age towards retirement, our mind drifts back in nostalgia to earlier times of life and we sense a peace and contentment from those wanderings.\u00a0 I felt a similar tug as I mirrored my life with his fictional characters.\u00a0 From remembering the 700 hours of sleep loss with the birth of our firstborn, to map melding and the big dip that occurs, which finally curves upwards again in the empty nest syndrome.\u00a0 I tracked with him as he explained about mirror neurons and the way are able to permeate each other\u2019s minds and feel that it\u2019s happening to us \u2013 whether it\u2019s crying for our kids who can\u2019t get employment or grieving with a good friend in the loss of a loved one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As one whose position is always a teacher, the fact that a person forgets in weeks, 90% of what is learned, reminded me of the importance of seeing our job as shaping a person\u2019s perception of the world rather than transmitting facts and information.\u00a0 In an article by Meredith Kane, she says that the \u201cone thing true friends do, even when they can\u2019t do anything else, is to show up.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s all relational.<\/p>\n

As my research for George Fox is the possibility of modifying behavior, I was intrigued by the emergent systems Brooks discussed (p.110).\u00a0 As regularities emerge within one\u2019s culture, habits form, which are hard to break out of.\u00a0 But, if one can be surrounded by a new culture with different relationships, then new thoughts will be absorbed, new habits developed and a new perception of life will take place.\u00a0 The key to keep one from reverting to an old lifestyle is the necessity of creating a \u201ccounter culture\u201d that will continue affirming the new decisions and efforts which are made by the one making a change.\u00a0 Our job is to create counter cultures embedded with people of like-minded worldviews.<\/p>\n

So much is contained in this book: eating habits, implicit learning, negative and other loops, dynamics of groups, voting trends, triggers and even how meditation, prayer and Pentecostal expressions all create an alteration in our unconscious minds allowing us to see an unrestrained picture of reality.<\/p>\n

As a Christian, marching orders could be taken from his stories about behavioral change in larger populations. (pgs.323, 338)\u00a0 Tests have shown that successful behavioral change comes from a change in a person\u2019s virtue rather than through education.\u00a0 Using unprotected sex as an example, he found that training in the morality of right and wrong of a behavior yielded higher levels of positive behavior than sexual education.\u00a0 I see this as a declaration that along with reality, we still need to proclaim moral behavior as possible and have the courage to not retreat from exposing sin (although sin looks different to different groups).<\/p>\n

Lastly, to us as leaders, a charge is given.\u00a0 We need to have the talent of simplification \u2013 taking complex situations and capturing the heart of the matter in simple terms and then the ability to communicate this truth successfully.\u00a0 In any endeavor, this is essential, especially when dealing with truths of Christ and the demands exerted on our lives.<\/p>\n

P.S.\u00a0 I also learned that if I eat out with groups of 7 or more, I will eat 96% more food than if I was to eat at home \u2013 Lord, keep me from groups and relationships!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I normally use a life experience or story to illustrate the meanings and take-a-ways from a theoretical book.\u00a0 But in the case The Social Animal by David Brooks, the book is the story and I have to come away with the theoretical meanings and take-a-ways.\u00a0 Insights and tidbits of stimulating information flowed from every page […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[167,171,33,2,161],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brooks","tag-consciousness","tag-dmin","tag-dminlgp","tag-mind","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1731,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/1731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}