Getting to the point requires bending!

How often does rigidity come up in the use of these concepts in our language: shoulds, expectations, musts, have to’s, needs, and ought to’s? Such concepts help the primordial brain come to a solution with the best possible answer based only on our experience of our past: Rigid thinking, not much room for flexible ideas or thoughts. In other words, “Thoughts are Things and we can become our Thoughts”, easily so

Think of it this way. This type of thought results in a person’s repertoire of thoughts that makes for an individual that expects that things will turn out, and that people should react, to the way his perspective on the world has evolved, and the set of expectations set thereof.  No room for growth here. The emotional process has been set on past experiences (usually from  0 to 14 years of age) and that’s the way things are: logically fallible.

Perhaps this thought process is what gets the human race in trouble. There are absolute overtones that result in judgments that hinder an accepting brain, “it is what it is,” –this is the way it happened to me, this is the way life has evolved for me, so “it is what it is,”– punto y aparte^1. Pain, emotional distress, feelings of betrayal, you name it can come about from this thought process. Every feeling associated with a situation becomes problematic because “that’s the way it was and is and I told you so, and so forth and so on.  These repetitive thought patterns come from a place that we need to identify as some would say “identify with our inner child’s behavior as it pertains to our reactions in our adult lives.

Everyone’s life experience is different. Take mine for example. When we emigrated from Cuba due to the repressive communist government in the late 60s, the experience I could say was different, unique from anyone else’s, probably even my brother’s who was right there beside my mother and me, in fact, I know it was. Our dad stayed behind in a Cuban prison for the time being (he would reunite with us 5 years later). Anyway to the point: We had just crossed over the hot steamy tarmac towards the plane trudging through the heap of vulgarities that were being yelled at us from those enticed by the government on both sides of the carpet leading up to the plane, for us it was like the path to heaven’s gate. When we reached the holy gates of our plane and just when we were about to board, my mother turned us around to face that dark, rigid tarmac and made us look towards a beautiful flowing aquamarine sea and said, “we are going on an adventure, only happiness awaits, you see what we are leaving behind, not our problem. Welcome to your new life,” and she lowered her head under the arch of the plane’s door and escorted us into the plane. She was smiling and the energy felt positive underneath what I knew was anguish and pain. Upon take-off when the stewardesses announced over the PA “that we were now flying over international free waters,” in all the confusion, I felt as if the plane started speaking and yelling and she was letting people kiss the runway between the rows of seats. The energy was ecstatic, it was exciting, we were now on our way to our adventure in our new country, and I certainly felt it was going to be beautiful, big, and grand.  Among all the commotion I did notice others reacting as if the worst was yet to come, angry, aggressive, and unbecoming, and rightly so after having your whole life taken away from underneath you. A sort of unchecked PTSD was taking form, they were stuck “in the part of the primordial brain that came to a solution with the best possible answer based on their unique past experiences, that things were not going to be okay.” They had just left an inferno yet things were not going to be okay! When I think back to that moment they were helpless victims of rigid thinking with not much room for flexible ideas or thoughts. In contrast to my mother, I am still in awe over her reaction to the entire situation which to this day has shaped the many ways that I handle the “human condition.” Her flexible thinking was passed on to me, whether through DNA or growing up around her, it was unknowingly the most beautiful gift I was ever given. 

Studies confirm there is an implicit relationship between rigid forms of language and negative evaluations, even when people are unconscious of these connections.² What’s in it for us? Ufffff. We are our Thoughts, so challenges will become dark unless we can be aware that we are acting out of the past, the problem is that we automatically act as to what has been ingrained in our brains, so triggers and reactions can be a lifelong challenge.

Can we change? The brain is flexible, in the psychological realm it is called Cognitive flexibility and refers to the brain’s ability to transition from thinking about one concept to another. In the spiritual realm of Holistic Wellness it can be referred to as a type of epiphany, a realization from a higher source that our present state is not part of our past, a letting go, an observation of ourselves from a “different deck,” that screams good is on its way. We feel peace in our gut, a new trust in our intuition, perhaps comfort in a connection to a universal higher power or yes, even God. Then our relationship with the world changes and our reactions to life are not emotional crises. We simply grow as lifelong suffering and limitations on our true happiness take a change for the better. We challenge the darkness that until now has been so easy to disregard as our brain has been hijacking our thoughts to the tune of “this is what happened to me, so this is the way it will be;” change is full of fear and anxiety, yes that’s the brain talking. We may even realize that maladies and self-limiting diseases that have plagued us, for the time being, have gone by the wayside. 

We can teach an old dog new tricks, in this case, our brains, yet new tricks require work, require true change, resilience, and a willingness to reach out of our comfort zone. Rigid thinking, not much room for flexible ideas or thoughts!

In Holistic Health there are natural laws. These laws govern nothing, they just describe regularities and uniformities in nature. Life’s Great Law states that every particle of living matter in the organized body is endowed with an instinct of self-preservation sustained by a force inherent in the organism…  if that force is dysfunctional, then there you have the prognosis. We can all change holistically.

For further information on how you or a loved one could benefit from a Holistic Wellness, Whole Health path, please do not hesitate to contact me at sixto@drsixto.me

To your Whole Health, naturally!

Sixto J. Sicilia, PhD

1. In Spanish, a colloquial term used to express the very rigid concept of “No two ways about it.”
2. Steven Hayes – Research on the negative consequences of “rule governance” in the study of language. Daniel David – A pattern of research demonstrating the relationship between rigid forms of language and dysfunction (emotional distress and behavioral problems).