Principle 3 - Chaos and Reorganization

(Alternative Title…) I love Chaos and why you should too…

Have you ever felt that some part of your life was in chaos? Have you ever felt that you were in chaos? I thought so. What if you knew that chaos was your friend? What if the chaotic moments and situations of life - sometimes your most stressful moments - turned out to be huge opportunities – and you actually knew how to make use of them? Would that change things?

What if, in fact, chaos turned out to be the best thing that could happen to you?

I know. Hard to believe. Chaos feels like the plague, doesn’t it? But what if you discovered that it doesn’t feel like the plague because it is the plague, but because of how you are responding to it. Perhaps there is a way to respond to it that changes it from something plague-like to something more like a diamond, or a pile of gold. Perhaps. Chaos is certainly a good description of what happens when you’re pushed over your threshold (yesterday’s Principle 2.) But remember that being pushed over your threshold is part of a process by which your threshold is raised higher — which is a very good thing.

This sudden shift, this sudden transformation, has been called the “Ah ha!” moment. It could be called a flash of insight, creativity, having a brainstorm, turning on a light bulb in the brain, a felt shift, wordless knowing, a gut feeling, intuition, or by many other names. Whatever you call it, it’s a feeling that something in the brain has been rearranged in a new way, that something old has passed away, and something new has been born.

Your brain simply says, “A Ha!” and a number of very interesting things happen in the brain those times. Why do some stimuli have such a transforming effect? And why is the effect often so different on different people? Why do some stimuli lead to new and higher perspectives, while others lead to disorder and destruction?

In fact, this principle may just be (in disguise) a description of how God operates in the universe.

The short version – think of weight lifting – muscles have to tear so that newer, stronger muscles can replace them – or in other terms , muscles are being reorganized at a higher level of functioning…This applies to emotional weight lifting too. Our emotional muscles (or emotions) sometimes get frayed, or torn for one reason or another, and when things sort out (and they always do), we are stronger, better, more resilient people. What’s the old saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…” This is Principle 3 at work.

When we resist the chaos, and say “this shouldn’t happen,” blah, blah, blah, we delay the inevitable and stunt our growth. Not fun because this causes suffering, and not helpful because we’re really swimming upstream. No fun there. Again - Principle 3.

So its pretty obvious that we tend to resist chaos. In fact, we tend to freak out when the chaos gets to be too great. There are really three ways people resist chaos. Imagine that you are in a boat out on the ocean, and the boat starts to fill up with water. If you don’t do something, the boat is going to sink, and it’s a long way to dry land. What would you do?

Some people would grab a bucket and bail like crazy. The bailers are those who, when the input exceeds the system’s established comfort zone frantically try to cool off. They get angry. They cry. They yell. They might exercise compulsively. They might have sex. They feel compelled to do something, anything. The whole idea is to push cool the room as fast as possible, so they can get comfortable again.

Some people, though, say, “No, no, no. I’d find the hole and plug it.” These are the people who want to shut off the input, to keep more heat from coming in. These people isolate themselves in order to minimize input. They shut down. They might get depressed. In depression, in addition to wanting to isolate ourselves, we also breathe less, so as to take in less air, we constrict the pupils of our eyes, so as to take in less light, and we lose our appetite, so as to take in less food. In depression, everything is about keeping more input from the outside from entering the inside.

The third method is to distract yourself—by getting high, by zoning out in front of the TV, by becoming absorbed in something that takes your mind off the fact that you’re overwhelmed by too much input, that you’re over your threshold.

The third method, distracting yourself, really doesn’t work at all, though, unless you use it in conjunction with one of the other two, which is what most people do. Method number three is like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. In my experience, most people use method one or method two as their primary method, with the other as a backup. They get angry, for instance (method one) and if pushed further, they eventually get depressed. Or, they get depressed first, and if that doesn’t work, if the overwhelm continues, they eventually get angry. Of course, very often, people use method number three along with one of the other two in order to distract themselves from the chaos they are experiencing.

One of the fundamental principles here is that everything constantly changes. This is what’s behind Buddha’s explanation of human suffering and how to end it, his Four Noble Truths. People suffer because in the world of the mind everything changes, everything comes into being and passes away, and we resist that fact. The process I’ve described here is how this process of constant change happens. Either things reorganize at a higher level, or they die and pass away. Even when something reorganizes at a higher level, in that process the old passes away, and the new comes into being. Resisting the fact that this is what happens, over and over, is what causes your suffering. So stop the suffering - it's crazy!

So here are some practical things you can do. First of all, recognize when your map of reality is beginning to become chaotic. This is really the same as noticing when you are approaching and reaching your threshold. Get to the point where when the chaos begins to build, you can say to yourself, “Ah, I’m moving toward my threshold, I can feel the internal chaos.” Noticing is the first step. Amazingly, most people do not notice when they are approaching their threshold, but you can learn to notice this, if you just decide you’re going to.

This is what conscious awareness is all about. It isn’t something metaphysical. It’s something very matter-of-fact. This is one reason Buddhists say, “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” Just learn how your particular system operates. You should always be familiar with the owners manual anyway.

The next step is to become aware of what you typically do when you’re pushed over your threshold. Do you try to push energy out? Do you block more from coming in? Do you distract yourself? Or do you do a combination of these?

Find out. Watch what you do. Instead of just automatically doing whatever you’ve been doing all your life, pay attention. If you’re going to use one of these three methods of dealing with overwhelm, at least do it with awareness.

Pretty much anything active that you do as a response to feeling the building chaos qualifies as a coping behavior, from pitching a fit all the way to drumming your fingers or dermotillamania. It doesn’t matter whether it’s something considered to be healthy or unhealthy, either. It’s just what you do.

And, any way that you try to block more input from coming in, whether it’s depression and isolation, wanting to shut out light or sounds, or not wanting any more information about something, as long as it is a reaction to feeling overwhelmed, qualifies. Don’t judge it – just be aware of it.

One more thing. You aren’t doing something wrong just because you engage in some sort of activity when you become overwhelmed, or that you’re doing something wrong when you want less input, or that you’re wrong for distracting yourself. This isn’t about being wrong. Allow yourself to be human. I just want you to be aware of what you do. Just watch yourself do whatever you do. Live with awareness instead of automatically doing the same thing over and over, unconsciously and automatically.

Finally, when you feel the overwhelm building, when you feel the chaos happening, step back and say to yourself, “Ah ha. The old system can’t handle what’s happening, and if I just leave it alone and watch, if I step back and don’t try to save the old system, it will probably reorganize in a new way, and many of the problems of the old system will be solved.” Then, just watch the process with awe and curiosity, knowing that you’re watching God in action.

If anyone is interested I have a much longer version of this information with all kinds of cool scientific terms and studies about chaos and chaos theory. The laws of thermodynamics, entropy, dissipated energy, etc. Let me know and I’ll either post it or email you a copy. It’s very cool stuff, but the detailed description isn’t considered “light reading…” Helpful to know though if you’re interested in details.

How cool is that? – Principle 4 continued tomorrow.