This is unprecedented, but the same person has met the standard for making it onto my Inspiring Examples of Resistance series two months in a row. The month after I made an example of J.J. Watt's negativity on my blog a few weeks ago, he turns around and surprises me with an act of resilience, resisting the negativity of the most negative fan base in all of sports!
As we continue to discuss negativity, it is important to keep in mind that if you decide to make changes in your life, that change is not an easy process. In fact your brain resists changing... Multiple different theories in psychology and neuroscience have identified the brain as seeking the familiar, the status quo, the path of least resistance; essentially the human tendency is to gravitate toward whatever baseline you have established in your life. This is a tendency that you have to be motivated to, and be ready to exert willpower to overcome.
This is the first excerpt in my new series "Inspiring Examples of Resistance." My hope is that this will inspire people to have the confidence to say no, feel more comfortable setting personal boundaries, and inspire them to fully embrace the power of self-acceptance. This excerpt is about one woman's unique form of resistance to a more current phenomenon, cyber bullying. What makes this example of resistance so unique, in my opinion, is that it provides us an example that might seem counter-intuitive in our culture, demonstrating just how powerful non-violence can be.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of what has been happening with Gaby Douglass this past week following an extraordinary Olympic performance. She won the women’s all around gold, becoming the first African American woman ever to do so, and was the driving force behind the American woman’s gymnastic teams' first team gold since 1996, second team gold all time. Yet, despite these great achievements there were people who focused on how bad her hair looked? Apparently some people are not able to celebrate or even imagine someone else’s success because somehow this presents a threat to their ego. Why would that be?
We have become a society that seeks pleasure and avoids pain at all costs. This is a function of both social conditioning as well as basic neurobiology. Today I want to focus on social conditioning and how it can get in the way of simply being yourself.
Competition is good: it leads us to raise the bar and set higher standards for ourself that impel us to improve. This can be a great boon to one’s success, and is the driving philosophy behind Capitalism. The problem is that this competition can seep into our personal relationships, lead us to challenge our partner at times when support is needed, create demands that can sap the vitality of a relationship when people start keeping score, and even end up draining energy from our own well-being.
