Written by: Ken Pierce, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
At least seven million people died from COVID on our planet, so far. Perseverance is ensuring the number doesn’t get too much higher. Globally, people are confused and discouraged about these life-threatening, past three years, their present life, and especially their future existence. Everyone, regardless of age, culture or geography is seeking answers on surviving this and the next pandemic that will inevitably appear.
Consciously persevering is the difference that will make a difference, going forward. But how do you persevere? Read on to find out!
We are all searching for some order in this planetary chaos. We know there have been pandemics in the past that humanity survived. But, how do we cope, and make sense of this current disordered turmoil? And, how do we manage it as individuals, families, communities and countries?
Over these past three years, people have been dying in unprecedented numbers while world leaders scrambled to meet the on-slot of the viruses spreading across our planet. Our emergence from this has thrown us into a state of imbalance. And, the situation is being aggravated further by climate and political challenges around the globe.
I want to offer you an understanding of not just the costs of this current pandemic, but also the benefits, including the future ones that await us. This will enable you to notice and appreciate your innate ability to cope, empower yourself and manage this challenge and any future ones.
As a board-certified clinical psychologist, human behaviour expert and CEO of The Pierce Institute of Psychology Inc., I have had the privilege of working for over 40 years in business, education and private practice. I have served thousands of people of all ages experiencing a wide spectrum of life-threatening challenges.
To understand what is happening, why it is happening, and also, why it is happening now, we need to do what humans have always done in the past with their life-threatening challenges. That is, we looked for answers in our surroundings, in our natural environment, in the patterns or laws of our natural world. These patterns or laws are revealed most clearly in our hard sciences which take their information from studying our natural world. We seem to forget that every “ology” we create is studying some aspect of nature. Even mathematics has been termed, “the language of nature in symbol form.”
You will see the order to be found in our current pandemic and be more ready for the next one when it arrives. You will gain an awareness of how this situation is part of a bigger natural picture of our planet. You will understand how it is, not just costing us, but also benefiting us, and serving our future. You will gain insights which enable you to build a sense of personal strength and self-confidence about going forward with your daily life. You will be re-empowered and more prepared for your future, whatever it holds for you.
The COVID pandemic shattered our individual and collective illusions about anxiety and personal safety. But, you will piece it back together again with the discovery of what runs, not just your health, but also the health of your families, your communities and your planet.
You are offered an up-to-date, scientific appraisal of what a pandemic means for humanity and an understanding of the necessity and usefulness of human anxiety and fear. You will learn how your future lies in understanding these laws of science, these laws of our real world and your need to move forward beyond past fantasies and nightmares about life.
The award-winning, Vietnamese poet, Ocean Vuong said, “Survival is a creative act!” Humans create fantasies and nightmares as learning tools to sustain their temporary understanding of their current situation. But, with increasing knowledge and understanding of natural laws, uncovered by science, you are then challenged with evolving your old thinking strategies into new levels of awareness. This enhances your ability to survive and move forward.
This is not new, you have seen this process repeatedly throughout your life. For example, young children develop a belief in “Santa Claus” because it helps them make sense of all the gifts under the Christmas tree. But, as they gain more information about family and relationships, they give up this belief and adopt one more accurately reflecting their learning experiences in their family. This process has been repeated constantly as you have evolved in each of the seven areas of your life: spiritually, mentally, vocationally, financially, socially, familially and physically.
This natural learning process is a demonstration of two of nature’s most basic laws, the laws of balance and duality. This means learning to survive is balanced at every second with a duality of benefits and costs. With awareness and ownership of both the benefits and their equal costs, you can manage this natural process. We called this evolutionary learning.
Internationally noted author and mechanical engineer, Adrian Bejan, in his work, Freedom and Evolution – Hierarchy in Nature, Society and Science, captured it well with,
“Evolution is the defining phenomenon of nature. Everywhere we look what we see is evolving because it is free to move and morph. Without the freedom to change, there is nothing, no design, no evolution, and therefore no future.”
When you evolve yourself using the human learning tools of fantasies and nightmares, you can reach gratitude for your life, as it is within natural law. You then experience personal empowerment and appreciation for yourself and others. With this level of awareness and knowledge of how our world (nature) works and how our mind can manage it, then you are free to motivate, energize, focus and inspire your own life.
Knowing and understanding the following six secrets will increase dramatically your ability to persevere and continue to empower yourself into your future.
The First Secret:
The First Secret is perseverance is survival-in-action and based on your biology. You were born with a genetically encoded "will to live" which motivated you to think creatively and to adapt. When doing this, you experienced both positive and negative emotions (fantasies and nightmares) to assist you in learning to survive. This mental ability enables you even today to learn to adapt to the dangerous environment of our planet.
This unconscious mental ability has already enabled you to survive successfully. It is mostly out of your awareness, but with a new danger, like the COVID virus, you needed to adapt more quickly.
For example, COVID challenged many people to adapt immediately and so to adopt new ways of protecting themselves from viruses. One tool was wearing masks most of the time. Many people found it difficult and complaints were common. These varied and included: the handicap to communicating, the cost, the inconvenience; the interference in completing certain job tasks, personal hygiene, and others. As a hearing impaired, lip-reader, I experienced frustration many times. But, it is likely many medical people who wear surgical masks as part of their daily duties, and so had more practice with this behaviour, would have been able to adapt more quickly and more comfortably.
The Second Secret:
The Second Secret is perseverance is both unconscious and conscious. You are alive today because you have been learning and adapting unconsciously your entire life, so this is you persevering in the past. You are already very skilled at it. But, with new dangers, you are being challenged to do it more consciously in the future.
Nature’s basic laws of balance determine the pace of adaptation for all living things including you. Your adaptions have two dimensions: the actual change in your body (physical evolution) and the perceptual change in your mind (mental evolution). You notice your physical evolution most, but much less so, your mental evolution. As a learning system, you never stop learning or adapting from conception to your death in both dimensions, simultaneously.
For example, COVID demanded we as a species consciously learn to adapt to it together. Dealing with COVID was the first recorded example of all human beings on the planet, regardless of race, colour or creed working together on one global challenge. We were required to consciously find new ways to adapt (vaccines and communication) both consciously and unconsciously. This has given us valuable practice for another common human challenge we face, climate change.
The Third Secret:
The Third Secret is perseverance creates your well-being. Your health and well-being are tied directly to your willingness to learn and respect the laws of nature. You unconsciously respect the law of gravity by using stairs, ladders, elevators and airplanes, so you can move safely to different heights. You give it more conscious attention when you are in a new high place where you could fall. Your well-being and survival to date are demonstrated by your level of awareness of this law of gravity.
Some people like to play to the edges of the gravity law such as skydivers and mountain climbers. Some other examples of laws you are respecting unconsciously and sometimes consciously include energy conservation, light, sound, friction and many others. Most people do not recognize these laws in action in their daily life.
For example, COVID created the situation of having more time at home with family (fantasy) and more time away from work (fantasy). At the same time, it created the situation of not being able to work (nightmare) and not having enough income (nightmare.) Everyone was expected to learn to manage these personal fantasies and nightmares almost immediately, and then daily over the next 36 months.
The Fourth Secret:
The Fourth Secret is perseverance is the foundation of personal longevity. Your level of awareness of the laws of nature determines not just your wellness but, to a surprising degree, your longevity. Wiser people live longer because they have learned to understand and respect the laws of nature. Wise people have dissolved more of their past fantasies and nightmares by studying natural laws so they are better prepared for their future. Whatever goals you set in any area of your life are governed by the same laws.
Understanding and respecting these natural laws determines your future. Your level of understanding of these laws is demonstrated in your belief system. As Dr. John Demartini, the Top Human Behavior Specialist (2020) according to the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP), noted, “Whatever you say to yourself about yourself, whether true or not, becomes your destiny.” So, taking conscious control of what you believe will determine your future well-being in each area of your life.
For example, during COVID, your physical health was reflected in your understanding and respect for adequate nutrition, exercise and rest which are derived from natural laws including motion, friction, nutrition and rest. Your mental health was reflected in your understanding and respect for adequate freedom, power, love and learning which are derived from the natural laws of balance and duality. Think about the people in your life who were most affected physically by the COVID virus and noticed they were often also the people who were more emotionally upset or imbalanced about the situation because stress weakens our immune systems.
The Fifth Secret:
The Fifth Secret is perseverance is achieved by self-evaluation. Your belief or value system is created from your perceived past successes and past failures. If you perceive more success than failure, you will tend to be optimistic. In the same way, if you perceive more failure than success you will tend to adopt a pessimistic attitude. Wise people, knowing the law of balance and duality, see both. So, they could be considered optimistic pessimists or pessimistic optimists.
Your current values are the learning tools for your journey to this level of awareness in the future. Your ability to dissociate, which means your ability to think about thinking, is the critical difference which makes the difference in your ability to achieve this awareness and so to survive. You are a member of the only species who can consciously remember the past and imagine the future. So, you can plan and prepare for its potential dangers. This ability is why you are such a successful person. You have been using your values as learning tools throughout your life.
For example, whether you decided to take the COVID vaccine or not was based on your beliefs and value system which came from your past. Studying science, our current understanding of the natural laws, suggested that vaccines would ensure your future. But your values or beliefs determined your actions. Millions of deaths were avoided with the use of the vaccine but each person was required to self-evaluate whether to use it or not, based on their personal beliefs or values. Wise people took it and most are still here.
The Sixth Secret:
The Sixth Secret is perseverance requires an internal reference frame. If you refuse to evolve forward by learning the laws of nature, you will revolve in circles instead. This stagnation generates friction and accelerates the natural recycling process. When you ignore your awareness, ignore your internal values and defer to someone else's values, you take an external frame of reference. So, your survival demands you assume an internal frame of reference for your well-being. When you take an internal frame of reference your mind is listening to your body and so you build self-esteem and self-confidence. This is projected outward as gratitude, certainty and love of self and others. This is demonstrated in physical and mental wellness.
For example, The pandemic demanded each of us learn to trust the research and science behind the COVID vaccines. Those who were not willing to take this risk were more likely to be impacted by the virus and so recycled sooner rather than later. So, in the process of adapting to the challenge of this pandemic, humanity grows stronger and smarter for all future pandemics. It has achieved this by letting go of the fantasy of safety in the natural world and using adaptive learning for the nightmare of the pandemic.
In conclusion, perseverance is the ability to adapt to a dangerous and changing environment at all times. You started doing it at conception unconsciously and eventually were required to do it consciously to ensure your survival. You have done well so far because you are here right now reading this. Your ability to persevere is enhanced dramatically with an understanding of the laws of nature which control all things that are dangerous to you.
Your skills become more conscious of more complex challenges as you age. Wisdom is seeing the laws of nature in any situation, regardless of whether you see a situation as positive or negative. This is because in nature there is no positive or negative…that is a human illusion, a human value of seeking pleasure over pain.
Your perseverance is reflected in your measure of self-confidence which is built on your knowledge and skills of the natural laws. So, your perseverance, is what built the life you have created. And, the benefits of perseverance are always counterbalanced by its costs in compliance with the natural laws of balance and duality. So, perseverance is an essential component of the natural order of life and an essential skill for your future which you can use consciously as a human being to enhance your unconscious ability to survive.
A more detailed analysis of this topic is available in my book, The Six Secrets to Perseverance in a Pandemic, which is available from Bookboon.com and my websites, and KenPiercePsychologist.com
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Ken Pierce, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Ken Pierce is a board-certified clinical psychologist and CEO of The Pierce Institute of Psychology Inc. He has authored many psychological works including seven books and 400 case study web-posts. Ken is considered a human behaviour expert having worked in business, education and private practice for over 40 years. He has served thousands of people of all ages from a diverse spectrum of life challenges. This group include executives, teams, organizations, individuals, couples and families. He has served on the faculty of two post-secondary institutions, Holland College and the University of Prince Edward Island.
Ken was also the first psychologist globally to achieve Master Facilitator credentials with the renowned Demartini Institute and is a Senior Faculty of the Glasser Institute. He has spoken at many regional, national and international events. As head of the The Pierce Institute of Psychology Inc. (TPI), a community service facility, he is a leader in moving clinical psychology forward by transforming a labelling and medicating focus to appreciating human adaptions as tools for empowerment. This is demonstrated in the latest research in evolutionary anthropology, biology, neurology, psychiatry and psychology. This scientific approach is found in the work of Drs. William Glasser and John Demartini and the services of TPI.
Ken resides in Stratford, Prince Edward Island with Anna, his partner of 50 years. They have three daughters and three grandsons. Ken's interests vary widely from quantum theory to energy efficiency to building stone walls.
