Back to the Basics
September 29, 2008 — Moving back to the basics.
Here’s an experiment for people who can sometimes feel like a swinging mass on a wire has a lot in common with their emotional life.
Do you know how pendulums work? It seems simple enough when you look at a clock, but did you know that the pendulum swings faster (with greater frequency) when the wire it hangs from is shorter? Did you also know that the weight of the pendulum does not determine how fast it will swing?
EXPERIMENT
To see what happens to frequency when you change the length of the wire it hangs from visit:
http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/pendulum.htm
Instructions:
Step 1: SCROLL DOWN TO CHANGE LENGTH
Step 2: HIT START
Step 3: NOW CUT THE LENGTH TO .5 (HALF THE ORIGINAL LENGTH)
Step 4: HIT START AGAIN
See how fast it moves when you decrease your support network.
Step 5: INCREASE THE LENGTH TO 2 (TWICE THE ORIGINAL LENGTH)
Step 6: HIT START AGAIN
You can slow the emotional pendulum down by increasing your support network.
ANALYSIS
How you describe and relate the pendulum to your life is up to you.
If you did the experiment you understand why I say that my wire is what keeps me connected. It’s my friends, my family, and the activities that make me feel grounded. I know that the shorter my wire is the faster my emotional pendulum will swing.
HOW MY SCIENCE EVOLVED
In the past I’ve found comfort in knowing that the degree of pain that I experienced would provide an equal degree of happiness — I thought when the pendulum would swing toward the positive (happiness) it would hit a super high point to counteract the negative (pain). It’s true that the mass swings the same distance in the opposite direction — BUT the damn thing swings back too!
Just as life goes on after our defining moments, the pendulum keeps swinging. And even though “my science” meant I would have a great upside — the downside was that I risked going back to that deep painful place.
PAIN
I kinda figured out that feeling sad is inevitable, but I did not want to feel like I was going to swing back to where I started. So I did what every great scientist does — I changed the axioms — the self-evident truths, so that I had a better outcome.
Now I define pain as the mass, the weight of the pendulum, instead of the degree that the pendulum is pulled back. You see the mass of the pendulum does not determine frequency, but without some mass we can’t feel anything. Pain is necessary. It’s almost a requirement to life.
My new axiom: I exist therefore I must feel pain. But the degree of pain I experienced in the past does not have to be experienced again and again in order to live a fulfilling life.
SWINGING
The solution to an emotional life that is swinging with high frequency is to: (1) add reliable friends, (2a) connect with family or (2b) if your family is swinging out of control, build a support network that acts like a family, and (3) increase activities that make you feel grounded, like walking around a lake or visiting the ocean, or hiking, or laughing.
WHAT GROUNDS ME
Even though my science wasn’t perfect, I began lowering the frequency of my emotional pendulum a long time ago.
First with Barbara, who taught me what a home was, and became a strong mother figure in my life. Giving me the support I needed to get grounded. Next, I added friends. Long lasting ones. There were only one or two, but they changed my life. Today I know the value of friendship because of that friend that (for two decades) has never judged and always let me be me. Thanks Melisa!!!
The steps I take now are incremental to keep the pendulum steady. Over the last decade I’ve seen a lot change in my life that might have hit me like a tornado, but I was always able to get back to the basics. To laugh with my friends, to get support from my family (the one I was granted and the one I created)…the point is that I had steady people that I could connect to when life started feeling a little out of control.
I’ve also been able to build new friendships. My best friend in Los Angeles inspired me to write this blog in the first place! He might look like an unlikely match for me, an Italian producer with a great family and a wonderful happy childhood. Riccardo grew up in Milan, Italy and his life experience reminds me that life is a blessing. He has a great frequency and I enjoy being near him — he acts like a force to center my life and he also increases the length of my emotional wire.
THE LESSON
The lesson that I’ve been learning over my lifetime is that I don’t have to act or re-act based on my past experiences. I can slow down my emotional responses and even reset the degree of ups and downs that I feel. I’m sharing because I think some of us feel like the pendulum is out of our hands.
It is in fact in our hands — we live life by our own science — our own axioms, rules, and definitions.
We can all get back to the center, if we know what to add and what to take back AND all that means is GETTING BACK TO THE BASICS!
WHEN AXIOMS FAIL
Sometimes our science fails us, and things don’t make that much sense (like the video below). It’s usually our minds playing tricks on us, but it could be serious. I’ve seen too many kids reject therapy (and even evaluations) because there is still a social stigma among our street culture to not admit that we need some help — my only advice is that we all need a wire — and the tougher things get the more you need safe (grounded) people you can talk to.
It’s your ride! In this picture things are out of control. There are actually hidden magnets that make the pendulum swing out of control. When life feels like this first identify the energy forces (peers or even family) that are throwing you off…then decide if you should distance yourself from them by saying “goodbye” to bad friends, or when it’s family you might want to increase the length of your wire by getting better friends and building a stronger support network.
Kids aren’t the only ones that have a stigma about getting help. If a doctor recommends more to get your emotional pendulum in order then consider it. I could see that sometimes when we’re swinging out of control it could be necessary to take a pill. BUT remember the goal is to get back to a regular frequency, so let the meds help you get back to the basics.
Regular maintenance is necessary, so when life is just a little out of control try thinking about the pendulum. Think about who or what increases the length of your wire, and remember that no matter how heavy it all seems you’ll get through it — in my science the weight of what I went through in the past does not determine what I experience today!