Fixed Personality
We adults do not change easily, especially not as we get a tad older. We have our own personality. And once that has been formed, it does not change easily.
Or so we believe. Check out this clip:
This guy talks about all of us having two “personalities”. Just like we each have two hands, we also have two personalities. And two very different personalities.
Why is this interesting? The first type of personality is the critical and self-critical, anxious and fundamentally unhappy one. Unfortunately, it’s also how most of us humans feel / are. And that is a big issue if we feel we have only one personality — as we have been led to believe.
The good thing is that (1) there is this “other” personality — or state of mind as he also calls it — that feels much better, and (2) that there are ways to switch to that other personality or state of mind. We do not need to be bound by an eternal self-critical and unhappy mind. We can change. And that is often what happens during spiritual awakenings.
About that other personality, he says: “When you’re in that state of mind you’re in love with where you’re at and what you’re doing; you have all good thoughts and all good feelings. It’s what the athletes call the zone, or religious people call the kingdom of God.”
The details of how to do that may need to be fine tuned but Slomo does lead the way. His trick is skating in slow motion, a form of dynamic balancing, and thus a way to engage the body core in a physical way. More generally, he found a great way of being in the moment (Eckhart Tolle) or activating our right brain hemisphere (Jill Bolt Taylor).
One reason why the Slomo story resonates so strongly with me is that I sometimes still experience the huge difference between the two “personalities”.
When it has been too long since I Onewheeled or unicycled, I find myself in the unhappy and critical state of mind. Then I feel like the person who had a burn-out a few years ago. Hardly any energy, no inspiration, etc….
But all of that changes dramatically when I pick up the balancing exercise again. The contrast can be very very strong: sparkling energy, bubbling creativity, strong connectivity, seeing opportunities rather than problems etc.
