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The Personal Paradigm Shift

AUDIO - Personal Paradigm Shift mp3 - 53 min. - 30 MB

This is an audio download from a series of classes I taught at the
Philosophical Research Society [view flyer] a few years ago.
This has been edited down to about an hour from a 90 minute lecture.

Basically, to change one's course in life can be difficult for many reasons, but most of all because we live lives of habit, and habits can be hard to break simply because they are "the normal way" and quite often, habits are sub- or un-conscious so we often don't even recognize them, let alone question them.

This is what a paradigm is - the underlying "truth" of a matter, or, "the way things are," and it is from a paradigm that we base all our other decisions, reactions and expectations - automatically. For example, before the Copernican Revolution and Gallileo's proof of the heliocentric (sun-centered) cosmology, the accepted paradigm was that the Earth was at the center of the Universe and the Sun, planets and stars all revolved around us. Before this was the paradigm that the earth was flat, and so on. The digital age has also presented a shift in how we take pictures, write letters and communicate with others, how we get and share information, etc.

Psychologically, it is when we operate from an old, outmoded paradigm - one that once worked but no longer does - that we run into trouble. At age 45, you cannot shoot hoops with the guys like you did when you were 20. Now this seems obvious because of the physical reminder that your body gives you to tell you that it can't work from the previous paradigm. Our thoughts and feelings about life, love, relationships, career, government, death, etc., cannot always continue to operate from an old paradigm. If you want to be in a loyal monogomous relationship, you cannot contintue along with your "singles bar" or "bachelor pad" lifestyle or attitude. Or, if you carry a grudge from a parent or spouse because they did not meet your expectations of what that relationship "should have been," maybe it's time to look at your underlying assumptions and beliefs - the paradigm - and see if they need to be updated.

For example, if you operate from the paradigm that suggests that acts of love or attention should be reciprocated equally, then you will be upset when the other person doesn't follow suit. Now, this seems to be a common assumption, idealistic, and not necessarily "wrong." It's just that the other person may not feel that way. And, because all people come with their own set of beliefs and histories, from their point of view, maybe the are giving back what they receive. Maybe they're doing way way better than what was done to them and have come a long way to be where they are now, or maybe that's all their capable of doing.

So, if you expand your paradigm to include what may be unknown factors in the other person, to accept that others may not share your exact point of view, and that maybe even your best, longest held assumptions might not be entirely correct, you will allow more room to breathe and accept others just as they are, and not take their actions so personally. This is a new paradigm that can save you a lot of stress and heartache.