July 31st, 2014
I discovered that whenever I resist paradigm shifts in my own life, I suffer more. And since I’m not a big fan of suffering, I gave some thought to the whole dynamic of paradigm shifts and how we can more gracefully embrace them as they begin to emerge in our lives. But first, let’s take a look at the consequences of prolonged resistance to natural paradigm evolution:
Some Examples of Resisting Paradigm Shift:
Flat earth Society founded in 1956:
In spite of scientific proof that the earth is spherical, many still clung to the belief that it was flat! Amazingly, even in this modern day, there still exists the “Flat Earth Society!” Talk about resistance! There is actually a name for this kind of paradigm shift resistance, which will be revealed later in this post.
No one believed that man can fly:
The Wright brothers proved that man CAN fly.
But many still clung to the belief that, “If God had intended for human beings to fly, he would have given us wings.”
Discovery of Bacteria
Anton van Leeuwenhoek first discovered bacteria and
reported it in 1670. 
Quite an amazing discovery that had the potential to save many lives. But it took another 2 centuries before people embraced the understanding that certain bacteria were at the root of some disease….
The Work of Dr. Semmelweis
The germ theory of disease was not really fully developed until the 1870s but, 30 years before this, a doctor in Vienna called Ignaz Semmelweis made a discovery that was very important but not accepted at all at the time. Semmelweis worked in a maternity hospital where the death rate of mothers and babies was extremely high because of an infection commonly known as “child bed fever” or “puerperal fever.” However, Semmelweis quickly made a very unpopular observation; he noticed that the ward run by midwives had a much lower death rate than a ward run by doctors.
At that time, doctors went from one patient to another without washing their hands, so the bacteria that caused child bed fever were transmitted easily around the ward. Semmelweis’ suggestion that doctors cleaned up between patients, and wore clean coats for the ward and different clothing for the room where post mortems were carried out achieved a huge drop in death rates. However, his claim that the doctors were doing a worse job than the midwives led to him being shunned by his colleagues and dismissed from his position.
After getting another job in another hospital, and making the same observations and improvements, Semmelweis was again heavily criticized and lost his job. He died in 1865 in a mental institution, widely regarded as a madman, and never lived to see the theory that tiny particles, invisible to the naked eye, could carry infectious disease from person to person.
Of course, in our modern times, we all take for granted and appreciate the fact that doctors are very careful to avoid the potential infection of patients by simply washing their hands and wearing latex gloves as necessary when treating patients. It is an evolved paradigm shift that began to develop largely due to the practical observations, experiments, and creativity of a few who were just paying attention and were bold enough to reach for something better–often at their own personal, professional, and financial peril.
We all have certain paradigms we function within during the various evolving stages of our lives.
We are not created to remain static and unmovable, even in our deepest beliefs. There will always be change and evolution and if we expect otherwise, then, well, we will be sorely disappointed throughout much of our lives. It is the process of evolution of mind, body, heart, and soul that we signed on
for as human beings. If it weren’t so, then perhaps we might just as well have been born as a bunch of “rocks!” But then again, even rocks change and evolve over time…
I believe part of the art of being human is learning how to recognize when one paradigm in our lives begins to change and not resist that change–often easier said than done!
It can be challenging to ease up on our tight grip of one paradigm of belief and be open to embrace the growing emergence of a new paradigm shift. And it can also be quite exciting! But many of us lock onto a paradigm that we’re comfortable with, put on the blinders and think we never have to change or step out of the box. How simple and comforting that would be, eh? But it’s far from comforting, as we have often experienced when we resist that inevitable change.
Speaking of resisting evolutionary change, we only have to look back in the history of our world’s existence and recognize the consequences of resisting evolutionary change and the new possibilities it brings.
There is a long list of species, businesses, societies, empires, and so forth, that are now extinct because they were not able to make that evolutionary leap. And, of course, we can only imagine how many lives could have been saved had the health professionals of the young Dr. Semmelweis’ time been willing to let go of their stubborn, relentless, prideful grip on the paradigm of their time.
(This kind of resistance eventually led to a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs or paradigms: “The Semmelweis Reflex” or “The Semmelweis Effect.”)
We can alleviate much unnecessary personal suffering as we become more willing to recognize and gracefully explore the possibilities of our own emerging paradigm shifts.
And they will emerge in time! Now and then in the span of our lives, even though we may be most familiar with an existing paradigm that seems to have worked well enough (or not…) for quite some time, we may begin to notice that it’s just not working as well as before–a bit tattered on the edges and losing some of its luster. We can have that foreboding sense that we will have to find the courage to move forward and step into a new paradigm that we’re just not yet familiar or comfortable with. It can be a scary thought. But deep inside, we eventually realize that we’ll have to step up and take that leap of faith. And the more we resist over time, the more we suffer. Sometimes we can go gracefully or eventually be pushed, kicking and screaming…
In the end, it all comes down to the simple scientifically verifiable fact that human beings are inherently designed to grow and evolve–not just physiologically but emotionally and spiritually. Learning to recognize when that shift is knocking quietly at the door and trusting that through our thoughts and actions, we are the ones responsible for creating the circumstances of our lives in the first place for our own personal growth, then we may be able to have a little more faith and trust that we really can more gracefully embrace the new emerging paradigms in life. In the end, free will is the gift that helps bring about the fulfillment of our universal, evolutionary birthright and individual purpose.
How does the Healing Spectrums for Health and Wholeness Method help?
By naturally generating increased coherent physiological function and refined/enhanced neurological brain function, the Healing Spectrums Method spontaneously cultivates greater flexibility and adaptability to change, both physically and emotionally. This can make for easier and more graceful paradigm transitions throughout life.
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