Harnessing Positive Thinking: Transforming Stress into Opportunity

Ep 75 In modern times, navigating life from physical survival to fiscal stability brings inevitable stress and difficulty. Overcoming challenges not only builds resilience but also triggers growth in the Anterior Mid Cingulate Cortex. Conversely, frequent fear responses can amplify the Amygdala’s influence.

Harnessing positive thoughts and imagery cultivates beliefs that empower action and can induce biological changes within a generation. Our thoughts dictate whether we embrace the unknown, taking a leap of spirit and faith, or retreat into familiarity.

Think deeply about your path and stride confidently forward. Walk Well. 

Transcript

Welcome back folks to episode 75 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast with me, your host Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college, and what we're going to be talking about today are two...

opposing poles of success and fear. And success and fear both hinge upon, one, the idea how we think about things, but two, how we feel about those things that we're thinking. But also a sub-point, really a third point, is the belief that we have as a result of those things.

point one and two and Why is it that success and fear so closely related is really my question for this podcast and what we're going to be looking at are types of fear now what I'm to do I'm going to relate to you the title of the book that I mentioned one of the other podcasts by Master Philip star of the Yili Tron system called martial arts and the mirror image now This is something where he starts really describing some of the mental skills that go along with the physical skills

become a better performer. But there is this one segment in his book that I just want to share a little bit of and it discusses fear and failure in this chapter 16. But he titled the subtitle, The Flavors of Fear. And I'll kind of read this little bit to you. Fear comes in different flavors. Let's take a look at the most common varieties. Number one, of course, is the fear of failure. This is the biggie. Most people fear.

most common people fear. People fear that they will fail and rather than taking that chance they never get out of the starting gate. Some will move forward for a time and when the fear of failure nestles into their minds they stop dead in their tracks and give up. I think that ego has a lot to do with this. Some people fear that others will think of what others will think of them and when they fail. Some fear what they may think of themselves.

armando (02:35.759)
egos will suffer rather than take that risk they find a seemingly plausible reason to quit. The second type of fear that he mentioned is fear of success. And he writes, yes there really is such a thing. Some people do very well in their quest for success but they get close to their goals, they quit. They're actually afraid of succeeding. It's something they've never done before. And rather than venture into the unknown, they turn around and walk away.

And this is something that can keep us from peeking in the areas or activities because we're entering into the third part of fear and that's the aspect called this fear of the unknown. Now we've all heard this term nothing new here, but he writes in the book, I sometimes tell students that they strive for, when they strive for success and begin their journey down that path, that they will eventually come to the precipice.

It is dark and they cannot see what's beneath them. Many will turn around and go back to be safer. More familiar ground. They will not achieve their goals, but they happy to stay in familiar surroundings, even if the surroundings aren't entirely comfortable or even adequate. Others tiptoe to the edge of the jagged precipice and finally find the strength and spirit to do what they find needs to be done. If they are ever to hope to achieve their goals, they jump into the unknown.

landing may be soft or it may be hard, but the most important thing is that they took the chance and jumped. Their willingness to do this reflects an inner strength that will be needed as they continue down the path. And because their spirits have become strengthened by their willingness to jump, they won't turn away and give up when they have to jump again. So there's a lesson to be learned from the unknown of course, but also recognizing that we fear in different ways.

We even fear to the point where we may not start or begin something. And that is more the thought aspect, our belief quality that stems from what we expect or what we predict. And like Master Star said in the book that he thinks it's ego. And I do agree with that point that there is an egoistic aspect of that, where there's a sense of self-preservation. a very important point to pay attention to.

armando (05:04.631)
Now I'm going to read from another tome and this is from the late Dr. Glenn Morris's last book. It's called Quantum Carfish Bisc for the Clueless Soul, but he writes a little bit of a social psychology and the applied tenets in there. And let me read you a couple of things. One is that mystics since the beginning of time, as well as clever people have developed the means to discipline the mind and stimulate states of wellbeing.

These states relate to the release of endorphins, serotonin, and painkillers, and result in euphoria. Recent research indicates that these internally produced natural substances are more potent than synthetic opiates and are byproducts of the states when physical and mental well-being predominate in people who have a positive regard for themselves and others. In other words, at the most basic and fundamental level of our existence,

Thinking positively is not only good for us but correlates to social success to the extent that the long term choices of evolutionary and biological development can be shown. We are not blank slates and when we choose to ignore the marvelous strength endowed by our biological nature, we literally toss aside the capability for success and damn ourselves to the role of sheepish followers. And that is some profound speak right there.

When we're discussing the fact that when we talk about the influences in our life, we do not get simply relegated to, well, it's a biological factor, or it's genetic, or it's stress in the environment. This takes away our capacity as human beings and our creativity in problem solving that we as human beings have whenever we are adapting to our immediate environments, environment that we're living in, that we're trying to overcome.

or maybe that is unknown, that is very closely tied to the fear factor we just talked about from martial arts in the mirror image. Now, why are these two things important? And we talked about success, succeeding in fear. Well, the first part is that to succeed, we have to be able to think and imagine and visualize. And that is part of the belief structure because our body will do what our brain tells it to do, even if it's damn near impossible.

armando (07:29.047)
And that's what they're pointing at. And whenever Glen Morris is pointing at the fact that we have these biological constructs that we say are our limitations and we realize that there's more influence there that's occurring. Part of it can even come with it from within that could stem on the belief systems that we may develop as a result of learning, teaching, practice, experience, this sort of thing. Then we may be able to mitigate the effects of biology, genetics, the social scheme. So.

there is a very dynamic interplay that occurs there. So we are not these automatons, these robots that are unfeeling and only this bag of reactivity and responses. And to some degree, and I mentioned it in one of the other podcasts as well, if we get too granular to the point of the molecular biological, then it seems like we have no free will at all. But one of the things that they can't do is measure our consciousness or measure who our mind is.

and everything that we've seen so far as far as imagery, FMRI technology, we see where the metabolization of sugar is occurring while we're doing our thinking and our feeling and reactivity. Wherever all the electrical activity is occurring is just indicative of where the action is. That's about it. But we're not able to really identify mind or consciousness or awareness of self, this sort of thing, even though we may be measuring when we tell us

ourselves rather when we're imaging, be self-aware, work on mindfulness and what are the things we're seeing the structures light up when in the process of said mindfulness, but we haven't been able to map that. Now back to the topic at hand, success and failure and fear. To succeed at anything, rarely do we call a success a success unless there's been some sort of resistance or it's a task that's not easy to

to accomplish or something that's difficult, an event or, or an opponent to overcome that is beyond the typical challenge. it's just like walking and then a piece of paper flies into you by the wind and it does nothing to you other than just brush against you and flies away, then that is no challenge. You have not survived an event. Um, but the fact of the matter is if that same piece of paper were a being, a person that was trying to harm you or somebody that was trying to take something from you.

armando (09:54.103)
or to get close to your family that they could take advantage of them and you're the barrier between that individual and harm to your children, for instance, then yes, when you overcome, you survive and that is a challenge and we'll call that succeeding. But whenever it comes to business, there are a lot of challenges we run into the thinking and the processing of information and also being able to sustain

employment over time, long-term, that's a dynamic thing and that is a win. Most people don't count the fact that you have to go to work with your game face on, that you have to be not only sociable, but be able to take constructive criticism, follow instructions and not have a bad attitude. For instance, when somebody tells you what to do when in actuality they're your boss and there sometimes are people that are immature and lose their job because they get into, you're not going to tell me what to do.

As if that has anything to do with them personally Even though it will personally affect their income if they get sent home this sort of thing, but Those are survival traits to their social dynamic survival traits and those are wins whenever we can stay at a place of employment for instance for Extended period of time to make a living to provide for family this sort of thing some call them sacrifices

You can say that it's not unfair to say that some places are more challenging to work than others But the more you stay there the more you survived and overcome and we have to recognize that Don't always have to jump up and down with this in the air saying I won I won But if you recognize what it is, it's really not so far from that image. Is it? Sometimes it can be quite challenging, but that's a win. That is a success and Whenever it comes to the mind and how we fear

Sometimes we starting. tend to exaggerate and predict things beyond what they are because we're prediction machines. We're sometimes capable of expecting things to happen, but we tend to want to over respond or over exaggerate. So that way we don't arrive with not enough. It's like the old adage that says never take a knife to a gunfight. I had a gun show this weekend. My son actually was talking to this one.

armando (12:20.641)
older gentleman that was trying to be sassy and rude to him and basically said don't take those brass knuckles to a gunfight that he was looking at and basically told him well I collect these and also carry firearms if I need to and the man backed off but he was telling me that he was basically thinking that you know knives are much more dangerous up close than guns are in many cases

And that's just based on the research and literature. It doesn't mean at a distance that you're at risk for getting cut if you can't touch them. But at touch distance, you may not have time to draw your gun, but you have time for the knife. And it just depends on the paradigm. Very specific, but the idea is still a bit comical. But once again, sometimes we fear and exaggerate what happens and happen and that prevents us from starting.

And really that's an egoistic self-protection and it's a mechanism that helps us feel like that part of us that we call our ego is not gonna die or get hurt or get lost somewhere in the mix in the fight that we're gonna call our challenge that we're worrying about. And sometimes we realize when we have to go through it anyway that, wow, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was in my mind. And I say that in my mind. Sometimes we exaggerate things. Sometimes things aren't...

all they're cracked up to be. Sometimes they're very disappointing. Sometimes we over exaggerate things and realize, well, I wouldn't have all that in the beginning nor in the end. And then sometimes we realize, man, I underestimated that. We're really terrible at estimating and estimating and trying to average out in advance what it is that may be our challenge to come. Sometimes we get too busy in that and forget to just present ourselves and do our best and arrive with what we know.

It's okay to be prepared, nothing wrong with that. But sometimes we can scare ourselves in preparation to the point where we won't start at all. The next thing is, what am I gonna do once I succeed? That fear of success can also be, well now I know what happens whenever I don't succeed. I know the rules there, I know what the expectations are. I feel a little bad, but I know the rules there and I feel comfortable there. And I know what happens next.

armando (14:40.161)
We as humans are creatures of habit and a lot of times that habitual way of living is not only comfortable, it's almost knee-jerk reaction. And we tend to slip into that very quickly. But when we break our mind state from that of the common day-to-day mindset, rise above the level of sheep or sheeple, if you will, not being the sheep, but rather sometimes we have to put on our thinking caps and become the predator or the wolf in a sense.

when it comes to our environment and changing how we view things, how we see things and how we act and interact with our world. And sometimes that can be quite the epiphany, can be a life changer in some cases, but some very important things to pay attention to, of course. The next type of fear, the fear of the unknown. And this is the one that will take us off into the very tail end of this conversation that is more along the lines of the neurobiological, but

The fear of the unknown, a lot of times that expectation is enough, like we said, to stop us from starting. But also that fear of not knowing what's going to come next can be overwhelming and very anxiety inducing to some. I don't know what to do or how to do. And sometimes we don't know where we're going or whom we're going to interact with. And that can be paralyzing. It can stop us from moving forward. If we're going to start any kind of endeavor in this life, we realize that

We can stop, can procrastinate and we can call it in quotes, resting. I'm just taking a rest. I'm a little tired, but if you're doing that, then you're not progressing. You're not moving forward. And sometimes you need physical rest. Absolutely acknowledge that that's okay. But whenever we're procrastinating and distracting ourselves from moving forward in the direction that we know we need to do work or put effort so we can advance ourself, whether it be in skill, advance ourselves, whether it be in our health, advance ourself, whether it be in business, money, making this sort of thing.

But yet I'm doing other things just simply because I'm doing things that look like work that seem like busy. And this is what we call just movement. We're in movement. We're in motion, but we don't have traction. We're not moving things in the direction they should go. And I am guilty of this as well. And sometimes I lose traction. This is part of it. We can't always perfectly have traction. But if we're in motion and moving in the direction of problem solving, at the very least in that direction, when you're getting traction again.

armando (17:03.66)
You tend to do a little better once prepared. Nothing wrong with doing a little work beforehand. But keep these things in mind when we deal with the unknown. Unknown does not have to be fearful. We assume that there is a fear involved or the potential for danger is involved. But that's a belief that is an assumed belief. A lot of times those assumptions to be careful, to be extra careful. And I remember once whenever I met some people from Canada, I was at a PhD colloquium.

And I was just happy to see him and it's just part of my greeting whenever I would see my parents they'd always say, love you, careful. And I told them, Hey, really nice meeting you. Be careful. And they're like, why are you telling me to be careful? Is it dangerous out here? Very knee jerk, extra scared. They'd never been in the United States before knowing that they were in Texas and people have guns. those are some of the things they told me they thought about, had no intention of inducing that in them, but yet that that's how they responded.

And these are the things that we have to be careful. If when we arrive and if we're centered and we're not making judgment of our environment in the sense of bad good, but rather allowing ourselves to perceive whether or not something is safe and I can approach or doesn't look safe or feel safe, avoid letting our intuition guide us in a sense, then we're too heady in our perspective and we're overthinking things and that's too slow.

Sometimes we have to respond to the dynamic environment by the dynamic aspect of ourself. That is always on. Its attention is always on. You don't have to focus, but your attentiveness is always on. Our ears, our skin, taste, touch, smell, our eyes, the whole bit, it's always on. Those are important things whenever we're navigating an unknown. All of our senses turn up. Some people talk about the hackles on the back of the neck whenever they get that.

I don't know fear factor walking through the woods and they get the chills the goosebumps and the willies Now if you get all those things chances are you're moving into unknown and that's a fear factor thing But if you can center and breathe from your lower abdomen and walk Even that settles down, but you're still able to sense at a distance without falling into the fear response Now here's the neurobiological stuff. There is a structure in the brain and this is something that has been spoken of quite a bit lately in the

armando (19:23.574)
media circuits and the social media in particular, and also on lots of podcasts, Huberman podcast actually did a very good piece on it and listening to him speak about what they call the AMCC, the anterior cingulate mid cingulate cortex. And the AMCC structure in the brain is something that whenever you do something difficult, the signal goes through there, but also

when you do something difficult and succeed and you complete it, the AMCC grows, becomes larger. Not unlike the amygdala that if you experience lots of trauma, lots of pain, lots of fear, we tend to be conditioned to that and that structure also increases in size, which means you have more neuronal development, less resistance to signal because you have more pathways, more highways, so to speak, to those areas. So it makes those signals harder to stop.

and much more compelling and influential in those decisions that you make. But the AMCC, back to that David Goggins, many of you all have heard the name Navy SEAL talking about running the 100 milers and doing the extreme running type stuff and just encouraging people to go even when everyone doesn't feel like it and grinding out. Not everything has to be grinding. Not everything has to be painful, but whenever you do things that are hard,

and succeed, your AMCC is involved, your anterior mid-singulate cortex, and that structure in your brain does grow, which means that you become more skillful in that area, and not because it is not a motor cortical area, but rather more skillful in the sense that that aspect encourages you. It also makes it easier for you to be motivated in things that are hard. And when you gain skill, the motor cortical stuff that's higher up in the brain,

wherever you consciously decide to do stuff will increase in skill, but it won't nearly be as difficult once the AMCC is growing as well. And that's one of the correlations, not saying causation, but correlations involved with doing hard things. So sometimes the things that we do are difficult, realizing that the difficulty of our things aren't always limited by our biology or the social network.

armando (21:41.266)
or things that we think that limit our human capacity, genetics, this sort of thing. Also, how we think, what we think, and what we believe as a result of those thoughts or thinking processes can impact our body and change things. If we know, and we do know this, that within a generation that stress and trauma can change the expression of a gene within a generation, that means within you, in your life, that a genetic expression can occur as a result of environmental stress.

We also know, like master stars books said that positive thinking is useful. And Dr. Gilmour's book said that positive thinking is not only useful, but it's health induced, health inducing, important stuff. That means that we can affect where the positive stress, you stress, we get healthier expression of genetics at that level, at the cell level also.

the alleviation of stress and improvement of general quality of life that we might have a greater quantity of quality things in our life. And that is a great idea. Now that's all that I have for today. I just wanted to talk to y'all and let y'all know that we have rain here in West Texas. Finally, looking forward to it. Certainly enjoyed driving and it had to go drive in it because it was fun. Did some stick fighting training in the rain. That was phenomenal on Saturday and

got a chance to see my son's train with me went to a gun show and saw grandbaby start walking so that was an amazing Saturday for me this weekend past but I just want to tell you thank you want to share that and I hope that this podcast finds you well and I hope that you share this podcast even with those people that think they don't need it give it to them anyway and they'll feel better after the fact no guarantee no promise but hey maybe they'll smile

And I certainly appreciate your time. Once again, this is the running man, self-regulation skills project podcast. can reach out to me at running man, get G E T skills at Gmail and leave me some commentary, leave me some feedback there. Let me know what you're thinking, how you're doing. And hopefully we'll be in contact and who knows, maybe one of these days I'll run into out in this great big world and maybe we can share some tea or coffee. Take care of yourself and walk well.