Chaos Theory

When Jeff was diagnosed with PML, I became very interested in learning more about the brain and how it works and took time to do some studying. One of the books I read was called Thresholds of the Mind by Bill Harris. It was a fascinating study for me.

Today I was studying it a little bit more and realized that something very important is happening inside of me right now and it made me feel kind of excited about the process rather than just dreading going through it.

One of the things discussed in the book is called Chaos theory. Basically it a scientifeic theory about how change occurs in systems. From what I understand, when energy or stress of some kind is added to the system, it will take it in until there is no more capacity, or it has reached its theshold. When this happens one of 2 things occur. Either the system will destroy itself and cease to exist, or it will go into complete chaos and then reorganize itself into a completely new system.

This is how it is stated in the book. " The mind is constantly exhanging energy with its environment. This energy is in the form of both physical and emotional input. If the input or stimulation increases to a certain critical point ( different or each individual), we begin to feel stressed, and eventually overwhelmed. As a result, we become less and less able to deal with what is happening. We have reached our threshold. Our old assumptions are challenged and our haibutal ways of dealing with life are no longer effective. When we reach a threshold, things become chaotic, and we feel uncomfortable, even overwhelmed. If this chaos continues long enough, our whole way of seeing things may break down. Metaphorically speaking at least, we fall apart. And then our brain reorganizes itself at a higher, more evolved level. Once this happens, things make sense, but in a whole new way, one that we could not have imagined before.

As I look back on my life there have been very specific times and situation that challenged my whole belief system. Those were times that caused a lot of stress in my life, but made me really look at myself and what my core beliefs were. Many times I thought I could not handle any more because nothing made sense to me. But every time I reached that threshold, it was like I was given a new spurt of energy, with aha's and a change of heart and suddenly things started to make sense again, but in whole new ways. I know when those times happened because the change in me and the way I saw things was so dramatic. I was grateful for the changes, but didn't really understand that something significant had actually changed in my brain. Reading this today helped me feel much better about my brain being mush right now. I certainly have been challenged lately. I'm not sure exactly if I have reached my threshold yet, but I do have hope that at some point in the future, I will not only have worked through this episode in my life, but I will be much better off because of it with new ideas about life and death and who I am in this whole scheme of things.

Come to think of it, isn't death the perfect example of chaos theory. A body can only take so much stress before it reaches its threshold, then everything rearranges and an entirely new and better system replaces the old one. What an awesome way to think of the cycles of life. We just continue to evolve and become more and more like our creator. Even though I choose to live in faith, I like it when things make sense to me because it does give me hope. To me, it is a miracle that when I am stretched and pushed to the limits of what I think my capacity is, I am given new strength and insights I never had before. Our spirits and bodies are awesome creations. How grateful I am to know that as long as I stay open to new input and trust that I really am being guided I won't be destroyed by anything I experience. Instead it can help me to become closer to who I want to be, which is really just remembering who I already am. Someday I will join Jeff in his state, but for now I think I will be content to just observe my own changes and accept them as part of a new life.

Wow, that seems totally philosophical and deep for someone whose brain was mush yesterday. See, it's working already. It's a good thing I have learned to thrive in chaos because I really want to continue to learn. This is a good theory. I'm not falling apart. I am only evolving. I like it.

Chris