John Walt

"We are all complex emotional human beings" - Larry Mills

There is little question in my mind that we can often be our own worst enemy. I think this is because our minds subconsciously work against the process of becoming who we were created to be. Our minds don’t want to let go of our control, so we end up crafting elaborate narratives to justify and rationalize the decisions we make. Think about it, how often do you see people trying to justify actions and behaviors that really don’t seem to make a lot of sense? I see it almost every day. I see it in others, but more importantly, I see it in myself.

People who worked with Steve Jobs talked about his “reality distortion field.” He had the ability to envision something that seemed impossible and then convince people it was possible. In many ways, this worked in his favor by driving Apple to pioneer new products that pushed technology forward. But if you look at his personal life, it's clear this had a dark side as well. I think we all, to varying degrees, create a reality distortion field around our lives to convince ourselves that we “know what we are doing.” Or at least convince ourselves that we aren’t completely out of control.

Scott Dohner talks often about Cranial Sphincteritis. I will leave you to figure out what this means. It’s a common condition that every human deals with on a regular basis. It’s sort of a joke, but it’s real in that we as people are complex emotional beings and we regularly lose touch with what’s true and choose an alternate view of reality that we create for ourselves.

I called Scott recently to get some help navigating some negative thoughts and feelings I was having. He said, “Well, I think you’re just dealing with Cranial Sphincteritis.” It’s humbling to have to admit to yourself that you’ve got your head in a place it shouldn’t be. I had to agree with him though, I was feeling deeply discouraged because I had started to believe some subtle lies. Those lies disconnected me from the truth my life is built on and began to create a much different picture for me. One where I felt aware of the challenges I faced but not aware of God’s leading in my life. I felt depressed, I was disconnected from my wife, I couldn’t write clearly or think clearly, and wasn’t connecting with my kids like I normally do. Once I admitted that I had cranial sphincteritis, I was able to shut down all the negative narratives in my mind and focus back on the truth. In other words, admitting the problem helped me see the solution. I had to get my head out of my *## and restore it to where it belonged. I had to refocus on the truth.

It was remarkable how quickly the cloud of negativity, discouragement, and frustration blew away. I could literally think again, I could connect with Heather again, and enjoy being with my kids. This is not the first time I have dealt with cranial sphincteritis, and it won’t be the last. Before calling Scott, I had crafted some stories about what I thought the problem was. I said to myself, a project at work is probably causing me to feel this way, or there is something going on spiritually that has me under a cloud, or maybe that conversation that I had with Heather a few nights ago caused all this. My first thought was not the simplest answer; I had my head in the wrong place, and I needed to get it out.

I think it all stems from our pride; we don’t want to admit that sometimes we lose touch with reality and start believing lies. It is very humbling to admit it when this happens, I know, because I just went through this again.

Our Minds and Truth

Our Minds do not naturally lead us to truth. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, are two Israeli psychologists whose work revolutionized our understanding of human judgment and decision-making. They showed the world just how much our minds are affected by heuristics and cognitive biases. It turns out that much of what we think is true just isn’t. Below are a couple of familiar examples.

Availability Heuristic: After seeing news coverage of a shark attack, you become afraid of swimming in the ocean, even though shark attacks are extremely rare. The vivid news stories make shark attacks seem more common than they actually are.

Confirmation Bias: Scientists can easily focus on data points that support their existing theory and dismiss contradictory information. This happens to us all in daily life as well; we are biased towards what we already believe to be true.

Just because we think a thought and feel that it is true does not make it true. Heuristics and cognitive biases are now well-researched facts. So much about human behavior can be understood by looking at the mental traps we all fall into. We tend to think of our minds as computers that always lead us to reliable calculations. In reality, our minds are not logical, we are primarily emotional. But more importantly, we are complex, and that means seemingly simple decisions are often affected by wounds from our past or fears about our future. Our interpretation of reality is not as reliable as we would like to believe. I have been able to experience and witness firsthand how much freedom can be found from letting go of false beliefs that we thought were true. I covered this some in my note on renewing the mind (How Do You Renew Your Mind - No. 5).

Cranial Sphincteritis

We are all terrified of being wrong, failing, and being rejected. Accepting that we don’t know what we are doing and that our minds are often not reliable sources of truth, invites us deeper into relationship with God. It allows us to let go of self-protection and embrace that we are on a journey and we are growing and becoming. Our goal becomes growing instead of being right or avoiding failure. We find freedom to embrace our flawed narratives and beliefs. It brings us closer to others because we realize how much we need other people’s perspectives and input in our lives.

Cranial Sphincteritis happens when we start believing lies, but lies aren’t always obvious. We think of lies as blatant and obvious, but the truth is they are subtle most of the time. Often, they are things we believe to be true because they were passed down to us from people we respect. Or they seem to make sense based on how we feel or what we are told culturally is true. In reality, a lie is anything that is not true, whether large or small. Often, the smallest lies have the biggest impact because we believe they are true and can live our whole lives accepting them as true.

Combating Cranial Sphincteritis

So what can we do to counteract our propensity to distort reality? I depend on a couple of things to help me reground when I start to float away from truth.

People you trust: We need people in our lives whom we trust that can help us see reality when we can’t. For me, this is primarily my mentors and my wife. I often go to them to evaluate my thinking. Years ago, I decided I would never make a major decision without their agreement. I have a couple of times “forgotten” this commitment, and things always went badly for me. It’s not that they are always right about everything, it’s that they are outside and unemotional so they can offer objective insight and direction.

Mental tools: I rely heavily on mental tools and will introduce some of them to you in future notes. I find that it is impossible to process everything that is going on and trust my conclusions, so I have principles, mental models, mindsets, and practices that I return to regularly to help me “recalibrate” my mind. I have built a pretty extensive arsenal of mental tools, and I am constantly updating and revising them through practice.

I will go in depth on both of these in future notes. For now, I want to invite you to join me in embracing that sometimes we all lose our way and need help finding the path again. How freeing would it be to be able to let go of justification and rationalization and admit to ourselves that our ego is not our amigo? Once we call it like it is, it’s so much easier to get our heads in the right place.

- John Walt

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