Episode 2 — This Happens: Awareness, Acceptance, Action

In this episode, we’re going to examine a framework for staying in truth and reality so that we can make more effective decisions. This framework sometimes is referred to as the 3 A’s, or awareness, acceptance and action. The military and first responders call this skill “situational awareness.” 

What we’re talking about is the ability to perceive and comprehend your surroundings, understand what’s going on around you, and make the best decisions based on your understanding in light of your needs and goals.

 We can think of the 3-As — awareness, acceptance and action — as picks and shovels to break through the barriers of the 3-Ds — denial, dismissal and delusion — to reach the treasure of truth and reality. We’re programmed to deny, dismiss and delude ourselves to protect us when something seems too threatening or overwhelming to let in. You can hear the 3-Ds in phrases like, “Oh, that’s ridiculous!” Or “You probably just imagined that,” “Maybe you dreamed that,” or “Someone’s   punking you.” The 3Ds cannot defend you against a potential Black Swan Event, but they can make you more vulnerable to it.

The most common type of awareness is practical awareness. One of my favorite movie scenes about it is from the 1999 film, Magnolia. This powerful 4-minute scene begins with Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s character inside his house during a nighttime rainstorm. The power is out, and suddenly he hears many loud thuds on the roof. He stares out the window and says, incredulously, “Oh, there are frogs falling from the sky.” The scene shifts to outside and we see, indeed, frogs hitting the ground everywhere.

The scene continues as falling frogs wreak havoc and panic that includes a car crash, an ambulance flipping over, and a few other bizarre and traumatic events involving the film’s various characters. At one point, the camera zooms in on a painting on the wall where we see a white label at the bottom of the painting that reads, “But it did happen.” Next, we see a boy sitting at a desk in his darkened room staring out the window. He says, reflectively, “This happens. This is something that happens.”

And, as it turns out, the boy is right. A frog rain is a rare, strange and sudden phenomenon — a Black Swan … but it happens. Frog rains have occurred at least since the 1st Century when Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist, described one. The most recent well-documented frog rain was in a Serbian village on May 30, 2015.

In an interview about the Magnolia scene with its writer, director and producer, Paul Thomas Anderson, he tells of a meeting with other cast members at actor Henry Gibson’s house in Malibu. He had sent Gibson the script to read.  At the house, Gibson suddenly handed Thomas a bible, with a green and white polka dot bookmark in it. Anderson said that, at that moment, he realized that raining frogs must be in the bible. He opened the bookmarked page and sure enough there it was. He pretended to Gibson that he already knew about it. Exodus 8:2 refers to raining frogs, and Anderson revealed that he later interjected the numbers 8 and 2 at various points in the film.

So, in the Magnolia scene, the characters who lacked true awareness and acceptance of the raining frogs, and just reacted with fear and panic, experienced catastrophic results. But Hoffman’s character, who simply opened his awareness of raining frogs outside, without reacting, and the boy who immediately accepted that a frog rain was something that actually happens, stayed calm and safe inside while the chaos, damage, and injury swirled outside.

Okay, that’s art, but what about real life?  Well, on the morning of 9/11, I was living not far from New York City at the time, BUT I happened to BE in Ohio at a business meeting. At around 9:45 am Eastern Daylight Time — just over an hour after the first plane hit the Twin Towers, I was still in shock when I heard on television that the FAA was closing all commercial air traffic nationwide. 

The 9/11 Black Swan was spreading its wings … and I felt their touch. I had flown from New Jersey to Ohio just the day before. And, suddenly, I realized I was at risk: when and how was I going to get home?

Then, I heard my inner voice exclaim, “Don’t give up your rental car!” I had been scheduled to fly home the next day. 

The voice next commanded, “Make sure you can extend your hotel stay RIGHT NOW!” I KNEW I needed to secure a place to stay, which otherwise would expire the next day when I planned to head home.

Pretty much anyone who flies knows what it’s like to have a flight cancel, get delayed or just miss their flight, and the hassle of getting rebooked and finding a hotel room for the night. And it might be reasonable to just relax, go get a coffee and wait to see if the ground stop gets lifted later in the day. BUT NOT WHEN EVERY TRAVELER IN AMERICA IS DOING THE SAME THING AT THE SAME TIME. NOT during a nationwide ground stop. THAT was NOT EXPECTED! THAT IS RARE! And we haven’t had one since that day. THAT was a BLACK SWAN EVENT!

On that morning, I somehow had just enough awareness — driven by a good amount of fear — so that I could accept the nationwide ground stop and its implications. And ONLY THEN WAS I CAPABLE AND CLEAR enough to act decisively.

I successfully extended my car and hotel reservations. And I shared my realization and plans with my other out-of-town colleagues. 

I didn’t realize until years later that, by speaking my awareness, acceptance and plan of action to my colleagues, I was embedding those words in my subconscious and theirs. That increased the likelihood that I would take right action at the right time. More about that in a few moments ….

So, five days later, I did end up driving my rental car from Ohio to the Newark International Airport, where my car was parked, and finally drove it home.

Now, another type of awareness can, itself, bring about change. We can call it transcendent awareness. And it can provide us with great power in navigating and mitigating the negative effects of a Black Swan Event, as well as the bumps of ordinary life.

One of the great masters and teachers of this kind of awareness was a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist, Anthony de Mello. He wrote that, “Awareness is the greatest agent for change…, “the first step” and “the key” to change. He explained that “Awareness is not something you can possess; it is something you are." And that it is “the power that is concealed within the present moment."

“Awareness,” he explained, “is all about restoring your freedom to choose what you want instead of what your past imposes on you."

In Magnolia’s raining frogs, the man and the boy spoke their observations: “it’s raining frogs” and “this happens.” From the director’s point of view, these two characters needed to say those words to communicate to the audience that they possessed conscious awareness of their surroundings. But the hidden importance of their utterances is that the human subconscious hears our words.

Our subconscious mind processes and interprets the words we speak — and those we hear, even when we’re not consciously aware of it. While the conscious mind focuses on immediate thoughts and actions, the subconscious mind continuously absorbs and stores information from our surroundings, including the words we hear and speak.

The significance of subconsciously hearing our words lies in the subconscious mind’s influence on our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. It stores memories, emotions, and experiences that shape our perception of the world and affects our actions. So, when we speak certain words or phrases repeatedly, they can become ingrained in our subconscious, potentially affecting our self-perception, attitudes, and behaviors.

The subconscious mind can also be influenced by the tone, emotions, and intentions behind the words we speak. The positive or negative language we choose, our affirmations, or self-talk can impact our subconscious programming, leading to changes in our mindset and overall well-being. THAT IS IMPERATIVE DURING A BLACK SWAN EVENT.

Our own thought patterns — the ones that will pop up at the first sign of a Black Swan — are automatic, but also changeable. We want to be confident in knowing that when, not if, a Black Swan suddenly appears, we can quickly shift our thoughts to their most effective level instead of thinking and — even worse — saying “Oh, no! We’re doomed!” We’re much better prepared for dealing with an unknown threat by saying out loud to our subconscious, and whoever else is listening, “We got this!”

You might not remember the words I’m speaking now. So, I urge you to watch a free 8-minute video to better understand the power of transcendent awareness — coupled with acceptance and action — to transform your life in the way de Mello talked about. Go to YouTube and search for an interview by neuroscientist, Dr. Andrew D. Huberman, from Stanford University School of Medicine, entitled “How to Stay Calm in Every Situation.” You will hear someone who learned how to change himself to bring light against darkness in ways he never thought possible, and over a very short period of time. I’ll include a link to it in the transcript for this episode. 

The technique this man used to rewire his brain and behavior belongs to a larger training known as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (or DBT). The purpose of this training is to help increase resilience and create a more worthwhile life experience. It teaches how to synthesize acceptance of what-is while changing unwanted thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that cause us misery and distress, so that you we live more fully in the moment. We’ll take a closer look at some of the tools you can use to train yourself to face the unknown in future episodes.

 https://youtu.be/3NWKgNv8fQY

Finally, I want to touch on another form of advanced awareness. We can call it intuitive awareness.

This kind of awareness — and various cultures have many different names for it — can push out further in time and space to reveal Black Swans before they arrive and also ways we might avoid or stop them, or at least lessen their impact. Whether its origins are natural, supernatural or divine, this awareness offers extraordinary gifts. 

In one personal example, someone very close to me, when traveling as a child with her family in South America. While at the airport, she became quite agitated as the plane’s departure time got closer. Her parents and sisters told her to calm down, but she wouldn’t listen and just became louder and more restless. She started to exclaim that she wasn’t getting on the plane. She excitedly protested that she saw the plane in the water with flames all around it. Nearly hysterical, she begged her family not to get on that flight but to take another. Upset and embarrassed at the chaotic scene, her parents finally relented. As a result, … well, by now you’ve figured how that flight tragically ended ….

The family later said she just liked to create drama scenes to get attention or was mentally ill. Of course, that ignored the fact that the maternal grandmother was a well-known psychic in Central California who regularly helped law enforcement find missing people, or bodies, and lost animals or valuables.  And her grand daughter, my dear friend, had displayed similar abilities throughout her life from an early age. Sometimes our family and friends can be masters of the 3-Ds.

That about wraps up this episode. The key takeaways are: 

·   Stay open and alert to what is around you — especially what’s new or different — as well as your own thoughts, feelings and beliefs, and accept what you observe.

·    Speak aloud what you observe and understand so that your awareness and acceptance get into your subconscious where they can be put into effective action.

·    Find tools to hone your powers of awareness and acceptance and break through the defenses of denial, dismissal and delusion. Go watch that video.

In THIS instant — the ONLY reality we have — allow your fullest awareness and acceptance of the facts that “Swans happen,” and MORE Black Swans ARE coming ….