The Chicken Mind Nuggets's Podcast

Chicken Mind Nuggets.

Hosted by Wifey

Chickenmindnuggets.com

[email protected]

@mindchicken

References for this episode

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hot-thought/201002/does-everything-happen-reason-0

Introduction music graciously provided by

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Thinking Music" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Show script: (may differ slightly from spoken word)

Inspired by Lyndon.

I..........say everything happens for a reason....a lot. I believe it, but after having a good conversation with a friend, I understand that this is a limited belief only applicable post-event. You can not tell a mother holding a dying child that everything happens for a reason. You can not tell a kid that lost their favorite comfort toy that everything happens for a reason. You can’t tell someone who is in the process of being robbed or on the floor shot that everything happens for a reason. You would be an asshole. There are moments which put us in the present moment like these and the statement isn’t “this is happening for a reason,” the statement is, “why the hell is this happening?!?!” The everything happens for a reason statement is to give you comfort and a sense of purpose for an event AFTER the event has happened. Looking back on everything in my life, everything is connected and has led me to where I am now, but only after I made choices along each of the roads branching off those connections. Post-event acceptance means you understand what happened and why, but the connections you made along your roads don’t provide the evidence to prove that everything happens for a reason. There is no proof that the toy was lost because something said it has to or there is a divine reason behind it. Did the universe really want you to be shot? This implies there is no such thing as chance or free will. Charles Sanders Perice believed that chance is an objective property owned by the universe and called his theory Tychism which is Greek for chance and quantum theory which supports unpredictability, gives backing to Tychism with the possibility of chance. But are the events in our lives done by pre-planned construction, accident, or chance? Is the planning of a baby pre-planned and the pregnancy accident or chance and how many factors do you contribute to your answer? Hegel, a German philosopher stated that real is rational, but doesn’t define real. Real can be in your head or factually accurate, but then accurate to who? History or your enemy? Does real just imply....life? An explanation for chance, in order to satisfy the past event, maybe the reason, for everything.

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please follow me on twitter @mindchicken, or leave a review on iTunes, listen to anywhere you listen to podcasts, or visit chickenmindnuggets.com

Chicken Mind Nuggets.

Hosted by Wifey

You can connect with me here:

Chickenmindnuggets.com

[email protected]

@mindchicken

References for this episode

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201211/the-neurochemicals-happiness

Introduction music graciously provided by

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Thinking Music" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Show script: (may differ slightly from spoken word)

There is a guy at a gas station I call Mr. Happy because he is always in a good mood and is so enthusiastic to see everyone that comes in through the door. I didn’t want to speak back to him because he was super friendly. The flight response in me was similar to seeing a dam spider or a serial killer who was chasing after me with a knife. I was startled because it was so surprising. How could this guy be so happy to see a stranger while working at a gas station? What made him so happy? Why am I miserable at work and he is happy to see me walk in the door?? He looks like a straggly old man, but has a light in his eyes that reminds me of devout meditators and people who stare intently at their lovers. He is the definition of happy and he found a way to portray happy while selling people gum and gas. His enthusiasm made any woe is me problem seem like nothing to worry about. Mr. Happy comes to work and makes the decision to make everyone's day better by changing the way they feel about entering into a corner gas station. His philosophy consists of being in the present, where worries about the past or future don't and can't exist. What he subtly teaches is that every now moment is an opportunity to be happy and he is so full of happiness that he can't help but share it with others. Reassuringly, he is no different than you or me. I realized that have made the choice throughout the years of continuous conscious and unconscious thought patterns to focus on the negative, but just like any other habit I can make it or break it when I’m ready. Mr. Happy made a habit of enjoying his life, and that is the best habit to have. All patterns are connections between neurons, and those neurons get stronger as you do the same things over and over. If you make a choice to be happy for one second and repeat that as much as you can, you have started to construct a habit framework. During that time your neurons fire differently, and you begin to construct your new pattern. If you think of it like a recipe, this process is full of ingredients which make the final product, but instead of eggs and butter, you are mixing neurochemicals. As you develop new patterns, you are unknowingly creating the "Joy of Cooking You" book and you fill it with recipes for happiness, or sadness, but all of them are your choice. What Mr. Happy tapped on is being a conscious master chef who openly shares his recipes with you. When you meet someone like him, it’s like you are cooking together and he adds in your brain bowl endocannabinoids which is the chemical that makes you feel bliss. As you keep going you add in Dopamine which fills you with the thought of being rewarded. Then the recipe calls for a teaspoon of Oxytocin which produces the feeling of bonding, like you and your cooking partner are besties. And lastly, you both top it off with Endorphin, which kills pain.

It is hard to be unhappy when you are around Mr. Happy, but without you realizing it, you handed him your recipe book and asked for the Mr. Happy ingredient list. When you experience a blissful moment, you are endowing the philosophy of Mr. Happy. You are practicing your recipe skills by making the same dish (hopefully a happy one) over and over again which not only strengthens your skills, but makes you a better YOU chef. This process is long, frustrating, and it can really suck especially when there is so much shit in your life that it is occupying your thinking more than the "don't think of a white elephant" phrase, but just like if you were making brownies, you will never get to enjoy them if you eat all of the raw mix.

You and I can be Mr. Happy, and I don't see why anyone can't be Mr. Happy either. As long as the pattern is started, you built something than can last. Keep the train going and if you fall off, get back on even if it is a few cars behind because unlike the railroad, there isn't an end in the train car links. It just keeps on moving.

Chicken Mind Nuggets.

Hosted by Wifey

Chickenmindnuggets.com

[email protected]

@mindchicken

References for this episode

http://vark-learn.com/introduction-to-vark/the-vark-modalities/

Today’s show is brought to you by Audible. Audible is offering our listeners a free audiobook with a 30-day trial membership. Just go to audibletrial.com/chickenmindnuggets and browse the unmatched selection of audio programs – download a title free and start listening. It’s that easy. Go to Audible trail dot com slash chickenmindnuggets

Introduction music graciously provided by

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Thinking Music" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Show script: (may differ slightly from spoken word)

VARK stands for Visual, Audible, Read/Write, Kinesthetic and was developed by two people named Fleming and Mills. The acronym describes how people learn, and most people are a combination of two or more of these learning styles depending on the situation. You may be a great audible learner at a lecture, but are very visual and kinesthetic if you have to fix your car or computer. If your visual, that means you need to see it to remember it. If you are audible, that means you need to hear it to remember it. If you are read/write, then you have to write it down in order to remember it and if you are kinesthetic then you have to do it to remember it. This isn’t a learning gold standard, it’s just a way to help people understand how they retain information. The problem with this is no one is asked how they learn best and some people don’t even know.

I am a visual/kinesthetic learner and need to watch and get my hands on something in order for me to remember it and comfortably know how to do it. My old friend trained me in a position to his standards without ever asking me how I learn. His expectations were that I watch him once and remember how to do it weeks later and if I hesitated then I was not performing to his standards. Maybe passive-aggressively, I helped to develop a VARK course for work, based on the years of criticism he gave me for not performing to his expectations. The class went over really well and I am in a new area where I get to get my hands-on things and I don’t have negative people, like my old friend, who won’t let anyone work on anything where I could end up being better than him. He’s still in this ego mindset.

How often do you ask someone how do you learn? Were you ever asked that at a job when you were training? If you were asked, would you have known the answer and if you did, do you think your trainer could have adjusted their training to meet your needs?

Training is not for the trainer. A trainer should not say you have to do things my way or you won’t learn at all. Remember hearing, “you need to write this down” and it was an expectation that you did in order to please the teacher, but there was the one kid who never did and was always able to retain the information?

Here’s where it gets beyond work and the classroom. Your upbringing and the influences you have on the people in your life are retained by them, based off of how they learn. Someone might remember what you said, or someone might remember what you did, and you might remember what someone looked like or what they did to you. VARK is a powerful model that lets us understand our language in how we help and unintentionally hinder others. Have you ever asked your child how they learn best? Maybe the differences in memory is because someone remembers what you looked like, when you did that stupid thing you can’t get out of your head and you remember what you and everyone else did.

Chicken Mind Nuggets.

Hosted by Wifey

Chickenmindnuggets.com

[email protected]

@mindchicken

References for this episode

Introduction music graciously provided by

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Thinking Music" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Show script: (may differ slightly from spoken word)

This episode marks the end of Season 1. I appreciate all of you from the bottom of my heart for all of the love, support, and encouragement you have given me over this past year. I am excited to keep this journey going, and just like from the start, this episode is based on past events which accumulated into this script. Teachers come in a variety of forms, and some manifest themselves in the worst people, in the most hurtful people, in the worst traits OF people, and in the worst time FOR people. They have been some of my greatest teachers, because I have learned how NOT to be, so this poem is dedicated to those who have taught me the good by going through the bad.

Thank you, for being the asshole who didn’t believe in me for more than 20 minutes at a time. I got a great lesson on how valuable time is.

Thank you, for being the one who assumed that since you are a man with 6 months more of experience that you have the right to speak down to me. I got a great lesson on giving fucks about power and not feeding an ego machine. Standing up to you was one of the best days of my life.

Thank you, for being the friend who went from left to right and back to the left really quick with emotions and decisions. I definitely got a great lesson what not to do and who not to be.

Thank you, to the family who used me and left. I miscalculated my significance in our relationship, and I received a great lesson on openness, acceptance, and self-love.

Thank you, to the family who knew I was the black sheep and tried to keep me down with their narcissistic households. I know exactly how not to raise myself or another person.

Thank you, to the ex who took out their past hurt on my body and left bruises as if it was for them. I got a great lesson on how I wanted to be treated and what love should and shouldn’t be.

Thank you, to the robber who took from my house what they felt was theirs. I got a great lesson on the value of security and the importance of non-attachment.

Thank you, to the doctor who told me I had cancer over the phone when he was wrong. I got a great lesson on learning to believe what you first hear.

Thank you, to the old friend who believed everything I did about building my house was wrong. I got a great lesson on what’s important to other people and found I love the character of my house more and more every year.

Thank you, to the people I have met who didn’t think I would amount to anything because they had no idea what I was going through. I got a great lesson on who should and should not be in my life and have made much better decisions since then.

Thank you, to the people who believed the wrong, spread the rumors, and loved the lies. I got a great lesson on the people who I don’t want to be around and was reminded there are better, and safer people in the world.

Thank you, teachers, because nothing is bad as long as you learn from it.

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please follow me on twitter @mindchicken, or leave a review on iTunes, listen to anywhere you listen to podcasts, or visit chickenmindnuggets.com

Chicken Mind Nuggets.

Hosted by Wifey

Chickenmindnuggets.com

[email protected]

@mindchicken

References for this episode

https://massivesci.com/articles/glia-brain-giving-up-vr-neurons-quitting-astrocytes/

Introduction music graciously provided by

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Thinking Music" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Show script: (may differ slightly from spoken word)

Your one two.........3 and 4............your one two THREE AND FOUR...

I hated hearing this when we marched. Our RDC’s threw in clever, “I’m a shitbag,” type sayings into the cadences which we had to repeat. Marching down roads proclaiming you’re a shit bag was fucked up then, but funny now. I was in berthing and someone got in trouble for something stupid, so we all had to do jumping jacks, 8 counts, and pushups in our Navy dress blues, you know the ones that make any guy look like a military stud muffin and any female look like a flight attendant? We did that for 45 minutes. Another jerk got in trouble for something and we had to hold a pen out at arms-length between two fingers while reciting the blue jacket’s paragraph of discipline.... for an hour and a half. I got my wisdom teeth removed in this bootcamp and some dumbass got in trouble for something and we all had to work out for 45 minutes again. This time I was bleeding all over myself from my wisdom teeth removal while my RDC’s watched blood drip down my white shirt and onto the floor. They didn’t care, but they cared enough that if I passed out, I would go to the doctor then probably get yelled at. Getting yelled at is a caring thing in the military....at least that is what I was indoctrinated to believe.

Bootcamp will tear you down and that’s exactly what it is supposed to do. You go in as you, but YOU are standing in a silent line with everyone else until you are led to a weird dark room where you get naked and change with the other YOU’s into fucked up newbie gear, and then you are led, and marched, and yelled at, and controlled, and verbally beaten, and emotionally beaten, and marched into something that gives up and just listens. It’s sometimes easier to do what your told right? If you have no choice, and you can’t fight back, you give up. That’s what boot camp wants you to do.

You can’t give up mid bootcamp. You’re going to get back on that track and run your 45-minute sustained mile when you are hurting so bad you would rather cut your arm off. You’re going to march and say cadences which you don’t believe in for weeks. You’re going to eat bad food, shower with strangers, wake up several times a night to stand a door watch, and start to believe that you are a piece of shit, and do it until you graduate.

The wanting to give up is an animalistic instinct that we have in order to conserve energy for vital processes. If we have a goal, we follow through, until we don’t, because we give up if we don’t see our efforts leading towards our outcome. Researchers used zebra fish to manipulate their environment to make them believe that their goal of swimming was unachievable by putting them in a VR type world where they believed they were swimming backwards, therefore never getting anywhere. I HATE animal testing, and I’m cringing with you, but just bear with me. The researchers used a virtual reality behavioral assembly to monitor paralyzed fish’s motor output using electrophysiology and found that when a fish believes it is swimming normal, its neural output shows normal activity. However, if the fish believes it is not swimming, it will put forth a ton of effort and then give up. The giving up is what the researchers called futility induced passivity. The fish’s brain activity showed that they went active, then passive, then active, just like they kept trying and then giving up. The non-neuronal cells called glia in the central nervous system which are little star shaped cells that were once thought of as not important actually help to control the neurotransmitters and synapses in the brain. The astrocytes, a type of glia, in these fish, activate right before the fish was about to give up. So right before the fish said, “fuck it, I’m not swimming,” their little glia spiked in activation, then futility induced passivity kicked in.

In bootcamp, you can’t run away, actually you can but you’re going to get into a ton of trouble for it. You generally choose to go to bootcamp and once you’re in, you pretty much want out. You see the final outcome and know that it is worth it, but any resistance you have is met with hostility and that breaking down will eventually get you to say, “fuck it, I’m not swimming,” and switch you into futility induced passivity mode. Think if all of the fish of a colony thought for themselves and each decid...