The Play Doh Effect

When I was a kid, Play Doh came in cardboard containers, and you made little scupltures with it, usually on the snowman theme - you know, three balls stacked on each other, the top one being the head. If you were lucky you had more than one color, so the facial features would show more. Three colors was the jackpot.

Long after I had moved on to other toys, along came amazing plastic accessories - extruding devices - which turned Play Doh into a production element instead of an end to itself. Suddenly Play Doh wasn't a a medium to make sculptures but an industrial material to produce long extruded shapes, perfectly round or perfectly square, or perfectly star-shaped. The fun was in the extruding, not in the end product, really. But I digress. This is the point:

The filters through which we experience life are akin to those plastic Play Doh templates.

If I'm extruding every thought, emotion and experience through a star-shaped filter, then every thought, emotion and experience, no matter what it looks like going in, will be squished into a star-shaped log.

If I'm extruding every thought, emotion and experience through a belief of "I approve of myself," then every thought, emotion and experience, no matter what it looks like going in, will filter through this belief and the parts that agree with the belief will come shining through, and the parts that conflict with the belief will be squished into nothingness.

Stay with me for a second.

RLF (Real Life Example): Up until fifth grade, I got straight A's. The eager-to-please puppy dog in me would run home and show the report card to my parents, who were fulsome in their praise. In fifth grade, I got six A's, two A-minuses, and a B. I showed the card to my father. I watched his eyes carefully and saw them jump to the B, look to see what class it was in (math, natch) and then he said, "Hmmm. Well well well. I see. Hmm. You got a B in math, huh? Well, now. That's okay, son." Heart pounding, I grabbed the report card from his hands, ran to my room and cried bitter tears, hurt and angry at my father for being such a critical, judgmental, insensitive bastard. THIS EXPERIENCE, AS IT HAPPENED, MAKES ME FEEL BAD ABOUT MYSELF.

PIR (Post-Insight Reevaluation): when I saw the report card for the first time, I saw only the B. It might have been a huge red F for the way I felt about it. It was a huge, horrible blot on my otherwise perfect record, and I felt panicked and sick. This is in the first ten seconds of looking at my card. My super nice teacher, Mr. Simpson, gave me a huge smile and said, "Congratulations, Steve, you earned all those A's." But I was already beet red, teary, and kinda nauseus about this visible PROOF that I wasn't good enough. In other words, my core belief of "I'm not good enough" had filtered the experience of looking at the report card and had extruded the thought, "See? You're obviously an imperfect, nothing special failure of a little boy. Shame shame shame!" When my father had his reaction to the report card, I was already in full meltdown mode, convinced of my worthlessness. The things he said and the look in his eyes was further proof of the undeniable fact: I'm no good. I'm bad. I'm scum. THIS EXPERIENCE, AS IT HAPPENED, CONFORMS WITH MY CORE BELIEF THAT I'M NO GOOD .

RLD (Real Life Do-over): Now let's revisit this moment in time as if I had a different filter, one that was much more accurate - "I'm a bright and capable little boy who is a very good student." Getting the report card wouldn't have initiated an internal riot. I might have thought, "Great! Mostly A's, that's good, and a B in math, well that's fair, I could probably do better if I tried harder next time. But all in all it's a good report card, that's for sure!" When Mr. Simpson congratulated me, I might have allowed the compliment to come in, to reaffirm in me a deserved sense of pride and a feeling of accomplishment. When I handed the report card to my dad, maybe I wouldn't have been anxious and fearful and close to tears and putting all this portent into his reaction. Maybe that would have changed the way he reacted, who knows? If not, if he said the same things, maybe I would have thought, "Yeah, I'm a little disappointed in the B, too, after all it's the first B I ever got, but all in all it doesn't change my good feelings about myself. Actually, it reconfirms my beliefs: I AM a very good student - all A's and one B is the report card of a very good student. I feel good about myself. I'm a bright and capable boy." And that would be that. THIS EXPERIENCE, AS IT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED AND AS I PERCEIVE IT TODAY, CONFORMS WITH MY CORE BELIEF THAT I AM A BRIGHT AND CAPABLE STUDENT.

This is an obvious simplification. But it illuminates a couple of important points:

(1) Pick core beliefs that work for you, because from now on, every experience, thought and emotion will be filtered by those beliefs.

(2) To look into the past with a new belief in place can illuminate the extent to which previous beliefs shaped and colored the experiences AS THEY OCCURRED as well as HOW THEY ARE REMEMBERED. It's an exercise in the nature of truth and reality, really.

(3) Yes, of course, shit happens, and when it does, the beliefs we have in place at the time we experience it will cause that shit to extrude in a lovely star-shaped log. Difficult and trying moments will occur from time to time, but they won't shake our core beliefs, and our ability to deal with them will be uplifted by those beliefs.