Fragile: How shocks make you stronger

As an individual, you can feel very fragile or fragile. Because of the corona crisis, I also had a moment when I didn't feel like it. I didn't feel like recording videos or podcasts. So I thought, I'll just read, because at least then something will happen.

Now I am reading books and have discovered a concept of how something becomes stronger through shock, antifragile as it were. Somewhere the whole corona thing is also a shock and now I am reading and that knowledge is making me stronger again

So as an individual you are fragile, but if you do something an external shock can cause you to develop yourself as well.

From fragile to anti-fragile

What I also found interesting was that the Ottoman Empire and the cities of Aleppo and Lebanon were one of the richest cities or areas in the world for 12,000 years. That was just a super rich area. This book on fragile and antifragile also said that the Romans were also very antifragile.

You had small municipalities that had all the power, but they had no central government. This only made the system itself stronger. The emperor in Rome became stronger as a result.

You have the same system in Switzerland now. There’s no central government there either—just municipalities. They do have a prime minister, but the average Swiss person doesn’t know who that is.

The book states that once centralized governments emerged, within 100 years there were two world wars and the development of weapons capable of destroying the entire planet. In contrast, this was not the case in the years prior, when there was no centralized government.

So what we’re seeing now is that everything is communicated from the top down. This approach really plays on people’s fragility—suggesting that you could die if you get too close to other people.

But we're going to die sometime anyway.

The rules are deployed on fragility. This alone makes the system more fragile and then it breaks down.

After all, what if we just let it go as in nature?

We don't know that, of course. In the meantime, it could have been worse. Perhaps twenty times worse than it has been.

But what happens next? After that is the buildup and we come out stronger. With those who remain. The natural selection.

That sounds super harsh, of course, but that's how nature works. Nature is relentless. The system gets stronger then the individual is secondary. Of course you are important, but when you look at the whole picture, we are all unimportant.

We can think of ourselves as very important, but how important are we? There are people who linger in history, like Jesus or Caesar, you remember those names. But who was interesting 2000 or 5000 years before that? In China all those dynasties and 50,000 years ago no one at all remembers.

So this excessive monitoring and overprotection is truly the greatest madness of all time. It is, however, very understandable. It is in our nature to want to protect ourselves and our children.

In the U.S., everyone carries guns to protect themselves and their families.

But for ourselves, we are very protective; the rest can bugger off.

If you look at antifragility, this is actually the worst thing you can do, but how do you stop? It's hard to say you have to let it all go and sit back and watch. The whole world is participating, we are in a lockdown.

I also participate in the 1.5 meters and don't want people in my aura.

But what can be done now? Probably very little.

If you look at other experts who claim that the economy is being ruined to help older smokers, the first ones to say this were, so to speak, torn apart on Twitter, but now you’re seeing more and more people protesting against this.

You get all kinds of conspiracy theories, about 5G and Bill Gates being behind it and I know it all.

That all plays into your hands if you assume fragility.

If you let it go, those conspiracy theories wouldn't have been there either.

Or there had been a theory that the government is not protecting us and that the virus is there to wipe us all out. Then you would have had other conspiracy theories.

If we look at what you want to achieve as a person, you want to become antifragile as much as possible.

The interesting thing is that we are now betting on fragility on a macro level. And for what? You may ask.

What you can do yourself to combat fragility

We do the same on a micro level. We overeat, we stay seated, and then our metabolism slows down. That’s what makes you gain weight—the infamous “COVID pounds.”

Then you look at other peoples who are more antifragile. Then you see that these are people who have a varied diet, who have physical work and who do not retire.

What we do. We usually eat about the same, have sedentary jobs and retire.

In doing so, we make ourselves fragile.

And now in these times, we are becoming even more fragile.

Then I wonder what price we will soon pay for the fragile when we come out of lockdown.

This is obviously not a blog to break the rules, but I do think it's good to train yourself to come out of this as strong as possible.

So, watch as little news as possible and read whatever you can. Less stress, more relaxation—connect with people via Zoom, get plenty of exercise (for example, in your yard), and try to have fun.

It is our very nature to connect. I advocate antifragility. And ask yourself how you can come out of this stronger and turn this moment into an opportunity.

Also listen to this podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/3564037-we-zetten-in-op-breekbaarheid-dus-we-breken?play=true

Removing emotional fragility

According to researchers, certain traits in people are important to be better able to withstand these kinds of strange economic times later on. To be able to handle it well. Namely a higher education (but how important that is I doubt with my background), your own feelings, the quality of work you want to do (that does matter) and being emotionally stable when you were young adults (also fairly important)[1].

Now you may think you don't possess some of these factors, such as a high education or emotional stability. The nice thing is that you have your whole life to develop yourself. So now can be a good time.

Do you find that, especially these days, you’re becoming emotionally unstable and can’t just pick up a book when you notice your motivation waning? If so, it might be helpful to seek assistance with that.

After all, how did you learn to deal with a long-term crisis? Have you ever experienced a long-term crisis before in your life and what was what you thought was right then? Does that still help you now?

This is something hypnosis can help you with[2]. If you know what you are doing you can go a long way with self-hypnosis and if not, a hypnotherapist will help.

For example, a hypnotherapist can help you change your ingrained “crisis response.” Through regression, for example, you can find out where that reaction comes from. Perhaps you were in a prolonged crisis situation in the past—for instance, if your parents frequently argued in a way that made you doubt how safe your home environment was.

Back then, you came up with strategies to cope with this—because, really, where else could you go as a child? Unconsciously, you may be applying those same strategies again in your adult life. Perhaps you withdraw, and this causes your relationships to suffer. It could be anything.

With the hypnotherapist, you can find out if there was a moment in your life that created the belief that now causes awkward behavior.

You are then put into hypnosis and then suggested to go back to the first moment when you got the feeling that is now causing motivation problems (or the problem that has come since corona). You might first go back in your mind to the moment the corona crisis began, but you can also go back further.

Then you and the hypnotherapist take another look at that moment. Now you can also consciously examine what was going on now. Why did what happened happen and can you explain it now with the knowledge you have now?

This alone can change your strategy for dealing with stress or crisis and make you more anti-fragile.

There are also other strategies that can help you stay more emotionally stable so that you are motivated to make something of your life.

Want to learn more about hypnosis? Join the free online masterclass on hypnosis.

Or sign up right away for one of our courses to master the techniques for yourself and to help others.

Sources:

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00596.x

[2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00029157.2016.1163662