Rigidity vs. Agility
One thing we can see from the HRV research is that rigidity is good for short-term survival but more flexibility and agility is significantly better for flourishing.
To me, this idea has a really lovely echo of starting with the Law of Moses but then the New Testament moving to a more fluid “spirit of the law” over the “letter of the law.”
6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Maybe think of it like this: When you were tiny, the rule was “don’t go in the street.” That rule or law was to protect you. But keeping you safe was the point of the rule. As you got older, you learned more about how to follow the spirit of that rule. You could adapt it to crossing a street sometimes and not others, as well as navigating all kinds of other potentially dangerous situations.
Remember the full passage in Malachi before the hating divorce part? It began with,
“My covenant with Levi was to give life and peace.”
That is the spirit of the law.
* * It’s also fair to point out here that the passage ended with:
“And what does he want from marriage? Children of God, that’s what.”
That seems to me to be the other bigger point.
And with good reason. So much research now shows us how most of our “issues” stem from childhood trauma and are even passed down through our DNA. As Maté says,
“Anything that is ‘wrong’ with you began as a survival mechanism in childhood.”
So many Christians fear getting a divorce because of what the divorce will do to their kids. Make sure you are also weighing what staying in the marriage will do to your kids.
Either way, remember that all the healing principles we talk about here apply to them as much as they do to you.
Let’s dig a little deeper into Dr. Susan David’s work. I shared a few words from her in Part 1, but let’s keep going. Dr. Susan David teaches at Harvard and has a book called Emotional Agility.
Please take the time to watch her TED Talk on the concepts now:
Wow… So good, right? So many gems in there. I’m curious to know what stood out to you. Here are some of the big ones to me:
“Rigidity in the face of complexity is toxic.”
“Write what you’re feeling. Tell the truth. Write like nobody’s reading.”
“When we push aside normal emotions to embrace false positivity, we lose our capacity to develop skills to embrace the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.”
“‘I just want this feeling to go away.’ ‘I understand,’ I say, ‘but you have dead people’s goals.’ …Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”
“I started to do away with feelings of what I should be experiencing and instead started to open my heart to what I did feel.”
“Research now shows that the radical acceptance of all of our emotions, even the difficult, messy ones, is the cornerstone to resilience, thriving, and true authentic happiness.”
“When we label our emotions accurately we are more able to discern the precise cause of our feelings…enabling us to take the right steps for us. Because our emotions are data. Emotions contain flashing lights to what we care about.”
“When you feel a strong, difficult emotion, don’t run for the exits. Show up. Learn the contours. What is the emotion telling you?
“The living are soft and yielding; the dead are rigid and stiff. Living plants are flexible and tender; the dead are brittle and dry.”
— Lao Tzu
Flexibility, openness and softness are consorting with life. When you are rigid and you know the answer and don't listen to other people's point of view, you are consorting with death. Everything that is old and close to death is brittle and breaks apart including our thinking. So always stay flexible and soft and listen to others with caring.
— Wayne Dyer
So what do you think? You want to try writing out how you are feeling (like nobody’s going to ever read it)?
Is this agility and spirit of the law thing making sense to you?
And AH! I can hardly wait to show you this next part! This is where so many things fell into place for me…
NEXT UP: