The Business of Life with Dr King
Dr Ariel Rosita King brings on a variety of International guests from various countries, cultures, organisations, and businesses to talk about turning
problem into possibilities! Let's turn our challenges in opportunities together!
The Business of Life with Dr King
The Power of Mental Resilience with Swier Miedema
Have you ever considered that resilience isn't something you need to acquire, but rather an innate quality that's been within you all along? In this profound conversation with resilience expert Swier Medema, we explore the revolutionary idea that our natural capacity for mental wellbeing and adaptability is simply obscured by our conditioned thinking patterns.
Swier shares his fascinating perspective on how our brain's protective mechanisms, while essential for physical survival, often create unnecessary mental suffering through anxiety about hypothetical futures. "We worry about things that might happen, which causes all our anxiety," he explains, "but have you ever noticed that what might happen never happens?" This constant vigilance against imaginary threats consumes approximately 30-50% of our thinking capacity - mental resources that could be directed toward creative, insightful thinking.
The conversation takes a practical turn as Swier introduces the powerful distinction between "helping thoughts" and "non-helping thoughts." When we learn to recognize and discard thoughts that invariably make us feel worse than neutral, something remarkable happens - the "brass band" in our head begins to quiet down. Even for those who have experienced severe trauma, this understanding offers a path forward where memories remain but gradually acquire "a little layer of dust on them, so they get a little bit rounder and softer."
Perhaps most compelling is Swier's assertion that our conventional educational and social systems often train us out of our natural resilience. "The average child that starts to walk falls 500 times before it can walk. The average adult gives up an effort for learning something new after three times." By rediscovering the resilience we're born with and understanding how we create our reality through our thinking, we can access greater mental freedom, creativity, and wellbeing.
Listen now to discover how you might reconnect with your innate mental health and resilience - capacities you've always possessed but perhaps forgotten how to access in today's complex world.
Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King
Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....
The Business of Life
Dr Ariella (Ariel) Rosita King
Original Song, "Teach Me to Live one Day At A Time"
written, guitar and vocals by Dr. Ariel Rosita King
Dr King Solutions (USA Office)
1629 K St, NW #300,
Washington, DC 20006, USA,
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DrKingSolutions.com
the business of life. Today we have a very special guest, Mr Swer Medema. Welcome.
Swier Miedema:Well, thank you, dr King. I'm honored to be here. What I try to do in life is to help people understand that we have inbuilt resilience, and the sad thing about that is it is most of the time it's overwhelmed by our own thinking.
Dr Ariel King:I love that idea. Sorry, I said I love that idea, so today you're going to be speaking about resilience Wonderful.
Swier Miedema:Yes, the amazing thing is that we have that all built in thing is that we have that all built in. The sad thing is that our conditioning from our society takes us away from that, and that has been very useful in the past because it helped us become well, from farmers into industrialists. But nowadays we need a different way of looking at things and now, with the advent of AI, for instance, we are starting to get afraid of being left out of the circulation because we think, oh, we are not good enough anymore. That is nonsense. That is nonsense. The problem is only that we have to learn to evaluate to the next level of thinking we already have available to us and we all know this, because we have those moments when we take a morning shower or have a walk or do some meditation or do anything else which relaxes us, which gives us access to our insightful thinking, which is a different level of thinking, because that's where your ideas come from, that's where your inspiration comes from, that's where artists find their inspiration.
Dr Ariel King:That makes a lot of sense to me and I would say resilience is important because it allows us to not be where we want to be, not get where we want to go, but at the same time, remember that every minute, every day, every possible hour has the ability to change whatever it is that we feel needs to be changed absolutely and and we are masters at Otherwise we wouldn't have been here, we wouldn't have dominated this planet, because we are masters at adapting to situations.
Swier Miedema:We can live at the North Pole or in the Sahara, if you like, and we can survive there, but many animals cannot, because we know how to survive there, because we find solutions to situations, and the sad thing in life nowadays is that we have forgotten most of that, because we are most of the time steered by our own fears.
Dr Ariel King:And that's not helpful.
Swier Miedema:Sorry.
Dr Ariel King:I'm sorry, that's very interesting. So you're saying that one of the difficulties with our resilience today is that we've always had it. It's within us, but somehow that possibility is stopped through fear. Is that correct?
Swier Miedema:Yes, correct. The sad thing is we have been brought up as soon as we were small. As soon as we start walking, for instance, we are praised into heaven by our parents and by all means it's no small feat a child that learns to walk. But we forget that the average child that starts to walk falls 500 times before it can walk. The average adult gives up an effort for learning something new after three times. That's a vast difference. And, of course, being able to walk means freedom, but being able to think freely also means freedom and that's important for all of us.
Swier Miedema:Ai as a threat should be looked at. They are going to do the groundwork for us, producing results where we can relate to and we can work with to get next situations. But also our body, our brain is not really helping. The brain is trying to keep us safe as best as possible, because that's the main goal of our brain to keep your body safe. But I start to think that our brain doesn't even know that we are thinking. We have been looking at thinking and we're trying to find thinking in our brain for about 30 years now and, yes, we can see there's activity, but we cannot pinpoint the point where we are thinking. We cannot pinpoint the point where we have consciousness, but we have consciousness because we are aware of what's going on, as you and I are sitting now against each other and we are experiencing things. We have this. A computer doesn't Very good, very good point.
Dr Ariel King:And AI stands for artificial intelligence, which is different, I think, than you're saying, from the intelligence that we have as humans and the ability to adapt and to be tenacious.
Swier Miedema:Yes, adapt and to be tenacious. Yes, and the the funny thing is, once we learn not to pay too much attention to our brain thinking, as I call it, which is biologically uh, um, um, um introduced let's call it that way your brain's trying to keep you safe. So if you have a pain in your stomach, you say oh my god, I've got a pain in my stomach, I must go to see a doctor. But if you wait for a few minutes it might just go away, and more often than not it does. So we worry about things that might happen, which causes all our anxiety.
Swier Miedema:I've had a lady here who had been suffering from anxiety for 23 years as a result of a nasty experience in her past. I talked to her in the end for five times, but after the five times she said so here you know, I have never had any panic attacks after our first conversation anymore because you explained to me I'm creating it myself. I'm creating my anxiety myself by paying attention to what might happen. But have you ever noticed that what might happen never happens? And the fun thing is, once we learn not to pay too much attention to that, what might happen there then? Then you get about 30 to 50 percent of additional thinking capacity in your brain, where you can easily think about stuff which is important.
Dr Ariel King:That's so interesting. So you're saying anxiety fear of what could happen causes anxiety, which makes it difficult for us to use that brain capacity to think about the present and the possible future.
Swier Miedema:Absolutely, and the same goes for things that have happened in the past. So you could call it trauma, and of course trauma gets set in the body somewhere. But also, if we go back to that traumatic experience, we experience the feeling again while the situation is not there. So why we are recreating that experience again, which is not helping us. So people who come to me with a depression or sadness or trauma, I say okay, stay away there. I say okay, stay away there, don't go back.
Swier Miedema:We can never take it out, it's in your memory, but we can learn not to pay too much attention to it. And then something will happen, because I think they're called glial cells in your brain will loosen the grip on it and it will be moved to your long-term memory, which will not be so easily available to you. So the what I say is these, these memories remain, but they get a little layer of dust on them, so they get a little bit rounder and softer. They never really disappear, but they get rounder and softer. So it's, it's livable, and we all have had traumatic experiences throughout our lives and that's okay. We can live with that, it's yes, and as long as we don't make it too much of a situation I say we have two types of thoughts.
Swier Miedema:We have helping thoughts and we have non-helping thoughts. A non-helping thought will always make you feel awful. It will cost heaps of time because you're trying to solve it. And how can you solve a thought? It will cost heaps of energy because I don't know about you, but when I've had a row with my wife, for instance, I'm spent afterwards, and nowadays I don't have too many rows anymore, but still it happens once in a while.
Swier Miedema:I'm human and the sad thing about it is afterwards, when you think about it. What was I thinking? What happened here? Why was I so drawn away by my own thought? So I tell people don't pay attention to a thought that's not helping, as long as it's not a threat. If there's a bus driving towards you, okay, step aside, please do aside, please do. But. But we are masters at at handling crisis situations, otherwise we wouldn't have dominated this planet. And the other side is helping thoughts. Helping thoughts make you feel great. They give energy. The sad thing about it is they are over before you know it, and afterwards you'll be grateful for experiencing this, or maybe with the person you did it with. So why not pay much more attention to helping thoughts instead of non-helping thoughts and non-helping what?
Dr Ariel King:what is the helping what? What do helping thoughts look like? I know this is a strange question, but it's so much. I understand.
Swier Miedema:You want to. You want to be able to discern between those two. Yes, and, and the important thing is, a non-helping thought always makes you feel less than neutral. Neutral is okay, we can deal with neutral, but as soon as it's less than neutral, it gives you a feeling which is less than neutral. It will be a non-helping thought. And the fun thing about that is, once you learn to do that and your brain can learn that easily your brain gets quieter the brass band in your head will stop playing at some stage.
Swier Miedema:It happened to me. After almost two years into this understanding, I started to understand wait a minute, I don't need this anymore. So my whole brain went silent one morning. Uh, at first I thought, wait a minute, what's going on here? Am I, is my brain stopped working? Then I thought well, I was thinking this now, so it didn't stop working. So what happened here?
Swier Miedema:And my brain learned that I can stop non-helping thoughts. I can just discard them, don't pay attention to them, and our feeling is infallible. We know what's right and what's not wrong. We know, we feel that, and I've done many times. I've done things that I thought were right but didn't feel right and then I was proved wrong. So as soon as you have a thought and we have somewhere between 50,000 and 125,000 per day look at it, just look at the thought and say is this going to give me a feeling which helps? No, it isn't. Oh, let's discard that Next one, and there will always be a next one. Within a second there will be a next one, and the great thing about that is, once you learn not to pay too much attention to non-helping thoughts, there's a vast additional capacity in your brain and you get access to your real smart thinking. It's silent on the other side. Have I overwhelmed you?
Dr Ariel King:You know, I'm listening to you and I'm thinking and, as you're speaking to me, I'm seeing what you're saying and I can see it in my life and I can see it in my family's life. So the silence is because I'm processing and understanding what you're saying and you know, what comes to my mind is this this is with even people that had severe trauma, so we're talking about violence committed against them. Or, for example, people that are going through natural disasters. We see all over the world people going through natural disasters, where one day life is as expected and then the next day life is as expected and then the next day everything they've ever known is obliterated. Yes, and so is it the same for these type of situations, because the anxiety I understand sometimes is more of a of course you have you are in the midst of the situation you have to deal with it.
Swier Miedema:But how much would it be worth that you keep your calm and see what's going on right now and treating the situation as best as you can, instead of getting into a panic and doing all kinds of stuff which won't help you. That's awful, because then you will always get the wrong decisions. You take the wrong decisions If you're scared. You are trying to survive as best as you can, so your attention is aimed at surviving your body, not your thinking, not the best possible solution.
Dr Ariel King:Large trauma is done either violence or natural disaster or whatever it is, or being in the company of someone else having some kind of trauma or natural disaster or death and then the anxiety comes because you because you're playing that in your head again, as you would say, yes, what you're saying. Can this also apply? And if so, it's really a question to people that have had very big trauma and some of the fear is that quote unquote it will happen again.
Swier Miedema:Yes, and that will define their lives, because it's in the background all the time, because they are afraid it will happen again and there is no way you can predict that. We have nothing in our brain that can predict the future. We try to, because we try to be as safe as possible. We try to predict our future as best as we can, but the problem is we are wrong 99% of the time. It's never 100% like we have predicted it, never.
Dr Ariel King:So how do we use your technique of thoughts that are positive for you and thoughts that make you feel less than neutral? How can we use that for those who have gone through some type of trauma, um, especially severe trauma?
Swier Miedema:it takes time spoke about.
Dr Ariel King:Pardon me, like the woman you spoke about, you said after the first day, she said she didn't have anxiety anymore and that anxiety was a result of past trauma, which was 20 years ago. So right, so I'm asking for our listeners how can we use what you're saying, which is quite interesting, in order to go beyond those type of traumas that seem to be there after so much time, but that were really truly severe traumas?
Swier Miedema:Yes, Well, what I refer to is the understanding of the three principles, and the understanding of the three principles and the understanding of the three principles is a an understanding, it's not a technique. It is understanding how we create our reality. Our reality is always created from a the fact that we are alive, otherwise we won't have any experience. B we have consciousness. And consciousness is a two-sided sword really. At the one hand, it allows us to experience, experience things like like sight and and taste and smell and feeling and so and so on, all those senses we have and on the other hand, it creates our experience from it through our third principle, which is thinking. Thinking is a power which helps us make sense of what's going on and once we start to understand that, we create that experience all the time. We can create a different one, and that's where your resilience comes in, because once you understand, you can create any experience from what you are feeling, hearing, testing, smelling and so on. You can create any experience from what you are feeling, hearing, testing, smelling and so on. You can create any experience.
Swier Miedema:I've had a young man who had been using dmt. Dmt is the active component of ayahuasca tea and, as a result of ayahuasca tea or dmt, you will start to hallucinate. And for some reason his brain picked that up and said okay, you want more of this. Okay, I'll give it to you. So he saw all kinds of figures flying at him while he was driving his car, which is scary and disrupting, and didn't know how to deal with that. And didn't know how to deal with that. So he went to, I think, three psychological helpers who tried to help him with that and he couldn't find it out.
Swier Miedema:Then I explained to him you are creating this yourself. So if we sit down for instance, he had it when driving his car we sit down in your car, we're going to drive. I'm going to tell you whether the thing you are seeing now is real or not. If I say it's unreal and and and you're not hit by it, will you believe me? He said okay, it seems fine, let's try that. So we did that. We drove around for an hour and in the beginning he saw all kinds of figures flying at him. And then it's at some states, this just stopped being there, just because our brain thinks we need that I like that.
Dr Ariel King:And then what he also needed was a second person from the outside saying whether they saw the same. Yes, once you verbalize no, I don't see that, then the brain picked it up and said but I saw it, but they didn't see it. And I guess the brain then re concludes or calibrates itself to see something different or have a different reality. Is that possible? Yes, we can. We.
Swier Miedema:The fun thing is that when I was as I told you, when I was two years into this understanding, my brain went silent, the monkey on my shoulder or the brass band in my head just shut up. Now I don't have those morning shower moments anymore where I have those insights and say, oh yes, no, I have them all day and that's amazing because I can deal with any situation now and that's very powerful. And, yes, I don't always get the best results, because I don't always get the best uh, my solutions for any situation, but at least I don't always get the best solutions for any situation, but at least I don't start from zero again.
Dr Ariel King:That does make a difference, doesn't it?
Swier Miedema:Absolutely.
Dr Ariel King:Now that you find that you don't spend a lot of time and energy on negative thoughts or thoughts that take away from equilibrium, what have you found that you are starting? Your brain is starting to capture, or I would say more than your brain, your brain and your spirit and your emotion is starting to capture as a result of not spending that energy on just trying to survive, anxiety of what could happen.
Swier Miedema:Yeah, the great thing is that I can respond to any situation right now, in this moment, because I'm no longer bothered by my brain thinking, as I call it, who just gets in the way of judging the situation. And there's another one which I would like to bring forward, which is my judgmental thinking goes down, so I don't judge people so much anymore. So people say, yeah, you're, you're so mellow, now what's going on? Why I? I? I read um a may I, an amazing text from jiddu krishnamochi um a few, a few years ago, and he said at some stage you know what my secret is I don't do not mind, mind what happens. He does care, but he doesn't mind, and that's all the difference that's interesting, that's a philosophy, that's quite interesting, yeah and I think so it's almost like life is going to happen.
Dr Ariel King:Yes, how you respond is what makes what happened something that has happened and you can relate to, and what quote-unquote deal with or respond to, or something that you're going to have anxiety about because you don't want it to happen again, but it will still happen yeah, and that's that's what makes us human, and that's okay, but we can deal with that may I ask how do we start to teach this to um, how do we start to integrate this in the way that we raise children?
Dr Ariel King:I know that sounds strange, but it seems to me that you know to learn about the 50s and 60s is wonderful, but wouldn't it be even better if we could have young people start to learn how to do this effectively earlier?
Swier Miedema:How do?
Dr Ariel King:you think you can do that?
Swier Miedema:Well, we have to learn that. We know this from birth. When we are born, we are a unwritten Kansas, let's call it that way. We are completely blank because we don't have any memory what we are taught as of two, maybe one a half. As soon as we start walking, we make the connection between reward and happiness, and the reward is indeed connected to happiness. But happiness has to come from yourself and not from others, because that way you always make yourself dependent on others. You are not dependent on others, you are dependent on yourself.
Swier Miedema:Look at yourself. If you have achieved something and you did it by yourself, it gives you the best possible reward. It gives you the best possible happiness feeling. Possible reward give you the best possible happiness feeling. Once it's being brought to you by someone else, you always think wait a minute, what's what's in it for him or her? And once it's yours, only it's your reward, it's your success, it's your success, it's yours.
Swier Miedema:And the sad thing is we make ourselves dependent in the system on rewards from different persons. So as soon as you start walking, you're raised into heaven by your parents because they are over the moon and of course they should be, because it's no small feat as a child that starts to walk, but then he goes to kindergarten and he learns to draw and to paint and to write letters and stuff like that and they get rewarded for that and it goes on throughout our lives. We reward people as they do what we want, but we should reward people when they do what they want, see their unique talents, their unique value and celebrate that. We all have our own talents in all kinds of different levels talents in all kinds of different levels.
Dr Ariel King:That's truly true. I mean, that's so insightful to think that part of what's going on with us, even with anxiety, is the fact that we're always looking for what's happening outside of us. Yes, what I hear you saying is that perhaps we should help young people and children to look more of what happened inside of them and for the push and the motivation and also that you did well to come from inside of them than from outside of them, and then it gives them the possibility to have, I guess, less anxiety and more fulfilling lives than what we've experienced.
Swier Miedema:Yeah, but the problem is our schooling system is still based on a system which is 200 years old.
Dr Ariel King:If we can call it schooling. I don't know. I think at some point.
Swier Miedema:Society is large.
Dr Ariel King:of course yes, that makes a difference, and can I say our time is always almost up. Um, would you like to leave our audience with some tips about, uh, this idea of what's important, with the type of thinking that we have and how we use that to better our lives?
Swier Miedema:yes, um, the most important thing is a quote from sid banks, who originally, uh, were this misunderstanding for the first time, I think it's. We have to understand that every human lives in mental health. They just don't know it. We are all mentally healthy, but we are drawn away by our own thinking, which is trying to survive and trying to get this as physically as best as possible, and then we get lost thank you, that's a fantastic thought.
Dr Ariel King:Really appreciate that. Um, and how can people get in touch with you if they'd like to learn more about what you do or get in touch with you?
Swier Miedema:Well, I'm quite active on LinkedIn. Also, I have a website which is under construction right now. It is called swiermedemacom. It's S-W-I-E-R-M-I-E-D-E-M-A dot com, but it's under construction, so bear with me for some time.
Dr Ariel King:By the time your podcast come out. It should be there and we'll make sure that it's put in your podcast. I wouldn't want to thank you for being with us today. It was quite insightful. I've learned so much, and we want to thank you to our audience. Remember, if I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If now, then, when that was Hillel and I say if not me, then who? Thank you for joining us.
Swier Miedema:Thank you very much.