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Instructor: Jason Roberts

Student: Jeridiah Watson

February 7, 2014

Eliminate I Cant Reflection (Chapter 2)

In learned helplessness studies, an animal is repeatedly exposed to an aversive stimulus which it cannot escape. Eventually, the animal stops trying to avoid the stimulus and behaves as if it is helpless to change the situation. When opportunities to escape become available, learned helplessness means the animal does not take any action. Why is this you may ask yourself? How would someone go down in to the rabbit hole so far that they become so powerless over real life situations that they would not even be able to take control or initiate positive changes? Learned helplessness is a mental state in which an organism forced to endure aversive stimuli, or stimuli that are painful or otherwise unpleasant, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are escapable, presumably because it has learned that

it cannot control the situation. What a sad state of existence it would be if we as human beings were not able to live in a state of being happy, joyous, and free! Sometimes this is a result of being a product of an environment. Those of us who grow up in a happy home with healthy loving parents, who encourage us and set an example of the type of people we should be. On the flipside of the coin there are also those kids who are not so fortunate but, have come from dysfunctional families with lots of substance abuse, emotional abuse, physical violence and chaos in their young lives. Families are split apartsiblings are sent to live with various family members who are willing to take them in when Mom and Dad are just no longer fit to parent properly. Some end up as wards of the state. There are some of these who would continue this vicious cycle only to end up spending much their lives in a controlled environment with no means to escape. Some eventually just learn to accept their fate as a type of coping mechanism and become submissive to an oppressed environment. They have made a conscious (or unconscious) decision to remain in bondage to a condition or state of being.

This is a type of social and psychological conditioning known as Learned

Helplessness. The signs of Learned Helplessness can sometimes be extremely

low self-esteem and severe depression. Sometimes this condition can be the absorbed characteristics of a significant other who does not even realize that they have inherited a generational curse of sorts learned from their childhood or culture. This I Cant mindset is oftentimes used as a means of coping with unpleasant or abusive circumstances in which the person does not feel they are able to have any control over. Meanwhile others who are less passive and a bit more assertive try to fight tooth and nail to make a way of escape from the bondage or social conditioning of thinking one is less than. In effect, these seemingly hopeless individuals, when given the right direction from others who are mentors or confidants with similar experiences can somehow change their mentality of I Cant into I Can. Thereby gaining victory and somehow and become a part of their own breakthrough. I believe that there are certain people one can be blessed with in lives who are great confidants. Now some of you may

ask yourself what is a confidant? I believe that the Reverend T.D. Jakes sums it up quite nicely in one of his Sermons on a YouTube clip. He defines three groups of people we will know throughout our lives. The first of these groups is a confidant. He says that in order to be covered by God and walk in the area of your destiny. You cant be limited to just working with people who look like you. Or think like you, or vote like you, or dress like you, or even be of the same gender as you. You have to get out of the box because God can use a lot of people to bless you and move in and out of your life while you are learning to transition from I Cant into the position of I Can. One simply cannot be narrow or one dimensional because this is a coat of many colors. It is not the color we need to be watching.it is the character. The first group known as confidants and are the persons in your life who will love you unconditionally. We usually have very few of those. Actually if one has five of these confidants type people standing in their corner throughout their whole life one can consider themselves a very blessed person. Confidants are into youit does not matter whether you

are up or down, right or wrong they are into you. They are in for the long haul. If you get in trouble they will come and visit you in the jail house. They will come and get you out of the drug house. You can actually open up and trust them enough to share anything with them. One simply cannot continue embracing an

I Cant attitude if they have found their confidants in life. Having a good confidant is the key that unlocks the kingdom. A lot of us were raised inside the gate and God is going to cause you to reach over the wall. One needs to have a confidant behind the wall that can mentor you for what God is going to do next in your life. There is a quote I like in the textbook that says: The single most important influence in the life of a person is another person worthy of emulation. (Paul Shafer, P. 47) Some great examples of these types of persons are contained within the pages of our textbook. Take the true story of Michael Oher for example (Story from textbook, P.10): He was one of twelve children. His mother was a crack addict and alcoholic while his absentee father was in and out of prison and was murdered there when Michael was a High School Senior.

When he was the age of seven he was placed in foster care. He moved back and forth between homelessness to foster care for the next several years. He was fortunate to have a confidant type person in his life. This person encouraged Michael to apply for admission at Briarcrest Christian School where he was to be named Division II lineman of the year and First Team Tennessee All State. Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy had two children who attended Briarcrest. They were confidant type persons of character. They took Michael into their home and adopted him. Not only did they gave him a stable, comfortable home with a loving family, They hired a private tutor who spent twenty hours a week with Michael helping him to catch up and raise his GPA. This allowed him to attend the University of Mississippi on a football scholarship. He excelled at Ole Miss as the University is affectionately called and went on to sign a $13.8 million dollar contract with the Baltimore Ravens and become a star in the National Football League. I actually own the DVD movie about Michael Ohers life called The Blind Side. It was a major hit starring Sandra Bullock, who won an Academy Award.

There are some of the most inspiring personal stories in the textbook by both not so well known as well as famous individuals who have not accepted I Can t as their lot in life. These are people of character, the type of people who have been able to overcome barriers and aspire while they inspire to help others to succeed. These are the type of people and mentors and confidants who we will interact with if we are a child of destiny. (See the story of Tim McGraw on P.47) His first experiences were a series of failed attempts in the music industry. It says one Producer told him, Youll never make it, son. Go on home and find yourself a job. As of today, Tim McGraw has forty million cds sold and thirty one #1 hits.

Apparently he did not buy into the I Cant ideology.

I personally like the quote:

Forget mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you are going to do now and do it! ~Will Durant~