A Devil’s Advocate Or Advocate For [insert your word here]?
Some would say that a person I know has always had a fearful 'nature'; however, I’d say that 'nature' in this context is a misnomer as I do not believe that any of us is really fearful by nature. Repeating patterns of fearful behaviours are programmed into our minds, often through traumatic events that the earliest developed parts of our mammalian brains (or limbic brain consisting of the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus) continue to respond to through association. This fearful person happens to be devoutly religious which makes it doubly ironic given that she acts routinely as a Devil’s advocate reacting to many things with fear…”won’t that be stressful?”, “Might you not get hurt?”, “Won’t that be difficult?”, What if this happens?" In this way she sucks the energy out of the inspiration or enthusiasm one might have for something.
I asked if she knew the term ‘Devil’s advocate’ and what it means? She did, and was open to me sharing some examples of how I believed she was regularly playing this role. Using her own language, I then asked if instead she might perhaps prefer being an advocate for God in those situations? And, she seemed to realize, perhaps for the first time, the incongruence between her behaviours and desired beliefs. It also occurred to me that regardless of what form of ‘God’ or ‘Devil’ we believe in, the concepts are universal with the actual form unknowable and what we believe simply constructs of our minds. God, Creator, Universe, Source, Spirit, Infinite Intelligence, Truth - which ever word I would try to use for the higher power in which I believe in, it was inadequate – my mind trying to give form to the formless, describe the indescribable. Use whatever word(s) works for you in your context – quantum physics, source energy or the zero point field. Right now, I like the word ‘Source' as for me I see myself as a creator with creation being the physical expression of being ‘connected’ to our Source (of power).
In writing this article I felt some tension and discomfort around the terms ‘God’, ‘Creator’ etc. due to the religious connotations which can often be divisive rather than unifying. Then a friend prompted me to make this experience part of this article and talk about how perhaps many of us are feeling similar tension but don’t know what to do with it. And perhaps like I was, have been inclined initially to skirt around it, avoid it. I suggest instead facing it, exploring the meaning of it, the context of it for you putting aside the ‘hairy’ feeling to these terms and focusing not on the form but instead on the meaning to you, in your context. How are you perhaps being an advocate for entropy versus creation, fear versus openness etc.? My fears tend to manifest in my acting judgmentally thereby closing me off from the truth behind the stories my ego creates. In letting go of my judgments I find the freedom to further evolve and to allow creativity to flow. There is a related quote from the singer Jewel that I quite like “Fear is a thief. It takes the past and inserts it into the future and robs you of the only real moment you have to affect real change.”
About Rob Pilz
A financial and business creative, I love building and optimizing businesses. With a talent for creating leverage, my current passion is creating methodologies for making businesses humanly sustainable and high performing. Always looking for ways to improve the odds of business success I’ve developed a process combining reason and intuition to make better faster decisions that I call Zero Point Decision MakingTM. I welcome your questions or comments at my website www.robpilz.com, to my email address at rob@robpilz.com or phone U.S. 646-480-0507, Canada 604-722-5361.
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