Becoming You More Fully

Some scientists ran a test on a frog.  They cut the frogs legs off and then yelled at the frog, “Jump!”  The frog didn’t jump.  The scientists therefore concluded that when frogs lose their legs they become deaf.

It’s all about perception.  We can be seeing and never perceiving.  We can be hearing but really not listening.  The ancient proverb, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears” rings as true today as the first time it was spoken.  So many of us are making our way through life, shackled by our perceptions about what we see.  Just like the scientists with the frog, perhaps we need to change the way we think about our world and our potential to become who we truly are.  Perhaps there’s more to this world than just meets the eye!  Perhaps believing is seeing.

Many years ago, psychologists studied a group of five-year-old children in New Zealand.[i]  They performed personality profiles on the children.  They returned ten years later and performed personality profiles once again, and guess what they discovered?  The children’s personalities remained the same.

When I heard about this study, I actually took the Meyers-Briggs[ii] personality test again, the same test I had taken in high school some thirty years ago (give or take a few or many years. . .I admit nothing), and guess what?  The outcome was exactly the same.  What this New Zealand study led experts to determine was this:  People don’t change.  They become more fully who they already are.

Jesus said, "The Kingdom is within."  And psychology is finding that today.  Inside of us are gifts, talents, and strengths that only need our consent to manifest in our daily lives, gifts meant to bless others.  Our life journey is about discovering who we were created to truly be so we can play our part in this cosmos, and a large part of that journey is to change our perceptions about ourselves as we try to see the world around us in different ways, not just the way we were told, or the way the rest of the world tells us.  Explore your inner and outer world!  Question.  Clarify.  Risk.  Try something else that resonates in your heart, something you want to do with your life, but have thought impossible or impractical, or both!  And grow!  We're waiting for you to come along!

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[i] The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study.  Dunedin, New Zealand. http://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz/studies/main-study/description.

[ii] The Myers and Briggs Foundation. http://www.myersbriggs.org.