(Continued)
In 1969, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychologist, identified five stages that people go
through when told they have a terminal illness: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and
acceptance. In the following explanations, I interpret Kübler-Ross’ five stages into
a typical coping mechanism, and explain how Aikido can be used to forgo the typical coping
mechanism and serves as an effective coping mechanism.
The first stage, denial, is most immediate
reaction; it is an attempt to preserve the status quo, and thus to preserve one’s
worldview: a unique perspective from which one sees and interprets the world. A common
response might be, "You’ve got to be joking," or "No, that’s
impossible. I don’t feel sick." When an experience or specific information does
not fit our cognitive structures or our worldview, we either ignore the experience or
dismiss the information. We might explain an event as a figment of our imagination, or we
might convince ourselves that the valid information is erroneous, for example, a person
might repeatedly check the status of locked car door, even after he inserted the key and
heard the lock click and saw the lock plunger depress, because the thought of having his
car stolen disturbs him. Even so, when we acknowledge the reality of the situation, we
become angry.
Anger, the second stage, is resentment from being singled out
as the recipient of an unpleasant event or circumstance. The ensuing bitterness leads to
statements like, "Why did that have to happen to me. Ken is the one smokes two packs
of cigarettes a day." In addition, we may ameliorate our pain or derive offsetting
pleasure by envisioning the traumatic event happening to an acquaintance, or we may
indulge ourselves in one or more pleasures or deleterious activities in an effort to bury
our anger.
When the anger subsides, we begin to reflect upon the events or
circumstances that lead to the crisis, and the third stage, bargaining, begins. By
appealing to some form of higher power or god, we may make promises to "do
better" or "really try next time" if we can only have "another
chance" or "just a little more time." However, when we realize the futility
of bargaining with a higher power, we may begin the process of dismantling our worldview,
and thus, we enter a state of depression.
Depression, the systematic deconstruction (as in the
philosophical doctrine) of our worldview, is the forth stage of accepting our death. We
spend a significant amount of time contemplating our fate, mostly in a state of physical
inactivity and emotional despair; however, the mind is busy: it razes definitions, labels,
and justifications it has attached to previous experiences. Using the core of our being,
i.e., the sum of our experiences, the mind begins to refit our being with the totality of
the present, the immediate here and now.
Acceptance, fifth and final stage, happens
instantaneously, spontaneously, and effortlessly. Acceptance, i.e., reconstructing a new
worldview, does not happen by way of logical, discursive thought; rather, it happens in
the mind by a non-relational assemblage of our life experiences. The mind takes an
objective view of life experiences; acceptance is emotionless, and a moment of great peace
and tranquility. We no longer fears our situation. After the mind has reconstituted itself
into a nonlinear paradigm where it can center itself, a new worldview takes shape. The
mind now revamps its system of categorizing experiences. The mind can begin reclassifying
events in linear fashion –at which point another crisis could restart the entire
process. In addition, as a result of acceptance, we sometimes discover a personal truth or
maxim such as, "Everything happens for a reason," or "What goes around
comes around." When we reach the acceptance stage, we receive a revivifying charge of
confidence and equanimity –even in terminal cases– and we courageously carry on
with the positive aspects of our lives.
Upon analyzing the entire process, there seems to be a kind of
spontaneous vacillation between logical and emotional thought. At the termination of each
stage, logical, discursive thought surfaces, but immediately an emotional response kicks
in, leading to a sequent, but not necessarily successive, stage. In addition, once one
stage is begun, the following stage is not inevitable, so we can advance or regress
through the various stages. Most importantly, progression through these stages is not
invariant, and we can skip stages in the typical coping mechanism. It follows that one can
skip directly to the last and most salubrious stage, acceptance. Equally important, with
more minor crises our entire worldview is not affected; rather we go through the coping
mechanism with the effected portions –keeping in mind the contingency that we can
skip stages. Furthermore, the stages can involve different portions of a worldview at
different rates; thus, some stages may overlap with different portions of our worldview
being affected.
Given that we can experience a minor crisis and immediately
accept the circumstances while modifying our entire worldview by revamping effected
portions, we can avoid four destructive phases in the acceptance process. Knowing that the
jump to acceptance is possible is the first step to acceptance. The rest depends on a
retraining of the mind: we must unlearn the programmed reactions instilled by culture,
abandon our preconceptions, denounce our emotionally based expectations, and breach our
personal customs and habits. Aikido training proves an effective "way" to
retrain our mind.
(Continued on Next Page)
© 1999, James
Loeser.
All rights reserved
James Loeser has his M.S.from
Northwestern University, in Biotechnology - Specializing in Medicinal Chemistry /
Bioinformatics. He is a student of Aikido and a dental student at the University of
Illinois at Chicago.
james@aikido-world.com
All photos and literature used are copyrighted materials from their respective
owners and photographers. Permission in writing must be made for any duplication, display,
or reprint.
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