PALM SUNDAY AND POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOPS
This Sunday, March 24, will be Palm Sunday, and I think it is a good time to consider the impacts of positive and negative feedback loops.
Be it football, basketball, or baseball, it is very easy to see the significant impact of a team’s momentum. How often does one team seem to be on a virtuous upward spiral or feedback loop where one good thing leads to another?
We certainly saw this in the Super Bowl this year. The momentum was in favor of the San Francisco 49ers. However, when the Kansas City Chiefs punted the ball, it bounced off the foot of a San Francisco player, and it was recovered by the Chiefs. Before you could say “Patrick Mahomes,” Kansas City had scored a touchdown. It was not long after this that the momentum shifted.
Feedback loops are very important. The Palm Sunday/Good Friday/Easter story is a sacred tale of a positive feedback loop which turned into a negative feedback loop. But thank God— just like in this year’s Super Bowl— this sacred tale went into “overtime,” which led to the most positive feedback loop of all time (better known as The Resurrection).
I was listening to a recent interview of Sarah Polley— and reading some of her writing— and it really brought up the importance of feedback loops for me. Sarah has been called “Canada’s sweetheart.” She started her childhood acting career by starring in a television series based on Beverly Cleary’s Ramona Quimby books.
Sarah went on to star in another blockbuster television series entitled The Road to Avonlea. This show was based on the works of Lucy Montgomery and her Ann of Green Gables series. For several seasons it was the most highly rated show on Canadian television, and it was picked up for distribution by Disney.
Polley went on to star in many adult roles in the movies, and she has directed several films. Beyond that she has written a very interesting book: Run Towards the Danger.
Sarah says she believes that our childhood experiences are very important and crucially impact how we see and react to things when we are adults. In Polley’s case she had a very warm, protective, supportive, and close relationship with her mother. However, her mother died of cancer when Sarah was 11 years old.
Her father was wonderful in some ways, but he was very distant in many important ways. Sarah says that on television and movie sets she was often thrust into many very difficult and dangerous situations.
These situation is included sexual abuse, filming scenes where real explosives were dangerously going off near her, and long hours of being filmed in icy cold water which was easily hypothermia producing, etc.
At the time there was no one there to stand up for her, including her father who often was a “no show.” Needless to say, all of this produced a very negative feedback loop for Sarah. In many adults situations the childhood fear of abandonment, of not mattering or being listened to, and feeling “not enough and less than” kept coming up for her.
But finally realized that she could turn this negative feedback loop from childhood into a positive feedback loop. First, she realized on a deep level that she was an adult now and not a child. Second, as an adult, she was able to obtain information and a perspective that she didn’t have as a child.
Third— and this was crucial for Sarah— she was able to project this new information and experience back to her childhood. She started seeing her childhood very differently. So when difficult things started to happen as an adult she now had a very different handle on her childhood— which was projecting very different signals back into her adulthood. In essence, Sarah had changed a negative feedback loop into a positive feedback loop.
What was some of this different information and perspective on Sarah’s childhood? Well, Sarah did some research and learned that her “father” was not her “biological father.” It turned out that her mother had an affair that resulted in Sarah. Also, she was able to learn about her “father” and “biological father’s” past. As a result, Sarah started to feel real compassion for both men, and to realize that they had both done the best they possibly could.
In terms of what happened to her when she was a childhood actress, Polley started to realize that what happened to her was very likely to happen to young actresses. As a result, Sarah became very much involved in positive political activism. In other words, she lit a candle, and stopped cursing the darkness.
Lastly, Sarah realized that many children never get the loving, supportive – – and close – – mother that she had for 11 years. Sarah started counting her blessings and being grateful for what she had experienced with her mother.
The net result of all of this is that what was a continual negative feedback loop in her life shifted and became a positive feedback loop which has helped Sarah dream of, and accomplish, many wonderful things.
We have entered a particularly holy time of the year. Palm Sunday represented a very positive feedback loop where it seemed that Jesus and the disciples were on the top of the world riding into Jerusalem.
However, the momentum quickly shifted into a seemingly negative feedback loop leading to the crucifixion and almost total despair. However, this was not the end of the story!
There was an incredible shift in consciousness which led to an important positive feedback loop. We are still today being uplifted by this positive feedback loop.
I would ask all of us that if there are any negative feedback loops in our lives that we consider the Holy Week story and the story of Sarah Polley.
We too with the love and help of Spirit can change any negative feedback loop into an abundant and luscious positive feedback loop.
Happy almost Easter!
