Dr. David Shin, professor of religion at Weimar University, shares a compelling study on the key to self control.

<p>Dr. David Shin, professor of religion at Weimar University, shares a compelling study on the key to self control.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Weimar University

David Shin

The Secret of Self-Control

This message was presented by a faculty member of Weimar University.

For more information visit our website weimar.edu.

Let's say that someone comes to you and asks you, would you like a donut or would you like an apple?

And if you like donuts, there's an immediate dialogue that takes place in your brain between the prefrontal cortex, the frontal lobe, as Dr.

Nedley likes to say, And the frontal lobe goes something like this.

And you don't have the sugar high that goes up and dips way down.

It won't be like a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.

Reason, projection, all of these things are taking place, but there's another part of your brain called the amygdala, where your hedonic desires are, appetite and passions.

And it says the donut is chewy and gooey and delightful.

And when it hits the tongue, it just, oh, the rush.

He says, in the mind's arena, willpower represents a, what does it say?

A wrestling match taking place inside of you between top and bottom systems.

The Spirit of Prophecy calls it the higher powers and the lower powers.

These 2 systems signify a critical difference in focus.

The reward circuits fixate on hot cognition, thoughts with high emotional charge like what's tempting about the marshmallow.

The greater the charge, the stronger the impulse, and the more likely it is that our more sober-minded, prefrontal lobes will be hijacked by our desire.

Paul writes about this in Galatians 5, verse 17.

For the flesh, the bottom, the lower powers, desires what is contrary to the spirit, the higher powers.

And the spirit, what is contrary to the flesh, they are in, what does it say, in conflict with each other so that you do not do whatever you want.

I'm working my way through this book by Daniel Goleman.

He's done extensive work on emotional intelligence.

His latest book is called Focus and he's got a whole chapter on self-control.

And in his book he cites this study, the lifelong impact of early self-control.

And he says that Dunedin has a populace of just over 100, 000 people in a dauntingly ambitious project.

1, 000, 300, 1, 037 children, all the babies born over a period of 12 months, were studied intensively in childhood and then tracked down decades later by a team assembled from different countries.

The team represented many disciplines, each with its own perspective on the key marker for self-awareness, self-control.

So they took these kids, over a thousand of them, and all these scientists came in and did exclusive study measuring how much self-control these kids had.

This is the most comprehensive study that has taken place, to my knowledge, and according to Daniel Goleman, and they tracked all of them down 2 decades later.

After a two-decade lull, all but 4% of the kids were tracked down.

Of these thousand kids, had a baseline for self-control, how much self-control did they have, and then they tracked them out down decades later.

And this is what Daniel Goleman States about the study.

The better their self-control in childhood, the better the Dunedin kids were doing in their 30s.

They had sounder health, were more successful financially, and were law-abiding citizens.

The worse their childhood impulse management, the less they made, the shakier their health, and the more likely it was that they had a criminal record.

Statistical analysis found that a child's level of self-control is every bit as a powerful predictor of her adult, what does it say?

And health, in criminal record for that matter, are a social class wealth of family of origin or IQ.

In fact, for financial success, self-control in childhood proved a stronger predictor than either IQ or social class of the family of origin.

The Dunedin study showed remarkably that if you had more self-control when you were a kid, you're more likely to make the big bucks later on.

The key findings of the study had predictive power.

The study found a strong link between a child's self-control and their adult health, wealth, and public safety outcomes, often more so than IQ or socioeconomic status.

Individuals with greater self-control in childhood showed slower physical aging in adulthood with fewer signs of chronic disease and financial outcomes.

Good self-control was associated with better social bonds, higher financial stability, and lower rates of criminal offending in adulthood.

Early self-control has a dose-response effect, meaning the higher the level of self-control, the better the adult outcome.

The Bible has a lot to say about self-control and it also brings out what it's like to live a life with no self-control.

Galatians chapter 5, verse 19 through 21, now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication.

In other words, this person, when it comes to their sexual proclivity, out of control.

Uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contention, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, inability to regulate their emotions, selfish ambition, dissension, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelies, and the like.

That's a life with no self- control, whether it comes to any area of their life, totally out of control.

The Bible also brings out another aspect of self-control, and this is what we call selective self-control.

These people have self-control in certain areas, like athletes.

And in 1st Corinthians, Paul is writing to the Christian church there, and look at what he says, and I brethren could not speak to you as spiritual people, you were still carnal for where there are envy, strife and divisions among you.

Are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

Notice that some of the people on this, that we've described here in 1 Corinthians, have some of the things that are on the list of the previous 1, but they're not doing everything.

They're not murdering people, But they have some of the aspects and they've lost self-control in some areas, selective self-control.

And then last but not least, Galatians 5.22.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long- suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

I asked JatGPT to come up with this image.

And of course, all of the fruit of the Spirit are wonderful and needed, and I just had it amplify self-control.

Like look, if you're connected at the root, you will bear the fruit, amen?

There's a lot of controversy stemming about the Spirit, so I just want to add this in here about who is the Holy Spirit.

And if you look in the Bible, in the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, you see this statement, then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

There's a conversation taking place within the Godhead about creation, and you can see this in Genesis 3, verse 22, then the Lord God said, behold, that man has become like 1 of us.

You see it at the Tower of Babel, come let us go down.

And you also see it in Isaiah chapter 6, whom shall I send and who will go for us?

Now what about this idea about being 1 God and it's known as the Shema, Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4, He or Israel the Lord our God is 1.

What are they talking about us in Genesis when there's 1 God?

The same Hebrew word is used in Genesis chapter 2 verse 24, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and they shall become what?

In other words, the oneness within the Godhead is analogous to the oneness in marriage.

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The Secret of Self-Control

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