The Monkey Story

borrowed from Kit Pharro: Email: Kit@PharoCattle.com Website: www.PharoCattle.com

The Monkey Story –

First, you start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result – all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked, and the previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey, then a fourth, and then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey will ever again approach the stairs to try for the banana. Why not?

Because… as far as they know, that's the way it's always been done around here. And that, my dear friends, is how most ... traditions get started."

what script am i living?

Last week I went to Clarks football teams fundraiser: "comedy night". I don't think the guy told one joke all night but for almost 2 hours he had me laughing harder than I've laughed in at least 10 years. I almost fell out of my chair and kept having to wipe the tears away. He was a hypnotist and he has the special ability of hypnotizing multiple people at once in public. I've seen this from a distance at the OC Fair but didn't stick around long enough to really appreciate what they were doing. He called for volunteers into a crowd of mostly high school students and out of about 300 kids and 20 or so parents, he ended up with about 25 kids on stage, girls and guys- many football players included.

I won't, and shouldn't, recount everything he did with these kids but it was at the same time ROFL funny and completely fascinating. He had them totally under his command and control so that whenever he 'woke' them from their deep sleep they would act immediately on the cue that he had told them about. It's hard to pick my favorites because he raised the bar with each new act. One time he told them that when they heard the phone ring, they needed to quickly answer their 'shoe phone' because it was their favorite celebrity and they needed to tell their favorite celebrity how great they were. And it was ok to exaggerate! Well, he woke them up (and when I say 'woke' I mean they set up straight but were still in a little bit of a daze, not completely limp like they were when they got the instructions) He proceeded to chat with them and as he was talking, his assistant rang a bell. Immediately they ALL grabbed their shoe like a phone and started talking a mile a minute! some were gesturing with their hands and using body language. One guy walked over to the back of the stage and plugged his other ear! Then...the hypnotist proceeded to interview them!!! One girl was talking to Justin Beiber "yeah, baby!" and then another guy said "I'm talking to Taylor Swift!" and when told to tell Taylor something awesome about himself he said "I play football!"

I'm sure that part of what made it so funny was that i knew some of the kids, including big football players who, at one point were told they needed to pose because they were super models. Another time he told two students that they could speak perfect Chinese and also that they were "laughter police" so if they saw anyone in the audience laughing they needed to tell them off. I think that was one time I almost fell out of my chair- watching this guy 'speaking' Chinese and using karate motions as he told off the laughing audience. They must have performed at least 20 different acts that were each better than the one before. Super hilarious!!!

But very fascinating too. I don't know the physiology or psychology of hypnotism but I do know that it's real, that is to say the students were completely under the spell of this guy and they literally were acting in unison like robots. The implications of this are very eye opening. What would a person do if they are under hypnosis? I'm told that normal inhibitions apply so that if someone is told to do something they consider to be wrong, they won't do it. That's nice to know but I have to take this outside the entertainment world and make a life application.

Hypnotism is acting from a script that is placed intentionally in your head. Is not life acting on scripts that are placed intentionally AND unintentionally in our heads by us AND by others? What are the implications of acting on scripts that are placed unintentionally? What are the implications of acting on scrips that are place intentionally by others? Who could others be? What role does TV, movies, music have in placing scripts in our heads? What would prevent a script from being written over to make what once used to be considered wrong, now considered OK?

And now it gets personal. What scripts do I repeat inside my own head (if not actually out loud) that are a life draining, dysfunctional script? "I can't do that", " I suck", " I'm not good at that", " I'll never get there" , "why do bad things always happen to me?" , "I always fail so why try?" and on. and on... What are the consequences of living scripts that are negative and destructive?

Where to find the right scripts? The scripts that are life giving, positive, encouraging and wonderful? The best scripts ever are written by the Author of Life and they can be found scattered throughout SCRIPTURE. How about these? "I'm created to be exactly what God intended me to be","I'm forgiven" "I'm a child of the KING!" "My life is safe and secure in Jesus" "I've been redeemed" "There is NO condemnation for me" "I will reign forever with God"

What scripts are you living? Who gave them to you? Do you want to rewrite some of them?