“What dogs, birds and elephants teach us about our habits” – talk at a Christian school in Panama

One of my programs in Panama was at a Christian school, San Miguel Arcangel School, Panama. This school is in what is called Zona Roja (Red Zone) area, where drugs, crimes and the like are rampant.

My audience was mostly teenage kids who are particularly vulnerable to delinquency and worse in such areas. I had been asked to speak on “Power of the mind” – the same topic that I had spoken the previous day in the big hotel program. But seeing that this audience required a considerably simpler presentation, I decided to use a theme that kids can easily relate to – animals. I used three examples to illustrate different aspects of habits:

Dogs, specifically the dogs in the well-known experiments by Alexander Pavlov that salivated on hearing a ringing bell, to illustrate how our habits make us believe that some things are enjoyable even after they cease to be enjoyable.
Birds, specifically how birds need to go through the painful process of breaking their shells to have wings strong enough to fly, to illustrate how breaking our shell-like habits is worth the effort.

Elephants, specifically how a shackle that bound a baby elephant continues to bind an adult elephant because it stopped trying to break the shackle, to illustrate how we should never give up and shouldn’t under-estimate our power when we connect ourselves to God with meditation and prayer.
As the room had limited seats, the teachers asked the boys to be gentlemen and let the girls sit – the “gentlemen” agreed, though not too gently.

The talk audio is here: https://www.thespiritualscientist.com/2016/10/%E2%80%8Bwhat-dogs-birds-elephants-teach-us-habits-spanish-translation/