The Robben Island Effect

Many of us currently find ourselves going through tough times maybe due the Corona Virus, some other reason or a combination of things. I have decided to rekindle a childhood passion of mine, which is non-fiction writing and use this time at home to collate my writings I have accumulated over the last two decades into a single manuscript.

This I plan to love into a full-on bestseller. Right now the title is “The Robben Island Effect”. The book describes in detail a very simple method to overcome mostly struggles on an individual and personal level especially around poverty, ill-health and those struggling with relationships.

In today’s busy and technologically advanced world many of us are trying to become financially successful by either starting a business or getting that perfect job offer. However for most it seems to be an ever elusive goal.

In the book I have included many of my own struggles which I believe has its roots back in the 1960’s when apartheid in South Africa was very rife. My late mother together with her parents and siblings were uprooted from a now upmarket area in Cape Town due to the then apartheid laws particularly the Group Areas Act. The effect that it had on the lives of the uprooted and displaced families were intense and devastating.

We now have a better understanding due to advances in neuroscience and psychology what effect, displacement and oppression has on society. The effects run deep and are long term. Corporal punishment, abuse and violence has similar effects when we look at these same families from a domestic perspective.

Now we are faced with a new enemy which is not human and not even a living thing but can be just as oppressive and deadly as an illegitimate regime if not more so.

The lockdowns we are experiencing in almost every country around the world smacks of the day to day occurrences of the 60s, 70s and 80s in South Africa when we had the state of emergency, detentions, banning of political organisations, protests and mass rallies which were enforced by an illegitimate government.

The government is now enforcing similar laws but this time it is for our own safety and health rather than implementing its own illegitimate laws as was the case when the apartheid government was in power.

Now we have a virus pandemic which in a sense forces us into lockdown and becoming a prisoner in our own homes and preventing us from attending mass gatherings, visiting family, eating out, etc.

The main aim of the book is to lift people of out of their current dilemmas by giving them a clear step by step method to deal with day to day challenges. These challenges may be causing negative mental states such as stress, anxiety and depression potentially as a consequence of addictions such as drug abuse, alcoholism as well as poverty, displacement of families and communities, ill-health and failing relationships. The book further endeavors to take the reader into a new era of their lives, one of wealth, prosperity and well-being and being able to enjoy loving relationships.

A common theme in today’s testing times are that small businesses among other industries are battling to survive and many have closed shop due to the pandemic we are currently facing.

However this book is not only applicable to today’s challenges but challenges we experience throughout our lives. I have put together a short video to explain visually what the book entails.

Often we think escaping our current state of affairs as being a horrible and difficult process. I always think about Nelson Mandela when I think of my own struggles.

He was prepared to spend twenty seven and a half years in a prison cell to achieve his goals and this was a real prison. We often find ourselves in a mental prison which society has made us believe is something we should endure for the rest of our lives and it would be hard to break free from.

Nothing can be further from the truth. The prison we have created is all in our mind and it is not real. We can escape anytime we want and I will show you in this book how quick and easy it is.

So you may be thinking why I have given the book this title. Robben Island was declared a World Heritage Site because the buildings on the island are a reminder of its sad history and because the same buildings also show the power of the human spirit, freedom and the victory of democracy over oppression.

We can draw similarities between Robben Island and the effects of oppression, anxiety, stress, corporal punishment and violence.

Also the negative social programming has psychological consequences as I mentioned previously. Between the ages of 0 and 6 or 7 we have received the programming which decides how we live the rest of our life, and unfortunately all of us have received the programming of ‘not good enough’.

Even though Robben Island served as a prison for political prisoners and other criminals it has also become a symbol of hope, freedom and victory for millions of people not only in South Africa but across the world.

In order to create this same positive effect in our own lives I have looked at the findings of an American professor who has combined eastern and western philosophies and modern scientific breakthroughs to provide a solution to the ‘mental prison’ we all experience as an illusion.

For example, if you want to start a business or get that next big job offer, often the things that hold us back are rooted in our early childhood years as I mentioned earlier the first 6 or 7 years. During those early years when our brains being in an unconscious state were operating at the right frequency to optimally take in large amounts of information through deep learning, this ultimately decides 95% of our day to day behaviour.

The bottom line is the very thing that is imprisoning us is the same thing that will give us our freedom. All we have to do is realise that it does not exist. We all have many Robben Islands which we believe to be real but in reality only lives in our mind.

I have spoken quite a bit about the problem so let’s talk about the solution. Often when we don’t see results, for example, our business may not be flourishing, or we may find ourselves in debt or burdened with some other challenge be it ill-health or failing relationships the obvious choice is to blame ourselves and think we are not doing enough to solve the problem.

We try and find the solution maybe by going to the internet or getting a therapist or coach to assist us. However even though we know what to do somehow we can’t get ourselves to do it.

So it’s not due to a lack of knowledge or access to the right information, but the implementation of that knowledge that becomes the challenge. We seem to have a mindset of not being able to take action in the direction we want to go.

It’s not that we lack the discipline, but we are simply using the wrong methods or approach in tackling our problems. Once we understand the right method and religiously follow the instructions we can easily set ourselves free from our own dilemma.

The method that I use simply addresses the real problem by peeling back layer by layer illusions that have been stacked one on top of another that create the problem in the first place.