Our brains are natural amplifiers, easily detecting unfriendly signals and returning them with more intensity.
Enemy mode feels as if “You are not on my side.”
We don’t like people being against us.
We don’t like the way enemy mode feels.
We become suspicious, wary, and hostile with others follows. Even with those trying to help us.
It starts with the feeling someone is not on our side. An uneasy tension develops when relational connection signals are missed, ignored, mistrusted, or feared.
This type doesn’t miss signals or get stupid. “Cold” anger fills the brain with plans of resentment, revenge, hired guns, deception, even more diabolical deeds.
The grocery story was nearly empty when Jim heard metal hit metal. He turned to see a woman in her seventies repeatedly smashing her grocery cart into the cart of a woman half her age. It was the early 2020s—a global pandemic was raging, and enemy mode was spreading more rapidly than COVID-19. The older woman’s shouting was muffled by the mask she wore. The younger woman wore no mask. The younger woman glared silently, but belligerently, at her assailant. A man in his twenties intervened almost instantly. “Get away from her,” he told the older woman, “she is going to get you sick. Stay away from her.”
PhD, Clinical Psychology, and M.A. Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary
Dr. Jim Wilder has been training leaders and counselors for over 27 years on five continents. He is the author of multiple books with a strong focus on maturing and relationship skills for leaders. His coauthored book Living From the Heart Jesus Gave You has sold over 100,000 copies and is printed in eleven languages. Wilder has published numerous articles and developed four sets of video and relational leadership training called THRIVE.
He is the founder and chief neurotheologian of Life Model Works, a nonprofit working at the intersection of brain science and theology that is building contagiously healthy Christian communities through equipping existing networks with the skills to thrive. Dr. Wilder has extensive counseling experience and has served as a guest lecturer at Fuller Seminary, Biola, Talbot Seminary, Point Loma University, Montreat College, Tyndale Seminary and elsewhere.
MDiv, Southwestern Baptist Seminary, and Master of Strategic Studies, U.S. Army War College
Rev. Ray Woolridge became the Executive Director of Life Model Works in 2020. He is thankful to partner with Life Model Works to come alongside existing networks to implement Life Model principles in their context. Living the Life Model is transforming how he lives, relates and works. Ray has been blessed by thirty-five years of marriage to his wife, Deborah.
Ray is a retired U.S. Army Brigadier General with forty-three years of military and civilian service with the Department of Defense. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, and the Army Airborne and Ranger Schools. His military career culminated as the Assistant Chief of Chaplains, advising the Army Chief of Chaplains and guiding fifteen hundred Army Reserve chaplains and chaplain assistants. Ray served two churches as a pastor. He was the founding pastor for a new congregation in Georgia, and adult ministries pastor for a church in Colorado. Ray is also a certified leadership and life coach.
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Listen as Moody Publishers engages the co-authors of Escaping Enemy Mode to discuss the problem revealed greatly during the pandemic, illustrations from real life, the neuroscience, and ultimately how to love your enemies.
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