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First blog post
This is the post excerpt.
Sometimes the things you feel most proud of seem tiny or inconsequential to the outside perspective.
They say a dream without a plan is just that a ‘DREAM’
However sometimes when life has beaten you about a little or your confidence is full of setback; you have to dip your toe in and slowly explore what’s possible before you can even dream. Then you lay out a plan build a team and give yourself permission to fail. Yes I said that right ~ because when you start in the darkness failure and setbacks are inevitable. Come to terms with that and it no longer holds you back. Success is built on setbacks and struggles. Challenging how you interact with these encounters means you are no longer a slave to fear. You may never shake yourself feel of its cold grip but now fear is there because you invited the situation on your terms. Not because you were hiding but instead because you came to terms with setbacks being a moment in time and carved your way forward to a goal you never imagined possible the year before.
The beginning starts where you are ~ it really is that simple. The faster you come to terms with this the more you embrace the challenges ahead; rather then laying with regret, disappointment, self torment or an unaccepting ego.
How can you ever say this statement enough. Intellectually we all know this is obvious. Yet some how this can be a hard one to come to terms with and often puts an immediate handbrake on trying something new or picking something up again after a long break. ‘The’: I used to be able to do this and now I’m almost worst then a beginner because I know what was possible yet here I am at my perceived start line and knowing it’s false line. Where I need to start is smaller and more laughable than a new beginner. Shame, pride and ego wrapped up in the story of taking an unconscious low risk profile do not always let you take the first shaky step forward, in fact they can activity rob you of even starting.
That starting point from the outside looks small the effort and accomplishment should barely raise an eyebrow. Yet it is your Everest ~ perhaps later as you progress it’ll turn into a small stepping stone to something great, However in that moment it’s the sun, moon and all the planets rolled in too one. I’m ashamed to say I’ve been on the other end of this as a coach and a person. Not acknowledging someone’s slaying of their demons after doing something truly heroic for themselves. For that I’m so glad to know within myself there is none of the old harder person who only acknowledges success based on external expected factors, if you haven’t met those than congratulations and praise must wait until you lifted the bar. Trying wasn’t good enough only accomplishing a prerequisites standard. Now however being able to find success and moments to hold onto in the dark when a person striving to do better can only see darkness. Showing someone how to see how their own light is growing just by showing up. Being magnificent is at times way over rated; doing the best you can in this very moment is gold medal stuff.
On my personal journey I had mostly left those thoughts and comments far behind and the nail in that past self was hammered home when a PT trainer who knew some of my story scoffed at a time I ran in a 5km event. I realised I never wanted to give power to a person like that or feel beholden to their version of success. If I had walked 20-30 mins slower it was still a huge milestone. I was proud, I had done the best I could have on that day. We can all be guilty of misspeaking but if our intention is to belittle rather than giving someone agency in their progress. Then frankly you’re a narrow minded shallow dick.
To other people not in the know of your particular full deep rich story (Let’s face it very few are that close to anyone’s FULL story, we often unconsciously are biased to think and compare to elite athletes like when we watch the olympics by the second day we are experts in all sports and think the effort for bronze or fifth place just really isn’t trying hard enough. Hard things being done perceivably easily by humans makes it seem absolutely second nature. Our unconscious biases kick into overdrive and the fact you are witnessing the showcase of effort moments. Not the grind behind the scenes for days, weeks. months and years to achieve that one moment in the sun.
So there a many more days out of the lime light of and effort taking you towards a goal. It’s about embracing those lovely moments on the journey. For me one of those moments came during another 5 km race. In the months before this I spent a long time coming to terms with where my body was as. Where my starting point was. Trying not be ashamed or embarrassed by that simply and annoying fact. I had put a lot of consistent effort in to reach what 80% of the population would consider their unfit new years resolution to get fit starting point. Yes I had come a long long way, sometimes that realisation dragged you down (life’s perceived injustices) and other times it empowered you (you already had the tools for continued success). Which now gave me the option of beginning a new chapter. Without a beginning there can be no next step or next step after that.
So there you are with the choice to run your own race. Once you take the first step to begin then it’s about doing it for yourself at your pace, that is repeatable, over and over again. In the instant age of comparison it’s so easy to get frustrated or overwhelmed by the perception of our peoples ease or success. Of course on the whole nothing could be further from the truth. Over night success is generally proceeded by months, years sometimes decades struggling in the dark with only the inner belief the track you walk is correct despite the failings and wrong turns. Be inspired others stories let them give you perspective and perhaps hope. Recognise if your thoughts turn darker or envious. As the the saying goes how much poison can you drink before you die? So be careful what you drink. Inspiration, determination or self pity and self destruction.
So back to that 5km (my version of an ultra marathon) warm up race my only goal on that day was to run ever step. It didn’t matter how slowly; how heavy or how painful each of those steps were. Keep my legs moving somehow and run (my version of shuffle running every step) It was during this race that I came to terms with where my physical journey was at. Pre-race during training I would train OUT of the public eye as much as possible. It was very confronting not to even be able to over task the slowest walking (and I truly mean the absolute slowest walker). I’d duck down a side street rather than get in a foot race with a pensioner. In those early days keeping myself accountable to my coach and holding on to the flicker of a bigger dream kept me going. There were no endorphin rush (sadly still isn’t) or great sense of accomplishment. Only the grid of looking at the app and discovering what physical horrors my coach had devised for that day/week.
So there I was running my own race when at about the half way spot an elderly woman and myself started matching pace. She had just started running again after a drink stop, hence i was able to catch her. lol. We joked about the weather and the fact we were now running slightly down hill and whether with old knees that truly lessen the effort or pain compared up hill.
Suddenly she put on the after burners and shuffle zoomed away. In that moment it was like a blinding light. To keep my primary goal of running every step I needed to maintain the pace I was at. The risk of increasing my pace and blowing my body apart wasn’t worth the cost to my male pride (We are all shallow creatures at times) I also had to comes to terms with being alone with my own thoughts and demons again. Our conversation had helped to quill those fears and doubts so now it was up to me to reset my thoughts. Get back to my task running a race which is substantial for me. For the bigger picture of better health and mobility.
Within a km her energy burst had evaporated and I caught her again. She laughed and said ~ ‘at my age if you feel a burst of energy you just got to use it. Never know when you’ll get another one’ I knew from my past pain story how true her words rang. Expect now finally things were changing from that old story. I was moving from my survival story to something different. Perhaps I didn’t need to burn the candle at both ends https://youtu.be/9H8q5g2G-3E I was moving gain by gain of sand away from living on the wild bursts of life giving energy, back to the knife edge of pain, fatigue, followed by utter collapse. I had run my own race and made it. Getting to a start line can be scary and exciting however crossing a finish line is liberating. For me it’s like catching a tear from your soul in the palm of your hand and pressing to your heart. “It’s done ~ put all the weight of expectations, fears aside and embrace this moment. You’re alive and in this moment.” Enjoy those smiles that come from inside first and all the way to the outside.
The other important data point was that even though it hurt and I had waves of fatigues afterwards. It may have taken around 6 weeks to recover and then have the core foundation to keep building further from there. I wasn’t broken or rebroken. No permanent damage had been done so the risk vs reward graph was still working in my favour. Despite all the fears and uncertainty I had survived and grown. Suddenly a seed that had been far back in my thoughts could come forward and actually be expressed. I want to do a triathlon. Even saying the words felt at first exciting terrifying. Was I portraying my body. Was I risking burning myself to the ground for this goal?
Deep trust and belief in your team that surround you. Lets you find away forward with a goal. Gives you hope to walk a path you have yet to find.
Who are surrounding yourself? This includes the most important member of your team. The person you walk with talk with and hang out with; 24/7. You. Your own mind is possibly the most important link in the team. If you can’t hear advice, share the good parts, the grind times. If I can’t make friends with where you are at and what I’m invested in, than the team can’t be an effective unit. As the saying goes ‘a team is only as strong as its weakest link. Check in that that weakest link isn’t you as you spend by the most time with yourself.
From early in rehab I’ve been extremely lucky to surround myself with a great support network. It took me a while to learn what I needed from different members of this moving unit. How to interact with them which worked best for me. Who rescued me and importantly who helped me grow. Trust is hard won and can be fickle in some situations. Sometimes you don’t need trust just the process. However in the areas that matter if you don’t unconsciously trust then the subconscious is already put out a safety net and slowing or halting progress. Trust doesn’t in any way mean there won’t be mistakes or hiccups. Any one who promises you that is lying right to your face. No trust is the partnership with understand openness the confidence to speak and be heard, allowing for learning and growth. Mistakes are possible for sure, over or under estimating a situation but these are moments in times. Our best learning and understanding often come from missteps or mistakes so they can be useful if framed the right way.
Accountability
How and or who you hold yourself accountable to is the key to everything. If I’m doing things for others I can more easily do what ever is required. However if it’s for me than it get’s messy and inconsistent. So someone I trust to bare my failings and struggles is where I will place my accountability markers. How y bou hold shame and embarrassment. Which will often show up and have the capacity to shred apart to hard grinding yards of inching your way forward. One little grain of sand at a time.
Update your story
This is possibly the most powerful tool and resetting exercising you can do through and program or life changing moments. We often work hard and struggle to make the changes and improvements we want in life only to still have the same mindset and thought processes before we changed the foundations and options we are allowing for ourselves. If we don’t update our mindset then we are holding a handbrake on all our hard won gains. My internal mantra was ‘Just stand back up and put one foot in front of the other’
While this was hugely powerful to me during the very dark periods of recovery and reinforced to me at times there really was a choice except to keep going, one small step at a time.
The trouble I was find now was that when I’d say this mantra out on runs yes it kept moving. It also painted a picture in my mind of a broken body struggling to keep going. So even though my body was slowly getting strong the mantra though powerful instant transported my mind back to a different struggle a different broken darkness. A brokennesses through accountability, new systems/habits and effort was being left in the rear vision mirror. Yet here I was with a mind picture of brokenness’s rather than just requiring a surge of effort to get over a hurdle; but rather carrying the old injury and pain. The weight of despair and frustration cursing through my thoughts and veins. Everything was heavy and slowed to preserve energy not to deliberately burn through that precesses commodity. I don’t get the runners high. Too many damaged pain receptors and neons. At best there is a feeling of satisfaction. The relief of getting it done as well the determination to put another gain of sand in the jar of better health. So on heavy slog days it’s the mental exercise of getting it done while pushing the barrow of working on something in particular in that moment which improve tomorrow. Whether it’s a technical movement, discipline to stay on pace, A mental exercise to feel and hear my body without being overwhelmed by. So much screaming noise vaulted behind a steel trap door, I simply didn’t dare to listen for fear of being drowned by the noise of pain. Yet that wasn’t my now. Yes there will always be the fear that at some point or through pushing to hard I fall over the edge and the dark monsters return. However for now this actually a different pain, the pain of growth and hopefully renewal. In my heart of hearts I know it’s different. Perhaps related
Enjoy and embrace beautiful moments
What critical lessons can we learn from a sport that requires our mind’s to be in a state of FLOW?
Why can having a better understanding of getting into a ‘flow state’ be important for solving problems in our daily lives?
Let’s first define what I mean by Flow. It is generally defined as being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one. Your whole being is involved, and you are using your skills to the utmost.
Sounds pretty straight forward and simple. Be in the moment with the courage to go with your decisions while not carrying any of your previous baggage. There are numerous number of times where being able to shift into a flow state of mind could be both beneficial and help you clear away what’s not important emotionally or intellectually and making decisions based what’s important to the link right now in the chain going forward for the bigger picture.
What do we first need to have in our toolkit; before we even hope to slide into this mystical flow state?
Sadly the most important skills are often over looked immediately for the flashy showy skills but these three things will always; always be the most important no matter what the situation or task.
Breath ~ the most basic of all things and yet we all drop it under pressure. A big lung full of air in, pause and releasing, makes everything possible. There are many different ways to do that. Box breathing just one of many plus https://apps.apple.com/au/app/the-breathing-app/id1285982210 is a nice simple app; however one of my favourites when I get stressed and I’ve seen it work well with clients. Take in the first breath usually what you find when someone is nervous or tense, even when they are deliberately trying to take in a big breath it’s still quite shallow. So before you actually let that breath out you take in another one or even two breaths slowly. I find that second one suddenly feels like you’ve used way more of your lung capacity. Now you let it all slowly out. It may need to repeat that a few times and then go to normal breathing.
Be Present ~ obviously to make the most of a moment we need to actually be fully immersed in the real world reality of right now. The good, the bad, the ok and importantly it allows us to prioritise what truly matters next. Baggage from our past or fear of our future can cloud this space instead of having clear and calm anchoring of the present.
Control your body ~ it might seem strange when our instincts are for example put out your arm/hand as you fall down. Yet if you are in control of your body you should probably duck and roll. Same if you are feeling anxious our body can shut down and understandably go towards a fetal position. However if we are in an environment that requires active or even passive inputs from our physical self. Then logically nothing will feel more anxious or vulnerable with the thought we can’t control our own body let alone the situation as a whole. Lucky surprisingly there is an easy fix to this. Whether you are sitting or standing; stretch up tall and then simply wiggle your toes or shoulders. It only needs to be for a few seconds and you’ve cleared the pathways to your limbs and often just like that you can take charge of your own body. If you can can control your own body’s reactions you can make decisions and implement actions. Now you are the leader in your own little world and you can stand at the very least on a small platform of confidence.
Boom! Those three little basic things let you clear your thoughts and actions and when coupled with practiced skills allows you to have situational awareness and be in a passively active (relaxed – but ready) state.
Flow often requires lots of preparation, and diligence. Thinking about how to get the best out of your equipment, build up your knowledge. It can seem a contradiction that to really get into this mind state you require deep learning and understanding; however the first stages of flow can be achieved by being aware of equally what emotional information I don’t require and above all else where am I and what’s the next thing that genuinely matters.
The change from unknown and unskilled to a level of competency which will allow us to jump into our chosen endeavour, is a funny mix of several things. However almost universally the more we progress the more we realise how little we knew at the beginning. Yet we all start somewhere either wide eyed and innocent or full of miss placed bravado. It’s how we’re willing to learn and have degrees of both stubbiness and resilience, all the while placing our egos to the side in order to obtain mastery. Where instincts and emotions often clash with our learning and raising to the challenge of going from beginner to competent and keep crawling your way forward without terrifying yourself or consistently over challenging your skill level. Then of course we carry our inbuilt instincts that can be both born from our protective brain, fears, joys and basic intuitions (Gut feelings). This allows steps towards applying yourself to the grind of improving your skills and understanding. Muscle memory and systems that let you clear your head in any pressure moment, allows you to lean into situations so you can truly hear what’s being said, see what is there, not what your brain tells you to see and deeply discern what’s needed.
Learning to go through the process of acquiring the skills which allow us to both participate and stay safe. Some these will be an absolutely necessary formation level to doing whatever the sport/life is going to throw at you. However for a beginner these often seem a bit, how would you say- boring and possibly seemingly obvious. Yet as the saying goes beginners often want to work on intermediate level skills and intermediate level participants want to think about and work on advanced skills. However advanced level participants often want to understand and work on the fundamentals at their deepest level. It’s easy to know something superficially yet having a deep understanding means you can recall it and often adapt it into any situation to which you are confronted. Building and understanding a skill bank that can serve you not only when things are easy and straight forward but also when you aren’t feeling it and it SEEMS overwhelmingly complex and difficult. Mastering something more often than not comes down to knowing your own strengths and weakness but importantly what’s white noise and what matters right now. Observe ~ Decide ~ Act : Repeat.
Something which to the unaware (armchair critics ~ often no skin in the situation) can seem easy and spontaneous, has usually gone through hours of training and planning. Whether the task is the most straight forward or a complex series of interlocking skills and strategies with no plan or at the very least doesn’t have the pilot checking in with forecasts and possible launch sites you are playing a very high risk vs reward strategy on each attempted adventure. Sure every dog has his day and you could get lucky without planning or prior thought. However this is bound to cost you big time at some point and you are relying on good luck, good judgement ~ which maybe based more on lack of knowledge (ignorance is bliss scenario). Planning on the macro level and checking on the micro level. Making sure items that can be forgotten but are essential once the adventure gets the green light. Things are charged updated and ready to function. Not much point carrying a flat emergency locator beacon or leaving it at home; same for water.
Planning is a two sided coin as it can seem overwhelming and the list can become longer and longer progressively sliding from practical planning to procrastination. Which is why at different times we can all get either bogged down in it or it becomes a moving roadblock that can be trotted out for any number of excuses as to why we aren’t able to do something. Fear, anxiety and lack of self trust can easily be trapped in this process. Decision paralysis grows when all the what if’s can set in and take hold here. Leaving us ground bound and disempowering our confidence to be able to make legit realistic choices. Or equally our brains hit the switch the other way. The carefree optimist who doesn’t want to be weighted down by all this nonsense. Their eyes glaze over whenever somebody wants to talk detail or go over possibilities for the day. Launch have a blast and land; LIFE is meant to be SIMPLE! Don’t get me wrong we all have to embrace the fun and the reason sometimes we got into something in the first place, a little reminder is always good to not overcomplicate things. Keeping that needle in the workable space of open to learning, getting everything squared away and remembering to relax and have fun. HMMMM doesn’t that seem like the continuous juggling act of life.
After getting your background work and toolbox started we can begin to understand about having a plan or multiple plans and contingencies. Some are strategies for different possibilities, others for emergencies or copping mechanics when the heat gets turned up, which may need to be rehearsed both externally and internally. All these things are squared away before deciding whether your feet leave the ground and commit to the immediacy of chaining information and blueprints as you shift from theory and practice to finding your flow state and flying the day not the plan. There can be so many options and variables; no two moments will be the same, yet it’s all about doing one simple thing at a time when it matters most. (Go figure after all that work; right NOW only comes down to what is required right now no matter what your thoughts, hopes or actions were prior to launch)
At last it comes to the moment of go ~ no go. All the practicing, all the thinking, all the planning and concluding observations, comes to the pointy end of doing. Everything else must melt away because it all comes down to a search for information and data from which to base the next decision you must make and then the one after that. Some will be easy, while others unsure, Most will have a level of letting go of something either in your conscious or unconscious thoughts. But to help make the most of the possibilities you’ll need to address your own mental barriers well.
In an environment to which you can’t ask for a timeout or for things to only go as our human brain describes. For we are masters of the earth aren’t we? Except Mother Nature really doesn’t care for our forecast and planning. Whether we are brave or timid. Only you can control how you react to her not how she will react to you. At times you’ll need to be the wind making active decisions and actions to help you be in the best possible place and at other times you’ll need to be the leaf. Allowing yourself to go with what’s happening understanding what’s within your control and what is outside your control. It’s here those hours of training and planning can mean we can skip back to the first three basic skills. Breath, Be Present and Control Your Body.
Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius said “Pain is neither unbearable nor unending, as long as you keep in mind its limits and don’t magnify them in your imagination.” Reminding ourselves things can be uncomfortable and even scary but if we control our conscious mind and actions we have the best chance of making good decisions and actions. This is where we put our egos aside and by being present and putting aside any life trauma or related expectations we can allow our mind to only deal with what is necessary with required actions appropriate just this very moment. Orientating where you are, Observing what matters next, Make your Decision, Follow with an Action (passive action maintain what’s happening and monitoring is still just a big of a decision as actively doing a required action) and Repeat. In this world heroes aren’t born because they strive to be the most uncomfortable for the longest but someone who finds joy in what’s possible while knowing their limits physically, intellectually and emotionally. At times you’ll push one or all three of these and other times the challenge is having the courage to stay safe by not challenging those limits, in fact just showing up was your moment of courage. That’s why life is both complex and simple. To stay in flow we just need to beware of these challenges both external and internal, working out what suits our needs and wants’ both in the short and long term. If we want long term gain we may need to go through short term uncomfortable yet if we push in too hard or hide too much in the short term we can leave long term scars. Knowing how big is YOUR why and what COST am I willing to pay and what am I ready pay while understanding what I’m already paying. To stay in a flow state often we need to have understood these undercurrents prior to the moment as this lets us build our emotional toolbox before the rubber hits the road. Otherwise old habits both good and bad will leap into the space held open by insecurity or uncertainty. To obtain and maintain flow if we have addressed our mental toolbox as much as our skills training and planning then we can come through the challenges both perceived and equally real without losing that sense of time being altered.
Being in a flow state with anything you are doing takes consideration, planning and stepping wholly into the moment, just with your skills and leaving behind your baggage. All your senses are open and yet your mind is free of white noise. You are both patient and alert, situations can come into your decision box and are met with curiosity, unencumbered by our biases or smothered in filters which possibly aren’t geared to this reality. Thus the information is assessed to what’s needed and what we can actually do. Moment by moment until the pilots feet touch back down to Earth.
Flow is the goal and the by-product of being in each moment fully; or is it the other way round?
Think how you can work on your skills for a task and also address the emotions we carry around with us that might not actually let us fully utilise those skills because we actually haven’t trained ourselves to get the most out of every situation. Good luck and remember the boring basics first no matter what position life has put you in.
What do you think makes a good coach?
I was recently asked this question by a young equestrian coach starting her training. The question was wrapped up in enthusiastic, excitement and a hint of dread. She obviously loved horses and the thought of being able to fund some of her hobby and perhaps even turn it into a business or career down the path had her filled with the wonderment of youth. Mixed in was an uneasy feeling that she could stuff up and either do something unconsciously unsafe or give bad advice.
Of course I gave what at first she thought was a typical; of the cuff sarcastic answer ~ yet in reality it sums up the requirements of a coach/manager perfectly.
So here was my the answer.
“The ability to not swear profusely in front of a student/client when eventually and inevitably a rail either jams you finger or lands on your toe, in the early morning cold.”
I paused as I watched the expression on her face change from slightly puzzled to 💯 HUH! 🤷🏻♀️
I of course then added.
“They must also be technically proficient as well”. Just to clear things up.
Now would you ask a follow up question or count your losses and move on?
Thankfully the benefit of the doubt was given (or perhaps it was decision to see if I’d sink the last scraps of creditably or be consigned to the bottom of the ocean forever).
“Do you mean you always need to be polite?”
Actually no not really that’s not what I meant at all.
Firstly as a coach or manager you need to understand your field, you in no way need to be the most knowledgable, as there will always be someone who knows bits and pieces more in-depth then you can possibly know. Having a deep enough knowledge from which to always be building on and the capacity to see a task both up close and as a big wide picture is important.
There are a few parts to my explanation.
Firstly as a coach you need to be aware of a student’s attention span and ability to take in knowledge or give and receive considered feedback. The famous Ted talk speakers are generally restricted to a tight 18 mins formula as it is generally understood most audience members will start to struggle after 10-15mins. So even though university lectures are based around the notion of 50mins since the middle of the 11th century its often understood students waiver well before the halfway mark (especially just before or after lunch). So choose your words carefully and use them wisely to have the most impact. Wasting them on something that has no teaching or coaching impact on students/clients now means you’ve dripped into your attention time clock with your student. Setting up a distracted mind or a mind already distanced from you.
Secondly you’ll always need to let your own emotions wash over you; so you aren’t a captive to your own fears, worries, uncertainties, ego or need to be heard in each and every moment. The session isn’t about you, how good, bad or awful your day, week or month is. Yes stories can be a powerful teaching device but bemoaning about your pain or life’s unfairness just because you have an ensnared audience isn’t serving anyone. It doesn’t mean we need to be an emotionless robot. However your own emotions are sometimes less important than you realise even when you think you are praising someone else.
The example I explain for people is a trap we have all fallen into and don’t get me wrong when I’ve said it in that past. I was most definitely PROUD. Except words have POWER and none more so than when it comes to a person believing in themselves. Perhaps I would use a phrase like we all have from time to time like “Wow that was amazing I’M so proud of you.” Now of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with this statement and pride is often the emotion you are feeling in that moment. Whether it was because of overcoming obstacles or getting past a mental block, achieving a personal best or reaching a much worked for goal. Then ‘I’M proud of you’ is true. Except if words have power unconsciously you (the coach) takes that pride with you when you go. You manufactured and gave the pride and you equally take it away when you are no longer around. It may seem like splitting hairs but sometimes every moment of gaining and building someone’s SELF confidence genuinely counts.
The better and more empowering way of say it would be “YOU must be proud of what YOU’VE just done.” You might add because I certainly am but in actual fact often in that moment you want it purely about them and that they whole heartedly acknowledge the achievement/task and believe both how much it was to be in this moment and that when they reflect on it later it was about their effort, perseverance, resilience, tenacity and grit to stand in that moment. Because hopefully then if they truly own and believe in it then in no time at all it can be repeatable. Once something is repeatable the bandwidth you’ve just freed up is enormous.
Thirdly the gap between the surge of pain and how you react to it sums up a coach perfectly if you think about it. The instinct is to jump up and down in pain while perhaps letting out a few choice words. We are consistently gathering information, some sharp, some indifferent or reluctant. It can be intense or come along after a long slow burn either completely hidden or lots of telltale smoke but no obvious source. Yet what we do with this information and how we communicate it. It can shift from a learning or reflection moment of the problem into what we are hoping will be an empowering solution which has come from their own understanding and needs from the resources they can themselves muster. Remember we are there to educate yes but we are also there to empower. So often it is easy to see or feel a situation or moment and be immediately critical of what can be improved or changed. The moment of observation to the point where we communicate is the true challenge of any coach. Reframing, rethinking, reimagining as we set about freeing a mind from the overwhelming challenges it maybe experiences or equally opening the mind to the whole picture and the 1% change which could be possible right now instead of the unrealistic 90% unworkable all or nothing roll of the dice in hope. We control so much from from when we see to when we choose to speak and yet if we only react quickly to the stimuli then there is little deep learning. It’s easy to get into problem solving at times but not actually fully understand the human in the triangle; hear where they are at not where we won’t them to be at. Reset when shit happens not get bogged down in what’s going right but what I can control right now and what does that allow me to do that matters for what I’m trying to achieve next. Stripping it down to the one important thing in at times very complex decision making environment.
Lastly the thing we are always saying to clients is remember to breathe. When you are feeling uncomfortable, distressed or unsure you need to take in a nice big breath or two. Perhaps say a little mantra, ground yourself and keep going. The more you concentrate on the source of your pain the longer you’ll probably feel the pain. So don’t be such a big baby ~ yes it probably stung like crazy. Is it the end of the world? No. Is it possibly going to give you a good bruise? Yes possibly but maybe not. For the sharpness of the pain involved it madly doesn’t always give a great bruise to carry as a badge of honour around, oh well. Will the pain pass in a relatively short period of time? Yes 99% of the time, the other 0.9% you may have broken something but changes are you can bear the pain for the entirety of the day before you really need to deal with it. The other 0.1% oh is that blood 🥺 bugger that’s not good. A coach often doesn’t need to be a leader in the traditional sense * however you are helping put a complex jigsaw together. Discovering the hidden pieces, letting people find their courage and self understanding, allowing someone to find their voice and direction. To lose your own at the first encounter of pain isn’t the sign of a great leadership style perhaps. Some voices need to stay inside your head recognising they aren’t adding in any way to today’s session.
*{ huge caveat here because teaching beginners a dangerous sport is most definitely a very directive leadership style is required}
So there it is what seems like an off the cuff sarcastic answer is actually fairly true and can be as deep as you want to dive if you look at from all the different angles. The opportunity to coach someone in all the different forms it can take truly is a special moment in time which can’t be wasted with your own fears pre-judgments or setbacks. You are there to help someone else achieve their personal best in what ever form that takes. Remember to be calm, know your surroundings, shit happens however you’ll need to let things go. And most importantly don’t forget to breathe.
Good Luck.
For leadership coaching ~ one on one coaching appointments Via zoom. Please click the link below to be taken to the booking page.
Hope to be able to help you soon break through your barriers and be the wind not the leaf in your story.
Disclaimer: Links included in this description might be affiliated links. If you purchase a product or service with the link that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. Thank you for supporting my channel so I can continue to provide you with free content. 👍
Toxic Positivity
USA
The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflecting on the Art of Living
USA
UK
Five Minutes in the Morning: A Focus Journal
Let That Sh*t Go: A Journal for Leaving Your Bullsh*t Behind and Creating a Happy Life
Let That Sh*t Go: Find Peace of Mind and Happiness in Your Everyday
Failure isn’t failure only an opportunity to learn from your mistakes.
For bonus points life likes to throw them at you frequently and often if you are willing to push your boundaries in anyway shape or form. However it still remains a great quote and something to inspire to live up too. Knuckle down get back up, master your surroundings, adapt to change and do better that’s the intellectual easy answer. No slow growth needed just jump from your unexpected mistake and do your learning from a 360º unemotional decision, hence you don’t make said or similar mistake ever again.
Easy as.
If only we always had our filters and biases off and could look at life with 20/20 hindsight. Except of course we unconsciously carry those things with us everywhere. At times we acknowledge them and work hard to see through their fog and at other times they are quite simply who we are. They have shaped us though good and bad. When we have had success and happiness; despair and trauma.
The question remains when we want to change why do we spend more time thinking about it, reading and watching stuff regarding it, spending money on the possibility of unconsciously avoiding the grind and skipping straight to reward cycle. Our brains are consistently looking for the ‘reward cycle’ because we have unconsciously been training for it the last 10 years or so. Since the advent of our smartphones that keep us instantly in touch we now have taught our brains if there is even a moment of hardship or grind then the brain can quickly turn to a little endorphin shot by simply holding up our phones without even pressing a button our phones will unlock and we can instantly scroll for must have news ~ the sort that couldn’t have waited for your 30 min / 5 min break or your intense 90 min of putting all else aside and get what you can done. No this news was important beyond the needs of checking in with our spouse or giving undivided attention to our children or friends that may be right there in front of us. Yet we are giving ourselves endless tiny meaningless dopamine hits in order often to hide from something that is in plain sight or our protective brain wants to focus anywhere but here and now.
Change ~ yes you know deep down this wasn’t all you wanted life to be and yet somehow you ended up here. Forever tired unconsciously blaming anyone but yourself and yet in the same breathe loading yourself down with the weight of your version of the story so it’s almost impossible to grow as the debts of your past need feeding over and over in your mind. How can you shift from these burdens if then the only time you spend in the now is when you are avoiding it mentally. Like a mouse trying to make it across the field while an eagle circles overhead. The other side is where you need to be. Take your opportunity when you can and run like hell. Staying forever stuck in your hiding place may keep you alive but if you starve while staying safe does that count as living?
In the end change comes down to not just thinking, dreaming and hoping like you might win on a lotto ticket. It will come down to firstly changing your thoughts into actions, into systems into goals into achievements into the actual things that matter and that you want to do.
A few examples being, you want to live with less stuff and be more minimalist if you are only in the hoping stage you’ll watch endless stuff on YouTube and see people seemingly carefree living without excess things. You’ll be buying things to help tidy up the clutter and yet during all of that somehow you haven’t addressed any of the fundamentals of living simply like Reuse, repair or recycle. No you’ve just got all your original stuff plus some new storage stuff. The few things you did manage to part with, you congratulated yourself with a month later buying more… you guessed it stuff. The underside that you missed in all your research and hoping wasn’t just the stuff itself but to retrain your brain from things matter to experiences matter. because at the end if the day the brain will slowly help you replace one lot of stuff with another lot of stuff.
It’s like if I want to get healthier and decide a gym membership is for me. Let’s pretend for a minute I only do that and though I’m really diligent with it and actually use it pretty consistently. Which in itself is well worth the applause from family and friends. However lets say you are perpetually disorganised in other ways so you are becoming more haphazard with meals and healthy eating. Now getting a take away on the way home from the gym because you haven’t sorted food out. But you are exercising so a few takeaways is well deserved right? Except now because it’s fairly regular it’s making you feel a little blah and bloated so you’re not sleeping overly well. After some nights waking up a bit tired so you start missing the odd session or two- nothing serious however you don’t miss the take away as your too tired to shop and delivery is so so so simple. Oops the first month you shaved a few centimetres now but now you are bloated and putting on weight faster than before. Demobilising and self despair. Why did I bother? So the sum total is I’m putting on weight spending more money at a gym I’m no longer motivated to go to, and on take away food I need because I’m too tired and depressed now to go out and get the food my body actually requires to be healthy and sleep well. When change is wanted and we follow the 1% of slow and steady, change is often the best for accumulating towards success though way less glamorous it rolls out to change everything within our influence. If instead of going straight to the gym enrollment you do 10 minutes of walking or yoga each day. But simply getting up 20 minutes earlier. Looking at slowly eating healthy and planning meals rather than being haphazard plus now you can address your sleep patterns to make sure you stay on track. Good sleep habits will hold it all in place. Then my first “extra” money spend can be a targeted PT session even just once a fortnight to slowly make you accountable for a slow building exercise program that is incorporated into a whole of life change. It’s not so dynamic and sexy that you’re work colleagues will be wowed in the first 6 weeks, but it is purposeful and meaningful so the person that matters will notice after 6 weeks and others may start to notice 6 weeks after that but they’ll notice slowly however more importantly when will you notice?
Remember life is full of setbacks and hurdles so it’s important to not let them have too much weight in your emotional self. Shaking yourself off and doing what you can. Understand if all your energies are burnt changing just one thing and not a broader approach to change as a whole, then that very thing you are looking to change will collapse everything else. Target your motivation at the task; however understand and prioritise the systems and habits that sustain your goal of choice. Without all the interconnecting threads that hold our lives up the only thing sustaining progress will be the ever crumbling foundation which in the end will collapse. Struggles will eventually pass and the only thing that will forever matter is the moment now you can make choices within. So what have you learn not from your failures, because as you can see perhaps it wasn’t really a failure at all, but a lack of understanding how all your threads come together. Like when you do get noticed for all the change and improvement you’ve made and suddenly all your toxic friends surface to tear you down. If your are truly now the hero of getting better and living the life YOU want then maybe just maybe, now those friends who happily kept you in your cycle of failure aren’t the people of your future. Can you change that thread as well as the others you put your goals and sights on? Or without the full understanding of growth and change, will they slowly sink your breakthrough until its a forgotten speck of dust in the rear-vision mirror. Change and resilience is often what we admire and wish for, yet it’s not about numbers on a scale or tape measure if we don’t also embrace change and growth across our lives and emotions as a whole.
This is why it’s important to not only look at your goals or reasons for change but also the wider knock on effects change can bump into so when one of those pillars becomes unstable and threatens to topple over and crush your spirit and determination for change. You have already seen it not as failure but rather the need to see the bigger picture and how your life is filled with different threads that all need inspecting to know what can be cut, repaired or strengthened too keep walking the direction you want not necessarily the direction you’ve ended up.
So as you can see from my ‘The Daily Stoic Journal’ the questions posed a broader reflection (Though whether you can actually read my writing is debatable 🤪) to how change really works from wanting to change to actually making meaningful lasting change. I hope this helps you understand at times its not just failure; but maybe in actual fact it was success that has out grown itself and if you don’t sure up the new progress with a solid foundation to adjust and accommodate your development than it’s not the path to the new goal which has fallen but all the other connecting threads holding it up. Look at the big picture accept your moment of setback, stand back up learn your lesson and be more open to all the change that sometimes one new brick in your foundation may cause. Think to yourself how would you have answered the questions from each of those days journal entries?
Good Luck ~ you haven’t failed until you don’t get get back up and learn.
Thanks for reading through to the end, please feel free to tell me about your experiences and I hope it encourages you to subscribe and follow this blog in the future.
Thank you.
Ben
Disclaimer: Links included in this description might be affiliated links. If you purchase a product or service with the link that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. Thank you for supporting my blog so I can continue to provide you with free content. 👍
Audible Membership a great way to give yourself entertainment and knowledge in any space.
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Five Minutes in the Morning: A Focus Journal
USA
Toxic Positivity
USA
The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflecting on the Art of Living
USA
UK
Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Journal
For leadership coaching ~ one on one coaching appointments Via zoom. Please click the link below to be taken to the booking page.
Hope to be able to help you soon break through your barriers and be the wind not the leaf in your story.
Being open minded is hard with an anxiety bully on your shoulder.
You know the feeling when you have something exciting on the horizon. You are both looking forward to it and dreading it in equal proportions. It’s what you want to be doing and experiencing yet the actual thing is new and out of your comfort zone in so many ways.
Now my own experience was signing up for a course in which I knew the parameters of that course was an introduction from theory into practical applications and experiences. It was written right there in the course details. All I needed to do was bring myself, my equipment and the rest would be taught, shown and progressed.
Put the time aside and let this just be about your learning and improving in a safe encouraging environment. Pretty exciting right?
Yet somehow our brains can find problems and obstacles even where none exist before you you launch out of the start blocks.
- Am I being selfish? It’s been a hard few years for all of us, so what gives me the right to abandon the family for a week purely to follow my own joy.
- What if the course is terrible or I hate it, does that mean I’m an extra big loser for taking the time.
- What if I make a fool of myself and realise I have no talent what so ever.
- Will everyone be best mates and I’ll be the lame duck on the outside.
- What if everyone else already somehow knows everything.
- What if courage deserts me and I’m left shaking a broken down nervous husk.
- What the hell is wrong with me why can’t I just relax and look forward to this opportunity.
- What if I can’t switch off the overthinking ~ over worrying apprehensive thoughts.
- What if I’m unteachable, what if they give up on me because I haven’t done the pre-course work. Even though I’ve done the light reading required. Perhaps that was too simple and everyone else received the proper course work!
- What if…………
At first it is about learning to really softly lean into and understand your feelings of anxiety or being overwhelmed from perhaps a powerless situation. How this effects both your mind and body. Most of the time we understandably want to shut down the raw uneasy unwelcome feelings of anxiety/panic. However there is very real benefits to genuinely pausing and looking at them, doing almost a 360 degree scan of yourself while under the flood of emotions and sensations which are ever eager to punch into you body and mind once the grip of anxiety starts to take hold.
Remembering the basics first and foremost. No matter how big and scary something is. Understand and be confident with your ability to grab hold of your calming life boat. The ability to reset with tools that have been practiced and can stand tall under the pressure of incoming waves of anxiety and/or fear. No point leaning into your dark overwhelming areas if the foundations you want to stand on are just as likely to disappear beneath the waves the moment a ripple in the water appears. We would prefer to display and step into courage though not when we haven’t given ourselves permission even to gain the tools so it isn’t an all or nothing roll the dice strategy. Winning is a low chance and losing means falling into a very dark hole of despair and self loathing.
Don’t skip the basics no matter how small or gigantic the wave of anxiety you’re feeling seems because theses will always be the foundation for everything.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Repeat until you can control your breathing and you feel you are actually able to genuinely take air deep into your lungs and expel it too. Sometimes this may mean you take in two breathes before you exhale one. It lets the bronchioles expand enough to actually take air in.
Then ground yourself in only this moment. Not the past or future only now matters.
It’s ok to acknowledge you are feeling scared/overwhelmed.
Remind yourself they are feelings and emotions that might not be serving any purpose in this moment right now. Once hopefully you’ve checked in and can now really look and feel how that effects different parts of your body and thoughts. Sometimes you’ll realise it’s only the mind or it could be effecting parts of the body too. Hopefully though now you may realise you are in a non threat safe environment it’s a good time to slowly explore those feelings and sensations. Getting to know them and stepping towards not being intimated or bullied by them.
Having stepped back from the emotional storm and understood those feelings are being produced around future apprehensions and doubts not anything that is currently causing any need to let me spiral towards a sense of impending doom.
Being absolutely present, so the right now is what I have the power to influence and in this case prepare as best I can. I reminded myself by reading the course documents that the course was about learning in a safe encouraging environment. It also allowed me to look at what I could control right now and planning for the course itself.
In my case I got a list going of things I could do and help myself be better prepared and organising what was within my control.
- Equipment check.
- Checked where I was staying and details of getting there.
- Wrapping up and limiting work and not putting too much on so I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed before I even start the course.
- Reach out to colleagues and grab their thoughts.
- Test safety equipment re-familiarise myself with it all.
- Checking in with my rest sleep patterns in the week leading into departure. Fatigue and tiredness are often big sources for feelings of anxiety, which then only requires a small extra trigger to be pushed into a full blown panic attack.
- Healthy food choices.
- Check the community and Q&A pages very helpful as covered so many questions floating in my own head.
- Take a breathe and remind myself why I was doing it in the first place. Obvious but we get so beaten up by our own bully at times we forget.
Now why did all this matter so much apart from having tools to help with anxiety surrounding future rumination?
Well actually by leaning into your own feelings and not trying to just push them away or hide from them, you get to feel and see how those thoughts and feeling sit in your mind and body. Like the saying goes ‘hold your friends close ~ and hold your enemies even closer’; because then you can see what they are up too.
As it turned out I had a bigger than planned day in the sun the day before the course and got unexpectedly quite dehydrated plus then ended the day with a very cold rain shower. Soaked to the bone and needing to drive a few hours to the course location. Dry clothes were in the back and couldn’t get to them without getting even wetter 🤦🏼♂️ ! Yep best laid plans of mice and men moment right there. Off I set.
Arrived feeling light headed but ok. The anxiety levels and self doubt were there but manageable. I was being hit with bouts of intense shyness which covid possibly hadn’t helped my re-socialising skills. Breathe it is what it is and I was here. I was actually feeling pretty proud of myself for getting there. What looks from the outside nothing except in this particular moment just showing up was everything. Tiny mental high five. Yay me.
Then of course another plot twist happened.
During the night I woke up with a terrible metallic taste in my mouth. An upset tummy and feeling pretty damn awful. Now of course my brain jumped on board and said with glee, see you can’t handle the pressure and you are simply not up to the task. I was aware I felt both overstimulated and sick at the same time. It seemed wrong but couldn’t put my finger on it plus needed to do a few dashes to the loo so wasn’t in a great place to gently sit down and reflect on it all.
I managed to get myself to the first briefing having put it down to I must not be coping with the stress and anxiety and just need to step into a place of exposure and conquer my doubts and fears head on. Basically get on with it. A tried and tested skill that generally held me in good stead most of my life. No choice except, just do the task.
The course kicked off and was extremely welcoming and low key which was exactly what I needed. I wasn’t thrown into information overload though intimidating, but typical so I felt ok. I still had a metallic taste in my mouth and felt fairly dehydrated. My brain was still telling me it must be an adrenaline reaction to stress and feeling overwhelmed for the last few weeks. Yep that’s what it must be, just got to man up and stay the course.
I realised I knew a few other fellow students and they were like the course coordinators open welcoming ready to share a joke and dive in and help if asked. So briefing done rubber hits the road time. Put the theory into practice.
It was a warm day but I was feeling hot though stomach was now settled so maybe I was just being a little overwhelmed sook. Get it together breathe and calm your thoughts. I had been given clear achievable goals with options and plenty of off ramps if needed.
Equipment check and re-check.
Some water and little food, bit of a quiet moment to myself calm the mind which hadn’t felt over anxious in truth since we started but I just wasn’t feeling great. Maybe I’m missing something and there is an underlying tension anxiety there somewhere. Yes I’m nervous but I’d be surprised if I wasn’t. Am I anxious? It sort of feels like I am but I’m sort of not. Which part of myself is lying to the other self!!?
I asked one of the instructors a few questions and felt ok about the answers and clear. The brain doesn’t seem stressed, numb or overloaded, wanting to shut down so why the tingling sense of anxiety ~ but at the same time sort of not anxiety. 🤷🏻♂️
Ok finally get going. Launch, glide, freedom god it was great to be in the air. Feeling very rusty but wow. Couldn’t get the groove right and bombed out 25 mins later. Oh well first flight done and I’ll get a lift back up. A few have also landed so all is not lost. Packing up I feel so hot though, maybe it’s a hang over from the day before being out in the midday hot sun though today is quite a bit cooler. I seem to need to drink a lot of fluid and my core feels way hotter then I expected for the temperature of the day. Damn it the metallic taste is back. What the hell is going on. Now I’m feeling a little lost and confused. Getting the lift back up I’m trying to do an honesty check. Feeling a little like a detective and the main witness is me and I need to nail this little bastard down so he stops lying and tells the truth. He must be anxious about something?? Isn’t he??
It’s still not adding up yes, pre-trip definitely got over anxious and overthinking a billion things. Really had to put some clear steps in place to get back on track. Surges of shyness understandable but once again now calmer. First session intimidating but wonderful and leapt into the sky happy times.
Why then were these feeling of not being completely in control of my body persisting and the metallic taste was driving my mind crazy searching for the underlying stress point I must be hiding from my conscious brain. 🤯
Ok gather my thoughts breath calm, a quick briefing regarding change of plan and equipment check. Right ready to re-launch. Smooth clean calm in the moment. Perfect. Get a little climb and anther little one, good fingers crossed. Then suddenly feel utterly mentally exhausted, functioning but know this isn’t the time to be in the air. Fly towards the landing field. Mind a little mudded not with the task of landing as ticked off the pre-landing check list. No my mind was in a fight with the warrior bully of just tough it out and man up what’s wrong with you. Being shouted at ~ how useless and pathetic are you, etc etc as I deliberately flew through little bubbles of lift; turning in one because I nearly accepted the bullies words but knew no this isn’t anxiety this is something else but I’ll sort that out on the ground. Clear head for the task of landing that’s all that matters next. As the saying goes in flight check hatches and latches and zip it for landing. The bully can stand over there I’m not second guessing this approach he can have his say on the ground. It occurred to me later how easily I was able to put my own bully aside as I descended those last 200+ft. It gave me comfort that I was present and not overwhelmed but I was confused what was happening though the debriefing could wait. Legs out flare touch down, Legs felt like jelly and I suddenly realised I was drenched in sweat. Bloody hell what’s going on?? I stood up and barely had the strength to get my harness off as well as any additional flying cloths off. It felt like I’d landed in a furnace though I knew the temperature wasn’t by any means a hot summers day. Drink drink pouring water over my head and down my neck. Shaky but can now pack back up. Sweat is still pouring off me, starting to get muscle cramping, that can’t be good.
Finally which is obvious to you all I started to look outside the fact it might not be possibly just be a case of anxiety. I spent a long time in the lead up to this little adventure/course in the turmoil of stress and anxiety, the what if’s; am I prepared enough; should I be dumping the family for my own fun when this covid period has been hard on us all; should I as a sole trader be spending this time away when things aren’t exactly rosy and so unpredictable 🤷🏻♂️ feeling unsure and overwhelmed on so many levels not least by the fact I’m a fairly quiet person so re-engaging with people though I enjoy my work immensely for all introverts out there we know the process is exhausting getting used to being out and about again in public. Just as it was for extroverts to be shut away in isolation, righting all that headspace and eventually guiding my ship back to calmer mental waters and taking control again was a big deal. Giving myself the biggest high five for making to the course, which had disappeared overnight when the loud emotional bully came riding on the coat tails of feeling like severe anxiety yet had showed little signs early on it wasn’t. I was so ready for the story to be my failings and anxieties I hadn’t let myself have the possibilities it could be anything else. My brain had questioned my thoughts and feelings as being sick and feeling the need to push on can give you feeling of anxiety as well, so it was hard to pull it all apart. Not wanting to let any one down including myself lead me to this moment.
Sweating uncontrollably from every pore on my skin; struggling to get all my gear packed away and walking the 500 or 600 meters back to the car. All I can remember thinking is just make it to the car as there is more water there and I can blast myself with the air-conditioner. Please please just make it to the car. Find where I’ve hidden the key collapse in behind the wheel. Car on ~ after a considerable amount of time, I can sense my core starting to switch off the furnace and begin to cool back down.
Totally drained I drive back to where I was staying and proceed to have a long cool shower. Keep drinking more fluid and embedded in a chair looking out over nature’s beauty. I begin to piece everything all together. My inner bully still wanted to stomp down hard on me. However the life lesson of defusing from a situation of being pushed around by anxiety but not looking at the situation again when still in a similar position can lead us to simply problem solve and not listen and observe. For me I should have realised, yes some was very similar but other parts were different though in fairness could have gone equally with feeling anxious and actually being sick. In all my years competing I’d only ever got the metallic taste twice and even then it was while strong only fleeting. I was stuck in the anxiety story and didn’t look at the bigger picture which was obvious to you all but sadly not to me as I had tunnel vision at the time; anxiety was the problem solve ‘THAT PROBLEM’. No harm done it wasn’t covid just a bad tummy bug probably not helped by the fact I’d started the night with mild heatstroke. I gathered all my stuff together and got home the next day while feeling less then human for a further 5 days or so.
Can we ever get that balance right between looking to jump in and solve a problem and really listening to to situation anew and with nonjudgemental eyes and mind. I could now leap into a lecture on getting that balance right and it should be obvious if you are slipping too far one way or the other. However the truth is we need at different times both those things. Determination, solving a problem and staying the course is important when being resilient and resourceful. Yet if resilience pushes us too far into narrow focus dedication to the problem then we aren’t aware of the ever changing flow of life and little hiccups or unexpected road bumps that can completely alter one’s course slightly until all of a sudden you are facing in the opposite direction to the one you started on and visualised for.
The take away is you will always need to be resilient and have tools to solve not only life’s problems but also your own self doubts and fears. However if you didn’t remind yourself to stay open minded and really listen; past all the loud shouting and white noise at times we forget to truly listen to ALL to shifting sands. Before we know it we are standing on an isolated island with the problem in question, having long since floated away and only its’ history keeping us glued emotionally to this position. We work hard to gain the skills to deal with life’s problems; yet at times if we listen and show ourselves a glimmer of self kindness the solution might be far less complicated and encouraging towards the growth you have already achieved. It’s important to build tools and have confidence with them. However if we haven’t leant into our emotions and stayed open to the situation anew. Then we are just as likely to reach for the wrong tool and then beat ourselves up for not solving the problem when in fact it wasn’t the problem that needed fixing. Life is both complicated and simple. But always remember be open minded, observe and listen before reaching into your tool box. You may just be genuinely feeling under the weather.
Best of luck.
If you are interested in online coaching to help over come any of your friction points I offer online sessions and can be booked through the link below.
Thanks for reading this blog please feel free to tell me about your experiences and I hope it encourages you to subscribe and follow this blog in the future. If you like my blogs please check out my YouTube channel which covers similar topics. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWNpiqEiLskN3iKYifpS59w
Thank you.
Ben
Disclaimer: Links included in this description might be affiliated links. If you purchase a product or service with the link that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. Thank you for supporting my channel so I can continue to provide you with free content. 👍
Good books on the subject and a link to audiobooks which is the easiest way to get information in our busy lifestyles.
Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams
Five Minutes in the Morning: A Focus Journal
Toxic Positivity
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
Let That Sh*t Go: A Journal for Leaving Your Bullsh*t Behind and Creating a Happy Life
Let That Sh*t Go: Find Peace of Mind and Happiness in Your Everyday
Goals: How to Get the Most out of Your Life
Hiding in numb isn’t actually in the end a good unwinding strategy.
It’s a fine line between the desire to unwind from stress, disappointment, being overwhelmed, feeling you aren’t being heard and a myriad of other reasons we flop down onto the couch to stare into our electric devices in order to escape the screams from our souls. Life isn’t what I’d hoped it would be. Whether that’s from our own choices, limiting believes, tired beyond exhaustion or falling short of our dreams, timidity/bashfulness, timing beyond our control, simply you are a gem that hasn’t been unearth yet or a combination of many different things.
The fatigue/traumas/stresses of life can slowly grind us into a spiral of unhealthy/unhelpful habits and routines. What was the odd night of mindless tv or a few minutes of scrolling social media has now turned you into a hollow human divot in the couch and a restless finger scrolling through regret and envy. Yet strangely we often tell ourselves we are calming our minds from the days events or disappointing. Letting go of the harsh thoughts externally or internally heard by our fatigued mind. Running blindly towards any possibilities of numbing our feeling and accumulated hurt or loss.
What we often don’t realise, numbness once it crosses a threshold of momentary escapism isn’t an escape or self soothing strategy as cocooning yourself into the sense of numbness is actual an all too real feeling, not the absence of feeling. And as real and perfectly valid as all the other feelings we humans express. It often lets us passively avoid unwanted thoughts or feelings by giving us a sense of dissociation with our reality. Often this will slowly creep in and then suddenly we are seduced by this space, at first enjoying the immunity and disengagement, though all too slowly we realise the time chunks are invading the dreams of being better and self improvement. Suddenly being numb is both a great hiding spot and a sense of inner calm from the carnage of life; because now it’s not only protecting us from the hurt and failures of the past and present both perceived or real. It is quieting down the thoughts of ‘what if’s’ and the possibilities that could arise in the near future.
The need to unwind is now fast falling towards self sabotaging the future joy of tomorrow’s possibilities. You are deliberately staying up late so the brain is over tired and foggy for the morning. You are scrolling and not engaging with the now. If your phone was a person rather than a mini computer, are there many people you’d spend 8-14 hrs with day after day talking with often ignoring others in the same room? A phone may take you around the world and back in that time, however the views become increasingly boxed in by your echo chamber. Your brain and the phone are now hiding you from any difficult or confronting decisions or conversations. Making you consistently running late and pushing against deadlines not because you didn’t have time but because time is a static property and you can choose to stay in your safe place or address the growing wall, getting not only higher but also thicker around you. Keeping you locked away from both the rawness of hurt and the opportunities of growth/laugher/connection. Losing yourself in the never ending need to unwind. However like the need for rest, once you’ve generally gone past the three to six week mark except in acute cases. Sleeping and endless napping will not leave you feeling more refreshed only a sense of feeling endlessly tired and run down.
What should you do?
Put simply one of the first things to learn to protect is your own mental well being and health. If it is physical danger we often find a way for our inner No voice to be heard. An easy example to think of is if your boss was standing on the other side of an extremely wide busy street and demanded we get to him or her as quickly as possible. You probably won’t run straight across the road as the physical danger is obvious and unnecessary. If however there are lights just up the street which means you can cross safely and repeatedly even if that time taken may have taken longer. Job done, I mightn’t be there as quickly as my boss expected but I’m alive and complied with their instruction. Now imagine that those lights had a 5pm cut off. Once that time was passed they switched off and the road is a free for all. Would you still attempt to cross at 5:02pm or shout back across. Sorry boss I’ll need to catch up with you tomorrow. You might be bullied or humiliated into trying but the chances are your feelings of physical harm would out ride the desire to please or comply. The No is common sense and easier to justify. However if the boss comes to you whether it’s just before cut off or just after cut off and says can you do this one more thing please. Do you say NO??
All too often we want to help out and be liked so we say yes to clients or boss’s. Except now it’s almost every day; can you please just help out (morphing from please to required of). Work piles up; now I’m continually helping out thus needing to retreat further and further into my numb cave because I can’t express that my mental wellness is being trampled all over. Time can’t be replaced if you are spending it somewhere it can’t be duplicated and spent on self/family/hobbies/mediation/wellbeing/pets/learning/growth/friends/movies/quiet moments/loud adrenaline charged moments/nature etc. Helping out can be both understandable and necessary at times.
Being expected to blindly help out or give of yourself!! Not so much.🤯
Now the choice is moving away from a healthier mentally and physically fit you in the longer term. Your work output will slowly decease and your anger, resentment and feelings of being undervalued slowly keep rising. No; may seem uglier and harsher in the short term, however in the long term if you are healthier and not looking for tactics of escapism then you are able to genuinely bring more of the authentic you to the workplace/client rather then the numb disconnected husk of a human being.
It is however totally understandable you haven’t expressed NO until your already all but burnt out or you’ve had to change organisations or been reinvented into a new situation/job. It’s a simple fact of life we doesn’t always have courage when we need it the most. Our voice has lost it’s power and strength to the change; the direction and stand for yourself, possibly requiring a clean slate to start anew.
Except there is one really important thing to remember. If starting anew, the situation maybe different but the habit and strength to resist, blindly giving of yourself with poor boundaries is a habit you haven’t reset properly yet; for possibly a very long time.
If we think when we are trying to change eating habits or exercise habits. It often takes at least 60 to 270 days before a change starts to become an unconscious habit. That is a lot of time you’ll feel vulnerable and unsure as you attempt to navigate the new space of protecting your mental health. A kind way of starting out on this new journey of self care and self protection is to think of it exactly like your best friend has had a terrible accident and spent a year in hospital then a further year flattened on the couch rarely being able to shuffle around the house let alone go anywhere. Their muscles have wasted away but their spirit is finally wanting to tackle the effort required to start recovery. You won’t see this moment as let’s hit the gym and do a full on cardio session followed by weights the next day. Hopefully you’d stand with them and help them walk through the back door, possibly walk around a small garden bed once to some chairs you’d set up in the sun and said I’m glad you are ready to start.
In other words learning to say NO 🛑 when you are not under pressure. It’ll take some time before you believe you deserve me time in your own mind let alone expressing it to anyone else. Begin by simply saying out loud ‘No’ to, a two for one deal when you know you don’t need the second one no matter how good a deal in is. Even if you’re only saying it to a supermarket shelf. You are however voicing NO for YOU. Build and establish the habit so you get to know your boundaries. A sense of self; who can display compassion for a situation, not be dragged down with the last drops of your own empathy. No longer being the victim in the mirror without voice or valour.
Understandable you retreat to numb and keep closing the busy dangerous road mentally so you are liked and accepted. Sliding away from perhaps your values and/or your simple wishes. We figure we need a credible reason in order to say no. Isn’t the simple reason of mental health, wellbeing and safety enough? Don’t you think?
Here are some signs you need stronger boundaries and hopefully it will give you the courage to find the inner voice rather than retreating towards the perceived safety of numb.
- You are left with little time for yourself.
- You say ‘yes’ when you want to say ‘no’.
- You feel guilty to put aside time just for you.
- You are consistently feeling like you are required to solve other peoples’ problems. Even when it’s not your circus or monkeys.
- You often feel like ‘giving’ has become a one way street, which is leaving you feeling totally drained.
- You don’t speak your truth and you’ve forgotten how too.
- You are consistently self-sacrificing in order to avoid conflict.
- You can’t bare the thought you are letting anyone down (with the exception being YOU).
Acknowledging you slowly fell in love with the feeling of being numb, though now it’s controlling all your decisions and actions is the first step. Now be brave and reinvest in your other emotions like fear (strange as it might seem) but by learning to say ‘no’ anyway, because on the other side of that fear; just maybe is a world of true happiness, self healing and health.
As always good luck and remember to be kind to yourself after all that’s who you spend the most time with. 🤪
The book ‘Boundary Boss’ is a great tool for learning to believe in the power of setting boundaries and saying no which means it is often a yes to YOU.
Disclaimer: Links included in this description might be affiliated links. If you purchase a product or service with the link that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. Thank you for supporting my channel so I can continue to provide you with free content. 👍
Five Minutes in the Morning: A Focus Journal
Let That Sh*t Go: A Journal for Leaving Your Bullsh*t Behind and Creating a Happy Life
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Boundary Boss: The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen, and (Finally) Live Free
Atomic Habits: the life-changing million-copy #1 bestseller
The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich
How being ‘resilient’ nearly killed me.
Noun.
1. the power or ability of a material to return to its original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.
2. the ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes, etc.;buoyancy.
3. the ability of a system or organization to respond to or recover readily from a crisis, disruptive process,
The old me hadn’t heard of resilience and never gave it any thought as to whether or not I displayed enough of it or was manly enough to do anything but soldier on no matter how overwhelming or confronting a situation might be.
When I was younger growing up on a cattle and sheep station in Northern Queensland. I hadn’t heard of the word ‘resilient’ or used it the context of recovery and getting back to something you once had. My words were grounded only in the world around me of those times which was to grit your teeth and just get on with it. Simply bearing through the pain and/or discomfort. Not showing “weakness” head down and get the job done. Resilience wasn’t my word. It was the simple thought that there really was no choice except get on with the task. Only once it’s done are you finished. Not having a choice in my mind wasn’t a negative weight. In fact it often served as a positive. The decision making, options and cop outs weren’t available as possibilities. It was only get the job done as best you can but get it DONE. So in that way it helped the doubts and what ifs be quietened and the switch of just get on with it be locked on.
It gave me a good work ethic and drive to solve the problem as presented not kicking it down the road as it was your responsibly and guess what there was literally no one else to do it if you didn’t.
When I had a bad horse riding accident it served me well during recovery and getting back out and competing. I had a line in the sand and giving in to pain wasn’t an option. Solve the problem of getting through the day, doing the best you can. Grin and bare it, don’t let the pain overwhelm you. Push and shove it into a dark corner of your mind. Chain and nail it down, whatever it takes to not acknowledge that pain can set you back or limit your life. Ignore it, distract from it, get as far as you can before the night terrors claw at your exhausted tired brain unable to control the volume anymore. Everything is crashing down, hope you can find sleep before the noise becomes intolerable and the mind and body will be left in a thick brain fog slowing reactions and decision making sensors. What could possibly go wrong in a hazardous workplace. So basically you are slowly and surely burning the candle at both ends hoping against hope somehow you can stop the two flames from ever meeting. Except of course they do eventually no matter how hard you’ve fought to keep them apart.
Then after doing the total male thing of not talking about your struggles nor accepting help, ps that’s not as much of a male thing as I used to think, (Warrior mode) only staying in a very narrow gap of knowledge and very occasionally knocking on the door of health care professionals. Of course if you are only seeking limited fast (patch me up get back out there) help in moments of extreme distress then the care you’ll receive is mostly low level and often misunderstood differences between short term fixes, and long term rehabilitation. I didn’t care though as I was functioning again (sort of).
It all changed with another accident which brought up a junction with my body I could no longer ignore. Have hip replacement or genuinely go down the full rehab program. My previous choice of just grinding on; wasn’t remotely on the table. That path now went over a cliff, and as I didn’t want to walk off said cliff I had to figure something else out.
Through a little good luck and actually opening my mind to choosing different options in life my health started to slowly make a turn in the opposite direction. After 9-18 months of fairly intense and confronting regular rehabilitation I would start to consistently call myself pain free. Perhaps not what others might think of as pain free but as someone who’d frequently been working and living with a pain column of 14 or 15 out of 10. being in a mild 3ish seemed like bliss.
Except now my tough no choices brain suddenly collapsed. Because now there was actually a choice. If I came up against a pain level 4 or 5 which would have been considered before a great day, was now unbearable. I can’t get my brain to accept that level of pain when it knew a steady 3 was possible. Why not just put things on hold until 3 arrives again. Previously things had to be heading towards 20 then I’d allow myself to collapse for a few days. Now my brain was in a hot mess of indecision and intolerance with the lowly figure of 4. I felt I’d completely lost all my bearing. Nothing made sense. I couldn’t stay focused on goals or plans, I felt the massive need to be wrapped in bubble wrap. When the hell did the world become so dangerous? The possibilities of getting hurt seemed to lurk around every corner.
Now I was starting to hear words and phrases around resilience and willpower. Mine though seemed to be nowhere in sight. I felt humiliated that my motivation and willpower once the foundation to moving through impossible days and weeks. Now that same bedrock seemed to be in tatters and I was very much cast adrift and completely rudderless. I couldn’t get my mind to focus and get my body to fall into blind obedience.
I had unconsciously noticed that some horses when they had tolerated long term pain and then been treated properly and now were on the path to recovery refused to go through the same level of pain they had once easily tolerated in their past. Now I seemed to be encountering a similar phenomena and it was creating a crisis of confidence and identity. My self image was based strongly around overcoming pain yet here I was complaining and being bogged down unable to overcome or drive myself through what I would have considered very mild levels of discomfort, hardly even pain at all.
Many people like me caught in the warrior loop long term relate, to the dread of holidays for the simple reason my mind and body would scrape over the line and the morning of the holiday as the mind let go of all its battles. The blinding migraine would arrive that would scour and burn through my fragile brain. Sometimes if it was bad enough uncontrolled vomiting accompanied the migraine leaving me completely hollowed out and utterly hydrated. Yep a great welcome to the first 2 or 3 days of getting away from the stresses of life. This often only left another 2 or 3 days to go. I was the total life of the party and feeling very guilty for disrupting everyone else’s time and that I hadn’t been able to partake in any fun activities. However having spoken to many of my fellow human beings trapped in that warrior mode to survive their day to day lives. Many found the same or similar occurrence when going on holiday. And of course being the intelligent species we are. We problem solved the situation by having less holidays because who wants to experience those symptoms and added pain for a period where you are meant to be on holiday unwinding from pressure and relentless pounding of pain and fatigue.
Often commencing work again hating the fact you’d gone and not understanding or allowing yourself to understand the message your mind and body was trying to tell you. But wrapping it up in weakness and promising yourself not to allow the warrior to be unprotected again or try to deal with rawness of allowing pain or anxiety to flood out from it’s locked and nailed down storage cupboard.
Suddenly I knew nothing about anything. Foundations that had served me to this point were being blown away and weakened almost with every breathe. I understood the much talked about word resilience now to bend back your original position. Except because I was being punched into a swirling breeze I had no origins to claw back to. For the first time it wasn’t about holding on and weathering the moment. It was looking into every habit that had sustained me up until now and seeing if those same habits were going to grow a whole new foundation. Would this give me a new mantra and life I never thought possible? Could I have something that was outside my survival mode and actually be growth. When you are used to operating in the dark of pain or the swirl of consistent anxiety. The thought of personal growth is not only unfathomable but you genuinely had no real concept what that even entails.
People often say you end up following the path that brings you to what you were meant to do in life. That may be true but at this stage my path was over grown with foliage and covered in mud and sharp rocks.
I had no idea which direction I should be walking in or how far the journey will take me. So after coming to terms with the fact that all the choices looked equally uncomfortable as they were all up until this point unexplored. I started to walk and slowly find my path the more I realised the second part of that answer is simply a life time of exploring. Live every day and hopefully learn every day.
The first part had to be one of the hardest lessons. Of letting go of hard won battles. Things you may have spent many hours, days, weeks, months or even years being the centre of everything can and should be place on the ground to be stepped over. For me placing down was the hardest part and amazingly once there I could easily step over a life time’s worth of pain/anxiety and struggles. Things that I thought made up who I was as a person suddenly had little or no bearing on my future. They shaped me but now didn’t hold me. As terrifying as feeling like you are starting all over again can seem, it’s better than staying beholden to someone who has lost the courage to risk living truly in the now.
Two thoughtful friends summed up some of their thoughts on resilience this way.
“I think personally and professionally it’s been a transition from understanding that resilience and silent diligence are not the same thing. You don’t have to “put up with stuff in silence” and think it’s resilience. I do think it’s a combination of agility (following the cheese) and purpose (knowing why you want the cheese) and determination (being prepared to do what it takes to find the cheese).”
“Personally I’m still trying to figure it out I guess. When I was younger I think I had a very narrow interpretation of resilience. On reflection I equated it with persistence, determination, never giving up, never say die attitude, pushing on relentlessly. It was probably about surviving, coping but not necessarily thriving or growing, if that makes sense. At the same time within that conceptualisation there was no room for empathy towards myself, or understand, being kind to myself and giving myself permission to fail, but to fail forward and see mistakes from a growth mindset perspective and to know that resilience looks different for everyone. Some days just making it out of bed and getting out my pjs is a huge demonstration of resilience and that’s ok. I think that many of the psychological definitions of resilience liken it to an elastic band , the stretching under pressure and the ability to return to its pre-pressurised or ‘normal state, but I don’t really see it that way, I feel that resilience is about having tools to continue to thrive in the face of adversity or challenge, you may not return to being the person you were before, you will still show the scars if being broken, but you can find light, and purpose and joy anyway and a different way to live, a ‘new normal ‘ not necessarily better or worse, just different, you shouldn’t feel that you have to somehow get back to being whatever you were before the band was stretched.”
I think we are all still trying to figure it out as there isn’t a map and one size fits all. However being resilient is a good trait to have in your tool box. Though if you only use it all the time the loop becomes tighter and less forgiving.
Remember to stand back and look at the big picture and unhook from the emotions of our past and connect with its lesson. Knowing progress is often uncomfortable but better to be uncomfortable for awhile then stoic for a life time.
During periods of growth and resilience our time clocks get stuck on pause, yet each day passes and a new day arrives. Won’t it be better to approach the new day with a sense of possibilities rather than a backpack full of past pain.
Good luck.
Disclaimer: Links included in this description might be affiliated links. If you purchase a product or serve with the link that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. Thank you for supporting my channel so I can continue to provide you with free content. 👍
The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma
You are the sum of everything to this moment.
I was recently putting together a YouTube clip and it truly stuck me the words of ‘You are the sum of everything to this moment.’ Now it’s not like I haven’t used this phrase before or seen its full effects with clients and friends lives, however on that day it really kicked home to me just the full concept of that statement. In micro moments I could feel the substance of memories long since stored away popping up and having a say around unrelated tasks I was trying to perform.
Let me set up the scenario. With all the lockdowns in our great land of Oz, I got into bike riding nothing hard core just a bit of outdoor fun. Being that my preferences in life is to have a touch of adrenaline and challenge I slowly started to gravitate towards playing with the very basics of mountain biking techniques and I mean the very very basics. Now let me show you how slowly the birth of this interest has been. A few years back I did paddle boarding which was the first real test of my core muscles since a paragliding accident a few years earlier. To say my body and mind managed to come up with a magnificent failure, would be an understated description of the evenings efforts. Don’t get me wrong it was fun and in a strange way empowering because it’s not always wins that can give you strength and courage in life. It was a very nonjudgmental environment so to fail wasn’t a big deal and felt good to expose my body again to something other then safely walking and rehab.
It did though throw into stark contrast as to what was still required and how much, needed to be done to get the appropriate muscles to turn on and off properly and have mental confidence in that process. So fast forward a few years getting back on a bike again for the first time since my teens. Now that’s many many moons ago. Any way basic riding was relatively easy. Though any form of fast cornering or sliding made me feel enormously uncomfortable. On the edge of freezing up slightly but finding I could generally breath and work through it staying present. Since there was no goals in mind or time frame pressure I was able to just potter away with it and slowly expose myself more to the feeling. Gaining my confidence in little pieces, only progressing as I felt safe. I wasn’t hiding within my limits, however there wasn’t any reason to push hard up against those limits. Just contently nudging away.
Then I starting watching some YouTube clips and began to appreciate the world of trail bikes and mountain bikes much more. I hadn’t ever really experienced that world except in passing conversations and a few red bull races on tv. I was stupefied and amazed by the top athletes skills and tests they appeared to do with such easy. A growing interest to understand more and dip my toes into some of the tools I needed to get comfortable with in order to take on some beginner trails. I still wasn’t that keen to actually do a trail just play around within my own little environment. Like when you first get your paragliding licence all you want to do is climb every hill or slightly raised elevation point within your surrounds and launch off it. That warm spark that lures you into exploring and challenging was being lit and feed.
Of course I was well aware of my abilities vs reality but now the reality had a reason to get a few good nudges. What I hadn’t taken into account was ‘You are the sum of everything to this moment.‘
I decided what the hell wouldn’t it be fun, to do a wheelie. After watching a channel called Joy of bikes, Alex the lead presenter gave a clear encouraging pathway to getting this done plus it was pretty much targeted at older riders to get out there and give it a go. So nicely inspired I grabbed my bike and thought yet let’s do this. Muscle up buttercup!
A few attempts reiterated exactly where my base of competency was actually at! Lower then my ego would like to admit but I was alive, outside and active so couldn’t be all bad right. The skill itself I expected to suck at; though of course I had hoped less so; however I quickly got over that fact. What I really wasn’t anticipating was the flood of emotions that dropped in needing to be acknowledged and quietly placed to the side as I tried to stay focused on my present moment and not the protection self talk from my past.
Let me give you two examples. I used to work with horses in what now seems my distant past almost very day. Riding, training and progressing them towards competition pathways. During that time some of them would be rears, for any number of reasons but the long and the short of it was the front legs would come off the ground and they would be balanced on the their hind legs. Some were stronger than others and some would have a much better understanding of keeping both themselves and you safe. The majority of the time in those situations I was trying to spend as little time with their front legs in the air as possible. So instinctively my weight goes forward as their came up, which for a wheelie you actually want your weight to come back. Now that in itself is just slowing training your self to overcome your instinctive action. Almost no intellectual thought straight to action no real conscious decision making needed. So I had thought this would be a little mental hurdle before I started and had anticipated that contradiction and lagging of these skills as the brain over came this hurdle. When I was first learning to fly fixed winged aircraft another student pilot had a similar problem with the rudder pedals. In his youth he’d done lots of billy cart races. The pedals in that situation work the opposite of aircraft pedals. He discovered when the aircraft was taxiing at slow speeds he could think his way though the problem and over ride his instinct. However while taking off or landing when the brain was dealing with lots of other information the brain wanted to load shed that task and go back to it’s unconscious pattern. Of course that got a little sketchy at times 🥺 But eventually the brain wired new patterns and his training progressed after that hiccup.
Now here’s the tiny little seed that slightly throws a curve ball into that pattern, to add an unexpected emotion. Australian cricketer Adam Gilchrist’s book True Colours my life. Spoke about how what ever your last session before going on a break could really unconsciously set the tone for how your brain processed that down time in a positive or negative way moving forward to when you picked things up again. Hence why most people/students really want when they are training to have a good last moment before they wrap up a session. The old adage of end on a good note is more often than not a great practice to keep.
So for me the tiny seed of difference to my overall history with rears was that last horse, who was what I would define to be a consistent rearer. Tho importantly wasn’t an overly stable rearer and would more often than not lose a hind leg and fall to the side a little. That in itself didn’t worry me too much at the time as I was fairly well practiced and trusted my timing and decision making skills in those situations. However I would often drop my stirrups a little earlier with that particular horse. Something I didn’t usually do. Now why is that important, well as the moment the front wheel of the bike started to come up I’d drop one or both my feet immediately off the peddles. Combined with a rush of adrenaline far in excess of what I was doing. I was gearing myself to feel uncomfortable but that was a surprise and of course unbalancing as I ripped my foot off the pedal, which made it more so. Knowing I would be naturally struggling with doing a new skill I had totally expected, but being slapped with a memory and emotion that wasn’t even connected to a bike really surprised me at first.
It took a little bit to come to terms with this new found roadblock which until that moment I was blissfully unaware of how my brain had been quietly going about its task of filing and sorting memories. Ready to dust them off if any similar type situation arrives in order to keep me ‘safe’. Apparently this was that moment to dive into the vault and bring this action and feeling back to life. So confronting, disconcerting and annoying plus it gave a little more voice to my negative self doubt, like most of us at different times it doesn’t take much prompting for that voice to turn up the volume. You are and an old broken man you have no chance of getting this done. ‘FOOLISH old man!!’ Like the video shows I talked my way through those voices I was just wasn’t expecting it coming from that background because as stated I was realisably comfortable with hoofs coming off the ground and yet now I was feeling very vulnerable and uncertain with the thing I thought shouldn’t be a huge issue. Live and learn. Apart from the slight pressure of filming myself I that recalibrated my thoughts to remind myself the over all goal wasn’t the wheelie complete package but to explore the skill and have fun. Pressure back off, now I can just let the thoughts come and go and not be bullied by them as I understand where they are coming from. Doesn’t mean I can stop the instinct reaction to them but I can put the action I want more to the forefront of my mind. Find a little mantra that works and consciously puts the actions you want in play. That way I can get two or three peddle strokes in before taking my feet off the pedals. Chipping away at it.
The second factor to ‘You are the sum of everything to this moment’ is if those emotions had popped up earlier in my life I would have switched off the camera and worked though everything behind closed doors until it was good enough to show in public or never letting it see the light of day. During my competition days I was a slightly superstitious about being filmed for many quirky and weird reason, but they were my reasons so they got embedded into my psyche 🤷🏻♂️. Coupled with hating to ask someone and then feeling they were putting themselves out to come hold a camera for me. Hence I would rarely get myself on film apart from when my father was around who always claimed the role of cameraman in chief and I very much appreciated that fact, despite my protests. Moments in time were captured both good and bad but with distance enjoyed. Any way because of that it took me ages as a coach to develop the skills on how to best use footage around students and managing their expectations. Getting people to truly see not what that brain is telling them to see but what their eyes are actually watching and processing that information, with an enhanced sense of self-worth and deeper understanding what is involved in the training process of letting go of an old habit and it’s emotional baggage as they invest in rewiring a new skill.
Take a breath let your silent stalking watcher do it’s job and you just stay in your lane and concentrate on your job. The brain does like a good scapegoat and in years gone by the camera would have grown into mine, meaning the session needed to wrap up and end immediately. Yet here I was resetting myself, and calmly letting it just do its’ job and me mine.
On the one hand I was getting flashbacks and emotional bullying from unrelated events of my past and yet from an obvious Achilles heel of that same past I was amazed by; how far my own personal growth had come. However both sides of that past life I felt I could look at with curiosity not fear nor did I need to hide from it or bully my thoughts around and put my male armour on and march into battle. I could just accept this is where I am at in this moment, but I am doing my best to keep improving. That’s all any of us can do. If you get a chance to watch the clip you won’t realise how much is going on and it was too in-depth to explain in that format. In the video I talk a little of it but can’t dive into this much depth. Experiencing an event or having a skill won’t always give you the cross over you think it might have, but if you are humble; it does allow you the freedom to fail and go again because hopefully life’s big lesson is you learn how to lean into challenges and changes. Failure and setbacks will be forever close by, however the ability to reset from failure or setbacks is the underlying secret that unpins everything. We are the sum of everything; some of that will seem good some will seem bad but if we always remember to both understand the unfiltered lesson and equip ourselves to make a growth moments from that situation. Then the sum of our future isn’t weighted down by the sum of our past.
Good luck and as always be kind to the person who matters the most. You.
I’ll leave a link below of a great book that explains how you can move away from whether you are good or bad in your efforts.
Disclaimer: Links included in this description might be affiliated links. If you purchase a product or serve with the link that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. Thank you for supporting my channel so I can continue to provide you with free content. 👍
The Four Agreements Wisdom Book: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
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Taking steps to control your own ripples.
A skill we are all struggling with at the moment is letting go. In particular the letting go, of the feeling that things are unfair and that a sense of a huge injustice is taking place on a massive scale. There is this undercurrent which brings an unsettling feeling of being permanently exhausted, and a perception deep down this nagging suspicion the Karen’s of this crazy pandemic world must be to blame. Our bent to want to be critical and find fault with others, paired with an underlying sense of apprehension seems to be finely tuned and honed at finding a target in these long moments. Sometimes we aren’t even aware how strong this desire has become because like the frog boiling in water it was getting plenty of incidental exercise in the last few years. Eastern Australia went through a period of harsh unrelenting drought that has the amazing ability to slowly eat away at you from the inside out. We are animals that on a conscious or unconscious level realise the importance of water for daily life. Being told consistently it’s looking bleak, even though when you turn on the tap there it is, we naturally start to feel uncertain and as a species we are told that uncertainty is a sign someone must be to blame. Even though life is of course naturally filled with these very uncertainty. Whole organisations now live and breathe on the fact you shouldn’t have these feelings, because in the old days this never happened. Distance from an event can make it seem far more tranquil for the simple fact we know how it turns out. Where as during the time its self the moment is in flux and uncertainty. Hence why the past can seem calmer through our eyes than that presents at times.
So from the drought, we then moved into a period like no other across Eastern Australia. Gigantic consuming fires that seemed to burn and wipe out everything. Throwing great columns of thick smoke and embers into the air. Blanketing cities and towns for months, dialling the feeling of foreboding to a thousand degrees. Eyes consistently stinging, breathing laboured and the warning signs for the coming doom literally falling around you. Yeah life seemed pretty damn intense. Notably for the hundreds that lost property and livestock, plus the destruction to our native wildlife flora and fauna was hellish in scale.
Yet somehow that period passed and then a series of severe thunderstorms with massive hail stones causes millions of dollars of damage to homes, buildings and cars. The scars of which were visible for months afterwards. In an affluent country like Australia it was kind of bizarre to see that Mother Nature hadn’t finished with you yet. Leaving yet another big calling card to go with the blackened landscape. People living in war zones around the world must see these scars to their normal all day everyday. Some will have grown up so the scars are sadly they’re normal. But for most of us these scars a raw reminder that things haven’t been ‘normal’.
Ok I’ll put all that behind me, life can move on now, surely I can crawl into some calming stable quiet times. Oops and along comes COVID-19, boom. At first everyone felt alone but connected. But then naturally parts started to open up and gain their freedoms, while others stayed on and off in lockdown shackles. Progressively some had ‘normal lives’ again while others were stuck in a time warp loop watching from their front doors as friends and family went to work, bbq’s, social events and holidays. Seemingly carefree and sending, ‘you are in our thoughts’ as they bolted out the front door towards your hoped for normal. Your rules weren’t in their world your waves of dark clouds didn’t cover their skies. Except if they wanted to travel interstate then your situation was annoying and inconvenient to them. Meanwhile you put your head down and try yet again to accept it is, what it is. Yet the numbers seem to be going up, there must be rule breakers, people not caring enough to follow the basic restriction, some of them are even out there on tv demanding freedom and marching in the street. Why am I the only one doing the right thing, putting my head down accepting this is for the collective good. Yet those bloody rule breakers out there in their hundreds thumbing their noses at your quiet heavy sacrifice. Do they just not care these thousands of rule breakers shouting and marching all over my acceptance? The weight seems heavier and slowly heavier, the community oblations seem to be yours alone. God damn it, these bloody rule breakers. And still the numbers go up! Why am I even bothering karma seems to have gone on a permanant holiday. Who cares; why I even bothering to care. Stuff you all! I go to sleep slowly seething with anger and frustration and wake up with a dark cloud of who the blood hell cares, see look, the numbers have gone up AGAIN! Why am I the only rule follower, stuff you rule breakers I want my freedom too. The cloud gets darker and heavier. Even little victories feel hollow and meaningless in a world without community spirit or collective purpose. Bloody rule breakers!!!
Then you decide to step outside into a beautiful spring day dodging thunderstorms but the air smells so wonderfully fresh. You decide despite your own dark heavy clouds you’ll hike up a near by hill. You don your mask despite the rule breakers bring a bag of snacks, water, rain coats, water and an extra jumper with you; after all this is Canberra in spring. It could be sleeting in and hour or so. Taking your little girl’s hand in yours and lifting her over the flooded causeway. She smiles and hugs you. Maybe things aren’t so dark after all. I set out, no music as we have been swooped by angry magpies this last few weeks and my little girl’s adventurous spirit has lost a little confidence with the outdoors. We want to hear them coming where possible. The first magpie is near the path but he’s busily after worms and couldn’t care less about us. We sit on a rock near by, watching and listening to him moving through his home turf. She’s now more relaxed and ready to start up the hill. Off we set; passing our first fellow walkers coming the other way. They have masks on too. We exchange hellos and smiles behind our respective masks. Must be the only other non rule breakers in the country. Next ones are bound to be part of the millions of rule breakers not caring about our sacrifice.
But the next person is a guy and his dog, mask on, waving to my daughter happily as she commented how cute his dog was. Ok so that must have been a statistical anomaly the next ones we see are bound to be the rule breakers and floggers of chaos I know are lurking around ruining everything for everyone else. And yes sure enough there she is coming down the hill. No mask on her face. KAREN the ruler breaker, the one demanding to see the manager because the rules don’t apply to her as she can’t possibly breathe through her mask like the rest of us! The one unwilling to be inconvenienced, even a little bit for the greater good of the community! Every muscle tightens damn her, she’s not going to get a friendly hello How dare she be the grinding weight against my chest. Part of the horde of rule breakers who darken my thoughts and bring a dark cloud that never seems to leave these days. Yes that KAREN is here to my very front!
Except that’s not what happened, as she spotted us and we were still a good distance away at this stage probably 50-60 metres she stopped and retrieved her mask from around her neck placing it back on and walked towards us giving us plenty of room to walk the other way. Despite my earlier internal protest, hello’s were again exchanged eyes met, a connection with your fellow human being made. Then along come other walkers passes us by. My chest lighter, more hellos all masks wearing, comments about how wet the track was or slippery in places, isn’t it just amazing to be able to be outsider though. Comments how humid it was and the rain looked closer again around the next corner to the west. The sky was giving us all brilliant changes of colour and thoughts of how timeless this beautiful land is and how small we are upon it. Walking though terribly unfit, felt lighter and the burdens of community were here to see. People had masks on, they were here doing the right thing. Talking and walking with friends while wearing masks and if they were doing heavy exercise ie running uphill. Then they would give you a wide berth.
Seeing numbers in endless press conferences and reading the news gives you a feeling of being jaded and an unsupportive community. Yet the real life experience can be different especially in some areas. The contradiction of what you are doing and living can be in stark contrast with what you are seeing and hearing. The drudgery of doing what you feel is right without fanfare and thanks can seem to be lost in the emotions of injustice and core values being swept away by the tens of Karens and Steves snubbing their nose at the community effort. Effort like this is unrelenting and unforgiving because if you do the right thing for a hundred days and then on day 101 throw it all away and end up being a super spreader by day 105 then all your tranquil ripples of good community spirit are splashed away in a blast of selfishness.
So in these times of hardship when there isn’t a war to be won, a tribe to be hated or demonised. Only our fellow community members who are feeling just as frayed as you. The clouds are heavy with us all, and yet if you say hello and gesture a smile with other parts of your body as we can’t see smiles any more. You realise we are all walking heavy; but that moment of connection can help lift a dark cloud and blow it away. Life well and truly sucks at the moment but when you dig in you realise if I look to carry my footsteps lightly then the community is still there and humanity is still there as numbers don’t tell the whole story. Scarifies are still being made and there is light at the end of the tunnel, and just maybe it isn’t the train it’s self but a nudge and shift towards the end. Shuffling towards our collective new ‘normal’ what ever that is. Because we are all living in flux but someone in a hundred years will see the 2019-2021 as a blip. That can’t have given those at the time, much concern. Oh how little do they realise, how wearing it all truly was.
Say hello in that fleeting moment; to your fellow mask wearer. Thus instead of wanting to make anger splashes in your surrounding and blast your ever increasing bad mood towards the millions of Karens and Steves who deserve to receive your vengeance. Tread lightly as everyone is hurting consciously or unconsciously. Some are expressing it in the worst possible ways and others are engulfed in their own ever expanding pitiless gloom. Some causes do need to be heard; some just want to make noise. But the majority are slowly trying each day to find the strength to show up in this thankless task of following the rules and doing the collective right when it’s been a long time since those efforts seemed to matter. And yet they do very much, the health system doesn’t work with huge margins to open up more capacity, transport hasn’t got endless options if there was a cluster within drivers or warehouses and these needed to be shut down due to high out breaks like abattoirs were at there beginning of this pandemic sending shock waves through supermarket stores across the nation. Our collective; are you ok today is definitely a; ‘meh not really’. In so many ways we still all understand we are the lucky country with generally good welfare safety nets and a health system operating to save lives without giving us huge bills to pay into our futures long after the pandemic is hopefully gone.
So these ripples of anxiety and concern that have been slowly bombarding us all for the last 3 to 4 years have now been starting to break down the walls of our resilience, like water moving along a river. It is timeless as it wears away at the rocks carving a path and gradually finding weak points to seep through. Looked at and felt up close it seems overwhelming. But the high afar aerial shot transforms that same river to a look of tranquil majestic beauty.
So from up high maybe we are just being reshaped towards something better. If I can regroup again and again when I’m long past the point of thinking my tiny speck in the community effort isn’t worth it. When my thoughts are telling me everyone else has stopped making the effort. I want to do as I please too, surely I can. Stuff this feeling of ‘meh’!
Yet out there on that hike I witnessed people probably feeling just as weary and jaded, yet 8 or 9 out of ten either returned my hello or gave me a hello first. They engaged for the moment the collective grind was there and shared. The few that didn’t had the look of my space is extremely fragile please don’t knock at my walls or they were fully immersed in distraction away from distraction so are barely operating in the space they are existing in.
To quieten the ripples around us and step out from the clouds that want to shade our sunshine, telling us there is only doom and gloom out there. We need to acknowledge it’s been a long road and our feelings have been slammed against the wall one too many times and then dragged across a rough surface. Except feeling generally come in waves they rarely stay blasting 24/7. But all too often our brains once fatigued and the worlds burden have set in. We forget to readjust after the wave has passed and simply stay down waiting inevitably for the next one to just hit, mercilessly crashing into us.
Yet is the wave real or now imagined from our feels of being trapped and being consistently reminded nothing seems to be in our control. A sense of unease and unsure, the worst being you can’t seem to solve this problem.
However is it even yours to solve? Perhaps it’s yours to just be part of the big collective. On the whole we like to solve our own problems so in a way the situation is both empowering and a helpless feeling of powerless at the same time.
Except that too is a lie because we are all feeling meh and battered, and yet if we simply walk and say a hello to our fellow community members between the waves crashing down, suddenly the Karen’s and the Steve’s aren’t in the majority. Control has always been an illusion but control of oneself is possible. Then suddenly the Karen’s and Steve’s don’t matter, because in your moment you are reconnecting with the bigger aerial photo of a community on the whole trying as best it can to do the right thing and keep your humanity along the way. And sometimes all it takes to help that is a simple heartfelt ‘hello’ while wearing your mask. Ripples move in both directions make your’s light and hopefully those that genuinely needed to be heard can feel supported and those that are just making noise don’t get to take control of you. Sometimes the hardest darkest most meh is when you are near the end but it just won’t tick over to be done. Not yet at least. Let the wave of injustice and intolerance pass, understanding you can still be feeling blah but you aren’t stuck to that wave. Now is your choice. Do you stand back up one more time so we can all get a great aerial shot with you included standing beside the rest of us, weary though we might be but walking softly towards a collective goal by influencing the one you get a say in the most and ultimately who matters the most. Yourself.
History won’t remember us as heroes, nor will a generation from now realise how much resilience it took just to keep putting on a mask when there were no physical enemies banging on the castle gates. Our instincts are geared for the actions of flight or fight. We suck at the long game where there is no glory or marching bands, only venturing out a little past the front door, watching others live by rules you can’t just yet. So as we can almost see the finish line in sight fingers crossed don’t forget to let the wave wash away from you one more time, stand up, tread lightly and remember to start practicing your actual smile. Because you never know one day soon you might actually be greeting people for real soon. Take care everyone.
A great YouTube clip that can explain about the current feeling of Meh way better then me and well worth a watch.
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Do you find yourself hiding from the crowd and not wanting to step up to perform?
I think most of us have felt that dread and gut churning reaction to the thought of doing things in public even if that public is only one other person. The intense feeling of being watched and judged. It isn’t by any means universal as some people love being the centre of attention and feed off that energy. Where as many of us are reluctant to step out from behind the curtain and be the centre of other peoples focus. It is however fascinating how genuinely few times in life where we get that absolute undivided attention. One of the places I undertake clinics in Tasmania has a cardboard cutout of a country and western singer propped up in the back corner of a yard. It kind of sits in the distant corner of your eye, not ever really in full view but that of someone silently sneaking a peak at your efforts. Almost without exception every rider who has ever ridden in that arena has spoken of having the urge to ride up to the enigmatic figure and yell ‘come out and watch priorly or go away please.’ Of course as they ride towards the piece of cardboard their eyes adjust to the fact that it isn’t actually a person at all. All that boiling frustration was only their own minds projecting what they thought someone else might be thinking of their actions and efforts. Sheepishly they turn tail and laugh at the realisation the power to project what you feel others might be thinking has come purely from within. We talk about sources and triggers for fears and anxieties and this is a great example of one of those cases where your own mind has managed to manufacture the entirety; from an assumption that couldn’t have started as a source. That doesn’t mean the feelings weren’t real only that the source wasn’t. The best part though is, once each rider who was tricked into believing a story purely formed in their projecting thoughts, almost always shrugs at the fact, we got pushed into a corner by our own brain. We all have swapped stories and jointly laughed knowing the intensity of feelings (hurt/anger/frustration/bullied/mocked/judged/belittled/suspicious) just a moment before the brain concluded it was all a mirage.
Amazingly our own brains can be our own harshest self critic spreading awful stories of doubt and incompetence. You don’t need to be in public to get the feeling of wanting to hide under the closest rock from whatever perceived mistake you’ve just made. Think back to a situation when you were out and about in a semi public area, tripped or did something silly and suddenly your eyes dart around the viewable area to see if your mistake may have been witnessed by any passer-by. Why are we often so wired to hide out mistakes? Most of our lives we live with the emotional thought that making mistakes is simply bad, and to blunder or have faults is somehow to not be a complete human being or that we aren’t worthy of attention or focus. Yet our whole life is spent growing from our mistakes. The obvious examples are learning to walk. I often think if we as humans didn’t learn to walk until we were in our teens or twenties, how many would give up and decide it’s all too hard and retreat from the experience. A child learning to walk fails a lot, I mean a LOT. Some of those are small stumbles or tumbles and others are spectacular falls, bangs and are often keenly being watched as well as being filmed endlessly. So could you have gone on to walk with the emotional maturity of your younger teenage self?? Possibly not; unless you’re WHY was big enough and you opened your mind to the fact that the people surrounding you and watching are also genuinely cheering you on and wanting you to succeed as well as have a little entertainment.
Let’s now turn to look at the feature photo. A horse/rider combination jumping a lovely clear oxer with a group of spectators sitting comfortably behind the glass. Perfect spot on what looks like a gorgeous day for watching some beautiful athletic partnerships bounding around a showjumping courses. Life is good.
Now of course if you look at the second photo which zooms in on the people behind the glass. You quickly realise not a single person in shot is actually watching the horse and rider combination in question. Sure if you hadn’t looked closely you’d probably assume not everyone would be watching intently or unwavering but to see not one person watching is a little surprising yes? Most of us these days are distracted from the moment and yet conversely we all perceive that we are being watched and judged every minute of every day, modern technology gives us a big glass bowl effect at times. Perhaps this is where the spotlight effect has shifted in the last few years away from feeling you are being watched and judged in the moment to being judged for all eternity by the tentacles reaching out from the world wide web. The feelings can thus be slightly different. One can have an immediate devastating loss of performance and the other can feel more like getting gravel rash every day. While no one particular injury is bad, you are consistently in pain and sore. Bits of skin and blood being scrapped off and leaving you feeling rawer and anxious to see how bad todays spill will be. People could comment from a much greater reach both positive or negative.
If our horse rider combination were cantering towards the double feeling like the group behind the glass was watching harshly this can lead to an immediate tension and loss of performance followed by poor decision making and miscommunication with our horse. Suddenly something that was once easy becomes indescribably hard. Not because the work they’ve done or the skills they have honed, but because of a perceived sense of expectation given to others who aren’t even engaged in your story.
So in a moment of reframing prior to stepping out from behind the curtain, it is about sitting with this mental picture. People are often much less engaged with our story than we think.
Boiling down to the people in our tribe will be like the adults of your childhood learning to walk. Cheering you on, laughing and crying with you. Proud you stood up and tried to simply put one foot in front of the other. No matter how tiny or wobbly those steps are. They will be there to carry your banner as well as see your worth, sometimes even when you don’t.
As for the others when we are feeling apprehensive or frozen about the thoughts of being out the front with no rocks to hide under it comes down to the first person you must bring along the path and convince you deserve to be holding your own space, views and actions is our very own protective brain. So practice your skills, hone your presentation, work with what you have, to do the best you can. Convince that first person in the mirror that trying, and growing won’t mean you can’t stumble in this moment but you showed up anyway. You can still feel uncomfortable but that doesn’t mean you aren’t ready or worthy. If we can convince ourselves then we can move without weight or tension, talk without misgivings or mischief, hear without prejudice or preconception then you help bring one more person into your moment and the spotlight isn’t as unbearably bright anymore. We often can feel watched, not ready or worthy but if we can convince the person in the mirror, then the perceived pressure and judgment of others can melt away to a simple moment waiting for you to step forward into. Do you have the courage to step into that moment?
I hope so.
Big breath. Good luck.
There is freedom waiting for you on the breezes of the sky, and you ask, “what if I fall?” Oh but my darling what if you fly? -Erin Hanson.
tps://open.spotify.com/show/01HsfeFaHI0eBUQj01fHKc
Disclaimer: Links included in this description might be affiliated links. If you purchase a product or serve with the link that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. Thank you for supporting my channel so I can continue to provide you with free content. 👍
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