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Seeking Security in Relationship – Krishnamurti

“…if you seek security in relationship, it becomes an investment in comfort, in illusion; yet the greatness of relationship is its very insecurity. By seeking security in relationship you are hindering its function, which brings its own peculiar actions and misfortunes.

Surely, the function of relationship is to reveal the state of one’s whole being.

Relationship is a process of self-revelation, of self-knowledge. This self-revelation is painful, demanding constant adjustment, pliability of thought-emotion. It is a painful struggle, with periods of enlightened peace…”

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Respect yourself enough to walk away from anyone or anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.

“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anyone or anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy”

🤔The last year I have spent a lot of time meditating on relationships, and observing both others and myself in relationships–whether it be with family, friends, or partners.

I should start first by saying that tension is a natural element of any relationship, as is conflict. But I am going to speak to when tension tips over into toxicity, when it goes from healthy to harmful.

And some of the most common markers I’ve noticed in unhealthy relationships, and the unhappiness that accompanies them, are 
1️⃣️️ an unwillingness to set, maintain, and respect boundaries, 
2️⃣️ a consistent and habitual willingness to forego and compromise on personal needs, and 
3️⃣ a slow growing complacency with mistreatment. 
(Not to mention a breakdown in communication)

I’ve been there, and understand some of the psychology behind it. And often times, we wish to give those we love the benefit of the doubt, another chance, patience in their growth despite the harm they cause, and more. We see their potential, and perhaps who they could be as their best self. We believe they can grow and change. And, in most cases, many of the good things we love about them are still there right alongside all the bad.

So, really, I *can* appreciate where the excuse-making, chance-giving, exception-granting, and tireless patience comes from (out of love)–but what I have learned to see and wish others to see is that doing these things are a form of self-harm.❌Every time we grant a toxic person another exception, excuse, chance, etc, we forego our own needs, weaken our own boundaries, and open the door to compromising ourselves and our happiness

📖When I read back on my annual reflection/post from earlier this year, I was struck again by this call to action I wrote:

➡️Stop putting up with people in your life who drain you.
➡️Stop making excuses and granting chances
➡️Stop waiting for people to come back, to change, to give a damn. 
➡️Stop standing for people who don’t stand for you.”

I still believe this is a worthwhile meditation and reminder. However, I want to add: ❕That it is OKAY to stop❕

It is OKAY to remove someone from your life — even those that you still love and care about– if they are causing harm or affecting you negatively. Not only is it OKAY, it is the right thing to do.

▫️Is it hard? Likely. 
▫️But is it healthy? Yes.

Because each person has a limited amount of time, energy, and love to give. And, every time we invest in people who harm our happiness, who overstep boundaries, who refuse to communicate, who aren’t helping us grow, we are actively working against ourselves.

As this post started:
“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anyone or anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy”

Because… when you do this… when you REALLY do this, you will discover that instead of losing something, in fact you will have opened yourself up to new connections, new growth, new friendship, and new love, including self-love.❤️

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Designing For Play

A few weeks ago I had a chance to jump on to the The Human Animal Podcast with Matt. This is part 1, where we talk a ton about design and play, including:

Developing Play Vision
The Interplay of Play and Design
What many gyms miss out on when designed
How to Craft a Play Session
The Importance of Inviting Others to Play

Check out the podcast here!

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Pay to Play: Do you want to only be changing the lives of those who can afford it?

The largest barriers to life-long participation in a physical activity are:

  • Lack of access
  • Lack of affordability
  • Lack of knowledge and
  • Lack of an integrated and supportive community.

It is undeniable that movement essential to our physical, mental, and social health. It is shown to effectively treat depression, improve your ability to learn, protect your memory, grow your brain, normalize blood sugar, reduce inflammation, and stimulate cell growth. (1)

If we are to ensure whole community health, it is critical to create universal access to nourishing, sustainable, and FUN forms of recreation—because the ‘play’ factor keeps people engaged over the years.

Yet traditional sports and gym-going exercise—the most common forms of physical activity—have many of these barriers and more depending on age, gender, race, etc.

We need an option that effectively provides a path over, under, and through all those major barriers. And we have one: Parkour.

Parkour Breaks Barriers To Lifelong Physical Health

Parkour practice provides a path over those four major barriers mentioned:

  • Access – do it any time, anywhere
  • Affordability – no equipment needed, no coaches
  • Knowledge – free online learning
  • Community – diverse, inter-generational

Anyone who has tried parkour knows that you don’t need any special equipment or designated spaces. You can go out your front door–heck, you can stay in your living room if you really wanted–and have right there the means and methods of participating. There are so many styles, interpretations, and training approaches that you can find your fit.

Even more so, we have an incredible and supportive community that shares knowledge, tips, and tricks. There is a wealth of free online information, and groups dedicated to growing it. We couch surf, we work-swap, we bootstrap. We grow and come to know together.

❌❌ But wait. ❌❌

My question at the start wasn’t to talk about how parkour is a cure to traditional options, but actually a question to the Parkour community growing today. It is a question directed at leaders, business owners, coaches, and practitioners. It is a question to ensure we remain conscious.

Do you really want to only be changing the lives of those who can afford it?

Yes, Parkour is the path over many barriers, and people will continue to take advantage of it. But today more and more people are learning and engaging with parkour through classes and gyms and paid services. Less and less we don’t need to take parkour to people, because people come to us.

But the people coming to us are those who can afford to do so. And we can’t forget that.

As a community, we commodify and put up paywalls. We share our highest quality content less frequently and worry about protecting our ‘IP’ and ideas. As business and demand grows, there is less time to give to developing and running free events, free classes, free services. Less time to do outreach, figure out cultural dissonance. I get it. There are bills to pay, a gym to run, people to support.

I’m not writing this to make anyone feel bad. I too believe in charging what you’re worth, and making a living doing the thing you love. But we need to realize that access is declining, and the culture around practice is shifting, and we need to take active steps to ensure Parkour continues to reach the populations who need it most.

That also is not to minimize anyones experience with parkour.

I have no doubt of the positive and deep impact of parkour on the lives of those who can afford classes and their bus fare and the bottle of water. Who have the privileged and means to participate. But I worry about the populations we are not so readily serving anymore… those that CANT afford or access a gym or a community, who might not have internet at home, or a support network to help. Even those don’t know parkour is an option.

I often think about how in some ways it is almost MORE important than ever to give parkour to those populations (and find paths that are viable and sustainable.). I see it sort of as a responsibility, honoring the roots of where parkour came from, and its potential for impact.

Vision for the community

For me: I have a vision of society where people are able to live powerfully in the life they are given. I also believe in a society of humans who look after one another. Where we help others build the foundations they need so that they can grow and do the same.

💪We are stronger when those around us are strong too.

🔥We are more powerful when those around us are powerful too.

Parkour has a way of giving people a sense of personal power, a foundation to build upon, skills critical to being physically, emotionally, and socially fit. (Youve all probably seen my article on that subject.)

And while people of any walk of life and step of society feeling more powerful in their lives is important, I believe it is our responsibility as leaders and caretakers of the discipline to take the extra step to ensure we are giving power to the powerless, strength to the weak, mentorship to the lost, knowledge to the hungry, community to the unsupported.

Parkour… play. Our community, this movement. It has the power to rock the world, change peoples lives.

This is a call to be more conscious.
Mindful of the ways we grow
Aware of the roles we take on
Responsible with the businesses we build. 

Do we want to only be changing the lives of those who pay for it?

Not sure where to start?

There are a few small things you can do today in your community to keep the spirit of access, affordability, and open education alive. Off the top of my head…

✴ Run a free monthly meetup (or even better, get volunteers to do it!). Did you know Parkour Visions offers grants to communities seeking to run free classes?

✴ Share your ideas –the beautiful thing is that when you give someone an idea, you don’t lose it. You now both share it and can find a way to make it more impactful!

✴ Share your expertise. Write a little. Write a lot. Ask questions, answer questions. Make yourself available. Do this freely.

✴ Support groups, events, projects that are engaging their communities with the resources you have –time, money, energy, love.

I try to take a stand every year, from sharing games to supporting experiences . I try to do probono design work whenever possible, direct the Art of Retreat to support the growth of healthy leadership. I support groups like Parkour Research and STURDYmade and Movement Games, and events like Winter Jam.

I run Parkour Visions, and as an organization we have taken a stand. As a non-profit, we are uniquely positioned to meaningfully catalyze donors, access grants, and work with local government around the country to see the development and growth of programs targeting underserved populations. We are seeking meaningful partnerships / projects with individuals and groups across the country to bring Parkour and play to people across all dimensions of diversity, but especially those who need parkour most.

So join forces with me.

Build alliances with others.

Share challenge because we’re stronger together 🙂

🤟

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You Did Not Wake Up to Be Mediocre

Every morning I wake up to the quote above my head, painted on to my ceiling, that says “You did not wake up to be mediocre.” I think we all need little reminders to think and be bigger than the smallness that the tedium of life can force upon us at times. When I first came across the above image, it immediately resonated–and had me typing up my own version.

Wake up early.
Work hard, believe in yourself, and be ambitious.
yes you can make the world better.

Know who you are
and who matters to you;
Keep your priorities straight,
and make yourself a priority.

Clear your mind of the junk,
check your emotions for sanity,
and keep your head up
even when you’re leagues under.

Do what you love,
love what you do,
and stop putting off starting.
You likely will never feel enough–
smart enough
strong enough
healed enough
ready enough

Something will always come up,
get in the way.
The timing might never be ‘right’
because there is never going to be a ‘right’ time,
a ‘better’ time
than now.

– C Pontrella, 2017

I have consistently heard from others the deep longing for change, growth, love–and seen no action. Fear, the desire for security, the longing for a sense of completion before continuation, the resistance of the uncomfortable or inconvenient.

Happiness requires risk taking. It’s a risk to quit your job, to travel to new places alone, to love. You might get hurt. Heck, no, you definitely will get hurt. But it’s not safer to stay at home and play it safe–in fact, that is the only path that guarantees unhappiness.

I like this picture, and having reminders in your life to take a leap, and to look for the places where you might just be holding back.

Do this: Write your own call to action. Start with the phrase “Wake up” and write your daily reminders to take risk, love deeply, live inquisitively….

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Change-making

“The biggest challenge is getting people to accept there is value in risk-taking. I think people today are afraid of risk (in its many forms) due to fear of the unknowns, lack of self-trust… but inherent, if not fundamental, to meaningful physical play is risk-taking.

So I argue: It’s actually more dangerous to NOT have spaces where you can take risks (safely) because then you’re never really going to be able to learn how to deftly navigate those complex emotions (fear, doubt, anxiety, etc) that you experience when facing something that really challenges you.”

I was invited to participate in Change Makers, an initiative lead by the director of Lean In NYC, and speak on parkour, play, design, and the importance of risk. I hope it inspires at least a few people to take the leap, try parkour, and find a way to add play into their everyday lives.

Check out the whole interview here.