A person who never learned to trust confuses intensity with intimacy, obsession with care, and control with security.”
Patrick Carnes, MD
Always Ill, Never Dies
So many of us daily subject ourselves to numerous emotional, physical, and mental toxins: A job we feel secure in but provides us no challenge, a relationship we’ve cultivated over years that no longer provides sustenance in return, a substance used recreationally that we’ve allowed ourselves to become dependent upon. We avoid physical activity because we are lazy, we eat junk because it is convenient, we watch tv because we don’t want to think. We find new and creative ways to distract ourselves and ignore our true needs.
Even when we can see and feel the harm being done, we continue to indulge ourselves in these things that make our souls sick. Why?
For many, it is hopeless human optimism mixed with fear of change and laziness that keeps one firmly in place.
First, often, the things making us sick do not start at out as toxins. In fact, they may have been critical to our journeys of self. But just as a child outgrows his clothes, we too often outgrow parts of our life (or they outgrow us). This is completely natural. It is only when we insist upon keeping those clothes that we find ourselves increasingly uncomfortable–optimistic we could squeeze another year or two out of them when in fact all we are doing is suffocating ourselves. We keep thinking it can’t be ‘that, bad.
Second, these things that make our souls sick are usually deeply embedded in our conditioned understanding of how life should be–and present for a long time. We’ve grown dependent, reliant, afraid. We fear attempting to change developed patterns and lifestyles because there is no certainty in what comes next. We hate uncertainty.
And finally, its easier to not. It is easier to ignore than to confront, excuse than address, sleep than to wake. We seek out the path of least resistance.
And by ignoring these things that make us sick, we are bombarded with their symptoms: emotional distress or numbness, depression, anxiety, unease. We complain, we seek out temporary escape, we make excuses. But the longer we indulge in these poisons, the hard it is to break free. We become addicted to our chosen illness, for it is all we know.
It doesn’t help either that, in trying to change, we often face the potential for great hurt–either ourselves or others in our lives. At some point, all illnesses can advance far enough to affect those around us. They join us in our sickness, find themselves sick too. If not for our sake, for theirs, we must face and break free from the things that make our soul sick.
Daily Reminder
Line 5 from Hex 16 of the I-Ching, when paired in change, can be interpreted as “Always Ill, But Never Dies”. I read this and am reminded today to examine where in my life am I allowing poison to seep in? What in my life have I outgrown?
Do not be afraid to let go the things you’ve outgrown. Yes, there may be fear and pain, but in passing through that fear and accepting the pain that comes with growth, we free ourselves to pursue our fuller potential.
Onwards!
It’s Easy to Be Unhappy
It is easy to be unhappy.
It is easy to focus on the day to day distractions while avoiding the bigger, underlying issues. It is easy to deflect and blame others, to make excuses for yourself or a situation. It is easy to take the low road, to give that person ‘just one more’ chance, to ‘wait and see’ how things play out, to sit in the safety of inaction.
But happiness requires action. It requires rolling up your sleeves, pulling on your boots, and hiking up the mountain you’ve been avoiding–and sometimes all night, through sleet, snow, and storm. It requires thinking and work, a little risk, and, sometimes, pain.
…And it is more effort than most of us are willing to make, more risk than we are willing to face. We would rather sit in the unhappiness, endure an unfulfilling job, live in a place we hate, stay in a relationship that is toxic, than risk being more unhappy than we already are. We are afraid to make that risk. But without taking that risk, we also have no chance at happiness.
Worse, the danger with tolerating unhappiness in your life is that unhappiness has an intrinsically infectious quality. It can start in one corner of your life and slowly seep into the rest if left unaddressed. While we can often contain our unhappiness for a time, manage it, ignore it, live with it and convince ourselves to be content, this fix is only temporary. Soon enough it will grow to be present in so many aspects of our life that we simply won’t be able to ignore it, and pain becomes a certainty.
So, before it gets to that point, ask yourself today:
- What’s stopping you from being happy? Why?
- What big problem or toxic person are you avoiding dealing with?
If you can’t quite figure it out the root of it all, or if you feel like you have a lot of things going on, try making a list. Don’t over think it the process. Set aside 5 minutes and write everything that comes to your mind that makes you unhappy. From there, choose the three things that give you the most stress, anxiety, or fear.
Once you’ve narrowed it down, then ask:
- What can I do today, in the present, to start addressing this?
Even if it is as small as acknowledging the problem out loud. Take steps today to identify the roots of your unhappiness and a map leading up and away from it. Then, tomorrow, take the first step.
I’ll tell you right now, yes, it might not work out, You might get lost along the way, or hurt. You might end up somewhere completely unexpected or unhappy in a different way. But, without any action, there is also no hope for happiness.
As Aristotle wrote, Happiness depends upon ourselves.
-Caitlin Pontrella
Life doesn’t wait until you’re ready.
“Life doesn’t wait until you’re ready. While we’re busy developing ourselves, time is quickly zooming on: Favoring those who are not ready either but who want to try anyway. Who want to challenge themselves by taking chances. Who want to grow into being ready. And who aren’t afraid to look a little stupid while they’re figuring things out.
The big steps in life – the big leaps forward – never wait until we’re ready to take them. That connection you’ve been too scared to make. That person you’ve been too scared to love. That job you’ve been dreaming about for as long as you can remember – none of them are waiting to waltz into your life as soon as you’re emotionally prepared for them.
We become strong by first being weak. We become capable by first being incapable. And we become ready by first being entirely unprepared. The goal isn’t to know everything right away. The goal is to waltz into the unknown and declare yourself worthy and capable of being there. To live out the chaos until it’s clear.”
Read the whole article on Thought Catalogue
Familiarity vs Mastery: Break the “I Know” Mindset
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”— Epictetus
Want to know the biggest block to growth? These two words:
“I know”
I constantly encounter this phrase from students in the classes I teach, especially where we work on our foundational movements. I hear it from fellow coaches when discussing how to improve class experience. I hear it from myself, even, as I receive critique and feedback about the things I need to work on, and see it sometimes in my practice as I avoid working certain skills.
In some cases it’s because we think we know better, in others its because we think we know more, and sometimes it’s because we think we know enough. And while this I Know mindset might block out unuseful, unsolicited advice, it also makes us blind and deaf to information that might actually help us grow.
The I Know mindset most commonly emerges in places where we long to appear competent, superior, or one of the group. It feeds on our fear of failure and shame, as well as our resistance to critique and lack of humility. It grows in our lack of self-awareness. And it kills any hope for achieving mastery–in your movement, work, and life.
Familiarity vs Mastery
The I Know Mindset is wild.
During class yesterday we worked on our jumping. As I began reviewing good form and walking through the lesson, one student pointed out that we learned jumping last week and that they wanted to learn something new. In response, I began setting up a number of different challenges. I walked over to a rail and asked-can you jump to this and land without falling? I pointed to the steps – can you jump up these steps, 2,3,4 at a time all the way to the top without stopping? Jump and land while ducking? Jump with one leg? Precisely?
It’s easy to confuse familiarity with mastery. My student understood the fundamental elements of jumping but lacked the ability to masterfully deploy his skills across a number of situations. His ‘I Know’ mindset limited his vision.
‘I know’ is often a declaration that we are superior to practice, that we have completed the circle, that there is nothing left to learn from the knowledge we already have.
Yes, developing brand new skills can be very exciting. It expands language, reveals new challenges, and, without doubt, can assist in helping overcome tougher physical, intellectual, and motivational plateaus.
But, if you are to truly master your movement or mind and achieve life-long, sustainable physical and mental fitness, you must be consistently developing both laterally and deeply. It requires coming from a place of constant inquiry and the rejection of the ‘I Know’. It requires constantly seeking out how to see differently, do better, create new things with old tools.
The work on our minds and bodies only completes when life completes.
Do Better
Ask Yourself: Where in your life are you saying “I Know?” What triggers it (desire to belong, to appear competent, boredom, etc)?
Find new places to test out old skills, new people to talk through established beliefs. Try different approaches, even if you think your approach is better.Take your skills and practice in a new location
“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” – Arnold Bennett
“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. ” – Bruce Lee
Good time to reflect. Where am I limiting myself?