#15 Don’t Underestimate Your Ability To Fly
~ 15 minute read time ~
Worry. Fear. Stress. Anxiety.
What purpose do they serve and why do they exist? Especially with all the fears around the pandemic and people having to deal with so much change in such a short timeframe, we’ve all been forced to pivot, then pivot again and take things on we may not have had to before.
Even before all this external stuff started affecting our lives on an international scale, I was always worried about the future. I carried a heavy feeling of concern and I’d never really addressed it until recently. I never really understood why I had such a sense of dread, or even why I kept thinking about the future. Living too long pondering the future, or the past, steals from your present experience.
Our human minds, if left to run wild, can create amazing, strange and often scary ‘realities’ which is why, I think, we all look for distractions to take our mind off things. Collectively, we spend billions on entertainment for escape, fortunes are spent on alcohol and comfort food to anaesthetise us against having to face ourselves and our thoughts. We spend time with people, who we may not even like, just so we’re never alone.
Imagine not being able to sit with yourself for any sustained period? Is this you? It was definitely me prior to the pandemic and resulting lockdown. I would fill my time with ‘busyness’ e.g. doing things with no real need other than for distraction, or go out shopping or watch trash TV or endlessly scroll on my phone just to not have to sit and be with myself. The lockdown forced me to turn inwards and face myself, and for long periods on my own too. I’d just moved out following a divorce and then the lockdown kicked in. Yikes!
I had nowhere and no-one to turn to, I had to learn to be with me and somehow figure out a way to start liking myself. I didn’t realise how much I really didn’t like myself. Looking back at my past behaviours it’s pretty obvious now - I used to engage in self-destructive behaviours, I carried anger around, I drank and ate too much, I gained weight and abused my body, I wasted money on nonsense material things. In short, I was a deeply unhappy soul for a long time.
In a weird way, I’m hugely grateful for all of the trials and tribulations that have happened in my life. I’m grateful for the pain of divorce as it provided the route to awakening. I’m full of gratitude for the lockdown, although I couldn’t see it as a positive at the time. By suddenly having lots of time by myself I had a choice. I could choose to feel lonely and sad, or I could choose to embrace solitude and empower myself.
Having read and been inspired by stoic philosophy (check out Ryan Holiday’s superb Daily Stoic website to learn more) I realised the only thing over which I had any kind of power was my decision-making. I could choose my reaction to the situation, I could choose how I wanted to respond to the global pandemic, I could choose how to deal with such uncertainty especially as we were all in it.
Which word do you prefer - loneliness or solitude? I prefer solitude because it describes a choice, a powerful state of being and choosing to spend time by oneself. Loneliness sounds like an enforced, passive state where a victim mentality prevails. You see how language affects thought and vice versa. It’s powerful stuff.
“Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.”
Solitude during the lockdown allowed me to go inwards, meditate, think, exercise and become grounded in my body aligning it with my mind. I started being kinder to myself, I showed up for myself everyday through routines e.g. waking early, exercising, eating healthily, switching off the news, choosing to not own a TV, choosing the information I consumed and generally making better choices for myself.
If you choose what you consume you have better control over the outputs - e.g. your energy levels, your thoughts, your behaviours, your emotions. Better in means better out. If the News stresses you out, stop watching or reading it. Ultimately, modern news is not fact-based anymore therefore carries little value. I remained aware of what I needed to, but was strict with limiting the nonsense. Same with my diet, I increased my intake of vegetables and reduced the bad food.
We are what we eat!
I soon realised that when I ate less sugar etc and actually gave my body the nutrition it needed, my thoughts became less negative and I had better quality thinking. Our brains are an organ just like our hearts, kidneys and livers - except the brain is the seat of the mind. We know if we consume too much alcohol, our liver function starts to struggle.
We must realise then, that our brains struggle when we make poor nutritional choices. Treats are still ok, but we must seek a nutritious diet if we hope to improve our minds and therefore our thinking and behaviours.
When I began to make healthier choices I could feel my body healing itself, equally my broken thinking from my previous life was beginning to heal too. It was amazing. It’s a slow process and there are still negative thoughts here and there but now I can ride out the rough waves much better.
As I became more aware and conscious of my choices and my thinking, I had a breakthrough about why I’d always had so much fear, anxiety and stress about the future.
“A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because its trust is not on the branch but on its own wings.”
I realised that I didn’t have any belief in myself. I was worried about potential future situations that may or may not come to pass because I didn’t have any belief in my own skills to fix or resolve them. Unlike the bird who trusts its own wings more than it trusts the branch and therefore has belief in its own abilities, I was fully dependent on the branch not breaking and I lived in fear for the day that it would one day break. It’s a horrible place to live your life.
Now, thanks to the time afforded to me in this pandemic, I’ve condensed the equivalent of 2-3 years worth of self-development, learning and growth into 6-7 months and I’m starting to grow that belief in myself. I’m sprouting the wings I need to enable me to thrive for when the branch breaks.
Now I’m building a belief in myself that I never had before. My body is healthier than it’s ever been. My mind is stronger, more resilient and more creative than it’s ever been. You can do the same.
It has been a truly painful yet worthwhile transformation, and it’s still ongoing. I’m not arrogant enough to even think I’m anyway near where I need to be, but I know I’m on a path towards where I want to go. Whereas before, I had no hope for the path I was on and I felt stuck.
Knowing what I’ve been through and what it takes to become better, there is no secret sauce, there is no magic pill to changing. The only advice I can offer is to sit with the discomfort, feel the pain and don’t try to escape it - move through it and use it. Lean in most where it hurts. It’s grim but that’s where the healing is. Talk yourself through any painful thoughts, eventually you’ll be able to discern between the useful protecting thoughts versus the unhelpful negative ones which come from your primeval lizard brain.
When you have a massage, the knots and the sore bits are the areas that the masseur will focus on the most and it hurts like a mofo - these are the places that need the most work! Same with your emotions. If you turn inwards and find something that you don’t like, don’t run away from it - move towards it and engage with it. Battle those demons, make friends with your negative thoughts and listen to what they’re trying to tell you.
Pain is just information. Information leads to knowledge and, as we all know, knowledge is power. Step into your power and use it as a vehicle for positive change.
Use your pain and turn it into your superpower!
Sorry it’s not a sexy shortcut to a quick win, but it is empowering. You can’t buy your way to enlightenment and the life you wish you had, you have to make the tiny incremental changes each day to get where you want to be or to become who you want to be. It’s hard as Hell which is why most people try and stay in their comfort zones.
Read the books you know will help, or at least listen to audiobooks or podcasts if you’re not a big reader, do the exercise - no-one else can sweat for you.
The trouble is, until your discomfort and pain become so loud that you can’t stand it, you’ll probably make do and never change. Some people wait until a cancer diagnosis, or a health scare or some other kind of near-death experience to finally make life changes. Please don’t wait for that when you can do something now. Prevention is better than cure.
Why wait for catastrophe as a mechanism for change? Granted, I had to wait until a failed marriage came along and slapped me in the face, before I really started doing the inner work that desperately needed doing. I had started to make some changes leading up to that, but I was still mostly asleep at the wheel of my life.
Also, I’d had years and years of physical pain, back pain, tendonitis, migraines, inflammation and other ailments before I realised enough was enough. My quality of life was compromised and something needed to change.
“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him… We need not wait to see what others do.”
I could barely walk into the office most days and sitting at my desk was agony. Looking back now I can’t believe I allowed it to go on for so long. If I hadn’t done anything, I dread to think what health issues I’d be sleep-walking into over the next 5-10 years.
By making small consistent changes in your thinking, in the way you speak to yourself and others and then in your resulting actions, they’ll accrue into much bigger life changes over time. You’ll then discover the body’s natural ability to heal itself and become healthy, you’ll also uncover the mind’s strength for resilience and creating new realities. You’ll manifest through your own creativity with the ability to live the life you want.
Be like the bird on the branch, trust your wings. Firstly, you must grow your wings (with new thoughts, words, actions and habits) and then use them (fully believe in your ability to achieve, put it into practice and then back yourself no matter what) to fly towards your dreams.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
You’ve got this.
Love
LP x
