Confidants, Constituents and Comrades
Life will always present us with situations that help us evaluate the quality of relationships we have with the people in our lives, either meaningful or otherwise. With situations of this ilk also comes an opportunity to assess and streamline relationship boundaries. Subtraction is addition - reducing the size of one’s circle can also present an opportunity to narrow down on the entities that remain therein, and as such foster and feed meaningful relationships. By virtue of recent life events, I was blessed with one of such opportunities, an opportunity to decipher with clarity, people in my life that simply love me, unconditionally.
We are typically confronted with or connected to three different types of people in our lives. Confidants, Constituents, and Comrades.
Confidants are those people in your life that love you unconditionally and who are 100% into you as a person. They are strong allies and secret keepers - Your secrets (good or bad) are safe with them. A confidant loves you simply for you, they are not just there for the ride. They will go through thick and thin with you, come hell or high waters. Even when life strips you of all your earthly possessions, they will still be there. They will celebrate your highs, and support you through your lows. When you lose your vision, are disillusioned by your dreams or down in the doldrums, they will stand by you. Few and far between, we’re only blessed with a handful of them in a lifetime. They are divinely interwoven into the fabric of your life, divinely made for you as you are for them. “Without them, one may never fulfil one’s divine destiny”.
Constituents unlike confidants are not into you, they are only into what you stand for. As long as you stand for what they stand for, they will walk with you and graft with you, “but never think that they are for you, they are for what you are for.” Should they encounter someone else who will advance their agenda, they will jettison you and align with that other person’s vision. Akin somewhat to politicians, Constituents believe in what you believe, but never be mistaken by what the constituent is really about, they are only there for the ride or when the going is good. Nonetheless, constituents are important because they do believe in your cause and will support you through it. It is increasingly difficult to decipher the difference between a Constituent and a Confidant. Sadly, only when you’re in desperate need, trouble or somewhat separated from what they love can you tell that the constituent doesn’t love you, and that they were only there for what you stood for.
Comrades interestingly don’t like you for you, neither do they like what you’re for, they just hate what you hate - “You have a common enemy”. Figuratively, that common enemy could be a person, a policy or political administration. They will go to battle with you against the common enemy, but remember to keep your armour on once the battle is won, because they can turn round and thrust their sword into you. “Similar to scaffolding, they come into your life to fulfil a purpose, and when the purpose is complete, the scaffolding is removed”. Refrain from being upset when the scaffolding is removed…because the building remains.”
Conclusively, it is no news that one’s degree of success is intricately connected to the quality of people you’re surrounded by. Oftentimes we have difficulty letting certain people go which in turn prevents us from focusing on and nurturing our meaningful relationships. Understand and accept that people may come and go. Celebrate their purpose, and be happy your paths crossed in the journey of life. Be grateful for your confidants, they are the people in your life that truly believe in you, and your dreams. Hold onto your confidants…they are blessings.
Remember - “False friends are like autumn leaves, everywhere. True friends are like spring leaves, evergreen.”
Peace, Love & Light,
Learned Helplessness
We are supernatural beings created in the image and likeness of God - “We are created to Create”. This is evident in the myriad advancements and exploits we humans have made since existence and how we continually evolve to break new grounds in all facets of life.
An amalgam of the human “brain and mind” is what separates us from other creatures. It is an intricately designed super-computer which makes us multidimensional and puts us hierarchically at the acme of all living things, and in proximity to the divine. Begs the question, “if we’re all created with such supernatural ability, why do most of us perform below our inherently infinite capability?”.
Underperformance in comparison to one’s limitless capabilities may be attributed to a plethora of reasons, but one underpinning element that limits or shackles most of us is our “mindset”. Mindset according to the Oxford English Dictionary are our established set of beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions we create about ourselves. They are our views on how the world works, what we believe we’re capable of or deserve, and what is possible.
Unsurprisingly, we’re not born with pre-installed mindsets. If anything, we come into the world with limitless potential. As we journey through life, we learn these fixed and limiting ways of thinking from people in our lives and the culture we experience from our upbringing through to adulthood.
Think of a young circus elephant shackled to a stake in the ground. As a baby, hard as it may try, the elephant isn’t strong enough to pull up the stake. Over years of learning its efforts of unshackling itself from the stake in the ground are futile, it eventually stops trying and succumbs to the limitations put on it. As it grows in stature, it undoubtedly gains sufficient size and strength to unshackle itself, but it remains tamed and tied up by something infinitesimal in comparison it its power and ability. This is due to a mindset propagated on what it’s learned over the years - psychologists term this as “learned helplessness”.
Sadly, most of us behave like the aforementioned elephant. At some point in life, people or experiences have put on us limitations which are contrary to the inherent potential we’re born with, and as such, our belief of what we’re capable of has been set at that limiting level ever since. Good news is - just as helplessness is learned, it is also possible to learn to be limitless. Therefore, my charge to self and you the reader this week is to learn and begin living a limitless mindset which is directly proportional to the infinite potential we are created with.
Remember - “You’re Braver that you Believe, Stronger than you Seem and Smarter than you Think” - Christopher Robin.
Peace, Love and Light.
Purpose
“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?”. This is a quote by Charles Bukowski, one that has lingered in the corridors of my mind for the last couple of weeks as I grappled with the thought of crossing a significant milestone in the journey of life and at the same time pondering on the outlook for the second phase of this complex and compelling journey.
I suppose what Bukowski meant by the aforementioned quote is that typically as children, we tend to come into this world with some form of identity and a gift: We know who we are, what we like and don’t like, and in some cases, we know what we typically enjoy doing as well was what we don’t enjoy doing. This ideology is further corroborated by research in the field(s) of morphic resonance and collective consciousness which infer that we tend to come into this world with unique gifts or talents which if harnessed appropriately, can enable us to have our predestined impact in this world.
However, as we grow older and navigate the intriguingly complex journey of life, “the world” imposes on us another sort of identity, which is shaped by external influences and experiences. The world tells us who we should be.
According to works by Dr. Joe Dispenzer (whom I have a lot of time for by the way), 95% of who we are by the time we’re 35 years old is a set of memorised behaviours and emotional reactions to life’s experiences that in turn create one’s identity subconsciously. He further posits that our Personality - an amalgam of these said behaviours (learned and taught) and experiences in turn dictates our Personal Reality.
One could argue that for most of us, our current “personal reality” in this paradigm called life isn’t quite our Purpose - “Our reason for being”. This is a harsh reality that confront us mostly during moments of personal reflection. However uncomfortable this harsh reality might seem, seeking one’s higher purpose remains the true meaning of life. Tenets of faith and philosophy agree that our “purpose” (our reason for being) is something hidden deep inside us, something we’re born with, albeit it requires an equally patient and persistence search to find it.
As I continue on my journey to ascertain and live my purpose, I implore you to also seek your reason for being and to find a way to live it everyday in a manner that embodies happiness and significance.
Remember - “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” - Pablo Picasso
Peace, Love & Light,
Equanimity
In a world characterised by a relentless pace of change, it’s often said that one has to literally “run to stand still”. With events evolving at a relentless pace, we humans naturally tend to make an attempt at keeping up with the pace at which things are happening. In the process, we consume a barrage of information constantly thrown at us, proverbially “trying to drink water from a fire hose” - which isn’t only overwhelming but nigh impossible.
Research shows that “every single minute” in today’s world, an average of 204 Million e-mails are sent, 694 Billion songs are streamed, 350 Thousand tweets shared, 510 Thousand comments posted on Facebook and 3.4 Million videos are watched on YouTube. The aforementioned data only goes to show that the world we live in is rather overwhelming and one can be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed. “We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness”to quote the legendary Tom Waits.
The innovations and inventions designed to bring solutions to our lives now serve as daily distractions. These said distractions put us out of kilter with self, others and the myriad opportunities that exist in the multidimensional universe we exist in. The current zeitgeist is a world that has rapidly evolved with tools that strip away the truths that typically come to us in moments of solitude. We’re now constantly bombarded by a cacophony of noise at a speed we can barely maintain let alone manage.
However, with speed comes the cost of focus and clarity. It is hard to maintain the focus and clarity of truths that come to us in states of solitude and equanimity in the midst of the masses or myriad things made to distract us. As such, the benefits of some form of meditation or quiet time can not be overstated in the current paradigm. Great is He/She that can find calm amidst the chaos. For when you do, everything becomes clearer and you find the pathway that leads to peace and fulfilment in life’s journey.
So, my charge to Self and You (the reader) is to always find time in each passing day to pause. To intentionally create distance between ourselves and the distractions disguised to serve us. To intentionally seek balance and a state of equanimity in all of life’s endeavours.
Remember - Everything in moderation. Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy - Voltaire
Peace, Love & Light,
The Paradise We Seek
The age old biblical allegory of the “Tower of Babel” bears a strong semblance to current happenings and perhaps where we are today as a species. For those that aren’t familiar with this allegory, according to its metaphoric depiction, a united human race in the generations following the great flood that destroyed the earth all spoke a single language after migrating eastward to the land of Shinar. In their quest for human advancement, they agreed to build a city and a tower tall enough to reach heaven - a metaphoric expression of trying to attain the infinite through finite means. They built relentlessly high into the sky only to realise they were still short of their target - heaven. God, observing their city and tower, confounds their speech so that they no longer understood each other, and scatters them around the world.
Similarly, human advancement has rapidly progressed since the Tower of Babel. We’ve been to the Moon, invented the internet and explored life on other planets. Since the emergence of civilisation and then technology, we’ve continuously lived under the false promise that we’re just one more invention away from being ushered into the utopia we seek. We subconsciously build our own Tower of Babel in the hope of reaching heaven or perhaps a proverbial paradise, but it appears that the very innovations proffered to drive us forward somewhat divide us.
I was recently reminded what happiness truly was by Koffi Winston, a remarkable human being who happens to be the cleaner at a fitness and wellbeing club where I’ve been a member for several years. Bearing in mind the rigorous demands of having to routinely clean after several people for 6 days a week, which includes but not limited to the gym floor, men’s toilet and showers, it occurred to me that for the several years I’d religiously attended the club, I’d never seen Winston without a big smile permanently plastered on his face. So I asked him how he manages to remain constantly upbeat despite the pains of having to do such a tedious job. He expressed importantly the pleasure as well as the privilege he’s been giving to have a job that allows him to serve vast range of humans with meaningful interactions, not to mention that the remuneration also affords him a unique opportunity to build a home back in his motherland of Ghana where he plans to retire with whatever is left.
It was humbling. It’s not to say Winston wouldn’t have bad days, but its a gentle reminder that true happiness is not a transient experience of getting what we want, but a joy that radiates from our core. When we stop trying to build a tower to heaven and take a moment to look around us, we’ll realise that we’re already in heaven. We are divine beings - “the paradise we seek is already within us”.
Remember - “The Mind is its own place, and in itself can make Heaven of Hell, and Hell of Heaven” - John Milton
Peace, Love & Light.
The Infinite Game
From creation, we humans have always lived as individuals co-existing within communities. Our advancement as a species can be primarily attributed to our collective efforts and collaboration towards the common goal(s) of survival and evolution. However, for reasons contrary to that which always ensured we not only survive but thrive, we now see ourselves on the cusp of an existential crisis. We’ve somewhat departed from that which served us well, becoming more individualistic as opposed to collaborative; selfish as opposed to selfless. We’ve become blindsided by playing the infinite game of life using finite rules.
In 1987, Dr. James P. Carse’s work articulated two types of games - finite and infinite games. He defined the finite game as a game of known players, fixed rules and an agreed upon object e.g football. There’s always a beginning, middle and an end, and for someone to win, the another has to lose. Conversely, in an infinite game, there are known and unknown players, meaning new players can join at anytime. The rules are changeable and evolving, and the objective is to perpetuate the game. Going by Dr. Carse’s work, it turns out we’re players in infinite games everyday of our lives - You can win an election but you can’t win politics, You can finish top of your class but you can’t win education; You can live from one day to the next, but you can’t win the game of life.
Today’s increasingly individualistic mindset which has narrowed our vision more on self, and myopically focuses more on winning or being the best makes it abundantly clear that we’re playing an infinite game with a finite mindset. When we play to win in a game that has no finish line, it only depicts that we don’t understand the game we’re playing in, let alone the rules to play by. Just as the sky is big enough that birds fly and never touch, the playing field is big enough that us humans can be largely successful without competing against one another.
Our world has become toxically competitive, and we’ve gradually departed from a collective and infinite mindset that worked for the greater good and advancement of the species. We’re increasingly embracing a finite and competitive mindset where winning isn’t satisfactory enough except we see someone else lose which is laughable because there’s no such thing as winning in the infinite game of life which we unconsciously play everyday. Competition is meant to serve as motivation for innovation, and when we compete mainly to beat other competitors, it defeats its purpose and the greater good of the collective - it destroys cooperation, innovation and trust amongst ourselves.
Bear in mind, “the infinite game is not the absence of finite games”, its the context to which those games exist that matter. There’s nothing wrong with metrics, tracking progress or winning but the question we ought to always ask ourselves is - “To what end?”. “You want to make money, to what end?” Most significant people from Andrew Carnegie to Fela Kuti have always anchored their purpose to the greater good of the collective. Obsessively continuing down a finite path is fraught with the danger of an existential crisis.
Remember - “Do not take the game of life too seriously. No one is getting out of it alive.” - Elbert Hubbard
Peace, Love & Light,
Being Present
There’s a beautiful anecdote in the historic Sanskrit text - The Mahabharat in which a student asked a teacher, “what is the most incredible lesson in life?”. The teacher responds by saying - “The most incredible lesson in life is that we see people die all around us but we never believe it will be us”. Current happenings like the global “Covid-19” pandemic is perhaps an apropos case in point. We hear of a plethora of people dying daily due to a mysterious virus, it forces us to rethink our approach to life for a moment knowing this could well be us but then moments later, complacency sets back in.
I recently had the pleasure of listening to Will Smith speak about the loss of his father and the invaluable lesson that experience taught him. Bearing in mind most people don’t get a forewarning about death as it often happens suddenly, Will spoke positively and inspiringly about the fortuitous gift of time they had to bond even though the prognosis was that his father only had 6weeks to live following a terminal cancer diagnosis. He went on to say, that despite their differences and all his childhood traumas, he and his father had the rare opportunity to mend broken bridges. Living in the vivid reality that his father only had 6 weeks to live, they ensured that every time they spent in each other’s company was memorable. Luckily, his father lived for an additional 3months, and they were afforded the unique opportunity to revel in being present in every hello(s) and goodbye(s) whenever they saw one another knowing each moment could well be their last.
Moral of the story is, every time we say “goodbye” to someone, we can’t know if it's the last time we’ll see them. Life is always like this, yet we live in delusional denial that every moment could be the last. Despite obvious distractions (e.g Technology), we ought to learn to be present in the richness of our experiences with one another. We ought to refine our attention with clear recognition that for all beings, tomorrow isn’t promised. We ought to rid ourselves of the delusion that we have an opportunity of “tomorrow” to do that which we left undone “today”.
So my charge to Self and You this week is to endeavour to “Be Present”. To attempt to mend broken relationships with friends or family and to value every “Hello” and “Goodbye” like it was our last. To genuinely mean it when you ask someone “how they are” and to be present in the meaningful moments of life.
Remember - “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift...that's why they call it present” - Master Oogway
Peace, Love & Light.
Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect
“You can’t pour from an empty cup”. First you have to fill your cup, then pour into others. In other words, “you have to be more to give more”.
I beg your pardon for my radio silence of the last few weeks. Asides the fact that I’ve been preoccupied by personal life events that demanded my undivided attention, I’ve also been in the school of life, learning to be more, that I may give more. Suffice to say that in the time I’ve been away, invaluable lessons were learned, particularly the paradoxical and humbling realisation of how far I’ve come in my journey of self-realisation, yet how little I’ve grown and still, how great I can be.
Perhaps the most pleasing thing about this platform is that I get to teach all the things I need to learn, and every time you teach something you’ve learned, you get to learn it twice. As I’ve alluded to a number of times, all of the topics I write about oftentimes highlight areas of my own life that I’m ‘challenged by’ and ‘working on’ which I try to journalise and share. So I write humbly as an avowed student of the school of life and by no means a finished article as some might assume.
In the words of Peter Crone, “life will present you with people and circumstances to reveal areas of life where you’re not free”. Even though I’d long committed myself to a growth path, accrued significant hours in daily meditation and the deliberate seeking of wisdom, all of which I assumed amounted to growth, life reminded me quickly that the journey I embarked on is indeed a perpetual cycle and that one can’t play the infinite game using finite rules.
Some events in recent weeks revealed a gamut of emotions/behaviours I thought I’d jettisoned, which in turn revealed areas of my life that still require deep work. My point is, we learn these principles, think we know them, then life teaches us that it does take a life-time to realise them. You don’t get to learn it, know it and be done. It is a moment to moment practice to deal with the complexities of this world in a way that is loving and kind to oneself and others. In this perpetually perplexing paradigm called life, it becomes increasingly wise to admit our own foolishness, and to continuously seek to free ourselves from the darkness of our own ignorance by constantly cultivating a deeper seeking, understanding and practice of the absolute truth. Life is school, Life is the greatest teacher, we just have to be willing and submissive students.
Remember - “Practice doesn’t make perfect, it merely reduces imperfections” - Toba Beta
Peace, Love and Light.
Forgiveness
Ironically, only the people closest to us deal us the hardest blows. Sad as this may sound, it is the reality of the complex tapestry of life. We undoubtedly feel more hurt when aggrieved by those we hold near and dear as we least expect them to be the very ones to cause us pain, and it doesn’t help that their close proximity to us means the impact is felt even harder.
I can safely assume that everyone reading this has experienced some semblance of hurt or pain caused by someone they trust and hold dear. The hurt creates a huge conflict in our minds as to how we move past such an experience which produces a profoundly negative emotion permanently etched in one’s memory. Recently I felt this type of hurt from someone I hold dear and it felt impossible to move past the hurt they caused, but serendipitously I came across some invaluable teachings in a book I read thereafter which has helped me immensely and i’ve paraphrased some of its texts herein.
Oftentimes in situations of this ilk, we feel so deeply hurt that we can’t even begin to imagine how we might forgive the person who hurt us. Ancient wisdom suggests that we must always bring patience and forbearance to our dealings with others, as most people are running on a subconscious programme or mindset without being mindful of the hurt they caused/may cause another person. As such, forgiveness ought to be an essential practice we incorporate into our daily lives, and contrary to what most of us believe, forgiveness is primarily an action we take within ourselves. Sometimes it’s better (safer/healthier) not to have direct contact with the person at all; other times, the person who hurt us might not even acknowledge they’ve done so, or no longer be around to be forgiven directly. But those factors shouldn’t impede forgiveness because it is, first and foremost, internal. Forgiveness frees us from anger which in itself is a destructive and self-sabotaging emotion.
In forgiveness, we must always seek the strength and calmness to forgive without expecting an apology or anything else in return. Forgiveness is a two-way street, pain affects both people and we must also understanding and address the role we may have played in the situation that transpired that may have led to the actions of the person that caused us hurt, and then forgive ourselves and our transgressors. It is also worth adding that forgiveness is a demonstration of strength, being able to assume the role of a peacemaker in a conflict and in turn forgive requires immense strength. The pinnacle of self actualisation is being able to forgive a person who has caused us hurt and still wish them well. Forgiveness is good for everyone and even known to have significant stress/health related benefits. When we make forgiveness a regular part of our spiritual practice, we undoubtedly start to notice all of our relationships blossoming.
Remember - “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” - Mahatma Gandhi
Peace, Love & Light,
B.J.O
Interested or Committed?
It is important to mention that most of the things I write about in these weekly journals are mainly topics I’m also challenged by, learning about and addressing in my own personal life. Journaling about them is immeasurably helpful. Not only does it feel rewarding to share it with a wider audience just so we continually elevate one another’s wisdom and consciousness, but more importantly it helps me decompress and creates headspace as it’s easy to get overwhelmed by one’s thoughts and ideas.
Oftentimes (typically at the start of a new year) we set goals which are usually tied to a futuristic state or where we see ourselves by a certain period in our lives e.g when we’ll like to retire, how much money we’ll like to have, where we’ll live and even perhaps what charitable things we’ll like to be involved with to mention a few. While all of these goals/dreams are achievable, an underpinning factor that determines how intently and relentlessly we pursue them is dependent on whether we’re merely interested in achieving them or if we’re committed to achieving them.
Some may ask, what’s the difference? General observation is that when we’re merely interested, we tend to do what is easy or convenient. When we’re merely interested, we come up with all the stories, excuses and reasons as to why it may prove difficult to achieve these goals. If we’re merely interested, all the obstacles and hurdles that may prevent us from achieving our goals tend to be bigger than our goals themselves. Perhaps its fair to add that every single excuse we have is valid (e.g lack of time or ability) but it is also worth knowing that one can either have the emotions as a result of the excuses we give or the progress as a result of the effort we make, but you can’t have both.
The antithesis is also true, when one is committed, we typically will do whatever it takes - we upgrade our knowledge, upgrade our skills, develop the beliefs and habits to match our goals and in turn achieve them. Research shows that commitment is arguably the most integral part in achieving any of our life goals. Once we set a goal and make a commitment to achieving it, the universe tends to meet us halfway by presenting us with people and circumstances to help achieve such goals.
So my question to Self and You (the reader) this week is apt “are you interested or are you committed?”
Remember - “Without commitment, you'll never start, but more importantly, without consistency, you'll never finish” - Denzel Washington
Peace, love and Light,
Reclaiming Your Agency
It’s safe to say we live in the most unique of times known to man where we’re are witnessing a sizeable shift in the paradigm which are akin to biblical proportions. As such, it becomes imperative to seek and stand in one’s truth in a period characterised by a relentless pace of change and seismic levels of uncertainty.
Furthermore, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that we no longer have universal barometers for measuring the truth and we have no idea who to truly rely on for a reliable narrative. Previously, journalists, political and religious leaders etc (to the degree which they were credible, ethical and skilled) used to be adjudicators of the truth, lending themselves as filters, helping us dispense with, information that aren’t worthy of our attention.
In current times however, where we’re buried under the weight of information disguised as knowledge, which is incessantly fed to us via a myriad of mediums at an overwhelming pace that we can barely consume let alone analyse or evaluate. Luckily, an intrinsic part of our creation is a spirit of discernment, like a musician that knows when an instrument is out of tune, we’re able to decipher to a reasonable extent when the truth is out of tune. This however requires a conscious effort of reclaiming one’s agency i.e taking responsibility for our own knowledge. It requires a conscious return to our own faculties of logic, ration and reason as opposed to externalising that responsibility to people or events outside our being.
Naturally, the human psyche tends to avoid responsibility, we prefer to blame outside events for our experiences. Our resistance to acknowledging that we have absolute agency over our lives is that part of us that’s afraid to take responsibility for our experiences. Unbeknownst to many, by externalising one’s authority or agency, we end up externalising our innate creator power and in turn give it up to others (e.g journalist, political and religious leaders).
As the old adage goes, “Knowledge is power”, and the only way to reclaim our authority or agency is to seek knowledge about things that are unknown to us. Since time immemorial, we’ve always had three ways of obtaining knowledge - (1) Through our Intuition, (2) Through what other people tell us to be true, and (3) Through our own research and critical thinking to discover answers and draw our own conclusions. It appears we’ve evolved to doing less of options (1 & 3) and doing more of option (2) which leaves us somewhat powerless.
The wonderful thing about knowledge is that it causes us to become conscious of things we were once unconscious of, and when we have a greater level of consciousness, we begin to see possibilities. Psychologically, we get energised by new knowledge, we get enlightened (filled with light). Enlightenment causes a change in energy, and a greater energy causes systems or patterns that were once stable to become unstable, to become chaotic. Chaos is just unpredictable order, an unravelling of old systems which eventually births novelty or newness.
Remember - That which doesn’t evolve dies. “People are destroyed for lack of knowledge” - Hosea 4:6
Peace, Love & Light,
B.J.O
Visualisation
Widely acknowledged as arguably the greatest physicist of all time, Albert Einstein once said and I quote - “imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
I always wondered why it is that whenever we admire something and imagine having it, we tend to see more of it around. For instance, if one admires a black Mercedes Benz cabriolet and imagined long enough what it’ll feel like owning one, chances are, one will being to see the same car, perhaps even in the very same specification drive past everywhere. Truth is, black Mercedes Benz Cabriolets have always been everywhere but never quite drawn to our consciousness prior to us imagining it.
Similarly, all our goals and aspirations are well within our grasp if only we spend sufficient time visualising and acting on achieving them. The interesting thing about visualisation is that it is common knowledge but not common practice. We all do it, albeit not intentionally, consciously and repeatedly enough when it comes to our personal goals and aspirations.
Visualisation is Simulation, hence in sports like Formula 1, race drivers expend endless hours practicing simulations of the race track so much so it becomes second nature to them and as such, they can visualise, manoeuvre and navigate every turn on the circuit(s) at break-neck speed of up to 350km/hr.
Research shows that when we close our eyes and engage our imagination, we activate the biggest centres of our brain known as the occipital lobe which is located in the fore brain and connected to the motor cortex that’s linked to the motivational circuit of our brain. This causes the release of a neurotransmitter known dopamine which our nervous system uses in sending chemical messages to the body. Dopamine is the chemical messenger responsible for signalling our feel-good feelings and makes us want to take action on what we’ve imagined.
So if we begin to visualise our goals or aspirations by seeing and feeling them in our imagination, our brain begins to create a mental movie in our subconscious mind. As the human brain prefers to conserve energy by creating habitual patterns, if one practices visualisation of one’s goals consciously, consistently and repetitiously, over time, the brain acquyesses by creating new neurological patterns that are congruent with one’s imaginations. As such, these new thoughts now become one’s dominant thoughts. So it’s no coincidence that, “as a man thinketh, so he is”.
Rather than focusing on feelings separation from that which we seek, my charge to self and you (the reader) is to focus more on visualising and manifesting all our heart desires.
Remember - “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein
Peace, Love and Light.
F.E.A.R
Renown as one of the greatest orators of his time as well as a motivational speaking grandee, Zig Ziegler had the most apt acronyms for one of man’s most prominent and inherent enemies - FEAR. He described fear as “False Evidence Appearing Real” which can either prompt one to “Forget Everything And Run” or “Face Everything And Rise” based on our choices.
Adaption to survival has been at the fulcrum of our existence since human evolution commenced circa two million years ago. As such, we have developed a counter-intuitive relationship with fear which in turn has become arguably the most limiting of our myriad challenges throughout our existence. Contrary to its original biological function of being an a help, fear has become a hindrance for most of us - “Fear kills Dreams”.
Imagine you were driving and all of a sudden, a warning light indicated on the dashboard, one’s natural reaction wouldn’t be to abandon the vehicle and flee the scene. Typically, the average person would take a moment to look and analyse what the warning sign is trying to draw their attention to (e.g low fuel or tyre pressure) and then act accordingly to address the situation. Similarly, FEAR is a signal or trigger in our subconscious mind to alert us that a real or imagined danger has percolated in the brain. As such, just like the warning light in a vehicle, fear ought to be an early warning mechanism for perceiving possible or imminent danger as opposed to a self limiting mechanism.
The limiting effect of fear is based on our learned counter-intuitive relationship with it otherwise known as our “fear response” which makes our brain trigger a reaction automatically based on our thoughts and experiences. The fear response part of our brain activates our sympathetic nervous system which causes one to either fight, flight or freeze. When a specific response to fear is learned repetitiously, it creates a habitual neurological pathway in the brain which makes us react the same way every time we perceive fear.
So how do we recalibrate our fear response mechanism? John Assaraf highlights two key steps in his book innercise. He explains that similar to how the human body achieves transformation through exercise, the human brain can also transform how it responds to fear through innercises whenever we find ourselves in a state of doubt, anxiety or stress;
Take Six, Calm the Circuit - Take six deep breaths. This will calm the sympathetic nervous system and activate the thinking faculty of the brain.
Awareness - Having awareness your thoughts, emotions and sensations without any judgement, blame or shame empowers us to observe the situation
Intentions - Once in the aforementioned observational mode, reflect on your intentions with a degree of clarity
Action - With clarity of intention, one can then take small actions towards one’s goal(s)
When practised consistently, these innercises can transform our brains by interrupting our learned fear response pattern and in turn develop new neurological pathways for how our brain responds to fear.
Remember - “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Peace, Love and Light,
Perspectives
I once heard an anecdote that if you stood on a corner of Time Square, one could view New York merely as a busy concrete jungle heaving with a horde of humans all in a hurry, and as such miss out on all of its beauty and splendour. However, a helicopter view of New York presents you with an entirely different perspective. It offers a breathtaking geographical landscape characterised by a plethora of skyscrapers, the imposing statue of liberty, lush green foliage of Central Park and the 315 mile long Hudson River to mention a few. Point is, what we see is all based our perspectives.
Similarly, one individual may look at life through a television news window, and it may appear as though we’re on the cusp of an armageddon with everything seemingly doom and gloom, while another individual looks through the window of their home with the view of another beautiful day filled with possibilities. It validates the idea that our experience in life is often determined not by life itself, but by our view of life. Yet, most of us are still fixated on attaining our idea of utopia through a change in circumstances as opposed to a change in our perspective of life. We all have a deeply ingrained belief that where we are isn’t where we ought to be based on our belief in the proverbial pursuit of happiness which is depicted to seem somewhat like a final destination.
Attempting to change all the circumstances of one’s life in order to get to this imaginary destination is undoubtedly a frustrating, futile and perpetual journey that never gets fulfilled as there’ll always be something to fix. On the contrary, one can create a life of liberation and happiness by simply switching one’s perspective of life, understanding and affirming that there’s nothing external in life that orchestrates our experiences. Rather, it’s the way we “interact with” or “respond to” that which is external that creates our internal experiences.
Recalibrating our mindset helps us understand that what we have utmost sovereignty over is the way we interact with our circumstances as opposed to being able to physically control circumstances. As such, our focus ought to always be on how we can find inner peace despite all that is going on around us, rather than believing that only a change in our circumstances can bring about a change in how we feel. We are never prisoners of whatever our situation is in life, rather, we’re simply prisoners of our own perspective of life. Our perception of limitations is what creates further constraints to us expanding into the unlimited possibilities that’s available to all of us.
Remember - “things are never quite as they seem, things are only as we choose to see them”.
Peace, Love and Light,
Perils of Perfectionism
Asides the obvious bias of Matthew McConaughey being one of my favourite actors, his 2014 Oscar winning speech for Best Actor (Dallas Buyers Club) is arguably one of my favourite speeches ever. I’ve watched it countless times., but if you’re yet to see it, or will like to see again, you can watch it here after reading this post.
In his speech, McConaughey uses a paradox of his hero being him in 10years, and yet, his hero always being 10years ahead of him. His analogy was a remarkable articulation of a man’s pursuit of his higher self, yet having awareness of the fact that “as humans, the idea of realising our true potential is a perpetual, eternal and infinite journey”. He was alluding to his pursuit of perfection albeit with a clear consciousness that perfection is an illusion no man will fully actualise.
Illogically, even though we know as humans that the very construct of the human paradigm is underpinned by imperfection, we still romanticise with this illusory idea of perfection. We tend to fix one end of the scale of our life’s journey at “perfection” (e.g when I get my dream life, everything will be perfect), and whenever we fall short of this imaginary end state, we hold grievances against ourselves and in turn suffer from the of the perils of perfectionism which are deeply rooted in feelings of self-judgement, unhappiness, unworthiness or inadequacy. The aforementioned validates research which posits that “Perfectionism” is a behavioural adaptation to insecurity and that the very idea that one feels the need of a particular end state to feel complete means there’s a fundamental inadequacy within self that requires compensation.
However, embracing an understanding that as humans, we are constant work in progress with no finite destination in the process of exploring our full potential makes it easier to pursue our purpose without constantly judging ourselves against a standard which in itself is an illusion.
As a recovering perfectionist myself, its been a long but rewarding road to the firm realisation that “Perfection” doesn’t exist. That I should always give myself permission to start, knowing I may make mistakes along the way and that failure isn’t fatal, rather, it’s a precursor to success. Furthermore, having an appreciation that all things are impermanent, imperfect and incomplete allows for being kind to oneself, understanding that the capacity of what is means to be human is something that is infinite.
Striving for perfection can be unhealthy, and as the sole adjudicator of our own progress in the journey of life, it is unfair to judge ourselves against an illusory standard which leads to us begrudging ourselves. However, iteratively seeking the best version of oneself is an ideal worth striving for albeit best done with an acknowledgement that it’s a perpetual pursuit and knowing that there isn’t an end to actualising one’s potential, because if there is indeed an end to the game, then the game itself will be boring. “Keep trying. As long as you’re trying, you’re not failing”.
Remember - “Never become perfect, because you’ll have no one to relate to” - Peter Crone
Peace, Love and Light,
Death births Life
Today happens to be my mother’s posthumous birthday, she would have been Seventy-nine years old today.
Reflecting on what a day like this would typically mean sparked up a huge wave of nostalgia about - her passing ten years ago, the emotional turmoil from the pain of separation that ensued soon after, and the journey of self discovery/healing that’s brought me full circle to where I am now.
Obvious as it sounds, she was the first human I bonded with upon my arrival on planet earth forty odd years ago, and losing her was the first time I experienced such depths of despair caused by the loss of someone that meaningful. As humans, our primordial instinct is always about survival and as such we’ve developed a negative relationship with and resistance to the idea of death which in turn prevents us from fully living. It’s normal for the loss of loved ones to cause hurt, and unfortunately when we get hurt, we become protective and when we become protective, we become fearful.….when we become fearful, we don’t live or love fully.
As a result of her passing and the adverse effect it had on me, coupled with relationships that were fractured as a byproduct of where I was emotionally, I developed an illusory idea on the possibility of the same thing happening again which imprinted an almost palpable fear of death and loss in me at the time. For some illogical reason, we subject ourselves to a state of constant suffering due to a perceived fear of something that hasn’t happened yet and usually doesn’t happen because of that part of us that is resistant to the idea of loss or death.
I had eight years of living in, mastering and getting accustomed to fear that it prevented me hitherto from truly living and loving. The capacity to which I could love was faltered by the fact that I’d lost someone that meant the world to me. As such, it denied me opportunities to which I could have been loving until such time that I started embracing the liberation and healing that comes from acceptance. For those years, I lived somewhat in self denial or perhaps delusion that the outcome may have been different had I been there with her, but truth is, it was her time to transition - “what happened happened….and it couldn’t have happened any other way because it didn’t”.
As I embraced that acceptance, I was able to find closure and in turn draw energy from the amount of love I experienced as a child and all the beautiful memories of her lifetime which in turn helped me realise what love truly looks like. To quote a great idol of mine, “Life will present you with situations or circumstances to reveal areas of your own life where you are not free”, and it took that cruel twist of fate to revealed the expansiveness of my capacity to love and the stark realisation that whenever I suppress or restrict my capacity to love or be loving, I’m only self-sabotaging and only I suffer.
My dance with the idea of death has made me realise how big my heart is and how I shackled it for several years. In hindsight, that wouldn’t have been my mother’s expectation of how I’ll handle her transition because she admired me so much and thought the world of me that she wouldn’t have appreciated me using her death as an excuse to stop living or loving. Instead, she’d have preferred me to use her death as a lesson to live even more and explore how loving I am. She was that selfless that she’d have preferred her death to serve as a precursor to me living a life of way more impact and significance, rather than a life restricted by the fear of loss or death.
So on this memorable day of her birth, my charge to Self and You (the reader) is to never hold back Love or Living no matter how much or how little we have left of our finite time here on this beautiful planet.
Remember - “Hold on to the love, not the loss.” - Eva Longoria
Peace, Love and Light,
Love
From time immemorial, the idea of Love has posed both a verbal and emotional conundrum in equal measure. Without overstating, one can say with certitude that we’ve all experienced Love at some point in our existence, albeit in varying degrees or depths. Despite the many definitions, variations and interpretations of Love, it remains a worthy feeling we all experience but can’t fully articulate. Of the myriad definitions of Love, one that resonates most with me profoundly describes Love as “the flow of energy and information through empathy (I feel) or compassion (I understand) to Self and Others (People, Place orThing)”.
Having experienced Love in different forms, I can say in my humble opinion that “unconditionality” stands out as its most revered attribute. One can easily imagine that the reverence of Unconditional Love hinges mainly on the fact that it is unattainable for us humans, paradoxically because we’re human and as such, imperfect.
However, science to a large extent posits that the feminine sex are perhaps the only species that are mostly capable of experiencing an approximation of Unconditional Love. This isn’t a slight on men, but due to existential dichotomy as a result of our unique anatomies, women have a more palpable experience of the supernatural based on their inherent ability to birth life. This supernatural ability, along with their natural maternal energy allows women to hold a space (in Love) without passing judgement which is relatable to Unconditional Love. On the contrary, the masculine energetic expression fundamentally seeks to analyse and fix. Thats not to say men are incapable of experiencing this said approximation of Unconditional Love,…they can, but only by consciously tapping into their effeminate side as scientific evidence proves beyond reasonable doubt that all creatures exhibit sexual duality or polarity.
With clear understanding that the very construct of being human means we’re incapable of giving the purest form of Unconditional Love, we ought to however always seek to express and experience our closest possible approximation of it. To achieve this, we must always strive to Be and Live in Love, not in the “Hollywood” depiction of Love, but in the essence of what it means to be an embodiment and expression of Love. Just as we’re Human beings, Love is a state of be-ing and the expression of Love is about be-ing kind, be-ing compassionate, be-ing empathetic etc towards one another.
Love is the container for “everything”. It is about finding more acceptance for one another, simply because the sufficient vastness of Love makes space for that which is imperfect and seemly unlovable. More so because the greatest gift we can give to Ourselves and Others is Love, and the degree to which we have love and acceptance of who we are, with all of our humanity and imperfections is the precursor to which we can experience the same with everyone else.
Remember - “God is Love. Whoever lives in Love lives in God, and God in them.” - John 4:16
Peace, Love and Light,
The Unknown
Although it’s truism, to say “man is his own worst enemy” still sounds like the ultimate cliche. Therefore, I crave your indulgence in using this cliched (and harsh) idiomatic expression as an opener - it is simply meant to pique your interest metaphorically.
The metaphor however speaks to the fact that despite our unique gift of discernment which puts us hierarchically at the top of all living organisms, we humans still possess a peculiar tendency to stand in our own way. Although we find it much easier to blame external factors for our experiences, what really prevents us from a full and fulfilling experience of life are not solely the restraints put on us by our external landscape, but more importantly, the ones we put on ourselves. Far too often we’re comforted and cuddled by what we know; and as one good friend of mine (Sam) eloquently put it, we’re mostly driven by the “strive to be right” as opposed to the “strive to learn”.
However, at some point in life, it becomes almost imperative to decide whether you’re more in love with “what you know” or “what you don’t know”. Generally, as humans, we tend to be in love with what we know because it is mentally comforting and also because we don’t want our beliefs shaken or challenged, but the problem with that is - we don’t know enough. Our ignorance always outweighs our knowledge, meaning - what we know is unfathomably infinitesimal in the broad spectrum of what there is to know.
As such, leading our lives solely on the premise of what we know not only limits our potential for growth, over time, it becomes a far greater risk in itself, when compared to the risk of exploring the unlimited possibilities that lie only within the realm of the unknown. Furthermore, the quickest way to go backwards is simply to stand still, and by living rigidly within the boundaries of the known, retrogression due to lack of evolution becomes a stark reality, especially in a time of accelerated change and overwhelming uncertainties.
By repeating what you know, you’re simply reaffirming your identity and as the saying goes, “no one ever learns anything new by repeating that which they know”. So to evolve as an individual, you have to begin to explore the unknown aspects of yourself by getting beyond the known aspects yourself. If you keep going back to that which you know, you’ll ultimately miss out on the unknown. Surprisingly, something as simple as being “teachable” serves as an increasingly important catalyst for growth. Most, if not all requisite factors that help us attain our “Higher Self” reside only in the realm of the unknown.
So my charge to Self and You (the reader) this week is to - refine our attention, remain teachable, and to assume that every person we listen to might know something we don’t.
Remember - “When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.” - Dalai Lama
Peace, Love and Light,
Your Superpower
Perhaps the only thing worse than the feeling of not having something is the lack of awareness that you’ve had it all along. If you ever take time to delve deeply into human psychology, you’ll realise quite profoundly that what we’re capable of is so much more than we’re told we are or think we are. Far too often, we simply settle for what society teaches/tells us and succumb our minds to the conditioning that comes as a result. Far too often we’re being told or sold the idea that “this is the way its done” and we seldom question these ideologies.
When we continuously surrender ourselves to societal mores without questioning, querying or critiquing them and how they fit into your own personal journey, it robs us of our superpower called “Choice”.
Choice is a part of our birthright and indeed a superpower we all possess. However, society teaches us a repressive and compulsive language which makes us believe we “have to” do certain things a certain way. Truth is, you don’t “have to”….you “choose” to. Therefore, the awareness, realisation and acknowledgment that we’re constantly making choices throughout our journey in life does not only rid us of self-oppression but also liberates us from our self-subjugation to ideologies that were created by a certain group of people to serve a particular purpose over a specific period of time.
For as much of us that struggle to navigate the intricate intersections of life and its myriad of complexities rooted in culture, tradition, education, religion et al, I think a brilliant piece of literature that may perhaps help clear these muddy waters can be found in a 1962 novel called “Golden Notebook” by Doris Lessing. It reads and I quote;
“Ideally what should be said to every child repeatedly throughout their educational life is something like this - You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry but that’s the best we can do. What you’re being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors, its a self-perpetuating system. Those of you more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourselves, educating your own judgements. Those of you that stay must remember always that they’re being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society”.
To contextualise this extract from Lesssing’s work, she explains that from when we develop cognitive abilities, we are being taught how to fit into society by people who themselves have chosen to be subjected to conformity as laid out by their predecessors. Some of us who are more individualistic will seek other ways of educating ourselves and our own judgement against the norm, while others will simply conform. However, “choice” is the one power we have and will always have. Meaning - You and only You hold the standards for judging your own views of everything in your external environment and the veracity of those things.
So my charge to you is to consciously begin to reclaim your superpower. The aim isn’t to make you believe it’s as easy as it sounds, but to remind you that you indeed have the power and sovereignty called Choice.
Remember - “Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” - John Maxwell
Peace, Love and Light,
1% Happier
As obvious and paradoxical as this may sound, - “we are all the same, even though we appear different”. We humans all seek the same fundamental goal throughout our journey of existence - “to live our best life and be happy whilst doing so”.
In her several years working as a palliative nurse, Bronnie Ware sat by the bedside of numerous dying people, comforting and conversing with them through what was their final laps in the journey of life. As you may imagine, the conversations shared in those final moments with these departing souls were personal and profound, some of which she shared in her memoire (The Top Five Regrets of the Dying). Of the top five regrets of these departing souls was one ubiquitous regret, “they all wished they could have allowed themselves to be happier”.
This alludes to the fact that even up until the moment of death, we all recognise, understand and acknowledge that happiness is indeed a choice and that we can all choose to be happy instead of the contrary. Research shows that this is more of a permission issue which unsurprisingly is completely and utterly within our control as opposed to something outside our control. We create these confines in our own minds which become our reality and they prevent us from experiencing the most simple and yet the most exhilarating feeling of all - “Happiness”. Begs the obvious question, - “if happiness is indeed a choice, why aren’t we choosing to be Happy?”.
Perhaps the most pertinent reason why we don’t choose happiness is our fear of hope. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen”. This implies that - Firstly, for you to have hope means you have to initially recognise and admit that something isn’t right about your current state - otherwise, why would you seek something else if nothing is wrong. Secondly, you have to acknowledge and reckon with the fact that the new state which you desire is possible but it isn’t guaranteed - otherwise, if you know its guaranteed, why would you hope?.
Therefore, when we admit that we desire something, but in the same moment have awareness that it isn’t guaranteed, it feels as though we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment. As such, we begin to think that if we allow ourselves to be happy before attaining that which we desire, we may be setting ourselves up for a potential disappointment if we don’t end up achieving it and that our happiness will only be momentary. It’s this very process that conditions the mind, and keeps us on the proverbial hamster-wheel where we’re constantly chasing a feeling that is well within our grasp, and yet it eludes us.
As a result of this mental conditioning, we’re constantly protecting ourselves from giving ourselves permission to be happy in order to prevent potential disappointments, and by so doing, we are fundamentally subjecting ourselves to the same suffering we’re trying to protect ourselves from. Counterproductive and self-sabotaging one might say.
However, now that you’re aware that happiness is indeed a choice, and that our time here is finite and sacred, my charge to you is to live your best life “free of regrets”, to intentionally and consciously commit to being incrementally happy as you live that life. So that one day, when you look back, you will see that the most beautiful days were also your happiest days.
Remember - “Happiness is an inside job” - William Arthur Ward
Peace, Love and Light.