In the arena of personal development…
the latest buzz phrase is ‘building resilience’, but what exactly does this entail?
Building resilience requires understanding and awareness of your limits whilst realising your full potential. With the right steps, the space in between gets broader overtime. To become resilient is to know your edge, to have walked the line, so to speak. This often means falling off every now and then. However, once balanced, confidence will become your new foundation. For those that experience this ‘flow state’, a fifth dimension is revealed, where the life experience meets the spiritual plane. To awaken this majestic, inter-connected being is our true purpose.
Many paths lead to success. The task of finding ‘your way’ is the joy in life, and no one size fits all. For some, the practice of deep meditation promises Nirvana. For others, catching a sunrise brings connection to something greater than self. There are as many ways as people on the planet. For many, Yoga and other ancient wisdoms have become appealing. But if we are to navigate through modern life we must also learn modern skills. It’s easy to become tranquil on a yoga mat or mountain retreat, but how do you integrate mindfulness into a mindless society? What’s needed is transformation. Without this, we would keep gathering techniques and eventually run out of time to perform them?
Developing resilience relies on many factors. Internet marketers’ will have you believe their way is ‘thee way’. They will boast that their book, online course, or magic supplement is the leverage you need to jump the hurdles you face. The list is endless and growing daily. Whether it’s the latest fitness routine, diet or mind training app, they will lure you in. Bullet proof coffee, super-greens, brain boosting tonics and magic potions. They will do their upmost, to keep you outside of knowing, to extract your dollar. The reality is, quick fixes only work for those they work for and rarely last. Try them, but do your due diligence and test your results. If they bring positive outcomes, what have you got to lose.
Transformation, on the other hand, commands attitude. If the attitude is wrong, it must be challenged and rarely do humans like being challenged. If you are to manage stress, then meeting stress head on is a key part of the process. The problem is, developing such reactive skills needs a good, solid emotional foundation. Here lies the problem! Without emotional intelligence, the tendency is to leap frog from one quick fix to another to avoid the path of change. Alcohol, pharmaceuticals and other numbing substances all fall under the avoidance category. Other distractions include, over eating, over working and even over exercising. The reality is, until we get in touch with what’s going on underneath, our emotions can steer us off-track and away from what we want.
Where did it all go wrong?
The human experience is not without challenge. No one is immune from adversity and if you meet someone who pretends otherwise your about to be sold a lie. The bigger the disguise the bigger the deal!
Humans beings operate from a fragmented version of their past. We generally reveal what we want others to see, based on our phycho-pathology to date. This mental-emotional history is what makes us behave the way we do and we use it to get what we want. But, if we want to achieve more, to reach our full potential, then we need a deeper understanding of our values and beliefs and how they impact our choices. Until our perspectives are challenged, rarely do we operate from our truest potential. This takes courage and humility.
Stepping into the Ring of Change
Mike Tyson, the once heavy weight champion of the world, had a controversial career which resulted in numerous scandal stories. The athlete was equally known for outbursts of anger alongside his boxing excellence. His anger patterns stemmed from a young age, where he was sent to reform school in 1978, and continued right up until his final defeat in 2005. Mike was undoubtedly an excellent fighter, but he fought from emotion and not control. Anger, sadness, fear, shame, hurt and anxiety generate a tremendous amount of charge in the body and, when unleashed, they are not a pretty sight.
Getting into the ring with your own shadows, those parts you’d rather hide, can be liberating and make you feel like champion of the world. At least of your world! But many enter the ring wearing the emotional heavy weight belt of the world. Each badge baring a story of shame, guilt, hurt or frustration and often fuelled by anger. For some the belt is so heavy they can’t step into the ring of life. Challenges grow and become seemingly overwhelming. Inside, anger and anxiety build, clouding our potential. For others, wearing the emotional belt is tolerable – albeit well hidden.
Ignorance may indeed be bliss, but stepping onto the ‘change arena’ cultivates ‘responsibility’, that’s your ‘ability to respond’. The ability to respond, to any given stressor, is perhaps the definition of resilience. This powerful standpoint requires adaptation and congruence. Here, the beliefs, that once shaped our actions, become more coherent with our goals. When our emotional response to life aligns with what we want, we operate from the ‘flow state’ mentioned earlier. So, by cleaning up your past and showing up in the present you can drop life’s confusion. For many, facing such change can be daunting. But it doesn’t have to be like that, the fight can be won.
Hard Wired to Respond
Emotional charge becomes hard wired in the body, when not released. To suppress your emotions, is to hold them inside or apply coping strategies over the top of them. However, both approaches serve only to drive ‘unspent’ emotion deeper into the bowls of your existence. Quick fix solutions are like sticky plasters and rarely treat the root cause. But, the great news is, you can do an ‘emotional colon cleanse’ and remove that shit forever. Yes, just the other side of fear lives change.
The brain chemistry of a balanced individual favours psychological processes and behaviours for thriving. However, our brain is also wired for survival and produces a hyper alert response to certain stressors. Each pathway becomes further developed by our reactive response to certain stimuli. If our nervous system is over stimulated or hijacked, by unresolved emotion, we hit problems. Our job therefore, is to learn to differentiate between the two pathways and, when stress hits, return to equilibrium as quickly as possible. To do this requires a progressive approach. By meeting stress incrementally, you can expand your window of tolerance and develop a robust, response mechanism.
The skill is to recognise the difference between a ‘natural response’ to an ‘unexpected situation’ and an ‘unexpected response’ to a ‘natural situation’. For example: it is natural that an abrupt change in circumstances may bring sadness or emotional upset. Whereas, simple daily tasks and interactions should not create too much emotional impact. When the nervous system is over charged, the latter is often the case.
Resilience is not about what you do, but the intention, attitude and skill set that you do it! As we have mentioned there are not enough hours in the day to keep ‘practicing’ all the things that support resilience, it must become a reactive response. We must teach ourselves to willingly meet resistance and adjust accordingly. We cannot always develop these skills alone. Why? Because we cannot see our own blind spot.
Coaching for Change
To get inside the ring of emotional change requires a good coach, someone who will listen and guide you without judgment. A skilled coach will ask the right questions that help reveal your full potential. Ultimately it’s you that steps into the ring but the coach will endeavour to back your corner.
Emotional coaching is not transactional; in the sense that it gives you lots of things to do. Quite the opposite; the process is more targeted to lighten your load. It’s not just about being heard either. Talking therapies have their place, but not everyone finds it hard to talk about their ‘stuff’. Regurgitating your problems, by talking about them, keeps trauma circulating in the nervous system and often proves the need for transformation. To keep re visiting issues from the past, is a form of counselling that can last for years.
The good news is, to detox emotional turbulence does not require spewing-up the content of your life journey. You do not have to disclose any uncomfortable content with the right emotional therapy. Instead you do the inner work. Spectrum Yoga Therapy works to integrate the emotional layer (kosha) with the physical body. It works to regulate the sympathetic nervosa and hormonal system through a combination of physical and emotional intervention, all of which are none invasive. Here individuals learn to relax whilst expanding their boundaries into a new consciousness. Through such transformation, individuals improve their bio, phycho, social markers and live a more productive and harmonious life.
Tips for Transformation
“The anxiety gap is such, that the more we put things off, the bigger the gap becomes”
The longer you leave addressing those things that hold you back, the more the rolling moss gathers. Holding onto unspent emotions takes an enormous amount of nervous energy. Freeing-up this energy will bring you back to purpose, so you can get on with achieving. With the right support, you can enter the ring of change, and face your rawest emotions. When we remove these viruses from our nervous system we perform our duties better and without distraction.
The undoing of belief systems and childhood programming may seem daunting, but remember your full potential lives just the other side of change.
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