Tony Fahkry's Blog, page 10

Finding Your Balance: The Power of Being Okay With What Happens, And What Doesn’t

Life is full of difficulties, successes and failures, and moments of joy and sorrow. It can be challenging to find the balance between these two extremes and be okay with what happens and what doesn’t. But it is possible to develop the power to accept both the positive and negative aspects of life without getting overwhelmed by them. By accepting the circumstances of life, we can create a life full of contentment, peace, and balance. By developing self-awareness, creating healthy boundaries, and engaging in empowering self-talk, it is possible to cultivate the power of being comfortable with whatever life brings.

What Is The Power Of Acceptance?

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.” — Marcus Aurelius

Accepting what happens is a way of thinking that can help you handle both the positive and negative aspects of life more easily. It means being able to accept what comes your way, regardless of whether you are pleased or disappointed about it. And it also means being able to let go of things that disappoint you without getting stuck in that feeling of disappointment.

Being okay with what happens involves cultivating a sense of openness. This means being able to stay engaged in life, but without attaching your self-worth to any specific result. Acceptance means you can enjoy the good things that come your way without feeling guilty about not doing more. And when you experience a disappointment, you don’t get stuck in that feeling of failure. You can let it go and move forward. Are you comfortable with this understanding that you can allow life to flow through you instead of clutching to your disappointments?

Developing Self-Awareness

“Self-awareness is the ability to take an honest look at your life without any attachment to it being right or wrong, good or bad.” — Debbie Ford

When you’re feeling content, happy, and balanced, you’re in a state of acceptance. This is often referred to as being self-aware. When you’re in this state, you are more likely to respond to life in a way that is healthy and beneficial to you. But because these moments are not constant, you can use various tools to help you stay in a state of acceptance. Being aware of your positive and negative emotions, as well as the thoughts and beliefs that accompany them, is an important aspect of developing self-awareness. When you can notice how you feel in the present moment, you respond to these emotions in a more supportive way.

For example, if you notice you feel frustrated, it is helpful to know that it is normal to feel that way when you experience frustration. You can use this awareness to release the frustration in a healthy way. And if you notice you are experiencing sadness, you can use your awareness to explore why you felt that way. By exploring your emotions and thoughts without judgement, you identify patterns and triggers that are contributing to your negative emotions. This can help you respond more effectively to these emotions in the future.

Creating Healthy Boundaries

“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.” — Brene Brown

Setting healthy boundaries helps you to stay in a state of acceptance of what life brings. When you have healthy boundaries, you can enjoy the positive things that come into your life, but you can also let go of the things that don’t. You can enjoy your relationships and friendships, but you can also let go of relationships and friendships that don’t bring you the joy and fulfilment that you deserve. When you have healthy boundaries, you can say no to things that you don’t have the energy to do, you can say yes to things that bring you joy, and you can walk away from toxic relationships.

Having healthy boundaries helps you to avoid getting overwhelmed by the negative aspects of life. When you can set healthy boundaries, you can protect your energy without feeling guilty. You can say no to things that you don’t have the capacity to do, and you can walk away from unhealthy relationships. Healthy boundaries allow you to feel more content and peaceful. They also help you avoid getting stuck in the emotions that go along with feeling guilty about not doing enough, or being around people who drain you of your energy.

Learning To Accept What Is

“Acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality, it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, a subtle energy vibration, is consciousness.” — Eckhart Tolle

Accepting what is constitutes an important aspect of welcoming life. When you accept what is, you can let go of the things that disappoint you and move forward in your life without feeling stuck in that feeling of disappointment. This can be challenging, especially when you are experiencing a lot of discontent in your life. It is helpful to remind yourself that it is normal to experience some displeasure in your life, even when you are doing your best.

It is also helpful to remember that you don’t control what happens to you or how other people behave. What you have control over is how you respond to these things. If a situation disappoints you, it is helpful to recognise that you have the power to let go of disappointment. You have the power to release those feelings and find contentment in what is in your life.

Cultivating Gratitude

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” — Melody Beattie

Cultivating gratitude is another important aspect of accepting the circumstances of life. When you cultivate gratitude, you can enjoy the good things that come into your life and you can let go of the things that don’t. When you cultivate gratitude, you can respond to your emotions in a more helpful way. You can enjoy the emotions that arise, but you can also release them when they have served their purpose. You can enjoy the things that you have to do, but you can also let go of the things you don’t enjoy.

Cultivating gratitude is important because it is choosing to look at your challenges differently. It is choosing to focus on other aspects of your life which you are abundantly grateful for. Considering this, take a moment and write in your diary or journal what aspects of life you are resisting at the present time. Why do you think you are resisting these experiences? What are you hoping for instead? Could there be a greater lesson embedded in these experiences that you are running away from? I don’t know the answers, and neither will you until you take the time to explore your inner world. After all, finding your balance is about learning to accept the conditions of life as they are and surfing the waves of discontentment, without conceding to it.

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We Spend A Lot Of Time Trying To Fix Ourselves And Forget We Decided We Are Broken

How To Experience Yourself As A Soul

“The soul is the truth of who we are.” — Marianne Williamson

I’d like to ask you some questions which I hope you will answer after reading this article. If you keep a diary or journal, I invite you to write your answers there because this could be a healing exercise to help you gain greater understanding of yourself. Okay, let’s begin. Do you see yourself as broken in any way? Have you ever been told you are less than perfect? How would you describe your inner dialogue? For instance, are you critical of yourself? Do you judge aspects of your character or physical qualities and wish it were different? What does the term broken mean to you? What does the concept of wholeness mean to you?

I know there’s a lot to think about, but if you answer the questions thoughtfully, it will expand your understanding of yourself. It’s no secret that many people spend their entire life trying to fix themselves so they can be happier. For example, they might work with a therapist or a counsellor, join a gym, or follow a restricted diet to lose weight. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not discounting the value of these pursuits because they are worthwhile. What I’m suggesting is that if we are constantly trying to fix ourselves, who is deciding they need fixing? In other words, are your actions about self-improvement or the need to fix yourself?

In my experience coaching clients, it is we who decide we are broken based on a false perception we are not good enough. So, we undertake the journey of fixing aspects of ourselves so we can like who we are. Regrettably, it seldom works as we planned because there is always something to fix, something to heal and something to transform. Our life is never complete and no matter how long we live, our job of self-improvement is never complete. We will never get the work done in one lifetime because we are limited in how much we can do to improve ourselves. My impression is that we ought to embrace who we are now, knowing we are whole and perfect as we are.

Expressed differently: we are spiritual beings having an earthly experience and therefore, spirit does not identify itself with being broken or flawed. That is, as a soul, our brokenness is not identifiable to our higher self. It is our egoic mind that identifies with the concept of being flawed. Does this make sense? Can you see that who you are as a person is not who you are as a soul? Therefore, if we can see ourselves as a soul, instead of flesh and bones, we can relate to ourselves through the eyes of love and compassion. In fact, we can extend this idea to how we see others. I’m not saying it will be easy, but each of us has a soulful quality and if we can connect with that part of another person, we can see past their difficulties.

Perfection And Wholeness Are Our Core Nature

“Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.” — Parker J. Palmer

So, if we want to transform ourselves from brokenness to wholeness, we must relate to ourselves through the lens of love. As you know, love knows no bounds or limits. Love does not place restrictions or judgement on who we are, but embraces who we are becoming. We are a work in progress and, as alluded to earlier, our work of self-improvement will never be completed in this lifetime. We can move the needle so far and we ought to be grateful to overcome our challenges so we can become a better version of ourselves. I liken it to painting a masterpiece and devoting our entire life to the task. We might add subtle brushstrokes here and there to create an impression of who we’d like to be. If you’ve read the book by author Irving Stone titled: The Agony And The Ecstasy, the Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor Michelangelo spent most of his life creating countless masterpieces. For instance, it took him five years to paint the Sistine chapel. His work was one of devotion to beauty and a higher calling, and I invite you to adopt a similar approach to your life. Make your life a devotion to honour the beauty of your soul’s nature.

Is this something you’re willing to give your attention to? Could you stop trying to constantly fix yourself and decide you are perfect as you are? This change in thinking can transform your life. It requires seeing yourself through the eyes of love and compassion instead of criticism and judgement. Let’s be real here. I’m not implying each of us is perfect and whole as human beings because we have faults and insecurities. I’m suggesting, as soul beings, perfection and wholeness are our core nature. When we identify with these qualities, we can embody this on a cellular level. We can bring these qualities into existence by changing our consciousness because, as Albert Einstein once said: “We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” We transcend our thinking and create a new awareness in which to relate to ourselves.

This is the essence of this article; to embody the qualities as a soul. And how will you recognise this true nature I speak of? It is vested in purity, love, peace, joy, bliss, wisdom, and perfection, to name a few. Therefore, I invite you to focus on these qualities, through practices like meditation or journaling and bring them into your being. How can you do this? Let’s take the quality of peace, for example. Try to be more peaceful in the way you communicate with others. You might choose to be less judgemental and critical of other people. You might stop gossiping about others and model yourself to those who embody peace. People like the Dalai Lama or the late Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thích Nhất Hạnh. Look at someone you can relate to as the embodiment of peace because if that quality exists in them, it is certain you can embody those qualities, too.

Considering this, I invite you to answer the questions in the opening paragraph in your journal or diary. You needn’t complete this in one sitting, so take your time over a week or longer if necessary. Come back to it often and add to your answers. The clearer you become about who you’d like to be, the more clarity you gain to transcend the limitations of perceiving yourself as broken. Start by coming home to yourself and getting to know who you are as a soul being and the rest are details. After all, if we spend a lot of time trying to fix ourselves because we have decided we are broken, then we have the power to decide we are whole and perfect.

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When You Can Practise Patience, What You Need Will Flow To You Naturally Without Pain

The Art Of Infinite Patience

“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” ― Paulo Coelho

What are you wishing for in your life right now? Take a moment to think about your desires and consider how you would feel if they had already happened. That is, focus on the feelings of your desires coming to life, e.g. excitement, joy, relief, etc. You may even close your eyes and visualise having received what you want and connect with the feelings of your desires.

Here’s the thing: when we practise infinite patience, what we need will flow to us naturally, without the pain associated with it. I realise it’s hard to believe, but I’m not presenting anything new here but reminding you of ancient wisdom that has been alive for thousands of centuries. Allow me to expand on this further. When we don’t get what we want, we experience emotional pain and suffering. But the moment we get what we want, the pain and suffering is eased. So, how does getting what we want diminish our pain and suffering when earlier we experienced emotional turmoil? It’s because we believe our thoughts and not having what we want becomes the root cause of our suffering.

I understand why people would respond this way, especially if they are not acquainted with universal laws and principles. But if we study ancient wisdom such as Buddhism, Stoicism or other Eastern philosophies, we will realise our thoughts are projections based on an inaccurate perception of what is missing from our life. In other words, the degree to which we suffer lies in our capacity to see through what is lacking in our life. It requires being at peace with having or not having our desires met. This is a difficult concept to grasp because desires are powerful and can cause prolonged suffering if we don’t understand them properly. Similarly, it is impractical to suggest we avoid having any desires, but it is better to propose we can be happy regardless of whether our desires are met.

Are you comfortable with this understanding so far? Could you entertain the idea that it is not what you desire that causes pain and suffering, but how you contextualise it? Therefore, the antidote to ease our pain and suffering is to practise patience and detach from our desires. I’m suggesting we become comfortable having or not having our needs met. For instance, have you wanted something so badly and experienced heartache because you didn’t have it? Then suddenly, you lost interest in your desire because you believed you wouldn’t get what you want. You lose hope and not long after, your desire manifests better than you imagined? I have had this happen frequently, hence why I have learned to detach from how and when my desires will be fulfilled.

The Value Of Detachment

“Detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.” — Mitch Albom

Moreover, I have learnt to practise the art of detachment and be patient because both principles are essential to having our desires fulfilled. In ancient wisdom, it is suggested when we have a desire, assuming it is not to hurt someone, the desire is already created in the non-physical realm. So, being irrational creatures that we are, we go looking for evidence of our desires. If it is not taking place as we hope for, we suffer. Furthermore, our thoughts of lack cancel our initial desires because a negative thought is a request to the universe. Expressed differently: we must get out of our own way and stop focusing on how and when our desires will be fulfilled. We can do this by inhabiting the space of patience, knowing what we need will make its way into our life naturally, without the pain associated with it.

What I am expressing here requires practice, of course. It requires self-enquiry and writing in a journal or diary to see whether we are moving in the right direction. It involves understanding the true nature of our desires. It is why self-improvement and personal growth are proportionate to what we are willing to receive. In other words, the more we grow as individuals, the greater we receive because we let go of any sense of lack and doubt. We become comfortable with paradox, ambiguity, and the unknown aspects of life. We learn to co-create with the forces of life and if something doesn’t go our way; we observe it with detachment, so we can create a better version of our desires.

Is this idea resonating with you? Could you give yourself the gift of practising patience and detaching from how and when your desires will come to life? What is more, could you become a student of life and notice the ebb and flow of creation taking place through you? If you answered yes to these questions, you are on the right path to becoming a conscious creator and living a destiny beyond your wildest dreams. It starts by observing your thoughts and feelings about your reality. It is why I often ask you, the reader, to write in your diary or journal at the end of each article to help you understand yourself better. In doing so, you let go of limiting beliefs, past conditioning and outdated paradigms, to arrive at an authentic version of yourself in line with your desires.

Considering this, I invite you to take some time and write in your journal or diary what you’ve been wishing for in your life recently? Why do you want these things? What would they offer you? Who would you become by having your desires fulfilled? Would there be personal growth involved? The universe favours growth and expansion, and if a desire is selfish and does not contribute to the greatest good of all, the chances of it coming to life are reduced. But if our desires are vested in love, appreciation, gratitude, and cooperation, the likelihood of it becoming a reality increases. So, I invite you to focus on these qualities when you have a desire. After all, it is when you practise patience, your desires will effortlessly flow into your life, without pain and suffering accompanying it.

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How To Transform Hurt And Anger With The Gift Of Mindfulness And Compassion

Feel To Heal The Pain

“Don’t hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love.” — Leo Buscaglia

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve experienced hurt and anger at some point. Whether it involved another person or a situation, we can become embroiled in negativity that may last moments or our entire life. There are many perspectives on how to heal and transform hurt and anger, particularly from a psychotherapy model. But I’d like to explore how to transform these two emotions using a combination of approaches.

Hurt and anger are powerful emotions that can feed off one another if we are unaware. For example, the hurt experienced from a negative event may lead to anger and, conversely, anger usually carries an underlying hurt. We may find ourselves stuck in a vicious cycle of feeding the hurt, which provides fuel for the anger. Therefore, we must become mindful of how anger manifests in our life. For instance, do we act out our anger by expressing it through physical harm to ourselves or others? Do we experience anger within our body via tightness or muscle constriction? This may include a rapid heartbeat, tension headaches or muscle tightness. Namely, anger can manifest in other physiological ways and get stored in our muscles and bodily organs.

The mind-body connection is powerful. So, if an emotion is not dealt with properly, it will find a body system to express itself because the role of an emotion is to move through us. The neuroanatomist, Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, believes it takes 2 ½ minutes for an emotion to move through our nervous system. To express it differently, if we suppress our anger, it may become stored in an area of the body and manifest into something sinister. Having worked in this area for several years, particularly coaching clients, I have only met a handful of people who are attuned to noticing negative emotions in their body. How about you? How do you recognise hurt and anger in your body? Where do you feel it? What practices do you undertake to process the emotional pain?

Therefore, to transform hurt and anger requires practising mindfulness and self-compassion. I’m focusing on these two qualities, but there are many others, such as forgiveness and psychotherapy-based approaches, which are all very helpful. Through the gift of mindfulness, we become attuned to where hurt and anger are stored in our body. What is more, we learn to identify when we are triggered and notice the hurt and anger present within our body. So, it becomes an embodied experience, meaning we somatically perceive the emotions through our nervous system without deferring them. Through the power of mindfulness, we move our attention to the area of the body where the emotion is active and create a container to observe the emotion. In other words, we feel the hurt and anger as they arise and allow them to pass through our nervous system, without passing judgement or criticism.

Be Compassionate With Yourself

“When you forgive, you heal your own anger and hurt and are able to let love lead again. It’s like spring cleaning for your heart.” — Marci Shimoff

The second part to heal hurt and anger involves becoming intimate with what we are experiencing. Through self-directed compassion, we nurture ourselves and attend to our wounded parts that need attention. What does this look like you ask? It is the process of emotional regulation, where we become comfortable with the discomfort of feeling hurt and anger instead of running away from them. Activities that defer dealing with our wounds and are the opposite of self-directed compassion. For instance, the Buddhist psychotherapist Tara Brach who wrote the book Radical Acceptance coined an acronym she calls R.A.I.N. Using this method, we become intimate with our negative emotions and process them in a healthy way instead of ignoring them.

Recognise what is happening;Allow the experience to be there, just as it is;Investigate with interest and care;Nurture with self-compassion.

Is this something you’re willing to give your attention to? Could you stop running from your negative emotions and sit with them, even the difficult ones like hurt and anger? I realise this is a big ask and you may not know the answer, which is okay. The only way to discover is by trying Tara Brach’s method. So, when hurt or anger arises, instead of blaming the situation or the person for your emotional pain, use the R.A.I.N. method to process your emotions. Through the gift of mindfulness and compassion, we can investigate our painful emotions by visualising a white room with an open doorway. We are standing inside the room and welcoming the emotions passing through. We become curious and open to the messages the emotions convey. For instance, in IFS (Internal Family System), it is called being Self-led and inhabiting our core identity, which is undamaged and whole. The Self (purposely capitalised), represents what is called the 8C’s: compassion, curiosity, clarity, creativity, calm, confidence, courage, and connectedness.

The aim in IFS is to perceive our hurt and anger through the lens of the 8C’s. So if we feel hesitation towards our hurt and anger, it is a queue to create space between ourselves and the emotions. Then we can investigate them with openness, so we can inhabit the 8C’s more often. This can take some practice, and hence why it’s important we become mindful of our reaction to negative emotions. More importantly, we become compassionate with ourselves as we process the wounds of the past, particularly our hurt and anger. We are rewiring our nervous system and dampening our response to being triggered. We are grooving new neural pathways to facilitate the gift of self-directed compassion and kindness.

This can be a beautiful journey because hurt and anger needn’t dominate our mind-body permanently. We can choose to respond differently when these emotions surface. Considering this, I invite you to read the article outlining the R.A.I.N. method in the paragraph above. If you keep a diary or journal, take notes on your progress. Don’t give up because it seems difficult or you’re not experiencing immediate results. To draw an analogy, if you’re injured or have undergone surgery, you know it can take weeks and months to fully heal. Emotional healing is similar and we ought to be patient with the process and ourselves. After all, if we wish to transform the hurt and anger we’ve been carrying, it lies in our ability to be mindful and compassionate with ourselves.

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Why Surrender Can Only Happen When You Have Fought And Lost

Is The Act Of Surrender An Illusion?

“When you surrender to what is and so become fully present, the past ceases to have any power. You do not need it anymore. Presence is the key. Now is the key.” — Eckhart Tolle

What does the notion of surrender mean to you? Does it imply submission or giving up? Or does it involve surrendering control to allow something greater to enter your life? Have you tried surrendering before, and it benefited you? Allow me to offer you another perspective, which I invite you to try out. You see, surrender is a state of mind which leads to a shift in consciousness. We cannot pretend to let go of control and go about our daily life because it will show up in the way we think and act.

As the title of the article suggests, surrender happens when we have fought long for something and lost. Therefore, we can view surrender as reaching the end of our tether and turning it over to a greater intelligence or we stop caring about the outcome. It needn’t involve releasing control to a higher power because you may not believe a higher power exists. In doing so, we trust the situation will take care of itself in due course. Moreover, a better solution may emerge. For instance, in my coaching and speaking work over the years, I’ve met many hundreds of people who have shared personal stories of surrendering control of their problems. For some, they struggled with addiction, relationship problems, and health concerns for years.

Once they let go, a solution emerged. It didn’t happen all the time, but a breakthrough often occurred, whether it was visible or resulted in a change in thinking. That is, by surrendering control, they could perceive their situation from a different perspective. What is more, they were no longer mired in anger, resentment, and suffering. Is this something you’ve experienced? If so, what did it feel like to surrender control? Did it reflect in your external reality? I admit, it is difficult to surrender control because we have an inherent need to manage conditions. We believe if we don’t try to control a situation, things would fall apart.

So, in some respect, it comes down to trust. Perhaps we lack trust in ourselves and the universe to give us what we need. Perhaps we believe getting what we want at a particular time will fulfil our needs. There are many ideas regarding surrender and, having explored the topic over the years, I still have questions that remain unanswered. I have questions about whether we have free will or free choice and are we actually surrendering control, or is it an illusion? Because if we don’t believe free will exists, the notion of surrender is a deception because there is nothing to let go of.

Don’t Force Things To Happen

“Man masters nature not by force, but by understanding.” — Jacob Bronowski

Mostly, surrender is an inner acknowledgement that we are not in control. We concede there is a greater source of intelligence working behind the scenes, orchestrating the events of our life. I have no evidence whether or not this is true. I don’t intend to convince you a greater force exists because I don’t want to give you that impression. What I can tell you is the act of surrender is incredibly powerful because it calls into effect forces that alleviate our mental and emotional suffering. I’ve experienced this frequently where I clutched to how things should be. No matter how hard I tried to control aspects of my life, the situation worked out differently to what I had in mind. I didn’t understand it, but I knew on some level I was the cause of my problems. However, as I learned to surrender and work with this universal force, my desires seemed to effortlessly materialise.

Furthermore, I noticed from my observations, this creative intelligence is constantly functioning in the backdrop of our lives. Here’s the thing: we are a piece of a larger universal puzzle functioning seamlessly behind the scenes. When we personalise what is taking place in our life; we are inclined to believe the universe is unfair. But this is an incomplete view because we are seeing things from a limited perspective. We cannot possibly know what the future has in store for us, let alone those affected by our decisions. It is simply too big a burden and responsibility to figure it out. Therefore, we surrender our problems to the universe to work out the details and remove ourselves from having to do it alone. This allows us to move forward with an empowered mindset instead of a limited mindset. I’m convinced this infinite field of intelligence knows the answers to the past, present, and future. It knows how to bring what we desire into existence when we surrender control and co-create with it.

Now, let me be clear and state that surrender does not mean apathy or giving up because that implies we don’t care. But we do care. However, we’ve changed our limited perspective on how a particular solution should unfold and its timing. We let go of trying to control and manipulate the circumstances of our life and step back from what is unfolding. If we are called to take action, we do so from a place of non-resistance and a greater awareness. We take action from a place of inspiration instead of power or force. We don’t force anything to happen that is not supposed to happen because doing so means we are lacking in trust. Trust, in this context, is equal to love. And how do we know whether or not to act you might think? We look to our external reality to gauge whether our actions are producing the desired outcome. If they’re not and we are pushing hard to make something happen, we surrender control, even if it means 5% or 10% and observe what shows up in our reality.

So, could you do it? Could you surrender control of a situation you’ve been forcing for weeks, months, or years? Could you give up as little as 5% or 10% control and see what happens? You don’t have to take my word for it, but experiment with it to see whether it works for you. Additionally, if you want to take this practice further, take a current issue you’re dealing with and write in your diary or journal how you could surrender the situation. Let’s take the example of trying to control your intimate partner. Could you stop trying to control this person in whatever sense and observe whether they become more open to your change of behaviour? The only way to know is to try. It is possible to live a wonderful existence by surrendering control of how life should unfold. After all, surrender can only happen when we have fought hard for something and lost. Therefore, what is meant for us will effortlessly make its way into our life with little or no resistance.

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Being Triggered Is When Unfinished Business From Your Past Is Activated In The Present Moment

Grooving A New Response

“The good news is that every time you become aware of your triggers and notice your response and the way your core beliefs influence your feelings and behaviours, you weaken old patterns and strengthen new ones.” — Nick Trenton

Think of a recent experience where you were emotionally triggered. Try to recall the details as best you can. What emotions did you experience? Where did you feel the emotions in your body? How long did it take you to recover from the triggered event? Here’s the thing: being triggered is uncomfortable because we believe a person or situation is the source of our pain. Where in fact, our reaction is disproportionate to what is taking place. That is, our triggers or wounds are emphasised when we react to something outside of us.

For instance, if loud noises remind us of a parent who screamed at us when we were young, it will trigger us as adults. It can be unpleasant and suddenly we are taken back to an experience in childhood and reliving it through our physiology. Even though we know there is no threat to our safety, our mind perceives it otherwise. It is recalling the memory and flooding our body with stress chemicals that can overwhelm us. This is what people with PTSD experience, although being triggered is not as intense, it can still activate the same stress response within the body.

So how do we know if we are triggered and not reacting to a negative event? This is an important question often asked by people. Triggers have an underlying theme connected to an experience in the past. To illustrate, I am sometimes triggered by loud noises with a particular decibel range. House alarms or loud music with a heavy base can trigger me into a fight-or-flight response. I can feel overwhelmed by the loud noise and unable to control my body’s reaction because my mind-body perceives it as a threat. Naturally, through my work over the years, I have learnt to become mindful of my body and so the triggers nowadays are less severe.

To take this idea further: when we are triggered, it is a signal of unfinished business from our past. By unfinished business, I am referring to unresolved wounds or trauma we must attend to. By attending to our wounds, we develop a compassionate narrative about what took place in the past and rewire our nervous system to perceive the trigger differently. When I speak about rewiring our nervous system, I am referring to grooving a different response to the triggers, that becomes our new normal. So, if our reaction to loud noises is to respond with anger, anxiety or shut down, through practise, we create new neural networks in the brain to perceive the trigger differently. This can take time and why we must develop a compassionate relationship with ourselves as we are healing. This is because there will be moments when we will slip back into our old patterns, since we are attempting to change years of conditioned behaviour. Can you relate to this? If you experienced triggering events, what methods or interventions have you tried? Were they successful? How do you know?

Name and Tame Your Emotions

“Name it to tame it.” — Daniel Siegel

Considering this, here are four ideas to help you work through your triggers:

1. Identify Your Stress Patterns:

Recognise when you are triggered and understand the theme of the trigger. For instance, I mentioned earlier about being triggered by loud noises. This includes people who yell or scream, house alarm or loud music with heavy bass. Therefore, I’m mindful of inhabiting my body when I am caught in a triggered event and soothe myself without overreacting to the stimuli.

2. Soothe Yourself:

This involves inhabiting your body through mindfulness and diaphragmatic breathing to calm your nervous system. These practices move you out of a sympathetic (fight or flight) response to a parasympathetic (rest or digest) response. This is an important practice because you are conditioning the mind and body to react differently to the triggered event. In time, you will have created new neural patterns in the body to help you respond differently to a trigger.

3. Name And Tame Your Emotions:

This is a practice created by the American psychologist Daniel Siegel, who talks about naming your emotions to tame them. For example, if being triggered by loud noises leads to anger, simply name the emotion, which puts a brake on the nervous system succumbing to the flood of negative energy. Naturally, this should happen when you have calmed your body, since you are identifying the emotion that causes the trigger.

4. Rethink Your Relationship To Trauma:

Many people perceive their wounds as a lifelong sentence because they see themselves as broken or wounded. But it needn’t be this way because you can heal your wounds with the right therapeutic interventions. You can learn to turn down the volume on your trauma without losing your identity. Trauma does not mean you are broken or wounded. Rather, it is a way to develop a more compassionate way to relate to yourself through the events of the past.

Triggers can be valuable messengers informing us of the importance of processing our pain from the past. It may involve working with a trained therapist if the triggers are imposing on our mental and physical well-being. For example, a method I have found useful in dealing with triggers is IFS (Internal Family Systems). Whilst the method does not directly deal with resolving triggers, it helps to treat the wounds from our childhood that contribute to the triggers. In other words, we are dealing with the source of the trigger rather than the triggering event itself.

Finally, being triggered needn’t cause us pain and distress. It can be an opportunity to make peace with our past and reshape our memories of what took place. As a result, our relationships improve and our response to triggers gets better because we are no longer held captive by painful memories. Similarly, we change our physiological response to the triggers and may even consider changing our lifestyle habits, such as practising meditation, mindfulness, exercising regularly or improving our diet to help our body deal with stress. After all, if being triggered represents unfinished business from the past, we have the power to change our response to our painful memories, so they no longer hold us captive in the present moment experience.

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You Are Free To Choose Your Actions, But Not Free To Choose The Consequences

The Consequences Of Karma

“But you are involved in the world, and your actions have consequences for other people, and if you don’t recognize that, then that’s the supreme kind of cruelty. Everyone shares someone else’s fate to some extent.” — Malcolm Bradbury

Think about a recent choice you made which did not turn out as planned? It may have been associated with a personal relationship, a career choice, financial, or related to your health. Did you experience regret and disappointment with the outcome? Do you wish you had more information to have made a better choice? We make hundreds of choices each day, and many of them have to do with circumstances that govern our day-to-day life. These lesser choices may not affect our life if we choose incorrectly because of the risk involved.

But what if our choices can affect us on a greater scale or impact the lives of others? Do we have a moral obligation in such situations? Yes, we are free to choose our actions, but we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions. Whilst we have free choice and I’m purposely using ‘free choice’ here instead of free will, we are bound by the consequences of our choices. This is where we make fundamental errors in judgement. We believe our choices do not carry consequences and we are free to choose again, this time more wisely. Expressed differently, we believe we are not bound by our choices. However, our actions are like a boomerang that carries with it karma. So, we must be mindful and respectful of how we choose because the consequences of the karma carry with it a responsibility to act righteously.

This was apparent during the pandemic, where having Covid-19 meant our chances of transmitting the virus increased; especially among the elderly and those immunocompromised. This set up a chain of arguments where people believed they were free to choose whether or not they received a vaccination. They claimed the state could not override their free will to assert authority over their health, even if they suffered adverse effects from the virus or were admitted to hospital. Consequently, the state argued people had a duty of responsibility to other citizens and being unvaccinated was a burden to the hospital system. This followed research which suggested those admitted to the ICU in hospitals were mostly unvaccinated people.

I use this as an example not to take sides but because it is something close to home and relatable. Irrespective of where you live, the pandemic has affected our lives and our ability to choose what is in our best interest has been affected. Do you agree that whilst we are free to choose how to act, we must live by the consequences of those actions? How does that look like in your life and what experiences come to mind? This sentiment is apparent with drink driving or cheating on a partner. Irrespective of whether we are acting consciously or unconsciously, we are bound by the consequences of those choices. Therefore, how do we act in alignment with our highest interest and those of others? This is a tough question and one I’m often asked by clients in my coaching practice. It’s a question that has plagued humankind for centuries. Ultimately, we ought to make choices that do not harm ourselves and extend that ideal to others. In other words, if it is likely to harm us, it will undoubtedly harm other people.

Your Actions Have A Ripple Effect

“If we have a very strong commitment, so that we can trust ourselves and be beacons of trust for others no matter what the circumstance, then we’re protected from suffering the consequences of many actions. We can be protected from that pain.” — Sharon Salzberg

Here’s the thing: we must accept responsibility for our actions, irrespective of our motives. In doing so, we gain authority to correct our actions in the future. We forgive ourselves for our transgression, knowing we acted as best we could, given our level of awareness. You see, sometimes, things happen without consciously choosing the consequences of our actions. For instance, if we cheated on our partner, the ramifications may extend far and wide, meaning we not only hurt our beloved, but our family and friends. Our actions have a ripple effect throughout our life and the lives of those dear to us. We can’t possibly envision how a simple act of infidelity can destroy the lives of those we value. I’m not suggesting ignorance here because sometimes life has a trajectory we can’t expect until the bow is loosed from the arrow. The late American motivational speaker, Jim Rohn, expressed it best when he said: “People would do better, if they knew better.”

I believe this to be a central aspect of this article, in line with developing our self-awareness and personal growth. Thereby, we make informed choices that align with our highest interest. You see, if we act morally and righteously, our actions are less likely to hurt others. This is best expressed by affirming when we act from a place of love, our actions are imbued with the right intentions. Here, I am defining love as the highest order within the universe and not simply romantic love expressed between two people. When we act lovingly, kindly and compassionately, we radiate goodness into the world.

Is this something you’re willing to embrace? Could you adopt this way of being? Are you willing to see that your actions can have a ripple effect and cause disharmony and damage if you choose unconsciously? To say we have free will is an imprecise assumption because if our free will can hurt other people, we are not free in that regard. We are bound by the consequences of our choices and hence why free will is an illusion; albeit a convincing one. Instead, we have free choice with the caveat that our choices carry consequences and we are bound by the weight of those choices, irrespective of what direction they follow.

This is because the universe functions according to non-physical laws, namely The Law of Compensation, which states: “You reap what you sow.” Similarly, the Law of Cause-and-Effect states: “What you put out into the universe may not come back to you at that moment, but its vibrational energy has a ripple effect.” Can you see how these two universal laws are the basis for harmonious living? Considering this, I invite you to return to the choice you made recently that did not turn out as planned. What could you have done differently to create a better outcome? How can you incorporate this understanding into your life from now on? After all, if we are free to choose, we ought to choose from a place of love, knowing our actions are aligned with the greatest good of all.

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Our Experience Of Life Is Dependent On What’s Going On Inside Our Head, Not In The World

Don’t Let Your Reality Dictate How You Think And Feel

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” — Lao Tzu

Do you have a habit of reacting to situations in your environment? Or do you observe your thoughts and emotions before getting carried away with what is occurring? Most people react to their external world and allow it to dictate how they feel. And I get because I used to be the same until I discovered my external environment needn’t dictate how I think and feel. In other words, when chaos is apparent in our life, it needn’t shape how we think and feel unless those thoughts are already present within us.

Are you satisfied with this idea? I trust by the close of the article, you will come to understand that your life’s experiences needn’t unsettle you. You see, if the seed of anger, fear, anxiety, or other negative emotions are present within us, we will resonate with them when the same experience occurs outside of us. Why? Because we already have the seed of the emotion active within us. We are choosing (whether consciously or unconsciously), to align with what is taking place outside of us. In contrast, if we have the seed of peace and harmony within and chaos is present in our reality, it is less likely to disrupt our inner peace. I understand you might find this hard to believe, but this is what enlightenment and waking up describe. Although it varies from person to person, it is a sense of oneness with life and not allowing reality to shape how we think and feel.

For instance, when my nephews were young, they would often play-fight with one another. However, it soon turned into tears because one of them would use excessive force on the other. They often complained to their parents that their brother made them cry. I would chuckle because, in my coaching practice, I still hear adults use this as a form of victimhood. They believe other people cause their pain and suffering. When I explain how their pain and suffering are already active within them, they are unsure why this is so. It echoes the sentiments that personal growth and self-improvement are an inside-out job. It starts at the level of our thoughts and as far back as our childhood; to process and heal our childhood wounds. Only then can we develop healthy relationships with others and ourselves.

The Many Facets Of Healing

“The place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.” — Cheryl Strayed

How are you feeling about the ideas conveyed? It’s important you understand that everything in your external world reflects what is occurring inside of you. And I admit, it’s difficult to make sense of it because if someone triggers us, we believe they are the source of our pain and suffering. Where in fact, the person is the trigger for the pain already present within. Moreover, I help clients see how this person can be their teacher, showing them the source of their pain, so they can heal and transform it. It’s a big revelation when you can meet your pain with openness and compassion instead of resisting it. It’s a revelation when you recognise the person who hurt you is a friend, not your foe. And let’s be real here: I’m not suggesting you make friends with those you dislike or who trigger you; that would be insensitive of me. I’m suggesting, through forgiveness of oneself and others, we realise there are no mistakes within a purposeful universe and everything is orchestrated for our highest development.

So, as you’re reading this article, bring to mind a person you’ve had a difficult relationship with in recent months or years. Try to get a sense of the difficulties they have caused you. What emotions has it brought up? Is it anger, anxiety, fear, hatred, or anything else? Have you experienced these emotions with other people in your life? If this is a recurring theme, maybe you need to free yourself from these negative states by processing your core wounds. I don’t know and neither will you until you undertake self-enquiry or work with a trained psychotherapist. Maybe it goes back to your childhood where you hold repressed memories or emotions that require healing and transformation. Healing is an endless string because there are many layers and facets of the healing process. But once we heal, we peel back the fragments of our conditioning to arrive at the source of our true nature.

So, could you do it? Could you undertake the journey into yourself and discover the true essence of your core self? Are you willing to embark on the journey and, if not, what is stopping you? When will you be ready to heal aspects of yourself that are triggered and traumatised often? These are the questions I would ask you if we were meeting for the first time in my coaching practice. It’s about becoming authentic with ourselves because if we want to live a remarkable life, which is available to each of us, it requires digging up the past and choosing to look at it with renewed optimism. It is choosing to look at it through the lens of compassion, understanding, curiosity and a heartfelt openness. It is choosing ourselves foremost and dropping any resistance we have accumulated over the years.

So as an exercise, I invite you to go through the questions I asked you throughout the article. If you keep a diary or journal, use the questions as journal prompts and answer them as best you can. This could be the beginning of your healing and transformation journey. It could put into motion the healing required to help you transform your past. After all, if our experience of life depends on what is going on inside our head, we have the power to shape our inner world, so it corresponds with the reality we wish to bring into existence.

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Even Though You May Not Want To Accept An Idea, Consider It Without Rejecting It

Keep An Open Mind

“The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.” — E. B. White

How do you respond to new ideas that conflict with your existing beliefs? Do you attack them or try to disprove them? Or do you remain open to new information and examine whether they are worth keeping? It’s difficult to take on new information nowadays, where fake news and misinformation are prevalent. The scale of information available is staggering, compared to the 80s, for example. Now, we must contend with information via social media, online news, television, podcasts and other mediums, to name a few.

So how do we make sense of new ideas when the rate of information is multiplying? I believe it is a matter of questioning the source of the information and considering whether there are hidden agendas regarding its credibility. Even though the landscape of information is difficult to filter through, ultimately, we must keep an open mind and consider all possibilities. By keeping an open mind, we remain open to a new idea which may benefit us in some way. For example, when we experience resistance to new information, it is an opportunity to expand our awareness. We may not know whether the information is reliable, but we ought to conduct our due diligence and test the idea for ourselves.

So how will you know whether or not new information is credible? First, consult your intuition to gauge whether there could be an ulterior motive being promoted. This includes if the information is from a known source, such as a family member, a friend, or a loved one. Similarly, investigate the information by researching it, not just online. Research involves considering both sides of the story, not just favourable sources. We must look at the negative aspects and read between the lines to see whether people are misconstruing aspects of the information.

Consider All Possibilities

“All things are possible until they are proven impossible.” — Pearl S. Buck

It is clear why many people are non-receptive to new ideas, because the research involved can be time-consuming. It is why people rely on trusted sources for their information, without considering other avenues. Whilst this has favourable benefits, it can have negative advantages because the source may be liable to deceive their target audience; particularly if they recognise a bias towards their viewpoint. This is evident in politics, where people cling to a particular viewpoint espoused by a political government, e.g., left- or right-wing politics. Is this something you’ve experienced? Perhaps you know family members or loved one’s who hold viewpoints leaning towards extremism and are unwilling to consider an alternative view? Naturally, it is unwise to change another person’s point of view because we are communicating; they are wrong and we are right. The best practice is to present them with the ideas and allow them to formulate their own judgement.

For instance, I read about this idea in a book last year during the pandemic. Whilst I cannot recall the title of the book, a physician working in a rural town encountered resistance from those receiving Covid vaccination because of their religious views. As the Coronavirus case numbers increased in the area, he spoke at length to patients who visited his clinic about the benefits and disadvantages of a Covid vaccination. Naturally, there was a lot of hesitation, and he patiently listened to their concerns and answered their questions without forcing his opinions on them. Unsurprisingly, many of his patients received their Covid vaccinations at the time of their appointment and informed others in their community about their experience. In time, the rate of vaccination increased in the community as Covid cases and deaths decreased. What I found surprising about the story was his openness not to question his patient’s beliefs, but answer their concerns without judgement.

So, I’m inviting you to adopt a similar approach to information that challenges your long-held beliefs. You see, being open to new ideas means considering alternate views so you can decide what’s best for you. You don’t have to adopt the idea if you don’t want to, but don’t reject without considering it. In other words, get comfortable being uncomfortable with your resistance to new information. Once you move through the resistance, conduct your research to see whether the information is useful. It might or it might not be, but you won’t know until it is road-tested. Is this making sense? Are you willing to be open-minded and test new ideas instead of rejecting them? In a world where endless possibilities exist, why would you close yourself to endless possibilities? Just because an idea doesn’t resonate with you now, it doesn’t mean it can’t be integrated into your life in the future. Open-mindedness is a wonderful human quality because it allows you to get the best of both worlds. You consider all possibilities instead of limiting yourself to a few.

What You Resist Persists

“What you resist, persists. What you look at disappears. That is, it ceases to have its illusory form. You see it for what it Is. And what Is can always be changed.” — Neale Donald Walsch

Another personal example of the benefits of open-mindedness occurred years ago. If a person was obnoxious or rude, I would dismiss them and show them I disapproved of their behaviour. However, this did little to enhance my personal growth and, in fact, I attracted more toxic people. So, in mirroring their behaviour through my resistance, I noted more obnoxious people showed up in my life. So, I conducted an experiment over a three-month period to test whether my new behaviour could affect those I came into contact with. I vowed to be pleasant and open-minded to obnoxious people, which was challenging. However, I gained a lot of information about myself during this period. I found, if I was indifferent to rude people’s behaviour, the situation didn’t escalate and I stopped attracting these types of people in the future. Expressed differently: what we resist persists because of the energy devoted to it. Our resistance is a sign of attraction, which sends more of the energy until we learn the lesson.

It is not karma or payback, as much is it is mirroring what is taking place at the level of our thoughts and emotions. So, when we change how we look at things, the things we look at will change. It requires changing our beliefs and considering other possibilities. Albert Einstein said it perfectly when he observed: “You cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it in the first instance.” In other words, we cannot change our circumstances with the same beliefs because they keep the problem alive until we see things differently. Considering this, I invite you to answer the questions in the opening paragraph of the article. To make this exercise applicable to your situation, focus on one particular area of your life where you find it difficult to accept new ideas. It may be related to relationships, health, finances, career or some other area. Try to get a sense of what is holding you back and how you might overcome it. After all, even though you may not want to accept a new idea, it pays to consider it without rejecting it, because open-mindedness is the hallmark of receptivity and transformation.

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How To Recognise The Signs You Are Growing As A Person

Question Your Beliefs

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” — William James

How do you know you are developing as a person? What are the signs that reflect growth is taking place? Whilst it’s an overused cliché, people will often say: “I have grown from this negative experience.” What are they referring to specifically? To be honest, I don’t think the person knows either. What they’re really saying is: they have faced a difficult experience and assume growth has taken place, but it is not always the case.

As an example, many years ago, I coached a young woman who had undergone treatment for ovarian cancer. In one of our conversations, she mentioned having grown from the experience of facing death, so I asked her what were the signs of her growth. The question confused her because she couldn’t put a finger on it. I sensed she believed that difficult experiences naturally lead to personal growth. Whilst I don’t discount it is possible, the point I’m trying to make is how do we measure the growth? What do we compare it to? How do we know we are developing as an individual? This is what I wish to focus on in this article, so you have a better sense of how to measure your personal growth.

A measure of one’s growth is noticeable when a situation that previously triggered us no longer has the same effect. For instance, if we were triggered by people who are rude or obnoxious and we experienced anger, a measure of growth is whether we have overcome those negative feelings. Naturally, through the passing of time, we are likely to grow as individuals, regardless. Meaning, who we were at age 15 is not the same person we are at age 30. In other words, growth invariably takes place throughout our life, irrespective of whether we are actively working to improve ourselves through reading, attending courses, or working with a therapist or coach. These are ways in which personal growth is accelerated to suit us. So, if we want to know whether we are growing as a person, we ought to think back to a situation that once triggered us to see if it no longer has the same effect.

Another measure of growth can be seen when we question our beliefs and societal truths. We gain our beliefs through our parents, caregivers and loved ones, but rarely do we question and update them. However, our beliefs are the canvas upon which we paint our existence. What we believe dictates the manner in which we move through life, where our life journey can be difficult or as unencumbered as we choose. By questioning our beliefs consistently, we upgrade our mental software, similar to how a smartphone has regular performance updates. If we move through life carrying the same beliefs, we will meet with resistance when our beliefs don’t match the growing times we are living in. For instance, this is evident with those who object to using gender pronouns, or question whether climate change is real.

Not All Growth Is Linear

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” — Anais Nin

Is this resonating with you so far? Can you see that just because you experienced difficulties, it doesn’t mean you have grown from it? In fact, you may have accumulated negative beliefs from the ordeal, and so it’s important to continually question your beliefs to see whether you are developing. This brings us to the question of where we experience periods of growth followed by periods of discomfort. Life is cyclical. I liken it to a raging wave coming towards land and as it reaches its peak; it crashes into the shoreline and recedes into the ocean to start the cycle again. The same phenomenon also takes place in life, whereby we experience difficulties and hardship, followed by integrating these lessons. This is why people focus on chaos in their life when difficult experiences show up. Instead, we ought to focus on the soul lesson because the experience will hopefully pass and the lesson becomes embedded in our psychobiology. This is a fancy term to describe the interaction between our biological system (Mind and Body) and our behaviour.

Another measure of our personal growth is where a person questions their role within the universe. When someone experiences pain and suffering, it is natural to ask what is the purpose or meaning behind it. After all, it is unpleasant to have to deal with these conditions, particularly if they keep coming up. So, a person might undertake a quest to find the answers on a deeper level. They may take up a spiritual practice, whether it’s meditation, yoga, gratitude, prayer, or working with a mentor. These are some examples, but there are hundreds of other ways they will search for meaning to localise the purpose of their pain and suffering. But meaning is contextual and subjective. Granted, a coach or mentor can set you on the right path, but only you can ascribe meaning to your particular situation.

Ultimately, if we want to know whether we are growing as a person, we ought to ask the right questions, which I’ve outlined throughout this article. Second, not all growth is linear, but multidimensional, meaning sometimes we may take two steps forward and one step back. However, we are still growing, but our progress may be slower than others. Namely, every person’s level of personal growth is different because there are important life lessons that need to be learned. Therefore, we cannot judge a person based on their current life circumstances. Our task is to be open and compassionate, including ourselves, because we will naturally make mistakes. However, as long as we are moving forward and learn from our mistakes, growth is assuredly taking place behind the scenes.

Considering this, I invite you to revisit the questions throughout the article and answer them in your journal, smart phone or a piece of paper. How do you know you are growing from an experience? What are the indicators of your personal growth? How do you measure the growth compared to previous years? If you were to ask someone close to you, what would they say about how you have grown? These are the type of questions we ought to ask ourselves to see whether we are developing or naturally growing as a person. Ultimately, to recognise the signs of our growth requires that we measure our growth instead of believing we are naturally growing.

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