Don't Wait for Life to Force Change Upon You.
Here is the Mind-food version of my most recent podcast from "The Human Experience" which you can listen to on Spotify-
If you would prefer to listen to the podcast, click here.
Hi everyone. It's been another hot day in Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. I don't know where you're living right now. I hope your weather's nice and you're able to make the most of it.
I'm a certified life coach and a certified equine assisted learning facilitator.
My website is www.pampoole.co.nz If you would like to know more about me or what I do, that's where you go to find out.
Welcome to the Human Experience Podcast. We all have the same human experience in a unique way. I share the information I do so that you know you are not alone. There is nothing wrong with you.
This week's podcast is called, Don't Wait For Life To Force Change Upon You.
So in some way, every day is different, sometimes that difference is barely noticeable and other days it is pretty damned obvious and there is a lot of variations inbetween those two extremes.
Different mood, different weather, different people, different clothes. There are so many variables moment by moment. And even if everything in our environment was so controlled that there was a day that looked or felt identical to another day, so "De javu" it still wouldn't be the same, because we would be looking at it differently through the lens of, I've been here before, or this feels familiar.
So life and everything in it constantly changes, this is the human experience. To survive and especially to thrive, we will need to be willing to adjust, constantly change and evolve, and to allow others to do the same.
If we have the knowledge, the resources and the self responsibility, we can decide what that change and evolution looks like for us. So we can be intentional about that, we can respond to life and all that it offers in a way that supports a cycle of growth and expansion and possibilities.
As humans, we are built to want change as much as we are primitively programmed to avoid it or to be fearful of it just because it's unknown and therefore the brain finds it very unsafe, unpredictable and disturbing.
Part of the cycle of life is to feel safe, desire change, feel anxious or unsettled, so have some nervous system activation that's just letting us know we're moving forward and to do it with some caution, then achieve the change, have a short period of comfort and then get back on that merry -go -round. It is possible to get stuck in any of those stages.
This is just one of the conflicting sides of the human DNA, obviously there is a great deal more. But ultimately we are designed to survive and when our survival is not at stake, when we feel safe enough, we desire and feel driven to create, to be innovative, evolutionary, different, new, interesting. We desire excitement as much as we desire comfort.
Because of these and other conflicting drives, we can easily find ourselves stuck between the wanting to change, being too scared to change, or wanting something to be different and not knowing how to achieve that because our fear of the unknown gets in the way.
In my view, the answer is a type of balance, a titration. So knowing yourself well enough and being self-responsible enough to work within a spectrum, that suits you or serves you.
It is learning and practicing stress management and other life skills when you don't need them so that on the occasions that you do you are prepared. As an example many many years ago so back in my 20s I burnt out okay I'll use that term because I was undergoing significant change both internal and external at that time. I was diagnosed as having an anxiety disorder, a generalized anxiety disorder.
The doctors were good enough to help me get on a pilot class where I learned how to manage and cope with the experience of anxiety.
They helped me learn that in a safe space where I didn't really need it. So that when it came up in real time, I already had the tools and it was much easier for me to then access them and try them, and of course the more that happened, the better I got at using those skills even when my anxiety was really, really high.
So it was really helpful, I was prepared any time it happened, there is no way I could have learnt the skills at a time when I was already expriencing significant nervous system disregulation. I had to learn them in a space where I didn't need them.
Remembering our experience of life is created by thoughts and ideas that are triggered by circumstances and situations and the kind of emotions that that activates for us. But we don't have to wait for life to happen to us. We can make the first move.
When we make the first move, then when change happens, no matter what that looks like, our brains will then have been intentionally programmed to support you, to help you, the change will still be a challenge but you will move through that more easily and with less impact on your general well being, realtionships and other things that matter to you.
When we let our brain do whatever it wants without supervision or guidance, without direction from us, then however helpful or unhelpful that is when change comes your brain will offer what ever it is practiced at in that moment. Your brain will try to help the only way it knows how, like a young child that in their effort to hlep simply makes everything more difficult.
With an unknown, unsupervised or unmanaged brain we are going to end up playing it safe and regretting the things we didn't do, beating ourselves up because we couldn't figure it out, or being impulsive and indulgent and maybe regretting the things we did do. We will still change, of course, because that's inevitable. Our experience will change, and bring with it results we don't really want because they will have been driven by primitive survival activation, and an unfiltered and unmanaged mind.
So, look, life happens. It can be unexpected, it can be hard, it can be unwanted, and truthfully, so much of it is outside of our control. But when we decide for ourselves what direction we're going in, how we want to show up, and we have gone out and got ourselves the skills that allows us to eliminate unnecessary stress and to use necessary stress in a way that is helpful then we are stacking all the odds in our favour for the long haul.
Alright my friends, so remember www.pampoole.co.nz
It’s a place to go to eliminate unnecessary stress and to make the most of being you and your life. I'll see you there. Have a great week, Bye.
