Sheep Dressed Like Wolves

There is more to music than we can ever put into words. And I think it’s the same with people. Language cannot fully describe who we are. Labels, boxes, and pigeonholes fall short. Maybe we call it our creative voice. However we describe it, our “sound” is that indescribable spirit that makes us who we are. But it’s fragile and can quickly get lost beneath the world’s ocean of noise. Join me on Saturday, May 20th, 2023, for the inaugural Gentle Humdinger Workshop, where we will identify and explore the inner creative voice that often gets drowned out by the noise of everyday life. https://youtu.be/KcvKwqEedCs Sometimes life feels like trying to play a fragile folk song in a rowdy club on New Year’s Eve. At other times, however, we attempt forcing the instrument to do something it’s not designed for. So we end up bending ourselves out of shape and burning out. The Impact of Noise I’ve always been fascinated by the impact of sound design on mood and meaning in TV and film. Of course, if you’ve ever watched a horror film with the sound off, you’ll know what I mean. Because it doesn’t pack quite the same punch without the noises. https://youtu.be/ajyr50xeztM Hearing The Same Thing in Different Ways We are influenced by the soundtrack playing within us. We all think we see things objectively, but in reality, two people can look at the situation differently. It doesn’t always mean one person is wrong. On the contrary, things are always more complicated than they appear. We hear the other person, but we also hear it alongside a whole load of internal noise. Anticipation and Evidence On the whole, we see what we anticipate. When we are in a sitcom, we are ready to laugh. In a horror movie, we are primed to jump. When in an action film, we are prepared to run or fight. How do some people seem to allow things to wash over them while others in the same situation react as if the world is about to end? Decision Making When swept up in the ocean of noise, we are more likely to make decisions that take us away from our creative spirit. Noise creates urgency, scarcity, and competition. When we’re in the noise, be it a state of fear, overwhelm, hangover, stress etc. So we might make an impulsive decision…”I’m quitting, never doing anything like this again, buying a new car, or buying a wireless in-ear monitoring system” (listen to the episode for that story). Sources of Noise in Everyday Life Our natural sound, voice, and creative spirit can become lost in the world’s chaos. We accept and amplify the demands, expectations, and assumptions without much thought. But where does the ocean of noise come from? What component parts leave us unable to see the wood for the trees in this way (overwhelmed, burned out, and operating in a chronic state of stress)? https://youtu.be/WvHNkiEWZGw The Ocean of Information It comes from news media and information overload. An unending and unresolved source of instant updates from all over the world. Noise is stimulation without clarity and resolution. The news is precisely that-a flow of traumatic things we can’t resolve or control. The Ocean of Toxic Positivity Toxic positivity is the lie of limitless and groundless possibility in a finite world. It’s the message we can do anything, be anyone, and uncover our unlimited potential. It’s a state of overwhelm in an unlimited can-do reality, where impossible is nothing, we should “Just Do It”, and every no is just another step closer to success. This overwhelming disturbance gets louder, faster, and more intrusive. It’s the sound of humanity waging war on itself, and it takes us away from the expansive, playful, beautiful sound within us. The sound of joy, connection, laughter, and meaning. The creativity, adventure, and curiosity. It’s been replaced by the drive to produce, be helpful, and prove ourselves. The Ocean of Sensory Stimulation Highly sensitive people get rapidly drained in a world where the volume is always turned up. It’s exhausting to exist without true rest. The Sound of The Inner-Critic The waves of noise come through the voices we pick up along the way. Our inner critic might take the shape of internalised figures. A parent, teacher, family member, friend, or stranger. Someone who said the wrong thing at the perfect time for a cold bucket of water to pour all over our creative spirit. “You don’t deserve to be here!” “Who do you think you are?” “You’re too sensitive!” etc. Our natural sound gets lost in the noise. It is prohibited by the message we internalise from the world around us and drowned out by a world of people competing to be first, best, biggest, loudest, and most successful. Connecting To Our Sound Within The Ocean of Noise Your sound is your creative spirit. It’s your connection with life. What evokes a sense of purpose and emotion in you? What does your music sound like? https://youtu.be/m-bOttdZK00 If someone you know well (with whom you have a positive relationship) were to describe you, what words might they use? What role do you tend to play in a relationship? A friendship? A social group? Does that feel like you, or is it a role you’ve learned to play? How would you LIKE people to describe you? What would people say is important to you? We can end up playing other people’s tunes. People pleasing, fitting in, and going along with the crowd. In the fog of noise, we chase goals we don’t personally care about. The Gentle Humdinger Workshop In the Gentle Humdinger workshop on Saturday, 20th May, we will get beneath the ocean of noise and reconnect with your inner creative spirit. We will be letting go of the stuff you might do to fit in, please people, or pretend you’re not quite as weird as we all know you are deep down. I’d love you to join me! Learn more here… Livestream Gig After the workshop, I am doing a livestream gig on YouTube to celebrate the release of my new single, Raise a Glass. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_4SCOrafWQ

We recently finished reading The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life, and Achieve Real Happiness by Kishimi and Koga in The Haven Book Club. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I share reflections inspired by the five nights of discussions between the philosopher and youth in the book. It’s been great to look at the book over four months, and I’d be up for doing it again. So if you listen to this episode and think it’s something you would like to explore for yourself, let me know here. If there is enough interest, I’ll get the ball rolling. Episode contents Why We Need The Courage To Be Disliked | 4:28 The Cost of Seeking Approval: Losing Ourselves in the Quest for Acceptance | 8:54 Self-Worth, Achievement, and The Courage To Be Disliked | 9:57 Does The Past Determine Our Future, or Can We Change It? | 13:16 Determining Blame and Finding Fault | 16:50 Unhappiness As a Choice | 18:00 Interpersonal Relationship Problems and The Social Shadow | 21:42 An Age of Connected Loneliness and The Social Shadow | 22:56 Inferiority, Superiority, and Equality | 24:51 Holding Boundaries and Letting Go Of Other People’s Tasks | 28:23 Encouragement Not Praise | 32:28 Beware of The Cookie Cutter | 33:52 The Freedom of Being Disliked | 34:44 No One Lives At The Centre of The World | 36:14 Community Feeling and The Many Centres of The World | 37:42 The Storm In a Teacup | 39:59 Respect For Authority | 1:07 To Live in the Here and Now | 45:37 The Difference Between Affirmation and Acceptance | 49:26 Fear of Being Disliked and How We Judge The World | 51:24 The End is Not The Goal | 52:26 The Haven | 53:36 Why We Need The Courage To Be Disliked | 4:28 The philosopher uses Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology to help the young man consider ways to change his life. It revolves around the premise that true freedom comes from having the courage to be disliked. This courage to be disliked isn’t about wanting to be disliked. It’s about being OK if and when people dislike us, which as long as we are alive and engaging in interpersonal relationships, will happen. We can’t control what other people think, feel, and believe about us…that’s their task. The Cost of Seeking Approval: Losing Ourselves in the Quest for Acceptance | 8:54 We can lose ourselves if we fear those we admire disliking us. We might park our core values and inner compass if it means being accepted and recognised by the “right” people. This reflects a script we write early in life through our drive for safety and belonging. Who must I be? What do I need to do and not do to remain safe and protected? Self-Worth, Achievement, and The Courage To Be Disliked | 9:57 I recently heard a sportsperson say, “I love winning, but what makes me a dangerous opponent is that I don’t mind losing. I’ve done it often, and it’s not that bad.” This is a particular type of freedom. He has separated losing from his story of self-worth. Acceptance at the level of being (whether or not I win, I am OK) rather than at the level of doing (I must win to be worthy of acceptance). The courage to be disliked is the same. If someone doesn’t like me, it’s their task. Although it’s preferable to be appreciated, I can’t compel anyone else to respect me. That’s up to them. Does The Past Determine Our Future, or Can We Change It? | 13:16 Our life is not a script we have to live by, handed to us by someone or something in the past, but something we write in the here and now. While past events influence the story we live, they don’t determine what happens next. Read the full reflection on The First Night: Deny Trauma. Determining Blame and Finding Fault | 16:50 “Who can we blame?” is a question that permeates society today. Unfortunately, it’s often our first response. As such, we might spend time pointing fingers, looking over our shoulders, and covering our tracks, ironically creating a more dangerous world to protect ourselves from. Unhappiness As a Choice | 18:00 The young man also adopts a victim mentality, evident in his conclusion that if only he were like his friend, he would be happier. But, of course, he knows he cannot be another person. So he permits himself not to accept himself by telling a story about why other people have life easier and better than his. Interpersonal Relationship Problems and The Social Shadow | 21:42 According to Adler, the primary task of a person’s behaviour is to be self-reliant (responsible for our judgements, choices, and beliefs) and to live in harmony with society (a conscious development and awareness of social connectedness and community feeling). Self-reliance isn’t about becoming the proverbial island and doing everything independently. Instead, it’s about recognising what we are responsible for so we don’t interfere with other people’s tasks. Read the full reflection on The Second Night: All Problems are Interpersonal Relationship Problems here. An Age of Connected Loneliness and The Social Shadow | 22:56 If we interfere in this for one another, we create disconnection, distrust, and loneliness. Loneliness, in this sense, isn’t being without people; it is having people around but feeling alienated from them. The prevalence of loneliness in our modern world reveals a paradox of increasing connectivity and isolation. Despite being more interconnected than ever, we also experience greater isolation. Loneliness arises from a lack of connection with others. The more disconnected we feel from people, the more intense our loneliness becomes. It’s important to remember that communication alone does not constitute a genuine relationship. Inferiority, Superiority, and Equality | 24:51 One’s inferiority/superiority complex tends to place blame on others for all problems. This mindset fosters envy and resentment and creates enemies, further perpetuating this negative outlook on the world. This pattern is prevalent in both politics and social media today. Why do so many people struggle to enjoy the success they work hard to reach? Because they build it through a lens of competition, the foundation of which is a complex landscape “overflowing with enemies”. Adler describes a healthy feeling of inferiority emerging through our relationship within ourselves rather than in comparison to others. We have a playful and intuitive knowledge about what we want to improve. We are drawn to plant, grow, and harvest. This is baked into our sense of purpose and meaning as we survive and thrive. Likewise, a healthy desire for superiority is not related to our position compared with others but to our “ideal self”. We are improving ourselves and the conditions around us. The ideal self is not a place we can reach but an organising structure around which we make choices that support a meaningful lifestyle. Holding Boundaries and Letting Go Of Other People’s Tasks | 28:23 Boundaries are not about shutting people out but understanding how to separate tasks and discard those that don’t belong to us. We shouldn’t mistake separating tasks with separating ourselves from one another as humans. Read the full reflection on The Third Night: Discard Other People’s Tasks here. Encouragement Not Praise | 32:28 In Punished By Rewards, Alfie Kohn looks at the evidence against the common assumption that people change their behaviour through positive reinforcement like incentives and praise. He points out the conspicuous absence of the long-term in the evidence people use to support rewards, leading us to some unhelpful conclusions. People DO change their behaviour in the short run when presented with positive outcomes for doing so, but this makes us dependent on external motivation. When the rewards are dropped, so too is the behaviour. It turns out that we are not incentivised by the behaviour but by the incentive. The rather dispiriting conclusion is that we are less likely to act from intrinsic meaning and community feeling when our reality is built around systematic incentives and rewards. Beware of The Cookie Cutter | 33:52 En-courage-ment is about helping give rise to courage in another and supporting them in becoming more of themselves. Not moulding them into who we think they should be (or who we need them to be for our cookie-cutter convenience). The Freedom of Being Disliked | 34:44 When our sense of self-worth is tied to external rewards, breaking from the fear of what people think (and the desire to be liked) can feel impossible. This underpins people-pleasing patterns. In this sense, being liked is praise and being disliked is punishment. So we might gravitate towards doing what we hope will get us recognition. And we avoid doing what we’ve learned people reject. No One Lives At The Centre of The World | 36:14 Narcissism is underpinned by a sense of entitlement to success, power, and control over others. As a result, some people place themselves at the centre of the world and blame their struggles on external factors. There is a distinction between the centre of the world and the centre of our own life. Read the full reflection on The Fourth Night: Where The Centre of the World Is Community Feeling and The Many Centres of The World | 37:42 Individualism becomes toxic when it removes us from the collective story and leaves us fighting for our place in the group (the feeling that it’s OK to be here). Community feeling isn’t based on conditional belonging within a particular context (e.g. the household, school, workplace, or neighbourhood). Instead, it covers regions, nations, continents, humanity, all living things, non-living entities, and the entire axis of time from the past into the future. The Storm In a Teacup | 39:59 Looking at it this way serves a purpose, providing an anchor of connection and perspective when facing overwhelming and hopeless situations—for example, a toxic workplace, political turmoil, bullying at school, or an unbearable family environment. Drawing community feeling from outside the proverbial storm in a teacup (shrinking the whole world to a single place in time) might take the edge off the immediate challenge and give us a foundation to establish a purposeful path forward. Respect For Authority | 1:07 The world doesn’t have a centre. So, no one (not even the most recognised or influential person) is more deserving of belonging than anyone else, not at the level of being. The ultimate show of respect is to allow space for humans to be humans. Equal at the level of being regardless of age, gender, race, sexuality, intelligence, etc. To Live in the Here and Now | 45:37 Life is like a piece of music. The goal is not to reach the end. It’s to move in the rhythm and melody of the here and now. And we play our part in the music of this moment, contributing, collaborating, and creating. For human beings, life is about more than survival. We are creatures of meaning and connection, with the capacity for joy, love, and transcendence. Read the full reflection on The Fifth Night: To Live in Earnest in the Here and Now. The Difference Between Affirmation and Acceptance | 49:26 Happiness is found through accepting “one’s incapable self as is” and building life from that place. Affirmations can be delusional and are linked to what we do, encouraging us to make suggestions such as “You got this, ” “I can do it, ” or ” I am strong, ” even when something is beyond our ability, and we are overwhelmed. They don’t give us courage because they’re more like a demand “I should have this, I ought to be able to do this, I must be strong…” to be accepted. Self-acceptance says, “It doesn’t matter if I do, don’t, or can’t have this; I’m still fundamentally OK.” Fear of Being Disliked and How We Judge The World | 51:24 Our judgement of the world is influenced by the story we focus on. If one person criticises us, two unconditionally accept us, and seven are indifferent to our actions, who do we focus on? Where do we invest our attention and energy? In the one person who dislikes us, the two who love us, or those who don’t care (the crowd)? The End is Not The Goal | 52:26 A train runs to the top of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) in North Wales, yet hundreds of people climb it daily. We might think the goal of climbing a mountain is to reach the top. But it’s not. The purpose of climbing a mountain is to climb it. There are often quicker ways to get to the end. But the destination is part of the process rather than the goal. Without the top, we have no direction. Even though it signals the end, the goal of life isn’t death. But the reality of death is what gives us access to energy. To meaning, love, and life. The Haven | 53:36 Register your interest here if you’ve enjoyed this and want to join me for the next run through The Courage To Be Disliked. Check out The Haven if you want to join me for other book clubs and theme discussions. co, where I host regular events and creative happenings.

How can we nurture environments and habits for playful mischief and gentle rebellion in our lives, relationships, and communities? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I chat with Emma Bearman, the founder of Playful Anywhere, whose mission is to catalyse creativity, inventiveness and playfulness at home, work, and on our travels. Episode Contents The Transformative Power of Playfulness in a Serious World Play Through Boredom, Limitations, and Our Own Resourcefulness The Joy Of Seeing Others Have Fun Mischievous Curiosity Connecting Through Our Universal Experiences Childlike Wonder and Daftness The Space Between Here and There (or here) A Gentle Sanctuary in The Middle Of The Noise Play is in the Person, Not The Toy There is Play Everywhere Make Stories Slow Down Choose The Playful Lens The Play is in You | Haven Workshop The Transformative Power of Playfulness in a Serious World The benefits of play are not easily measurable. The roots go deep, and they can transform our lives, our communities, and the world over time. Experiences are often carefully crafted so that they are consumed or performed rather than created by participants. Do we feel like we belong in the places we live? In a world oriented towards consumption, participation in making, creating, and exploring ourselves and the world can be an act of gentle rebellion. Play Through Boredom, Limitations, and Our Own Resourcefulness Have you ever felt creatively blocked by the paradox of choice? Can too much time and too many resource options inhibit creativity? Emma and I discussed the potential of small places and how play is like digging deep into nothing and coming up with treasure. The Joy Of Seeing Others Have Fun Emma talks about building environments and nurturing conditions for meaningful things to grow. She doesn’t need to be in the centre and loves standing by and watching people play in spaces she has helped create. There is something delightful about seeing something you’ve facilitated bring joy to people engaging with it. Mischievous Curiosity Playful mischief can include combining objects and ideas in unusual places and ways (like turning shipping containers into Playboxes). Where are the gaps waiting for us to bring weird things together? Playfulness is disarming. Like humour, it is a way to question the status quo without creating defensiveness in others. You can achieve aims and create radical change in playful, friendly, cheeky ways without being antagonistic and “poking bears” with sticks. It provides space to address serious issues without dividing and backing people into positions where they won’t listen or engage with others. Playfulness is a soothing balm that gives us another way to hold the false binaries and positions we are often expected to adopt. It reminds us of all the common ground and the public space we can meet, grow, and engage with each other at the level of being. Play is an empowering spirit that allows organic change to occur. It doesn’t require force or performance. Connecting Through Our Universal Experiences The question, “what was it like for you growing up?” is another disarming way to connect with people. We all have a story and formative reasons for becoming who we are. This connection to childhood may have positive or negative memories, but they underpin this story and provide a pathway to empathy and compassion. Play can lead to self-compassion. Allowing us to get alongside our inner child and give them what they needed but didn’t have. And we can reconnect with what gave them joy. Childlike Wonder and Daftness As we grow up, we don’t need to lose our childlike wonder and daftness. On the contrary, it’s an essential aspect of our humanity. It is liberating and constructive to say, “I don’t know the answer; let’s explore and experiment!” Rather than believing that we need to know (or pretend to know) all the answers. This is important for our well-being and is transformative as we model it for others to observe. It’s safe, accepting, and freeing. The Space Between Here and There (or here) Play and adventure aren’t about the answer/solution/destination. They are the substance of the story. The glue that binds everything together. We can’t predict, control, or prescribe it. Things unfold as things unfold. Ambiguity can be threatening. We want a list of tasks, up-and-to-the-right progress, and the sense that we’re “getting there”. But playfulness is a beautifully gooey timeless moment that must be explored without pressure to realise its potential. Learning to enjoy the “I don’t know yet” space is a great way to make better decisions. It allows dots to connect in their own time. This also helps us slow down and listen to more than just the surface of a situation. A Gentle Sanctuary in The Middle Of The Noise Emma describes one project where her team created a quiet, down-low, gentle bubble in a noisy city centre. The energy was like a sanctuary in the middle of chaos. We talk about Emma’s leadership approach and the power of sitting back and letting things happen. Through her approach, she gently questions the drive towards performative busyness that we engage in to feel and look worthy and valuable. I wonder if this is one of a leader’s most undervalued roles in a community project. It takes great courage because it can look passive and feel unproductive. But it sets the pace, tone, and permission for safety and calm. It dances with the energy and infuses the environment gently (firm back, soft front). Play is in the Person, Not The Toy Play doesn’t have to happen in a playground. It doesn’t require equipment. It often can’t be fully described or understood. Play is a spontaneous explosion of creative energy. It’s how we hold the world, and it can be found anywhere. Michael Rosen describes toys as simple physical props that enable and enhance play. It might be a stick, a stone, an empty milk carton, or a shoelace. In this sense, toys are gateways to secret worlds. They allow us to dream, imagine, and create fantastical landscapes wherever we are. There is Play Everywhere Emma and I discussed ways to infuse everyday life with more play. What struck me was the fact that all of them are free. They don’t require us to buy or learn anything new. They are instantly accessible. Make Stories Look under the sofa, in your pockets, and around the room. Where are the missing socks? What would the shampoo say about the current political climate? How do the frozen peas feel when they wake up out of their state of deep cryogenic sleep? Slow Down What are the kids looking at? What is catching their attention? How do things seem different today? What if you changed the route and got slightly lost on the way home? Choose The Playful Lens When things feel heavy and serious, ask how you might see the situation if you wore your playful glasses. Reconnect with a hobby that you used to get lost in. Ask, “what can I do with this?” as you pick up a piece of paper, open the fridge, or collect all the clutter from the car. The Play is in You | Haven Workshop Play is a training ground for flexibility. It helps us face and absorb change. The playful spirit finds possibility in adversity and wonders “what might happen if…” It’s tempting to believe that we would be more creative and playful if we had the right equipment, resources, or tools to be so. But the truth is, we already have everything we need to get started. The play is in YOU, not the toy. Learn more about the workshop.

Are you spontaneous? Can you go with the flow when plans change or if something catches your attention and invites you to follow it? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we look at the characteristics of spontaneous people and explore how we might add more spontaneity into everyday life. This was the topic of our Haven Theme Kota when we chatted about creating conditions for more spontaneous acts of gentle adventure and play. Table of contents What is Spontaneity? | 4:14 Spontaneous Rest | 7:16 The Spontaneous Story We Tell Ourselves | 9:10 Building Life on Spontaneous Foundations | 11:31 Impuslivity, Compulsiveness, and Spontaneity | 13:12 The Space Between Stimulus and Response | 18:50 Spontaneity and Gentle Rebellion | 22:47 Impulsive Goals | 24:25 Spontaneous Acts of Kindness | 28:01 Trying Not to Try | 36:43 Spontaneity Grows in the Gaps | 40:23 How To Practice Being More Spontaneous | 42:33 What is Spontaneity? | 4:14 “Spontaneity is enjoying the moment as it unfolds or experiencing something unexpected with open arms. Spontaneity is agile, adaptable, and responsive to new information. It is a willingness to go in a new direction at a moment’s notice. It is a creative burst of energy.” Ann C. Holm We might imagine spontaneous people as being constantly on the move. Highly energised and ready for an adventure at the drop of a hat. But it’s less about what we do and more about how we hold life’s invitations. Spontaneity is an active willingness and participation in the choice. As Holm writes, “it’s not completely without restraint. Someone spontaneous tends to take a quick inventory of the big picture before deciding to proceed.“ A spontaneous decision “occurs without external stimulus”, controlling or compelling it. Spontaneity is freedom from pressure and expectation. Spontaneous Rest | 7:16 Is rest a spontaneous option for you? Rest might not be an option, primarily when other demands compete for attention. As such, we often push ourselves to the point where rest is no longer chosen willingly. Finally, we are exhausted and have no choice but to stop. Spontaneous rest should be an option if we want to enjoy more sustainable rhythms and energising routines. Maybe it’s about flipping the compulsion to earn rest by doing a bit more first and saying instead, “I might do a little more after I’ve had a rest”. How often does the “more” feel less critical through a well-rested lens? The Spontaneous Story We Tell Ourselves | 9:10 We might close the door to spontaneous choices with the labels we use to understand ourselves. These can be helpful, but sometimes the story we tell ourselves about who we are can compel us to act in specific ways and diminish our preferences and desires. This might mean we hold ourselves back from accepting one of life’s spontaneous detours. Building Life on Spontaneous Foundations | 11:31 Spontaneity isn’t a demand to say yes to everything. It’s simply the willingness for yes to be an option. What if we could create the conditions for spontaneous growth in a meaningful direction? When connected to our core personal values, we have an inbuilt compass that guides our response to the inspiration around us. In addition, it gives us confidence in our intuition when filtering any opportunities and invitations that may appear. Impuslivity, Compulsiveness, and Spontaneity | 13:12 We all experience impulses. The urges, instincts, and gut feelings that prompt us to react. But what do we do with the impulse? Impulsivity = acting based on the urge (no second thought about implications or consequences) Compulsiveness = acting without thinking (a habit that “just happens”) Spontaneous = the choice to flow in a different direction (aware and accepting of potential implications/consequences) The Space Between Stimulus and Response | 18:50 Shops place items they know people will impulse buy next to the checkout. They want as little time as possible between the impulse and the purchase. Otherwise, the shopper might “think better of it”. The impulse is to pick up the item, and the second thought tells us to put it back. Spontaneity is the third thought, which is deciding whether to go with the first impulse and make something of it. Spontaneity and Gentle Rebellion | 22:47 When we hold the world with a spirit of gentle rebellion, we are open to possibilities outside of any compelling forces. It allows us to see the world through our eyes and make meaningful and intentional choices about the reality we are part of creating. In this sense, gentle rebellion is a spontaneous spirit. It is open to new routes and approaches. It is creativity in action. Of course, there is no guarantee that things will work out for the best, but the decision is made despite that, not ignorant of it. Impulsive Goals | 24:25 The world oozes urgency and impulsiveness. It wants us to act without thinking and think without acting. If we are driven by the injunction constantly to grow, pursue success, and find happiness without knowing what those things mean for us, our goals can become traps. They take us where we wouldn’t choose to go if we stopped to think about it. So instead, we follow the crowd, buy another tool, and sign up for the program that promises to solve our problems. When our decisions are based on fear, we act impulsively, not spontaneously. Sometimes the spontaneous thing to do is nothing. To slow down, wait, and allow the fear to pass through. Spontaneous Acts of Kindness | 28:01 Our impulses often point in a good direction. For example, we might be urged to say something encouraging or do something nice for someone. The instinct to connect and empathise is very natural. But our second thoughts can derail the process. It always seems strange that we are surprised by acts of kindness. They seem like moments that successfully get through the defences. We talk ourselves out of doing the good thing that initially occurred to us. Maybe we convince ourselves that we would be bothering the other person, we might be afraid of what people would think of us, or we might overthink and overcomplicate a simple gesture. Spontaneity is the third thought. It returns to the original impulse and decides to flow with it. Trying Not to Try | 36:43 In his book, Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity, Edward Slingerland cites cognitive science research that points to spontaneity as a source of trust in our social bonds. We are drawn to spontaneous people because it makes them more trustworthy and less calculating, cold, and robotic. Spontaneity Grows in the Gaps | 40:23 “We over-structure our lives and plan too much…Most people don’t have any gaps in their day to play.” Edward Slingerland We might think of spontaneity as making the most of every day. But this can be another trap, especially when we feel pressured to say yes to every invitation and opportunity. Fear of missing out is the opposite of a spontaneous spirit. It’s a coerced, not a willing yes. It is always left wanting, always grasping for more. How To Practice Being More Spontaneous | 42:33 Spontaneity is a muscle we can grow with the right environment around us. Time with other people can be a platform for spontaneous happenings. It happens when we nurture space for boredom (gaps in the day). The door opens when we exchange the question “what can this do for me?” with “what could I do with this?“. Creative spontaneity explodes into life when we embrace mistakes as happy accident gateways to magical new worlds. An Unexpected Detour | 50:37 I finish the episode with a narrative soundscape meditation. It came from a reflection on the theme of adventure. I imagined it growing from a tiny delicate seed—a quiet invitation on the regular route home that we meet with openness and a soft yes. What could this make possible? The Haven is a virtual sanctuary that provides refuge for weary travellers and sensitive souls looking for a calmer rhythm, friends who get them, and a deep breath of playful creativity. It’s an invitation home for those seeking inspiration, encouragement, and support as you nurture a meaningful and sustainable life alongside others who “get it”. https://youtu.be/5PNMFHKNY4A

Confidence grows when we feel safe to fail and make mistakes. Sports people typically attribute confidence to believing they can beat anyone. So I was surprised when an England cricketer linked the team’s recent historic success to their willingness to lose games. The England test cricket team has been playing a completely different brand of cricket. It’s expansive, exciting, and “fearless“. As a result, it comes across as extremely confident. But is that confidence built on what they can expect to happen when they fail instead of simply believing they can beat everyone? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I explore the idea that confidence (and excellence) can be grown in unlikely places when people, things, cultures, and processes make it feel safe to mess up. Table of contents The Three Little Pigs | 3:12 Confidence And The Desired Outcome | 10:16 Misplaced Confidence | 13:50 Confidence is The Safety to Fail | 20:10 Good Leaders Show It’s Safe To Fail | 28:30 Playing It Safe Is a Failure of Safety | 31:32 Bringing vs Burying Failure | 33:48 What Happens When We Run Out? | 36:32 Fear of Being Misunderstood (Bad Faith Is Unsafe) | 41:00 The Team Makes It Safe To Fail, The Crowd Not So Much | 45:20 Arrogance (“Over-Confidence”) is a Lack of True Confidence | 50:32 Safety To Fail And The Road To Excellence | 57:40 Hunting For Confidence (A Courtyard Workshop) | 58:56 The Three Little Pigs | 3:12 Do you remember the story of the Three Little Pigs? It’s a perfect tale to help us consider different sources of confidence in everyday life. Confidence And The Desired Outcome | 10:16 We often think about confidence in broad and general terms. When we do this, very few of us would not wish we had more of it, making us susceptible to products and services advertised with a promise of helping us become more confident and self-assured in life. As such, we will always come up short again. So it’s far better to consider our confidence in particular situations, environments, and projects. The three pigs had an objective. They needed to build strong, resilient houses that withstand adverse winter weather and keep the big bad wolf at bay. Misplaced Confidence | 13:50 The first little pig wanted to build his house as quickly as possible so he could play. He had confidence that there was nothing to worry about. The second little pig wanted to build a better house but was distracted when he saw his brother playing. He had confidence that if there weren’t any storms or wolves, things would probably be okay. The third little pig wanted to build a house that he could trust. He had confidence that if he did the job properly, his home would protect him from the weather and the wolf. Confidence is The Safety to Fail | 20:10 The third little pig creates a safe environment. WHEN the winter weather hits and WHEN the wolf comes knocking, he knows he can rely on the house he’s built to keep him safe from what would otherwise be harmful. The environment that the current English cricket leadership have built is similar. Rather than saying, “we won’t lose”, like the first two pigs, they have created an infrastructure around the safety TO lose. Safety is a source of confidence. It means you’re free to focus on what matters more than worrying about what happens when things go wrong. Good Leaders Show It’s Safe To Fail | 28:30 We are often so afraid of failure that we try to deny its inevitability. However, in many industries, if you’re not failing, you’re not succeeding. Failure is a by-product of taking risks. If you work in intelligence, innovation, or any industry that makes predictions, if you’re not getting things wrong, you’re not taking the necessary risks to get things right. Certainty is only possible when it’s too late. The best leaders show us that it’s safe to fail. Not to encourage sloppiness but to reassure us that it will be OK on the other side. So we have the freedom and confidence to grow without fear when it feels safe to fail. Playing It Safe Is a Failure of Safety | 31:32 We protect ourselves, keep things small, and avoid waste when we play things safe. This is NOT the kind of safety we need. But playing BECAUSE things are safe is a different matter. It’s underpinned by the assurance that: “We will figure out what to do if it goes wrong.” The safety of making mistakes isn’t the elimination of accountability for them. Our failure doesn’t become someone else’s problem to clean up. But we are given a clear sense of process and support to be confident if things go wrong. We might need to go and have some difficult conversations and fix whatever broke. But we know that the consequences are not fatal. We will not be exiled, thrown out, or banished from the social order. And a good leader makes taking responsibility for failure more attractive than keeping it secret. Bringing vs Burying Failure | 33:48 Just because the implications of mistakes can be bad, it doesn’t stop them from occurring. Wherever uncertainty exists, so too does the possibility of human error. And there will be less-than-perfect solutions where humans must make judgement calls. If we are told that “whatever we do, we must not fail”, then we have to hide it when we do. So we hide, cover up, blame, dig deeper holes, and worsen the problems. Healthy cultures bring failure early and know that when they do, it will get worked out…rewarding ownership and responsibility – met, not with passivity, but with action. A safe leader doesn’t just abandon or disown someone who makes a mistake; they use it as an opportunity for growth. Taking responsibility feels more rewarding, secure, and attractive than covering up or pretending it didn’t happen. What Happens When We Run Out? | 36:32 Our relationship with the idea of scarcity can affect our confidence. If we’ve been taught to fear squandering and wasting resources and opportunities, our focus can be consumed by a feeling of scarcity. This can be a source of anxiety about running out, losing out, or missing out. As a result, we might become miserly, hoard, and resent others. Confidence is grounded in assurance that even if “there’s no more once that’s all gone”, we will still be fundamentally okay. This gives us a platform to build sustainability into our relationship with life. Fear of Being Misunderstood (Bad Faith Is Unsafe) | 41:00 We can lose confidence when we fear the consequences of our words and actions, especially when we can’t be sure how they will be received and interpreted. This happens through “bad faith” when we filter what we hear through a desire to confirm something we want to hear. It takes courage and bravery to speak up despite being misunderstood. They may or may not be consciously aware they do it, but people make it their mission to misunderstand others. They receive and interpret the actions and words of other people with bad faith. In The Courage to Be Disliked, Kishimi and Koga write about Adler’s definition of freedom, which isn’t the absence of something undesirable but the acceptance and willingness to face it. This is the fundamental principle behind having the courage to be disliked. We will be disliked by someone whether we like it or not. It’s a trap to dedicate ourselves to trying to be liked. Likewise, confidence can grow when we accept that we will be disliked, misunderstood, and interpreted in bad faith. Or, like the England cricket team, freedom is being willing to lose. This kind of freedom is a deep source of strength and confidence. It liberates us from the games people play and from fear of what might happen if we don’t play correctly. The Team Makes It Safe To Fail, The Crowd Not So Much | 45:20 The crowd is not a source of confidence. On the contrary, it’s fundamentally unsafe and volatile. It can turn on you without warning. But the team is an environment we can control with a clear and unified vision. And while you may lose your place in the group when better players come along or you reach the end of your career, you will forever be a character in its story—part of the history. No one can take that away. Confidence comes from accepting that no one individual is bigger than the team. No one will be here forever. It’s nothing personal. It’s just life. But you are forever written into the story of this thing. Arrogance (“Over-Confidence”) is a Lack of True Confidence | 50:32 Confidence is built on the safety of failing, whereas arrogance is built on fear of failure. Therefore, an arrogant person has been taught to believe that failure is not an option because it’s about them as a person. It is intrinsically linked to their value and worth as a human. We can recognise the difference between confidence and arrogance in others by understanding how they leave us feeling. When you spend time with a confident person, you feel positive about yourself. Conversely, when you spend time with an arrogant person, you have lower self-esteem and self-worth. Confidence lifts us; arrogance presses us down. Arrogance rolls its eyes when you make a mistake. Their judgement is a distracting thorn, reminding you that failure is not okay. On the other hand, confidence shoots a reassuring look that tells you it’s safe to give it a go, reminding you that whatever happens, you are fundamentally okay. Safety To Fail And The Road To Excellence | 57:40 Arrogance nurtures average. It is afraid of failure because it’s unsafe to make mistakes. If we are so scared to fail, we play it safe. We protect ourselves, blame others, and hold back from taking the necessary risks for the rewards we want. Conversely, when we encourage failure and get more comfortable and better at it, we pave the way towards excellence. This safety can’t be nurtured alone, though. It’s hard, if not impossible, to think yourself confident. But we CAN gradually build confidence as we recognise where this kind of safety to fail comes from. We can start to surround ourselves with people, things, approaches, processes, and stories that show us that it’s safe to fail. Hunting For Confidence (A Courtyard Workshop) | 58:56 Most of us would like a bit more confidence at times. But what does it mean to be confident? We often think of it as a feeling in itself. We hear people talk about “faking it ’til you make it” and the power of self-talk and mindset to help us feel more confident. And while these can be useful to consider, they are only a tiny part of the big picture because confidence is usually a by-product of other feelings. When we think we want to feel confident, we might be saying we want to feel safe and be able to trust in something or someone outside us. In other words, we are confident when our need for security, acceptance, belonging, connection, authenticity etc., are met. We talk to people in confidence (assured that they won’t tell others what we say), and we place our confidence in leaders (assured that they will work in the interests of their followers). We put confidence in objects, resources, and tools (assured that the car will get us from where we are to where we want to go). In this workshop, we build on this idea in practical ways. It’s a chance to think about an area of life you want to feel confident in and look at it through different lenses of confidence. You will end up with simple ways to build confidence in your situation or project. Get instant access to the workshop here

Since early 2021, I’ve been haunted by a tweet I read: “If you’re not grimacing every time you look at old work, then you aren’t growing.” I decided that I needed to put the icky feeling to use. So I’m using it as inspiration for an exploratory journey into creative growth and self-compassion. Because I don’t want to live in a world where people grimace every time they look at their “old work”. That sounds like hell. So in this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I want to explore how we might enjoy, rather than belittle, the bravery that gave rise to “old work”. We will think about the difference between casting and using judgement to develop, mature and grow as people and in our creativity. And open up space for healthy foundational growth that doesn’t follow a one-dimensional linear path. Episode contents Creative Growth WITHOUT Grimace | 1:38 Grimace-Growth is Imbalanced | 7:5 What Does Creative Growth Look Like? | 12:46 There Are Different Grimaces | 16:21 Using vs Casting Judgement | 20:55 Judgement as Shame (“I should be better”) | 23:36 Judgement of Project (“this could be improved”) | 25:22 Judgement of Opportunities and Desires | 29:35 Using Feelings of Inferiority | 42:52 Superiority Complex is an Inferiority Complex | 44:43 Victim Mindset | 47:06 Demands For The External World To Change | 48:24 Willing Others To Fail | 49:06 Replace The Disowning Grimace | 53:54 Make Peace With Past Efforts (Equal But Not The Same) | 55:00 Handing Over: A Bridge From Somewhere to Elsewhere | 56:11 Creative Growth WITHOUT Grimace | 1:38 When I internalise this grimace, it’s not just about my relationship with my old work. It’s about how I hold myself and other people. It’s about how I relate to EVERYTHING. So, for example, if I was doing the best I could and still grimace when I look back at it, what am I doing with other people who are doing the best they can where they are? What sort of world does this approach create in the long run? Grimace-Growth is Imbalanced | 7:5 It’s tough to grow from a healthy foundation when we feel the grimace looking at us. It evokes shame, embarrassment, and humiliation. It can leave us in a spirit of urgency and desperation. What Does Creative Growth Look Like? | 12:46 In The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han writes about the rate of acceleration in the world and what is happening to a culture that erodes “intervals, betweens, and interruptions”, replacing them with restlessness, hyperactivity and mental exhaustion. Positivisation pedals the idea that action makes us free, yet we see it doing the opposite. In the name of “growth” and “progress”, we are becoming automatic performance machines rather than subjective beings with the power “not to do”. Growth isn’t endless. It hits limits all the time. We reach a point where we won’t get taller, our capacity for physical strength peaks, and our hair gets thin. How do you know you’re moving in the right direction? What does it mean to keep growing as people? Is this a trap that separates us from ourselves? There Are Different Grimaces | 16:21 Not all grimaces are the same. The same facial expression can communicate different aspects of personal and creative growth. The “Last Big Push” Grimace: a facial contortion that shows you put every ounce of energy into striving towards the end (e.g. getting down the home stretch and over the finish line). The “Something’s Wrong” Grimace: reacting to a disturbance in the anticipated flow (e.g. a wrong note, weird flash, bad smell, or strange taste). The “I Couldn’t Do That” Grimace: a reaction to seeing someone do something scary or out of reach and imagining yourself doing it yourself (e.g. the idea of public speaking). The “Embarrassed For You” Grimace: cringing at something someone else has done – perhaps a relatable failure (“I know the feeling, and I’m glad it’s you, not me”) or a judgement (“what were you thinking!?”) The “Wish I was You” Grimace: seeing someone in a position you wish you were in and being unable to hide envy or resentment. The “Wish I Wasn’t Me” Grimace: seeing yourself through a critical lens and feeling embarrassed (e.g. looking at old work and cringing). Using vs Casting Judgement | 20:55 There is a difference between using and casting judgement. We USE judgement through critical thinking. It helps us assess how well something matches specific criteria, standards, or expectations. “Judges” use this when weighing or scoring. We CAST judgement when we assess something or someone without a measurable framework. Those we might think of as “judgemental” have something to say about everything and everyone, holding them to an unknowable set of standards. When building a healthy relationship with ourselves, it’s helpful to recognise the difference between using and casting judgement. We might be like a judge who scores the dancer zero simply because they didn’t take a shine to them. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t help us grow because it gives us nothing of use to help us raise our standards. There is nothing we can do to improve. Judgement as Shame (“I should be better”) | 23:36 Casting judgement is a gateway to shame because it separates the criticism from anything concrete. It can mean that no matter what we do we will never feel good enough. This story is internalised through the judgemental grimace that we are compelled to view all old work with. Shame leads to perfectionism and an inability to let go for fear of what people will think of us (not the work). Creative growth is only possible through being brave and letting go. But letting go gets more challenging when we know people are judging us. The irony of the tweet is that it makes us painfully aware of this kind of judgement. Yet it’s coming from within. In other words, if you’re grimacing every time you look at old work, you’re making it hard to grow. Judgement of Project (“this could be improved”) | 25:22 Rather than judging at the level of being, we can view ourselves as separate from our projects. It starts by separating our self-worth from our personal and creative projects. We might look at a relationship, a creative project, a business, a work situation etc. and use judgement to say, “this isn’t working as I’d like it to” we can take an objective look at it and say, “what can I do to help improve it?” rather than “why am I such an idiot?” The sense that “this could be improved” has criteria attached. We know what we are improving and where we are taking that process. If we can’t define improvement, we are casting judgement rather than using it. If we don’t know what “better”, “successful”, and “growing” means, we are setting ourselves up to fail from the start. Judgement of Opportunities and Desires | 29:35 We can use judgement to make decisions in service of the bigger picture. For example, we can use criteria that make it easier to say no to the opportunity or request rather than the person behind it. Our measures provide a filter that we can respond through. Sensitive people can find it hard to say no. It might feel like a rejection of the other person. So this is a helpful way to respond to requests that don’t fit our plans. We can use questions to probe more deeply if we’re unsure whether something is a good fit for us. This is a great way to uncover awareness about what we want more of in life. I talk about this in more depth in the episode. Using Feelings of Inferiority | 42:52 We are currently reading The Courage To Be Disliked in The Haven. The book unpacks the difference between feelings of inferiority and inferiority complexes. And it describes the pursuit of superiority as something positive and healthy. Feelings of inferiority underpin desire, through which we enjoy what we don’t have (the journey/process). Desire gives life meaning because it allows us to see where we are and consider how we can improve and grow in ourselves and the world around us. This pursuit of superiority is not striving to be better than others. But we desire to grow, improve, and advance our situation. It is not a linear pathway either. It’s relative, and we can only define it for ourselves. How can we hold and relate to our past (including old work, choices, experiences etc.) compassionately and gracefully? Can we integrate and absorb rather than separate and disown? How can who I was, be both in the past and the present without it defining or limiting me? How can it be a chapter in the story that I can hold, not with critical judgement, but with joy, laughter, and humour? Superiority Complex is an Inferiority Complex | 44:43 A complex grows when we hold our feelings of inferiority and pursuit of superiority within a competitive frame. In other words, we allow our self-concept to be influenced and defined by comparison with others. As a result, we are either in the shadow of others or trying to overshadow them. The book uses an example of harbouring an inferiority complex about education, where we might think we can’t succeed because we’re not well educated. This is also a superiority complex because it implies that if we were well educated, we would be better than we are. A complex places us as the victim of the conditions in the world around us. It’s perpetually disempowering. Victim Mindset | 47:06 The book says, “if we ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture, the logical answer would be the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated.’ The baby rules over the adults with his weakness. And because of this weakness, no one can control him.” This mentality is one of superiority because it rejects the connection. Instead of seeking to hear and empathise, the person declares, “you can’t understand what it’s like to be me”. And while “completely understanding the feelings of the person who is suffering is something that no one is capable of”, we might encounter people who define themselves that way, making it impossible to connect and relate. Demands For The External World To Change | 48:24 When we say “you wouldn’t understand”, we are shutting the door to the kind of connection that creates change. Instead, we enjoy the story we can use to separate us from others and maintain the status quo. Willing Others To Fail | 49:06 This mindset might turn our attention and energy towards willing others to fail. Rather than pursuing superiority on our journey, we might become preoccupied with what the other person is doing and determined to beat them. Replace The Disowning Grimace | 53:54 Self-worth cannot be earned. It can only be realised when we replace the grimace with internal acceptance, grace, and compassion. This requires us to reject the grimace and greet our old work with a more generous spirit. Make Peace With Past Efforts (Equal But Not The Same) | 55:00 How might we make peace with past efforts? We don’t need to scoff, belittle, and disown those moments in the story. What if we can celebrate the bravery and enjoy how far we’ve come together? Handing Over: A Bridge From Somewhere to Elsewhere | 56:11 I am starting to practice this on Patreon as I go through some of my old musical work. I want to learn how to do this with graceful acceptance and joy. How can I look at old work with self-compassion and gentleness? What can I learn from that past self? What am I grateful for and appreciative of? I want this to be a project that supports, encourages, and inspires others. It’s an opportunity to reflect on our story so far and to consider the possibilities for what comes next. So if you feel the scorn and shame of self-judgement holding you back from letting creative play flow, this is an opportunity to explore some of this together. I hope you’ll join me: https://patreon.com/andymort

Machines can obviously perform tasks that once required human intuition and creativity. So what do we have left? In the long run, is there anything in human thinking that will differentiate us from artificial intelligence? Yes. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I talk to neuropsychology professor and author Dr Chris Niebauer, who is the author of No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology is Catching Up To Buddhism. There is so much to unpack about creative play, flow, and learning to hold ourselves and the world in more helpful, healthy, and humane ways. Since I first read the book, I’ve wanted to speak with Chris. And if you’ve ever wondered who you are, then I’m sure you’ll enjoy our conversation! Episode contents “Where is the self when no one is thinking about it?” | 10:22 Thinking With a Both/And Approach | 14:32 Split-Brain Research and Investigating Two Sides of The Mind | 15:04 Tools of The Thinking Interpreter | 18:22 Who is Left When Things Change? | 19:18 Thinking Through The Past, Future, and Present | 21:06 How To Engage The Right Brain Without Over-thinking It | 25:46 You Can’t Force The Right Brain To Play With Left Brain Thinking | 30:14 Don’t Confuse The Symbol For The Thing | 33:51 Embracing Non-Dualism in a Binary World| 35:37 Thinking of Life as an Escape Room | 36:22 Most of Everything is Nothing | 1:07 The Joy of Bad Days | 45:23 Memory, Meaning, and The Constant Self | 1:07 Playing With The Story of Self | 58:43 Mind 2.0 (Human Creativity and Artificial Intelligence) | 64:31 Music Inspired By The Conversation | 75:34 Support My Music on Patreon The way we process information and make decisions is heavily influenced by the functioning of our brain, precisely the distinction between the left and right hemispheres. While the left hemisphere is associated with logical and analytical thinking, the right hemisphere is thought to be responsible for creative and intuitive thinking. But is it really that simple? “Where is the self when no one is thinking about it?” | 10:22 Chris says that many of the problems we experience in life are tied to our self-concept. The question of who we are. Or who we believe ourselves to be. But what if the self is little more than a series of stories we tell ourselves through categories, names, and labels? Do these explain what it really means to be us? Who are you when you’re not thinking about it? Thinking With a Both/And Approach | 14:32 We are not searching for the true self on one side or the other. We want the enjoy the dance of left and right brain integration in our experiences. Split-Brain Research and Investigating Two Sides of The Mind | 15:04 Split-brain research refers to the study of the effects of severing the corpus callosum, the structure that connects the two hemispheres of the brain. It suggests there are two fundamentally different modes of processing the world, which we can shift between. This has led to the popular idea that the brain’s left hemisphere is more logical and analytical and processes language. In contrast, the right hemisphere is more creative and intuitive and processes spatial information. For more information about split-brain research, Chris recommends The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist. Tools of The Thinking Interpreter | 18:22 The split-brain studies found an inner interpreter in the left brain, which makes up stories to explain the world and justify our decisions. Categorical identities inform our judgements and beliefs. The story of me that can be taken away at any minute (what we invest our sense of identity in). We need categories, judgements, and beliefs but problems often stem from how we hold them to the idea of an essential or true self. The right brain embraces a more eternal, non-material, and non-categorical position. The self is fundamentally mysterious; if you think you’ve pinned it down, it will escape your grasp. It’s attracted to not knowing and mystery. It’s an excellent partner for creativity because it takes us further into the questions rather than pursuing a definitive, once and for all, answer. This is the source of profound and wonderful meaning in life. Who is Left When Things Change? | 19:18 If we attach our sense of self to abilities, labels, and circumstances, what happens if those things are lost or changed? The left brain creates constructs to help us understand and filter the world, but if we over-identify with them, they can cause create anguish when they disappear. Who are you beneath those current realities? Who would be left if things shifted? Thinking helped us evolve as a species. It sets us apart from other animals. It’s a blessing when we use it in the right way. It gets us out of problems, helps us improve situations, and gives us bodily survival. But this is not the totality of what it means to be human. Are we using the mind, or is the mind using us? Is there more to us than our thinking? Are we more than our thoughts? Thinking Through The Past, Future, and Present | 21:06 The left brain is interested in using the past to inform the future. It can actively and creatively shift the trajectory of life. It’s amazing! But it can also cause us distress when we become caught up in its stories. The right brain is our ever-presence. The observer beneath the noise of thought. It is only here now, absorbed in the always current moment. We might think of the distinction as the left brain designing the tool and the right brain becoming absorbed in the flow of making things with the tool. The left brain might rush to find answers to change the future, whereas the right brain is patient, rhythmic, and can only experience the present. How To Engage The Right Brain Without Over-thinking It | 25:46 Thinking defines much of our existence. We think we’re thinking all the time, but we are also in right-brain modes of processing more than we realise. Chris suggests an exercise to help us become aware of these moments of flow and play. He links this awareness to the idea that “it’s never too late to have a happy childhood”. We play the piano; we don’t work it. When the thinking mind returns online, it tries to diminish what was happening when it wasn’t there. Like someone who shows up late to a party and doesn’t believe it started until they get there. Everything is seen from the left brain’s reality. The left brain is serious. The right brain is more playful. You Can’t Force The Right Brain To Play With Left Brain Thinking | 30:14 It’s said that “you can’t get there from here”. You can only philosophise about this so much. It’s the mode of left-brain thinking. So we need to create conditions for right brain processing. It happens when we “zone out” – driving to work with the radio on, singing along, and losing ourselves to the moment. Then the left brain kicks in at work, and we assess that moment as “zoning out”. The left brain plays unending games of self-improvement. The quest for the perfect process takes us away from the right brain in our search for flow. We measure things, challenge ourselves, and gamify for progress. There is a subtle difference between gamification and play in this context. When we come to a right brain activity, the left brain loves to sabotage it (measuring it, growing it, turning it into competition etc.). A part of you is always already in the present moment. “Trying” to get into it is just another left-brain thing. It’s not about getting rid of the left brain; it’s about integrating it into a more balanced life. Don’t Confuse The Symbol For The Thing | 33:51 Language is a left-brain phenomenon. It’s amazing. It’s the core of civilisation. But it also tricks us into mistaking symbols for things. So words become what they’re not. They can hurt even though they are not intrinsically painful. The left brain might say, “I recognise these games, and I’m going to stop playing them”, but that’s another form of the game. Embracing Non-Dualism in a Binary World| 35:37 The world feels dualistic. We are separate from each other. But this is our way of understanding an uncertain and mysterious reality through categorisation and storytelling. In other words, the left brain gives structure so that we can be productive. But this productivity doesn’t have an essential truth to it. It’s just fun. We can play with it as we learn to see it as it is. Thinking of Life as an Escape Room | 36:22 Chris suggests we might imagine life like an escape room surrounded by clues that take us home. There’s something intrinsically resonant with the idea of finding our way home. He suggests we can think of human existence, where consciousness got lost in the left brain stories, but we are full of clues to the mystery of life. And we can think of our lives as a playful exercise in piecing together a puzzle, where each experience holds the key for the next room. Maybe we get to figure things out like it’s a mystery to explore and enjoy. We move through various rooms that transform us and bring us back to where we started. Like a song or a circular walk, it’s about the process to get back to where we started, not the destination itself. It’s all about what happens between here and here. Most of Everything is Nothing | 1:07 Most of everything is nothing. Try to think about emptiness. You can’t think about the infinite nothingness of space and time. Our left brain clambers for something concrete, but the fun thing about those concepts is they are impossible to grasp. When we confuse the symbol for the thing itself, we fail to hold the object’s reality because most of it is nothing. Eternity is an excellent example of a word we speak but cannot grasp. When we use language to define things, we try to categorise them. But there is much more to everything than we can hope to capture with a sound or scribble. Without space, we have no form. Therefore, void is form, and form is void. The left brain can only focus on nominal symbols and objects (things we give names to), while the right brain focuses on emptiness and space. It’s the silence between the notes—the margin around the edges. The Joy of Bad Days | 45:23 We often tell people to “have a good day”. But good days are dependent on bad days. So, likewise, joy is dependent on the struggle. Many of my most memorable and meaningful days have been underpinned by finding something I lost, fixing something I broke, or succeeding at something I feared or previously failed. Finding, fixing, growing, healing, and succeeding all require life not to be perfect. We wouldn’t choose to suffer, but we can understand how suffering creates meaning, connection, and creativity. Through suffering, we find opportunities to come together, innovate, and build relationships between people and things that change the world. Memory, Meaning, and The Constant Self | 1:07 The left brain loves the story of continuity. It wants a single Self that is the same throughout life. But what IS the constant self? It’s something more profound than identity. Identity changes many times each day, and it will ebb, flow, and morph over a lifetime. Things will become more or less important and feel more or less natural, depending on the story we tell ourselves based on the story the world values at any given moment. So there is something else that provides our sense of what it means to feel ourselves. Awareness. Observation. Consciousness. Playing With The Story of Self | 58:43 When we surrender our absolute identification with the left brain processes, there is a shift, and the right brain becomes more valued and playful. When we approach it with playfulness (not seriousness about playfulness), all the left-brain stories become less serious, and we can have some fun with them. They can become harmless if the playful side of our spirit approaches them. Maybe there are positive selves that come out. We don’t need to identify with them, but we can enjoy them. We can hold them lightly. Suffering comes from holding our desire too seriously and tightly. We will likely suffer if we take a story too seriously (positive or negative). This is not a rule; it’s an observation of the mechanics of the mind. All identities, if taken playfully, have the potential to work out wonderfully. Mind 2.0 (Human Creativity and Artificial Intelligence) | 64:31 Until now, homo-sapiens have dominated the planet as the most clever thinkers. But we’ve replicated thinking and created technology that transcends our left-brain thinking capabilities. When it comes to strategy, survival, and predicting the behaviour of others, Artificial Intelligence will outthink us. This is because it can think multiple thoughts at a time and have multiple relationships simultaneously. So if we’re not the dominant thinkers, what do we have? We move to the right brain. What do we do besides thinking? Beyond the left brain, a whole level of mysterious processes defines our existence far beyond thinking. It’s a great time to explore what this means, how we can engage it, and what it means for our human potential. Music Inspired By The Conversation | 75:34 After I finished speaking to Chris, I recorded the piece of music that ends the episode. Support My Music on Patreon If you enjoy my music and would like to support its creation, I’d love to share more with you on Patreon.

There’s been a shift in the conversation about strength and character. Some weird messages have infused mainstream culture and are clearly impacting how people relate to one another (and themselves). We sometimes confuse weakness for strength and write off strength as a weakness. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I want to dive into weak traits that I’ve seen confused with strength. We will think about the characteristics of genuine strength and consider ways to create conditions for more of it in ourselves and others. Episode contents What is Strength? | 3:31 Unavoidable Heavy Lifting – Life in Funeral Care | 5:42 Physical Strength | 7:57 Emotional Strength | 9:34 Letting Go of What We Carry | 12:40 Find Healthy Ways To Unload | 13:17 Collective Strength From Sharing The Load | 14:32 Domination, Power, and Control | 17:01 Gentle Force | 24:10 Brittle Force | 26:25 Personal Weakness Through Symbolic Strength | 27:24 Flexibility and Stress Responses | 29:54 How To Strengthen an Argument | 35:02 Avoidance, Resilience, and Support | 37:01 Strength and Humour | 44:30 Active Stillness | 50:17 The Pause The Haven What is Strength? | 3:31 Strength is the ability to lift, carry, pull, throw, and hold heavy things. But not just physical stuff. We also need the strength to hold, carry, and let go of situations, people, challenges, emotions, stressors, thoughts, and other everyday things. Unavoidable Heavy Lifting – Life in Funeral Care | 5:42 I worked in the funeral industry for six years as an undertaker. I discuss some of the strengths the job required from and developed in me. My experiences continue to teach me much about what strength means and how we see it demonstrated in the world. And also, some of the ways we confuse weakness for strength, especially in our expectations for how we ought to hold (conceal, deny, hide) the burdens we carry. Physical Strength | 7:57 One lesson from that job was that the strength of the whole is greater than the sum of the strength of individuals. It’s about more than power. It requires learned technique, awareness, understanding, and thoughtful preparation. When you understand what a situation requires, the resources you have to use, and you plan appropriately, strength comes through collaboration. You put everyone at risk when you believe you can do it alone (or that you don’t need others). Emotional Strength | 9:34 The job also taught me about emotional strength. In a moment of chaos, confusion, and grief, we need to anchor into other people as a source of strength. Sometimes we need someone to take control of the situation and guide or direct us with simple stepping stones that give us small footing when we’re all at sea. Other times we might need an undemanding calming presence around us. And sometimes, our way of coping with loss is to take control of the world around us (organising people, events etc). I learned it takes strength to be flexible, to be what’s required in that moment, and not to take it personally. Letting Go of What We Carry | 12:40 If we don’t have healthy ways to let go, we might shut off and bottle feelings up. This can lead to indiscriminate, inappropriate, and uncontrolled expressions of unprocessed emotions. In the same way, as we might shake out our muscles after heavy lifting, it’s essential to do the same with our emotional muscles. To warm down, stretch, and release it all in ways that work for us. Find Healthy Ways To Unload | 13:17 Shaking out the emotional muscles looks different for everyone. It might be going for a walk, getting fresh air, creating, writing, recording experiences, talking to a trusted friend or family member about it, singing, playing with kids or animals, and so on. Whatever brings us back to our creative core. Collective Strength From Sharing The Load | 14:32 We are more likely to feel weak when we are isolated and alone. This is especially true when we face challenges and struggles. Conversely, we get stronger when we feel safe and confident to ask for help and receive support. What Strength is NOT “It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it” Douglas Adams Domination, Power, and Control | 17:01 True strength is the capacity to change, morph, grow, and develop. Conversely, weakness remains rigid, unyielding, and brittle when we need to be flexible and able to bow with the wind. Abusing a position of power is not a sign of strength; it’s a sign of weakness—an inability to hold responsibility with respect and reverence. Characteristics of weak leaders: ridiculing others, abusing trust, allowing envy to control them, a victim mindset, inability to articulate a positive vision (that doesn’t involve eliminating others), viewing everything as a game, lacking self-awareness, and being unable to see the role they play in their repeated misfortune (it’s never their fault). Gentle Force | 24:10 Some things must be gently forced through perseverance, grit, and stamina. When something really matters, these attributes help us endure fatigue and the desire to give up when something is important to us but hard. Maybe you can think of times when you required the strength to keep going even though you wanted to give up. Be proud of yourself and take that story with you as fuel for the future. Brittle Force | 26:25 Brittle force is fragile and insecure beneath the surface. It’s a front, which, if hit too hard, will shatter and reveal very little within. It cracks if it gets hit too hard, revealing a rather wobbly back. The opposite of firm back, soft front gentleness. Personal Weakness Through Symbolic Strength | 27:24 Sometimes we substitute our own strength for the power of symbolic identity. For example, we lean on a background, job role, or symbolic societal position to make us feel strong. This can lead to horrific abuses of power. Flexibility and Stress Responses | 29:54 “Strength is not born of strength; strength can be born only from weakness. So, be glad of your weakness now – they are the beginnings of your strength” – Dr Claire Weekes Something or someone who thinks they are strong enough will not become stronger. It is from weakness and flexibility that strength grows. Like a tree growing reaction wood in response to the wind, we are built in relation to the world around us. Gradually becoming stronger through weakness. It’s an often unseen process that can’t be forced or rushed. It happens over time as we encounter the world. But we can also influence it through our awareness and choices. The Greek word Aphiēmi is translated in many ways, and I find it a beneficial tool for thinking about strength. Especially our capacity for strengthening our responses to people, experiences, and situations we might face. Reaction Wood and Contingent Strength Our source of reaction wood might be found in the place we don’t default to. Not in how we automatically hold the world, ourselves, and others. Strength is born from weakness. Strength From Weakness Might Mean: learning to ‘yield’ when your default response is to dominate and control. learning to ‘stand firm’ when your default reaction is to let go of your desire to keep the peace. learning to ‘pardon’ when you find it easy to hold a grudge. learning to hold accountability when you usually just let things slide. learning to ‘tolerate’ when you don’t want to hear or attempt to understand another person’s perspective. learning to ‘permit’ when you tend to complain, clamp down and eradicate. learning to ‘divorce’ when you keep coming back to the site of pain, hoping something will magically change learning to ‘abandon’ when you are desperate to stay, no matter the cost to your health. learning to ‘forgive’ when you want to punish. learning to let go when you are desperate to hold on and learning to hold on when you want to throw it away. How To Strengthen an Argument | 35:02 Trees grow faster in a human-made biosphere than they do in the wild. But before reaching maturity, they collapse under their own weight in those conditions. Without wind, they are unable to form reaction wood (stressed/tension wood) that keeps them strong. The biodome is like an echo chamber. It gives rapid growth to ideas untested and untouched by anything outside that bubble. But our ideas, thoughts, opinions etc., only become strong when exposed to some stress from the outside. Avoidance, Resilience, and Support | 37:01 When we focus solely on the individual as the source of strength, we risk turning personal power into a collective weakness. Collective strength, which has been key to human survival throughout history, grows out of supportive environments and structures. Support comes from above or below. We might think of this as the difference between being safe TO fail or safe FROM failure. Safe from failure is biosphere-style protection, where we aim to keep harm out. Safe to fail is like a net to catch us when we fall. Strength and Humour | 44:30 Strength is born from the ability to laugh at ourselves. Carl Reiner said, “Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself is a good thing to do. You may be a fool but you’re the fool in charge.” I’m always wary of people who take themselves too seriously. Once you push their button, which you will (whether you intend to or not), they can be dangerous in their effort to save face. Active Stillness | 50:17 Active stillness is the space between the trigger and our response. It’s an intentional choice to slow down. A reminder to take a moment to breathe and observe within and without. What do we feel? What do we need? How do we want to hold this thing before us? The Pause When compulsion to prove my point overcomes me And my need to respond is fuelled by urgency, My mind races to be right My senses rise to the fight And then I reluctantly remember… The Pause. The humbling, painful Pause The uncomfortable, brakes-on Pause The beautiful, let-things-sit Pause That turns my focus from agitation To curious investigation Unravelling my defences to uncover a deeper wisdom. The Pause that is active yet still, Noticing but not heavy lifting Permission granter for things to unfold Space creator for quiet questions to evolve. – Ange Disbury, 2022 Ange shared this poem with us after our Kota session. Read more of her work on her website. The Haven This episode was inspired by a conversation we have been having in The Haven. I would love to invite you to join us to explore themes like this and consider ways to bring more gentleness, strength, and creative play on your journey into becoming who you are forever becoming.

It isn’t easy to keep up with the pace of life. It can feel like time is running away, and there’s always more to do than we can manage. So it’s no wonder many people are trying to figure out how to slow it all down. But what does slowing down mean? What do we want to let go of? And how do we make these changes in a world that expects more and more from us? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I want to go beneath the surface and explore some of the profound benefits of slowing down. Episode contents Slow Consumption in a World Of Instant Knowledge | 2:41 Slowing Down and Control | 8:23 What’s The Point of Personal Productivity? | 10:53 How Does Slowing Down Reduce Stress? | 13:31 What Would Help Me Slow Down in Life? | 15:38 Perception of Pace | 22:40 What Do We Want When We Seek a Slower Life? | 27:51 Slowing Down Our Important Tasks | 30:42 The Risk of Rushing | 33:40 Speed as a Tool | 35:56 Why Do Time Management Tools Make Us Busier? | 37:05 Enjoyment is Not The Destination | 40:12 Where Do We Get to Slow Down Now? | 43:45 Slowness is a Beautiful Waste of Time | 45:14 Why I Call Myself a Slow Coach | 46:56 What Would You Like To Waste Your Time On? | 48:08 What’s The Rush? Enter The Sanctuary of Slowness | 50:47 Slow Consumption in a World Of Instant Knowledge | 2:41 This topic is on my mind as I plan the next Haven Book Club. We are reading The Courage to Be Disliked, to which we will dedicate the next four months. What will slowing down make possible? How much more will we see, explore, and experience by not rushing? What will greet us in the gaps between the sessions and the vast depths as we reflect and process the ideas, and our conversations about them, over time? It’s reassuring to know that we could quickly acquire an overview of a book’s core concepts if we had to. So what if tools like Blinkest, StoryShorts, and Snapreads allow us to take our time with the books we want to read instead? To mine the depths for the kind of wisdom and mindful insights that don’t come from knowledge hoarding. These valuable tools can reinforce and support our goal of slowing down. But only if we choose to approach them that way. If we only ingest bitesize nugget versions of books, we might struggle to open space for the inner conversations that lead to self-awareness and intentional growth. Slowing Down and Control | 8:23 Slowing down can help us let go of the need for control. It’s about understanding that growth starts with roots that grow from seeds planted in the dark. These are processes beneath and beyond our field of vision. Not an easy thing to do in a world that likes quick and visible results. What’s The Point of Personal Productivity? | 10:53 I spent a lot of time, money and thought on productivity tools and time management techniques. I would hand hours over to designing my “ideal week” and perfect processes to deal with emails, social media, and my morning routine. But invariably, the more I focussed on being productive, the more overwhelmed I felt. This “productivity trap” is where we end up using productivity to free time to do more. It seems obvious, but it doesn’t feel like it when we’re stuck in that mode of thought, where we tell ourselves that with the right formula, technique, or process, we will finally have all the time in the world for the important stuff. This is accompanied by that dreaded feeling that we should be doing more. Because there is always more to do, even if we optimise our routine and clear our schedule, “more” will slip in. If these productivity techniques are not helping us do what we’re already doing but slower, they are probably not helping us. Rather than asking, “what do I want more time to do?” maybe we could ask, “what do I want to be able to do more slowly if I choose to?” We can use that as a starting point from which to design the foundations of our life. How Does Slowing Down Reduce Stress? | 13:31 I had some fun with ChatGPT recently. It’s a fascinating (slightly terrifying) tool that I believe might be able to inadvertently reconnect us with our humanity. Recognising where we have given ourselves to machine-like actions and behaviours and reconnecting with the creative play that makes us who we are. I thought I’d ask how slowing down reduces stress. It told me that slowing down can help reduce stress in a few different ways: Slowing down allows you to break from everyday demands and pressures It can help you gain perspective and prioritise your tasks Slowing down helps you become more present – getting caught up in your thoughts and worries about the future is easy when rushing through life It can help you cultivate healthy habits – allowing you to engage in activities that promote relaxation and well-being Nothing particularly groundbreaking in that response. Perhaps a reminder that we know why slowing down is a good thing to do. What Would Help Me Slow Down in Life? | 15:38 I got a bit more practical with my questions. Could ChatGPT shed any light on HOW to slow down? Apparently so. But aren’t they things we’ve heard a million times before? It said that are many things I can try to help me slow down, including: Set limits on your commitments. Try to be more selective about what you take on, and say no to things that don’t align with your values or that you don’t have the time or energy for. Practice mindfulness. This means paying attention to the present moment and your surroundings rather than getting caught up in your thoughts or worries about the past or future. You can try mindfulness meditation or focus on your breath and surroundings for a few minutes each day. Take breaks throughout the day to rest and recharge. This could be as simple as taking a few deep breaths or walking outside. Prioritise self-care by engaging in activities that promote relaxation and well-being, such as exercising, spending time in nature, or doing something you enjoy. Schedule time for activities that bring you joy and help you relax, such as reading, spending time with friends and family, or pursuing a hobby. Find ways to streamline and simplify your daily routine, such as decluttering your space or creating a to-do list to stay organised. Instead of rushing through tasks, try to be more mindful and present as you go about your day. This can help you feel calmer and more focused. There’s a pattern emerging. It sounds right, but I’m not sure it helps us get to the root. The great thing about ChatGPT is that it gives us a rundown of what doesn’t need to be repeated. So what are we missing if these points have been made enough times for chatbots to regurgitate them with such familiar sentiments? Why are we still trying to figure out how to slow down? Perception of Pace | 22:40 How we perceive time is quite a weird thing. I remember when I first performed with a drum machine (pre-programmed sampler). Even though it was set at the same tempo as the original song, it felt slow when playing live. The world slows down when we are in a heightened state of alertness. But our ability to connect with what’s happening around us can be impacted. It might be helpful to consider the role stress plays in our relationship with time, focus, and attention. Are we seeing, hearing, and feeling things as they are, or does reality conform to what we expect and anticipate? What Do We Want When We Seek a Slower Life? | 27:51 What sits beneath our desire to slow life down? Where do we feel things slipping away? What causes us to rush? Why is slowing down one of those things we know we want but struggle to do? Slowing Down Our Important Tasks | 30:42 Maybe we are caught in the habit of rushing, where we speed through everything without any apparent reason. We might have learned to fill our lives with busy work because slowness is the worst thing. It means laziness, lacking ambition, wasting time and taking up valuable space. There are a lot of value judgements and stories of worth associated with the pace we bring to life. And many ways we shape our lives so that we might avoid the critical and judgemental voice from having a go at us. Perhaps we have a lot to do, so we cannot spend much time on the things that matter. Maybe life feels like a to-do list, and we’ve got to get from one thing to the next. Everything is essential; everything is urgent. So the solution we are after is not necessarily slowing down but doing less, outsourcing responsibility, or getting help. If we focus on slowing down but still have the same number of things on the to-do list, we increase the amount of strain and stress on our plate. The Risk of Rushing | 33:40 We might associate speed with value. Fast things are good things. But what about rushing? If you’ve ever tried to do something in a rush, you’ve probably experienced the ironic delay from needing to tidy up mistakes, misunderstandings, and spillages. Sometimes rushing can get us where we don’t want to go more quickly. Speed as a Tool | 35:56 Learning to slow down isn’t about rejecting a faster pace. It’s about learning to choose it when it’s necessary. Speed changes are a tool we can pull out of the box when life requires it. Why Do Time Management Tools Make Us Busier? | 37:05 There’s a strange paradox at work in time management. The more efficient we get, the busier we become. As we’ve already looked at, the tools we use to eradicate stress become sources of stress. Enjoyment is Not The Destination | 40:12 Not having the things we want is where we find enjoyment—it’s all about the journey towards the thing that makes the thing itself meaningful. Hipsters know this (even if they’re not necessarily aware of why). It’s why they spend an hour brewing a cup of coffee when they could do it in five minutes. It’s why vinyl rose in popularity as music became instantly accessible through streaming platforms. Where Do We Get to Slow Down Now? | 43:45 The more we solve the problems we think we have, the less true enjoyment we have access to. What would you like to enjoy more in this way? Slowness is a Beautiful Waste of Time | 45:14 We are spending four months on one book. How does that sound to you? What might it make possible? Does that seem like a waste of time? Or a rich, deep, and expansive experience? Do you think of fast as good and slow as bad? Do you think slowing down is uncomfortable when there’s so much to do, see, and experience? How do you stop and find peace when there’s more to do, see, and experience? Why I Call Myself a Slow Coach | 46:56 Slowcoach is a bit of an insult. It describes someone moving or acting slowly. But that’s why my inner rebel thought it was a perfect way to describe my coaching approach. A high-speed train might get us to where we want to go faster, but a slowcoach allows space for adventure, sensory awareness, and spontaneity on the way. Making time for slowness (if we want to choose it) allows space for depth. Slow coaching isn’t about forcing slowness but letting it when desired. Without the sense that by slowing down, we are making everything else more stressful. What do I want time to do more slowly if I choose? What Would You Like To Waste Your Time On? | 48:08 When we go slower, we can explore more. We might see more. We might hear more. Slowing down allows us to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel more of what is around us. It helps us listen to what is being said, not what we anticipate is being said. We only notice what we already understand if we skim a book. We will overlook new concepts if our brains don’t recognise the patterns and we don’t give ourselves time to learn. It’s the same if we listen to audio or watch a video at high-speed. This can be a helpful tool if needed. Time wasted can give rise to valuable memories, enjoyable experiences, and creative breakthroughs. What do you want to waste time on today? What would happen if you chose to slow down and truly listen, play, create, watch, and enjoy? Where is the space FOR that more meaningful stuff? What’s The Rush? Enter The Sanctuary of Slowness | 50:47 Since it first came to life in 2014, The Haven has been my playground of slow growth. In the early days, I followed membership models and training blueprints. But over the years, it’s become so much more than that. It’s a sanctuary of rhythm and slowness. Not somewhere to rush to or tear through to find instant solutions to significant challenges. But with its labyrinth of cobbled streets, candle-lit corridors, and secret doors to other worlds, it’s an invitation to slow down. Return from the hectic world of doing to a land of being. A land of becoming. Of wondering and wandering. The Book Club is all part of that. Fancy joining me there? Learn more here.

Are there people in your life who drive you up the wall because they hold very different beliefs from yours? Maybe you’ve drifted from friends and family members because conversations turn heated and hostile whenever you try to change their minds. Konrad Benjamin is the creator of Ideas Digest, a podcast that aims to build bridges of connection between world views at war. “Politicians, religions, algorithms and mainstream media make money on dividing us all and building higher and higher walls around us”. When I first listened to the Ideas Digest Podcast, I was struck by the gentle rebellion. This was Konrad’s commitment to looking beneath the surface, searching for empathic connection, and meeting people in good faith, even in the most challenging conversations. These are practices that the world needs more of right now. Episode Contents Changing and Softening Minds | 3:17 Prohibition Doesn’t Change Minds; It Hardens Them | 9:44 What Are Ideas? | 12:41 Making Our Minds Up | 16:51 How We Hold Others When We Encounter Them | 21:02 Our Fixed Mind Illusions | 24:50 Universality and Non-Belonging | 25:50 Distance Not Difference Hardens Minds | 33:32 Foundational Assumptions and The Expectations We Carry | 36:45 Every Position Is a Strategy To Meet a Need | 43:18 What REALLY Changes/Softens Minds? | 45:47 Brittle Fragility and Weak Minds | 51:34 The Story of The Mustard Seed | 52:59 It’s easier than ever to connect with like-minded people around the world. There are also many ways to mute, block, and walk away from people who think differently. And while this can be a helpful soothing balm at times, it also has a damaging impact on our ability to encounter and engage with people when we don’t see eye to eye. Views, ideas, and beliefs become entrenched, and we dehumanise those we can lump into “people like that”. This trajectory has clear implications. We’ve probably all experienced its impact in different ways. Changing and Softening Minds | 3:17 As I’ve often said, gentleness is not about being weak and passive in conflict. It’s about approaching the path ahead with the best tools for the job. It places space and time between the stimulus and response. And meets the world with a firm back and soft front (humility, curiosity, and a meaningful sense of vision) rather than a brittle back and a rigid front (firing weapons while hiding from the world). We react to the present and create the future in the same movement. How we act today as individuals and collectives set the tone for the world we encounter tomorrow. Prohibition Doesn’t Change Minds; It Hardens Them | 9:44 I asked Konrad what drives him to talk with people whose ideas he might instinctively oppose. He says, “these ideas are not going away”, and suggests we have a choice to make. We can push them underground or seek to understand where they are coming from so we can consider and respond to their roots. Cultural and social prohibitions often occur at a symptomatic level. But we know from history that banning things, while it might make them disappear from view temporarily, can lead to more extreme expressions down the line. We might mistake coerced silence for willing consent. But when this happens, the mind that feels silenced becomes hardened. It doubles down, seeks allies, and prepares to fight back. What Are Ideas? | 12:41 I find ideas mindblowing. Not any particular views, just that we have THEM in the first place. We can imagine, think about, and process completely abstract concepts—things we cannot see in a physical sense. We can then turn them into objects, systems, and experiences. Whoa! In this episode, I aimed to look at how we hold ideas. What do we attach to our beliefs? How do these thoughts define us? What is at stake if we change our minds? How do we hold other people and their ideas? Do we see the person beneath the belief, or do we encounter humans at their word and no deeper? Ideas come in all shapes and forms. They can help us make sense of the contradictions and differences at the heart of life. They can help us understand who we are and what has shaped us. Our ideas and beliefs help us alleviate both momentary and existential fears. And they can give us direction and focus in everyday life. They can free us, and they can imprison us. Making Our Minds Up | 16:51 What causes you to make up your mind? Have you ever noticed where your beliefs, views, and judgements are formed? What do we do with our ideas? In his book, Think Again, Adam Grant suggests that we hold our ideas in four ways. This informs our readiness, flexibility, and willingness to change our minds. The Preacher We might say with certainty that we’ve found the truth. We decide that it’s down to us to share this with the world and help them see the light. The Prosecutor We might play the zero-sum game. The argument is won or lost, so we become committed to proving the other person is wrong. In both positions, only one mind is allowed to change…that of the other person. The Politician We might need to win over support from people. So we give the impression of flexibility and openness. But we’re just saying what the other person wants to hear so that they give us what we want. The Scientist We are humble in our curiosity to recognise what we don’t know and scrutinise existing conventions and convictions to discover new information. Grant says, “the scientist mindset says, I will not let my ideas become an ideology”. Opinions are hypotheses. We hold them up to playful questioning so they can evolve-not affirm- what we already know. The mind is poised to be changed. We don’t have to resist being wrong. We can invite it. How We Hold Others When We Encounter Them | 21:02 In his Last Supper video, Peter Rollins talks about four ways we might encounter people who have practices and beliefs different from our own: Consume Them – take their differences and try to make them conform to ours. But if we can’t change them, we might… Vomit Out – if the other person can’t be domesticated, we want to get them out of our community Tolerance – we can exist together as long as their strange beliefs and practices are kept behind closed doors Finding Agreement – we can dialogue together and find the ocean we share beneath the streams of our different beliefs The problem Peter sees in all four positions is they take the same starting position: “I’m right, and I’m judging you”. The first three say, “I’m right, and you’re wrong”, and the fourth position says, “we’re both right”. Our Fixed Mind Illusions | 24:50 “Have you ever noticed that everyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” George Carlin In Mindwise, Nicholas Epley writes, “if the illusions you hold about your own brain lead you to believe that you see the world as it actually is and you find that others see the world differently, then they must be the ones who are biased, distorted, uninformed, ignorant, unreasonable, or evil.” Peter Rollins suggests later in the video that in a genuine multicultural connection with another, we first see the other person as weird and monstrous. But when we take the time to see ourselves through the other person’s eyes, we experience our beliefs and practices as strange and monstrous. These beliefs are no longer held to be “right”, but we realise they are contingent, historical, and can be questioned. This doesn’t undermine our beliefs and practices but allows us to experience them in a new way. It turns out that everyone on the road (including us) is both an idiot and a maniac. Universality and Non-Belonging | 25:50 In this sense, there is no way to belong. The lines we draw, the boxes we put people in, and the labels we use to define one another are never enough. They are both incomplete and too much at the same time. Todd McGowan has produced some fascinating work on the universality of non-belonging. Distance Not Difference Hardens Minds | 33:32 Maybe we become disconnected from humanity, not by difference but by distance. The suggestion is that with proximity comes the potential for understanding at a human level. To see the question beneath the question. The need beneath the expression. Alain de Botton suggests that we share meals with those who disagree with us. “Sitting down at a table with a group of strangers has the incomparable and odd benefit of making it a little more difficult to hate them with impunity. Prejudice and ethnic strife feed off abstraction. However, the proximity required by a meal – something about handing dishes around, unfurling napkins at the same moment, even asking a stranger to pass the salt – disrupts our ability to cling to the belief that the outsiders who wear unusual clothes and speak in distinctive accents deserve to be sent home or assaulted. For all the large-scale political solutions which have been proposed to salve ethnic conflict, there are few more effective ways to promote tolerance between suspicious neighbours than to force them to eat supper together.” Alain de Botton This is a fascinating idea. One way to invite our minds to be softened together. To see each other at the level of our humanity before we interrogate their thoughts, practices, or beliefs. Foundational Assumptions and The Expectations We Carry | 36:45 My friend Megan posted a Tweet a while back. It said: “Just because I don’t like what this person is saying doesn’t mean they’re wrong.” I added to the thread: “Just because everyone agrees with me, it doesn’t mean I’m right”. “Just because someone disagrees with me, that doesn’t mean I’m wrong”. Then someone contributed: “Just because I dislike someone doesn’t mean they’re wrong.” “Just because I like someone doesn’t mean they’re right.” “Just because I like someone they dislike doesn’t mean they’re wrong.” “Just because they like someone I dislike doesn’t mean they’re wrong.” And another person commented: “Someone wrong about things before may be right this time.” “Someone right about things before may be wrong this time.” I thought these were helpful reminders. What Are Your Foundational Assumptions? Konrad talked about going into conversations with some foundational assumptions from which to connect. This allows us to take seriously our role in creating the future we want to be part of. What do we want to believe that will help shape or direct our encounter in a way that assists a deeper vision or set of values we hold? Konrad says you can argue with his foundational assumptions and disprove them, but that’s not the point. They are tools, not facts. We use them to shape our encounters in constructive ways. Good Faith (people are inherently good, not evil) We are doing our best with what we have…experiences, circumstances, and influences around us. Facts Don’t Change Minds James Clear says, “Facts don’t change our minds. Friendship does.” If I realise that I’m not going to change your mind, we can connect in other ways. Those different ways can be far more enriching than trying to win an argument. People don’t respond to logic until they feel seen and heard at a human level. We see a lot of “Logic Bullying” in the modern world. One of Adam Grant’s students described him as a Logic Bully when, rather than listening to what she was saying, he shut down her feelings and needs using cold hard facts. He dismissed her worries, diminishing the truth of what she felt at that moment. I’m Not Important Enough To Change Your Mind “Calling this out” will not do anything other than push people into corners. We can hold one another accountable for our actions and choices without resorting to moral grandstanding and drawing tribal battlelines. If, as Konrad says, we assume that the stakes are lower because we’re small, we can connect at a human level and invite proper accountability and responsibility for the things we say, do, and believe. Every Position Is a Strategy To Meet a Need | 43:18 I like to remember that “hurt people hurt people”. And that anger is an expression of pain and the only acceptable way for many people to express human emotions. When people feel lonely, afraid, and unseen, they find strategies to hoard safety, protection, and a sense of significance. We ALL have a complex and ever-changing set of human needs. When those needs are not met, we can do terrible things. If our terrible things are met with more rejection and pain, those terrible things can escalate. Empathy isn’t about accepting and tolerating the strategy, belief, or idea. It’s about seeing the person BENEATH their strategy, opinion, or statement. Sometimes it just takes feeling seen to lessen our attachment to those things and maybe even let them go altogether. What REALLY Changes/Softens Minds? | 45:47 I asked Konrad about experiences he has had of changing his mind. What causes it to happen? Who can do it? How has your mind changed in the past? What factors were involved? Maybe it’s the stuff life throws at you. In confronting a situation or experience, you perhaps realise that not everything is as it seemed before. Brittle Fragility and Weak Minds | 51:34 Binaries, opposites and black and white thinking lead to brittle fragility. They easily break when our minds cannot change, soften, or expand. If we are afraid of changing, softening, or expanding, we spend focus, energy, and attention on gathering information to protect, reinforce, and solidify our position. We shrink into a narrower and narrower hole, living from a place of defence and attack rather than creative expansion and curious exploration. Letting Minds Be Changed Humans are stubborn creatures; we would often rather keep doing something we don’t want to do than concede to a change that someone else is forcing us to make. Or at least that’s true for me. How can we create conditions and space for our minds (and others) to be softened and keep shifting, evolving, and growing? The Story of The Mustard Seed | 52:59 A mother is completely devastated after the death of her young child. She walks around town with the child bound to her chest, unable to come to terms with her loss and let go. Desperate to bring him back to life she learns of someone in the mountains who can help. So the mother finds the wise woman who reassures her, telling her she can give her what she needs. All she needs is to bring her a single mustard seed from a household in the town that has never known loss or grief. The bereaved mother sets off, knocking one door after another but to no avail. The simple request cannot be granted. She spends many hours in each home, learning about her neighbours and sharing her own tragic tale. As they cry, laugh, and reminisce together, the mother comes to see that stories of loss, grief, and pain sit behind every door in town. After a while she is able to come to terms with what has happened, and is able to bury her child’s body. Someone is knocking at the door every day. Do we see THEM? Do we recognise what they are asking for? If their needs are wrapped up in some chaotic and messy stuff, can we hear the question beneath it? I finished by asking Konrad what he would say if that knock at the door came. And we had an interesting chat about the door as a bridge between us. Links Follow the Ideas Digest Podcast on Instagram Support the Ideas Digest Podcast Subscribe to the Ideas Digest YouTube Channel The Haven Join me in The Haven to watch and listen to the entire conversation.

Are you waiting for the noise to quieten and the disruption to pass? Are you hoping for some serenity? For some time, energy, and permission to finally focus on the stuff that matters to you? Or enough thinking space to eventually FIGURE OUT what that stuff is. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we explore our relationship with the concept of serenity. We ask whether it’s a destination to reach or something a little closer to home. And if it isn’t a destination, how can we create and nurture more of it in everyday life, so we engage with the here and now rather than always waiting for the next storm to pass? If we can’t find it now, we won’t find it then. If we can’t find it here, we won’t find it there. Episode Contents The Arrival Fallacy of a Calm and Peaceful Life | 1:35 What Is Serenity? | 4:07 Serenity Gives Us Options | 6:34 Serenity is Safety | 7:27 Serenity is Flow | 9:09 Serenity is Surrender | 9:29 Serenity is Acceptance | 10:39 Serenity is an Inner Home| 11:12 Serenity is The Calm After a Storm | 12:26 The Difference Between Serenity and Tranquility | 14:00 Serene People are a Source of Confidence | 18:49 Serenity IS Connection | 21:31 Obstacles to Inner Connection | 23:19 Do You Get The Feeling You’re Being Watched? | 25:52 Connect With Meaning | 33:28 Man’s Search For Meaning | 36:38 Connection With Other People | 40:30 True Connection is Not a Transaction | 42:57 Practising Serenity | 45:06 Practise The Art of Noticing | 46:24 Take an Alternative View | 49:34 Accept and Invite Play | 0:0 Share What You Notice | 53:42 The Haven | 56:33 The Arrival Fallacy of a Calm and Peaceful Life | 1:35 “Arrival fallacy is this illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness.” Dr Tal Ben-Shahar What Is Serenity? | 4:07 In a Haven Theme Kota session, we discussed the idea of serenity not being a destination. We started with what serenity is (and isn’t). Serenity Gives Us Options | 6:34 It was suggested that Coco Chanel wore a hat at home when people visited to pretend she was on her way out, just in case she wanted an excuse to escape. Was this a source of serenity? Or did being poised and ready to run reflect a state of unpeaceful alertness and discontent? Serenity is Safety | 7:27 Serenity grows when we feel safe. But is feeling safe the same as feeling protected? Why does this difference matter? Serenity is Flow | 9:09 It’s the inner flow of creativity, where we are drawn to what interests us, not what we should do to fit in or be accepted. Serenity is Surrender | 9:29 In many ways, serenity is the absence of pursuit. So if we search for it, it disappears. It’s a sense of peace in the present. It’s about HOW we go, do, and be, rather than WHERE we go, WHAT we do, and WHO we are. Serenity is Acceptance | 10:39 Disturbances are inevitable in life. Serenity allows space for an authentic reaction to the noise. While simultaneously holding space to pick from an ever-expanding library of potential responses we have chosen to build. Serenity is an Inner Home| 11:12 Like a home that comes with us wherever we go, it’s something we grow, nurture, and reinforce within ourselves. It’s built from the inside out with acceptance, connection, meaning, creativity (a spirit of expansion and possibility), and playfulness (inviting the time to stop and engage unproductively). Serenity is The Calm After a Storm | 12:26 Serenity is that feeling afterwards when everything is out. The emotions can be named, held, and let go. The clouds can disperse and dissipate. Serenity is not just the calm after the storm; it’s surrender to the storm itself. It knows that to process life, sometimes a storm needs to happen. The Difference Between Serenity and Tranquility | 14:00 Serenity helps peace flow from the inside to the outside. Tranquility aims to invite peace from the outside to the inside. This distinction matters because there is always something we can consider on one side of the equation, even when there’s nothing we can do about it on the other. Serene People are a Source of Confidence | 18:49 Serene people contribute to our tranquility. When we spend time with people with a lot of inside-out serenity, we get infected. It’s attractive and safe for us to develop and nurture our inner serenity. We tend to reflect the energy we encounter in the people we spend time with. We might inadvertently absorb their values, beliefs, and priorities. When you know they are there, you feel confident that you will find a way through even if something unexpected happens. Can you think of someone who adds to the tranquility of your life? Serenity IS Connection | 21:31 At its core, I think serenity is about being connected. It’s a sense of connection with ourselves, others, and meaning. Obstacles to Inner Connection | 23:19 There might be sources of noise from the outside world, but there can also be inner noise. This is the internal feedback loop that we can’t shake off from overthinking, judgements, and second-guessing. Self-empathy allows us to observe within and become aware of our thoughts and feelings so we might recognise what we need. It’s a pause. A break in the flow of life to consider what might be alive in us at any given moment. Do You Get The Feeling You’re Being Watched? | 25:52 Inner noise also comes from seeing ourselves through the eyes of others…or we believe we are being watched. The presence of that other person suddenly influences our actions. Whether we thrive off attention or avoid it at all costs, this noise can stimulate or sabotage our ability to think and perform. Connect With Meaning | 33:28 In his book Finding Meaning, David Kessler builds on the Five Stages of Grief, adding a sixth, Meaning, which draws from Viktor Frankl’s work in Man’s Search for Meaning. Kessler suggests that there is an experience of post-traumatic connection that occurs when we integrate loss into our story of being. We can apply this to anything that doesn’t turn out as we would choose. Things that radically change our reality and events that shift the trajectory of our lives. Eventually, we will connect the dots between what we’ve been through and where we are going next. Man’s Search For Meaning | 36:38 Viktor Frankl was taken by the idea that even in the most unbearable circumstances, people can find a reason to keep going. He noticed that there is something that sustains us. Something that keeps us moving, even under the horrors he endured and observed in Nazi death camps during the Second World War. Our decisions, our will to survive, and our desire to grow, develop, and learn becomes rooted in something meaningful. Even if we can’t consciously describe it. Connection With Other People | 40:30 Serenity is the safe connection with others. Are we unconditionally valued in our important relationships? Are we still accepted, even if we do or say something a bit stupid? True Connection is Not a Transaction | 42:57 A genuine connection is not transactional. It’s not pay off and trade-off, where we say, “do this for me, and I’ll do that for you”. Serenity is surrender, shaped around letting go. It’s about allowing the flow to happen even when we can’t control or predict it. Serenity isn’t certainty. It’s being ok with uncertainty. Serenity isn’t having enough. It’s peace with the fact you will never have enough. Serenity isn’t balancing. It’s allowing life to be lopsided. Practising Serenity | 45:06 We are not looking for a destination. It’s not about perfection. We aren’t seeking guarantees, certainties, and promised results. The practices related to serenity are personal. They are about surrender, observation, awareness, and response-ability. Serenity is about allowing ourselves space and permission to notice what we notice. Practise The Art of Noticing | 46:24 We practise serenity when we pause to notice what’s alive in the world around us. When we look up and allow ourselves to be here now. No judgement, just acceptance and a spirit of play, exploration, and curiosity. It’s about seeing where the mind wanders, what we see there, and what we notice about the metaphorical thorn we’ve caught our sleeve on. Take an Alternative View | 49:34 Play with alternative ways of doing, thinking, and responding. We can gently scrutinise assumptions, actions, and choices. This helps us know whether or not they’re still helpful for us. Serenity is about being at peace with the choices we make. This requires us to live from a place of intention rather than drift. Accept and Invite Play | 0:0 Serenity grows in the space we make for play and spontaneity. Sometimes play might beckon us in. Do we shut the door and walk away? Maybe we dismiss it by saying, “yes, I should do more of that kind of thing…one day”. Or do we surrender to it and say, “OK, it looks like this is happening now; let’s see where this leads”? The screenshot from the spontaneous playtime in The Haven co-work session I mentioned in the episode Share What You Notice | 53:42 Serenity emerges when we have an outlet to share the stuff that makes us weird. We encounter, observe, and hold the world in unique ways. We experience serenity through the safety of sharing what we notice. This often starts within us. It is a muscle we can train. So that even when other people look at us blankly, we can enjoy the weird and wonderful perspective we have on the world. We can learn to stop taking differences as insults and embrace them instead. The Haven | 56:33 If this resonates and you want to explore simple and practical ways to invite more serenity into everyday life, come and join me in The Haven.

A cornerstone is a core around which everything else takes its shape. It’s the primary reference point, which determines the position and character of the structure around it. Anything can become a proverbial cornerstone. It’s a source of meaning and purpose. A simple core to which we choose to commit our time, energy, and attention. We all shape life around cornerstones. But we might not be intentionally aware of what they are. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we will use this image and think about ways to apply it to our lives. Table of contents A Cornerstone For Change | 4:20 A Lot Can Change In A Year | 12:40 Our Inner Vocabulary | 15:19 Experimenting and Play | 19:05 The Problem With Chains and Streaks | 17:25 Balancing and Sequencing | 20:32 The Best Time To Plant a Tree | 22:59 Life as a Separate Entity | 26:25 Life As Serenity Island | 31:52 But It’s Deeper and Stronger | 33:32 A Cornerstone of Cascading Change | 36:02 How To Identify Your Cornerstone | 39:32 Part One – What are your creations for the past 12 months? | 40:49 Part Two – What are you letting go of this year? | 42:24 Part Three – What would you like to continue? | 43:40 Part Four – What would you like to start? | 44:16 Making Sense Of Our Cornerstone | 47:51 A Cornerstone For Change | 4:20 A Haven Courtyard workshop I did with Brandon Bennett inspired this episode. Someone Brandon worked with shared the idea of setting a cornerstone for change. He had chosen “cooking” as his theme at the start of the new year. Brandon’s friend committed to cooking meals from scratch once or twice a week, which he hadn’t really done before. Beyond the cooking itself, this commitment became a cornerstone of change across various areas of life. For example, it impacted his relationships, health, creativity, confidence, and business. A Lot Can Change In A Year | 12:40 People overestimate what can be done in one day and underestimate what can be done in a month. By committing to do one small thing regularly, we can change the trajectory of everything over time. Cooking one or two new meals each week adds up. Showing up between fifty and a hundred times over a year, the impact gradually takes root. Skills, experiences, understanding, stories, and opportunities are all contingent aspects of living with a simple cornerstone. So rather than prioritising everything, we can trust that the other important stuff will begin to take shape around the cornerstone. Our Inner Vocabulary | 15:19 Brandon talked about how he became aware that some words were not helpful. For example, rather than thinking about new habits as “challenges”, he approaches change with a spirit of “experimentation” and “play”. This is not about the words themselves. But instead, it’s about how to engage with what the terms represent. In this respect, a cornerstone is a point of freedom and expansion. It’s not a burden, like a proverbial millstone around the neck instead. Experimenting and Play | 19:05 For example, when it comes to identifying a cornerstone, if a particular word feels heavy, pressurised, or like a strain on your nervous system, we can find one that doesn’t. It’s incredible how often we attach weighty words to our desire for positive change in life. The Problem With Chains and Streaks | 17:25 For me, the millstone can appear in the pursuit of chains and streaks. If I see success as doing something every day, the need to keep the streak going can become more important than the underlying change. Balancing and Sequencing | 20:32 Likewise, the word “balance” can feel unduly weighty. It seems like a noble and positive state of being, but it’s an impossible quest. If by balance, we mean we want to hold everything equally and evenly, we are setting ourselves up to fail. Because we can never achieve perfect balance. When we live it, life by nature is unbalancing and destabilising. We might think of life as a sequence of events instead. So we try to figure out the best order to pursue our most important desires. But there is always more to do. Another destination to aim for. And like with our effort to balance all our responsibilities, dreams, and aspirations, it gets overwhelming when we hold them up to the capacity of time, energy, and ability. The Best Time To Plant a Tree | 22:59 You may have heard the Chinese proverb, “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today”. It is frustrating to wish we had already begun work on something we want to create or change. It has also been noted that “people overestimate what can be done in one day and underestimate what can be done in a month.” We might lose heart and give up when we don’t see quick results. We put off planting the tree because its growth seems so gradual and far off that it’s impossible to appreciate its value. Many of us might say… “But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?” Yes . . . the same age you will be if you don’t.” – Julia Cameron It can be hard to connect with the value of getting started or continuing something that doesn’t give us an instant sense of gratification. But in twenty years, the present will be twenty years ago and imagine what might change between now and then. And that’s the point. The stuff that unfolds along the way. Every tree we plant makes a difference gradually and immediately. It feeds into the soil and alters the landscape around different parts of our lives, blossoming and fruiting in new ways. The tree grows during those years. It creates meaning and a sense of satisfaction as we go. This is what makes for an effective cornerstone. It’s something around which the ecosystem of life takes shape. Life as a Separate Entity | 26:25 There are three parts to any relationship. There is me, there is you, and there is the relationship itself. What IS the relationship? What is its purpose? Do we share expectations? What does it require from each of us? What do we need from IT? It’s the same for families, businesses, communities, bands, and just about anything you can imagine where people need to rub along together. It can help to view life itself as the thing we are shaping and creating rather than the thing we are. It’s something we contribute to, build, and invest in. When it doesn’t go to plan, it’s not because we are a failure. It’s just that something didn’t work in the way we hoped. If our life feels like a mess, we can step back and figure out how to clean it up. We can find a cornerstone to shape our lives by nurturing a sense of depersonalised distance. Life As Serenity Island | 31:52 This is part of what drove me as I built The Return to Serenity Island course. By imagining our life as an island, we can see it as separate from us in this sense. It’s somewhere we get to hang out, nurture, grow, plant trees, and dig for treasure. This helps us see the part we play in life. We can know that we are not in complete control of everything, but we can impact many aspects of it. By viewing the different areas of life as parts of this island, we can imagine how they affect one another. We get to play on the landscape of our life. To experiment, to explore, to dream. But It’s Deeper and Stronger | 33:32 Having an intentional cornerstone is like a root. Its growth can be challenging to see because a lot of it happens underground. It’s not flashy or grand. But it enables everything else to grow out of and around it. Focusing on fewer things makes deeper, broader, and more meaningful progress over time. But this doesn’t come easily. There is always a temptation to get bogged down in details and busy work. And this can have a halting influence in the long run as we spread ourselves thinly. Maintaining momentum is impossible when you try to move in multiple directions at once. A Cornerstone of Cascading Change | 36:02 The cornerstone is a site of normality that gives rise to a gradual and gentle cascading flow. When something has been around for a while (e.g. a family, business, social circle, sports arena, theatre etc.), it collects stories of memorable moments—some of these become legends that stand the test of time. But these tales are not the result of force. They are the product of spontaneous happenings. A magical evening, a funny series of events, or an experience that came out of nowhere. Something that just happened one day. These stories might make us believe that these venues are where the magic always occurs. But they are told precisely because they are NOT typical. They are outliers—exceptional situations. The legends are a result of normality being stretched from time to time. The cornerstone (the place, practice, or event) is ordinary. Still, because of rhythm, focus, repetition etc., we find the conditions for all possibilities to occur from time to time. How To Identify Your Cornerstone | 39:32 Every passing moment is an opportunity to pause, breathe, and recommit to our role in creating life. In the episode, I briefly explore Brandon’s prompts. The practical part of the workshop was divided into four parts that helped us look back at the past year and think forwards to the coming one. Part One – What are your creations for the past 12 months? | 40:49 This is an interestingly worded question. I found it more helpful than accomplishments or achievements. But I’d encourage you to think about it in your own words once you get to what it’s asking. Part Two – What are you letting go of this year? | 42:24 What HAVE you let go of? What are you looking to let go of? How has letting go been part of those creations for the past 12 months? Maybe there are things you’ve done or been part of that show you’ve let go of something – a mindset, attitude, or fear. You might not have thought about it like that until now. Maybe it’s an idea, a person, a hope, a struggle, a belief, an expectation, an old pattern of behaviour etc. Part Three – What would you like to continue? | 43:40 It’s tempting to view the things we want to stop and the things we want to start. But there are tracks already in place that are good. What are they? Particular commitments, relationships, habits, practices, approaches, processes, routines or aspects of routines, and so on. Part Four – What would you like to start? | 44:16 It’s important to do this without judgement or editing. Just allow anything that bubbles up to flow onto the paper. What would you like to start doing next? Making Sense Of Our Cornerstone | 47:51 If these questions are useful to you, I’d love to encourage you to use these prompts to consider your own cornerstone for change over the coming months. If you find it hard to do this alone, I invite you to talk to Brandon or me if you wish for a more focused conversation. Find Brandon through his website here.

“Nobody really owns anything. We give back our bodies at the end of our lives. We own our thoughts, but everything else is just borrowed.” – Deborah Ellis (From No Ordinary Day) In one of our Haven Kota sessions, we discussed self-belonging through the lens of ownership and possession. Where do control and entitlement fit with belonging? What does it mean for things to belong to us? How does it feel to belong to something or someone else? Why are some belongings more cherished and valuable than others? How do we hold ourselves, others, the world, our lives, goals, and relationships? Do we own them? What would it mean to give life back at the end? How much do our desires, emotions, and passions own us? What does it mean to be pre-possessed or owned by something? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we explore what it means to see ourselves, our lives, and the world in the light of these questions. What if they are all borrowed? Episode Contents You Can’t Take it With You | 4:41 Earning The Respect to Borrow | 6:56 Living On Borrowed Time | 14:56 Steal Like an Artist | 20:09 The Difference Between Borrowing and Theft | 20:55 The Burden of Originality | 24:50 We Belong To Something Bigger | 28:02 We Are Borrowing a Greater Story Than a Hero’s Journey | 29:48 The World Likes Possession | 37:15 People Like Us vs People Like Them | 38:40 Don’t Leave Your Longings Unattended | 41:30 You Can’t Connect Dots Forwards | 44:23 Collective Consciousness and A Borrowed Moment | 48:29 Everything is Borrowed (Us Included) | 51:16 Giving Thanks For What We’ve Borrowed | 52:18 New Does Not Mean Better | 60:22 The Haven | 61:30 You Can’t Take it With You | 4:41 I regularly heard the phrase, “you can’t take it with you”, during my years as an undertaker. It is often expressed about the accumulation of material possessions and wealth. For some, it was a reason to spend without regret. For others, it was a reason to give without fear. But whatever the ramifications, its underlying premise is universal…whatever we collect, gather, and possess in life doesn’t come with us when we’re done with it. Everything is borrowed. Earning The Respect to Borrow | 6:56 How do you feel about lending things to other people? Would you happily give your stuff to anyone, or does trust need to be built first? How do you feel about things you borrow? Do you treat them with more or less respect than things you own? It might depend. Living On Borrowed Time | 14:56 We talk about “living on borrowed time” after a severe diagnosis or near-death experience. It’s what we might say when confronted with our mortality. But is this time any different from our experience of time…all the time? In the episode, I share a story from childhood, when we were leant a games console by our hairdresser. I still have no idea why (I developed a solid theory while recording). But I remember the feeling when we were told we only had a few days before we needed to return it. I became focused and clear on the only thing that mattered: completing Sonic The Hedgehog. How is our mindset and approach to life affected by the reminder that everything is borrowed? Steal Like an Artist | 20:09 In his book, Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon suggests that there is no such thing as a truly unique or original idea when it comes to creativity and art. I agree wholeheartedly, though I might not describe the process as “stealing”. Kleon writes, “how does an artist look at the world? First, you figure out what’s worth stealing; then you move on to the next thing. That’s about all there is to it.” The Difference Between Borrowing and Theft | 20:55 There seems to be a difference between stealing, borrowing, owning, holding, using, collaborating, sharing, contributing, remixing, and plagiarising. We might describe stealing as deliberately depriving the rightful owner of their property. What Kleon describes is more like “honouring, studying, finding inspiration in, crediting, transforming, remixing, building on, and collaborating with”. He helpfully suggests that “bad theft”, or what we might simply describe as “theft”, is “degrading, skimming, plagiarising, ripping off”. We could add exploiting, taking credit for, and passing off as one’s own. They might all mean the same thing, but you get the point! The Burden of Originality | 24:50 “If we’re free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running away from it.” Austin Kleon On the one hand, we might feel like we need to be completely original. Whereas on the flip side, we might think we must fit in to be accepted. But if we’re free from the burden of trying to belong, we can stop trying to diminish ourselves on the altar of fashion and embrace who we are instead of running away from it. It’s about locating a more authentic expression of OURSELVES. We belong somewhere in the middle. In the messy nuance and grey ambiguity. We are this and that, we are borrowing and we are borrowed. We can’t take it with us, but we can carry it further along the road. It reminds me of that old Greek Proverb: “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” Not only do we give life back, but we pass it on. Someone else is coming to stay in the holiday home after our vacation ends. Do we act with bitterness and resentment in the face of that inevitable change? Or do we have the grace to operate from a heart of kindness, gentleness, and compassion towards those we will never meet? We Belong To Something Bigger | 28:02 “When we identify with something larger than ourselves, whether our family, a circle of friends, a team or a community, that becomes part of who we are. There is so much more to us than just a separate self; our connected self is based on recognizing that we are part of many larger circles…It is from our connected selves that much of what people most value in life emerges, including love, friendship, loyalty, trust, relationship, belonging, purpose, gratitude, spirituality, mutual aid, and meaning.” Macy and Johnstone (Active Hope) Our connected self isn’t just individual selves coming together as a sum of parts. It’s who we all become as a whole. It’s how the collective shapes us and how we shape the collective. The whole is different from the sum of its parts. Remove the elements, and the Collective and each separate piece become fundamentally different. We Are Borrowing a Greater Story Than a Hero’s Journey | 29:48 Our story is not a hero’s journey. It’s a collective flow of becoming. We belong to it, and it belongs to us. It flows into, through, and beyond each individual. It’s universal and particular. But it is about more than any single person. The story didn’t start with us; it didn’t stop with us. We are simply borrowing the pen and writing what we can before passing the page onto the next person. The World Likes Possession | 37:15 “Rather than viewing ourselves as a fixed thing with characteristics that can’t be changed, we can think of ourselves as a flow of becoming. The static view of self is similar to a picture hanging on a wall, something that is set in a particular way and that resists transformation. Whenever we have thoughts like “I’m not the sort of person who …,” we’re painting a similarly static picture of ourselves. An alternative view is to think of each moment as similar to a frame in a movie. If something isn’t in the frame right now, that doesn’t mean it won’t be later. This perspective invites a greater sense of possibility.” Macy and Johnstone (Active Hope) Do you make decisions based on a static or dynamic view of your self? This flow of becoming is beautiful to invite into our understanding of who we are. To change “I’m not the sort of person who does that” to “I could be someone who tries that”. When we tether our identity this way, we restrict and limit ourselves and one another. People Like Us vs People Like Them | 38:40 We often hold other people to our expectations of “people like that”. Maybe we are controlled by the labels and identities ascribed to us by society. These ideas can own and possess us, defining how we think, feel, and act. Rather than helping us better understand ourselves, they can alienate us from our deeper feelings, needs, and desires. This is fundamentally about how we are (and feel) held. How do other people hold us? Including the idea of what it might mean to be us. What expectations do they have of us? How do those expectations influence what we do? And do we conform to the role of a character in a story that we don’t belong to and doesn’t belong to us? Don’t Leave Your Longings Unattended | 41:30 “Don’t worry about unity from piece to piece – what unifies all of your work is the fact that you made it” Austin Kleon I often talk about the non-linearity of growth and time and how change occurs in spirals, cycles, and seasons rather than on a continuum. That’s what I like about this quote. We are taught to look at the present moment and decide whether things fit together. This is the worst possible position to view that stuff from. Steve Jobs famously said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” You Can’t Connect Dots Forwards | 44:23 We let go of important things because they “don’t fit” with what we think life is supposed to be. We lose essential parts of ourselves. They are left to grow weeds, get rotten like old wet wood, and become almost impossible to access. But these longings are always calling faintly within. And it’s never too late to return to them in some way. Kleon says, “You can cut off a couple of passions and only focus on one, but after a while, you’ll start to feel phantom limb pain.” If life is borrowed and we can’t take it with us, what do we want to do before giving it back? Which joys, passions, hobbies, relationships, and itches do we want to explore before the big librarian in the sky asks for them back? Collective Consciousness and A Borrowed Moment | 48:29 “Something very interesting occurs when a group of jazz musicians improvise together. A number of separate individuals, all making their own decisions, act together as a whole. As the music flows, any of the musicians can take the solo spot, that leading role gliding seamlessly between the players. Who decides when the piano or trumpet player should come forward? It isn’t just the person playing that instrument, for the others have already stepped back just a little to create an opening. Two levels of thinking are happening at the same time here: choices are made from moment to moment both by the group as a whole and by the individuals within it.” Macy and Johnstone (Active Hope) Connected consciousness is a unique type of consciousness. We are more than the sum of our parts. I’ve played music in that kind of ensemble where there are no words and no active communication, but it happens. It ebbs, flows, and goes where it needs to go through the openings made by accident, by collective agreement in conjunction with the feel and the sound. Everything is Borrowed (Us Included) | 51:16 “You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” Austin Kleon Giving Thanks For What We’ve Borrowed | 52:18 At the beginning of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius spends time thanking people who have formed his character. He gives gratitude to the sources of his virtues. He presents a mix of genetic characteristics, socialised attributes, and role models he actively chose. This is something we can all do. Recognise our strengths, not as our own, but as borrowed from others. Who did we learn this from? What gave us this capacity? How did we end up with it? New Does Not Mean Better | 60:22 “My interest in making music has been to create something that does not exist that I would like to listen to. I wanted to hear music that had not yet happened, by putting together things that suggested a new thing which did not yet exist.” Brian Eno How does this extend to the rest of our lives? To create an experience, a relationship, a home, a family, a business, a hobby, a routine, a neighbourhood etc. We put together things that are there but which, combined together, do not yet exist. How do we want our life to look when we give it back? The Haven | 61:30 If you want to explore these themes and ideas with me in more depth, The Haven is the place to do it. We have regular meetings where we discuss topics like this one. It’s a warm and friendly environment, and it would be lovely to welcome you in. Learn more at the-haven.co

“Blessed are the weird people: poets, misfits, writers, mystics, painters, and troubadours, for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.” – Jacob Nordby In my six years as an undertaker, I was always struck by the ordinary weirdness of human beings. Eulogies are filled with memories of mundane idiosyncrasies, quirks, and funny habits. These are things we treasure and miss about people. Weirdness is par for the course of humanity. We are all weird in our own way. And yet we learn to fight those parts of ourselves that don’t fit the mould. We hide them, judge them, and crush them. In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown defines belonging as “the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us”. She says, “because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging but often barriers to it.” And then later, in Braving The Wilderness, she described “the quest for true belonging” as underpinned by our “courage to stand alone”. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we ask how we might nurture the courage to embrace and express our normally weird selves in life. Episode Contents What Makes Us Ordinary is What Also Makes Us Weird | 1.48 The Parable of The Blind Men and The Elephant | 6.29 Ordinary Weirdness in Everyday Life | 9.33 Belonging in The Wilderness | 14.30 Self-Belief, Impostor Syndrome, and True Belonging | 21.26 Entitlement vs Belonging (True Safety) | 23.32 Perfectionism and Conditional Belonging | 26.12 An Ode to Imperfection and Ordinary Weirdness | 32.40 Stop Caring THAT People Think | 38.44 Ordinary Weirdness and The Courage to Be Disliked | 41.44 Identifying Our Path – Confidence in How We Go | 48.21 The Temple of Dreams | 53.36 What is Alive in You Right Now? | 66.14 What Makes Us Ordinary is What Also Makes Us Weird | 1.48 Ordinary weirdness is not something that can be forced. It’s how we express our experience of life as the proverbial elephant. The Parable of The Blind Men and The Elephant | 6.29 You may know the story of the six blind men who wanted to figure out the form of an elephant. One man felt its trunk and believed the elephant was a thick snake. Another found the ear and compared it to a fan. The third felt the elephant’s leg and imagined it like a tree trunk. The fourth man felt the creature’s side and likened it to a wall. Another man felt its tail, believing it to be like a rope. And the last could touch the elephant’s tusk, declaring it to be a spear. “We get stuck in the metaphor of language. But it’s really the abstract sensation that connects everything. Art that is sensual goes straight to the ball of sensation that is in the centre of us. It bypasses words. This is what is Real.” – Alex Paxton My friend Alex talked about his relationship with art and its role in his understanding of life. Language is the imperfect tool we use to try to make abstract things concrete. But life is a lot like the elephant. We can feel and describe different parts of it. But none of us can ever capture the entire thing. And even as we define it, we do so with comparisons to other things. So art (and a life of ordinary creative exploration) keeps us moving around the elephant, finding new ways to feel, imagine, and describe it. But we never fully grasp it. Our experience and understanding of reality sits at the heart of our unique and weird ways of seeing the world. This is why there is always another piece to paint, song to sing, book to write, and truth to speak. Ordinary Weirdness in Everyday Life | 9.33 We discussed this in a Haven Kota session and recognised that “weird” is not an easy word for everyone to hold. It can carry baggage if used as an insult or criticism. There isn’t a perfect word to describe this ordinary everyday weirdness. We thought about “authentic”, but that carries a sense of essentialism, which I don’t think we’re talking about. It’s the freedom to engage with the present moment from the safe uncertainty of our ball of sensation. Belonging in The Wilderness | 14.30 Brené Brown says that True Belonging is the antidote to a crisis of disconnection. Braving the wilderness requires us to feel alone in the face of “uncertainty, vulnerability and criticism.” This is the definition of wilderness when the world feels hostile and “like a political and ideological combat zone”. But this is important because we become tied to a desire to fit in, gain approval, and do what the group needs of us. Which ignores this more resounding call for belonging that we all have. That “we’re connected by love and the human spirit. No matter how separated we are by what we think and believe, we are part of the same spiritual story.” If we allow them to live, our weird bits connect us as we navigate the absurdity of life together. Joseph Campbell said, “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” This is a reminder that “true belonging is not something you negotiate externally; it’s what you carry in your heart. It’s finding the sacredness in being a part of something. When we reach this place, even momentarily, we belong everywhere and nowhere. That seems absurd, but it’s true.” Self-Belief, Impostor Syndrome, and True Belonging | 21.26 Impostor syndrome is the feeling that arises from the belief that we are not as competent as other people. Or we are not as capable as other people think we are. In other words, it’s the feeling that we don’t quite fit. The true impostor wants everyone to think they fit so that they can take something. Explorers, journeyers, dancers might be outsiders but they are not impostors. We are the poets, misfits, writers, mystics, painters, and troubadours. We belong to the outside, not with a desire to get in, but an openness to give, contribute, and feel this thing called life from another angle and through another lens. In this way, fitting in is different from belonging. Entitlement vs Belonging (True Safety) | 23.32 A desire for entitlement accompanies the drive to fit in. In contrast, the feeling of belonging is a place of universal acceptance (of ordinary weirdness). There are two types of safety that we find here. Entitlement is safety as protection from the outside, based on the special treatment you get on the inside. This kind of safety depends on you conforming to the requirements and conditions of the group. True belonging, however, is a sense of safety as permission to be you. Safety to be vulnerable rather than safety from vulnerability. You belong because you’re here. You don’t have to do anything, be anyone, or change yourself to be accepted. Perfectionism and Conditional Belonging | 26.12 One potential offshoot of conditional belonging is fear of failing and perfectionism. Where we become influenced by the consequences of messing up. Perfection is described as “the action or process of improving something until it is faultless”. How could we possibly reach such a place? ‘Perfectionism’ is not about achieving a tangible outcome. It’s an attachment to dissatisfaction in the face of everything. Perfectionism is not simply a desire for high standards and top-quality results. It is always in pursuit of satisfaction but can never be satisfied. No matter how good it gets, it will never do quite enough. Despite appearances, perfectionism is not about producing quality. It’s about our relationship with our belief in the idea of ‘faultless’. Perfection is like a black hole. It’s a void, made conspicuous by its lack of definition. And there’s no space for ordinary weirdness in there. An Ode to Imperfection and Ordinary Weirdness | 32.40 I wrote this ode to imperfection. https://youtu.be/-9cjSnV4wCk Stop Caring THAT People Think | 38.44 We might defensively say, “I don’t care what people think of me“. But of course we care what people think. We are social animals with a basic need for safety and belonging. But when we allow ourselves to care about other things MORE, we can unshackle from the fear and shame-based responses to other people’s judgements and criticism. Self-consciousness is a disconnection from our self. Seeing ourselves through the projected critical or ridiculing eyes of the world around us comes in different shapes and forms. We can’t control WHAT people think, but we can make peace with the fact THAT people WILL think of us sometimes. By accepting that people will judge us and view us with criticism, envy, disdain and so on, we begin to change our relationship and stop caring THAT people think of us. Otherwise, we might stop doing what we love doing. We might not start doing what we’d love to do. And we might shrink ourselves and not contribute to our lives, our relationships, and the world at large in ways we feel calling from the ball of sensation inside us. Ordinary Weirdness and The Courage to Be Disliked | 41.44 In The Courage to Be Disliked, Kishimi and Koga introduce Alfred Adler’s school of Individual Psychology. They speak to the ordinary weirdness of everyday life and how we will be disliked no matter what we do. In other words, they suggest, we might as well be ourselves and contribute to creating a world we actually believe in as we go. This is not a case of acting IN ORDER to be disliked. It’s acting DESPITE the inevitability of being disliked. Being liked or disliked isn’t the driving force…our deeper values and principles are. Identifying Our Path – Confidence in How We Go | 48.21 Self-belonging gives us confidence in HOW we choose to be, not in WHAT we are allowed (or not) to be. Likewise, there’s something beautiful about getting to know someone over time and seeing glimpses of their weird normality. No one is entitled to those parts of us. Letting our weird out is a choice. In safe environments and when we experience the safety of other people, our weirdness will probably slip out. We need these environments, these people, and these places, because our everyday weirdness can get locked away, stuck behind glass. Of course, Introverts and Highly Sensitive People get told to come out of their shells or speak up. But no one is entitled to an open you. It might be that right now, you let your inner weird breathe when you’re alone. In your studio, bedroom, kitchen, garden, etc. as long as you have somewhere to keep in touch with it. I would hate for it to stay behind glass! The Temple of Dreams | 53.36 In Blessed Are The Weird, Jacob Nordby shares a story called, The Temple Of Dreams. In the story, the wise woman asks the man what he wants. He can’t answer. He says he doesn’t know. But then comes the realisation, “I do want something, or I wouldn’t be here. It’s just that I have become content with my things.” “I want everything exactly as it is,” he said. “I know that life unfolds to give me what is best.” “Well, I have a house and comfortable things. I enjoy my work and appreciate my friends. I have everything a man should want except….” “Except,” she said. “Tell me the except. ‘Except’ is everything you have never dared to ask.” In our Haven Kota conversation, we explored different ways of relating to the “except”. Maybe we know what our “except” is, but something stops us from following it. Or perhaps we understand we want something, but we can’t figure out what. There is ALWAYS an “except” at some level. Something is always alive in us. And I finish the episode with a reflective question that can help us identify our feelings and needs at any given moment. What is Alive in You Right Now? | 66.14 You can get in touch if you’ve noticed something alive in you and want to explore ways to embrace, express, or explore it. I often have coaching slots available and would love to hear from you.

Deep processing is a core aspect of high sensitivity. But processing is an important thing for all of us to do. And it’s not easy to find the time and space for it in a fast-changing world that never takes a breath. This is what we’re exploring in this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast. How can we create better conditions for deep processing in everyday life? Table of contents Responding to a Fast-Changing World | 2:23 Shallow Rivers and Deep Lakes | 8:29 Cold Bucket Experiences | 14:03 When You Feel Unseen and Unknown | 18:14 Over-Empathy and Deep Patterns | 21:25 Deep Processing and Loss | 25:20 Levels of Processing | 35:33 Deep Overground Processing and Response Flexibility | 37:14 Deep Underground Processing | 42:23 Depth of Processing and Downtime | 44:30 What Happens Without Deep Processing? | 49:23 Slow Coaching and The Deep Processing Approach | 52:51 Conclusion – Prepare to Be Unprepared | 57:04 The Haven | 59:30 Responding to a Fast-Changing World | 2:23 Everything moves so rapidly in our modern world. There is pressure to process and adapt to changes much faster than we have had to in the past. We are exposed to huge amounts of information and expected to somehow make sense of it and apply it to our own lives. So how do we process and respond to such a fast-paced world? Shallow Rivers and Deep Lakes | 8:29 There is an old proverb that says “shallow rivers are noisy. Deep lakes are silent.” What does this mean for our sense of self-belonging and our ability to absorb change? When things are thrown into our life from outside, like a big rock, a great splash and disturbance occur as it comes flying through the surface. But after a while, the rock is absorbed into the landscape in the depths of this body of water. There is an unshakeable power to the deep lake. That can be both safe and terrifying. In the story of the Steadfast Tin Soldier, we meet a character who appears to be a deep lake. But his silence, stillness, and stoicism speaks of unbelonging. He seems unable to express his true needs and feelings; hamstrung by the story he’s been taught to believe about himself. Absorbing the blow is one part. But for true integration to happen we must also respond to it in some way. The change that happens around us fundamentally changes something in us too. Whereas the Tin Soldier appears unmoved and unchanged because he can’t allow himself to feel his needs or need his feelings. Gentleness gives us the firm back and soft front to be flexible and adapt to the situation at hand. It is the openness, awareness, and intuition to choose based on what we see in front of us rather than what we think we ought to do. When we allow space for deep processing we nurture a deeper pool of options to draw from in different situations. Cold Bucket Experiences | 14:03 In her book, You Don’t Owe Anyone, Caroline Garnet McGraw tells the story of what she describes as a “cold bucket experience”. I share the story in the episode. You can also hear Caroline talk about it when we spoke. In childhood we might hear messages like: “Why are you doing it like that? That’s stupid!” Or “that’s just your imagination – grow up!” And “only an idiot would enjoy that kind of thing”. Or “why are you crying? You need thicker skin if you’re going to survive the real world”. These messages prompt us to filter ourselves as we make sense of what we need to do to avoid rejection. So we might recoil, hide, and replace those parts of ourselves that we feel ashamed of. And amplify behaviours that we believe will help us gain approval and acceptance, safety and belonging. Cold Bucket Experiences are similar to what might be described as “small-t” or “paper-cut” traumas. They feed the script that we write for our route into belonging and safety from a very young age. And without a bit of examination and space for processing, they become well-worn paths that we walk throughout our lives. When You Feel Unseen and Unknown | 18:14 In his book, The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté describes trauma, not as something that happens TO you but as what happens INSIDE you. It’s a psychic injury, lodged in our nervous system, mind, and body. I was reminded of Caroline’s story when reading Maté’s book because she describes the deep impact of something that seems so ordinary on the surface. Maté says this kind of small-t everyday trauma is almost universal. We all carry them, often from seemingly ordinary events. Cold bucket experiences might also come from what Winnicott referred to as “nothing happening when something might have profitably happened”. So moments when we needed reassurance, acceptance, or acknowledgement. Maybe we were ignored or forgotten about at a moment we needed to be recognised in some way. Bessel van der Kolk, says this kind of trauma is “when we are not seen and known”. Over-Empathy and Deep Patterns | 21:25 In a Haven workshop, Marika Vepsäläinen explained how over-empathy has become a survival strategy for many sensitive people. Where they learn to soothe, solve, regulate, and balance the emotional energy in social environments and relationships. Early in life we all pick up more and less acceptable emotions to show to the world around us. Especially in those nurturing formative environments. We learn what is required in order to feel a sense of belonging, safety, and acceptance. And we quickly figure out what we shouldn’t do, say, believe, think, and feel, if we want to fit in. Deep Processing and Loss | 25:20 When it comes to absorbing change, deep processing requires patience. David Kessler, the co-author of “On Grief and Grieving“, writes that “meaning” is the 6th stage of grief. This kind of integration of loss into our state of being can’t be rushed or forced. The word healing means to restore to wholeness. And while the word “restore” implies a sense of return or going back, healing is more than that. Because healing never goes back to the same state as before. There is always something changed – something added, something let go, something different. The wholeness of healing is an integration of the experience. Where we absorb the site of the pain, loss, and rupture. The hole isn’t filled. It’s accepted. Healing after grief is about allowing what is not there to be not there. And for that to be part of the landscape going forward. Healing is about accepting the hole within the whole and allowing that to be part of who we are. Levels of Processing | 35:33 In my conversation with Bill Allen, author of Confessions of a Highly Sensitive Man, he talked about highly sensitive people having a wider aperture for sensory input. And like on a camera, more information flows through the lens. If we don’t make space and time to process the information it just stacks up as noise. This is why highly sensitive people get overstimulated more quickly. At its most effective, deep processing happens at different levels. Deep Overground Processing and Response Flexibility | 37:14 “Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through the lips and fingertips.” – Dawson Trotman We can write or speak with people (or ourselves) as a way to process things deeply. This is a conscious approach to processing, giving us chance to converse with and become aware of our thoughts and feelings. Overground processing helps us identify clear options to choose between. It’s a way to increase Response Flexibility, which is what Rollo May defined when said: “Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness” Overground processing helps us know where we want to throw our weight. And this helps us more quickly filter options and make choices that fit our deeper visions and values. Without deep processing, we are at the whims of our survival strategies and the reactions we create as a way to keep life safe rather than meaningful. Deep Underground Processing | 42:23 Many of us have experienced an “aha!” moment in the shower or while we’re walking. When our mind is wandering and suddenly we know what we need to do with a particular situation, problem, or creative challenge. Deep underground processing helps create the conditions for these moments. It happens without conscious thought. Like the beating of our hearts and the rhythm of our breath. Depth of Processing and Downtime | 44:30 Studies show that people with sensory processing sensitivity use more of those parts of the brain associated with the “deeper” processing of information, especially on tasks that involve noticing subtleties. Highly sensitive people might take longer when making decisions and taking action. Especially when processing a lot of new information. But deep processing doesn’t automatically mean slow processing. When we have good processing rhythms in place, highly sensitive people can actually process and respond to things with quick wit, intuitive awareness, and fast reflexes. Elaine Aron says highly sensitive people need downtime with as little sensory input from the outside world as possible. But we probably don’t need as much as we might think. We just need to make it effective. Which can be a challenge when there is so much pressure to be busy, productive, and useful all the time. What Happens Without Deep Processing? | 49:23 We don’t process anything deeply at a societal level. We can see the impact of this with the increase in urgency, dread stacking, catastrophising, feelings of anxiety, hopelessness and resentment. As well as increasing disconnection, fragmentation, and disintegration. Processing is the pathway to healing. It needs to be a priority for us as individuals AND as a world. Otherwise we will keep on being defined by the symptoms of our wounds. Slow Coaching and The Deep Processing Approach | 52:51 Deep processing has become a central aspect of my coaching approach. We follow a cycle of deep processing in The Haven, through our nine core themes. Rather than trying to understand everything we can about a theme all in one go, we open space for conversation (with ourselves and one another). It’s a beautiful way to invite deep and meaningful growth as we uncover new desires, discover new ways of approaching old things, and build friendships along the way. Deep processing can’t be rushed or forced. It can only be allowed. Released. Given permission. Conclusion – Prepare to Be Unprepared | 57:04 When we process, absorb, and integrate unexpected change into our lives, we become prepared to be unprepared for what we can’t see coming. This happens through: Patience – processing can take time and isn’t always obvious Surrender – processing can’t be forced or controlled Gentleness – processing requires flexibility and openness to new ways of doing things The Haven | 59:30 For many of us our relationship with change is made more difficult because we feel like we are on our own. It can seem overwhelming when no one around us sees things like we do. The burden of change is heavy to carry alone. That’s one of the reasons I built The Haven the way I have. It’s a place of sanctuary and support, where you will find like-minded travellers exploring our themes together. So if you would like to approach this season of change with the gentle support of a safe and caring community of loving misfits you are so very welcome to join us. Learn more here

Sometimes drift comes through the endless pursuit of goals we hope will make us happy. Or it might come as we passively float along the path of least resistance, hoping something motivates us to take action. There are many different ways we can find ourselves drifting through life. We never drift to a destination we have consciously chosen. It’s through deliberate movement in the right direction that we get to where we want to go. Sometimes we need to pick up the oars and start gently rowing in a new direction. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we explore ways we might find ourselves drifting in life. We will think about where we might be drifting right now and how to turn our drifting into repeat blooming. Episode contents Late Blooming | 5:05 Conceptual Types | 10:56 Experimental Types (The Late Bloomers) | 11:24 Society’s Preference | 12:07 The Impossible Question | 14:50 The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Life’s Drift | 18:55 A Different Way of Being | 20:13 The Treadmill of Pursuit | 23:02 Slower Souls and Experimental Trailblazers | 26:45 Contributing Factors To A Life of Drift | 30:25 Everything Is Breath | 34:10 The Top Five Regrets of The Dying Strip Away The Complexity | 38:33 Make The Right Thing The Easy Thing To Do | 40:24 The End Goal is The Starting Point | 42:07 The Waypoints Are the Whole Point | 43:47 There’s Always a Way Back | 45:21 The Return to Serenity Island | 48:32 Late Blooming | 5:05 Do you feel like a late bloomer? “The more I learn about late blooming, the more I think we’re all late bloomers. Our society pushes us to achieve early, to all of our detriments. I can remember feeling like a late bloomer in my 20s, and I certainly feel like one now, in the midst of a career change in midlife! Really we should be embracing late blooming, or as I like to call it, repeat blooming. Life just feels so much better when you believe that it has more than one act.” Kendra Patterson Late Bloomers don’t just approach life at a slower speed. Their orientation to the world is different from what we might consider normal modes of operation. Kendra encourages us to find reassurance in the differences between conceptual and experimental types of people. Conceptual Types | 10:56 Conceptual Types have a clear picture of how they want things to look. They work seductively. In other words, they know where they want to go and have a clear plan. Weinberg and Galenson (2019) looked at the lives of Nobel Laureates in Economics. They found that Conceptual innovators made their most significant contributions to the field in their mid-20s. Experimental Types (The Late Bloomers) | 11:24 Experimental Types start with a step and build incrementally. Often without a clear picture of where each step will lead them. They connect dots as they go. Discovery underpins their creativity. They work inductively (accumulating knowledge from experience). In the research, Weinberg and Galenson found that Experimental types made their most significant impact during their fifties. That’s thirty years later than their conceptual peers. The future emerges from a pathway of incremental curious exploration for experimental types. We connect dots and build from one experience to the next. As such, life is naturally slower to unfold and evolve. This is why experimental people are often “late” or “repeat” bloomers. It also explains why experimental types might sometimes feel like we are drifting through life. Society’s Preference | 12:07 Society doesn’t openly encourage an experimental approach. The effectiveness and efficiency of conceptual thinking are far easier to measure. You either succeed or fail with the goal you have set yourself. Society also celebrates and glorifies stories of youth and early bloomer success. This puts a countdown timer on a person’s sense of self-worth. And if we miss the imaginary boat, we might resign ourselves to the belief that our fate is to drift through life instead. Lots of us struggle with the linear nature of the conceptual approach. Maybe you do too? The Impossible Question | 14:50 Where do you see yourself in five years? How do you respond to that question? You might find it hard to answer if you’re an experimental thinker because it’s almost impossible to know. A common assertion in personal development is that you should “begin with the end in mind”. But what if the end is not that simple? Or at the very least, we need to approach it in more creative ways. For many of us, our deepest desires are not endpoints. Instead, they are inexplicable moments and feelings brought about by an openness to a life of slow meandering and repeat blooming. Along an evolving and experimental pathway of incremental steps? It doesn’t mean we drift through life, but rather that we have a different approach. The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Life’s Drift | 18:55 Society celebrates people who followed a conviction about what they wanted to do with their life from an early age—those who “pursued their passion” with relentless drive and determination. We say “follow your dream” with the unspoken assertion that everyone has one. We were born to do a tangible, concrete thing with our life. And some people find this idea of “finding their purpose” exciting and enjoyable. But for others, it can be a significant source of underlying anxiety. It can feel like we’re doing it wrong. Like we’re drifting through life as perennial underachievers. But what if we made room for all of these orientations to progress? Realising that for many people, success is not the destination; it’s the joy of discovery, exploration, and experimentation along the way. A Different Way of Being | 20:13 Before we restrict the idea of drifting to experimental types, it’s important to point out that conceptual goal-driven people fall into drift patterns just as quickly. For the conceptual types, they might drift away from themselves through an unhealthy attachment to up and to the right. They tether to goals as the source of their identity. It can look like growth, but it might take them off track in a very linear way—the pursuit of MORE, BETTER, FASTER etc. When the more, better, faster becomes the aim, they lose sight of what matters deeper down. Whatever its source, the first part of responding to the drift is awareness. To recognise how it feels and what it’s telling you. And to ask yourself, what do I want instead? And to come home to the stuff that truly matters for us as individuals. Away from the stories we tell ourselves about what we should do and who we should be if we want to fit in. The Treadmill of Pursuit | 23:02 Humans are excellent at adapting to new realities. It’s an ability that has been key to our survival as a species. But this can also lead to a life of drift as an endless quest for elusive happiness. “The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.” Wikipedia Hedonic Adaptation can leave us drifting through life without realising it. We adapt to each accomplishment, pleasure, or success and seek the next. We are pulled along by the feeling rather than any more profound sense of meaning or connection to core values. Slower Souls and Experimental Trailblazers | 26:45 An “up and to the right” society might view” inside-out becoming” as drifting, procrastination, and wasting time. Unfortunately, this message can seep into the story experimental types tell themselves about themselves. A life of drift becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy because it’s impossible to bend ourselves out of shape when it comes to these natural preferences. For example, you won’t reach your potential if you’re rushed into completing things before you’ve had the time and space you need to explore at your own pace. And you won’t hit the standards you want. Such pressure prevents you from bringing the best of yourself to the world. And it buries the truth of who you are and limits your abilities. Contributing Factors To A Life of Drift | 30:25 Drift is an unsettling and anxious driving force. It leads us away from ourselves. Either as an inability to take the next step (analysis paralysis and fear of doing the wrong thing). Or frenetic action (mindless movement in any direction – it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you don’t stop). When we drift, we lose control of our direction. We have no agency over the route we take. Things happen to us and around us. And finding a way back to ourselves can be difficult when the drift takes hold. Everything Is Breath | 34:10 Clocks, seasons, and years represent time. These are repeating cycles with rhythmic patterns, expansions, and contractions. And yet we often conceptualise time as linear. A path we are on from birth to death. Everything is breath. An inhale, and an exhale. The myth keeps going. We hit certain milestones, encouraged and judged by passing time. We even use age as a symbolic representation of who we are. And yet it says nothing intrinsically meaningful about a person. We know that it means nothing. Just think of your response to the question, “how does it feel to be ten?” or “how does it feel to be fifty?” It feels no different at all. Why? Because we don’t find deep joy in the linear experience. Happiness, flow, and creativity transcend the boxes, labels, and identities into which we try to squeeze life. The Top Five Regrets of The Dying Palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware recorded patients’ thoughts in the final twelve weeks of their lives. “When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently,” she says, “common themes surfaced again and again.” “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.” “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.” “I wish that I had let myself be happier.” I would suggest that drift infuses all five of these biggest regrets. Strip Away The Complexity | 38:33 “Many people think they lack motivation when they really lack clarity.” – James Clear Drift in life often occurs when we over-complicate simple things. Make The Right Thing The Easy Thing To Do | 40:24 It’s easy to overcomplicate our goals. We often overthink plans, get derailed by perfectionism, and become bogged down in minor details. Unfortunately, this leads us to sabotage our efforts by clouding the view of the road ahead. This might be the point at which we decide we’re not quite ready. We need more motivation before we can take the next step. But at times like this, we don’t need more motivation. Or inspiration. Or willpower. It would help if we had clarity: simple plans and a clear next step in the right direction. Small steps, when strung together, result in big shifts. The End Goal is The Starting Point | 42:07 Walking in circles sometimes has negative connotations. It conjures an image of confusion, chaos, and an inability to commit to the right path forwards. But what happens when the path IS circular? I think this is a constructive way to think about personal growth. It doesn’t happen in straight lines. It always happens in roundabouts, seasons, and loops. When you embark on a circular walk, your ultimate goal is to get back to where you started. But we all know that is not the purpose of such an activity. We find a sense of meaning en route. The circular hike is a helpful image to remember when focussing on “getting to the end”. It reminds us that the waypoints are the whole point. The Waypoints Are the Whole Point | 43:47 If we want a purposeful journey that we can relax into and enjoy, we need an idea of how to get to where we’re going. In the case of a circular walk, it is back to where we already are. A circular hike requires a plan. First, we need to know where we will travel to find our way back to the start. Waypoints anchor us along the path we have chosen to take. We know we’re on the right road because of signs we recognise as part of the route. I love this metaphor for life’s projects, hopes, and dreams. Progress emerges through expanding spirals, returning seasons, and repeting cycles. There’s Always a Way Back | 45:21 But if we set off without a plan, we constantly wonder if we’re going the right way. In such a case, the risk of drifting somewhere we don’t want to be and getting lost becomes very real. We might keep going a bit further, hoping it will work itself out once we get over the next hill or round the next corner. Sometimes life is a bit like this. We are so fixed on the idea of a destination (the end of the rainbow) that we can lose sight of the present. And we fail to identify the simple steps we can take past meaningful waypoints on our way back home. We think that if we keep going, we will eventually land where we want to be. Yet chances of that happening are incredibly slim. At times like this, anxiety and panic eventually set in. “What am I doing? Where am I? All of this feels unfamiliar, and I don’t know which way to go.” But this is not the end of the matter. If we stop for a moment, look up, and find ourselves on the map, there is always a way back. And even this will become part of that adventure. Because we find the treasure right here right now: the stories (getting lost), the views (looking up), the perspective (look how far I’ve come), that leave us fundamentally changed when we finally make it back to “the start”. The Return to Serenity Island | 48:32 At the end of the episode, I share the first soundscape from The Return to Serenity Island, a course about coming home to who we are at the core of our being. Through it, we draw playful maps that help us understand the non-linear contours of who we are and what truly matters to us so that we can grow ourselves (and our future) from the inside out. This first of six audio journeys is the invitation home through the fog. The fog IS “the drift”, and the lighthouses pull us back home to a safe reconnection with who we truly are.

Perfectionism and a fear of failing can hold us back from doing what matters to us. But what about fear of success? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast we look at the role fear can play when it comes to holding back so things don’t go too well. I was inspired by this episode of Kendra Patterson’s Stepping Off Now podcast. She drew from an article called, 8 Reasons a Fear of Success, Not Failure, Is Holding You Back to ask whether “Fear of Success” is anything more than another term for a fear of failure. I take this question and explore it further. If it IS different to a fear of failure, what is it we are actually afraid of? What IS success? And can our wariness and suspicion help rather than hinder our relationship with meaningful change, progress, and growth? Episode Contents Change as a Threat | 2:16 But What IS Success? | 7:17 8 Reasons Fear of Success Might Be Holding Us Back 1. We’re Afraid of the Unknown | 9:27 2. We’re Afraid of the Demands Success Might Make of Us | 12:02 3. We’re Afraid of the Responsibility Success Might Bring | 14:12 4. We’re Afraid of the Attention Success Could Attract | 15:52 5. We’re Afraid of Losing Our Identity | 17:53 6. We’re Afraid Success Won’t Bring Us Happiness | 19:43 7. We’re Afraid of Losing Those We Care About | 21:10 8. We’re Afraid We Might Get Carried Away with Success | 24:21 Foreboding Joy | 28:06 Anticipatory Grief | 31:54 Wariness of Success | 34:24 The Trappings of Success | 44:40 Doing Well, Doing Harm and Business as Usual | 46:29 Feelings And The Fear Of Success | 58:06 Conclusion Change as a Threat | 2:16 Success can feel like a threat to our sense of safety. Change is often difficult to embrace and instigate, even when we deeply desire it. There are a lot of unknown aspects when it comes to making change happen in our lives. Even if we are excited about having it, we can struggle to get going if we don’t have a safe and simple map to follow. We choose old patterns, behaviours, and choices over the fear of discomfort and uncertainty. The “Mere Exposure Effect” or Familiarity Principle says that when we make choices, we tend to gravitate towards preferences for things we recognise. But What IS Success? | 7:17 Have you ever thought about what success actually means? How would you define it? Maybe it’s a feeling. Perhaps it’s a state of being. Or a context-specific outcome. It’s a word that can mean many different things. Yet we often expect everyone to be on the same page with it. I saw the phrase, “we all want to be successful” a lot when reading about this topic. At first glance, it seems like an obvious thing to agree with. But think about it for a moment and the words become slippery and empty. What do we mean by “successful”? Is your definition the same as mine? Do we value the same things? 8 Reasons Fear of Success Might Be Holding Us Back In the original article, the author gives eight reasons fear of success might cause someone to sabotage their own progress towards things that matter to them. 1. We’re Afraid of the Unknown | 9:27 We might worry that we won’t cope with the changes success might bring. What waits around the corner if this goes to plan? Maybe we fear the unknown potential consequences of success. What if we can’t cope with everything that follows? What if we accidentally invent an atomic bomb? 2. We’re Afraid of the Demands Success Might Make of Us | 12:02 What happens when I achieve this goal? Are people going to demand more, bigger, better? Will I lose creative control? Will everyone want a piece of this? A piece of me? That sounds exhausting. 3. We’re Afraid of the Responsibility Success Might Bring | 14:12 In Top Gun, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is satisfied with his position as a naval captain. After many decades of service, he still gets to fly plans and do what he enjoys so much. People assume that something must have gone wrong in his career. Surely he should have risen through the ranks by now. But that’s not the case. He has never wanted that. Success for him is understanding what he loves and doing as much of it as he can. Success might mean adding more responsibility to our bag. But if that responsibility seems like a burden rather than an opportunity, we might be operating within someone else’s definition of success. 4. We’re Afraid of the Attention Success Could Attract | 15:52 Some people love being the centre of attention. While others would find it enough of a threat to play small and avoid success at all costs, if it means everyone looking at them. But it doesn’t need to be a binary choice. There are plenty of very successful people who most of us wouldn’t recognise if they were in front of us at the supermarket checkout. Prolonged attention and exposure is usually a choice we have to keep making. 5. We’re Afraid of Losing Our Identity | 17:53 We are always in a state of becoming. As life changes so do we. Picking up and shedding various identities we might need to use along the way. Our sense of identity (who we appear to be to the outside world) is always in flux. It becomes less important when we focus on strengthening and building our character (who we are on the inside). As we grow and shed certain identity labels we might no longer fit by the crowd’s standards, expectations, and rules. 6. We’re Afraid Success Won’t Bring Us Happiness | 19:43 We might fear coming face to face with the truth that no success can bring us ever-lasting wholeness, satisfaction, or happiness. If we attach magical thinking to a particular pursuit (“achieving this will make my life perfect”), then it’s an understandable fear. We unconsciously recognise that “success” will be disappointing. Better to self-sabotage and believe that the success that eludes us holds the key to happiness than to find out first-hand that it doesn’t. 7. We’re Afraid of Losing Those We Care About | 21:10 Relationships are dynamic creatures. They morph and change over time. What does it mean to fear losing those we care about when we succeed? Drifting apart because of time pressures? What if the integrity of our most important relationships is part of our overall definition of success? 8. We’re Afraid We Might Get Carried Away with Success | 24:21 Is this about getting carried away with the frenetic and endless pursuit of achievements. That seems to be counter to a healthy definition of success. It is an avoidable type of drift. Foreboding Joy | 28:06 In a Haven Kota session we talked about the relationship between success and joy. What if a successful life is simply a joy-fuelled life, where we unapologetically live in a state of deep self-acceptance and authenticity. Some of us might have developed a sense of superstitious distrust about joy. We might feel like by allowing ourselves to experience joy we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. In this sense, fear of success is a fear of joy. This is described by Brené Brown when she says that, “Scarcity and fear drive foreboding joy. We’re afraid that the feeling of joy won’t last, or that we won’t be enough, or that the transition to disappointment (or whatever is in store for us next) will be too difficult. We’ve learned that giving in to joy is, at best, setting ourselves up for disappointment and, at worst, inviting disaster. And we struggle with the worthiness issue. Do we deserve our joy, given our inadequacies and imperfections? What about the starving children and the war-ravaged world? Who are we to be joyful?… Don’t squander joy. We can’t prepare for tragedy and loss. When we turn every opportunity to feel joy into a test drive for despair, we actually diminish our resilience. Softening into joy is uncomfortable. Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it’s vulnerable. But every time we allow ourselves to lean into joy and give in to those moments, we build resilience, and we cultivate hope. The joy becomes part of who we are, and when bad things happen — and they do happen — we are stronger.” – Brené Brown Anticipatory Grief | 31:54 “This too shall pass” is a mantra that works to help us get through hard times, but also to remember the fragility and preciousness of the good times. While at first glance anticipatory grief might appear dour, it brings us to life in the present. Where we might enjoy our blessings, embrace gratitude, and live in communion with the passing of time and the inevitability of change. Emily Agnew says that “to mourn something is also to celebrate it”. She suggests that “mourning things in advance does not count as Gloomy Behavior”, rather it “introduces dangerously Grateful Tendencies” and can “heighten our awareness of all that is most precious”. These concepts help us hold less tightly to fear of change, loss, uncertainty etc. And to embrace the dynamism that underpins reality. Wariness of Success | 34:24 Wariness comes from the same root as awareness: to perceive, be watchful, and express vigilance. Deep processing is a major aspect of sensory processing sensitivity. Highly Sensitive People might anticipate potential consequences and implications of change that are overlooked or ignored by other people. This is a really valuable trait but might be seen as negative in a world that values outward expansion, perpetual growth, and progress above depth, sustainability, and integrity. It might even come across as negative, cynical, and “holding things back” at times. Have you ever felt like you can anticipate potential risks that others seem to overlook or ignore? Does this feel like a positive thing? The wariness of highly sensitive people can be a huge benefit to society. Anticipating problems down the line, connecting dots and predicting future trends and shifts. But it’s often overlooked or ignored. And the “prophets” are sometimes shunned and shamed. The truth is, most people don’t like to look at problems or potential obstacles. Especially if it requires them to stop and change a particular course of action. Fearing success has a very healthy side to it. It helps us prepare for and respond to the negative residue of our pursuits. There are almost ALWAYS negative aspects of success. The Trappings of Success | 44:40 Our wariness of success is an important thing to listen to. There are VERY real risks that can come with making a change or pursuing success. Anticipating and planning for what is likely to happen is different from worrying about what COULD happen. Wariness gives us practical actions to take so we can be confident in the path ahead. Worry is an endless and unresolvable loop. Wariness is a definable pause. It allows us to assess, analyse, and decide how we want to proceed based on other factors (our values, potential implications on a variety of things, how it will impact us in general etc). Doing Well, Doing Harm and Business as Usual | 46:29 In their book, Active Hope, Joanne Macy and Chris Johnstone write, “Each story of how we see the world carries within it assumptions about what we mean by “doing well” and “doing harm.” Within Business as Usual, a country is doing well if its economy is growing. A business is doing well if it is expanding. A person is doing well if their income is increasing.” Success is often restricted to a lens of outward growth and expansion. But this definition has serious consequences. And true success is about so much more than this. It has to be. Feelings And The Fear Of Success | 58:06 Many of us carry a version of “success” that we might have never questioned. It is tied up with the story we were given by other people. Fear of success might be tied to the fear of a particular feeling related to our own desires and dreams around making changes in life. For example, it’s wrong to get what you want. Or that it’s wrong to want anything at all. We might fear the judgement that tells us we are ungrateful or unworthy, so we hold back, play small, and live in service of other peoples’ desires instead. Conclusion It’s not clear whether fear of success is really a factor in how we might sabotage our own relationship with change. But I think I would suggest that it’s more than fear of failure in disguise. It’s complicated and contextual. And it largely depends on how we conceptualise and define success. So, what does success mean to you? Have you ever given this much thought? Write down a definition. Open a conversation with yourself. Don’t worry about getting it “right”. There is no correct answer. It’s a word full of contradiction and nuance. It’s deeply personal and it’s full of baggage. What would it mean to live a successful life? How would you know when you’re there?

There are three types of change in life. First; there’s the kind we know is coming but can’t stop. Secondly; the kind we make happen ourselves. And thirdly; the kind we can’t see coming. In this episode, I look at the first kind and ask how we embrace change – rather than resisting it – as life moves from one season to the next. We cannot prevent the change that comes from time doing its thing. But we can learn to gently release any anxious resistance we might feel towards it. That’s what we will do a bit of through this episode as we explore how to embrace change as part of life even when we find the idea of it uncomfortable. Episode Contents Types of Change to Embrace | 10:22 Ageing (our own and others) | 10:32 Evolution of Belonging(s) | 13:32 Relationships | 15:46 Education | 17:04 Work | 19:02 What Embracing Change Makes Possible | 21:03 Hope and Hopefulness | 21:54 Depth | 28:10 Clarity and Vision | 28:50 Our Best Work | 29:35 Perspective and Wisdom | 30:06 The Risks When We Don’t Embrace Change | 30:43 Childish Immaturity | 31:02 Shallow Living | 31:47 Stuckness and Nostalgia | 32:13 Forever Fighting | 38:40 How Do You Embrace Change? | 39:06 Gratitude | 39:42 Move With The Train | 40:22 Reflective Preparation | 41:28 Anticipatory Grief | 42:11 Keep a Record | 45:31 What Would a Time Lapse of the Past Year Look Like? | 47:31 Conclusion | 49:56 Types of Change to Embrace | 10:22 We had an obsession in the modern world with fighting time. Fighting natural processes and the movement of the seasons. I want to ponder in this episode what could happen if we surrender this need to control, fight, and dominate nature. The dawn signals the emergence of the sun on the horizon. It is coming whether we wish it to arrive or not. Likewise, a few hours later, the sun will disappear and the dusk will take us into the night. To wish for the day during the night and night during the day is to waste our energy and emotion on the unchangeable inevitability. We waste a lot of energy on things we cannot change. And we neglect the things we can. We might also neglect the slow and steady becoming of our lives. Ageing (our own and others) | 10:32 The modern world holds age and ageing in a strange way. We judge it, shame it, and hold it as something to fight. So it’s no wonder why we’re afraid to embrace change if it’s collectively judged so harshly. And it has become an act of rebellion to accept and invite the changes that come from natural ageing. Even though it happens to EVERYONE. All of us. Evolution of Belonging(s) | 13:32 There are other things that naturally change with the passing of time. Communities Maybe you’ve experienced the evolution of a community you’ve been part of. Whatever things are like right now is not how it will stay. Communities change as members drift in and out, novel ideas become old, and challenges shake things up. Our resistance to change can mark the beginning of the end. Whereas if we embrace and roll with it, changes can keep a community fresh and moving forward. Products Over time the novelty wears off. We eventually get used to and bored by the things we own. And as newer versions are released, our old product feels tired and outdated. But we can use this awareness to change our relationship with stuff. Bearing in mind that however shiny and exciting something appears right now, over time it will become like everything else. Relationships | 15:46 Relationships change over time. They move through seasons of growth. They might experience periods of stagnation. Change is always present whether we want it or not, so it takes deliberate work to maintain healthy connections with people in our lives. Education | 17:04 There’s an episode of Rick and Morty when Jerry is creating a solar system model with Morty and he starts to add Pluto. Morty tells him that Pluto is “no longer a planet.” When Jerry confirms this to be true he resists it. He learned in 3rd grade it was a planet and refuses to believe anything else. Embracing change is a bit like a muscle. We need to keep doing it in order to grow its strength and effectiveness. Are we open to change, or do we resist it like Jerry? Work | 19:02 We can expect workplaces to change over time too. As well as external conditions that give rise to certain needs in the wider world. Everything is impacted by everything, and we must be ready to expect the professional impact from shifts in the world at large. What Embracing Change Makes Possible | 21:03 “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” – John Allen Paulos Everything and everyone is in a constant state of becoming. We are always becoming, and we never fully arrive. If we embrace this state we can experience some positive effects: Hope and Hopefulness | 21:54 C.R Snyder referred to hopefulness as the “perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways.” If we live within a spirit of hope we can be resilient in the face of change and we can also be intentional and active in response to the change that happens in life, even when we don’t like it. Depth | 28:10 When we allow change to be, we build on what has been before. Rather than living at the level of how things appear to be, we can embrace what going on deep beneath the surface. Clarity and Vision | 28:50 “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” Richard Rohr Embracing change isn’t just something we do in our minds. It’s a dance we do with our lives. Our Best Work | 29:35 We are not limited to what has been before. That is all just a prelude to what is still to come. When we relinquish the power of trying to replicate/imitate/return to the past, we are free to build on it and create something completely new with our lives. Perspective and Wisdom | 30:06 We are part of a much bigger story. We are not the hero, we are part of a beautiful ensemble. When we embrace change we are better able to meaningful connect dots around our lives. Change is what brings perspective and wisdom. It’s the stuff we can pass on to future generations and other people we encounter. The Risks When We Don’t Embrace Change | 30:43 What might happen if we continue to resist change in life? Childish Immaturity | 31:02 If we fear change like ageing, we might fail to see the enjoyable and valuable aspects of different seasons of life. Shallow Living | 31:47 We might spend all our energy and resources on the surface rather than allowing the natural depths that occur over time. Stuckness and Nostalgia | 32:13 If we don’t embrace change we might get stuck in the past. As we move from one season to the next we might experience nostalgic blindness to the possibility of today. “While restorative nostalgia returns and rebuilds one homeland with paranoic determination, reflective nostalgia fears return with the same passion.” Svetlana Boym In her 2001 book, The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym pointed out a difference between restorative nostalgia, and reflective nostalgia. Restorative nostalgia is driven by the belief that the past holds the key to that desire to feel happy and at home in the present. It is a drive to reconstruct and relive the way you believe things were in the past. Embracing change is about honouring reflective nostalgia while rejecting the temptation to dive into restorative nostalgia. We can enjoy nostalgia. But we must never believe it. Forever Fighting | 38:40 If we resist change, we might always feel like we’re in a tussle with our nature. Humans have a strange need to impose our will on it and dominate it. And yet as we all know, there are some things that can’t be resisted. How Do You Embrace Change? | 39:06 So the question is, how do we actually begin to embrace this kind of change? It’s easy to say in theory, but what does it look like in practice? Gratitude | 39:42 Rather than wishing to return, practice gratitude for fond memories. Instead of yearning to go back to the past, practice feeling thankful and allowing them to be. Move With The Train | 40:22 Sometimes our resistance to change comes because we feel like we’re not where we’re supposed to be. But this can lead us to live like we’re walking towards the back of a moving train. Trying to return to where we were without realising that there’s no way to stop the whole thing from moving forwards. Reflective Preparation | 41:28 Embracing change is about being prepared for life’s inevitable transitions. As much as we can be. Embrace the mantra that “this too shall pass”. This applies to positive and negative situations alike. And we can learn to hold lightly to all things. Anticipatory Grief | 42:11 Anticipatory Grief is the feeling of loss for something or someone that is still there. It’s a phenomenon most often experienced in anticipation of the impending death of a loved one. However, it can be experienced in all sorts of ways and about all manner of things. Even pets and holidays! Anticipatory grief can bring us to a place of gratitude for what is in front of us right now in this moment. There are parts of it that can teach us what is important and give us an appreciation for the present. It helps us to hold lightly to the things which we have no control over. And it rips away the tendency to take things for granted. But it can be paralysing, and can lead us to actively avoid things that we want to do, because we are afraid of their eventual demise. We might find ourselves withdrawing from important stuff over time. I wrote a post about this a number of years ago, talking about how I stopped listening to one of my favourite podcasts at the time because I was overcome by the fear that it would end. Mad! Keep a Record | 45:31 Embracing change happens when we keep some kind of record of our lives. It’s so easy to forget how far we’ve come. You can’t watch your fingernails grow in real-time, yet they do. One of the great benefits of keeping a journal is being able to see HOW MUCH GROWS in a short period of time. What Would a Time Lapse of the Past Year Look Like? | 47:31 It may be difficult to comprehend change in our own lives because it can happen so incrementally. Sometimes it’s difficult to notice; a bit like walking up a hill via the slightest of inclines. It may take a very long time but with each stride you are closer to the top and only after a long time when you look back will you realise how far you’ve climbed. There is no time lapse for us to instantly see our own progress. We can however reflect and consider the different points of our journey back over the past year or so. And it can become evident and encouraging to realise that we are perhaps not as stagnant or stationary as we feel. Conclusion | 49:56 We’ve all written scripts about embracing, instigating, and absorbing change in our lives. These scripts can serve or sabotage us. I’ve created a quiz to help you identify which aspect of change is currently having the biggest impact on your life. Whether you need to embrace, instigate, or absorb change happening in and around your life. You can find out by taking the quiz. Go to https://the-haven.co/change/change-quiz/ to find out more. The Haven – Embrace Change Alongside Others For many of us our relationship with change is made more difficult because we feel like we are on our own. It can seem overwhelming when no one around us sees things like we do. The burden of change is heavy to carry alone. That’s one of the reasons I built The Haven the way I have. It’s a place of sanctuary and support, where you will find like-minded travellers exploring our themes together. So if you would like to approach this season of change with the gentle support of a safe and caring community of loving misfits you are so very welcome to join us. Learn more here

“How can I stop being so introverted? Any advice would be very welcome.” I was asked this question for the first time a few years ago. I’ve been asked it many times since. In fact, the blog post I wrote in response to it was one of the most visited articles on my website. I wanted to help introverts to move in sync with their natural rhythms instead of resenting them. So I’ve turned the post into a podcast episode so that we can explore what this might look like in more depth. Episode Contents What Do You Want to Stop Being Introverted? | 4:47 Isolation in an Alien World | 8:32 But Everyone Seems So Happy | 13:58 What Do You Mean By “Introverted”? | 20:28 How To Stop Being an Introvert | 23:14 It’s About How We Are, Not Who We Are | 25:34 Acting Out of Character | 26:11 The Pros and Cons of Personality Tests | 33:57 Labels and Traps | 41:07 Embracing Who You Are | 44:22 What Do You Want to Stop Being Introverted? | 4:47 It’s easy for me to say “just embrace your introversion, it’s who you are”, but I know it’s not that simple. There are good reasons why we might wish we could stop being an introvert. Especially when we compare ourselves with the person we are told to be by society. Our natural preferences don’t always fit with the values of a noisy, overstimulating, extrovert-centric world. It can feel like we don’t belong. Like there’s something wrong with us. And of course, we might wish we could change that. Isolation in an Alien World | 8:32 Do you ever get the sense that everyone else is in on something and you missed the meeting? Have you looked at others and envied how comfortable they are, interacting with an overwhelming world. They appear unfazed by the madness. They know what they’re doing, where they want to go, and what they need to do to get there. Laurie Helgoe says that this is very common for introverts. An idea she articulates perfectly in Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life is Your Hidden Strength. She describes two kinds of responses introverts might have to an extrovert-centric world: Shadow Dwelling Introverts: “Appear (if they can be seen) as reclusive and inaccessible – alien.” Accessible introverts “Do not come off as remote or intimidating because they have almost adapted to the extrovert culture” The potential problem we might face through these ways of adapting to a noisy world is that they can create alienation. We might become alienated from the world around us as the shadow dweller. Or we alienate ourselves from core parts of who we are deep down as the accessible introvert. Life gets exhausting when we feel like we have to spend it hiding. There’s nothing wrong with being reclusive if it gives us the platform to flourish. But if we are hiding and harbouring resentment about the world we wish we could be part of, then it’s not helping us flourish. Likewise, many people see themselves as social introverts. They love spending energy on other people and experiences, but they need plenty of downtime to prepare and recover. But if we spend all our energy pretending to fit in and be something we know we’re not, then it’s not helping us flourish. If we don’t fully accept or understand what it means to be introverted we can find ourselves in a state of limbo. In a place where we might feel it necessary to make that choice: to disappear or to play along. But Everyone Seems So Happy | 13:58 Much of our world is driven by perception. We are encouraged to believe that who we are is not enough. Where we are is not enough. And other people are enjoying the things we don’t have. But these stories are believable. It’s easier to tell the story that other people have their lives together than to realise the truth; that no one is whole and complete. The stories we tell ourselves about what life could be if only we were not who we are, might reinforce our sense of alienation and self-loathing. Happiness is little more than an occasional passing highlight on the mundane canvas of everyday life. If we accept this we might start to build a more useful self-concept. And enjoy what it means to be one of seven and a half billion people trying to make sense of this weird and mysterious thing we call life. What Do You Mean By “Introverted”? | 20:28 For many of us who want to stop being introverted, we are usually referring to a particular aspect of our personality in relation to something that matters to us. For example, I have helped people take action on their dream of performing music on stage. In one example this required changing part of a script that told the person, “you can’t perform because as an introvert you get too nervous”. When we tell ourselves stories like this, we reduce our potential by attaching what we believe is possible – or not – to something we can’t change. And by doing this we tell ourselves we CAN’T do what we would love to do. But what if introversion doesn’t stop you from doing ANYTHING? It just informs the way you might need to approach doing the thing. In the example of the performer, we could remove the word “introvert” from the script, and look at possible ways to manage and use the nerves more effectively. It turns out that nerves are not an exclusive introvert thing. They are universal. And they won’t always be there. What story are you telling yourself about introversion? How might changing the script shift your relationship with your temperament? How To Stop Being an Introvert | 23:14 There is a lot of clutter surrounding what introversion means. As our awareness and acceptance of it has grown in mainstream popularity, so too have a number of myths. It’s still confused with shyness and social anxiety. Of being afraid of people and scared to speak up in public. But while these are true for some introverts (as they are for extroverts), they are not a product of the innate temperament as we understand introversion to be. If we really want to stop acting in sync with our introversion there are several things we might try: Spend time with people when you’re feeling low on energy Increase sources of external stimulation Rush making big decisions Find someone to talk to about everything you’re thinking Fill your calendar with social engagements Share your opinion before you’ve considered it At its core, introversion and extroversion are about how we create and budget our energy as human beings. Introverts typically turn inwards when they need to recharge and process things. While extroverts require external stimulation (other people, crowds, invigorating experiences etc) to create the energy they need. It’s About How We Are, Not Who We Are | 25:34 “Even though I’m a classic introvert, when I give a lecture for my students I perform with great passion. Introverts, when they are ‘on,’ become pseudo-extraverts. Can you tell the difference between a born extravert and a pseudo-extravert? Usually you cannot.” – Professor Brian Little (Me, Myself, and Us) Acting Out of Character | 26:11 Brian Little suggests that we all have the ability to “act out of character” when something is important to us. This phrase can be interpreted in a couple of ways: Acting in a way that doesn’t fit a ‘fixed trait’ view of who we are (doing something that might be unexpected, not typically introverted, or viewed as unusual for us by others) Acting contrary to our natural disposition for the sake of something deeper than our own immediate comfort (acting out of our character – character being moral strength) When it comes to thinking about our personality, we often have a tendency to discuss it without context. We might say ‘I don’t like parties’, ‘I hate crowds’, or ‘I can’t stand the phone’. Yet in reality, rather than using those preferences to ensure our own future happiness we will still go to a party, stand in a crowd, and make a phone call when the situation requires it. Or at least we CAN. Free Trait Agreements | 30:37 The 5 Big Personality Traits (Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) are not completely fixed. Little describes them as making up an arpeggio rather than a chord. As an introvert I may enter a free trait agreement, for example, to arrange a party for someone I care about, to go and be a part of a crowd when I really want to watch a live performance. Or to call a friend who really needs some support right now. When we become invested in stuff that matters we become able to temporarily put on hold our natural desire (maybe to sit at home with a book) and do something less comfortable. Restorative Niches The other side of a free trait agreement is a restorative niche. These are uniquely personal things we do to recharge after spending our energy. They restore our spirit and recharge our sense of self. One reason we might want to escape our introversion is that we aren’t aware of our own restorative niche. It’s a vital part of the rhythm that allows us to invest our time and energy into things that matter to us. If we don’t have them we risk overwhelm and burnout. These restorative niches are part of the agreements we enter into. Little suggests that there is give and take when we are in free trait agreements with others. He says “with spouses and bosses, we can strike a bargain: I’ll act out of character to advance our joint project if you will grant me a restorative niche. What we need is a Free Trait Agreement.” The Pros and Cons of Personality Tests | 33:57 Who doesn’t love a personality test? There’s something fun about seeing things about yourself reflected back in a description of your particular ‘type’. If we can refrain from using them to diagnose our personalities – “I’m a hothead, I fear intimacy, I’m a dreamer” – then these tools can be useful. The Good Thing About Personality Tests I often use a DISC personality profile when I begin a new coaching partnership. It provides some good information to explore together and allows me to adapt my approach to suit their natural communication style and personal preferences. We often encounter resistance when we don’t understand the differences between people. Personality profiles remind us that we see and experience the world differently to others. And others experience it differently to us. Not only is this a potential path to hold the world with more empathy but also to encounter ourselves in a new way. Everyone is a bit weird. Not just us. When we acknowledge this truth and become more aware of our subconscious preferences, we are better equipped to work WITH ourselves in service of our personal values and goals. The Problem With Personality Tests | 37:16 “Too many of us wake up one day feeling stuck inside a narrow definition of ourselves” – Michael Puett (author of The Path: A New Way to Think About Everything) When I first realised I was an introvert I had a category by which to divide my picture of the world. There were introverts and there were extroverts. Introverts behave a certain way and extroverts another way. The danger with personality typing is that we look for a prescription rather than a description of our preferences. It can quickly become an identity rather than a tool for understanding. When we allow our labels to drive our behaviour we live out a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who we are reflects how we think we should act, and we end up putting ourselves in boxes that are only a tiny part of the overall picture of who we are. Labels and Traps | 41:07 I had a conversation years ago with someone who had recently learned they were an introvert. I was talking about how much of a relief it was to realise I wasn’t as weird and different as I thought. They were quick to snap back, “I never thought I WAS weird! It’s everyone else that’s got the problem”. On the one hand, good for them. It was great to witness such a strong sense of inner confidence. But on the other hand, I’m not sure it was confidence. They used their introversion as a source of tribal identity rather than a tool for personal growth. This was evident when they continued, “they say I’m too quiet and they can’t hear me. But I’m peaceful and calm, just because they’re not used to it, that shouldn’t mean that I have to change. They need to get over themselves.’ There is a difference between an insult and a criticism. An insult is personal whereas a criticism contains something we can use and learn from. It’s sometimes a vague line, but we must be careful not to take everything as a personal insult. As introverts, we CAN make a free-trait agreement and adapt our natural preferences if the situation requires it. Perhaps we need to speak louder in a particular environment or when carrying out a certain role. Embracing Who You Are | 44:22 Your introversion is part of who you are. It’s the foundation of your natural rhythm. It can help you approach your hopes and dreams in sustainable ways. It’s the track on which you run. It’s not something to overcome, but something to understand and work with. The Haven If you feel alone in how you see and experience the world then I would love to invite you to join The Haven. It’s a virtual village for naturally introverted, sensitive, creative, and gently rebellious people like you. Connecting with other people who are like ourselves is a great step in learning self-acceptance and working in sync with those natural rhythms and preferences that hold the key to our quiet flourishing. Learn more here: https://the-haven.co

I don’t know about you but sometimes I push myself to the limit and something that would normally inspire me feels like an overwhelming noise. We often stretch ourselves to life’s edges. And we squeeze the margin for inspiration to breathe and grow.  Margin is a characteristic of gentleness. It softens the blow of unwanted change and allows inspiration to flow without overwhelming us. But the world often demands productivity, efficiency and the elimination of waste. And in such a place there is little margin for deep and healthy inspiration to truly land. In this episode of the Gentle Rebel Podcast, we explore what happens to our creative spirit when we live without nurturing margin for inspiration. We will look at the signs to look out for that tell us we’re too close to the edge. And we consider the role of rest in life; asking whether it’s more than simply the opposite of activity. Episode Contents Triggers and Inspiration | 8:29 Trigger Warnings | 10:12 Why Am I Emotionally Reactive? | 14:49 How To Cope When Feeling Triggered | 16:38 The Power of Margins | 19:58 Margins Bring Focus and Clarity Margins Keep Grubby Fingers Away From The Words Margins Absorb Excessive Inspiration Margins Cushion Slips and Bleed Margins Make Things More Comfortable Margins Protect The Core Margins Allow Holes To Be Punched The Power of Rest | 26:03 Rest is Not One Side of a Binary Divide | 27:38 The 7 Soul-Freeing Sources of Rest Physical (Passive and Active) | 30:11 Mental | 32:03 Emotional | 33:21 Spiritual | 35:11 Sensory | 36:27 Social | 38:40 Creative | 41:15 Conclusion | 45:26 A Short Meditation on Rest | 47:18 Triggers and Inspiration | 8:29 An inspired surge of emotion can be overwhelming. It might be hard to tell whether fear or excitement is running the show. It might be a little of both. But unless we leave margin for inspiration, we don’t have the capacity to inquire. While we often associate emotional triggers with negative stimulation, they can come from desirable sources, too. A trigger is a prompt that causes something to happen. It might be a deliberate part of a physical device like a switch on a kettle. Or it might be harder to spot like sensory stimulation such as a taste, smell, visual, sound, or texture that prompts a conscious or subconscious memory. If we’re feeling exhausted, inspiration can seem overwhelming. But there’s a difference between being and feeling inspired. When inspiration overwhelms us, margins provide a cushion to hold and absorb whatever is emerging. Even when we don’t feel ready to do anything with it just yet. Trigger Warnings | 10:12 On her Instagram, Dr Susanne Wolf talked about what to look out for when recognising emotional reactivity to external stimulation. Sudden Physical Changes (increased heart rate, fast breathing, muscle tension, stomach clenches, feelings of tightness in the chest, nausea). Sudden Cognitive Changes (confusion, overwhelm, irritation, indecisiveness, distractedness, unresponsiveness) Sudden Emotional Changes (fear, frustration, anxiety, despair, sadness, grief, yearning) Sudden Behavioural Changes (becoming argumentative, alarmed, alert, lashing out, giving up, withdrawal, procrastination, agitated, shutting down, blaming others, restlessness) Sudden Irritation By Seemingly Unrelated Things (touch, noise, sound, people, textures, scenery, places) These sound like signs of an overwhelmingly negative situation. But the responses don’t necessarily distinguish between positive and negative stimulation. We might even experience many of them when we’re inspired. Why Am I Emotionally Reactive? | 14:49 What is causing this heightened state of emotional reactivity? In the post, Dr Wolf shares observations we might make, like feeling dismissed, ignored, attacked, afraid, insulted, manipulated, humiliated, excluded, offended, betrayed, alone, ashamed etc. I would also add some other triggers for emotional reactivity. If we don’t create space to become aware of what’s going on beneath the surface, we might confuse these for negative triggers. Feeling uncomfortable, excited, anxious, moved, sad, concerned, connected, disappointed etc. How To Cope When Feeling Triggered | 16:38 Dr Wolf’s advice is to remove attention from the external object and focus inwards. She suggests naming the thoughts and feelings and noticing how the body is expressing the emotions. Speak with inward and use practical actions such as deep breathing, journalling, movement, and talking with someone to process the feeling. We might be tempted to eradicate the triggers, be it the situation that gave rise to a feeling, or even the feeling itself. What if triggers could show us solutions instead of just pointing out problems? What if they could help us develop a deeper relationship with our own creativity and voice? Having margin in our lives – so that we can experience triggers without getting burned out or derailed – is powerful. It allows us to absorb them if and when they happen. The Power of Margins | 19:58 Margin and rest are both vital elements of the Inspiratory System. They allow us to absorb and respond to all kinds of triggers in and around our lives. Margins Bring Focus and Clarity The space around the page draws our focus to the words. Margins Keep Grubby Fingers Away From The Words When you pick up a page or a book you want the words protected from finger smears. A margin keeps the good stuff away from where fingers might naturally reach in order to pick the thing up so there is no inadvertent or accidental smudging. Margins Absorb Excessive Inspiration Margins give us a place to capture our thoughts as they come. When we’re inspired, margins give us the space near the scene of the inspiration to develop and untangle what has been triggered in our minds or bodies. Margins Cushion Slips and Bleed When printing things can slip sometimes. We might feel slightly off-colour or be going through challenging circumstances. If we’re not attempting to print life right to the edge we have margin for things to go wrong and for it to still be ok. Margins Make Things More Comfortable Margins on a notepad make it much easier to express yourself. When you’re not having to go all the way to the very edge you don’t have to worry about falling off the edge of the page. Margins Protect The Core The edges of pages can get nibbled by rats and mites. Margins mean that even if or when that happens, there is protection around the words. Margins Allow Holes To Be Punched We might get holes punched in us so that we are easier to store in files and boxes. But margins allow that to happen without it changing who we are. Without margins, the holes cut straight through the words. The Power of Rest | 26:03 There are margins everywhere we look – not just around the edges of a page, but woven into and through it. Rest is what makes everything meaningful. It’s the silence between the notes, the space around the letters. The pause as we look around, observe, notice, and experience flow. If we’re always living right up to the edge of our capacity, we leave no space for inspiration’s waste (the important bit!) We can become unreceptive to the small voice within, we don’t listen to our bodies, and we’re at the mercy of ‘busyness’. Rest is Not One Side of a Binary Divide | 27:38 Rest is not the flipside of action. It’s not simply a thing we do. It’s baked into the WAY we do. We don’t rest in order to do anything. We rest because we’re human. The 7 Soul-Freeing Sources of Rest Sandra Dalton-Smith (Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy and Restore Your Sanity), argues that “sleep and rest are not the same thing, although many of us incorrectly confuse the two”. She outlines 7 types of rest that we all need, many of which are not prioritised in a world that leaves no margin. Physical (Passive and Active) | 30:11 Passive rest comes in the form of sleeping or napping. Active rest comes from physically moving our bodies. Mental | 32:03 Mental rest might come from things like mindfulness and meditation practices. But also by engaging with things that help our minds think in more restful ways. For me, reading, playing and listening to music, writing, and playing golf are all ways to find mental rest. It’s about opening channels for the mind to be active without force or control. Emotional | 33:21 Dalton-Smith says that many of us are skilled at hiding, even when we want to be found. It is massively draining to conceal who we are from the world and so emotional rest is a moment of integrity in the sense of integrating who we are inside with who we are outside. Spiritual | 35:11 We find rest from the sense of belonging that comes from transcending the desire to fit in and to come to a place where we understand that we belong simply by virtue of the fact we are here. Spiritual rest is about connection to something bigger, deeper, or beyond our physical and mental state of being. It might be plugging into the story of humankind or our place in the universe in a meaningful way. Contributing to something, being involved in a community, or any practice that helps raise our awareness that we are part of something more than our own immediate experience. Sensory | 36:27 Noise and clutter fill our world and “our senses yearn to be quieted”. This really speaks to the idea that rest is silence, stillness, and space around the notes, letters, and brush strokes. We need to both rest our senses and give our senses more enriching experiences. Social | 38:40 Not all social experience is equal. We know that as introverts and sensitive people. There are some people in whose presence we find restorative energy. While other people are energy vampires. Dalton-Smith says that we often face the issue that “our social reach exceeds our social capacity. However, in the presence of a trusted confidante, an atmosphere of rest is created. Their expressions of acceptance, understanding and compassion become needed nourishment to conquer loneliness.” Creative | 41:15 We find creative rest in environments that allow our creative spirit to flow. This is a simple place where we can observe without judgement, notice what we notice, and allow everything to move through us for a moment. Conclusion | 45:26 Designing margin into our lives is an act of vulnerability. It is discouraged and questioned. But our physical, mental, and emotional well-being need rest, margin, space, silence, stillness, and pause. This is not just important for ourselves, but also for the sake of humanity and the world as a whole. So margin is necessary if we want to make room for inspiration and creativity to take root in and around our lives. A Short Meditation on Rest | 47:18 This comes from a series of short reflections about the nine parts of the Inspiratory System. They are all available inside The Haven community. https://vimeo.com/725824280/f022f2027f