In the last Audio Note I asked you to forget everything we’ve covered so far. When I say forget, I don’t truly mean I don’t want you to remember the Activation Triangle, Reactivity Scale, 6-3-1, and other tools we covered. What I mean is that the aspects of ourselves that we most need to work with reveal themselves it’s through collisions that we experience in real life. Selfship comes to those who recognize and are able to process what they need to work with when it emerges.

The person that lacks Selfship doesn’t possess this level of intentionality. Instead, this person lives what we could call the "Accidental Life”. They still collide with their world and the people in it, but they don’t recognize what the collisions access in them, or even if they recognize they may not know what to do with it. This stands in contrast the person with Selfship who experiences “The Intentional Life”—one in which they have the awareness, tools, and desire to recognize and process the elements of themselves that arise as they collide with life.

So the charge to you for this Audio Note is to get out and live your life. If you’re familiar with the tools I’ve introduced so far, you’ll know how to apply them as needed.

This looks a little different depending on your unique personality. Those of us that tend to process internally can lose ourselves in our inner world or reflection. If that’s you, you need to get out in the world—the world outside of you. Ideally this involves going into nature and doing something that leaves its mark on your body—something that leaves you sore or even injured. I recently rolled my ankle, smashed my big toe, and gashed my knee all in one fail swoop when I fell during a trail run with my daughter in Arizona. I haven’t felt that alive in a while. I was in a lot of pain, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Leave the comfort of your own inner world and you’re guaranteed to run into someone or something that frustrates, hurts, disappoints, or annoys you.

Then there are those of you that need to stop. Instead of needing to find collisions with the world outside yourself, you need to time and space to make internal collisions possible. Silence and stillness has a way of accessing things we need to process, which explains why we might not like them. How often do you sit still long enough for things to begin to surface within you. You’ve kept these things at arm’s length long enough. When you stop, you give yourself the time and space to access parts of you that you’ve silenced. It’s getting you to slow down that’s the hard part.

Most of us need both. At times we need to get out more, and at times we just need to stop. Both create the kinds of collisions that precipitate key insights.

So here we are venturing through life ready to collide with whatever happens. We have a box of tools we’ve learned along the journey toward Selfship, and then it happens. We run into a situation that precipitates a reaction of some sort within us. Maybe it was an interaction with someone at work or at home, or a trying relationship with a family member that you’re struggling to navigate. Or maybe you had to take on a new responsibility in your work that spawned a reaction.

The particulars don’t matter. What matters is, first, that something shifted within you and, second, you noticed the shift. It’s a lot like the first sensations you experience when you’re coming down with a cold or the flu. You sense that something isn’t quite right. You don’t feel yourself. You were feeling fine earlier in the day and now you notice a tickle in your throat or aches in your joints or nausea.

These reactions may come fast and furious and with little warning. Others reactions may take time to build and last for a while. You may experience a “mood” that lasts hours, days, or even weeks. In both cases, you have the sense that something isn’t quite right. You don’t quite feel yourself. That’s all we’re looking for.

Look for these reactions in your life. Maybe you’re in the midst of one of these reactions as you’re listening to this right now. If not, just give it time. Life will see to it that you have material you can work with in the not-so-distant future.

I’ve been in a funk this week. It’s not overwhelming, but I’ve noticed myself lacking motivation and feeling down. It’s clearly a mild depression. Using my previous example, it’s like I’m dealing with the flu, only it’s not a physical illness. Depression is an illness of the mind and spirit. I think of depression as a form of repression. Something happened that accessed and released something that wants to get out, but I’m hindering its expression.

I have a few options. I can submerge myself in prolonged reflection trying to figure out “why” I’m feeling this way. This could yield some clarity, but it may also take me deeper into the Activation Triangle where I risk slipping into a dorsal state. Second, I can “fake it till I make it,” which amounts to me playacting that I’m someone that I’m not. Remember what I said about the term “Hypocrite” in Greek? It just means actor. Choosing to act, or “fake it till I make it” contributes to dis-integration of the self, as opposed to integration, which is what we’re aiming for with Selfship.

Third, I can listen. My reaction lets me know that I accessed and dislodged something within me. That something has a voice. The question is whether I tend to it long enough to listen and use the tools and practices we’ve talked about to remain grounded. Think of this as a form of curation. I’m not trying to figure out why, not yet at least. I’m just noticing what’s coming to the surface and collecting it. I typically use a journal for this curation process.

Have you ever been on a team where you didn’t feel like you had a voice? Maybe your family was even that way. What was that like for you to not have a voice? Not so pleasant, was it?

Now can you imagine if you’d had a voice? Imagine what it would be like to freely provide your perspectives, insights, and emotions and have someone actually listen. Each reaction has a voice. It wants to speak. It’s coming to you with insight. The question is whether you’re able to listen.

We’re definitely inching our way into the Deep End, so I want to pause to review the takeaways from this Audio Note and set up the next one.

This Audio Note challenges you to:

Create opportunities for collisions. By colliding with the world outside and the people in it, and by slowing down enough to create collisions within the world inside us, we precipitate reactions and conflicts that provide insight into ourselves.

Exercise your ability to recognize when they happen and use the tools to process these collisions.

Give voice to those parts of us that emerge through these collisions. In short, we need to be their freedom fighters. Free them. Give them the mic. Listen.

Now we’re ready to go a little deeper into my Complex Identity Framework. In the mean time, don’t waste a good conflict—with others, with the world, with God, and even with yourself.

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