Potentia Podcast

This morning, as I stood looking at the beautiful ocean, my attention was briefly diverted by spinal pain.  Chronic pain is something I face daily, and in that moment I reminded myself that the pain’s intensity could never exceed the intensity of my gratitude.  Gratitude for life, gratitude for feeling my body, as paralysis would be so much more severe.  Gratitude for being IN that moment, with all its forceful energy. 

At the weekend, I met my friend in a café – something else to be grateful for as cafes are just reopening after lockdown.  This particular friend’s father survived the holocaust.  I grew up around older relatives who were also holocaust survivors.  My friend sipped her tea and asked me “What is it about the survivors of something so awful, that they dress so immaculately and have done so well for themselves? I literally never met a single survivor who hasn’t made a success of their lives!”

My instinctual response to this fascinating question was, “Gratitude.” 

People have likened lockdown to the second world war, which is insulting when you consider what some of these tremendous elders experienced in the war itself. 

Health is in everyone’s thoughts presently, as the world wonders if it is getting back to normal or awaiting another quake of health scares.  The lesson in all this is, to my mind, gratitude.

Life conjures lessons for us, and when we don’t learn them, it brings them back louder, harder, in other forms. If complacent generations don't learn gratitude, what harsher lessons are in store? 

I didn’t choose to feel chronic pain every day, yet I choose daily to feel gratitude more intensely.

Judging our negative feelings is probably the biggest cause of distress for most of us. Sit with what you feel and say, "this is the time for sadness", while giving yourself an emotional hug or even a massage.

The more you experience negative emotion, the better equipped you become to deal with them in the future.

Most humans genuinely want to help others.  Paid mentors, of course, have chosen their profession.  Choice of profession is often relevant to life experience.

As our podcast explains, if you can't afford a mentor, this is no reason you should miss out.  Friends can help.  You can even reciprocate.

Behind some of the most monumental figureheads, are mentors who encouraged them to reach their potential. 

set your intention

Consider what you want at the outset. When you choose your mentor, what do you want to achieve and just as importantly, how do you want your mentor to help you achieve it? 

Honesty can be both a blessing and a curse.  Are you currently thick-skinned enough to take complete honesty from your mentor?  Be precise in your request - if you want absolute honesty, ask for it.  If you want continual encouragement regardless of opinion, ask for that. 

You are the creator.  Consider how much can be gained by expecting your mentor to lead the way.  Two good examples of this are the sponsorship system in Alcoholics Anonymous, and the coaching system at Trichotillomania Support.   Those who expect to quit an addiction by waiting for their sponsor to take action, will wait forever.   

When a mentor is not appropriate

It is not a good idea to enlist a mentor if you already have another mentor for something else.  Finish working with that mentor or work with an absolute maximum of 2 at a time. 

Mentorship is not helpful if you expect the mentor to put in more work than you yourself can do.

Ask your mentor to help you take consistent, active steps in a growth direction.

Mentorship creates productivity levels beyond working solo. It does not alleviate the need for work.

An introduction to Potentia Podcast, covering what to do if someone upsets you.

ONE MINUTE podcast to ease your mind and raise your game.

Its official, today we go live with our first EVER podcast, discussing the age-old question of how to get rid of anxiety.

An exciting moment for the coaching.care team, we bring the podcast to you not as our own dream, but requested by our community. Thank you so much for supporting us.

https://www.coaching.care/dynamic/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/donkeys.mov

For people managing anxiety, the goal is to recognise and accept who we are, ultimately becoming content with that person.

Isolation

I am writing this during Coronavirus lockdown.  The quiet atmosphere

has helped in many ways.  Many normally anxious people are looking

relaxed and well.  Worry about money and the economy increases, yet social

pressures, anxiety about what other people think of us, has lifted.   

The concern about our place in society, our worth in social terms, has

eased away.  We know who we are, in our own homes.  We understand our role in the family; we know we can act-out and we won’t be rejected.

A sprinkle of Zen wisdom

A Zen story tells of a couple who bought a donkey to save their tired feet. Thin from eating less for months to purchase said beast, the couple rode the donkey together to market.  People gossiped as they passed, saying how cruel the couple were, putting two people’s weight on the donkey.

The next day, the man rode the donkey, with the woman walking alongside.  Louder gossip followed them, with people calling the husband unchivalrous as he rode along in style, his wife walking beside.

Another day passed, and this time the wife rode the donkey, as her husband walked.    Some called the husband cruel to make a lady ride; others claimed the wife had made her husband walk.

People judge with limited knowledge

People comment casually on what they see, without having all the facts. When both husband and wife had ridden the donkey, onlookers did not realise how much weight they had both lost, buying less food for weeks so they could buy a donkey,  Day two, and passers-by were unaware that the woman had not yet learned to ride a donkey solo, and being shown by her husband.   By day three, the people who judged them could not see the blisters on the soles of the man’s feet as he walked beside his wife, riding the donkey.

On day four, onlookers judged, unaware that they were leading the donkey back to market to sell it, because the weary couple found the criticisms and judgments so painful.

Why did they find these opinions so painful?  Humans are generally social animals.  Emotions: caring what other people think of us, have helped us to survive in groups, where as individuals, we would have perished. 

A tremendous tool like the social brain is delicate and not always dependable – like all things, it has its benefits and its drawbacks.  Being overly sensitive to what other people think, can lead to poor mental health and paranoia.  This gage of “am I acceptable or am I not?”  presupposes that there is a measure for acceptability. 

Stop trying to calculate the incalculable

Questioning whether people think well of us or not, implies we can somehow read others' thoughts.  People’s good opinion of us, in any event, is changeable from moment to moment.  Sometimes it is helpful to ask “Does this person like me?”  but most of the time, it really is not.

YOU make your decisions and you alone can validate them.  What other people say, think and do is casual and fleeting – they change their minds with varying information and different moods.  NOBODY has all the information relevant to you. 

People constantly make judgments without adequate information: partly to make conversation and partly to plan their own actions.  External opinions are irrelevant and often unhelpful.  Internal validation is all that matters.  If you are living according to your own beliefs and levels of what you feel is acceptable, it is on you to say “I am doing the right thing”, to have the courage of your convictions.  Whatever you say or do, people will judge you, as they judge everything.  Judgments are temporary and meaningless.

Sometimes it is helpful to simply listen to a brief audio which can inspire you to think outside the box.

This audio discusses how our perception of reality can be at variance from the facts.

Philosophies about perception are varied. We perceive the world via our main five senses: smell, taste, touch, hearing and vision. However, in the case of visual perception, how do we deal with the issue of hallucination? Certain drugs and medical conditions can induce a person to perceive visual phenomena which are not there.

The same is true of the other 4 senses, we can perceive audio stimuli which others cannot.  This is known in philosophy as “The Problem of Perception.”

Download Free Audio File