Resilience Unravelled

David Richman is an author, public speaker, philanthropist, and endurance athlete whose mission is to form more meaningful human connections through storytelling.

As a former sedentary, over-weight, smoker, David knew that he needed to focus not on what others wanted out of him, but on what he wanted out of life. Through lessons learned in business and sport, he introduced the concept of the “middle of the pack” and how we can get more out of ourselves than we ever imagined. He applies this concept to life and business and adds value to the people he works with coming from the perspective of the “middle of the pack.”

In this podcast:

• David talks about the importance of living on purpose
• How making one change can provide focus and purpose in other areas of life
• Why sometimes its enough just to be ourselves.

When artists describe their creative process, they inevitably talk about being in an open mind state where the download of core creativity can happen, that creativity isn’t a rational, calculated activity, its about allowing oneself to become receptive. 

Pure originality is core creativity, something that comes from ones pure core collective unconscious. Mindfulness meditation can take us out of overthinking and into the mind state of receptivity. The stillness and focus involved in meditation alters our brainwaves, and therefore, our mind state. Distraction-free time leads us to an open mind. Both core creativity and intuitive wisdom and knowledge can be accessed in an open mind state, not because we have an open mind, or are trying to be open minded, but because we’re in a state of pure receptivity after giving ourselves over to emptiness.

Research and science shows that meditation actually enhances creativity so you can come at a problem with several different angles and be more creative about solving it. It decreases anxiety and in a more relaxed state you are open to getting more insights and having more breakthroughs. Meditation can also enhance emotional intelligence which makes you more empathetic, less likely to act impulsively and get frustrated in an emotionally charged situation as well as making interactions easier.

Gratitude is another powerful way to reprogramme your brain because you are strengthening your neural pathways. The more your can find gratitude for what’s happening in your world the stronger the neural pathways will become. Feelgood chemicals like dopamine increase and cortisol the stress hormone reduces so you can get a reduction in physical pain and an increase in the effectiveness of your immune system. Forgiveness is releasing gratitude within yourself. By allowing forgiveness, nothing changes for the other person but everything changes within you. It doesn’t absolve the other person from their guilt rather its actually forgiving yourself. You have to be able to learn the lesson – if you can find gratitude for that situation then again you’re giving yourself piece of mind and a sense of calm.

Jennifer had dissociated with the person she was as a teenager who was physically, emotionally and sexually abused by three teachers. She had put this away in a box and not integrated it so it started to operate as a mind bully. She was a high achiever in the academic world but when she came home behind closed doors she bullied herself through cutting and eating disorders. She was hurting her own body because she had no idea she had to take teenage girl and her trauma and work through it. She was seeing psychiatrists and psychologists and never told them anything about it. She could have worked as a teacher and repeated what had happened to her with her students. Her personality type, introverted, academic and full of self-expectation meant instead she turned it against herself. That is the mind bully. Many people are holding themselves back from happiness, health and fulfilling their potential because of their mind bully.

It takes work on separate it out. You need to become aware that its not you, that its something you created that helps you avoid looking at the trauma. If it’s your own problem and the mind bully is your own issue you don't have to take a hard look at what happened to you. You don't have to be the victim, to be vulnerable, to feel what it was like to be a teenager and be treated that way. It’s easier to keep the mind bully beating you up because you don't have to be a victim again. If you find the courage, a good mental health practioner, and a safe network and space to do it, you can go back into the arena again and choose to replace the mind bully.

When we tell ourselves about not being defined by something we generally mean not talking about it. The traumas that happen and that we don't want to be defined by we don't talk about and so we don't deal with them. They then become ‘the monster under the bed’. They end up controlling us because we haven’t dealt with them. We have to face these things head on. Feel the emotion then go back to what happened to us and incorporate it as part of our life experience.

Although everyone dreams, most people don’t know that their dreams can be used for personal development. They key is to ask the right question and keep your mind open so your dream can provide the answer.  With direction it is possible to learn the reality of how your dream is constructed, how your own mind creates part of the dream and your emotions, expectations and intent. This gives us an enriched sense of experiences and makes us more elastic and better able to carry out the broad range of emotions feelings and experiences in this world and be more resilient and effective with a more enriched balance of the experiences of life.

In this podcast:

Machiel explains what a dream is

How dreams can offer creative solutions

Why we need to engage with recurring dreams.

As the founder and CEO of of dance company in India and now CEO of a multinational organisation in the US, Rani Puranik has realised there are 4 stages to leadership. Initially its to listen so you can gather information and then reflect it back out then to act as a bridge to bring stability to organisations, teams and individuals. This means thT slowly and steadily you can gear your team towards who they can became and what they have the potential to be.

Leaders also have to have the ability to inspire and to be visionaries who go beyond the limitations other people see or think. Every person has what is needed to succeed and find that confidence for themselves. Finally, leaders need to let go. Your team will have gone through the different stages and now have the inspiration and confidence to lead!

There is an intersection in business which makes people feel their lives have to be compartmentalised making it impossible to combine their spiritual and work lives - the idea that work just has to be work and `I can't bring some of what I believe in terms of my own spirituality’. Some of the things we do at work however are in alignment with the things that exist in our spiritual life such as compassion, empathy and deeply listening to others.

It is possible to bring a spiritual approach to our work and posture of service in what we are doing and how we are doing it by developing an approach that brings the same spiritual posture in your most comfortable setting to the office in how your treat people, how you approach your work and how you endeavour to inspire others.

We don't necessarily need to share the reasons and motivations that inspire us with everyone but we don't need to exclude them from the workplace.  Looking at the workplace and finding the 'why' then gives context to the meaning of the work you’re doing.

The term midlife crisis has a really bad reputation but it can be a time for positive change and far more exciting and interesting than we think. The pandemic has caused many people to have a mid life crisis simply because they had time to think about their life choices. That’s really what a mid life crisis is. A time to reevaluate what’s going on in your life whether it’s your career, relationships, who you are as a person, whether this is who you want to be or whether this is what you want to be doing in the next chapter of your life and then introducing changes to ensure the next chapter is better than the last and that we benefit from the changes that we make.

Energy touches every area of your life - how you’re feeling or sleeping, how your relationships are working, how quickly you heal, whether you have an optimistic or pessimistic outlook or whether you take action of pull back. All are affected by how coherent all of your energy systems are. The need is to find out which area is out of balance energetically and bring it back so that the body does what its meant to do – to heal - in a more holistic, integrated and less challenging way. In this podcast:

• Lauren explains what Energy Medicine and Energy Medicine Yoga is
• How Energy Medicine Yoga helps with stress and trauma
• Why our energy needs to be in balance.