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I was missing compassion. I realized after recording
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this video, which if you're watching you'll see I have curly hair,
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so it'll be obvious this is an addition. Watch till the end
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so you can get the full story if this is useful for you.
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I had a very surprising realization recently.
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If you know me, you know these do come quite hard and fast, but a
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particularly good one. Not great when I first
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realized it, and I felt a bit silly or stupid, to be honest, but it
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was a really great thing to see, and I'm hoping it'll be useful for
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you if I share about my experience. So what I
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realized is that I will have a
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terrible experience rather than another experience that
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I want less. What I mean by that is something I realized about
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my anxiety or feeling anxious. So I've had
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anxiety as long as I can remember, and it's been at harder
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and easier times. And as we sit here now, I have it
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really largely managed in lots of ways comparatively,
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and it still can be an issue for me, right? But it's very
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automatic to feel that feeling. If you have had anxiety or feelings
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of anxiety, you know that feeling of that tension in your body or
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sort of ruminating worries that don't really land.
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They're just sort of an energy in you and a feeling in you of vibration,
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right? Uncomfortable vibration at its lesser part.
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When it's at its worst, it's kind of hell on earth, particularly if you're trying
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to resist it or are scared what it is.
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So I will feel anxious a lot, right? Like feel this vibration,
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feel this concern. And I don't know how I saw
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it, but one day I realized when I was feeling anxious,
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For me, and as usual put the asterisks, I'm not talking
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about mental illness or diagnosed or any of that
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stuff. I'm just talking about my experience of my version of anxiety.
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I noticed that I was actually choosing it, not consciously as
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usual until I saw it, but I was trying to choose
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the pain of anxiety over the pain of what I was
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responsible for. Crazy, right? Why would
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anyone choose anxiety? It's the worst, particularly when it's
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bad. It is so bad. Bad. But what I realized was
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I'd rather choose anxiety for being responsible for whatever
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choice I made for the week or the day that I was resisting.
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So I'll give you an example. If I had some training coming up— this
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is very common because I was very anxious a lot of the time I trained—
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I would feel anxious. If I looked what was under that,
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like I've called this episode The Upside Down, what it was was
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that I had chosen to train. I didn't
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want to, or I didn't want to prep it, or I didn't want to do
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whatever was involved with it. And instead of taking responsibility for
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the choice, I put kind of anxiety over the top.
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Because if I was responsible for the choice, like the
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psychologists would say, I had an internal locus of control.
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It was my choice. It was only happening because I'd chosen it.
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But if I was anxious, anxiety's happening to me. Poor me.
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You know, I'm anxious. There's nothing I can do about that. I'm an anxious person.
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So it was really tricky to see it, right? Like Mark
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Manson, and he probably got it from somewhere else, but he talks about the idea
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of which pain do you choose? Because there's pain in everything.
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One of my life sayings, I suppose, is there's good and
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bad in everything. And I've said that for a long time and it kind
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of ties into this, right? Like, what pain do you choose?
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So I was choosing feeling like
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a victim and suffering in anxiety,
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but I was choosing that over not being a victim and feeling the,
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ugh, what did I put in this week? Or why did I do that?
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Or I don't want to do that, whatever it might be, right?
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So there's lots of examples of which pain do you choose that you might find
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useful if you haven't heard it before. You know, the pain of being overweight versus
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the pain of exercise, the pain of quitting smoking versus
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the pain of some terrible disease potentially. The pain of
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an awkward conversation or a difficult conversation versus the
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pain of unresolved relationships, etc., etc., right? We're always
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choosing our pain. I just didn't realize that anxiety was one of
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my choices. And like I said, please don't take that personally if you struggle with
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anxiety at a clinical level. And, uh,
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it, you know, it's not the
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experience I have, it's your own, right?
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But geez, it can be useful to see if you are like me and think,
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where am I just not wanting to take responsibility? And I'll actually
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suffer in that rather than own it.
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So that came from much more of a lifetime habit. And what I
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realized— and I realized it a while ago, but it keeps coming back in new
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levels of clarity— I actually worry recreationally.
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And, uh, what a great decision. So When I was a child,
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I grew up in Perth, and I know that a lot of you won't be
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watching or listening in Perth, but if you're around my age and
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from this little corner of the world, let's just say it wasn't very dynamic
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when I was a child. It's basically New York
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compared with what it was like in the mid-'70s. And if
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you are from here, you'll remember that the shops were not open on the weekend.
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If you wanted petrol on a Sunday, you had to hope your car would make
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it to the roster station, which was about 6 petrol stations in Perth,
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and there was virtual tumbleweeds rolling through the city on the weekend,
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right? Didn't suit me, didn't suit my personality. I love
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life, I love the world. I hope you can tell I'm really into
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everything, right? So I was like, what the hell? Why was I born into this
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corner of the world where nothing's happening? And so I got
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really bored. I had a lot, a lot of time as a child bored.
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And, you know, we used to make up games and do all that thing that
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'70s kids did when there was no iPads. But I watched a lot of
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telly. There was a telly. Anyway, I decided I'm not going to be bored.
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I'm going to be anything but bored. And I have not been bored in
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about probably 45 years. The only problem is I've been
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extremely worried for that whole time. And I made
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a choice, right? Like, I want to be active. I want to feel like I'm
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in action. I want to feel like stuff's happening. Worrying is very distracting.
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It's very busy-making. And, um, You know, you can spend all
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of your time doing that. I have spent a lot of time doing that.
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It's a tragedy when I say it actually and think about it.
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But, you know, I'm 52 and I'm getting these realizations. I feel like I'm a
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little bit behind, but what can you do? So the other day I'm at home
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and I think I have this really clear thought.
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I worry as a hobby. I worry just
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as an automatic thing. It's so automatic that I didn't even realize
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I was doing it. So I was sitting at home the other day and this
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came to me at a new level of clarity, right? Like, I have all
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these positive things I want to do and I haven't done a lot
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of them because I have this habitual thing around worrying
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and staying very still. They're connected. I must worry and
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sit very still. I have art I can do. I have tidying
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I can do. I have decorating I can do. I have exercise I can
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do. I have a passionate love for my indoor plants. There is
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so much positive I could do. And this has been a wonderful revelation
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because realizing I'm choosing it, even though it was so automatic
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I didn't see it. Now I can go, okay, worry's automatic. It's going to come
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up. You've practiced it forever. The neurons in your mind are like ropes,
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you know, Rick Hanson, what wires together ties together. But I've
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seen it now, so I can go, okay, you want to spend the next hour
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worrying or you want to spend the next hour painting? And there's
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a very famous YouTuber in Australia called Struthless, and he wrote
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a book called— I feel like it's called Doom and
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Bloom, but I'll put the link in. And he talks about this
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idea of creativity versus negative thinking. I haven't
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read the book yet, but what I would say is for me, there was no
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point in trying to get creative until I unlocked the mystery
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of what was stopping me. And it has stopped me and had me very still
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in many ways, trying to stay safe while analyzing
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life and worrying internally rather than taking positive action.
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I will have to risk space. I will have to risk
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potentially boredom. That one's tricky to face.
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But if I'm willing to create space and not
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use worry as my main hobby,
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Wow, like what a nicer life available.
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So as usual, hope you got something from that. If you didn't, I'm very
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glad, but if you did, awesome. What are you going to
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do with it? Do yourself a favor. When I shared this
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story about worrying as a hobby, I do
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still find that true for myself,
but what
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I was lacking was a level of compassion for myself and therefore potentially for yourself
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as a watcher or listener in this episode
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because I learned something new since recording it. And if you've watched
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some of my recent episodes, you might notice that I make additions because
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I learn so quickly. I realize, oh, it's not current anymore, I have to add
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to it to make it the full story. So what I have
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to add to this one is from listening to Stephen Bodian.
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You know him if you've listened to me. Infinite Awakening is
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his latest book. He is my hero.
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Talking to one of his expert friends on his podcast, Stephen's podcast,
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who I believe his name is John Prendergast. Now, they were
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talking about the fact that when one has had a traumatic experience
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and reacted to that a particular way— in my case, in an anxious
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way— one will automatically go back to that particular reaction
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or feeling state. And they don't use the term habit
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like I've said in the video here. I talk about that I've
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had worries as a hobby, as I said, And I said, I feel like I
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have, and that kind of makes sense to me. But what they helped
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me see was if we look at it more compassionately, what comes
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up very automatically for people is
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when you have had a previous, what I would call, or experts
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would call a little t trauma that's in your background. And all of
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us have had little t traumas. And of course, many people have had big T
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traumas. We will have an automatic reaction to that.
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That reaction can get stuck and it becomes a habitual
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thing in the system. I have an awareness now that
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it's happening. Whilst I will still go to it
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automatically, I have a level of choice and
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it's sometimes available because sometimes it just is automatic
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and I don't catch it, right? But what I want for me or for
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you is the extra level of compassion around,
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at least initially, we're not really even conscious around
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these habits. And even once I've seen it,
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I can realize it'll still get me automatically from
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this background of little t trauma. And so it's a good context,
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a compassionate context to it. Um,
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one of the things I'd also mention here in case it's useful for
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you or people you know is you'll see a version of this running
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where people have one drama after another in their life.
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So you'll meet people that are I don't know if the right term is
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addicted to drama. You'll see that term bandied about and
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it probably lacks compassion. But they experience life
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in a particular way for whatever reason. So they might
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have a habitual habit of bad things happen to me,
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and so one bad thing after another happens. And when I
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think about people in my own life with this propensity, for some
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of them, their life is stranger than fiction. The number of things that
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can happen in one life that are very difficult, and it's It's just one
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person. And, you know, even as I say it,
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it feels so harsh to say that they might be choosing that.
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What I will say is I don't believe for a moment they're choosing it
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consciously. For some reason, the expression of their trauma looks like
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that. So mine comes out in different ways— internalizing
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worry, lack of positive action, procrastination,
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self-doubt, ruminating. They're not helpful
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at all to anyone external and terribly bad for me. Whereas for other people,
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they'll come out with external events, relationships issues,
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accidents, one thing after another, somehow expressing
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this anxiety or difficulty or pain. So I
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hope that makes sense and adds an extra context
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to what you both hear about my story, but also what might be happening
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for you. What is it that could be running underneath
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that whatever it is you are doing, you currently
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feel is a better decision, consciously, but more likely
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unconsciously. How can the upside down be
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a happier place for you or for me? So I
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hope you find it useful. I hope you do yourself a favor and be
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bravely loving to you first and then those around
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you. Lots of love. Thanks for being here.