Posts Tagged ‘personal growth’

Beyond the Fall: Finding Strength in Setbacks

Posted: September 19, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” — Epictetus

Failure is a necessary part of life.
Setbacks are an inevitability.
We wouldn’t know what success or breakthroughs were without failure and setbacks.
There is no getting around the yin-yang, no matter how much we wish we could sometimes.

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” — Nelson Mandela

I recently experienced a setback via a personal failure. The shock of the situation took weeks to wear off. I let myself down and through my own choices and actions caused a setback.
Is it better if something external and out of our control causes a setback?
Is it worse if we are the cause of our setback by doing the wrong thing?

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Unfortunately, I don’t have a time machine. So since I can’t change the past, the best thing I can do is focus on the present moment and move forward. There’s solace in that everyone makes mistakes, fails, and experiences setbacks. Whether we’re talking about famous historical figures or the billions and billions of regular people who have lived, are living, will live, and won’t be famous but will still experience highs and lows, successes and failures, the best and the worst that this crazy thing called life has to offer.

“Our goal is not to eliminate suffering. Our goal is to find peace despite the suffering.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

The best thing I have done for myself since my setback was to adopt the mindset that this situation is an opportunity for growth. I have had to say it internally and aloud seemingly a thousand times as negative thoughts, perceptions, and emotions about the situation consistently try to creep in from every direction.

During normal times, in my everyday life, I utilize philosophy and spirituality practices with a humanist filter to keep me on my path. During the challenging times of a self-imposed setback, I am leaning on them more than ever to help get me through. I thought maybe sharing some of the principles and paradigms that are helping me could help others too. Since I know I’m nowhere near the only one going through challenging times in the world today.

“The impediment to action is not the thing itself, but the thought of it.”- Marcus Aurelius

The concept I’ve leaned on the most is that a setback is an opportunity for growth. I have said that internally and aloud at least a thousand times over the past two months. This gets coupled with setbacks being universal and inevitable in life. Everyone encounters them, nobody gets to avoid them.

The philosophy I turn to most often is Stoicism. This ancient philosophy helps me with acceptance and focus. Accepting what has already happened and what is outside of my control. Acceptance involves letting go and detaching. I can’t control what has happened. I can’t control what will happen. But what I can do is focus on what is in my control in the here and now. The paradigm of Stoicism helps me stop catastrophizing and dwelling. It helps me get out of the imagined and into the real. Those are helpful things in good times, but especially necessary during challenging times.

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do good and evil lie? In the choices I actually control.” — Epictetus

Meditation was one of the first stress/anxiety-fighting practices I was able to habitualize. Being able to quickly engage in a simple, easy set of actions to calm my mind and gain some clarity and gratitude in the present moment is like putting a band-aid on a cut during trying times. Pairing meditation with studying various spiritual practices has been perpetually taking a load off that the overthinking mind seems to want to constantly place on my chest and shoulders.

“You cannot control the waves, but you can learn to surf.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Studying various spiritual practices for a number of years now has helped to enforce the necessity of forgiveness, compassion, gentleness, letting go, and kindness for the self and others in good times and bad. Experiencing a setback is fuel for the fire of judgment, negativity, anger, and fear. Meditation practice and spirituality studies help to remember that negative noise and pessimistic pain are not who we are or what we are.

“The pain you feel is a signal that you need to change your way of thinking. It’s a wake-up call to become more conscious.” — Eckhart Tolle

We may not need meditation or spiritual practice to be kind and compassionate towards ourselves when we fail. We may not need to study philosophy to be accepting of what has happened to us, to focus on what is in our control, and to be aware of the impermanence of all things and situations whether good or bad. We humans are as hopeful as we are resilient by our nature. That is how we have survived.

Photo by Max Böhme on Unsplash

We may not necessarily need the aid that tools like philosophy, journaling, spirituality, and meditation can provide us, but they sure do help. In challenging times, in the face of setbacks and failure, we can use all the help we can get. Luckily for all of us, these tools are simple, easy, and quick to engage in.

Setbacks and failure are an inevitable part of life, but so are triumph and success. Both sides of the yin-yang are opportunities for personal growth and self-discovery. Failure and success are both necessary for us to even know what the other is. We don’t know what good times are without hard times and vice versa.

Gleaning resilience from philosophy studies and mindfulness from spirituality practices can help all of us turn our negatives into positives. Ultimately, the key to navigating life’s ups and downs lies in our ability to learn from our experiences, embrace change, and maintain a positive outlook.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Detrimental Perceptions are built on Layers of Emotional #Reactivity

Posted: January 29, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Like sweat in our eyes, water in our ears, oil on our skin.

How much of what we think and perceive about ourselves internally and the external world are beneficial vs detrimental?

This was something I asked myself a lot last year. At the time I was using the terms productive vs counter productive. I found myself asking how much of my thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and actions were/are productive vs counter productive?

It’s a question we all need to ask ourselves. The data on depression, anxiety, stress, negativity, mental health, etc all keeps going in the wrong direction. I personally believe much of that has to do with late stage capitalism and being forced to participate regardless of our physical, mental, or emotional health.

That is an external reason. Internally however, we do need to take responsibility for our the way we think, perceive, feel, and act. At least at a 51/49 split.

I’m still doing the work of changing myself for the better based on my own standards, my own goals, and what works for me. It came as a surprise, whether it should have or not, that I was not doing what works for me in multiple areas of my life.

We all have our issues. We all have experienced trauma. The world breaks everybody. But I found myself day after day, noticing detrimental habits of thought, perception, and action. And when I would think; “why am I like this” or “why do I do this?” The answer has yet to be one of external blame. The answer has also yet to be a singular thing.

It’s layers of emotional reactivity to events, situations, and challenges that I developed unconscious responses to. A stimulus happened and I reacted unconsciously and built layers of detrimental thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and actions as my response(s).

I dug a hole for myself. I fell underwater. I got lost in darkness.

Meditation, journaling, philosophy have all helped me little by little to dig out, swim to the shore, and walk towards the light.

Little by little, day by day, one choice at a time.

Then a slip up happens. A mistake repeated. Then comes the challenge of not beating myself further down into the hole underwater in the darkness. The habit of making a bad situation worse with negative emotional reactivity.

The habit of having a detrimental perception of myself. That for me has been maybe the most consistent challenge. That was the eye opener. How much of my self talk was negative. How I was my own worst enemy and critic.

And why? For doing what? I wasn’t hurting anyone else. I wasn’t causing harm or misfortune to bystanders or people in my life. But I would berate myself like I was being paid handsomely to do it. Why?

The habit of negative emotional reactivity. Unconscious negative reactions to minor situations. Making a mountain out of a molehill. Detrimental perceptions.

Cultivating the space between stimulus and response with meditation, journaling, philosophy, and spirituality practices has been the yin to the aforementioned yang. The white to the black. The silence to the sound. The beneficial to the detrimental.

The Awareness / #Intent to #Change Trap

Posted: July 2, 2014 in Stimulus Space Response
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by @anarchyroll
7/2/2014

One must be aware they have a problem and/or need to change before anything can be accomplished in the direction of personal growth.

However, awareness is only the first step and personal development/self help is way more than a twelve step staircase.

The intent to change is mandatory. One must state their intent to themselves, writing it down in a journal is also mandatory. However, the intent to change can be a double-edged sword to those who think that awareness of a problem/short coming and the intent to change will do the work for them.

This is one of my biggest personal failures in my quest to be my best self. Constantly, repeatedly thinking that my intent to change will do the work for me when I am pressed up against my comfort zone in the moment(s) of choice.

There is no substitute for taking action.

No amount of awareness or positive intent to change will create substantial change. The negative/counter productive habits of thought, perception, and action can only be changed by consistent new actions to create new points of reference. Only by taking the actions and creating a new pool of reference experiences will you create your new reality.

That is how we dig ourselves into holes, that is how we dig ourselves out; action.

Awareness is the way out, that is true. One can’t change without the intent to change, that is also true.

But we only change outside of our comfort zone. It is easy to be aware of our short comings and intend to change while we’re not being tested by ourselves or by the external world around us. Feeling the fear in the stomach when the moment of choice is upon us, is where/when we must exercise courage and take action in the direction of the change and new reality we wish to manifest.

Trying and failing is fine. Trying and coming up a little short is fine. Step by step, day by day. But the key word/concept is trying, trying is action. We must build new reference experiences for our mind to access. Those reference experiences, as the continuously, constantly accumulate, eventually become our new reality for better and for worse. We can do this with an exercise regiment or by eating like a pig, by being the life of the party or a wallflower, cultivating a new hobby/skill set or binge watching digital video programming.

That’s why the saying goes: “easier said than done”.

Awareness is not easy to cultivate, having it is an accomplishment.

Intent to change eludes many for entire lifetimes.

But at the end of the day anyone can want to change, think they have to change, plan to change, and say they want to change. But it’s all about action. We can’t pay our bills with positive intention. I won’t meet a romantic partner because I am aware that I want to. None of us progress (or decline) without action. Don’t get caught in the ego centered quicksand of believing that wanting to change is enough, simply wanting anything is never enough.

…Action…

 

 

 

Personal Change Contracts are Signed with a #Journal

Posted: April 24, 2014 in Stimulus Space Response
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by @anarchyroll
4/24/2014

I recommend journaling to every human being I know. Old or young, male or female, whether they like writing or hate it, journaling is vital to personal growth. All the historical leaders we look up to kept a personal journal. Getting our thoughts out of our head, onto paper, through handwriting (not typing) is important. Why?

There is what is known as a neuro-muscular connection that takes place when you physically write out your thoughts onto paper. In essence, when you hand write your intentions, goals, wants, etc you are making a promise or signing a contract of intent to achieve.

If goal achievement isn’t your thing, then a daily thought journal is for you. Just write out what’s in your head, what’s on your mind, what you’re thinking about at the moment, and/or simply write out what you did that day. What purpose does this serve? It is like taking out the garbage or opening the window in a smoke filled room.

When garbage piles up and smoke fills a room, it makes it harder to see and move around, if not impossible. Writing out one’s thoughts, no matter how boring or mundane will help create space in your mind. So even if you aren’t writing about epiphanies, goals, desires, hopes, and dreams right out of the gate; eventually the space you create by writing out the basic stuff will foster the deep stuff to come up the surface.

Journaling is a way to cultivate the space between stimulus and response.

Remember, you are journaling for yourself, no one else. If you want to share your journal or if you want to have both private and public journals, that’s cool, but not necessary. When journaling you don’t have to worry about the quality of your handwriting, spelling, punctuation, grammar, or any of that. A private thought journal is as casual as it gets, the poetic license you give yourself won’t ever be any greater than it is there. Write what you want, how you want, when you want (though once a day is best).

Reviewing past journals is an important piece of the puzzle that many forget, including myself. I have gone long stretches without reviewing past journal entries. When I do, each time I see that by not reviewing I have been repeating mistakes, lapses in judgement, failures of character, and just flat out not progressing as much as I want to be or feel I should be. We must see where we have been in order to get a better idea of where we are and where we are going.

Journaling is beneficial for the heart, mind, and soul. It can also be beneficial for the body. You can use a journal to track what you eat, drink, and how often you exercise to hold yourself accountable to yourself during a diet and exercise program or better yet, a new healthier lifestyle.

I like to journal at the end of the day. It is like putting a period on and bringing closure to that date on the calendar of life. It lets me know that this day is now over;

  • What have I accomplished?
  • What have I failed to do?
  • What do I want to do tomorrow?
  • What do I need to do this week?
  • What can I do this month to be closer to where I want to be this time next year?
  • What must I improve upon?
  • What progress have I made up to this point?
  • What did I do today?
  • What am I grateful for?

It can be a few sentences, a few paragraphs, a few pages, or a few notebooks worth. Let it flow. Force yourself to start, but then just let your brain tell the pen what to write and when to stop. We can all be better. We can all improve. A journal is how we sign a contract of change with the most important entity in our life, our reflection.

 

 

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