Reactivate physical, mental, emotional and spiritual capabilities (5 of 8)
Let’s use the iceberg metaphor again. 9/10thof the iceberg is below the surface, under water. As nobody knows the right number, let’s assume that is the case also for our mental, emotional and spiritual capabilities. Those capabilities are inside of us, in our head and heart, and they can’t be seen with the physical eye. Most of us have not paid much attention to those capabilities and some us even put in a lot of effort not to pay attention to them. Many men are taught not to show their emotions (well, except maybe anger). And women are not supposed to show how good ideas they have (as that might embarrass the managers). Still, if we want to change direction, if we want to live our own lives, we have to explore and reactivate those capabilities. What has been suppressed and dormant, needs time, effort and commitment to blossom. It is in your hands, but it is not going to happen by itself. At the same time, it is the most fulfilling thing you can do for yourself. Nothing beats the excitement of seeing and experiencing your own progress. It is the work of a lifetime, you can first start with the layer that is closest to the surface and then you work your way down. And, like with the iceberg the deeper you go the wider the layers become. That makes life interesting; it is always a work in progress. You are really the explorer of your own life. The more you find out, the more you want to understand. Now, you might say that is not satisfying if there is no end in sight. It is key that you understand that it is the journey that counts and not the outcome. The explorer who has travelled to all countries in the world, is likely to stop travelling – and feel empty at home. Every day you can discover something new about yourself, and every day you will experience that your capabilities will grow – that you can be and do much more than you have thought in your wildest dreams. For example, I had not paid any attention to spirituality until I was 40 years old. I had zero knowledge and experience. Still, I did follow my curiosity and started going to meetings, do workshops, and read books. I did become a student of a spiritual organization and visited their HQ in India. And I did become a spiritual teacher. That was a surprising outcome; I would have never thought that it would happen. From being a novice to being a teacher in just a few years, That is possible by following your curiosity and then putting in the effort to learn more about that particular topic. You can do that to. You will be amazed!
We are like a car that has driven 30 km per hour all the time. We are not even aware that we can both drive faster as well as drive to new destinations. We have so much unused capacity inside ourselves. I have not met a single human being who could not do and be more than they were actually doing. Everyone can drive 50km per hour in the city and drive 100km per hour in the countryside. Your life will become so much more interesting, as you visit those unknown areas in your life. As a child you were creative in many things, your drawings, your games, the secret language that you used with your friends. As you got older you are using that creativity less and less. Now you are free to reactivate that creativity again. You can start by making drawings again (if that is what you like to do), or design your own fashion, or write songs. It is not so important what you do; it is the doing as such that is critical. If you haven’t rode a bike in twenty years, you must start carefully. The key is in DOING. It takes time, energy and effort to reactivate your mental, emotional spiritual and/or physical capabilities.
Many people have just become lazy, they just do what they are told – nothing more, nothing less. But now that you are flying out, you do it primarily for yourself, for your health and wellbeing. So, it is easy to get yourself moving. Don’t look at what others are doing, you are free to do what you want (within ethical and legal boundaries). Use your uniqueness, as that is what the world needs. The local and global challenges (economically, socially, environmentally) need unique solutions.
"Creative, successful, happy people are born twice. First to their mother and second when they break free from the cocoon of conditioning, reclaim their mind and start thinking their own thoughts." ~ Teresa Amabile
Mental
Mental capabilities are basically your thoughts. On an average day we speak 16,000 words and have 70,000 thoughts. Mostly we think about other people and the past, and repeat those thoughts over and over again. Do you recognize those loops in your mind? It drove me crazy. I can still recall many years ago when I was in a pool with my (then) wife in a beautiful apartment complex in Mexico. Blue sky, palm trees, warm weather. And although my body was in the water I felt like I was still working, I was thinking about all the effort required to find another job. My mind was back home, so it felt like work, it didn’t feel good at all; I was feeling frustrated and running out of ideas. Then I did realize this (my not being present) and that made me even feel worse. There I was in a beautiful environment and I was not present and not enjoying the holiday. What a waste! I really wanted to stop my thoughts, or at least have positive thoughts and relax. So, I made the decision to look for tools, practices, whatever, to slow down my mind and be present. The first suggestion I got was to do yoga. So, when I was back home I took a few yoga classes. But that didn’t help as my mind loved it that there was now a special space and opportunity to think. Then I did see a flyer about Transcendental Meditation (TM). The flyer exactly described my problem (too much and too many negative thoughts) as well as the stress and lack of creativity. I followed their course and 20 years later I am still meditating (although I am no longer using TM). The meditation really helped me in observing my thoughts and understanding that I am the master of my mind and that the mind is not my master. If you watch your thoughts like a detached observer, you can notice whether these thoughts are serving you or not. It is crucial to master your thoughts, as they influence your feelings. You can test this. Think about a recent situation where you were angry. How does that make you feel, angry – right? And now think about a situation that made you happy. That makes you feel happy, isn’t it?
In order to change the outer world, you first must change the inner world! How does this work?
The process of manifestationis as follows:
Thinking > Feelings > Actions > Results
The starting point of all actions are your thoughts. This means that thinking is ultimately the main driver of the results as well. When your thinking is good, you have good results. And when your thinking is faulty, you getfaulty results. Thinking is the activity of the mind, which creates mental pictures, self-talk, feelings and states of being. It includes imagination, fantasy, reactions and responses to sense impressions as well as association, sensitivity to sound, pictures, fragrance, touch and taste. The mind is externally driven by sensory input and internally driven by memories, association and the subconscious.
Being in charge of our mental capabilities is crucial for our wellbeing as well as our performance. Bob Bowman (Finding Mastery podcast 28 February 2018), the swim coach of Michael Phelps says that for Olympic athletes the mental part determines 90% of the performance, and the physical 10%.
Here is a formula that has proven through the ages to be very useful in dealing with other people, or circumstances: E + R = O (Event plus Response equals Outcome). The Stoics have put this understanding at the heart of their philosophy. We do not control the world around us; we control only how we respond. It is our mind, our mental capacity that chooses how we respond. That is in our control.
Emotional
Especially men have learned from a very young age to suppress their feelings and emotions. That is like pushing a ball under water, you can only do that for a very short time. Then your arm gets tired and the ball pops out of the water. Recently I was running on a footpath when a young man on a bike ran into me. I became very angry, especially when he said that I had to make space for him. That anger was not from that incident, but it was the ‘ball’ that popped up because of my old anger and frustration about not being seen.
Years of suppressing your emotions is unhealthy. Your emotions need space and acknowledgment.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (@TEDIBM December 2017) says: No brains contain emotion circuits; emotions are guesses that your brain constructs in the moment. Your brain is making predictions. Emotions that seem to happen to you – are made by you. We are responsible for our own emotions. We have to take care of our emotions; otherwise the emotions will take care of us – in an unpleasant way.
Research from Susan David (Emotional Agility) on emotional suppression shows that when emotions are pushed aside or ignored, they get stronger. In a survey she conducted with over 70.000 people, she found that a third of us -- a third -- either judge ourselves for having so-called "bad emotions," like sadness, anger or even grief. Or actively try to push aside these feelings. We do this not only to ourselves, but also to people we love, like our children -- we may inadvertently shame them out of emotions seen as negative, jump to a solution, and fail to help them to see these emotions as inherently valuable. Radical acceptance of all of our emotions -- even the messy, difficult ones -- is the cornerstone to resilience, thriving, and true, authentic happiness. But emotional agility is more than just an acceptance of emotions. Susan David found that words are essential. We often use quick and easy labels to describe our feelings. "I'm stressed" is the most common one I hear. But there's a world of difference between stress and disappointment or stress and that knowing dread of "I'm in the wrong career." When we label our emotions accurately, we are more able to discern the precise cause of our feelings.
So, what can you do? When you feel a strong, tough emotion, don't race for the emotional exits. What is the emotion telling you? And try not to say "I am," as in, "I'm angry" or "I'm sad." When you say "I am" it makes you sound as if you are the emotion. Whereas you are you, and the emotion is a data source. Instead, try to notice the feeling for what it is: "I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad" or "I'm noticing that I'm feeling angry." These are essential skills for us, our families, our communities. They're also critical to the workplace.
Spiritual
What is spirituality? Wikipedia gives this definition: Traditionally, spirituality refers to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape of man," oriented at "the image of God" as exemplified by the founders and sacred texts of the religions of the world. In modern times the emphasis is on subjective experience of a sacred dimension and the "deepest values and meanings by which people live, often in a context separate from organized religious institutions. Modern systems of spirituality may include a belief in a supernatural (beyond the known and observable) realm, personal growth, a quest for an ultimate or sacred meaning, religious experience, or an encounter with one's own "inner dimension.
For me spirituality is the energy that I radiate, internally and externally. Internally it is the energy from who I am in its holistic dimensions. Externally it is my aura, the energy that I radiate into the world. You could even say that spirituality is the awareness about our values and living in accordance with those values. Interconnectedness becomes very obvious once you see that you are a spirit having a physical experience. We are all connected, all over the world. Caring for global challenges becomes very natural if you see and feel how we are all connected.
I also like this perspective fromLarry Culliford: it is possible to look at spirituality another way, as something free of institutional structures and hierarchies, not so much about dogma and beliefs as about attitudes, values and practices, about what motivates you (us) at the deepest level, influencing how you think and behave, helping you find a true and useful place in your community, culture and in the world.
Perhaps the best way to thinkabout a spiritual approach to the world is to contrast it with a more common materialistic approach.
- The materialistic approach: The materialistic approach relies primarily on empirical evidence provided by the five senses — what can literally be seen, heard, tasted, touched, or smelled. This approach depends on the outer appearances of things to decide how and what to think and feel about them. A materialistic person fixes whatever may be wrong or out of place in his or her world by moving things around and effecting outer changes.
- The spiritual approach: In contrast, the spiritual way is to see beyond mere outer appearances and the five senses to an intuitive perception of the causes behind outer conditions. Someone with a spiritual approach may change and uplift their world by first transforming and improving his or her own vision.
Spirituality is like the mental, emotional and physical capabilities also a practice. The more you practice, the better the results and the more fulfilled and relaxed you will feel. A spiritual practice can consist of one or all of these elements:
• Knowledge (reading sacred or inspirational texts, books, poems)
• Service (helping others)
• Connection (recharging by connecting with your heart, with others, with nature))
• Application (do what you say, say what you do; congruency between being, doing, having)
Just start by defining or resurfacing your values and take it from there. Meditation and/or breathing exercises are fundamental for experiencing the feeling of connectedness.
You can address the lack of love, the feeling that you are not being seen, by starting to listen to yourself. Just take a few minutes every day, be quiet and listen to wat your inner voice is trying to tell you. Just listen, don’t judge.
“We build emotional, mental and spiritual capacity in precisely the same way that we build physical capacity” ~ Jim Loehr
Reactivate physical, mental, emotional and spiritual capabilities
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Nurture your needs
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What is your why
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Learn to (un)learn
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Limit your limitations
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Fancy failures
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Honor new habits
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Heal your happiness
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