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consciousness Fear Feeling Growth Negative Emotions Perspective

When Pride is Not A Good Thing

Extract from 18 Ways We Make Life Way Harder Than It Needs To Be by Carl Massy (WAY 16)

“Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.”

Thomas Jefferson (US President and primary Author of US Declaration of Independence)

I think most of us were taught that ‘pride’ is a good thing. To feel proud for who and what we are. To take pride in what we do. To take pride in what we have achieved – be it over the course of our lives or over the last few weeks working on a new project at work, which we totally nailed!

So yes, pride can be a good thing. But like many things, there can be another side to it, when taken to extreme. It is like all great virtues. They are great when they are applied in a conscious self-aware way. Too much bravery and someone can become reckless. Too much loyalty and someone can be taken advantage of or stuck in something for longer than is healthy. Too much single-mindedness and someone can meander down the wrong path. Too much flexibility and someone can be all over the place.

Categories
Choice consciousness Decision Making Feeling Life Lessons Perspective

Tough Decisions, Complexity, Better Questions and Cute Dogs

Yes; we will be discussing all of those topics.

As they weave together.

Regardless of whether you are a ‘dog person’ or not, I am sure you will get where I am coming from, and take something of value from this conversation.

Over the last bunch of weeks I have had some really tough decisions to make in relationship to dogs, which have not been easy.

Time to really practice what I teach.

All of which I have written about over this year and are in my latest book (18 Ways We Make Life Way Harder Than It Needs To Be) and YES, that is a ridiculously blatant plug for my new book, but I am okay with that as I know it will serve you well.

Now let’s jump straight into the life of Carl Massy story time…

Categories
Choice Doubt Emotional Feeling Negative Emotions Overwhelm Perspective

How to Deal with Overwhelm

ANOTHER EFFECTIVE WAY TO DEAL WITH GREATER LEVELS OF OVERWHELM.

In the past I have spoken about different ways to deal with stress and OVERWHELM.

And I am sure it (overwhelm) is a topic you can also relate to.

It is not whether we will experience overwhelm or not.

It is about ‘when’, and then HOW WE DEAL WITH IT.

That is where I will take you.

I am personally feeling overwhelmed about now.

But it is not the minor daily stuff, but the “WTF do I do next?!” sort of stuff.

My Morning Rituals and Weekly Meeting with Me Inc do a great job most of the time, but if stuff builds up, or there are new factors, our ability to cope can reach overflow.

That is what today’s strategy is dealing with.

For me, the overwhelm is the result of: selling our house, building a new house (in a foreign country), doing the money juggling act, managing my current coaching clients (and new clients), helping my first-time authors finish their books, getting coaching programs organised for 2024 (because this year is whizzing by), plus finishing my book and associated parts, then publishing and launching it on 20 November. And a couple of weeks ago I made the decision to have our sausage dog of 16-years put down.

So a bunch of stuff going on, but maybe the book launch is the thing that is probably pushing me over the line, since it is a significant project.

So what to do????

Essentially I need to figure some shit out.

Organise the jigsaw pieces.

But how best to do that…??

Categories
Belief Choice Doubt Fear Feeling Growth Life Lessons Overwhelm

This Can Break The Dam Wall of Worry

This article is for anyone that does, or is currently doing, the WORRY thing.

It’s a story about what I recently did (about 30 mins before writing) to break the dam of worry that had been looming over me for days.

If you read last weeks post, I spoke about getting triggered putting up ‘For Sale’ signs around my neighborhood, as we are in the process of selling our house in Bali (while doing a build at the same time).

So I am juggling a few balls in the air.

Which I am sure that you can relate to.

I am 100% sure.

Rarely have we got all of our ducks lined up so we can kick back with our feet up, and be in blissful rapture.

The price of wanting to live an extraordinary life is there will be a bit of resistance, disruption, set-back and frustration.

It’s the ticket price to play life at the next level.

So I know that you know what I am talking about.

Life can get pretty overwhelming at times.

And then we can do this worry thing.

Which I like to thank my mum for teaching me.

She taught me well.

Just joking mum!!

(Sort of).

So that takes me to one of my main points of today’s ‘lessons’.

Drum roll please maestro…

Categories
Fear Feeling Life Lessons Negative Emotions Perspective Problem

How to Stop Getting Triggered

One of the primary things I do when working with new clients is have them record when they get TRIGGERED.

This information is gold dust.

Outstanding feedback.

BUT…only if you do something with it.

We all get triggered.

But IT is the wisest among us who learn from it, in order to grow and evolve and to not get triggered (as much or not at all) next time.

Firstly let me define what I mean by ‘Getting Triggered‘.

It is essentially any time where we are reactively taken out of an elevated emotional state, neutral state or homeostasis, and dropped into a survival emotional state. Essentially the amygdala has determined there is some sort of physical threat, so it activates the sympathetic nervous system, and we have a physiological fight, flight or freeze response. This does not include automatic responses to real physical threats.

Sometimes we are ‘positively’ triggered and that is awesome and another great thing to learn from.

Thumbs up and now do more of that.

However, for this article (and your ongoing well-being) I am more interested in the ‘negative‘ triggers, and the bigger the trigger, the more (loving) attention we need to give them.

Examples include: getting triggered by an email, getting triggered while driving on the road, getting triggered by your partner or friends, getting triggered by people wearing face masks while alone on a beach, getting triggered by being told ‘no’, getting triggered by people riding motorbikes through intersections while texting on their phones, etc..

Categories
Decision Making Emotional Feeling Negative Emotions Overwhelm Problem

Don’t Let This Derail You from Your Goals

Goals. Goals. Goals.

We all have them, because worthy Goals give meaning to our life.

Without worthy Goals we stagnate, don’t experience fulfillment and spend our waking hours on a mindless hamster wheel.

Therefore we want to know what processes help us kick those Goals we have our beady eyes on.

And derail us.

Are you ready to hear about one of the places where people screw it up?

Let’s dive in.

Categories
Choice Doubt Emotional Feeling Honesty Relationship

On Trying to Decide, Do I Stay or Do I Go?

I know you have been here before.

Trying to decide if you stay put – and ride this thing out – or whether to pack your stuff up and jump on the next plane, train or automobile and high-tail it out of town.

The proverbial, do I stay or do I get the hell out of Dodge?

The choice could be in different aspects of your life.

Do you end this (intimate) relationship or see if you can work things out?

Do you leave your current job, or do you stay?

Do you end a business partnership, or do you see if you can work things out?

Do you stay in this house, or can you find something better (which won’t send you broke)?

So many of these decisions are not black or white.

There is a whole bunch of GREY to deal with.

And reliable crystal balls are hard to come by these days.

So what to do?

Categories
Belief consciousness Emotional Feeling Negative Emotions

A Revealing Look at Genes

A CASE STUDY: GENES VERSUS ENVIRONMENT

Knowledge is powerful stuff.

I know you know.

The greater knowledge we have, the BETTER choices and decisions we can make.

So I am here, for your benefit, sharing some knowledge I discovered along the way.

My full time job is reading, researching and working with people to better understand what makes us do what we do.

And experience the outcomes we do.

A few years ago I had a fascinating experience with a client of mine.

Which supports my observation that the medical ‘healthcare’ system, really doesn’t understand the importance of the environment on our behaviour (and therefore results) and therefore treats ‘symptoms’ with the wrong stuff, which barely touches the root cause.

Let me share this case study of mine, and you can decide if it was primarily a ‘Gene’ thing or an ‘Environmental’ thing.

I will let you be the judge.

I will also leave this section with a quote from Paramahansa Yogananda – who was highly influential in bringing traditional yoga to the west.

He said: “The environment is stronger than the will.

Categories
Acceptance Emotional Feeling Growth Life Lessons Perspective

Don’t Do This…Unless You Love Rollercoasters

I am not sure of where you are at when it comes to roller coasters.

Occasionally, they can be fun.

Like once or twice a year (for me), but definitely not weekly.

Pass.

So I would like to (strongly) recommend you don’t make a habit of this.

Unless of course you love roller coasters, and especially the emotional kind…

Categories
Choice consciousness Fear Feeling Perspective Self Love Success

You Can’t Do This and Expect to be Happy

Do you want to be happy?

Or happier?

I am pretty sure – about 99.999% – that your response to those questions is a resounding “OF COURSE!”.

So today we are going to talk about one thing not to do if you want to have a happy life existence.

It’s a pretty simple concept (like most things I teach), but it has major ramifications.

The image that comes to mind when I think about this topic is a wheelbarrow I was using the other day, while hauling bricks.

The wheel was a little wobbly (out of alignment) and it was WAY HARD to keep things moving in the direction of the drop-off point.

At one point the wheelbarrow veered off to the side and I lost the load (and nearly tore a muscle or three); so I had to start again from scratch.

TOO much effort required.

So what was the solution?

Simple.

The wheelbarrow needed the nuts on the axle tightened, so the wheel would come back into alignment and perform the role it was designed for.

Moving smoothly, in a straight line.

When things are out of alignment, life gets tougher.