There has been a great deal of adapting on the fly these days, so I thought I would bring that up as a topic of discussion.

As you know, things don't always go as planned. Quite often, we need to pivot unexpectedly in a new direction, one we totally didn't anticipate. 

But adaptation is not failure, nor is it giving up.

Historically, I have been placing a heavy emphasis on how to get things working in my teachings.

I’ve talked about how to exist in hardship, how to move on from that place, and how to deal with the heavy emotions that come up inside you as these situations impact your life experience.

So, let's talk about how to handle things when they actually start working instead.

Very few people talk about holding success once it arrives, about trusting things (and yourself) when they're going well, and not self-sabotaging the good stuff.

Life inevitably happens.

When you’re standing in the middle of extreme hardship, the very centre of the shitstorm, it can feel like you have no hope to reach for. No tools, no comfort, no support.

It’s incredibly lonely.

Rock bottom can and does teach you like no other sensei.

No life is free of difficult decisions.

The tough conversations. Holding back reactions. The difficult goodbyes. Walking through the door and having everything come to the surface. Allowing it all to hurt, like a hard breakup. Giving something the time and space it needs to leave your experience.

Healing and letting go is a heartbreaking process.

There is beauty in that raw place.

There comes a point in every major transformation where you no longer recognize the person you used to be, but you haven't yet become the person you're working toward. It's an unsettling place to stand, but it’s also intensely exciting.

It's your personal blank canvas. What you become next is yours to paint.

Something magic happens when you learn to sit with your emotions.

Suddenly you become adept at sitting with your situation as well. 

That means not reacting immediately, putting more thought into things, and feeling everything out more. 

Not reacting to something when you really want to takes discipline. The discipline of a saint, sometimes. It's a superpower.

So how do we build it?

Have you ever noticed that comfort creates chaos?
Comfort slowly narrows your focus until immediate relief becomes more compelling than long-term purpose.
We rarely wake up one morning feeling completely disconnected from ourselves. Instead, it happens one comfortable decision at a time.

Here's the silent process.

There will come a time when you have to jump a gap.
A chasm between who you are now, and who you’re becoming. A jump so large you can’t say for sure you’ll land on the other side, or if it’s going to be as soft a landing as you wanted when you get there.
But you have to try.

Often, staying true to yourself takes a lot more effort than abandoning your truth for the sake of ease. 
Comfort is only the illusion of having what you want. It masquerades as success. It lures you into a false sense of complacency.
I talk about this balance a lot; of finding that sweet spot between contentment and truly enjoying where you're at, and pushing yourself, whether that's out of your comfort zone or into physical discomfort. It's important to walk this line.

Good things can feel scary and uncomfortable too, you know.

Hope can feel risky because we never know when what we hope for will dissipate, suddenly becoming something else. Sitting in the presence of good circumstances and feelings can be as challenging for some people as sitting with the bad, just in a different way.

When pain feels unbearable, the answer is still love. When the world around us crumbles into chaos, the answer is love. When darkness becomes all encompassing, enticing us to collapse into it, to get lost in it, the answer is still love, because love is more powerful than darkness will ever be.

But love has to be chosen consciously.

The world feels different than it did before 2019. The political landscape has shifted, technology is accelerating, information is becoming harder to navigate, and many people are finding it more difficult to anticipate what comes next.

What’s real, not AI?

What’s true, not misinformation?

Who can we actually trust?

Faith over fear. Mind over mountain. Heart over hardship.

They're easier statements to speak than put into action and embody.

However, the fear, mountain and hardship are exactly what give life its spice. It's important to embrace discomfort, whether that's in your day-to-day living, or a single significant project, challenge or experience.

My story starts with a plethora of injuries.

Not the dramatic coma-in-ICU variety, but a slow, creeping dysfunction from years of abusing my body and shrugging off the warning signs that all was not right.

When I was 26, my body finally said no more. It made me finally pay attention.

The biggest gift you can give yourself while you’re alive… is to live.

The temptation in modern day civilization is to die before our end. To give in to distraction, to give our power away to the future and past long before fully experiencing the present as it comes. To withdraw instead of attack, and diminish instead of expand. 

This is death, only of a different sort.

What does it mean to be genuine?

First and foremost, it means being honest with yourself. It means being unashamed of your humanness… imperfections, questionable choices, and everything that makes you wildly, beautifully you. Being honest enough with yourself to own all of it and stand proud in who you are, regardless of who the world tells you to be.

Life is becoming increasingly hectic, disjointed and fast-paced. You may have days when you wake up feeling less than stellar. Tired. Uninspired. Overwhelmed. Questioning how you got to this current state and where you’re going from here. And why. Why is life so complicated?

When life feels chaotic, it’s easy to lose your footing.

With a few simple tools, it’s possible to bring yourself back to centre.

Where do you imagine yourself five years from now?

It's a question asked so many times that it feels cliché. If it wasn't such an important one, I wouldn't be repeating it. The image you hold in your mind’s eye is who you become, so in that light, this question is a critical one.

Whenever I talk about striving or reaching, I always get kickback.

It's a risk we take in pursuing this personal growth journey that we may one day reach a time when things have become too focused, serious, strict, routine and regimented. This is when our own good intentions begin to work against us.

There will never be a shortage of ‘shoulds’ in our lives. Those things we should be doing to be better, healthier, more productive, more ‘perfect’. Meditate, drink the right amount of water, filter your water, eat organic, write affirmations, walk miles a day, take vitamins, listen to motivational podcasts, read books, do yoga, stretch, cold plunge and sauna. These are all powerfully beneficial.