Viktor Frankl wrote, "What is to give light must endure burning." In other words, to bring light into this world, one must endure a little heat or in yogic terms, tapas. To have a child, one must endure the pain of childbirth and the heat of raising and loving a child and the knowing you must let them become their own person. And yet, sometimes events come our way, we are dealt cards which scorch us and to come through we must enduring the burning. 

Bessel van der Kolk defines trauma as "an overwhelming experience that leaves you in a state of befuddlement and helplessness. Like if you're unable to do something to protect yourself, to activate your fight-or-flight response. Then, a pathway gets activated of helplessness and collapse."
Are we ever truly helpless? Or do we just perceive we are helpless? Is there really nothing we can do?
Imagine those in a concentration camp, no choice. Constant fear of both death and continued living. But some did choose to live. Some did attempt to survive. They did not collapse. 

Where does one find the power to choose life. Life is not easy. Life has its moments of joy, and love. But it also has many moments of suffering. The spiritualists find reasons and faith that it is all for some higher purpose. The pragmatists find fortitude in the wisdom of "keep calm and carry on." 
There is always a choice.
Each day you get out of bed, you choose to get out of bed. When you chooses to brush your teeth, you are choosing. What you choose defines, becomes the foundation of the future choices. We can choose to have a optimism or pessimism. We can pay attention to our power to choose or to feel helpless.
True power is the recognition there is a choice even when we may not like the options.
Choose wisely today.

We don't always win or get the project done well, or have enough. Failure is a natural part of our life. It is an essential part of our life. Why? Because failure has the potential to make us show up better the next time around. That is the miracle angle of failure. Loss is an important part of life because it has the potential to force us to appreciate what we have - to be grateful. But this will only happen if we are willing to look for the opportunity to take some miracle view of a seemingly negative event.

We are heading into the last week of January 2025 and I have been completely derailed in my resolutions. I have failed to be consistent with my meditation and consistent with my afternoon jaunts with my dog. I could blame the frigid weather, I could lay blame at the spontaneous nature of my work schedule, computer crashes, and regular old stand by of just stress. 

The truth is my resolutions have not been aligned with the big picture passion for me. Sometimes being in a holding pattern is a better option than burning ourselves up trying to prove we can achieve some goal that isn't really going to give us the fulfillment we seek

If you have been rocking your new years resolutions, super good job. If, like me, you haven't, no worries, the failure is there to tell you something. It is part of the process of pursuing something. The failure is there to inform your future choices, it is not a statement of your value.

Ask yourself... what is this trying to show me? 
Allow yourself time relax with a guided meditation or Nidra practice, then ask one of the following questions:

• Is it making your negative feelings more exaggerated?
• Is it creating more busy behaviour or more numbness?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then you need to change the goal or the process of pursuing the goal. 

What is missing? Where do I feel the tension? What adjustment can I make to improve the situation?
​Consider what adjustments you would like to make going forward. For me, it has started with a little self care. From a place of feeling nourished and relaxed, I will be best positioned to ask the deep questions.

The initiation to 2025 has been intense and the next weeks only promise more fire. Are you burning yet?

If you need a little inspiration on how to sustain those goals and resolutions established for this new year, get a copy of the book The Magical Yet, by Angela DiTerlizzi. The book promises you that you have yet to experience something, but that it is still possible for it to happen. 

My question is what do you need to make it happen?

I made some resolutions about adopting the new identity as a energetic, vital and joy-filled person. I have had a couple of challenges and some amazing wins, yet I am not what I would consider joy-filled and certainly struggling with a little of the energy. 

In the grand scheme of all you have lived and have yet to live, do not be discouraged. Change takes time. Let's say you resolved to eat healthier than you have in the past. Changing buying habits, learning new meal preparation and implementation take time. Go easy on yourself. Get curious if it is too hard. What is it that makes it hard? Finding ingredients? Being inspired to cook? So tired at the end of the day to cook? As you research the challenges, you will hit on some changes which may support your future success. Do you need an inspirational podcast? Do you need a supportive read? Research... keep doing your research.

The Body Keeps Score is a great work by Bessel van der Kolk about how the body holds trauma and our behaviours are the expression of that trauma. Trauma is defined as a deeply distressing experience. The loss of a family member or a pet can be deeply distressing, parents divorcing can be deeply distressing for some and a relief for someone else.

My grandfather passed away when I was in elementary school. I was young enough that I did not go to the funeral. I did not cry when I learned of the death, but I was sent to the Principal's office a few days later because I was arguing with the religion teacher about God. I blamed God for taking him away. Anger was how my body needed to respond to the trauma of death of someone I loved. 

We have all experienced trauma to some degree. When the nervous system is stressed, it activated the fight, flight, freeze, fawn response. What this means in the body is a cascade of hormones and redirection of blood flow to enable self protection. The part of the brain called the amygdala wants to keep you alive and it will do whatever it takes to ensure the body keeps working. Restlessness is an expression of the action of fight or flight.

The questions is... what is the real danger?
When going through a job change or divorce, the change is real and it can be stressful. However, the physical body is not in harms way in most situations. The mind generally does not stop to think or consider this. As a result, the body goes into fight, flight, freeze or fawn response mode. 

Even doing something as challenging as changing our routines and our behaviours to meet our 2025 resolutions can cause a little reaction from the nervous system. It feels uncomfortable to adjust to a new routine. It feels off. And that alone will cause some degree of response. Add to that any criticism you may pile upon yourself for missing a day or making a mistake. That self criticism also creates a response - you may defend (fight), become restless to avoid or flee, perhaps freeze is your go to and this paralyzes decisions about whether to try to continue or how to respond. Fawn is a typical response where one tries to bridge a connection, gain a protector. Calling a friend or making others pleased with you is a fawn response. 

The body likes homeostasis - a state of balance. Out of balance is when the system becomes active. When the sympathetic nervous system (fight, flight, freeze, fawn response) stays active for an extended period of time, it can have lasting effects on the health of the body. High blood pressure, skin issues, weight gain, high blood pressure for example. Worst still, over active sympathetic nervous system response can lead an anxious person into depression. 

The world has always been full of uncertainty, but now we have access to the images, videos, news constantly reminding us of uncertainty and fragility. People are more and more on edge as a result. On edge means they are out of homeostasis with an active sympathetic nervous system. 

There are numerous things that can be done to reduce the physical experience of stress. 

• Relax - take a hot bath, get a massage, walk in nature, walk, smile
• Exercise - get the body moving and pay attention to the movement - mindful movement
• Breathe - the breath with emphasis on the exhale is one way to regulate the nervous system response
• Love - hold an infant, pet your pet, connect with someone you love
• Meditate and/or Yoga Nidra - practice mindfulness and sit with a focus on releasing stress in the body

Try it and see what you think.

I recently reviewed the Canadian Safety in Sport materials and through the course of the reading, I realized that the definition of maltreatment was all about perception, not intention. I suddenly perked up and became very concerned. If you have been following the posts, I have designed the premise of resolutions around the power of intention. In fact, it is the power of intention that will influence whether we feel positively by our actions or negatively. We are currently living in a world of The Anxious Generation - by Jonathan Haidt. 

According to the National Library of Medicine, the social impacts of Covid 19 has been, "​The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has caused widespread unrest in society and unprecedented changes in lifestyle, work and social interactions, and increasing social distance has severely affected human relations."

Bottomline... everyone is on a little higher alert. The sympathetic nervous system is more active than the parasympathetic system. When the sympathetic nervous system is active for a prolonged period of time, there can be an increase in anxiety and depression. All to say, we become less focused and have less energy (or capacity) to go out and face the world. 

Resilience is the ability to reduce the sympathetic nervous system response and to increase our capacity to face what is difficult. From the information on maltreatment to the information on bullying I have serious concerns that we are focusing too much on the problem of people mistreating people and not enough on how we handle the hard stuff. Don't get me wrong... I do not agree with maltreatment of others. BUT there will always going to be people who are mean and have negative intentions. Period. It is an impossible task to do anything about maltreatment until it has already happened. But as a society we can train people in resilience. We can offer people supports on how to apply skilled effort to protect themselves and their well being. We should as a society be interested in personal empowerment, not victimhood.

This is training people how to navigate challenge. We live in a world where we try to remove challenge and now folks like employers, coaches, or teachers who impose challenge can be considered as bullies or as mistreating their employees, their athletes, or learners. Whew... it is no wonder we are struggling and moving into safe/unsafe feelings. Our worlds are becoming smaller even though we share more than needs to be shared over social media and in our blogs and podcasts.