I am energised when I listen to people speak of possibilities. Today was all about possibilities. The possibilities of re-organising our neurology, our chemistry, our physiology, our lives.
To access the infinite possibilities that are innate inside of each of us, we need to step into the unknown. When we want to bring the familiar or certainty into our lives, we are operating from the knowledge of past experience, syphoning off our creative energy and reinforcing the emotional patterns of the past that bind us to preconceived attitudes and behaviours. From this place and space nothing changes. However, by creating space in our lives for the unknown, it is here that possibilities present themselves to us. It is from here that our innate ability to create comes alive.
Where we place our attention is where our energy goes. If we are unaware of where our attention is and operate on auto pilot, we are allowing our addictions to certain emotions and states of being to control our lives. Did you know that most of us, most of the time are living in states of stress? For most of us we are not even aware of our addiction to stress - or to be more specific the addiction to the chemicals that are created in our brain when we are feel stress. I have written before about stress and the impact it can have on our lives, our health, our thinking, on how we consume energy to keep surviving, on our attention. When we are feeling stress, we go into survival mode. Our attention narrows to the external environment to locate the perceived threat. This is part of our genetic history and evolution. In this state however we are unable to conceive of possibilities and to broaden our attention or to engage the higher functions of our brain effectively.
From experience, I know that if we live in a state of chronic stress for an extended period of time, that feeling of stress can start to feel "normal" and we are not even aware that we are stressed. In my corporate life, I would proudly say that I "loved" stress - and I did. In truth I was addicted to all those chemicals the brain produced when under stress. Like any addict, I needed more and more and more. So I chose more stressful jobs and environments to get that rush. I started to create attitudes and beliefs about myself that the only way I could operate and function was if I was under extreme pressure and extreme stress.
I remember early in my career, one specific event where my manager at the time called me into a meeting room to have a chat with me. I had been doing such amazing work and coping with extreme workloads, I thought "Ah my efforts are going to be recognised! Maybe I am going to get a promotion." I went into the meeting with high expectations and anticipation. However what my manager said was, "I have just one question for you. Are you on drugs?". I cannot describe the anger and disbelief that coursed through my veins in that moment. I responded in a non lady-like fashion. His response was "The reason why I ask is because nobody can work the way you do, the hours that you do with the intensity that you do unless they were on drugs. Are you sure you are not on drugs?". In retrospect, he was not even aware of how close to the truth he was. If he had been a neuroscientists, he could have become famous for being on the brink of some of the greatest discoveries about the human brain that have taken place over this past decade. I was on drugs - self generated chemicals inside my brain. In retrospect, if I had been wise enough to have heard what he was asking, I could have changed my life in that instant, instead I even worked harder, looked for even greater levels of stress, found ways to feed my addiction that did not rely on the injection illicit drugs or chemicals.
Fast track some 15 plus years and it is no surprise that my state of being of chronic stress became chronic disease presenting as multiple sclerosis. I was simply a ticking time bomb. When we live in extended period of time in imbalance and are completely unaware of how imbalanced our lives have become and simply accept that the feeling we wake up to each morning, and carry through our days and go to sleep with as being normal, at some point in some ways disease will show knock on our door.
One of the greatest miracles that have happened in my life was the morning a neurologist walked into the hospital ward and declared to me that I had MS. To this day, I do not know what inspired me to react to the news in the way that I did. Instinctively I knew I had a choice. I could get angry and upset and reduce my life to the limiting sentence that had been passed; or I could decide to accept and appreciate and with uncompromising belief set about to ensure that I would not be defined by my disease. I immediately created my own Mario and Luigi painters inside my brain that painted and painted over and over again those myelin sheaths in my brain to repair the damage. I have immense gratitude for that moment; the moment when an inspiration greater than me and my circumstances kicked in. I had know idea what I was doing, and it has taken all these years since that day to begin to understand and acquire the knowledge of what actually took place. Being at the conference today has helped me to reaffirm how miraculous we all are; how much that potential is inside each of us to tap into an infinite range of possibilities when we step into the unknown, and decide not to define our future by not analysing or predicting outcomes based on past experience, or known knowledge but by simply getting out of the way and allowing ourselves to create.
Flying Solo 065365 : The unknown is uncomfortable. The unknown is liberating. It is the source of infinite possibilities.