New Beginnings – New Anxiety

I haven’t written for a while… Not in general, but I haven’t written a blog in a while…

The last blog post I put out was in March and it talked about Covid – And it’s potential for infectious happiness.

Since then it’s been all systems go as I finally work on a project that may just change the world in some, not so insignificant way, given the right cultivation.

After spending a good 200+ hours developing a well-being course to support people stop drinking, get fit, eat healthy and get a handle on being mindful, or exploring their mental health, I’m in a very positive place, but with that comes new anxiety.

It feels sometimes like I’ve left the gas on at home, that’s the best way to describe it.

You’ve jumped in the car, your half way on your way to grannies for tea and you have a niggling feeling you didn’t let the cat out, you weren’t sure whether you locked the door and all those lovely mini anxieties that your brain loves throwing up when you’re clearly focused on a different end gain, start to float around your mind.

To be honest I think it’s just me redefining my work life balance, but it can be bloody annoying, especially in those states when you feel you’re smashing life! It’s definitely worth sanity checking what you’re up to on a weekly basis, checking in with your thinking brain and your emotive brain alike and seeing how they’re getting on.

I guess one of the biggest things recently is that again I’ve put too much trust in some of the wrong people, it’s a tricky one to stomach that.

You get better and better as you get older, with cutting through the bullsh*t and getting to the route of who people are, but there’s always a clanger waiting round the corner.

Recently I let someone into my life and my business that I felt had some genuine elements, over time, red flags started popping up and I realised that perhaps he was maybe a bit more about himself that I’d considered early days. As time went on we grew less connected, as he seemingly realised that my focus was not really about being a front man, a thought leader etc. and that’s firmly where he wanted to position himself; anyway, eventually he approached some of my business partners with a passive play at investment and a pitch about all the things he wanted to do and the penny dropped.

Having spent months inspiring, cultivating and having a vested interest in buoying this individual prior to launching an initiative together, it was definitely a shame to end things as he became disingenuous in his approach, but the world does make sense to me and here’s why I don’t hold onto the negatives when people sh*t on me.

If you hold onto that negative emotion when things in your life go bad, ultimately it just breeds and fuels further negative emotion and ultimately that’s very often easier to cultivate than positive, so drop it like a dead dodo.

In the current context there are loads of positives:

1 – Better to find out he was dodgy now, rather than later

2 – Better to have formed tighter relationships with the team still involved in the business

3 – Better not to have narcissistic personalities to manage awkwardly when building something new

4 – Positive that no major IP was shared and that you’re still the innovator, which means that you’ll always be ahead of any curve that people circumvent for their own benefits

There’s lots of learning to be taken from negative scenarios and there’s definitely a lot here.

I guess the strange thing is that my body knew already. That does sound odd, but I’ve been working a lot on trying to stay in tune with my body recently and many call it that ‘gut feeling’ when you just feel something’s not quite right…

Well, here’s one of those instances where thing’s just didn’t quite feel right, it looked good on face value, but the gut reaction is that somethings afoot.

A number of people have asked me over the years, how to you keep trusting people after all the instances where you’ve seen the evil in the world, from your dad, to the business etc.

It’s quite simple, but it’s not easy!

The answer is that I just suck it up and go again! Whenever someone I trust lets me down, I simply shed them from my life and move on.

It’s become easier to do this over time, with social media and even LinkedIn now you just block people you think are tossers and eventually your news feed is no longer filled with tossers, funny that!

I simply choose not to see the world half full.

Just because the last person screwed me over, doesn’t mean the next person will, or that everyone around me is bad, it just means that I have to learn and move forward.

If you can grow the resilience within to trust everyone on face value until proven otherwise then you’ll be far happier and more lucid within in any state of outcome, should things go wrong.

Your last boyfriend cheated on you, screw him, blocked, lets move on, your last boss was a bully, screw them, block them, move on… then crack on glass half full.

When you get the knack of this technique it’s one of the most helpful that you’ll ever find. You can even block peoples phone numbers so if you genuinely want someone out of your life, just block their phone number too, then delete it if you want.

Ultimately this is not about shying away from confrontation or becoming a shrinking violet, it’s just about owning when you’re done with a relationship for whatever reason. It’s your right to define who is worthy of your time and who is not.

There are so many people out there who need time, energy and attention in order to better their lives and I’d far rather focus on helping them that in letting negative past experiences fester.

So, although that’s a bit more rambling than I would like for a Monday morning I guess what I’m saying is that I approach this week with a glass half full and it feels at the moment like just another lovely place to be!

Now, as Duke Nukem would say “It’s time to kick ass and chew bubblegum… oh sh*t, I’m all outta gum!”

Have an epic week!