I'm cool, but my ego is a bit of a psycho

Sorry I haven't posted in a while...I really should make time to post more but I have certainly been a busy boy!

So, this post is about ego. I had a no-gi jiu jitsu competition this weekend (my first but certainly not my last) and to cut a long story short...I had 3 matches and lost all 3 (even writing it gives me a bit of a shudder).

Now admittedly, I was initially gutted! 3 matches and I couldn't even win 1 - REALLY!?!? But then very quickly...I asked myself why I had gotten into this in the first place. The main reason for my training in martial arts was to realise my potential. To see what my limits were and then surpass them and so far...I've done just that. There's a lot that I have overcome and acquired psychologically through martial arts. Increased confidence, the ability to push through fear and keeping my ego in check among other things.

When I decided to do the competition the first thing I told myself is that I am not doing this to be better than anyone else. The emphasis was placed on being better than Tim who trained a month ago and to just keep getting better until I am the best that I can be. However as the competition drew closer I noticed my Ego jumping in "We can win this dude...we can take em all down!!" which defeats the purpose of what I originally entered for. That followed by "Oh crap...I lost all 3 matches - I'm a total failure" helped nothing!

Within a very short period I became fascinated by my feelings as opposed to consumed by them. Mentally I know that "failure" is how we learn and that it actually isn't failure at all but feedback. The only thing that has happened is that certain area's of my jiu jitsu have been highlighted as needing more work and after I take this week off to heal (my wrist is not in the best state) - I'll be back on the grind next week as usual.

I'm still amazed at that small voice in the back of my head though. "Dude, we don't REALLY need to do this do we? Let's just leave it alone hey? We've had our fun...we can stop now - no harm done!". (My ego in an attempt to protect itself I think)

But my overall point is this.

In life - not everything goes how you expect it to and we need the negativity in life to allow us to appreciate the positivity (you can't have one without the other). Not all of us are lucky enough to get things down the first time round and most people make mistakes along the path of learning anything. Giving up is not the way to achieve your dreams. Quitting because things didn't turn out the way you thought they would doesn't allow you to achieve your end goal (whatever that may be). The only way to get where you want to be is to keep pushing forward. Got knocked down? Get up, brush yourself off and keep going. Learn from the feedback of the things that didn't work and keep trying different things until you find something that works!

The only person that can stand in the way of doing the things that you want to do is you and it is important to not allow your ego to impact you negatively through any of your endeavours.

I'll be back at the next no-gi meet and hell...I may loose every match again - and if I do...I'll be back at the gym - the following week - working on my Jiu Jitsu - getting better, being better than I was the week before but not quite as good as I would be the following week.

The only person I need to compete with is me of yesterday and as long as I'm improving...I am going toward achieving my goal every day. Being the best that I can be.

Until the next post
Peace and Love :)

The crossroads of life

We all have them. Those decisions in life that are presented to us that we just know, are going to change our lives. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. I've had a fair share of my own lately with a few things from smoking to relationships.

Do I turn left or do I turn right? Shall I go for it or just leave it? The answers are not always easy to come to terms with but I think we always know the correct path for us. Making a decision to that effect is not always the case though - how many times have you done one thing knowing good and god damn well you should have done another?

Now in some instances, I think we create many of these crossroads ourselves and then talk ourselves out of doing the right thing for us because we're not ready or just plain too weak to do it. And the issue with the weakness side of things is that we have it in us to do the right thing but we lie to ourselves, blame others or some other pathetic excuse and we stay on the path of least resistance because we can be such a woefully retarded species at times (and it's easier).

The point is this. Sometimes we make a decision about something and we know it's the wrong decision for us and carry on with it anyway. On occasion we're lucky enough to change our minds at the right moment and get back on a correct path. Other times, we go past the celestial point of no return and we're f**ked!

Me? I'm making a distinct effort to start doing the right things for me and making the right decisions when I'm at these crossroads. It's not always easy but thanks to the words of Mr Joey Diaz aka Joey "Coco" Diaz aka Mad Flavor aka Planet Rock - I've been inspired to take a better path with a firey determination that I've never felt before.

The only person that can get in your way is you. You can blame anyone you like but if your life is in a shit place - you and only you can make it better - and that my friends is what I call a bitch slap of truth!

Peace and love to you all
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After a while, it's not them - it's you!

So - a few posts back I referred to a friend that would tell people personal things that I had told them in confidence for a laugh, say offensive things that I'd repeatedly ask them not to because they found it funny and seemingly try to embarrass me on numerous occasions.

This actually went on for years until a particular incident gave me the time and space to look at this relationship properly.

Now I should say that while I am evolving day to day, my evolution is far from complete and not at a stage where I'm able to rationalise these incidents in a timely manner (timely enough for my liking). So, when given the opportunity to look at this relationship properly, I had realised how things were for so long and automatically opted to play the blame game in so much as to make attempts to rationalise why this person would not listen. I'd repeatedly asked this person to stop doing these things and still they continued to do them. Why?!?!

Eventually I came to the following conclusion. It was all down to me. I'm not saying that I encouraged the behaviour in any way but I realise that I was probably more at fault than they were in a sense. Who am I to tell someone "stop being who you are to suit me!!"? No one has that right, least of all me, yet I find we do it in all forms of relationships.

We all have an ideal for the types of people that we would like in our lives and the universe will put a varied spectrum of people in your path over time and some of those people will become our friends. They tick enough of the criteria to make it into our circle and on occasion we opt to "trim the fat". Stop doing this, don't do that, be more like this, act more like that!

The point is, it's all our own choice. It's our choice to become friends with someone and if that person does things that you don't agree with, it's our choice to either accept them for who they are and the things they do or not.

The same way no one has any place to tell me who or how I should be, I have no place telling anyone who or how they should be. It is not for us to change the things we don't like about people but to make a decision based on the simplest of questions.

Are we willing to accept this person as they are?

I think full and unequivocal acceptance is the only way to do it. The alternative leaves the possibility of finding yourself in a place where all of the good things that a person has done are heavily overshadowed by our focus on the things about this person that make us unhappy. I feel this does not honour the good times shared and the relationship because our focus and final memories are of why everything went so horribly wrong.

Surely there must be a way to part ways without everything being such a conflict? To be able to say "OK, so things didn't work out - but that's cool".

Maybe it just gets more difficult the more time we allow to pass? Maybe our failure to nip it all in the bud in a timely fashion causes us to become more emotionally involved so that when things do go wrong, we're left with a feeling of emptiness representing the other party. That leaves us with our first (and unnecessary) port of call for rationalisation - "where should the blame be placed?" as opposed to saying "this just wasn't meant to be".

Until the next post...
Peace and Love
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Adversity is your friend

While the title of today's blog post can be classed as an oxymoron, thinking about it with the correct frame of mind makes perfect sense.

I've had (and am going through) some negative periods in my life and while in those situations I'm always eager for them to end as quickly as possible. Sleepless nights with my mind focused on constant negativity and repeatedly going over incidents that have led to this moment in an attempt to make sense of things.

For me, it's a case of constantly playing "mental catch-up". I say this because while my conscious self understands the reasoning behind everything that has happened and understands the motives behind the actions of the people around me - the fact still remains that another part of me (my unconscious maybe?) has a hard time agreeing with it all. That bit always takes more work and creating a relationship between the two, while a struggle, is getting easier.

The point is that it is easier than it was before. The time in which it takes for that other part of me to catch up and agree with what my "intellectual self" knows to be true becomes shorter with each bout of adversity. Each time I go through something that causes me to dig deep mentally, I'm able to do it with a bit more ease. The familiarity of overcoming adversity is like fight training for the mind. It helps to give a greater appreciation for the positivity that life has to offer and understand that each encounter with adversity, acts like a little bit of snake venom. Eventually you can see things for how/what they are, accept them and move on in a positive direction, taking away from it what we need and having a better understanding of ourselves as well as a greater ability to resolves issues in the future.

Peace and Love
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Some light humour

‎​A lady takes her lover to her house during the day, while her husband is at work and Unknown to her, her 9 year old son was hiding in the closet to skip school.
Unexpectedly her husband returns home, so she asks the man to hide in the same closet.
The boy now has company!
Boy: "dark in here"
Man: " yes it is"
Boy: " I have a baseball"
Man: " that's nice"
Boy:" wana buy it?"
Man:"no, thanks"
Boy:" my dad is outside"
Man: " ok how much"
Boy: "250"
In the next few weeks it happens agAin and they meet in the same closet.
Boy: "dark in here"
Man: " yes it is"
Boy: " I have a baseball glove"
Man: " how much"
Boy:"750"
Man; "fine"
Few days later the father says to the boy, " grab your gloves and ball and let's go to the park
The boy says"I sold them"
Father:"how much"
Boy:"1000"
Father:" it's terrible to over charge ur friends. We are going to church and u have to confess!"
So they go to the church and father alerts the priest, makes the boy sit in the confession room and closes the door
Boy :"Dark in here"
Priest: "don't start this shit again"
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Just because that's the way things are, does not mean that's the way things are supposed to be.

This is something I see on an almost daily basis in every facet of life. So often we see things that are, yet should not be. Because they have "been" for such a long time, we fail to ask if that's how they should truly be.

For example. I worked for a company where if you had made a mistake you would hear furious typing between the directors as they discussed your failure over messenger shortly followed by slamming of doors and general negative vibes aimed in your direction. Things were unfortunately taken very personally and it was not behaviour I would have expected from any company or professionals in a management role. I no longer work for this company as I was sure that this was not how things were meant to be.

Another example. I would confide in a friend who at a time (but unfortunately no longer) I would have considered as family. Dependent on if it bought amusement to them or if the mood took them, they would tell others of these private things that I had shared in confidence. For some very weird reason they'd find this hilarious - I'd get angry (obviously), they'd apologise and then before long - do the same thing again. This was a regular occurrence as well as other things of the same nature and while no other friend would do this, I considered it the norm and accepted it because this had become the dynamic of our relationship over a number of years. At the same time, this was not behaviour I would have tolerated from other friends as the dynamics in those relationships were different (and I was fortunate enough to be able to confide in those friends without worry).

Eventually an incident ensued that gave me the chance to analyse the relationship properly and I had come to realise that this was certainly not the way things were meant to be. I didn't (and still don't) blame the person for the things that they had done as they were merely being themselves. I strongly believe that it is not for us to point out what we feel are errors in the personality of others, but to decide if we are willing to accept them for who they are.

My choice had been to constantly point out the error of this past friends ways as opposed to just making a choice of either accepting them for who they are and I accepted this negative cycle as it had turned into something that just "was", failing to realise that for me at least, this was not how things were meant to be.

Sometimes the universe gives you a very clear window to look through which allows you to see things clearly and for what they are. When that opportunity comes along - it is better to take note and ask yourself...is this the way things are supposed to be?

As always, take from this what you will - just processing my thoughts :)

Peace and love to you all.
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Creating Reality

A very good friend of mine who was mentioned a few posts back once said to me "You can create your own reality". Not realising what he meant, my first question was "What?!? So if I wanna fly I can then?" as I didn't understand what he meant. What eluded me then (but not now) is this. Each persons reality is different and the energy and beliefs that we have, contribute to the life that we lead. If you're always thinking with a negative frame of mind, invariably, negative things will happen. However, the opposite is also true.

A friend of mine stayed with me maybe a year back and had an awesome weekend (and of course they did - anytime spent with me always rocks!!! ;). She proceeds to tell me that because she's had such a great weekend - she's convinced that something negative will follow as that was the way her life works. Surely enough, within a week - something negative had happened. Now while I understand that this negative thing may well have been out of her control - I couldn't help but think that because she was looking out for it, it fulfilled her belief that following any positive situation is always a negative one. Had her mindset have been "Anything that happens externally is beyond my control" and focused on her reaction to a situation (which is under her control), maybe she would have seen it as just one of the many lessons of life.

We've all been there - a bad thing happens, followed by another, followed by another. Some smaller things happen which are also negative and before you know it - it's like you've been overloaded with crap! We tend to bundle smaller insignificant things in there too - adding to the list and "POW!" - we have a giant list of shit that needs sorting.

The way in which we view any situation is essentially - a choice. The actions of others can not be controlled by us but our actions and reactions are under our complete control and sometimes we tend to forget that.

Your life, views and reactions create a reality that is uniquely your own and we can change all 3 to create a better reality for ourselves.

Peace, Love and a Very Happy New Year to you all.