Category Archives: personal growth

Breathing Through It

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From my Insta tonight (@chenger91):

Happy Weekend, friends!

Wishing us all an energetic balance of rest, fun, productivity, and connection. All I want to do is write jar smiles!! 🤪🥰😂

Thanks to Coach Eric and (guru) Pierre at Ethos who led the elite human performance class today—I didn’t die, YAY HOOEY!! 😁

Our current government sows chaos in practically every domain of socioeconomic systems, and the fallout may take years to realize. Morbidity and mortality could be staggering. And yet, here we are. We stepped into it together and we’ gotta figure out together how to get out. It will take all of us doing differently from what we have done to date—I think we have proven much of that isn’t working, yes? 🤨🙄

This is an opportunity. We get to re-invent and co-create. Unlike those in charge now, we can ‘A5R it’—take a thoughtful, critical, and wise look at things, keep what’s working well and revise the rest. All good change requires iteration. It’s an infinite game. We start by bringing our best, most creative and compassionate selves to the front. Easier said than done in distress. So we do what we can.

Like Pierre taught us today:
1. Control our breath, and expand laterally.
2. Focus on microgoals (like the next breath).
3. Speak positively to ourselves (AND ONE ANOTHER!).
4. Envision the successful future.

It’s not rocket science. But it is humanity, so it’s messy. Still, we’ got this. 👊🏼👍🏼💪🏼👏🏼

@eric.koetting
@debarpierre
@ethostrainingchi

ODOMOBaaT: One Day, One Moment, One Breath at a Time.

The Insta post included the photos below, all notes written for friends in distress.
We could all do a better job recognizing, validating, empathizing with, and exploring one another’s distress, no matter what the geopolitical circumstances and environment. Most people don’t lash out for no reason. We have all spent too long ignoring others’ distress. This has to change.

Invitation to Witness

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Thank you for sharing.

What a privilege to be allowed into your life, your world, the space and time you inhabit in your own unique way. I know not everybody is invited; please know I do not take it for granted.

Your experience is your own and I cannot truly or fully understand, perhaps. But I can imagine. I will always do my best to be present to and for you–your joys, accomplishments, discoveries, epiphanies, sorrows, pain, and suffering. I will do my best to monitor and mitigate my own judgments and projections, and simply hold the space with and for you.

While I imagine how I might feel in your shoes, I will try harder to imagine how you feel in your shoes, and attend to that. I will be sparing with my advice and generous with the validation, though I know I stumble at that sometimes.

This witnessing, when mutual and reciprocal, nourishes my soul in ways I can hardly articulate. We take turns and also do it simultaneously, depending on what’s happening. We’ve been through a lot, not necessarily together, but each with the other witnessing. It is an act of volition, something we do on purpose for each other and our friendship. I feel the strength and support in real time, and the realization of the profound importance and impact of your seeing me is only fully apparent in hindsight. Wow.

How would we live, how would the world feel, if we all considered ourselves reverent witnesses of one another’s lives? If we attended to our collective psyches and hearts as if we were all kindergarteners crossing the street hand in hand?

What if we all just cared about each other a little more overtly and intetionally in this witnessing way?

A5R: A Practice to Ground and Grow

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Allostasis: Maintaining stability through change.
Order – Disorder – New Order.

Attune. Attend. Assess. Adjust. Adapt. Repeat.

I’ve thought of this undulating process for some weeks now. The ideas are still a work in progress, and today I feel moved to introduce them here. A5R.

Healing Through Connection turns ten years old in a couple weeks. When I look back at early posts, those words still resonate; I’m still the me who wrote them. And ten years on, of course I’m not the same me! Ha!
A year ago in Be Myself, Change Myself, Be the Change, I wrote, “We are who we are from a very early age, maybe even before we are born. AND, we also constantly evolve throughout our lives. This is one of my favorite paradoxes.”
In Root Down to Branch Out in 2021: “Sturdy, anchored stability | Supple, limber mobility | In dynamic balance | Life of healthy growth | Evolution in action”

Technology, environment, culture, and human relationships change exponentially faster now, and we are not physiologically equipped to cope. –Or are we?

Early humans who survived into old age had naturally energy-conserving metabolisms. When calories were scarce, tribal elders who stored more fat could eat less and live long enough to pass on their communal wisdom to younger generations. I’m convinced this is why most of us tend to gain weight with age, especially if we are not finely attuned and attentive to body signs like hunger, satiety, and non-physiologic drivers of eating and (non)movement (more on this in another post, maybe). Who among us can eat at 50 the way we ate at 20 and not feel almost immediate consequences now that never occurred then? Movement, sleep, mental acuity, hearing, and vision, among other things, all change over time, naturally, predictably, in nature’s most efficient and effective way, all so the species can survive.

Which traits of modern humans will allow us to persist healthily into the 22nd Century and beyond? Whose progeny will thrive five and ten generations from now, and why?
More importantly, what traits, practices, and skills will help each of us, and all of us collectively, thrive now, in this lifetime?

Stable. Strong. Flexible. Agile. Resilient.
I still think of these as the five attributes of fitness of any kind—physical, mental, emotional, relational, organizational, cultural, …and political.
“Be stubborn with the [mission]. Be flexible with the [method].” I riff from Jeff Bezos here, I think.
Is the way we’ve always done it the way that will keep working? Is it optimal?
Is change for its own sake–taking sledgehammers to old ways just because they are old–the best way forward? Can we honestly assess methods passed down through tradition, improvised in response to crisis, and advanced by those in charge, and see/admit both benefits and flaws clearly?

A5R happens anyway. Everything changes eventually, and we change with it, willingly or not. Sometimes we drive, other times we can ride. Getting dragged is most painful. So if we can be a little more intentional–Anticipate and Act in Advance (omg its all A words?)–how much smoother might life all go for us, individually and collectively?

Conservation and Progress.
Youthfulness and Wisdom.
Strong and Soft.
Living toward Death.
What other relevant paradoxes and polarities do we grapple with today and forever?
How can we do it better, suffer less, and get to inner and outer peace sooner?

Attune. Attend. Assess. Adjust. Adapt. Repeat.

Be and live Stable. Strong. Flexible. Agile. Resilient.

Stay open, curious, humble, honest, and accountable.

Learn. Grow. Evolve.