Author: tahmidchowdhury

The subtle art of experiencing unpleasant moments

Five minutes before writing this article, I dropped my toiletries off the side of my sink. The result was a dramatic explosion of products and powders on the floor.

Not only was the stuff kind of expensive, it was also a rather sizeable mess which was not fun to clean up.

I was pissed off. In fact I still am.
Some people think that this space of personal development is about not letting things upset us, but I think that although that can be part of it, we can fall into denying our feelings if we are not careful. It’s okay for me to get frustrated – I am only human after all. But the way I deal with that frustration can either be constructive or destructive.

Flipping adversity into a source of strength

Heart openings can bring up a lot of emotion. I’ve been feeling it the last week or so.
What I hadn’t realised was how much emotion I had kept stored in the body. My methods of dealing with feelings I did not like was to push them away. This meant they were left unexpressed. Over time, a lot of residue has stored up within me.

Expression of these stored emotions allows me to be lighter. This in turn allows me to feel more deeply without feeling like I need to withdraw. The more I lean into these discomforts, the deeper I go into my transformational journey. This allows me to enjoy the gifts of life in a much more enriching way.

Creating time and space to do nothing

Life can feel too busy to stop – even in the month of August. It can make it feel like we are on a constant treadmill of doing, with moments of respite few and far between.

But what if rather than needing to wait for moments of rest, it was something we actively created?

I haven’t really allowed myself to return to a steady rhythm of life. The implicit ‘need’ to make the most of summer pushed me into a state of freneticism.

Having no plans allows us to do things far more spontaneously. This is very different to the pressure of *needing* to do something.

Living life like you have nothing to lose

Last night (rather late because of timezone differences!), I listened to a talk by John Patrick Morgan, a practical philosopher who is highly regarded in the coaching space.

The talk yesterday was around the concepts of living like you have nothing to lose, and the idea of not *having* to do anything.

The idea of having nothing to lose is not meant in a maverick, Machiavellian sense. Instead, this is about shifting our view to understand that our attachment to possessions is not actually one we possess in the first place.

Why consistency is so important for our life goals

There are many things we want in life – a healthier body, better sleep, improved skills or a greater income.
Sometimes getting these things can feel impossible.
When we try something like a new diet, we can quickly feel discouraged when we don’t see progress. And when we don’t see progress, we tend to give up.
Whilst the temptation is to often look for the ‘easy wins’ or shortcuts, these rarely, if ever exist. If we want something that we do not already have, chances are that they are not things that can be attained quickly. After all, if it were quick and easy we would have got these things already.

What I’ve found recently is how powerfully cognitive dissonance can kick in. I’ve stagnated with my weight loss in the last two weeks. For a moment, I asked myself whether the method I’m using was really working.

Seeing sensitivity as a strength

Attitudes have progressed a lot in the last few years. We see more open discussions around burnout and mental wellbeing. Nevertheless, emotional sensitivity, particularly in ‘professional’ settings, is still seen as an unwanted, or bad trait.

But sensitivity is what makes us human, and in a world where we use terms like having ’emotional intelligence’, it’s something that is sorely lacking in the business world (not to mention in our personal lives too).

Ironically, my journey has been one of reconnecting with my emotions over the course of my adult life. It started with realising that not everything is about winning the argument. It then progressed to realising that the intuitive sense I had came from an ability to connect and understand people in a deeper way. I thought this was normal for everyone. Turns out its not.

The incredible power of saying ‘I don’t know’

There are so many questions that we answer every day. Some of these are straightforward – ‘what should I eat today?’ or ‘what TV channel should I put on?’ But we also quickly amass large, existential questions that are so overwhelming and complex that they become frightening. In our society, we’ve learnt that we must answer every question, as if it were a pop quiz. But what we have missed is that there are certain questions that go beyond the capabilities of the mind – the spiritual, emotional or philosophical. To me, the phrase ‘I don’t know’ is my own acceptance of surrendering to something bigger than me.

Releasing the mind through the form of movement

This week, I’ve started work with a new coach around body movement. I’ve been working a lot on myself, but an area I hadn’t really addressed was around my comfort in my own body.

I remember being in India in February and seeing people dancing. I felt absolutely paralysed by the idea of it. More broadly, the moment anyone suggested dancing I felt frozen to the spot.

Somewhere along the way I had created body movement to be such a complicated thing that I felt an anxiety cycle the moment a situation came up.