What if I told you I could ease your anxiety, fear and lack of control over your your own life, career and happiness? Would you believe me? I wouldn’t if I were you – another snake-oil salesman arrives in town extolling the virtues of mindful commuting and success mantras.
Take it from someone who does gratitude rituals, daily meditation, functional fitness, somatic movement, optimum nutrition, NLP – need I go on? Fact is that these activities are important, valuable and intrinsic to a happy, balanced life – for me they work particularly well in the emotional sphere where I have historically (and currently) faced the biggest challenges. BUT, they DO NOT replace the need for fundamental work on core issues. What do I mean by this? Most of us are carrying deep-seated issues (I am going to use the word trauma here, brace yourselves) mostly experienced during childhood – they fuck you up, your mum and dad. For some of us this pathology is an easy and compliant bedfellow, only occasionally waking up to chuck a spanner in the works. For a lot of us (me included) this is more of a feacal slinging primate, and these need a little more than soothing routines to understand.
You aren’t going to be able to shoot your monkey – its yours for better or worse – but you can co-habit reasonably well, You are going to need help to find it, talk to it and build the frameworks to manage it however. By simple existential logic you cannot ‘fix yourself’ when the monkey is reading the same self-help book. You gonna need another human(s) to get you where you need to go.
