Tag Archives: serenity

A Collection of Moments

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2015-08-23 09.08.27This week marks the start of the school year and that should enable me to get back to blogging.

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to knock out 13 hours of cycling and 13,000 vertical feet.

Even better, I got to visit with an old friend from New Zealand, Scott Molina.

2015-08-22 11.58.47Above are a couple of local characters out for Rollyfest – happening halfway between my house and the Continental Divide. I stopped in, both days, for a large pourover. Yes, those are pipes (below).

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I was thoroughly blasted when I arrived in Winter Park (elevation 9,100 ft) and got a kick out of the Kiwi recovery set-up…

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I opted for the toast.

You learn a lot about a guy when you train together. Scott’s one the nicest people I’ve ever met.

One of Molina’s quirks is that he likes to get dressed for the first session of the day, the night before. When we shared a room, he’d sleep in his run gear (and have his morning coffee pre-brewed).

True to form… here is with his mountain bike shoes on the night before…

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It was made clear, by Erin (Scott’s wife), that this wasn’t an “epic” camp, which suited me fine.

However, I was the only one that had done their final route in the last twenty years (!) and knew they had some surprises heading their way.

Kiwis don’t complain…

They don’t complain when the planned route is detoured up a 100-year old wagon track above the pass…

They don’t complain when they double-end-o down the rough descent…

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And they certainly don’t complain when they have to hike-a-bike over a collapsed tunnel at 11,600 feet (red jersey over my shoulder)…

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I was soooo grateful that the route wasn’t my idea!

In addition to the temporary hardships, we had remarkable views…

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Such a pleasant change to focus on helping others, rather than my next session.

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Life is what you focus on.

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What are you doing when you’re thinking about love?

Wealth Habits: Are we there yet?

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2015-07-09 11.30.50A question I ask athletes is, “Why did you start?”

When sitting down with a family, I change the question slightly, “What is living well?”

Write down detailed answers.

Answering these questions honestly will surface your values and help you make better choices.

The answers will also help you understand when you’ve achieved victory, and you might discover something rather strange about winning.

You feel just the same.

Because you feel the same, you’ll be tempted to change your strategy. You will forget why you started and lose sight of what it takes to live well. You’ll strive for more.

The exact nature of your “more” will be influenced by your peers. Unsure? They will be happy to tell you. Just ask a room full of buddies… “What’s your proudest accomplishment?”

Look inside and see if you’re tempted to strive towards their goals.

With my academic, financial and athletic friends – I can feel the temptation to strive.

Striving towards another person’s answers might not fulfill you, especially as only a minority bother to consider the “why” behind their daily choices.

You may find that it takes a surprising amount of faith to stay the course. My list is exercise, write, read, love, help others and sleep.

It’s important to remember your answers. They are an effective antidote against the temptation to strive. In my case, striving is a result of desire: to buy assets, to make money, to compete against others, to go shopping and other variations of more more more.

  • In a family
  • In a marriage
  • In a company
  • In your life

How will you recognize success?

It might feel different than you expect.

 

Unmet Needs

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number_oneI have many traits that can lead to poor outcomes:

  • I’m prone to hurry
  • I overestimate my capacity to impact external situations
  • I have a bias towards action
  • I’m stressed by noise and crowds

All of the above, work against my ability to help people and can lead to misery.

To get along better with others, I’ve started asking myself:

What’s the unmet need that’s driving this behavior?

Here’s a link to my article about how to help others: quiet presence, listen without knowing and compassionate action.

With my kids, I’ve noticed that most anti-social behavior stems from six sources:

  • Hunger – lack of food
  • Thirst – lack of drink
  • Sleep – lack of recovery
  • Boredom – lack of engagement
  • Need For Compassion – lack of connection
  • Habit / Temperament

The above are easy to spot in babies, toddlers and preschoolers.

Once you can see them in your kids, try to feel them in yourself. Through self-awareness, you may start to see what drives the behavior of people around you.

The antisocial effects of hunger, thirst, sleep and boredom are why I resist changes to the underlying routine of my life: train AM/PM, eat/drink real food, sleep in a cool room, read and write.

I have a desire to be effective in all my relationships.

Do you?

If you don’t that’s OK. I certainly didn’t care about anyone other than myself for long periods of my adult life. If you don’t care then own it.

My difficulties with people make sense when viewed from the lens that I didn’t care and had significant unmet needs (health, exercise, solitude, nature).

Own my needs.

Address my needs.

Slowly, I have the capacity to focus outside myself.

How to meet that need for connection?

  • Put my phone down
  • Relax my inner experience with a two slow breaths
  • Listen, without knowing, until the person has spoken fully
  • Smile, nod and comment about an area of agreement

This works magic. The entire cycle takes less than a minute.

Connection is the solution.

Less Little Lies

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bear2A friend asked what it has been like to step back from athletic competition. Much of what follows applied when I left jobs, peers or habits – any of which might not have fit my life anymore.

The immediate impact is usually relief and a realization of the unnecessary cost my choices where imposing. Quite often, the relief is followed by sadness at leaving old habits, even negative ones.

In terms of “what’s it like” to compete less – it’s exactly the same, just less fatigue and soreness. All my “issues” follow me wherever I go!

What is available is an opportunity to look at the impact of a competitive, or corporate, lifestyle.

I often cloak a selfish reality with talk of benefits outside myself. Shareholder value, national prestige, competing on an international stage, earning money for my children… these little lies are repeated until they become my reality.

Fooling myself isn’t necessarily a problem. I spent my teens and twenties solely focused on my personal outcome. It worked at the time.

In my 30s, I broadened my circle to help other people assist with achieving my personal outcome. It still worked for me.

That lifestyle was a form of greed – more more more.

With a spouse and kids, the lies have to increase to justify continuing the choices of my youth.

Long-term competition isn’t a problem. The problem is the thinking that results from turning away from my spouse, my kids, my family and my community.

We tell ourselves that we will change when we have X, or achieve Y, or become Z.

What I’ve done is tell myself…

I’m going to look directly at my flaws, a diseased friend, a homeless beggar, a hysterical child or a demented hospice patient.

Whatever it is that scares me. I’ll look at it.

I’m going to acknowledge that I can’t fix the situation but I’ll try to do something small to make life better.

Working towards overcoming the difficulties of my inner life is similar to the pleasure of overcoming others through competition.

The reward is just as sweet and others do not pay a price for my success.

 

Time Enough For Love

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loveA conversation that I’ve had with a few friends.

A friend shared that he noticed that he hates being rushed and he also aims to be early for every appointment. His solution is to compromise sleep so that he’s able to arrive early for every appointment.

When I look closely, I find that it is impossible to enjoy anything when I hurry. I was surprised by how little I need to slow down to increase enjoyment.

Later in our conversation, he shared that his doc simultaneously recommended that he reduce his stress load and start testosterone supplementation.

I advised against because, you’ll simply cram more into your life and not address the underlying cause of your fatigue.

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Later I shared my own story…

Rather than focusing on what’s important, I have been asking, Who is important? Who are the people on my list?

My list is spouse, kids, family and a couple friends. That’s who I’m truly working for.

I then asked myself, “Am I willing to change to be truly available to those people?”

I’ve decided to start small.

Write a list of five people (the important) and drop the urgent when you have the chance to be with them.

Dropping everything sounds severe but, in reality, it consists of looking away from a book or computer screen.

In the evening, it can be as simple as sitting between my daughters on the couch and doing housework after they go to bed.

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What does being available to the people that love us have to do with being rushed, high stress and testosterone supplementation?

Put another way, why am I rushed, stressed and exhausted?

If you look deeply then you may find a core belief that you have to cram MORE into your life to serve your family and win the respect of others.

However, this will never satisfy because what your family truly needs is YOU, your presence, your love, your time.

Pleasure, Happiness and Joy

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pancakeI came across a book that shared many stories about happiness.

One of the stories is how we fool ourselves by mistaking pleasure for happiness. An example might be…

  • 1 square of chocolate is pleasure
  • 20 squares of chocolate is a tummy ache

The slogan being… Pleasure Consumes Itself

The risk being… we become slaves to chasing pleasure.

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A story…

Our three-year old was having a tough morning and we weren’t making progress getting him ready for school.

So I picked him up, picked his socks up, picked his shoes up and picked his bag up…

…and headed out the door with the little guy in my arms.

He was screaming that he wanted to go back to the house and put all his stuff on, himself.

As that’s what I wanted him to do, originally, I agreed.

However, I said,

Sure you can go inside. First you need to calm down. We’re going to do it together. I’m going to count to three and we will take a breath after each number.

I held his hand, looked into his eyes, smiled and said…

One, big breath, hold, exhale

He was still crying but took the breath with me.

I said…

Two, big breath, hold, exhale

By this point, he cracked a smile through his tears.

Three, you did it. You’re calm. I’m so happy!

And we walked back into the house to have a “do over” on the departure.

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In reflecting on this story, I noticed that my son taught me to be happy with another person’s success, his own.

I also noticed that I would have been unable to learn without experiencing the pain of his initial meltdown.

The joy we shared was much deeper than anything offered by a piece of chocolate.

I also noticed that I can remember his success and bring myself back to that moment.

If a three-year old can transcend himself then what’s my excuse?

🙂

Send Prayers Not Panic

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flowersMy daughter broke her arm in April. The mini-crisis provided me with a case study in how we cope with stress.

Here’s a typical conversation:

Friend: I’m so glad she’s OK, I couldn’t sleep the night that I heard the news.
G: Your reaction is what I expected. You know, I wonder if the most compassionate thing to do is let situations resolve themselves and not trigger a massive wave of worry through the community. Worry is a distraction from what matters.

Friend: What about prayer? I believe in the power of prayer to help heal Lexi.
G: So do I, and thank you for your prayer. However, looking deeper, was it prayer that kept you up at night? For every prayer we received, I felt so much worry. I don’t think the worry is productive.

In fact, I have seen situations where not communicating with someone triggers anger (because they were denied the opportunity to worry on my behalf).

It’s an interesting conundrum.

I’ve been watching a similar pattern play out, on a larger scale, with the health of Thich Nhat Hanh, one of the greatest teachers of my lifetime. During the small crisis in our family, I followed the lead of this larger community.

I focused on getting expert support for my daughter.

Within my inner circle, I let people express themselves fully, answered their questions and followed up to address their concerns.

…and life continued onwards.

Correction Without Resentment

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A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.

— John Wooden

Coach Wooden hits the nail on the head. Looking deeper, I ask myself, as the corrector, “What am I seeking to achieve here?”

Constant correction, mostly non-verbalized, floats through my head.

Criticism, dissatisfaction, endless tweaking and optimization… what purpose does it serve?

What is the source of this correction?

  • Is it habit?
  • Is it altruism?
  • Is it a desire to alleviate the pain I see from watching you suffer?

Too often, my correction-by-habit makes my family suffer.

Sit quietly in a room full of children. Notice two things…

  • How little the master teachers correct.
  • How much the novice parents correct.

The frazzled parents beg for the children to listen.

When I catch myself, I slow down to see if the situation will resolve itself.

It’s humbling to realize how much of the distraction I create by hurrying.

How do the masters get through to us…

  • Fix myself first
  • Shared laughter
  • Wait until asked
  • Keep it short

When I am tempted to carpet bomb my Facebook feed, I remind myself that the world is filled with good people, particularly in the homes of my enemies. What might those good people need from me?

Share a laugh, keep it short and remember…

…the important stuff happens under my own roof.

Mommy Fatigue

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As a triathlon coach, I warned my athletes about the risks of dumb-ass fatigue. I would encourage them to get tired the right way and eliminate habits of pointless fatigue.

Recently, I was at my son’s school for community night. Given that it would be rude to say “dumb-ass” in a room filled with preschool parents, I needed to tailor my language for the audience.

The fatigue in mothers appears deeper than what I experience as a father.

Mommy fatigue reminds me of man flu, which is something that must be experienced to be believed.

I believe you and I wanted to help the community.

So I asked a question…

Do I perform better when I am exhausted?

I shared my experience…

The most fatiguing period of my adult life was spending 1,000 days constantly carrying around the problems of fatherhood. I thought about my problems 24/7 and it was exhausting.

I offered an antidote…

It was impossible for me to transcend my thought habits.

It has proven to be far easier to replace my habits with something useful.

When you find yourself fixated on your problems, pull out your Facebook feed and meditate on pictures that make you feel happy.

Close your eyes and breathe in that happiness.

When your problems reappear, close your eyes for a moment and breathe some happiness into them.

I shared my fatherhood goals…

I realized that aiming for perfection was making me miserable.

My kids don’t need perfection from me.

How should I define achievable success?

Don’t retaliate.

Stick with it.

Aim low, keep improving and we will end up better than we ever expected.

An Illusion of Individual Experience

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riverMy buddy, AC, wrote a good article about his athletic journey.

Alan’s article was a reminder of my own capacity for self-harm and a need to remain vigilant against fooling myself. You see, my story is the same with different details.

I make a cameo in the last decade of Alan’s life and my friends have been talking to me about their own experience.

I wanted to share part of a conversation…

A – I could never do that.
G – Never do what?

A – I could never share my story.
G – You might want to be careful with that.

A – Careful with what?
G – Be careful about making affirmations to conceal your truth

When you start to share your truth, you’re likely to discover that it’s really our truth.

Be brave.