1. we can control fear about as much as we can control our breathing. Not very well, and not for long. ~you can’t conquer fear. The only thing you can do is block it out temporarily by pushing it down into what I call “the basement,” otherwise known as your body. You then have to hold so much tension to keep it pressed down that 1) you will become very stiff and prone to injury and 2) your body, not meant to be a dumping ground for repressed emotion, will rebel. Injury is just one of the problems you’ll face. That undealt-with fear will not be denied. Any time your guard is dropped, it will come out of the basement stronger than ever, showing up in ways that feel like fear (persistent or irrational anxiety, insomnia, etc.) or in distorted, covert ways (anger, depression, PTSD, insecurity, underperforming, burnout, blame, defensiveness, etc.). This makes you want to work harder to push it down even further, until that effort, over time, takes over your whole world.
~fear is not a sign of personal weakness, but rather a natural state of discomfort that occurs whenever you’re out of your comfort zone. It’s there not to sabotage you, but to help you come alive, be more focused, and put you into the present moment and a heightened state of excitement and awareness. If you push the fear away, the only version of fear available to you will be its crazy, irrational, or contorted version. If you’re willing to feel it, and merge with it, its energy and wisdom will appear.
2. Often crisis is what drives evolution, and little else does. ~never let a good crisis go to waste. It’s the universe challenging you to learn something new and rise to the next level of your potential.
On the other hand, when not in crisis, I consider “my life is great” as a cop-out, a stuck place, where learning is no longer available to us. Which is why you shouldn’t wait for crisis to happen before you take steps to go beyond what you’re capable of seeing on your own.
3. I judge the quality of my life based on how often I access this higher state of awareness. Being into Zen, I don’t see it as sustainable, which is different from what (Eckhart) Tolle suggests, but it’s so important to for us to go find it in our lifetimes. It’s that state when your lights really come on and you can see, if only for a moment, who and what you are, and the nature of what’s really going on beyond our own individual mind. It’s also the place where your greatest ideas can be discovered. But this state is not going to find you; you have to go find it.
Tolle calls it the “Now,” I call it “Connected Self” or “the Infinite.” In sports, we call this reality “The Zone.” In Zen, it’s called enlightenment. Every spiritual tradition has a name for this place.
4. Emotional problems need to be dealt with emotionally, not intellectually. P 550
Honor your moods not by forcing a different reality, but by just letting them be. It’s very Zen. When you’re sad, just be sad. When you’re afraid, just be afraid. When you’re overwhelmed, just be overwhelmed. When you’re unfocused, can you find a way to let it be and simply enjoy that state?
P 551-552
5. Friendships are supposed to support your growth, not hold you back. End the ones that hold you back, and be curious about what kind of people you’re drawn to next. I find whomever you’re attracted to today possesses whatever qualities in yourself you’re ready to nurture.
It set me free from my past self and made me able to explore what parts of my personality I wanted to nurture next.
(To see) how she broke up with her friends, exactly, and she sent a detailed four-page blueprint. Find it for free at tim.blog/kristen
6. ~your relationship with fear is the most important relationship in your life, I now spend at least two minutes a day engaged in what I call a fear practice. first thing in the morning before I get out of bed, I do a body scan to assess my mood. I’m particularly interested in how much I feel fear (it’s always there, whether we’re willing to admit it or not), and where in my body it’s located. Fear is a sense of discomfort in our bodies. It may show up in obvious ways as fear, stress, or anxiety (which are all pretty much the same thing), or maybe it will feel more like anger or sadness (which can be tied to fear, if fear is in the basement). If it seems like it’s in our minds, that’s because we’re not dealing with it emotionally but rather intellectually, which is never a good idea. I locate the feeling in my body—sometimes it’s in my jaw or shoulders, sometimes my forehead. Then I have a one- to two-minute, three-step process (For details of these steps, please find it in "Tribes of Mentors") P 552
I turn toward my discomfort and try to have an honest relationship with it by engaging in this fear practice. I focus on my discomfort, fear, sadness, anger, or anything else that seems unpleasant—all of it—and that effort not only affords me insights but, even though you’d never expect it, also thoroughly and amazingly sets me free. P 553
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristen_Ulmer
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Fear-Conquering-Wont-Instead-ebook/dp/B01M0HPD9D
KRISTEN ULMER is a master facilitator who challenges norms around the subject of fear. She was a mogul specialist on the U.S. Ski Team and later became recognized as the best female big-mountain extreme skier in the world, a status she held for 12 years. Known for enormous cliff jumps and you-fall-you-die descents, she was sponsored by Red Bull, Ralph Lauren, and Nikon. Her work on fear has been featured on NPR and in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Outside magazine, and others. Kristen is the author of The Art of Fear: Why Conquering Fear Won’t Work and What to Do Instead.
~fear is not a sign of personal weakness, but rather a natural state of discomfort that occurs whenever you’re out of your comfort zone. It’s there not to sabotage you, but to help you come alive, be more focused, and put you into the present moment and a heightened state of excitement and awareness. If you push the fear away, the only version of fear available to you will be its crazy, irrational, or contorted version. If you’re willing to feel it, and merge with it, its energy and wisdom will appear.
2. Often crisis is what drives evolution, and little else does. ~never let a good crisis go to waste. It’s the universe challenging you to learn something new and rise to the next level of your potential.
On the other hand, when not in crisis, I consider “my life is great” as a cop-out, a stuck place, where learning is no longer available to us. Which is why you shouldn’t wait for crisis to happen before you take steps to go beyond what you’re capable of seeing on your own.
3. I judge the quality of my life based on how often I access this higher state of awareness. Being into Zen, I don’t see it as sustainable, which is different from what (Eckhart) Tolle suggests, but it’s so important to for us to go find it in our lifetimes. It’s that state when your lights really come on and you can see, if only for a moment, who and what you are, and the nature of what’s really going on beyond our own individual mind. It’s also the place where your greatest ideas can be discovered. But this state is not going to find you; you have to go find it.
Tolle calls it the “Now,” I call it “Connected Self” or “the Infinite.” In sports, we call this reality “The Zone.” In Zen, it’s called enlightenment. Every spiritual tradition has a name for this place.
4. Emotional problems need to be dealt with emotionally, not intellectually. P 550
Honor your moods not by forcing a different reality, but by just letting them be. It’s very Zen. When you’re sad, just be sad. When you’re afraid, just be afraid. When you’re overwhelmed, just be overwhelmed. When you’re unfocused, can you find a way to let it be and simply enjoy that state?
P 551-552
5. Friendships are supposed to support your growth, not hold you back. End the ones that hold you back, and be curious about what kind of people you’re drawn to next. I find whomever you’re attracted to today possesses whatever qualities in yourself you’re ready to nurture.
It set me free from my past self and made me able to explore what parts of my personality I wanted to nurture next.
(To see) how she broke up with her friends, exactly, and she sent a detailed four-page blueprint. Find it for free at tim.blog/kristen
6. ~your relationship with fear is the most important relationship in your life, I now spend at least two minutes a day engaged in what I call a fear practice. first thing in the morning before I get out of bed, I do a body scan to assess my mood. I’m particularly interested in how much I feel fear (it’s always there, whether we’re willing to admit it or not), and where in my body it’s located. Fear is a sense of discomfort in our bodies. It may show up in obvious ways as fear, stress, or anxiety (which are all pretty much the same thing), or maybe it will feel more like anger or sadness (which can be tied to fear, if fear is in the basement). If it seems like it’s in our minds, that’s because we’re not dealing with it emotionally but rather intellectually, which is never a good idea. I locate the feeling in my body—sometimes it’s in my jaw or shoulders, sometimes my forehead. Then I have a one- to two-minute, three-step process (For details of these steps, please find it in "Tribes of Mentors") P 552
I turn toward my discomfort and try to have an honest relationship with it by engaging in this fear practice. I focus on my discomfort, fear, sadness, anger, or anything else that seems unpleasant—all of it—and that effort not only affords me insights but, even though you’d never expect it, also thoroughly and amazingly sets me free. P 553
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristen_Ulmer
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Fear-Conquering-Wont-Instead-ebook/dp/B01M0HPD9D
KRISTEN ULMER is a master facilitator who challenges norms around the subject of fear. She was a mogul specialist on the U.S. Ski Team and later became recognized as the best female big-mountain extreme skier in the world, a status she held for 12 years. Known for enormous cliff jumps and you-fall-you-die descents, she was sponsored by Red Bull, Ralph Lauren, and Nikon. Her work on fear has been featured on NPR and in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Outside magazine, and others. Kristen is the author of The Art of Fear: Why Conquering Fear Won’t Work and What to Do Instead.
Reference
Ferriss, Timothy. Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World (P. 546). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.
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