Cutting to the core

Real talk: at a certain point, it becomes easy to intellectualize feelings.

It keeps a safe space between how you actually feel, and to what extent you’re willing to express that feeling.

I want more cutting to the core of how I feel! That space where actions & expressed feelings aren’t so affected by the awareness of others’ perceptions.

I know I’ve addressed labels & filters in my blog before. The first quote I ever shared was about finding that space of unaffected, unapologetic bliss. Last week I shared my holiday digital challenge. (Which, I’m not gonna lie, I broke Wednesday because of The Lumineers concert… oops. But please know I’ve been following it otherwise!)

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My emphasis for this post is to encourage more consideration of allowing yourself to truly live out how you actually feel.
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Like when you’re a kid and you feel embarrassed or vulnerable. You feel it! You show it! Maybe you cry, maybe you get angry, maybe you blush like crazy and try to leave the room. (Maybe all of the above…)

When you’re a kid and you really like someone, you go right up to them and tell them. You hug them and say, “I love you!” Without hesitation.

When you’re a kid and someone is being a real jerk, you say something. And you don’t worry about how what you say might be received. Nothing is suppressed.

As an adult though, it’s relatively easy to mask demonstrating a feeling by vocalizing it.

I’ll call myself out here… I’ll often say something like one of the following:

“Oh my gosh I’m so nervous!”
“My hands are sweating really bad.”
“I can’t, I’m too scared.”
“I feel vulnerable and I hate it.”

Can acknowledging a feeling be beneficial? For sure. But here’s my point…

Is my acknowledgment of a feeling just a hidden justification?

If so, is it really necessary?

MAYBE I JUST NEED A HUG!

Or someone to tell me, “You’re okay.”

And why is it so hard to ask for that??
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Doesn’t matter how old you are, the fearlessness of being direct is valuable.

I want to ask these questions:

WHERE DO YOU LIVE MOST UNFILTERED?
How do you get there?
With whom do you feel safe enough to bypass rationality?
Doing what things are you most open to letting nature win out?

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For me, I feel this way most right after I’ve physically exerted myself to “there” – wherever “there” happens to be on that particular day.

When I’m lying on the floor after a workout, on my back gasping for air, rolling around and maybe even moaning, just letting it OUT. I don’t care what anyone thinks when I’m in that space, and it feels SO FREAKIN GOOD. Sometimes I go so hard I start crying.

Two minutes later I’m embarrassed. But it was worth it.

Maybe that’s why I appreciate sports and games so much. You don’t need permission to live in the moment… you just do.

In my first full week teaching high school English now, I feel like I’ve already had to physically (and emotionally) exert myself to there. There have been some really challenging situations! And it’s the weirdest thing, because when the pressure is highest, the stress is at its worst, and I have no place to hide… I feel so intensely sure of myself.

To extend that toward handling the unpredictability of students – it didn’t take long to appreciate the same realization that I’ve had time and time again as a soccer coach… that some of best moments are often the ones where I surrender and let the students/players run the show for a minute.

Only now, I would amend “surrendering” to others to “sharing” with others.

Nothing is more challenging, but nothing is sweeter than collective experience in a classroom. I love to muscle everything I can, but I’m realizing that the most electric connections come when I give and take.

Whether it’s being needed or needing, I think cutting to the core can be powerful.
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And now, a hodge podge of quotes that I’ve been sitting on this month and need to share already! Enjoy the goodness.

“But careful study has shown that creative innovation follows a very precise pattern: like excellence itself, it emerges from the rigors of purposeful practice. It is the consequence of experts absorbing themselves for so long in their chosen field that they become, as it were, pregnant with creative energy. To put it another way, eureka moments are not lightning bolts from the blue, but tidal waves that erupt following deep immersion in an area of expertise.”

– Matthew Syed, from Bounce, “The Path to Excellence”

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth podcast, episode 610: Dr. Andy Galpin, (10/4/17)

“I like to think about people in categories. I call them either a chef, a baker, or a cook.”
On the difference between cooking and baking:
“It’s chemistry. If you bake something, it is very clear instructions, very clear list – you cannot deviate… cooking is uh, a little dab of this, little dab of that….. is this person a cook or a baker? Do you want to know exact detail, timing, order, volumes, or do you want just some ideas and concepts to work with?”

Ultimately, Galpin goes on to say that cooking is all about matching progress with sensation. And it’s far more sustainable for most of us.

“Addiction is the progressive narrowing of the things that bring us pleasure.

Awareness or Enlightenment is the Progressive broadening of the things that bring us pleasure.”

– Brian MacKenzie of PSE, quoting Dr. Andrew Huberman in @iamunscared post (11/12/17)

“Human reason can excuse any evil… that is why it’s so important that we don’t rely on it.”

– Veronica Roth

RX’D RADIO Podcast with Pat Barber (11/6/17)
Sharing this one just because there was a lot I felt like I could relate to… total music to my ears from start to finish.

“I have a hard time, ‘Okay, I’m just gonna take it easy’. I’m always gonna be like, I’m gonna go really hard, but I’m gonna play the game, and then in the end I’m gonna lie on the ground and be dead.”