I have a few thoughts swarming around in my brain, experiences that both Alex and I have had lately.  There are a few trains of thought in this but I realised that they all sort of meet up together to form one incredibly powerful point.  Do you listen to your brain when things get hard?  Do you listen to the million excuses why you should not do something the moment it starts to get hard or cause you a bit of pain? I have listened to my brain on a zillion occasions. I have believed all the justifications that it has come up with to save me from potential risk, potential pain, and potential loss.  I listened.  And it got me nowhere.

Here’s an example of my brains very unhelpful dialogue.  Now to frame up, I have a goal of climbing a mountain at least 3 times a week.  Last night, I set the intention of climbing a mountain this morning after I dropped Alex at school.  Here’s the dialogue between my brain and what I call my ‘true self’ the second I woke up:

Brain: “I’m soooo tired, I deserve to rest today and spend the day at home relaxing”

True self: “ Rocky, you didn’t climb a mountain on the weekend, instead, you decided to drink alcohol and mope around feeling sorry for yourself, you NEED to climb the mountain today”

Brain: “but I work such long hours and I am sooooo exhausted, my body needs a break”

Trues self: “a break from what? Your life really isn’t THAT busy missy”

Brain  “Yes it is, today I have to do the groceries, I have to do some writing and I really want to catch up on “This Is Us” on catch up TV, I deserve it”

True self:  “you can do all that as well as climb a mountain, it will be one hour out of your day. You will feel so much better for it”.

Now, it was at that point that I started to listen to my true self.  Because I know, without a shadow of a doubt that I ALWAYS feel better after climbing a mountain or doing any form of exercise.  So I did the grocery shopping, put the groceries away and climbed Mt Ngungun.  And guess what?  I did feel better.  I felt proud, I felt healthy, I felt refreshed and energised and I couldn’t helping thinking how easy it would have been to listen to my brain and give myself a rest for the day.  It also got me thinking to an experience that Alex had last week. Bear with me, there’s a few stories in this one but I’m pretty sure it all ties together in the end.

A few mornings ago, Alex had to be at school by 5:15 am to travel by bus to a dance competition.  She had to arrive with her hair and makeup done.  So, we woke up at 3:50 am to make sure we had ample time to get her hair into a bun using a bun donut (which I had spent hours practicing by the way) and put enough hairspray and bobby pins in it to make sure it could withstand any sort of windblown emergency.  We accomplished this with I dare say, ease.  I was pretty proud of us.

I dropped her at school and came back home to get myself ready for a 12 hour shift at work. Tick. I even managed to make myself a cup of tea and sit down and do some meditation ( I find this a very productive and calming way to start the day).

I had a friend pick Alex up from school after the dance competition and drop her at home.  I got home after picking up take away on my way home from work.  We ate our take away whilst watching an episode of Gilmore Girls and everything seemed to be normal.  I suggested to Alex that she have an early night since she was up so early that morning and had had such a busy day. She didn’t complain.  I could tell she was exhausted.  Alex brushed her teeth and was ready for bed and she asked me if she had to go to school the next day, to which I replied, yes.  Don’t get me wrong, I could empathise, she was very tired and feeling exhausted, but I was sure she would be okay to go to school the next day.

Well… you would have thought I had told her that she couldn’t have access to any form of technology for the next three hundred years! She started crying (yes, actually crying) and saying ‘but I don’t have enough time to get everything done’.  I asked her what she needed to get done to which she replied ‘nothing, it doesn’t matter’.  I kept trying to talk to her and understand what it was she needed to get done but she wouldn’t tell me. Now, I don’t know about you, but when my child is crying and so obviously stressed about something, my parental instinct told me that it wasn’t nothing.  But I couldn’t get her to tell me what was wrong.  I couldn’t reason with her, I couldn’t talk to her, she just went straight to overwhelm and incoherent talk.  At this point, I knew that the best thing to do was to encourage her go to sleep.  She was exhausted and I was hoping that she would feel a lot better after a good night’s sleep.

On this particular morning, I had to leave for work early, so I rang her from work asking how she was feeling.  She replied ‘fine’.  I asked her if she was still worried about not having enough time to get things done, to which she replied ‘yes’.  I asked her to tell me what it was and she wouldn’t.  Needless to say I spent the entire day worried about her. I actually cried in the bathroom at work and started blaming myself that she wouldn’t talk to me about what was causing her so much stress.  I figured that she needed to talk to someone though, even if it wasn’t me.  So, I phoned my friend who was picking her up after school and asked her to have a chat with her.  In the past, Alex has opened up to my friend and I was hoping she would on this occasion too.

It turned out that Alex had been given an assignment that was due in a week.  It was in a subject that she didn’t enjoy or even believe in.  It was a big assignment and she didn’t understand where to even start and thought it was easier to bury her head in the sand rather than tackle it head on.  It was too much of a mountain for her.  She even told my friend that she was considering getting an after school detention rather than do this assignment.  Now, for anyone who knows Alex, you would know that this is completely out of character.  She likes to get good grades and absolutely hates getting into trouble at school, so this was something that needed to be resolved.  My friend helped Alex do some research and they made a really good start on the assignment.  When I picked her up, Alex was still adamant that she wasn’t going to do her assignment.  She actually went into victim mode and started blaming the school for not giving them the assignment earlier. I understand how she felt.  I really do.  After studying a degree and a graduate diploma, there were many times I felt like throwing the towel in because it just seemed too hard.  I remember my brain trying to justify why I should quit, because it wanted the stress to go away.  One thing I learnt is that I just had to put one foot in front of the other.  Baby steps.  I would do a little bit of research and when I felt myself get overwhelmed, I would walk away from computer for a while.  I would then go back and do a little more.

Over the weekend, after a small argument, I convinced Alex to get her computer out and we sat and looked at the assignment together.  I rarely do this with Alex.  She usually is on top of her work and is a very independent learner.  But we sat side by side and looked at the questions and slowly were able to do the research required.  After an hour of this, it was evident that she would be absolutely fine and I learned something new about Thomas the Apostle!  She was getting a better understanding of the assignment and realised that the questions were able to be answered with a bit of research.  One step at a time.

It would have been easy for Alex to not do this assignment.  She could have buried her head in the sand and listened to her brain that was justifying so many reasons why she shouldn’t do it and why life was so unfair. She would have had to deal with the consequences though.  And that would have made her feel terrible.  Just like if I had listened to my brain and not climbed my mountain, I would have felt terrible.

My brain will try and tell me not to do something if it senses any sort of danger.  Be that actual danger or feelings of unease and stress or physical pain.  (it always remembers the pain when I climb a mountain). It wants to protect me and for the yucky feelings to go away.  Sometimes though those yucky feelings are something I need to endure in order to get to the yummy feelings.  The feelings of accomplishment, feelings of empowerment, feelings of elation when we get the ‘A’.    So I want Alex and I to learn together to push ourselves through the pain when it gets a little hard.  To breathe and to listen to our true selves that are trying to help us get to the top.  Once there, the view is amazing and it’s soooo worth it!