Fresh Perspective

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A fresh take on life...

Episodes

Tuesday Mar 31, 2020

#2 STOP TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS

Tuesday Mar 31, 2020

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We look at the effects of Magical Thinking.

You can also subscribe to my newsletter here: FreshPerspective

Lekker!

Remember: Change your perspective and you can transform your life!

Much Love

Monday Mar 30, 2020

#1 HOW TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THESE THINGS - CHANGES EVERYTHING

Monday Mar 30, 2020

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When we know how to take responsibility and what to take responsibility for we are empowered and free. We are the Masters of our lives. When we choose to blame or find excuses not to take responsibility we develop a paralyzing victim mentality.

Wednesday Mar 18, 2020

S2 #2 Getting Unstuck - How to set Goals

Wednesday Mar 18, 2020

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Tuesday Mar 17, 2020

S2 #1 How to get unstuck when you lose momentum

Tuesday Mar 17, 2020

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I have a long talk about where I am stuck and try to talk myself through it. You need some stamina for this one!

You can also subscribe to my newsletter here: FreshPerspective

Lekker!

Remember: Change your perspective and you can transform your life!

Much Love

Monday Sep 16, 2019

Why the pain #7 - The unexpected gift of pain

Monday Sep 16, 2019

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Every week I receive a few emails from people who engage with the thoughts post. These people take the time to tell me about how it impacted their lives - and to tell you the truth, it would be much harder to keep going without these encouraging messages.

Today I want to share one of these emails with you. I asked for permission and changed her name to protect her identity. I gave her the name Susan The Brave because being so honest takes courage.

Dear Francois.

I'm not sure how I ended up on your email list and with a busy life (where I barely have time for myself), I've never read any of them. Tonight something inside prompted me to read your last email. I was in tears, it was as if you were writing to me. I went back to all the emails you already sent to me and I'm going to take the next few days to work through it.

I suffer from depression, I am addicted to sleeping pills, I drink pills to help calm me down, pills for anxiety, antipsychotics and antidepressants every day and I’ve tried to commit suicide twice. I am now with a very good psychologist and a psychiatrist, together we are going to get me right. But on top of that, I am terribly grateful for your emails and from now on I look forward to reading them weekly.

Please keep investing so amazingly in those of us who you don't even know - you are saving lives, I promise. Thank you very much!

Susan The Brave

Now you might be asking what does this have to do with the unexpected gift of pain? Well, when you embrace Grow Pain (pain that you go through when you do something important) and take steps towards a bigger goal or dream - you give something unique to the world. Something that only you can give. If I did not embrace the Grow Pain of creating this content Susan The Brave would not receive my unique gift and I WOULD NOT EVEN KNOW THAT SOMEONE IS MISSING OUT ON WHAT I HAVE TO GIVE. This is the unexpected gift of Grow Pain. To me, that is reason enough to keep going even when it is tough.

I will think of Susan The Brave every time I hear the voice of Doubt and Fear tell me to stop. And I will keep going, keep learning, keep trying and I will keep growing.

My question to you is: “Do you have dreams and goals that will help others, inspire others, heal others, make others smile or laugh? You can fill in the blank. Can you start with one small step today?”

PS: If you identify with Susan The Brave or you want to encourage her please send me an email and I will make sure she gets it.

Monday Sep 09, 2019

Why the pain? #6 How your brain makes pain worse

Monday Sep 09, 2019

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“It hurts because it matters.” John Green

There are two ways that we extend and amplify our pain and suffering.

We use our memory or we use our imagination.

We use our memory to remember the painful things that happened in the past. When we think about what happened we experience that pain again. We also use our imagination to create pain in the future. We do this when we think about a negative painful outcome of a future event. Both the pain we remember from the past and the pain we create in the future we experience in the present. This means it affects the way we act, feel, think and even believe today. It doesn't matter if it happened a long time ago and it doesn't matter if it hasn't happened yet - we experience the pain as real.

Memory - Past

Imagination - Future

Experience - Present

When we remember painful events from the past we also use our imagination to fill in the blanks. The blanks are all those things we have to make up. All the reasons we imagine things happened to us. Why a person had to treat us badly or why a certain event happened to us. When you use your imagination to create negative reasons you amplify and extend the pain.

When you use your imagination to create a painful future and you think about that future again and again - it becomes a memory. You are remembering the negative future you already imagined. And feeling the pain, doubt and fear every time you do.

So what can we do about this. The most powerful tool you can use to change this is your awareness. Become aware of all the negative ways you fill in the blanks of the past and all the negative outcomes you imagine for the future.

We cannot change the past but we can change the meaning of the past.

If you use your imagination to give negative meaning to events you can also use it to create the positive. Use your imagination to create a positive outcome in the future even when things go wrong. It is not about being unrealistic, because let's face it things can go wrong. It is about imagining the ACTION you'll take when things go wrong, instead of being paralyzed by fear and doubt. Now, when you think about the future you remember the actions you'll take. This changes the way you act, think, feel and believe in the present.

To put it another way when you realise that you have no control of the past and the future it frees you up to take full control and responsibility of the present.Which you do have control over. When you learn how to do this more often you actually learn how to change the meaning of the past and your outlook on the future.

Monday Sep 02, 2019

Why the pain #5 Pain- Master or Mentor?

Monday Sep 02, 2019

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Up to now I've describe pain as a positive thing and that we only see it as negative. It is positive because the message of pain is there to help us. Slow-pain tells us to pay attention because something is wrong and grow pain tells us to keep going because we are doing something important (for more on this check out weeks 1 to 4). If you learn how to hear these messages, pain will be your mentor. Pain will help you, pain will guide you, pain will encourage you and pain will equip you to be a healthier and stronger person.

But there is also a dark side to pain. On the dark side pain is your master and you are a slave. This master uses fear to paralyze you. If you're paralyzed you don't take action and if you don't take action you take the path of least resistance. This gives you a sense of security and safety. But that safety comes at a massive cost - because without action there can be no connection. Without action you cannot connect to other people, without action you cannot connect with your hurt in order to heal, without action you cannot connect with your passion, your dreams and your goals and if you cannot connect to them you cannot pursue them. you know this is true Because like me you know that you have not fully utilised your potential.

The disconnect and inaction causes isolation, alienation and loneliness.

Isolation - when we build walls around ourselves to protect us we're not only keeping the bad stuff out we are also keeping the good stuff out. We end up alone and thus feel lonely.

Alienation - when we start to believe that we are so different that we cannot be accepted or that we will not be accepted because we are different we feel lonely even when we are not alone.

Loneliness can increase your risk of an early death by up to 45%.

What happens then when pain is your mentor and you are the disciple? Where pain as a master uses fear to paralyze you, pain as a mentor uses friction to help you grow and heal. Friction between the past and the present when you're you dealing with slow pain and friction between the present and the future when you're dealing with grow pain. So I am telling you that it will be hard but that friction is what creates the energy. When you rub your hands together that action generates warmth. When you “rub” who you are against who you want to be it generates growth and healing. It is our best defence against isolation, alienation and loneliness. By taking action we open ourselves up to all our potential and in our openness we risk getting hurt. hurt causes pain, but when pain is your mental it means that you then also open yourself up to more with them and more of your potential.

So be curious and be brave or to put it another way the brave enough to be curious.

Monday Aug 26, 2019

Why the Pain? #4 Subjective and Objective pain

Monday Aug 26, 2019

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Let's say a couple you and your spouse are friends with invite you over for dinner. Then at some stage during the meal, you notice a growing tension between the two of them. First, it is very subtle. A bit of sarcasm, a stinging joke, but then it starts to escalate to the point where they are shouting at one another. How would you feel in this situation? How would you react?

I think you'll agree that it depends on how normal this kind of behaviour is for you. One thing that will affect the way you feel in this situation is your past. Based on your past experiences you might feel offended, relieved, calm, anxious, responsible...we can go on and on. Let me just quickly look at a few scenarios.

If you and your spouse have done exactly the same thing this couple is doing you might feel relieved that you're not alone or you might feel compassion because you know what it feels like to lose control like that. If you've never done something like that maybe you'll feel offended and would just want to get out of there as quickly as you can.

Another thing that will influence the way this fight will affect you is the way your parents handled conflict.

Maybe they had a lot of shouting matches and because of that you feel calm and you're not really very stressed by the situation.

Or the fact that it reminds you of your parents fighting actually triggers massive anxiety and you feel completely overwhelmed and scared.

Maybe you were the peacemaker in your family which causes you to feel responsible for resolving this conflict.

I can go on and on with this list, my point is - the way you will feel in that moment, the pain you'll feel in that moment is completely subjective. It is for this reason that I believe pain cannot be objective. Even when we observe someone else's pain our perception of that pain will still be subject to our own interpretation.

This is why one of my definitions of empathy is about subjecting yourself to another person's paradigm in order to feel what they feel. So, even when you are listening to someone else's pain the only way you can truly engage with that person is by making that paints subjective. If you are not willing to make that pain subjective it is impossible to feel empathy. Why? Because when you listen to someone else's frustration or pain and you think well that doesn't make sense or it's not that big a deal, you may think that you are being very objective in terms of how you look at that complaint but that point of view is subjective to your understanding and interpretation of the pain.

Trying to be objective when talking to your spouse about a frustration is not only going to prevent you from understanding, but it is also very irrational. That's why the most rational people struggle to have empathy. They only see the problem through their own lens subject to their own preconceived ideas, history, paradigm, you name it. But it is not objective it's subjective to their viewpoint. They must consciously subject their point of view to the other person's reality to have empathy.

This is the only rational way to deal with conflict.

To put it another way - it is very common in relationships to have one person that's more emotional in terms of how they react to conflict and another that's more rational. Both of them listen to the frustration or pain of the other in a way that is only subjected to their own point of view, believing that they are being very objective because they are observing from that viewpoint. But pain cannot be objective - it's rather a case of which viewpoint it is subjected to. In order to resolve conflict in a relationship, you have to subject your point of view to that of your partner. AND VICE VERSA!

Only then can you have empathy, only then can you understand, only then can you feel the pain and only then can you start to resolve the conflict. You can then also answer the question: Is this Slow pain or Grow pain?

This rational way of dealing with conflict is ironically also a sign of emotional intelligence. It shows that you know how to differentiate.

Here's something to think about. If you and your partner are stuck. If you find yourselves fighting about the same things over and over again it is an indication that you believe that pain is objective. Embrace the idea that it can only be subjective, even when you think it is totally objective it never is! It is just your subjective view of it. If you are brave enough to subject that point of view to that of your partner’s, you'll start understanding them better, you'll have empathy and not only will you resolve conflict - you will unlock the wisdom that's hidden within that conflict.

If you allow conflict to guide you in this way you will learn new ways to love and cherish your partner, simply because you can now feel what they feel when they are frustrated about certain things. PLUS - you will understand how to help them subject themselves to your point of view. You will know that it is not about one of you being right and the other wrong, but rather to cultivate a deeper understanding of all the ways the two of you misinterpret and misunderstand one another’s pain.

Monday Aug 19, 2019

Why the Pain? #3 Don't face your fear...Transcend it.

Monday Aug 19, 2019

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Have you ever had a fight with your spouse and afterwards felt bad about some of the things you said and the way you acted? And thinking about it for a while you thought that maybe you should go and apologise but you didn’t, because every time you thought about apologizing you felt anxious. Then you justify not talking to your spouse because you got angry all over again. The real reason you're not having that conversation is fear and more specifically it's the fear of rejection. You're afraid that you'll be vulnerable and apologize and then your partner will still be angry or not accept your apology. That will make you feel rejected or even abandoned.

So how do we deal with that fear so we can have those conversations?

Maybe you've guessed already but this is all part of dealing with Slow Pain. I asked you last week if you are avoiding pain by avoiding important conversations and this is what I meant. If you think about having that conversation you are using your imagination. You imagine the worst outcome. You create that outcome in your mind and based on that image that you see you avoid the conversation. What I want you to try and do is imagine that worst-case scenario in more detail. Think about exactly what will happen AND THEN imagine how you can still act in a compassionate way, how you can still have empathy with your spouse and listen and pay attention to what they are saying.

Doing this will equip your mind to deal with that situation and if you imagine it repeatedly you also deal with that fear of rejection, because you help your mind get used to that feeling and showing it different ways to deal with it by seeing different ways that you act and react to your partner's response to your apology.

What then will we say about Grow Pain? Because grow pain has to do with our goals and dreams the fear will be the fear of failure. We’ll try something or we'll create something and “it won't work”, “no one will like it” and that stops us from actually achieving those goals because if we fail we will feel embarrassed. It might even go deeper than embarrassment. Failure, you fear, will actually confirm that you are not good enough, that you don't have what it takes. So instead of trying to achieve your goals and dreams, you avoid them.

You can use the same imagination that you used to create that picture of failure to change your response. You can imagine how you act if you fail - what will you do? How will you fix the things that got broken in the process? How can you learn from the failure? You can imagine all of this too. If you do, you actually prepare your mind more and more to go for that goal, to try and achieve it because you are showing it different scenarios that you can explore.

The fear will also diminish because you're exposing yourself to that fear over and over again and that way it becomes less scary. It is really important to imagine it in detail because most of the times the image that we see when we imagine the rejection or the failures is just a quick image of what might happen and then we go immediately to the fight-or-flight mode. We get angry and withdrawal or we use out anger to actually push our partners away. You have to get into the detail of both the scenario AND exactly what will happen if that rejection or that failure realise.

When you imagine your response you also have to give it a lot of detail. Clearly see your response. How will you react in that situation? What will you do? This helps you heal or grow, because you are rehearsing a new way of being in your mind before you start doing it physically.

Let me share one more thing about slow pain and grow pain and the fears involved. Maybe you already realise this, but psychologists will mostly deal with slow pain because it is about healing the wounds from the past. Wounds can cause arrested development because if you are not taking action due to your avoidance of pain and fear then it causes you to be stuck in a certain area of your life. That area isn't developing -this is why it is called arrested development. Psychologists help us find ways to deal with the past to imagine new ways of behaving, imagine a new reaction.

On the other hand life coaches usually deal with grow pain and the fears involved in that. They help us to see what we believe that limits us. Help us perfect goals that are more realistic and can help us gradually get to where we want to be. To achieve what we want to achieve.

So I want you to try and be your own psychologist and life coach by using only your imagination. Write down the details. Ask yourself these questions:
What will happen in the worst-case scenario and how I like to respond even if that happens?

If I fell short of my goal how would I want to respond? If I can fix it, what might I learn from it?

If you go through these images and think about what you want to be able to do despite the worst outcome you are already learning. So you don't even have to go through the experience before you learn - you are learning, healing and growing already. And that equips you to even better deal with the worst-case scenario, to even better facilitate that conversation with your spouse or equip you to go for that goal in a more determined and confident way.

Monday Aug 12, 2019

Why the pain? E2-Slow pain and Grow pain continued

Monday Aug 12, 2019

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This week I'd like to delve a bit deeper into the two kinds of pain which I call slow pain and grow pain. I give you a broad overview of the sources of these two kinds of pain and what we should gain from them.