Alive Not Just Breathing: Recent Episodes
ANJB
Helping you to find yourself, BE yourself and find true fulfillment in life. Live your best LIFE. Stop just existing. Start living.
In response to my last episode where I talked about my struggles, I wanted to come back with the upside as I've begun coming past it it again. We can't always block out the dark things going on out there, but we can focus on love and the light in ourselves and spread that amongst others we connect with. THAT'S how we change the world, one person at a time, coming from love. It's impossible to feel fear and love at the same time, so choose where to put your focus and what to share in response. Also be gentle and patient with others, including those who may not share our beliefs or our message. Nobody ever grows or learns from closed minded conflict. Choose to respond, not react and choose wisely. We're all trying to muddle our way along, including those we may disagree with ❤️
This started out as a simple voice note about my current mental drain struggle but the subjects of why are important. Is the constant left vs right political debate just one big theatrical game? And why is it generally that we can no longer have a healthy debate out there or online without resorting to abuse, mindless arguing and cancelling people?! How do you overcome the constant fear and anxiety spread from the mainstream media and those in power? Do I take that side of society out of the equation altogether on my content and simply focus on general wellbeing? Sometimes it can be hard to separate it seeing as society isn't built for us to be happy and thriving. This episode is a lot of general thoughts and emotion but the points I make and things I'm struggling with are important to hear and think about.
This is almost like a part 2 for the previous episode. How do YOU define success for yourself? Personally I've learned to think about that in much more depth as I've gotten older. I now have been able to rethink what success in life is to me which then enables me to much easier feel it and flow with it rather than always seeing it as some future event. Another episode which was part of the late night sessions.
It's very easy to compare our lives to those we deem as successful in various ways and feel inferior. One thing I've learned to do from my own issues is to remind myself that other people's success hasn't often come without other sacrifices. Sometimes those sacrifices may be ones that we really wouldn't feel able or like to make. The human mind often sees the grass as greener elsewhere but it's important to break down if that's actually fully true when it comes to what we potentially define as success and achievements. This is also part of the late night sessions!
Part of what I'll call the late night sessions seeing as I recorded a batch when unable to sleep! I find there can be a heavy pushing of hustle mentality these days which when overdone can be very toxic and damaging. As much as there are elements of good in some content, I think this constant mega push on hustling so much over healthy rest, sleep and balancing certain mental and emotional needs in life needs to be much more kept in check in order to stop it from creating new health issues.
Music is absolutely huge and sometimes can be easily forgotten. Never underestimate what the power of music can do for us mentally. There are odd bits I like to throw in or discuss briefly which are much shorter and to the point so these can be the Shorts episodes.
2 things we all easy do are thinking we are/have to be in control of everything in our life to be happy and planning on being happy later when we've got something we don't currently have. But there is no end destination where everything is now great for good and we simply DON'T have control of everything that happens to or for us...no matter how much we want it. We need to learn to flow with what life brings us more, to live NOW rather than putting it off and presuming things will be better when...the mind does not want that. It needs to know how everything will be but it never can. The sooner we learn to spot this, to accept it and then learn to trust ourselves and flow rather than swimming against the tide, the more smooth things will be.
When we're struggling with everyday tasks due to depression/burnout or just not being our best, using intention is a clever way of really making those tasks a little better. It's also a super powerful tool to bring yourself fully into the moment mentally and actually makes things FEEL way more rewarding and enjoyable generally too. This can be applied to so many different scenarios and situations in life which helps to make you feel more alive and part of things rather than the walking around on autopilot thing which all of us easily fall into at times.
More talk on being your true authentic self and overcoming being able to be open and vulnerable without fear of others comments and judgement. As I'm expanding myself and allowing myself to push more out of my comfort zone by being more vulnerable I'm sharing how important I feel it is to be authentic and to remember why it's pointless holding back and shrinking for fear of what others think of or will say about you. I also touch on more about being able to change yourself in a healthy way in every moment.
Where I'm at and why there has been a gap (along with previous gaps) inbetween episodes. I touch on what I do to cope best with all that's going on and where I intend to go from here.
A quick background touch on personal struggles and how we need to take it to the next level of vulnerability as men.
How do we expect to hear answers or advice if we never take a break from the noise to hear? How do you expect to see signs if you don't take a moment to look for them? No matter if we're spiritual, religious or neither...we can't take time to hear/see/figure out solutions if our senses are hammered 24/7...and that includes the distractions that WE choose.
Finishing off the long message on letting go. I touch on depression, anxiety, what's wrong in society and how we're taught to live, loneliness etc. Last episode for now until things become clearer. Keep fighting the good fight.
An honest and frank statement about where I'm at and why I'm letting go of a lot of things. We all have things we need to let go of in order to find ourselves again or find ourselves for the first time. The noise is getting heavy right now but I'm hopeful times are changing...
We all want so much for all different reasons. But we live in a world where we're CONSTANTLY being sold all different things under the illusion that they'll make us whole and happy. It's so easy to get lost battling and fighting for all these things we never really needed and don't actually change anything aside from leading us to the next thing we want. If we take a moment to examine what we want and then why we actually want it...it can allow us to really think about if we do need or want it for the right reasons or if we need to think about what we DO actually want or what we need to work on instead.
How much do we all put things off until it feels like the perfect time? How often do we hold ourselves back because we're more worried or defeatist about trying to compete with other people than we believe in what we have to share? Everyone in self help and motivation says it these days about taking action now I know, but it's simply the truth. You can plan, you can debate with yourself if it's worth it, you can wait until the time is right or until you have better equipment and all of that...but until you make a start you're just letting the dream die piece by piece. Some of us never recover from that and never end up creating anything. Don't think about that on your deathbed, all that regret. Just make a start now, don't compete...CREATE.
We all have those days where nothing seems to go to plan, where we just don't feel right...and no matter how hard we push we just can't seem to right the ship. The worries I see as issues with this are that some of us will then panic and allow the fear of a bad patch to consume us and easily become a self fulfilling prophecy when it was never any more than a bad day all along. The other is that we can also try SO hard to break the cycle too quickly that we burn out even more and/or make ourselves feel even worse when we're unable to shift our mindset as fast as we'd like. The key is to remind yourself to let go of thinking a bad day is some disaster which will build into a catastrophe. It's simple in theory but when we're surrounded by success and advice, and we push ourselves so hard to keep positive it becomes very easy to forget. So allow yourself a bad day, and let that be all it is.
A lot of us are currently facing having to start afresh in various ways. Thanks to what we've all been living through since early 2020, some of us have had to literally start over from scratch. When our lives change drastically or unexpected events take us right back to the beginning, we can feel lost, angry, hopeless and confused. It can be very easy to just sink and not know how to get up. But it's also a fresh opportunity. It's a chance to rebuild, to maybe build a whole new life and experience all new things that we'd never dreamed of previously. Starting over can be hard but it can also be incredibly rewarding and lead to a whole new outcome and experiences.
The ALIVE Not Just Breathing Podcast has been resurrected! Times are a changing, a new world is developing. Now is the time to restart, rebuild and get moving.
Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by life. We can so easily get stuck and not see a way out of the hole we find ourselves in. The key is not to think big picture and not focus far ahead. Instead we can make a start to making things better by changing ONE small thing at a time. Focus on just today right now, and just ONE small thing. That's where we start. That's how we build.