'Real is Rare' - By Dean Attwood - Mindset and Performance Coach and Anxiety Expert

The end of 2022 marked one of the hardest years I have been through to date. The spiral started with my father's diagnosis of five brain tumours, an incalculable situation and one that proved to be a no-way-out scenario. Time…. For the second time, my family was so sadly running out.

I made a mental decision to take a step back from work and create a more distant emotional stance. not avoidant per se. just less invested than my normal.

To create space, a time to heal and re-assess, all while ensuring I did this in the most mentally and physically healthy way possible.

Today is a reminder:

A reminder that real is rare.

not attachment or a fake aspect of needing.

true, authentic feeling.

I believe this point so strongly that I will repeat it.

Real is so rare.

And it can be so rare that it is all too often overshadowed by the multiple challenges we all face day to day. The occurrences can be little, their delight lost in a sea of fog and uncertainty.

But, with every long, dark night, a beautiful sunrise will always follow, no matter how short it may be.

And as they say, if life gives you lemons, let’s make lemonade.

Over the past few years of coaching and supporting people, it has become more apparent that the one thing that I keep hearing is that ‘we’ always seem to ‘feel’ that we get the opposite of what we need or ‘we’ receive the absolute wrong thing at the wrong time....

Our perspective altered through the pressures and stressors in life.

It appears at first to be an obstacle. A wall.

So, a story is created, it fits nicely into the current label you have on life and your current situation. A state is then created, and so an emotion is born.

We then choose to keep retelling this story, in turn, positively or negatively reinforcing the story, the label, the state, and the emotion.

And so with thought, but without it, a choice is also created.

A decision that, on the one hand, leans into our DNA, our negative bias, and our negative slant

This is the initial path; the pain has already been felt—maybe not accepted, but felt.

We do not want to go there again, so we don’t. We compensate like a physical injury, doing our best to avoid further pain by limiting our exposure to it.

A barrier is made, your beautiful wall of ‘protection’. A further label gets placed in the sand, and so a further story, another state, another emotion. Now we have layered emotions.

It only serves to compound, amplifying these ‘feelings’ that we work even harder to ignore. Why would we ever go there now? That would mean experiencing even more pain and upset once again. So, let's drop it in a box. Yes, let’s ignore it, bury it, and add a touch of concrete too, just in case.

Then later, weeks, months, or years later, it starts to go bump in the night...

Just maybe, you actually choose to ‘feel’!

Feel that the intent to this challenge is actually for you, it has happened for you to allow you to feel, truly feel, and how real it is and how much it means to you!

“If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.” Socrates

Taking a moment to understand how you really feel instead of letting old patterns decide for you, is one of the most authentic and real things you can do. While remembering that life is happening for you, not to you,

Be brave enough to accept the truth, even if it hurts. Being vulnerable and seeing the strength that letting things break is not weakness or complete loss and destruction

I hope you learn to give yourself the credit you deserve.

I hope you give yourself the love you deserve.

I hope you give yourself the self-acknowledgment you deserve for how strong you truly are.

For making it through every obstacle and every challenge you have ever faced.

Have the courage to face old traumas and old patterns.

Look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m proud of you’.

You have so much of life to live.

Stop comparing your progress to others.

You are where you are, because that’s where you need to be.

Make a defiant decision for you.

You are, after all, so worth it!

As I say to people I support, ‘So, what’s the opportunity now…?’

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all” Oscar Wild.

Merry Christmas!