The Hero is Revealed

Hard times do not create heroes, it is during hard times, the hero within us is revealed. We all must expect there to be difficult days.  When people suck, or your mad at work or the plans fall through, but these days must happen at some point. We cannot expect to win in every occurrence.

The more I spend time with the quote, I realize how often I focus on my ability to breathe slowly.  With these stressful moments I try to remind myself that I still have the control of how I react to hard times and how I can think about difficult things.  Here is a breakdown of what I noticed this week as juggling a new business and normal work and my role in the community.

1.       I have very aware of my breathing when I feel anxious. Jay Shetty’s story about the monk children’s first day of school comes to mind.  They spend that first day of school learning the importance of breathing.  It’s the one thing you must do repeatedly and often overlooked as a soothing mechanism.  At first, I really focus on letting all the air go.  Completely empty out all off it.  It’s like a reminder that if I hold onto things, those things might not let me go.  I do this when I struggle in cardio or when I start to feel overwhelmed.

2.       I forgive myself for feeling this way and understand the stress that my body must endure due to my mind. The “feels” in our mind absolutely impact how your body is performing.  The body starts to recognize your thoughts and thinks it needs to protect itself. The body doesn’t know better. It starts to see dangers and your alertness to things spikes up. After your body freaks out a bit, it begins a loop like Fox News pundits. The idea feeds the reaction, and the reaction solidifies the idea that then feeds more reaction. If I apologize and take notice the thought is just a thought, I can begin to think differently about it.

3.       I try and start one small action (or the smallest easiest goal) towards that worry or difficult task. I mainly try to read or watch a few videos about it.   Study something small about your uncertainty. There is nothing wrong with not knowing everything, but it’s a problem when you refuse to try and learn about a situation.  Scared about something hard to do, try and manage 1% of your day to actively do something about it. This is about 14 minutes. If you practice 14 minutes and consistently stick to it, you will change.

4.       I then try to secure a goldfish mind state about the issue. Most of the time, I will outright fail.  This will happen more than it doesn’t but each time I try it gets tougher for me to struggle through the same thing. I just forget that I failed and retry steps 1-3.

One of the biggest things to me about the quote is the hero is revealed.  It already lives within you.  It’s there, but with the stress and whirlwind of thoughts, that part of you can’t get involved.  That hero part of your mind is calm and courageous. It shows up and reveals our ability to survive and thrive in difficult conditions. Even within our own heads we can go on the hero’s journey. 

This journey is often how stories are written. Dan Harmon (Rick & Morty and Community) uses the hero’s journey to tell most of his stories.  That step where the hero enters an unfamiliar situation is where the above tactics can help overcome and move towards adapting to the scenario.

Hero’s Journey

1.       Hero is in a zone of comfort

2.       They desire something

3.       They enter an unfamiliar situation-The hero finds hard times

4.       Adapt to the situation-The hero is revealed

5.       Get what they desired

6.       Pay a heavy price for it

7.       Return to comfort zone

8.       Realized they have changed.

 

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