How many times have you argued with a loved one and over-reacted in such a way that when the dust settled and the threat has diminished, the feelings of guilt and regret play heavily on your mind? You’ve just had a visit from your ego in its self-defensive survival mode; always ready to attack, defend and retaliate. Until I became aware of my ego, I thought I was showing early signs of madness because of this relentless ongoing conflict in my mind. When I understood how crippling it could be, I made a conscious effort to always be aware of what was going on in my thought process and emotions. I used the Breathe, Recalibrate and Deliver skill I learned in the Special Forces to help regain control. Just by rationalising and questioning my reaction for a few seconds I could determine if it was my ego at the driving seat or myself. The ability to pause for a second in the heat of battle is the key to dominating any enemy.
Sadly, our ego doesn’t go away, it’s an inherent part of what makes us human, but we do have a choice whether to engage with it or not. The more familiar you get with the symptoms of its arrival the closer you’ll become to your inner consciousness, your real self. Here’s a useful little checklist to identify when your ego has taken over.
10 SIGNS THAT YOUR EGO IS IN THE DRIVING SEAT
• You feel empowered by gossiping about other people’s flaws.
• A heated discussion turns into an argument because you can’t back down until you’ve won.
• You constantly judge others, when another is poorer, smaller, less fortunate than you.
• You feel threatened when someone is better at something, has more money than you, is more popular, better-looking, wealthier.
• You feel jealous when others do well, find it hard to congratulate them and feel threatened.
• You feel the need to talk about yourself when someone has been talking about themselves and their success.
• If you can’t win, you prefer not to be involved.
• When you don’t win a challenge you sulk, rather than be content that you’ve done your best.
• You set yourself impossible goals and beat yourself up when you don’t reach them.
• You blame failures on other people, it’s always someone else’s fault, and you are always right.
When you see people who have done remarkably well in life, you rarely find them acting out any of the above behaviours. They don’t need to brag, in fact they’re often loath to talk about themselves. They are curious about other people, humble and open to learning new things without feeling self-conscious. They’re also generous listeners and listen to understand rather than to be heard. People who keep their egos in check seem more at home with themselves, comfortable in their skin and happy to be in the moment. The ego must be balanced with judgement and mindfulness otherwise your thoughts will create feelings, which in turn create actions that are counterproductive. The ego’s a relationship killer, dream wrecker and is to blame for the downfall of many a great individual who lost their way because they started believing the hype in themselves and allowed their ego to bloat.
EXERCISE: EGO THE DIVA
Your first step toward inner consciousness is to start recognising that the ego is not you, and there is a quieter stillness within you that comes to the fore in moments when you become an observer of the ego or quieten its chatter through meditation. Start keeping a mental record of when the ego takes over. Think about what triggered this behaviour and how you could have acted in a nobler way. Most importantly be conscious. When you learn to recognise the ego you can stop it in its tracks and decide whether it is needed in the current situation or not at all. It’s the same for all emotions, which can at times be highly inflammatory.
Note down three occasions when your ego has flared up and taken over your rational self.
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Now think about each occasion according to the following questions:
What were the signs?
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How did you feel?
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Were you in control?
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What was the effect it had on the other person(s)?
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How did you feel afterwards when your ego had climbed back in its crib?
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Now, replay those three scenarios but this time without the ego. How would the impact/result be any different?
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THE SUBCONSCIOUS
Imagine an iceberg. We see perhaps 5 per cent of it poking above the surface, and the rest, about 95 per cent, is under water. Our brains are like icebergs, with 5 per cent – the bit you can see – representing our conscious mind, but the rest of its power – 95 per cent of it – lies hidden under the surface in the subconscious.
Using another metaphor, think of your subconscious like an underground storage facility (picture the vast warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark), where all your memories, experiences, fears, hopes, regrets and beliefs are carefully catalogued. The subconscious is not just a reference library, however, there’s also a vast garden above that will bloom into anything you want depending on the messages you feed it. The subconscious never sleeps. It works nights configuring dreams to solve puzzles and rehearse events you might be worrying about, and quietly goes about realising the thoughts you’ve been actively or passively posting to it throughout the day.
The subconscious helps us achieve our goals, and while you might think training it is about as easy as wrangling a mustang in pitch-black darkness, it’s more achievable than you think. If you’re unconsciously dreading an upcoming exam and picture yourself on the day staring emptily into space, lost for words, this is the message you’re inputting into your subconscious, your expectation, and it’s what it will act out for you, for the subconscious doesn’t know the difference between negatives and positives. But if, on the other hand, your intention is to be prepared, and you lucidly picture yourself answering the exam questions with ease, your subconscious will ensure you put in the requisite revision time and deliver exactly what you pictured.
By feeding the subconscious with the right key messages on a regular basis, visualising the outcomes we desire in a very precise way, we can impress our goals upon it so it actively helps us achieve them. Neglecting the subconscious is akin to leaving a toddler alone with a pair of scissors and a pot of super glue: it will create its own results, however disastrous.
The frontal cortex, where we do our immediate thinking, is the feeder to the subconscious, it’s where we do most of our initial planning and can handle around five to nine bits of information at a time, but this breaks down to one or two when in a pressured situation. Once you have an idea and an intention is set, time should be allowed for the subconscious to process and start to focus on achieving the goal.
The ego and the subconscious are vital parts of our psyche, but the trick is to make sure that you’re the one who’s in the driving seat. As soon as you let the ego take the wheel, you’ll soon find yourself subject to a sense of self-worth that’s based on what other people think about you, rather than one based on self-belief. And if you give your subconscious the right instructions, it will direct you where you want to go; but if you neglect it, you will soon find yourself somewhere you didn’t want to be.
CHAPTER 5
IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD
In this chapter we’ll look at the old grey matter, how it’s composed and how we can reshape it and fool it into action.
I spent a long time thinking about my life and how the machine works. A mechanic first has to understand the way the engine works in order to conduct a diagnosis, compile a fault report and subsequently fix the problem before it gets any worse. We are fixated on how we look and train our physical bodies to give the image of health and
happiness. However, the need to do this often stems from what’s going on in our brains. Looking good should be a by-product of feeling good and time spent understanding how the brain works will allow self-diagnosis, prevention and cure. The brain is the conduit to your happiness but also your sorrow. Learning to control this part of the machine will help you not only maintain a healthy mental balance but will also allow you to achieve exactly what you desire.
If you want to be Battle Ready, this is where it starts.
UNDERSTANDING THE BRAIN
The human brain is one of the most complex structures in the Universe. Home to 100 billion neurons, it can store more data – up to 1,000 terabytes! – than your average library.
In simple terms, there are three different brains that make up the whole. The Brain Stem, also known as the Reptilian Brain, is the oldest, and governs our breathing, heart rate, blood pressure and hunger as well as thirst, pain, smell, sleep, wakefulness and sexual urges. Responsible for our general survival, it is fuelled by fear – fear of failure, being alone, being left behind, being taken advantage of, financial difficulty, or not achieving goals. It shuts down the other two brains and takes control when it perceives we’re in danger, using fight-or-flight behaviour to get us out of trouble as quickly as possible.
The second brain is the Emotional Brain, also known as the limbic system or Mammalian Brain. Unlike reptiles, which lay their eggs then bugger off to eat, sleep or have sex, mammals look after their newborns, nurture and teach them, just as the mammalian part of our brain is driven by the need to care for others, build community and feel empathy. It wants to be empowered, to know that it is making a positive impact on the world. Love, anger, jealousy, happiness, hate, pride and all other higher emotions are felt here.
The third brain is called the Cortical Brain, or neo-cortex, and is responsible for rationality, planning ahead, memory, imagination and reining in our impulses. This is the most recently formed part of the brain and what makes us human. However, it is the oldest part, the Reptilian Brain that is boss, for our instinct for survival is paramount above all other considerations. The next strongest is the Emotional Brain and these first two work well together and form the subconscious. The Cortical Brain comes a poor third. Not surprisingly, the brain has been likened to an animal menagerie, home to a lizard, horse and human all trying to inhabit the same body.
NEUROPLASTICITY
As little as 25 years ago, neurologists believed that except for injuries sustained in accidents, the brain experienced no active changes after puberty. How wrong they were! ‘Neuroplasticity’ refers to the brain’s ability to restructure itself, creating new neural pathways and synapses to adapt to damage to the brain, and to new environments and when learning something new. If the left side of the brain, which controls speech, is damaged, the right side may pick up some of the slack to help. Imagine a narrow country lane that grows into a super-highway and you are getting close to the potential possibilities of creating new neural pathways.
‘Neurogenesis’ is the process whereby new neurons (brain cells) are grown as a result of quality sleep, regular exercise and sex. Other activities that promote neurogenesis include reading, playing a musical instrument, eating blueberries, and – you’ll be glad to hear – eating dark chocolate, as well as stimulating our mind through travel, learning a new language, and challenging our comfort zones. In other words, not just switching off and sleepwalking, but constantly arousing stimulation in our brains through careful consideration of what we put into our mind, body and gut. The human gut, where we experience those powerful instinctual feelings that often guide us, is home to more neurons than you’ll find in a cat’s brain!
Joe Dispenza in his book You Are The Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter asserts that 80 to 90 per cent of our thoughts are the same as those we had yesterday, making us hardwired to the past. In our biology, hormones, neurocircuitry and neurochemistry are informed by how we think, act and feel. Thought leads to action. Our thoughts invade us the moment we wake up, immediately veering to the negative as they focus on problems. Those problems are associated with people and places and attached to each is a corresponding feeling. As soon as we access this memory bank, the data of the past, we’re prone to repeat old thoughts, which then produce old feelings of anxiety and fear.
In his book Dispenza says:
Thoughts are the language of the brain and feelings the language of the body; how you think and feel creates your state of being. Your body is your unconscious mind and doesn’t know the difference between an experience in your life that creates an emotion, and an emotion that you can create by thought alone.
He goes on to say that if you are reliving the same emotions over and over again, you are limiting your thinking, you will become trapped in the past and you will be unable to see future possibility.
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In 1986, Joe Dispenza was riding his bike in the cycling stage of a triathlon when he was hit by a truck. He broke six vertebrae, which scattered bone fragments across his spinal cord. Doctors informed him he probably wouldn’t walk again. Rejecting their offer of a metal frame that would be grafted to his spine, he focused instead on one thought: ‘The power that made the body, heals the body.’ Then back at home, he set to work connecting with the innate intelligence within him that had created his body and started telling it what to do. For two hours a day he would picture his healed spine, visualising the vertebrae one-by-one, as healthy and strong. Within eleven weeks he was back in the office without any surgery or the aid of a back brace.
WE’RE AS YOUNG AS WE THINK WE ARE!
Journalist Anil Ananthaswamy reports on fascinating research that shows how important your mindset is in influencing the ageing process. In 1979, Ellen Langer, now a Harvard University psychology professor, invited two groups of elderly men to visit a New Hampshire monastery. One group lived inside a time capsule: everything about their week-long retreat was dialled back to reflect 1959. The other group was told to reminisce but given no specific instructions or stimulation from any era.
The control group showed no physical or biological differences. The men told to live like they did 20 years ago, however, ‘looked younger in the after-pictures.’ That’s not all. ‘When Langer studied the men after a week of such sensory and mindful immersion in the past, she found that their memory, vision, hearing, and even physical strength had improved,’ writes Ananthaswamy.
Langer never published her results. She didn’t have the funding to properly control the second group and didn’t want to release her data in a second-rate journal, but the experience never left her mind. Years later, she conducted a study on patients with Type 2 diabetes. Forty-six subjects played computer games for an hour and a half. They had to switch games every 15 minutes. One group had a properly working clock; one had a clock that kept time slowly; while the last group had a clock that was sped up. Langer wanted to know if their blood sugar levels would follow real or perceived time. Incredibly, perceived time won out. How each subject thought about time influenced the metabolic processes inside of their bodies.
Ananthaswamy writes that people between the ages of 40 and 80 tend to feel younger than their chronological age, while those in their twenties feel older. This makes sense, as Robert Sapolsky points out in Behave: after the age of 30 our metabolism slows down, which skews our perception of time. Time actually feels different. What’s amazing about the research above is we have a conscious decision in how we feel about that.
Florida State University College of Medicine psychologist and gerontologist Antonio Terracciano states subjective age is correlated with factors such as walking speed, lung capacity, grip strength, and bodily inflammation. As Langer’s work, among others, shows, it’s not necessarily the body influencing the mind. Your mindset about ageing has an equally important role in aging. Terracciano’s research has shown that this affects cognition: a belief in a higher subjective age correlates with cognitive impairments and even dementia, prompting this advice.
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If people think that because they are getting older they cannot do things, cut their social ties, or incorporate this negative view which limits their life, that can be really detrimental. While fighting those negative attitudes, challenging yourself, keeping an open mind, being engaged socially, can absolutely have a positive impact. So much can be revealed by how we talk about ourselves. How much emphasis do you place on numerical age? Do you believe age limits your physical and mental abilities? Is age an excuse for all the new things you don’t try? Do you spend more time reminiscing about what once was instead of planning on what’s to come? These questions are indicative of the mindset you have around age. And, as this research shows, will affect how you actually age.
A friend of mine was an author for Lonely Planet guidebooks when he developed Parkinson’s disease at the age of 40. He was fit, an ex-amateur boxer, and one of the publisher’s go-to writers for taking on rugged and sometimes dangerous countries that demanded a level of physical grit. With a young family to support, he tried to keep going at his usual pace, taking assignments one after the next, a schedule that would have been punishing for someone who wasn’t balancing an illness. His body began to slow down, he was running on empty. In despair, he had himself admitted to a double-blind placebo drug trial to assess the efficacy of an existing diabetes drug that was based on the saliva of a Gila monster; a Mexican lizard that eats only three times a year. Half of the participants in this trial would be taking the real drug, while the remainder would unknowingly be injecting themselves with nothing but water.
Battle Ready Page 6
