Battle Ready

by Ollie Ollerton

  IT’S HOW WE FLIP A SITUATION THAT DEFINES US

  When life gets tough we have a choice, the experience can make us better or worse. Two thousand years ago, Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, then the most powerful man in the world, sagely said: ‘The impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way, becomes the way.’ In other words, the obstacles we encounter are where the personal growth is; losing our job, flunking exams, being cheated on, are all grist to the mill. Stoics believed we could steer ourselves through the worst situations by focusing on what was in our control rather than worrying about things that were beyond our ability to change. The Stoic Epictetus made a list of ‘Things within our control’, and ‘Things beyond our control’. In the latter he listed: job, parents, body, weather, economy, the past, the future, other people’s actions, the fact we’re going to die. And for ‘Things within our control’, he simply said ‘Our beliefs.’

  Many things that we think we can control, we actually can’t. You can strive like hell for that promotion and do everything in your power to make sure it happens but ultimately the final decision is out of your hands. You can take great care of your health and respect your body, but again you have no control over an illness that may suddenly befall it. That’s not to say you give in, the Stoics were a hardy bunch; rather what they were trying to say was no matter what situation we are in, we have a choice over how we react to it – our beliefs.

  We can’t control other people’s reactions to us and the flux of what life throws at us, but we do have dominion over the way we respond to its challenges; we can bend with the wind. Epictetus believed our disappointment and frustration in life arises from thinking we can control things that are beyond our control, rather than focusing on what is within our control. It’s a really useful way of thinking in a crisis: ‘Okay, so I can’t change this, but what am I in a position to do?’ The Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer sums it up neatly: ‘Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can change, and the wisdom to know the difference.’

  Aurelius maintained a diary to keep track of his moods and ingrain new trains of thought. It enabled him to see if he was being negative and also to map how successfully he counted his blessings and endeavoured to be positive. The idea of a journal which correlates sleep with mood, or what we’re eating, to how active we feel is a great way of getting to know ourselves better. Seneca a first-century Roman politician and stoic, noted: ‘Let us take note of what it is that particularly provokes us. . . Not all men are wounded in the same place; and so you ought to know what part of you is weak, so you can give it the most protection.’

  EXERCISE: WHAT’S WORTH WORRYING ABOUT AND WHAT YOU CAN’T CONTROL

  Write out a list of things that worry you and get you down; be it the state of the planet, the price of milk, your next-door neighbour’s dog, your best friend’s addiction, your lack of enthusiasm for your job. . . whatever it may be. It may be a long list.

  Now make a second list from the first, but this time only include the entries you can control.

  You’ll see that there are actually very few things you currently worry about that you can control – be it the current ruling political party, your company’s share-price dropping because of larger economic factors, possible traffic on the motorway, your boss’s lack of empathy, or whatever. By accepting that there are things you just can’t change, you start to let them go and immediately feel lighter. The one thing you have 100 per cent control of, the one person whose behaviour you can change, is you. Accept you can’t control others, forget about things that haven’t happened yet. When you reduce your list of worries you create more space for creativity and to focus on your priorities. This is essentially what being Battle Ready is all about – identifying the stuff that holds you back, dealing with it and getting on with your goals.

  GIVING

  When we park our ego and connect with our flow, our inner consciousness, something magical awakes in us. We stop thinking of ourselves and obsessions of what we need to make us happy and start to think of what benefit we can be to other people. Remember earlier I mentioned Viktor Frankl, whose book Man’s Search for Meaning follows his horrific experience in Auschwitz? Even in situations of utter degradation, the spirit of humanity often shone through and Frankl noticed that those who survived were not the physically strong, but those individuals who were more interested in helping others than just focusing on themselves as victims. They had a purpose, a ‘why’, and it stoked their internal fire by being able to give.

  When I started work for the Grey Man in South-east Asia, we infiltrated child-trafficking rings, saving many children destined for the sex trade. This was a major tipping point moment for me as I realised how much I loved helping others. Giving your time and effort to a cause greater than you, with no expectation of receiving anything back, is a wonderful feeling. I discovered I had a passion to help people lead happier, better lives using my own mistakes and the processes I put into play to turn them into positives. I almost feel selfish giving because what I get back outweighs what I put in. Society has encouraged us to become individuals rather than communities and somewhere along the line we’ve lost the value of putting others before ourselves. You only have to look at what is happening to our natural world to see an example of that selfishness.

  The more we operate from a place of kindness and consideration for others, the more connected we feel to life. And the way in which we give also reflects the way in which we receive. It seems like the two things are opposite; however they’re simply two sides of the same coin. Consider your response when somebody pays you a compliment. The chances are you feel embarrassed and have the urge to immediately reciprocate. This means you are struggling with the ability to receive and is a fundamental reason why you don’t receive more of the things you really want. Getting into a practice of accepting and appreciating when someone gives something to us feels alien and, at times, rude. Next time this happens to you, understand that you are not the focus of the act, that focus should be on the person who is giving you that compliment. It’s their moment, have some respect and don’t ruin it. And if you’re that one that’s giving, don’t allow recognition to be the purpose of the act. The fact is that the moment you are able to truly give and receive, your whole life opens up to abundance.

  CHAPTER 14

  RETURN TO KONG ISLAND

  ‘Soltara’ is derived from the Spanish verb soltar, meaning to let go or release, and this is exactly what they do at the Soltara Healing Center: empower guests to bridge the gap between mind, body and spirit, and to cut ties with self-limiting beliefs, negative programmes and long-buried childhood trauma. The ayahuasca ingredients required for the special ritual in which the drinker is transported to their inner spiritual world, is said to have been introduced to an Inca king by King Solomon many thousands of years ago. How the synergy was discovered between the two components which make the brew – Psychotropia viridis shrub and Basnisteriopsis caapi vine – is unknown, though the taking of ayahuasca is first written about by Jesuit priests in Iquitos, Peru, in the 1700s.

  The teacher plant shines an unremitting light of consciousness on the shadowed corners of our psyche, seeking out those hidden fractured fault lines in our subconscious that may have been troubling us for most of our lives. It doesn’t matter whether they are buried deeper than the Mariana Trench, it will find them. We can only release these troubled areas of ourselves once we understand them, and to achieve this we need to confront them first. Not an easy feat . . . returning to Kong Island to face my nemesis, I thought to myself.

  Fortunately, the Soltara Healing Center, with its highly skilled and compassionate Peruvian Shipibo healers and facilitators, is adept at taking you through this short-term discomfort for long-term gain: combining the plant medicine ceremony with supportive embodiment practices and a unique integration programme that enables you to take the knowledge and lessons learned during your ayahuasca visions and put
them into practice in your life back home. If I was going to brave the inner labyrinth of my troubled psyche, I couldn’t have been in better hands; the Soltara Healing Center had decades-worth of combined experience working at top-rated ayahuasca retreat centres in the Peruvian Amazon.

  We found the centre perched upon cliffs with uninterrupted views of the bottle-blue Gulf of Nicoya and backed by thick mountainous jungle, reminding me of an ex-drug cartel property. Ten veterans had come here for the treatment – Canadians, Americans, Australians and myself and Nicko – and we would join another eight civilians from all over the globe (mainly the US but a couple of people from the UK too).

  Outside, the crickets were sawing relentlessly as we gathered in an induction room and were introduced to the programme. Over the course of four nights we would take the ayahuasca drink and we should come with an expectation of what we wished to explore, though ‘la medecina’ (ayahuasca) would find its own path and give you what you needed, not what you wanted. Personally, I wanted to rid myself of the remains of my destructive behaviour, for though I had turned my life around I still feared the thought of finding myself back in the past. Like the chimp that haunted my psyche, I always felt as if my self-destructive behaviour was simmering just under the surface.

  Upon our arrival and induction, we were introduced to the team and told what to expect over the coming days: a mix of debriefing sessions, discussions and workshops on integration back into society post-course. The staff were amazingly professional and possessed a very calming nature that made us all feel extremely at ease with the prospect of the dark journey ahead.

  The first ceremony was called the vomitivo and took place the following morning, the day after our arrival. This technique, used by the Shipibo people to cleanse the body, stomach and intestinal tract prior to working with Ayahuasca, involves drinking many cups from a bowl of Herba Luisa (lemongrass) until the body naturally regurgitates it, or ‘purges’, to use the ceremonial term.

  Early evening, the nearby jungle in a riot of noise, we met in the sacred maloca; a candlelit circular building with a thatched roof and open sides that aerated the breeze. At its centre were mattresses for the curanderos (shamanic healers), who would help us on our spiritual journey with the aid of interpreters, and at its periphery were 18 mattresses for us participants. After we had lain there in silence for an hour or so, the healers filed in, female and male Peruvians with faces that looked like ancient Incas. One by one we were invited to the centre to meet them and be administered the medicine.

  Next, we were passed the ayahuasca drink – a darkly ominous brew – and told to hold it close to our lips, then close our eyes and state our intention. ‘I open my body and soul, please rid me of this destructive behaviour,’ I said quietly and drank it back. It tasted foul but I’d known far worse.

  Candles were blown out, leaving the maloca in complete darkness, the nearby jungle pulsing with the calls of its inhabitants. I thought I could pick out the sounds of tree frogs, cicadas and the distant rumblings of wild pigs. Just as I was getting impatient for something to happen, with bodies variously retching and crying around me, la medecina kicked into overdrive. I was outside the cage of my mind and I couldn’t get in. I sat up and opened my eyes but now I was in the cage and those bars keeping me prisoner had disappeared. The maloca was floating in the air like an Arabian carpet, I could even see underneath it, while the space around our narrow mattress, should we happen to fall out, was an infinite abyss. Geometric shapes started to form all around me, and I started reflecting on our humanity and what a pathetic bunch we choose to be at times, and how life can be so futile and pointless in respect of the things we get hung-up about and focus on. At the point when I thought this was the gateway to something more profound, the feelings subsided and left me in a state of confusion as to whether the medicine had worked at all, or whether it was just my overactive and creative mind in play.

  I felt disappointed by the first ceremony, I’d expected so much more; instead I came away thinking that ayahuasca came along to say hello, introduced herself to me and left.

  Ayahuasca, I’d read, induced terrifying visions, summoning long-buried trauma, releasing repressed emotions that could liberate its taker from dysfunctional behaviour and addiction; it gave you autobiographic visions, intuitive wisdom, the removal of psychological blockages through multiple perspectives; self-denials were exposed, your internal moral attitude was enhanced, there was a psychological restructure. That all sounded fine, better than fine. If even a quarter of that were to be true it would be life-changing. But so far, I was yet to be convinced.

  Come the second night I was offered an increased dose – initially, it’s important for the healers to gauge your tolerance to the drink so you’re not thrown prematurely into something you’re not mentally prepared for, if you could ever prepare for what lay waiting for you. Last night was an intended gentle take-off, but tonight’s increased dose took very little time to propel me into the spiritual firmament, and I was back in the floating maloca. Geometric shapes encompassed my vision with increased intensity and I knew that this time ayahuasca was there to stay; well, at least for a little while. The healers started singing their beautiful icaros (healing songs) as they circulated round the room, stopping at everybody’s bedside to draw out the badness from our bodies which they then spat into a bucket.

  Figures retched over buckets while some giggled, others in tears, coiled up like embryos.

  They say the curandero (Shipibo healer) can see in the dark, and that they can also see inside you. Listening to the female healer’s beautiful singing was like a beautiful luminous bird that flew through the darkness to each and every one of us, bringing with every high and guttural note of that merciful song, pure reassurance. Add to this the feral snorts and chattering voices of the jungle and crash of the nearby surf, it was a wildly vivid experience.

  SURRENDERING

  To really get the best of ayahuasca they said you had to submit to the journey and surrender to the plant; a word you’ll seldom find in most Special Forces soldiers’ vocabularies. For me, getting into a state of surrender was hideous as I fought against the medicine taking over my mind and body, but I knew the medicine couldn’t do its work while I was fighting against it. The ego plays such a massive part in the battle as it refuses to let go of its control over you.

  When I finally gave into it that second night, the journey started with reflections and observations about my life and my character. I had a reflection of how much time all of us spend on being the person that isn’t us, wasting precious energy on trying to project to others what we think we’re supposed to be . . . how happy we are, what a great time we’re having, how picture-perfect our life is. I saw us as lifeless mannequins dressed to perfection yet void of emotion and humanity.

  For me this falseness is amplified by the fact that on television I’m understandably stereotyped as a Special Forces soldier, but the disconnect between the perception of how I think and feel is so far from the reality. I’m just me, void of categorisation or label.

  This was a massive reflection for me. We put so much energy into that person we’re supposed to be, but it’s the person in the shadows that is the real you, the one with his head in his hands with despair and depression. A person who cries, shows pain and suffering as well as courage and bravery. But so long as we look good from the outside, that’s all that matters to us: living the Instagram lie. The result of trying to be this someone else we’ve put such energy into creating is that we become void of feeling, void of emotion. We are divorced from the real us and become a by-product of the ‘false’ us. We utterly rob ourselves. It was such a strong lesson.

  My second major reflection that night was about judgement and how hard we are on ourselves. We put so much pressure on ourselves by being judgemental and self-critical. When we are critical of others this is truly an inner reflection of our own self-critic.

  My thoughts then took me back to the circus and the chimpanzee th
at tried to kill me, aided by the vibrance and noise of the jungle. Over almost four decades since the incident, I’d never been able to muster a clear memory of the attack; I couldn’t even focus on it, it was too deeply buried. That single moment one sunny day at the circus, had savagely ripped away any precious memories I held of my childhood before the attack, tossing them in the bin like unwanted candyfloss. Ten years of my life gone, amputated. But sitting on the mattress, I now started thinking about my recollection of the story and the way I relate it at speaking events; for the story is always focused upon me and the act of violence I was subjected to. Always from my perspective. I’m very much the victim, which is one thing we as humans do well in directing our energy towards, especially when we have lost the upper hand.

  I was looking through the eyes of my ten-year-old self and could see the baby chimp at my feet. I cast my attention into the shadows from where the chimp had mounted its attack, waiting for the scenario to play out in ultra HD. But then a voice said, ‘What about the chimp?’ and my energy and focus immediately switched perspective. For the first time I saw the chimp from a completely different viewpoint. That poor animal had been chained up, and God knows, probably abused by its owners, and it was I who had entered the chimp’s arena, not the other way around. I was the invader, the interloper. She didn’t come hunting for me, she was just doing her thing, what she was supposed to do – defend her baby.