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- Apr 17, 2017
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Fascinating discussion, read the whole thread, had not seen it on the forum.
Each human life is different and unique in its own ways so the below just applies to my experience.
I've been going through this whole process of switching my mindset/view of life from a mostly "mental toughness" prism to of "Self-Empathy/Self-Healing", it is a lifelong effort I suspect. Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of the "mental toughness" folks have had significant childhood trauma such as myself(Goggins, Musk, S.Jobs, W. Buffet). I can listen to David Goggins/Jocko for hours and not get bored, their message resonates right down to my core essence/cells/brain. My trauma was not enough for whatever reason for me to start cutting on myself and other extreme stuff you hear about(I suspect this was due to cultural influences), but over time I have come to see other patterns in my behavior that had just as bad effects on myself/worse than if I had been cutting, it just wasn't visible and was socially acceptable(workaholism, academics, exercise, high performance, mental toughness, etc).
The problem for some as it was with me and I suspect it is with Goggins is that "mental toughness" is just an addiction to not dealing with the trauma and the very uncomfortable emotions that are deep within us due to that trauma(if you suffered childhood trauma, confronting it is one of the hardest but most rewarding things you will do in your life). Prior to my awakening there would be periods where I would exercise multiple times a day, long runs, weightlifting, killing it at my high paying job, mentor others, work with my kids, etc. Sounds great, right? You were killing it man, you were winning at life!
Wrong, if I was killing anything, it was myself/spirit, I now realize I was just keeping myself/mind(via heavy engineering work) busy/distracted and keeping the endorphins up(via exercise) in order not to fall into depression/face my internal demons. This is a valid strategy in that, it does help you survive and fits nicely with the expectations of high performance in the USA, heck it worked for me for a solid 22+ years before I even began to see cracks in it. I managed to climb from a financially dirt poor experience with my dad earning less than 14K a year in the 90s and me arriving in the USA at 7 years old from Mexico not knowing a lick of English and experiencing significant trauma at home/school/etc to graduating college with top grades/honors/recognitions and a high paying job by the time I was 22. Almost 100% of that was driven by "mental toughness/get hard", a great immigrant success story right?
Wrong, I was dead inside and didn't even know it(your mind/ego is that good at lying to you/creating a story for you). I have always been introspective so once the cracks in the foundation started to show up, I became interested and something inside me told me to follow those cracks and see where they led which ultimately brought me to "Self-Empathy/Self-Healing" which has been a multi year process but the biggest gift/awakening , I could not have imagined that such freedom was possible.
If y'all want to hear more about the awakening part let me know, it's a long road and I don't want to bore readers unnecessarily, but can share the rest of my story if it adds value.
Each human life is different and unique in its own ways so the below just applies to my experience.
I've been going through this whole process of switching my mindset/view of life from a mostly "mental toughness" prism to of "Self-Empathy/Self-Healing", it is a lifelong effort I suspect. Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of the "mental toughness" folks have had significant childhood trauma such as myself(Goggins, Musk, S.Jobs, W. Buffet). I can listen to David Goggins/Jocko for hours and not get bored, their message resonates right down to my core essence/cells/brain. My trauma was not enough for whatever reason for me to start cutting on myself and other extreme stuff you hear about(I suspect this was due to cultural influences), but over time I have come to see other patterns in my behavior that had just as bad effects on myself/worse than if I had been cutting, it just wasn't visible and was socially acceptable(workaholism, academics, exercise, high performance, mental toughness, etc).
The problem for some as it was with me and I suspect it is with Goggins is that "mental toughness" is just an addiction to not dealing with the trauma and the very uncomfortable emotions that are deep within us due to that trauma(if you suffered childhood trauma, confronting it is one of the hardest but most rewarding things you will do in your life). Prior to my awakening there would be periods where I would exercise multiple times a day, long runs, weightlifting, killing it at my high paying job, mentor others, work with my kids, etc. Sounds great, right? You were killing it man, you were winning at life!
Wrong, if I was killing anything, it was myself/spirit, I now realize I was just keeping myself/mind(via heavy engineering work) busy/distracted and keeping the endorphins up(via exercise) in order not to fall into depression/face my internal demons. This is a valid strategy in that, it does help you survive and fits nicely with the expectations of high performance in the USA, heck it worked for me for a solid 22+ years before I even began to see cracks in it. I managed to climb from a financially dirt poor experience with my dad earning less than 14K a year in the 90s and me arriving in the USA at 7 years old from Mexico not knowing a lick of English and experiencing significant trauma at home/school/etc to graduating college with top grades/honors/recognitions and a high paying job by the time I was 22. Almost 100% of that was driven by "mental toughness/get hard", a great immigrant success story right?
Wrong, I was dead inside and didn't even know it(your mind/ego is that good at lying to you/creating a story for you). I have always been introspective so once the cracks in the foundation started to show up, I became interested and something inside me told me to follow those cracks and see where they led which ultimately brought me to "Self-Empathy/Self-Healing" which has been a multi year process but the biggest gift/awakening , I could not have imagined that such freedom was possible.
If y'all want to hear more about the awakening part let me know, it's a long road and I don't want to bore readers unnecessarily, but can share the rest of my story if it adds value.
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