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The Rope: How Stress & Anxiety Steal You Away From the Moment of Change

The 3 Greatest Challenges to Personal Transformation,

and Designing Lasting Change (1/3)

June 22, 2022

There are 3 core problems with personal transformation, and designing lasting change... problems that all of us face, whether or not we're aware of them, and that Weightlessness specifically addresses with precision and speed.

Know thy challenges, dear readers, and the solutions will present themselves!

I'm breaking these up into a short series of 3 without heading into the solutions just yet, because they really are that important. And grasping their essence in a deep way is half the answer.

Problem the First - The Rope.

The rope is your trigger. It’s the first gate we have to unlock or nothing else works.

We’ve all had that experience. You saw that coiled rope on the ground and leapt, reacting as if it's a snake. Or perhaps its a funny looking fuzzy thing you take for a spider. Hell, just a few days ago I was jogging and as I passed a fence, a dog barked ferociously. I startled, and quickly realized he was secured behind a fence.

Things of this nature happen every day… multiple times a day, in less obvious scenarios. Some of which we’re aware of, most of which we’re not.

They’re ghosts in the system, lingering unconscious responses to triggers we haven’t fully processed.

The reason this is the rope problem, and not the tiger problem, is because tigers will indeed rip your face off. Ropes will not.

But in the time it takes you to recognize that, your biology has already triggered a cascade of physiological responses that narrow your vision, remove blood from your brain and gut, fuel your skeletal muscles, and charge you for battle… or to run to safety… or to freeze.

This happens chronically for most people in small doses throughout the day, and it cripples their ability to see clearly, think clearly, and make conscious choices in the interests of your higher self.

Stress.

To be clear, it isn’t the rope, the tiger, or the dog bark that matters here. These all betray a complex nervous system that, in times of stress, hijacks your higher, executive functions and generates an impulsive response based in conditioned self-preservation.

In instances where you’re being chased by a tiger, this biological response is a godsend. In instances that aren’t life or death - an argument with the spouse, impatience with a child, fear of speaking up - these responses cripple your ability to face challenges with all your intelligence and creativity.

This is why, all too frequently, we do that focused work on self improvement to overcome certain patterns of behavior or even to implement new skills, and when we’re presented with that same old, tired trigger, we revert back to prior coping strategies, seemingly unaware until the smoke clears.

How are YOU to adopt new patterns of thought and action if your biology steals you away from the moment of change?

The rope is a problem.

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Tom
Weightlessness | Mind Body Performance Coaching