The Gentle Rebel Podcast

Are you spontaneous? Can you go with the flow when plans change or if something catches your attention and invites you to follow it? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we look at the characteristics of spontaneous people and explore how we might add more spontaneity into everyday life. This was the topic of our Haven Kota when we chatted about creating conditions for more spontaneous acts of gentle adventure and play. What is Spontaneity? “Spontaneity is enjoying the moment as it unfolds or experiencing something unexpected with open arms. Spontaneity is agile, adaptable, and responsive to new information. It is a willingness to go in a new direction at a moment’s notice. It is a creative burst of energy.” Ann C. Holm We might imagine spontaneous people as being constantly on the move. Highly energised and ready for an adventure at the drop of a hat. But it’s less about what we do and more about how we hold life’s invitations. Spontaneity is an active willingness and participation in the choice. As Holm writes, “it’s not completely without restraint. Someone spontaneous tends to take a quick inventory of the big picture before deciding to proceed.“ A spontaneous decision “occurs without external stimulus”, controlling or compelling it. Spontaneity is freedom from pressure and expectation. Spontaneous Rest Is rest a spontaneous option for you? Rest might not be an option, primarily when other demands compete for attention. As such, we often push ourselves to the point where rest is no longer chosen willingly. Finally, we are exhausted and have no choice but to stop. Spontaneous rest should be an option if we want to enjoy more sustainable rhythms and energising routines. Maybe it’s about flipping the compulsion to earn rest by doing a bit more first and saying instead, “I might do a little more after I’ve had a rest”. How often does the “more” feel less critical through a well-rested lens? The Spontaneous Story We Tell Ourselves We might close the door to spontaneous choices with the labels we use to understand ourselves. These can be helpful, but sometimes the story we tell ourselves about who we are can compel us to act in specific ways and diminish our preferences and desires. This might mean we hold ourselves back from accepting one of life’s spontaneous detours. Building Life on Spontaneous Foundations Spontaneity isn’t a demand to say yes to everything. It’s simply the willingness for yes to be an option. What if we could create the conditions for spontaneous growth in a meaningful direction? When connected to our core personal values, we have an inbuilt compass that guides our response to the inspiration around us. In addition, it gives us confidence in our intuition when filtering any opportunities and invitations that may appear. Impulsivity, Compulsiveness, and Spontaneity We all experience impulses. The urges, instincts, and gut feelings that prompt us to react. But what do we do with the impulse? Impulsivity = acting based on the urge (no second thought about implications or consequences) Compulsiveness = acting without thinking (a habit that “just happens”) Spontaneous = the choice to flow in a different direction (aware and accepting of potential implications/consequences) The Space Between Stimulus and Response Shops place items they know people will impulse buy next to the checkout. They want as little time as possible between the impulse and the purchase. Otherwise, the shopper might “think better of it”. The impulse is to pick up the item, and the second thought tells us to put it back. Spontaneity is the third thought, which is deciding whether to go with the first impulse and make something of it. Spontaneity and Gentle Rebellion When we hold the world with a spirit of gentle rebellion, we are open to possibilities outside of any compelling forces. It allows us to see the world through our eyes and make meaningful and intentional choices about the reality we are part of creating. In this sense, gentle rebellion is a spontaneous spirit. It is open to new routes and approaches. It is creativity in action. Of course, there is no guarantee that things will work out for the best, but the decision is made despite that, not ignorant of it. Impulsive Goals The world oozes urgency and impulsiveness. It wants us to act without thinking and think without acting. If we are driven by the injunction constantly to grow, pursue success, and find happiness without knowing what those things mean for us, our goals can become traps. They take us where we wouldn’t choose to go if we stopped to think about it. So instead, we follow the crowd, buy another tool, and sign up for the program that promises to solve our problems. When our decisions are based on fear, we act impulsively, not spontaneously. Sometimes the spontaneous thing to do is nothing. To slow down, wait, and allow the fear to pass through. Spontaneous Acts of Kindness Our impulses often point in a good direction. For example, we might be urged to say something encouraging or do something nice for someone. The instinct to connect and empathise is very natural. But our second thoughts can derail the process. It always seems strange that we are surprised by acts of kindness. They seem like moments that successfully get through the defences. We talk ourselves out of doing the good thing that initially occurred to us. Maybe we convince ourselves that we would be bothering the other person, we might be afraid of what people would think of us, or we might overthink and overcomplicate a simple gesture. Spontaneity is the third thought. It returns to the original impulse and decides to flow with it. Trying Not to Try In his book, Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity, Edward Slingerland cites cognitive science research that points to spontaneity as a source of trust in our social bonds. We are drawn to spontaneous people because it makes them more trustworthy and less calculating, cold, and robotic. Spontaneity Grows in the Gaps “We over-structure our lives and plan too much…Most people don’t have any gaps in their day to play.” Edward Slingerland We might think of spontaneity as making the most of every day. But this can be another trap, especially when we feel pressured to say yes to every invitation and opportunity. Fear of missing out is the opposite of a spontaneous spirit. It’s a coerced, not a willing yes. It is always left wanting, always grasping for more. How To Practice Being More Spontaneous Spontaneity is a muscle we can grow with the right environment around us. Time with other people can be a platform for spontaneous happenings. It happens when we nurture space for boredom (gaps in the day). The door opens when we exchange the question “what can this do for me?” with “what could I do with this?“. Creative spontaneity explodes into life when we embrace mistakes as happy accident gateways to magical new worlds. An Unexpected Detour I finish the episode with a narrative soundscape meditation. It came from a reflection on the theme of adventure. I imagined it growing from a tiny delicate seed—a quiet invitation on the regular route home that we meet with openness and a soft yes. What could this make possible? https://www.youtube.com/embed/5PNMFHKNY4A

Confidence grows when we feel safe to fail and make mistakes. Sports people typically attribute confidence to believing they can beat anyone. So I was surprised when an England cricketer linked the team’s recent historic success to their willingness to lose games. The England test cricket team has been playing a completely different brand of cricket. It’s expansive, exciting, and “fearless“. As a result, it comes across as extremely confident. But is that confidence built on what they can expect to happen when they fail instead of simply believing they can beat everyone? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I explore the idea that confidence (and excellence) can be grown in unlikely places when people, things, cultures, and processes make it feel safe to mess up. The Three Little Pigs Do you remember the story of the Three Little Pigs? It’s a perfect tale to help us consider different sources of confidence in everyday life. Confidence And The Desired Outcome We often think about confidence in broad and general terms. When we do this, very few of us would not wish we had more of it, making us susceptible to products and services advertised with a promise of helping us become more confident and self-assured in life. As such, we will always come up short again. So it’s far better to consider our confidence in particular situations, environments, and projects. The three pigs had an objective. They needed to build strong, resilient houses that withstand adverse winter weather and keep the big bad wolf at bay. Misplaced Confidence The first little pig wanted to build his house as quickly as possible so he could play. He had confidence that there was nothing to worry about. The second little pig wanted to build a better house but was distracted when he saw his brother playing. He had confidence that if there weren’t any storms or wolves, things would probably be okay. The third little pig wanted to build a house that he could trust. He had confidence that if he did the job properly, his home would protect him from the weather and the wolf. Confidence is The Safety to Fail The third little pig creates a safe environment. WHEN the winter weather hits and WHEN the wolf comes knocking, he knows he can rely on the house he’s built to keep him safe from what would otherwise be harmful. The environment that the current English cricket leadership have built is similar. Rather than saying, “we won’t lose”, like the first two pigs, they have created an infrastructure around the safety TO lose. Safety is a source of confidence. It means you’re free to focus on what matters more than worrying about what happens when things go wrong. Good Leaders Show It’s Safe To Fail We are often so afraid of failure that we try to deny its inevitability. However, in many industries, if you’re not failing, you’re not succeeding. Failure is a by-product of taking risks. If you work in intelligence, innovation, or any industry that makes predictions, if you’re not getting things wrong, you’re not taking the necessary risks to get things right. Certainty is only possible when it’s too late. The best leaders show us that it’s safe to fail. Not to encourage sloppiness but to reassure us that it will be OK on the other side. So we have the freedom and confidence to grow without fear when it feels safe to fail. Playing It Safe Is a Failure of Safety We protect ourselves, keep things small, and avoid waste when we play things safe. This is NOT the kind of safety we need. But playing BECAUSE things are safe is a different matter. It’s underpinned by the assurance that: “We will figure out what to do if it goes wrong.” The safety of making mistakes isn’t the elimination of accountability for them. Our failure doesn’t become someone else’s problem to clean up. But we are given a clear sense of process and support to be confident if things go wrong. We might need to go and have some difficult conversations and fix whatever broke. But we know that the consequences are not fatal. We will not be exiled, thrown out, or banished from the social order. And a good leader makes taking responsibility for failure more attractive than keeping it secret. Bringing vs Burying Failure Just because the implications of mistakes can be bad, it doesn’t stop them from occurring. Wherever uncertainty exists, so too does the possibility of human error. And there will be less-than-perfect solutions where humans must make judgement calls. If we are told that “whatever we do, we must not fail”, then we have to hide it when we do. So we hide, cover up, blame, dig deeper holes, and worsen the problems. Healthy cultures bring failure early and know that when they do, it will get worked out…rewarding ownership and responsibility – met, not with passivity, but with action. A safe leader doesn’t just abandon or disown someone who makes a mistake; they use it as an opportunity for growth. Taking responsibility feels more rewarding, secure, and attractive than covering up or pretending it didn’t happen. What Happens When We Run Out? Our relationship with the idea of scarcity can affect our confidence. If we’ve been taught to fear squandering and wasting resources and opportunities, our focus can be consumed by a feeling of scarcity. This can be a source of anxiety about running out, losing out, or missing out. As a result, we might become miserly, hoard, and resent others. Confidence is grounded in assurance that even if “there’s no more once that’s all gone”, we will still be fundamentally okay. This gives us a platform to build sustainability into our relationship with life. Fear of Being Misunderstood (Bad Faith Is Unsafe) We can lose confidence when we fear the consequences of our words and actions, especially when we can’t be sure how they will be received and interpreted. This happens through “bad faith” when we filter what we hear through a desire to confirm something we want to hear. It takes courage and bravery to speak up despite being misunderstood. They may or may not be consciously aware they do it, but people make it their mission to misunderstand others. They receive and interpret the actions and words of other people with bad faith. In The Courage to Be Disliked, Kishimi and Koga write about Adler’s definition of freedom, which isn’t the absence of something undesirable but the acceptance and willingness to face it. This is the fundamental principle behind having the courage to be disliked. We will be disliked by someone whether we like it or not. It’s a trap to dedicate ourselves to trying to be liked. Likewise, confidence can grow when we accept that we will be disliked, misunderstood, and interpreted in bad faith. Or, like the England cricket team, freedom is being willing to lose. This kind of freedom is a deep source of strength and confidence. It liberates us from the games people play and from fear of what might happen if we don’t play correctly. The Team Makes It Safe To Fail, The Crowd Not So Much The crowd is not a source of confidence. On the contrary, it’s fundamentally unsafe and volatile. It can turn on you without warning. But the team is an environment we can control with a clear and unified vision. And while you may lose your place in the group when better players come along or you reach the end of your career, you will forever be a character in its story—part of the history. No one can take that away. Confidence comes from accepting that no one individual is bigger than the team. No one will be here forever. It’s nothing personal. It’s just life. But you are forever written into the story of this thing. Arrogance (“Over-Confidence”) is a Lack of True Confidence Confidence is built on the safety of failing, whereas arrogance is built on fear of failure. Therefore, an arrogant person has been taught to believe that failure is not an option because it’s about them as a person. It is intrinsically linked to their value and worth as a human. We can recognise the difference between confidence and arrogance in others by understanding how they leave us feeling. When you spend time with a confident person, you feel positive about yourself. Conversely, when you spend time with an arrogant person, you have lower self-esteem and self-worth. Confidence lifts us; arrogance presses us down. Arrogance rolls its eyes when you make a mistake. Their judgement is a distracting thorn, reminding you that failure is not okay. On the other hand, confidence shoots a reassuring look that tells you it’s safe to give it a go, reminding you that whatever happens, you are fundamentally okay. Safety To Fail And The Road To Excellence Arrogance nurtures average. It is afraid of failure because it’s unsafe to make mistakes. If we are so scared to fail, we play it safe. We protect ourselves, blame others, and hold back from taking the necessary risks for the rewards we want. Conversely, when we encourage failure and get more comfortable and better at it, we pave the way towards excellence. This safety can’t be nurtured alone, though. It’s hard, if not impossible, to think yourself confident. But we CAN gradually build confidence as we recognise where this kind of safety to fail comes from. We can start to surround ourselves with people, things, approaches, processes, and stories that show us that it’s safe to fail. Hunting For Confidence (A Courtyard Workshop) Most of us would like a bit more confidence at times. But what does it mean to be confident? We often think of it as a feeling in itself. We hear people talk about “faking it ’til you make it” and the power of self-talk and mindset to help us feel more confident. And while these can be useful to consider, they are only a tiny part of the big picture because confidence is usually a by-product of other feelings. When we think we want to feel confident, we might be saying we want to feel safe and be able to trust in something or someone outside us. In other words, we are confident when our need for security, acceptance, belonging, connection, authenticity etc., are met. We talk to people in confidence (assured that they won’t tell others what we say), and we place our confidence in leaders (assured that they will work in the interests of their followers). We put confidence in objects, resources, and tools (assured that the car will get us from where we are to where we want to go). In this workshop, we build on this idea in practical ways. It’s a chance to think about an area of life you want to feel confident in and look at it through different lenses of confidence. You will end up with simple ways to build confidence in your situation or project.

“If you’re not grimacing every time you look at old work, then you aren’t growing.” I was haunted by this tweet from 2021. It suggests that you don’t grow without grimacing at old work. It made me uncomfortable. Because it was true? Or because it was potentially damaging to anyone who gets stuck believing it? Yes. I decided that I needed to put the icky feeling to use. So I’m using it as inspiration for an exploratory journey into creative growth and self-compassion. Because I don’t want to live in a world where people grimace every time they look at their “old work”. That sounds like hell. So in this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I want to explore how we might enjoy, rather than belittle, the bravery that gave rise to “old work”. We will think about the difference between casting and using judgement to develop, mature and grow as people and in our creativity. And open up space for healthy foundational growth that doesn’t follow a one-dimensional linear path. Creative Growth WITHOUT Grimace When I internalise this grimace, it’s not just about my relationship with my old work. It’s about how I hold myself and other people. It’s about how I relate to EVERYTHING. So, for example, if I was doing the best I could and still grimace when I look back at it, what am I doing with other people who are doing the best they can where they are? What sort of world does this approach create in the long run? Grimace-Growth is Imbalanced It’s tough to grow from a healthy foundation when we feel the grimace looking at us. It evokes shame, embarrassment, and humiliation. It can leave us in a spirit of urgency and desperation. What Does Creative Growth Look Like? In The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han writes about the rate of acceleration in the world and what is happening to a culture that erodes “intervals, betweens, and interruptions”, replacing them with restlessness, hyperactivity and mental exhaustion. Positivisation pedals the idea that action makes us free, yet we see it doing the opposite. In the name of “growth” and “progress”, we are becoming automatic performance machines rather than subjective beings with the power “not to do”. Growth isn’t endless. It hits limits all the time. We reach a point where we won’t get taller, our capacity for physical strength peaks, and our hair gets thin. How do you know you’re moving in the right direction? What does it mean to keep growing as people? Is this a trap that separates us from ourselves? There Are Different Grimaces Not all grimaces are the same. The same facial expression can communicate different aspects of personal and creative growth. The “Last Big Push” Grimace: a facial contortion that shows you put every ounce of energy into striving towards the end (e.g. getting down the home stretch and over the finish line). The “Something’s Wrong” Grimace: reacting to a disturbance in the anticipated flow (e.g. a wrong note, weird flash, bad smell, or strange taste). The “I Couldn’t Do That” Grimace: a reaction to seeing someone do something scary or out of reach and imagining yourself doing it yourself (e.g. the idea of public speaking). The “Embarrassed For You” Grimace: cringing at something someone else has done – perhaps a relatable failure (“I know the feeling, and I’m glad it’s you, not me”) or a judgement (“what were you thinking!?”) The “Wish I was You” Grimace: seeing someone in a position you wish you were in and being unable to hide envy or resentment. The “Wish I Wasn’t Me” Grimace: seeing yourself through a critical lens and feeling embarrassed (e.g. looking at old work and cringing). Using vs Casting Judgement There is a difference between using and casting judgement. We USE judgement through critical thinking. It helps us assess how well something matches specific criteria, standards, or expectations. “Judges” use this when weighing or scoring. We CAST judgement when we assess something or someone without a measurable framework. Those we might think of as “judgemental” have something to say about everything and everyone, holding them to an unknowable set of standards. When building a healthy relationship with ourselves, it’s helpful to recognise the difference between using and casting judgement. We might be like a judge who scores the dancer zero simply because they didn’t take a shine to them. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t help us grow because it gives us nothing of use to help us raise our standards. There is nothing we can do to improve. Judgement as Shame (“I should be better”) Casting judgement is a gateway to shame because it separates the criticism from anything concrete. It can mean that no matter what we do we will never feel good enough. This story is internalised through the judgemental grimace that we are compelled to view all old work with. Shame leads to perfectionism and an inability to let go for fear of what people will think of us (not the work). Creative growth is only possible through being brave and letting go. But letting go gets more challenging when we know people are judging us. The irony of the tweet is that it makes us painfully aware of this kind of judgement. Yet it’s coming from within. In other words, if you’re grimacing every time you look at old work, you’re making it hard to grow. Judgement of Project (“this could be improved”) Rather than judging at the level of being, we can view ourselves as separate from our projects. It starts by separating our self-worth from our personal and creative projects. We might look at a relationship, a creative project, a business, a work situation etc. and use judgement to say, “this isn’t working as I’d like it to” we can take an objective look at it and say, “what can I do to help improve it?” rather than “why am I such an idiot?” The sense that “this could be improved” has criteria attached. We know what we are improving and where we are taking that process. If we can’t define improvement, we are casting judgement rather than using it. If we don’t know what “better”, “successful”, and “growing” means, we are setting ourselves up to fail from the start. Judgement of Opportunities and Desires We can use judgement to make decisions in service of the bigger picture. For example, we can use criteria that make it easier to say no to the opportunity or request rather than the person behind it. Our measures provide a filter that we can respond through. Sensitive people can find it hard to say no. It might feel like a rejection of the other person. So this is a helpful way to respond to requests that don’t fit our plans. We can use questions to probe more deeply if we’re unsure whether something is a good fit for us. This is a great way to uncover awareness about what we want more of in life. I talk about this in more depth in the episode. Using Feelings of Inferiority We read The Courage To Be Disliked in The Haven Book Club. The book unpacks the difference between feelings of inferiority and inferiority complexes. And it describes the pursuit of superiority as something positive and healthy. Feelings of inferiority underpin desire, through which we enjoy what we don’t have (the journey/process). Desire gives life meaning because it allows us to see where we are and consider how we can improve and grow in ourselves and the world around us. This pursuit of superiority is not striving to be better than others. But we desire to grow, improve, and advance our situation. It is not a linear pathway either. It’s relative, and we can only define it for ourselves. How can we hold and relate to our past (including old work, choices, experiences etc.) compassionately and gracefully? Can we integrate and absorb rather than separate and disown? How can who I was, be both in the past and the present without it defining or limiting me? How can it be a chapter in the story that I can hold, not with critical judgement, but with joy, laughter, and humour? Superiority Complex is an Inferiority Complex A complex grows when we hold our feelings of inferiority and pursuit of superiority within a competitive frame. In other words, we allow our self-concept to be influenced and defined by comparison with others. As a result, we are either in the shadow of others or trying to overshadow them. The book uses an example of harbouring an inferiority complex about education, where we might think we can’t succeed because we’re not well educated. This is also a superiority complex because it implies that if we were well educated, we would be better than we are. A complex places us as the victim of the conditions in the world around us. It’s perpetually disempowering. Victim Mindset The book says, “if we ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture, the logical answer would be the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated.’ The baby rules over the adults with his weakness. And because of this weakness, no one can control him.” This mentality is one of superiority because it rejects the connection. Instead of seeking to hear and empathise, the person declares, “you can’t understand what it’s like to be me”. And while “completely understanding the feelings of the person who is suffering is something that no one is capable of”, we might encounter people who define themselves that way, making it impossible to connect and relate. Demands For The External World To Change When we say “you wouldn’t understand”, we are shutting the door to the kind of connection that creates change. Instead, we enjoy the story we can use to separate us from others and maintain the status quo. Willing Others To Fail This mindset might turn our attention and energy towards willing others to fail. Rather than pursuing superiority on our journey, we might become preoccupied with what the other person is doing and determined to beat them. Replace The Disowning Grimace Self-worth cannot be earned. It can only be realised when we replace the grimace with internal acceptance, grace, and compassion. This requires us to reject the grimace and greet our old work with a more generous spirit. Make Peace With Past Efforts (Equal But Not The Same) How might we make peace with past efforts? We don’t need to scoff, belittle, and disown those moments in the story. What if we can celebrate the bravery and enjoy how far we’ve come together?

Where is the self when no one is thinking about it?That was the central thread running through my conversation with Chris Niebauer, PhD, who is the author of No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology is Catching Up To Buddhism., and it’s a question that especially resonates for highly sensitive people who often experience the world — and themselves — very intensely. When we stop thinking, who remains? Chris suggests that many of life’s challenges are tied to the self-concept — the story we tell ourselves about who we are. But what if the sense of self is just that — a story, built from names, labels, and categories? https://youtu.be/J22W86vegaE Thinking With a Both/And Approach For highly sensitive people, the tension between self-concept and deeper awareness can be particularly pronounced. The goal isn’t to reject one side of ourselves or the other. Rather, it’s to embrace the dance between the left and right brain — between analysis and mystery, structure and flow. Integration, not division, leads to a richer experience of life. Split-Brain Research and Investigating Two Sides of the Mind Split-brain research, which studies individuals whose corpus callosum has been severed, provides striking insights into how our minds process reality. It shows that the brain’s two hemispheres handle the world differently. The left hemisphere is typically logical, analytical, and language-based. The right hemisphere leans towards intuition, creativity, and holistic understanding. Chris recommends The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist for anyone wishing to explore this in depth. Tools of The Thinking Interpreter Within the left brain lies an inner interpreter, tirelessly weaving stories to make sense of self in the world. These categorical identities — the athlete, the artist, the caregiver — help us function but can also limit us if we mistake them for our true self. Highly sensitive people often feel the sting of this more acutely, as emotional experiences become tied to rigid self-concepts. The right brain, on the other hand, remains deeply comfortable with uncertainty. It knows that the true self is fluid, mysterious, and impossible to fully capture in thought. Who is Left When Things Change? If our identity is built on labels or achievements, what happens when circumstances shift? Thinking, for all its brilliance, is not the totality of being. It is a tool for navigating the world — one that must be used wisely. Without awareness, we risk being used by the mind, becoming trapped in stories that no longer serve us. For highly sensitive people, recognising this can be liberating. Thinking Through the Past, Future, and Present The left brain draws from the past to shape the future. This ability can empower growth but also fuel anxiety and regret. The right brain is present, flowing only in the now. It doesn’t chase outcomes; it dwells in being. If the left brain designs the tools, the right brain uses them with artistry. For highly sensitive people, cultivating right-brain presence may ease the intensity of rumination and perfectionism. How to Engage the Right Brain Without Over-thinking It We often believe we are thinking all the time, but moments of right-brain flow are far more common than we realise. Chris suggests a simple exercise: place reminders around your home or workspace asking, “Was I just thinking?” When we catch ourselves in non-thinking moments, we realise that presence isn’t something we must earn. It is always available — waiting for our awareness to tune in. You Can’t Force The Right Brain to Play With Left Brain Thinking Trying too hard to “find flow” is itself a left-brain tactic. True flow happens when we stop striving. Driving while singing to the radio. Walking without urgency. Creating without measurement. Highly sensitive people, who may overanalyse experiences, can benefit from recognising that playfulness isn’t something to master. It is something to remember. Don’t Confuse the Symbol for the Thing Language, a left-brain marvel, enables civilisation. But it also traps us into mistaking words for reality. Painful labels (“failure,” “burden,” “too sensitive”) only have power if we believe the symbol equals the thing. True freedom comes when we see language for what it is: a tool, not the territory. Embracing Non-Dualism in a Binary World The world feels divided — good and bad, success and failure, self and other. But non-dualistic traditions remind us that separateness is an illusion. For highly sensitive people, this perspective can soothe the sharpness of emotional highs and lows. The right brain invites us to live in mystery, where opposites coexist and categorisation is optional. Thinking of Life as an Escape Room Chris likens life to an escape room. Consciousness has “lost itself” in stories, but clues to the deeper truth are everywhere — in silence, in emptiness, in the moments we forget to strive. We are not broken. We are explorers, moving through different rooms of experience, collecting pieces of understanding along the way. Most of Everything is Nothing Try to conceptualise space or eternity. You can’t. The left brain cannot fully grasp the infinite or the void. Form and emptiness exist together. Without space, objects would collapse into a point. Without absence, presence would have no meaning. Learning to honour the unseen — the gaps, the silences — reconnects highly sensitive people to a more balanced relationship with existence. The Joy of Bad Days We often wish others “a good day,” as if good days are the only worthwhile ones. Yet meaning often arises from challenge. Losing something, struggling with uncertainty, facing difficulty — these moments heighten our appreciation when ease returns. Bad days are not failures. They are part of the dance. Memory, Meaning, and The Constant Self The mind spins the story of a single, coherent self. Yet the reality is far more fluid. We shift roles throughout a single day — the helper, the thinker, the dreamer, the doer. There is no single, solid self. What remains constant is our awareness. This insight is deeply relevant for highly sensitive people who may feel destabilised by identity changes. Beneath all of it, there is a steady witness. Playing With The Sense of Self in Story When we loosen our grip on self-identities, a playful spirit emerges. We can enjoy stories without mistaking them for absolute truth. Chris reminds us: suffering often arises not from stories themselves, but from holding them too seriously. Playfulness invites freedom. Mind 2.0 (Human Creativity and Artificial Intelligence) As artificial intelligence surpasses human strategic thinking, we must reimagine what it means to be human. Our deepest value may lie not in thinking better, but in feeling, intuiting, creating, and experiencing the mystery beyond computation. Highly sensitive people, who naturally tune into subtlety and complexity, are uniquely positioned to lead this exploration into the realms AI cannot touch. Highly Sensitive People and the Sense of Self Chris’s reflections offer a profound invitation: to live beyond rigid self-stories, to honour mystery over mastery, and to embrace being over constant striving. For highly sensitive people seeking meaning, balance, and connection, the journey home lies not in becoming something, but in remembering what was never absent. Music Inspired By The Conversation After I finished speaking to Chris, I recorded the piece of music that ends the episode. It is inspired by the emptiness seen in images produced by AI. It feels mournful to me. The lack of any sense of self or subjective being. https://youtu.be/NmbqEI59iUk

It isn’t easy to keep up with the pace of life. It can feel like time is running away, and there’s always more to do than we can manage. So it’s no wonder many people are trying to figure out how to slow it all down. But what does slowing down mean? What do we want to let go of? And how do we make these changes in a world that expects more and more from us? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I want to go beneath the surface and explore some of the profound benefits of slowing down. Slow Consumption in a World Of Instant Knowledge This topic is on my mind as I plan the next Haven Book Club. We are reading The Courage to Be Disliked, to which we will dedicate the next four months. What will slowing down make possible? How much more will we see, explore, and experience by not rushing? What will greet us in the gaps between the sessions and the vast depths as we reflect and process the ideas, and our conversations about them, over time? It’s reassuring to know that we could quickly acquire an overview of a book’s core concepts if we had to. So what if tools like Blinkest, StoryShorts, and Snapreads allow us to take our time with the books we want to read instead? To mine the depths for the kind of wisdom and mindful insights that don’t come from knowledge hoarding. These valuable tools can reinforce and support our goal of slowing down. But only if we choose to approach them that way. If we only ingest bitesize nugget versions of books, we might struggle to open space for the inner conversations that lead to self-awareness and intentional growth. Slowing Down and Control Slowing down can help us let go of the need for control. It’s about understanding that growth starts with roots that emerge from seeds planted in the dark. These are processes beneath and beyond our field of vision. Not an easy thing to do in a world that likes quick and visible results. What’s The Point of Personal Productivity? I spent a lot of time, money and thought on productivity tools and time management techniques. I would hand hours over to designing my “ideal week” and perfect processes to deal with emails, social media, and my morning routine. But invariably, the more I focussed on being productive, the more overwhelmed I felt. This “productivity trap” is where we end up using productivity to free time to do more. It seems obvious, but it doesn’t feel like it when we’re stuck in that mode of thought, where we tell ourselves that with the right formula, technique, or process, we will finally have all the time in the world for the important stuff. This is accompanied by that dreaded feeling that we should be doing more. Because there is always more to do, even if we optimise our routine and clear our schedule, “more” will slip in. If these productivity techniques are not helping us do what we’re already doing but slower, they are probably not helping us. Rather than asking, “what do I want more time to do?” maybe we could ask, “what do I want to be able to do more slowly if I choose to?” We can use that as a starting point from which to design the foundations of our life. How Does Slowing Down Reduce Stress? I had some fun with ChatGPT recently. It’s a fascinating (slightly terrifying) tool that I believe might be able to inadvertently reconnect us with our humanity. Recognising where we have given ourselves to machine-like actions and behaviours and reconnecting with the creative play that makes us who we are. I thought I’d ask how slowing down reduces stress. It told me that slowing down can help reduce stress in a few different ways: Slowing down allows you to break from everyday demands and pressures It can help you gain perspective and prioritise your tasks Slowing down helps you become more present – getting caught up in your thoughts and worries about the future is easy when rushing through life It can help you cultivate healthy habits – allowing you to engage in activities that promote relaxation and well-being Nothing particularly groundbreaking in that response. Perhaps a reminder that we know why slowing down is a good thing to do. What Would Help Me Slow Down in Life? I got a bit more practical with my questions. Could ChatGPT shed any light on HOW to slow down? Apparently so. But aren’t they things we’ve heard a million times before? It said that are many things I can try to help me slow down, including: Set limits on your commitments. Try to be more selective about what you take on, and say no to things that don’t align with your values or that you don’t have the time or energy for. Practice mindfulness. This means paying attention to the present moment and your surroundings rather than getting caught up in your thoughts or worries about the past or future. You can try mindfulness meditation or focus on your breath and surroundings for a few minutes each day. Take breaks throughout the day to rest and recharge. This could be as simple as taking a few deep breaths or walking outside. Prioritise self-care by engaging in activities that promote relaxation and well-being, such as exercising, spending time in nature, or doing something you enjoy. Schedule time for activities that bring you joy and help you relax, such as reading, spending time with friends and family, or pursuing a hobby. Find ways to streamline and simplify your daily routine, such as decluttering your space or creating a to-do list to stay organised. Instead of rushing through tasks, try to be more mindful and present as you go about your day. This can help you feel calmer and more focused. There’s a pattern emerging. It sounds right, but I’m not sure it helps us get to the root. The great thing about ChatGPT is that it gives us a rundown of what doesn’t need to be repeated. So what are we missing if these points have been made enough times for chatbots to regurgitate them with such familiar sentiments? Why are we still trying to figure out how to slow down? Perception of Pace How we perceive time is quite a weird thing. I remember when I first performed with a drum machine (pre-programmed sampler). Even though it was set at the same tempo as the original song, it felt slow when playing live. The world slows down when we are in a heightened state of alertness. But our ability to connect with what’s happening around us can be impacted. It might be helpful to consider the role stress plays in our relationship with time, focus, and attention. Are we seeing, hearing, and feeling things as they are, or does reality conform to what we expect and anticipate? What Do We Want When We Seek a Slower Life? What sits beneath our desire to slow life down? Where do we feel things slipping away? What causes us to rush? Why is slowing down one of those things we know we want but struggle to do? Slowing Down Our Important Tasks Maybe we are caught in the habit of rushing, where we speed through everything without any apparent reason. We might have learned to fill our lives with busy work because slowness is the worst thing. It means laziness, lacking ambition, wasting time and taking up valuable space. There are a lot of value judgements and stories of worth associated with the pace we bring to life. And many ways we shape our lives so that we might avoid the critical and judgemental voice from having a go at us. Perhaps we have a lot to do, so we cannot spend much time on the things that matter. Maybe life feels like a to-do list, and we’ve got to get from one thing to the next. Everything is essential; everything is urgent. So the solution we are after is not necessarily slowing down but doing less, outsourcing responsibility, or getting help. If we focus on slowing down but still have the same number of things on the to-do list, we increase the amount of strain and stress on our plate. The Risk of Rushing We might associate speed with value. Fast things are good things. But what about rushing? If you’ve ever tried to do something in a rush, you’ve probably experienced the ironic delay from needing to tidy up mistakes, misunderstandings, and spillages. Sometimes rushing can get us where we don’t want to go more quickly. Speed as a Tool Learning to slow down isn’t about rejecting a faster pace. It’s about learning to choose it when it’s necessary. Speed changes are a tool we can pull out of the box when life requires it. Why Do Time Management Tools Make Us Busier? There’s a strange paradox at work in time management. The more efficient we get, the busier we become. As we’ve already looked at, the tools we use to eradicate stress become sources of stress. Enjoyment is Not The Destination Not having the things we want is where we find enjoyment—it’s all about the journey towards the thing that makes the thing itself meaningful. Hipsters know this (even if they’re not necessarily aware of why). It’s why they spend an hour brewing a cup of coffee when they could do it in five minutes. It’s why vinyl rose in popularity as music became instantly accessible through streaming platforms. Where Do We Get to Slow Down Now? The more we solve the problems we think we have, the less true enjoyment we have access to. What would you like to enjoy more in this way? Slowness is a Beautiful Waste of Time We are spending four months on one book. How does that sound to you? What might it make possible? Does that seem like a waste of time? Or a rich, deep, and expansive experience? Do you think of fast as good and slow as bad? Do you think slowing down is uncomfortable when there’s so much to do, see, and experience? How do you stop and find peace when there’s more to do, see, and experience? Why I Call Myself a Slow Coach Slowcoach is a bit of an insult. It describes someone moving or acting slowly. But that’s why my inner rebel thought it was a perfect way to describe my coaching approach. A high-speed train might get us to where we want to go faster, but a slowcoach allows space for adventure, sensory awareness, and spontaneity on the way. Making time for slowness (if we want to choose it) allows space for depth. Slow coaching isn’t about forcing slowness but letting it when desired. Without the sense that by slowing down, we are making everything else more stressful. What do I want time to do more slowly if I choose? What Would You Like To Waste Your Time On? When we go slower, we can explore more. We might see more. We might hear more. Slowing down allows us to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel more of what is around us. It helps us listen to what is being said, not what we anticipate is being said. We only notice what we already understand if we skim a book. We will overlook new concepts if our brains don’t recognise the patterns and we don’t give ourselves time to learn. It’s the same if we listen to audio or watch a video at high-speed. This can be a helpful tool if needed. Time wasted can give rise to valuable memories, enjoyable experiences, and creative breakthroughs. What do you want to waste time on today? What would happen if you chose to slow down and truly listen, play, create, watch, and enjoy? Where is the space FOR that more meaningful stuff?

You don’t need me to tell you we live in divided times. This is especially true when it comes to beliefs, ideas, and opinions about how things should be. Grappling with these personal differences can be exhausting. For highly sensitive people (HSPs), it can feel even heavier to handle conflict in this way. Our nervous systems are wired for collaboration, co-regulation, and meaningful connection — not for endless debates and ideological warfare. When I spoke with Konrad Benjamin, former host of Ideas Digest, I was struck by how he models a different way of connecting across disagreement. His podcast explored finding common ground between people with radically different worldviews. Rather than challenging others purely for the sake of winning arguments, Konrad embodies curiosity, humility, and deep attentiveness — qualities that are vital for highly sensitive people who want to handle conflict more effectively. https://youtu.be/dkW4mqzww4I Why Bother Engaging with Disagreement? Truthfully, you don’t have to engage in every difficult conversation. Protecting your energy is essential. However, simply avoiding difficult topics doesn’t make them disappear. Often, the ideas we suppress or dismiss resurface with even greater intensity. If you’re wondering how highly sensitive people can handle conflict without becoming overwhelmed, the answer lies in cultivating inner serenity. In The Haven, we explore how highly sensitive people can create an inside-out state of calm, approaching life with curiosity rather than fear. Serenity acknowledges that the way we think, feel, and connect shapes our experience of the world. Rather than seeing the world as a battleground of competing truths, we begin to understand it as a web of perceptions, shaped by personal experience. In this light, the goal of engaging with others — even those we disagree with — is not to win, but to connect. True connection becomes possible when we move beyond “I’m right, you’re wrong” into “We see different aspects of the same reality.” It’s not about conceding your values; it’s about expanding your view of what it means to be human. How Highly Sensitive People Can Handle Conflict More Peacefully For highly sensitive people, conflict often feels personal. It’s not just a clash of opinions — it’s a perceived threat to the relationships that regulate and nourish us. A raised voice or dismissive comment can trigger a flood of emotional overwhelm. Modern culture, with its emphasis on debates and dominance, rarely acknowledges how deep these wounds can run. Yet learning how highly sensitive people can handle conflict without shutting down is not about building walls. As Konrad demonstrated through his conversations, we can approach conflict differently. We can seek to understand rather than to defeat. We can listen for the needs and experiences behind ideas, even when those ideas feel challenging or alien. This approach doesn’t require agreement, but it does require a willingness to remain present and open-hearted. Approaching Differences with Serenity Handling tension with grace as a highly sensitive person often starts by examining the assumptions we bring into conversation. Konrad offered several that deeply resonated: People are doing their best.Assuming others act from their own context and history helps soften the instinct to judge. Compassion becomes more natural when we understand that everyone’s view is shaped by lived experience. Minds rarely change under pressure.Accepting that you are unlikely to change someone’s mind in a single conversation frees you from the exhausting need to argue. Instead, you can focus on understanding and building connection. It’s not about us.Disagreement is rarely a personal attack. By stepping back from the need to defend ourselves, we allow space for genuine listening — and for deeper relationships to form. Learning how highly sensitive people can handle conflict involves shifting from reactive patterns to conscious, compassionate engagement. Mental Resilience Without Hardness Konrad’s reflections highlight an important shift: resilience doesn’t mean rigidity. A brittle mind clings to certainty and shatters when challenged. But resilience for highly sensitive people is tensile, not tense. It’s the ability to hold multiple perspectives without losing our sense of self. Developing this flexibility is crucial for how highly sensitive people can handle conflict. It is like exercising a mental muscle that strengthens our ability to listen, reflect, and let go of the urge to be right. With time, what initially felt threatening can become an invitation to grow and adapt. As Adam Grant wisely notes, “If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.” Gentleness as Strength Living with high sensitivity gives us a unique opportunity: to model a different way of engaging with the world. A way that honours nuance, welcomes difference, and values connection above dominance. Konrad’s approach illustrates what it looks like to practice “firm back, soft front” gentleness. Boundaries protect our integrity, but a soft front keeps us connected to our humanity — and to the humanity of others. This practice allows us to engage deeply without becoming defensive, to listen without absorbing others’ projections, and to disagree without severing connection. For anyone searching to understand how highly sensitive people can handle conflict meaningfully, the path lies not in avoidance but in curiosity, connection, and emotional flexibility. When we allow this space for nuance, we contribute to a culture of peace and creativity, where ideas can be explored collaboratively rather than wielded as weapons. For highly sensitive people, this mindset shift is a doorway to freedom and autonomy — and vital to fostering a world that values empathy, harmony, and the possibility of change.

Serenity is not a destination we are trying to reach. If we can’t find it here, we are unlikely to find it “there”. Are you waiting for the noise to quieten and the disruption to pass? Are you hoping for some time, energy, and permission to finally focus on the stuff that matters to you? Or enough thinking space to eventually FIGURE OUT what that stuff is. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we explore our relationship with the concept of serenity. We ask whether it’s a destination to reach or something a little closer to home. And if it isn’t a destination, how can we create and nurture more of it in everyday life, so we engage with the here and now rather than always waiting for the next storm to pass? If we can’t find it now, we won’t find it then. If we can’t find it here, we won’t find it there. The Arrival Fallacy of a Calm and Peaceful Life “Arrival fallacy is this illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reah our destination, we will reach lasting happiness.” Dr Tal Ben-Shahar What Is Serenity? In a Haven Kota gathering, we discussed the idea of serenity not being a destination. We started with what serenity is (and isn’t). Serenity Gives Us Options It was suggested that Coco Chanel wore a hat at home when people visited to pretend she was on her way out, just in case she wanted an excuse to escape. Was this a source of serenity? Or did being poised and ready to run reflect a state of unpeaceful alertness and discontent? Serenity is Safety Serenity grows when we feel safe. But is feeling safe the same as feeling protected? Why does this difference matter? Serenity is Flow It’s the inner flow of creativity, where we are drawn to what interests us, not what we should do to fit in or be accepted. Serenity is Surrender In many ways, serenity is the absence of pursuit. So if we search for it, it disappears. It’s a sense of peace in the present. It’s about HOW we go, do, and be, rather than WHERE we go, WHAT we do, and WHO we are. Serenity is Acceptance Disturbances are inevitable in life. Serenity allows space for an authentic reaction to the noise. While simultaneously holding space to pick from an ever-expanding library of potential responses we have chosen to build. Serenity is an Inner Home Like a home that comes with us wherever we go, it’s something we grow, nurture, and reinforce within ourselves. It’s built from the inside out with acceptance, connection, meaning, creativity (a spirit of expansion and possibility), and playfulness (inviting the time to stop and engage unproductively). Serenity is The Calm After a Storm Serenity is that feeling afterwards when everything is out. The emotions can be named, held, and let go. The clouds can disperse and dissipate. Serenity is not just the calm after the storm; it’s surrender to the storm itself. It knows that to process life, sometimes a storm needs to happen. The Difference Between Serenity and Tranquility Serenity helps peace flow from the inside to the outside. Tranquility aims to invite peace from the outside to the inside. This distinction matters because there is always something we can consider on one side of the equation, even when there’s nothing we can do about it on the other. Serene People are a Source of Confidence Serene people contribute to our tranquility. When we spend time with people with a lot of inside-out serenity, we get infected. It’s attractive and safe for us to develop and nurture our inner serenity. We tend to reflect the energy we encounter in the people we spend time with. We might inadvertently absorb their values, beliefs, and priorities. When you know they are there, you feel confident that you will find a way through even if something unexpected happens. Can you think of someone who adds to the tranquility of your life? Serenity IS Connection At its core, I think serenity is about being connected. It’s a sense of connection with ourselves, others, and meaning. Obstacles to Inner Connection There might be sources of noise from the outside world, but there can also be inner noise. This is the internal feedback loop that we can’t shake off from overthinking, judgements, and second-guessing. Self-empathy allows us to observe within and become aware of our thoughts and feelings so we might recognise what we need. It’s a pause. A break in the flow of life to consider what might be alive in us at any given moment. Do You Get The Feeling You’re Being Watched? Inner noise also comes from seeing ourselves through the eyes of others…or we believe we are being watched. The presence of that other person suddenly influences our actions. Whether we thrive off attention or avoid it at all costs, this noise can stimulate or sabotage our ability to think and perform. Connect With Meaning In his book Finding Meaning, David Kessler builds on the Five Stages of Grief, adding a sixth, Meaning, which draws from Viktor Frankl’s work in Man’s Search for Meaning. Kessler suggests that there is an experience of post-traumatic connection that occurs when we integrate loss into our story of being. We can apply this to anything that doesn’t turn out as we would choose. Things that radically change our reality and events that shift the trajectory of our lives. Eventually, we will connect the dots between what we’ve been through and where we are going next. Man’s Search For Meaning Viktor Frankl was taken by the idea that even in the most unbearable circumstances, people can find a reason to keep going. He noticed that there is something that sustains us. Something that keeps us moving, even under the horrors he endured and observed in Nazi death camps during the Second World War. Our decisions, our will to survive, and our desire to grow, develop, and learn becomes rooted in something meaningful. Even if we can’t consciously describe it. Connection With Other People Serenity is the safe connection with others. Are we unconditionally valued in our important relationships? Are we still accepted, even if we do or say something a bit stupid? True Connection is Not a Transaction A genuine connection is not transactional. It’s not pay off and trade-off, where we say, “do this for me, and I’ll do that for you”. Serenity is surrender, shaped around letting go. It’s about allowing the flow to happen even when we can’t control or predict it. Serenity isn’t certainty. It’s being ok with uncertainty. Serenity isn’t having enough. It’s peace with the fact you will never have enough. Serenity isn’t balancing. It’s allowing life to be lopsided. Practising Serenity We are not looking for a destination. It’s not about perfection. We aren’t seeking guarantees, certainties, and promised results. The practices related to serenity are personal. They are about surrender, observation, awareness, and response-ability. Serenity is about allowing ourselves space and permission to notice what we notice. Practise The Art of Noticing We practise serenity when we pause to notice what’s alive in the world around us. When we look up and allow ourselves to be here now. No judgement, just acceptance and a spirit of play, exploration, and curiosity. It’s about seeing where the mind wanders, what we see there, and what we notice about the metaphorical thorn we’ve caught our sleeve on. Take an Alternative View Play with alternative ways of doing, thinking, and responding. We can gently scrutinise assumptions, actions, and choices. This helps us know whether or not they’re still helpful for us. Serenity is about being at peace with the choices we make. This requires us to live from a place of intention rather than drift. Accept and Invite Play Serenity grows in the space we make for play and spontaneity. Sometimes play might beckon us in. Do we shut the door and walk away? Maybe we dismiss it by saying, “yes, I should do more of that kind of thing…one day”. Or do we surrender to it and say, “OK, it looks like this is happening now; let’s see where this leads”? The screenshot from the spontaneous playtime in The Haven co-work session I mentioned in the episode Share What You Notice Serenity emerges when we have an outlet to share the stuff that makes us weird. We encounter, observe, and hold the world in unique ways. We experience serenity through the safety of sharing what we notice. This often starts within us. It is a muscle we can train. So that even when other people look at us blankly, we can enjoy the weird and wonderful perspective we have on the world. We can learn to stop taking differences as insults and embrace them instead.

A cornerstone is a core around which everything else takes its shape. It’s the primary reference point, which determines the position and character of the structure around it. Anything can become a proverbial cornerstone. It’s a source of meaning and purpose. A simple core to which we choose to commit our time, energy, and attention. We all shape life around cornerstones. But we might not be intentionally aware of what they are. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we will use this image and think about ways to apply it to our lives. A Cornerstone For Change A Haven Courtyard workshop I did with Brandon Bennett inspired this episode. Someone Brandon worked with shared the idea of setting a cornerstone for change. He had chosen “cooking” as his theme at the start of the new year. Brandon’s friend committed to cooking meals from scratch once or twice a week, which he hadn’t really done before. Beyond the cooking itself, this commitment became a cornerstone of change across various areas of life. For example, it impacted his relationships, health, creativity, confidence, and business. A Lot Can Change In A Year People overestimate what can be done in one day and underestimate what can be done in a month. By committing to do one small thing regularly, we can change the trajectory of everything over time. Cooking one or two new meals each week adds up. Showing up between fifty and a hundred times over a year, the impact gradually takes root. Skills, experiences, understanding, stories, and opportunities are all contingent aspects of living with a simple cornerstone. So rather than prioritising everything, we can trust that the other important stuff will begin to take shape around the cornerstone. Our Inner Vocabulary Brandon talked about how he became aware that some words were not helpful. For example, rather than thinking about new habits as “challenges”, he approaches change with a spirit of “experimentation” and “play”. This is not about the words themselves. But instead, it’s about how to engage with what the terms represent. In this respect, a cornerstone is a point of freedom and expansion. It’s not a burden, like a proverbial millstone around the neck instead. Experimenting and Play For example, when it comes to identifying a cornerstone, if a particular word feels heavy, pressurised, or like a strain on your nervous system, we can find one that doesn’t. It’s incredible how often we attach weighty words to our desire for positive change in life. The Problem With Chains and Streaks For me, the millstone can appear in the pursuit of chains and streaks. If I see success as doing something every day, the need to keep the streak going can become more important than the underlying change. Balancing and Sequencing Likewise, the word “balance” can feel unduly weighty. It seems like a noble and positive state of being, but it’s an impossible quest. If by balance, we mean we want to hold everything equally and evenly, we are setting ourselves up to fail. Because we can never achieve perfect balance. When we live it, life by nature is unbalancing and destabilising. We might think of life as a sequence of events instead. So we try to figure out the best order to pursue our most important desires. But there is always more to do. Another destination to aim for. And like with our effort to balance all our responsibilities, dreams, and aspirations, it gets overwhelming when we hold them up to the capacity of time, energy, and ability. The Best Time To Plant a Tree You may have heard the Chinese proverb, “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today”. It is frustrating to wish we had already begun work on something we want to create or change. It has also been noted that “people overestimate what can be done in one day and underestimate what can be done in a month.” We might lose heart and give up when we don’t see quick results. We put off planting the tree because its growth seems so gradual and far off that it’s impossible to appreciate its value. Many of us might say… “But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?” Yes . . . the same age you will be if you don’t.” – Julia Cameron It can be hard to connect with the value of getting started or continuing something that doesn’t give us an instant sense of gratification. But in twenty years, the present will be twenty years ago and imagine what might change between now and then. And that’s the point. The stuff that unfolds along the way. Every tree we plant makes a difference gradually and immediately. It feeds into the soil and alters the landscape around different parts of our lives, blossoming and fruiting in new ways. The tree grows during those years. It creates meaning and a sense of satisfaction as we go. This is what makes for an effective cornerstone. It’s something around which the ecosystem of life takes shape. Life as a Separate Entity There are three parts to any relationship. There is me, there is you, and there is the relationship itself. What IS the relationship? What is its purpose? Do we share expectations? What does it require from each of us? What do we need from IT? It’s the same for families, businesses, communities, bands, and just about anything you can imagine where people need to rub along together. It can help to view life itself as the thing we are shaping and creating rather than the thing we are. It’s something we contribute to, build, and invest in. When it doesn’t go to plan, it’s not because we are a failure. It’s just that something didn’t work in the way we hoped. If our life feels like a mess, we can step back and figure out how to clean it up. We can find a cornerstone to shape our lives by nurturing a sense of depersonalised distance. Life As Serenity Island This is part of what drove me as I built The Return to Serenity Island course. By imagining our life as an island, we can see it as separate from us in this sense. It’s somewhere we get to hang out, nurture, grow, plant trees, and dig for treasure. This helps us see the part we play in life. We can know that we are not in complete control of everything, but we can impact many aspects of it. By viewing the different areas of life as parts of this island, we can imagine how they affect one another. We get to play on the landscape of our life. To experiment, to explore, to dream. But It’s Deeper and Stronger Having an intentional cornerstone is like a root. Its growth can be challenging to see because a lot of it happens underground. It’s not flashy or grand. But it enables everything else to grow out of and around it. Focusing on fewer things makes deeper, broader, and more meaningful progress over time. But this doesn’t come easily. There is always a temptation to get bogged down in details and busy work. And this can have a halting influence in the long run as we spread ourselves thinly. Maintaining momentum is impossible when you try to move in multiple directions at once. A Cornerstone of Cascading Change The cornerstone is a site of normality that gives rise to a gradual and gentle cascading flow. When something has been around for a while (e.g. a family, business, social circle, sports arena, theatre etc.), it collects stories of memorable moments—some of these become legends that stand the test of time. But these tales are not the result of force. They are the product of spontaneous happenings. A magical evening, a funny series of events, or an experience that came out of nowhere. Something that just happened one day. These stories might make us believe that these venues are where the magic always occurs. But they are told precisely because they are NOT typical. They are outliers—exceptional situations. The legends are a result of normality being stretched from time to time. The cornerstone (the place, practice, or event) is ordinary. Still, because of rhythm, focus, repetition etc., we find the conditions for all possibilities to occur from time to time. How To Identify Your Cornerstone Every passing moment is an opportunity to pause, breathe, and recommit to our role in creating life. In the episode, I briefly explore Brandon’s prompts. The practical part of the workshop was divided into four parts that helped us look back at the past year and think forwards to the coming one. Part One – What are your creations for the past 12 months? This is an interestingly worded question. I found it more helpful than accomplishments or achievements. But I’d encourage you to think about it in your own words once you get to what it’s asking. Part Two – What are you letting go of this year? What HAVE you let go of? What are you looking to let go of? How has letting go been part of those creations for the past 12 months? Maybe there are things you’ve done or been part of that show you’ve let go of something – a mindset, attitude, or fear. You might not have thought about it like that until now. Maybe it’s an idea, a person, a hope, a struggle, a belief, an expectation, an old pattern of behaviour etc. Part Three – What would you like to continue? It’s tempting to view the things we want to stop and the things we want to start. But there are tracks already in place that are good. What are they? Particular commitments, relationships, habits, practices, approaches, processes, routines or aspects of routines, and so on. Part Four – What would you like to start? It’s important to do this without judgement or editing. Just allow anything that bubbles up to flow onto the paper. What would you like to start doing next? Making Sense Of Our Cornerstone If these questions are useful to you, I’d love to encourage you to use these prompts to consider your own cornerstone for change over the coming months. If you find it hard to do this alone, I invite you to talk to Brandon or me if you wish for a more focused conversation. Find Brandon through his website here

“Nobody really owns anything. We give back our bodies at the end of our lives. We own our thoughts, but everything else is just borrowed.” – Deborah Ellis (From No Ordinary Day) In one of our Haven Kota gatherings, we discussed self-belonging through the lens of ownership and possession. Where do control and entitlement fit with belonging? What does it mean for things to belong to us? How does it feel to belong to something or someone else? Why are some belongings more cherished and valuable than others? How do we hold ourselves, others, the world, our lives, goals, and relationships? Do we own them? What would it mean to give life back at the end? How much do our desires, emotions, and passions own us? What does it mean to be pre-possessed or owned by something? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we explore what it means to see ourselves, our lives, and the world in the light of these questions. What if they are all borrowed? You Can’t Take it With You I regularly heard the phrase, “you can’t take it with you”, during my years as an undertaker. It is often expressed about the accumulation of material possessions and wealth. For some, it was a reason to spend without regret. For others, it was a reason to give without fear. But whatever the ramifications, its underlying premise is universal…whatever we collect, gather, and possess in life doesn’t come with us when we’re done with it. Everything is borrowed. Earning The Respect to Borrow How do you feel about lending things to other people? Would you happily give your stuff to anyone, or does trust need to be built first? How do you feel about things you borrow? Do you treat them with more or less respect than things you own? It might depend. Living On Borrowed Time We talk about “living on borrowed time” after a severe diagnosis or near-death experience. It’s what we might say when confronted with our mortality. But is this time any different from our experience of time…all the time? In the episode, I share a story from childhood, when we were lent a games console by our hairdresser. I still have no idea why (I developed a solid theory while recording). But I remember the feeling when we were told we only had a few days before we needed to return it. I became focused and clear on the only thing that mattered: completing Sonic The Hedgehog. How is our mindset and approach to life affected by the reminder that everything is borrowed? Steal Like an Artist In his book, Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon suggests that there is no such thing as a truly unique or original idea when it comes to creativity and art. I agree wholeheartedly, though I might not describe the process as “stealing”. Kleon writes, “how does an artist look at the world? First, you figure out what’s worth stealing; then you move on to the next thing. That’s about all there is to it.” The Difference Between Borrowing and Theft There seems to be a difference between stealing, borrowing, owning, holding, using, collaborating, sharing, contributing, remixing, and plagiarising. We might describe stealing as deliberately depriving the rightful owner of their property. What Kleon describes is more like “honouring, studying, finding inspiration in, crediting, transforming, remixing, building on, and collaborating with”. He helpfully suggests that “bad theft”, or what we might simply describe as “theft”, is “degrading, skimming, plagiarising, ripping off”. We could add exploiting, taking credit for, and passing off as one’s own. They might all mean the same thing, but you get the point! The Burden of Originality “If we’re free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running away from it.” Austin Kleon On the one hand, we might feel like we need to be completely original. Whereas on the flip side, we might think we must fit in to be accepted. But if we’re free from the burden of trying to belong, we can stop trying to diminish ourselves on the altar of fashion and embrace who we are instead of running away from it. It’s about locating a more authentic expression of OURSELVES. We belong somewhere in the middle. In the messy nuance and grey ambiguity. We are this and that, we are borrowing and we are borrowed. We can’t take it with us, but we can carry it further along the road. It reminds me of that old Greek Proverb: “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” Not only do we give life back, but we pass it on. Someone else is coming to stay in the holiday home after our vacation ends. Do we act with bitterness and resentment in the face of that inevitable change? Or do we have the grace to operate from a heart of kindness, gentleness, and compassion towards those we will never meet? We Belong To Something Bigger “When we identify with something larger than ourselves, whether our family, a circle of friends, a team or a community, that becomes part of who we are. There is so much more to us than just a separate self; our connected self is based on recognizing that we are part of many larger circles…It is from our connected selves that much of what people most value in life emerges, including love, friendship, loyalty, trust, relationship, belonging, purpose, gratitude, spirituality, mutual aid, and meaning.” Macy and Johnstone (Active Hope) Our connected self isn’t just individual selves coming together as a sum of parts. It’s who we all become as a whole. It’s how the collective shapes us and how we shape the collective. The whole is different from the sum of its parts. Remove the elements, and the Collective and each separate piece become fundamentally different. We Are Borrowing a Greater Story Than a Hero’s Journey Our story is not a hero’s journey. It’s a collective flow of becoming. We belong to it, and it belongs to us. It flows into, through, and beyond each individual. It’s universal and particular. But it is about more than any single person. The story didn’t start with us; it didn’t stop with us. We are simply borrowing the pen and writing what we can before passing the page onto the next person. The World Likes Possession “Rather than viewing ourselves as a fixed thing with characteristics that can’t be changed, we can think of ourselves as a flow of becoming. The static view of self is similar to a picture hanging on a wall, something that is set in a particular way and that resists transformation. Whenever we have thoughts like “I’m not the sort of person who …,” we’re painting a similarly static picture of ourselves. An alternative view is to think of each moment as similar to a frame in a movie. If something isn’t in the frame right now, that doesn’t mean it won’t be later. This perspective invites a greater sense of possibility.” Macy and Johnstone (Active Hope) Do you make decisions based on a static or dynamic view of your self? This flow of becoming is beautiful to invite into our understanding of who we are. To change “I’m not the sort of person who does that” to “I could be someone who tries that”. When we tether our identity this way, we restrict and limit ourselves and one another. People Like Us vs People Like Them We often hold other people to our expectations of “people like that”. Maybe we are controlled by the labels and identities ascribed to us by society. These ideas can own and possess us, defining how we think, feel, and act. Rather than helping us better understand ourselves, they can alienate us from our deeper feelings, needs, and desires. This is fundamentally about how we are (and feel) held. How do other people hold us? Including the idea of what it might mean to be us. What expectations do they have of us? How do those expectations influence what we do? And do we conform to the role of a character in a story that we don’t belong to and doesn’t belong to us? Don’t Leave Your Longings Unattended “Don’t worry about unity from piece to piece – what unifies all of your work is the fact that you made it” Austin Kleon I often talk about the non-linearity of growth and time and how change occurs in spirals, cycles, and seasons rather than on a continuum. That’s what I like about this quote. We are taught to look at the present moment and decide whether things fit together. This is the worst possible position to view that stuff from. Steve Jobs famously said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” You Can’t Connect Dots Forwards We let go of important things because they “don’t fit” with what we think life is supposed to be. We lose essential parts of ourselves. They are left to grow weeds, get rotten like old wet wood, and become almost impossible to access. But these longings are always calling faintly within. And it’s never too late to return to them in some way. Kleon says, “You can cut off a couple of passions and only focus on one, but after a while, you’ll start to feel phantom limb pain.” If life is borrowed and we can’t take it with us, what do we want to do before giving it back? Which joys, passions, hobbies, relationships, and itches do we want to explore before the big librarian in the sky asks for them back? Collective Consciousness and A Borrowed Moment “Something very interesting occurs when a group of jazz musicians improvise together. A number of separate individuals, all making their own decisions, act together as a whole. As the music flows, any of the musicians can take the solo spot, that leading role gliding seamlessly between the players. Who decides when the piano or trumpet player should come forward? It isn’t just the person playing that instrument, for the others have already stepped back just a little to create an opening. Two levels of thinking are happening at the same time here: choices are made from moment to moment both by the group as a whole and by the individuals within it.” Macy and Johnstone (Active Hope) Connected consciousness is a unique type of consciousness. We are more than the sum of our parts. I’ve played music in that kind of ensemble where there are no words and no active communication, but it happens. It ebbs, flows, and goes where it needs to go through the openings made by accident, by collective agreement in conjunction with the feel and the sound. Everything is Borrowed (Us Included) “You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” Austin Kleon Giving Thanks For What We’ve Borrowed At the beginning of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius spends time thanking people who have formed his character. He gives gratitude to the sources of his virtues. He presents a mix of genetic characteristics, socialised attributes, and role models he actively chose. This is something we can all do. Recognise our strengths, not as our own, but as borrowed from others. Who did we learn this from? What gave us this capacity? How did we end up with it? New Does Not Mean Better “My interest in making music has been to create something that does not exist that I would like to listen to. I wanted to hear music that had not yet happened, by putting together things that suggested a new thing which did not yet exist.” Brian Eno How does this extend to the rest of our lives? To create an experience, a relationship, a home, a family, a business, a hobby, a routine, a neighbourhood etc. We put together things that are there but which, combined together, do not yet exist. How do we want our life to look when we give it back?

“Blessed are the weird people: poets, misfits, writers, mystics, painters, and troubadours, for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.” – Jacob Nordby In my six years as an undertaker, I was always struck by the ordinary weirdness of human beings. Eulogies are filled with memories of mundane idiosyncrasies, quirks, and funny habits. These are things we treasure and miss about people. Weirdness is par for the course of humanity. We are all weird in our own way. And yet we learn to fight those parts of ourselves that don’t fit the mould. We hide them, judge them, and crush them. In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown defines belonging as “the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us”. She says, “because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging but often barriers to it.” And then later, in Braving The Wilderness, she described “the quest for true belonging” as underpinned by our “courage to stand alone”. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we ask how we might nurture the courage to embrace and express our normally weird selves in life. What Makes Us Ordinary is What Also Makes Us Weird Ordinary weirdness is not something that can be forced. It’s how we express our experience of life as the proverbial elephant. The Parable of The Blind Men and The Elephant You may know the story of the six blind men who wanted to figure out the form of an elephant. One man felt its trunk and believed the elephant was a thick snake. Another found the ear and compared it to a fan. The third felt the elephant’s leg and imagined it like a tree trunk. The fourth man felt the creature’s side and likened it to a wall. Another man felt its tail, believing it to be like a rope. And the last could touch the elephant’s tusk, declaring it to be a spear. “We get stuck in the metaphor of language. But it’s really the abstract sensation that connects everything. Art that is sensual goes straight to the ball of sensation that is in the centre of us. It bypasses words. This is what is Real.” – Alex Paxton My friend Alex talked about his relationship with art and its role in his understanding of life. Language is the imperfect tool we use to try to make abstract things concrete. But life is a lot like the elephant. We can feel and describe different parts of it. But none of us can ever capture the entire thing. And even as we define it, we do so with comparisons to other things. So art (and a life of ordinary creative exploration) keeps us moving around the elephant, finding new ways to feel, imagine, and describe it. But we never fully grasp it. Our experience and understanding of reality sits at the heart of our unique and weird ways of seeing the world. This is why there is always another piece to paint, song to sing, book to write, and truth to speak. Ordinary Weirdness in Everyday Life We discussed this in a Haven Kota session and recognised that “weird” is not an easy word for everyone to hold. It can carry baggage if used as an insult or criticism. There isn’t a perfect word to describe this ordinary everyday weirdness. We thought about “authentic”, but that carries a sense of essentialism, which I don’t think we’re talking about. It’s the freedom to engage with the present moment from the safe uncertainty of our ball of sensation. Belonging in The Wilderness Brené Brown says that True Belonging is the antidote to a crisis of disconnection. Braving the wilderness requires us to feel alone in the face of “uncertainty, vulnerability and criticism.” This is the definition of wilderness when the world feels hostile and “like a political and ideological combat zone”. But this is important because we become tied to a desire to fit in, gain approval, and do what the group needs of us. Which ignores this more resounding call for belonging that we all have. That “we’re connected by love and the human spirit. No matter how separated we are by what we think and believe, we are part of the same spiritual story.” If we allow them to live, our weird bits connect us as we navigate the absurdity of life together. Joseph Campbell said, “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” This is a reminder that “true belonging is not something you negotiate externally; it’s what you carry in your heart. It’s finding the sacredness in being a part of something. When we reach this place, even momentarily, we belong everywhere and nowhere. That seems absurd, but it’s true.” Self-Belief, Impostor Syndrome, and True Belonging Impostor syndrome is the feeling that arises from the belief that we are not as competent as other people. Or we are not as capable as other people think we are. In other words, it’s the feeling that we don’t quite fit. The true impostor wants everyone to think they fit so that they can take something. Explorers, journeyers, dancers might be outsiders but they are not impostors. We are the poets, misfits, writers, mystics, painters, and troubadours. We belong to the outside, not with a desire to get in, but an openness to give, contribute, and feel this thing called life from another angle and through another lens. In this way, fitting in is different from belonging. Entitlement vs Belonging (True Safety) A desire for entitlement accompanies the drive to fit in. In contrast, the feeling of belonging is a place of universal acceptance (of ordinary weirdness). There are two types of safety that we find here. Entitlement is safety as protection from the outside, based on the special treatment you get on the inside. This kind of safety depends on you conforming to the requirements and conditions of the group. True belonging, however, is a sense of safety as permission to be you. Safety to be vulnerable rather than safety from vulnerability. You belong because you’re here. You don’t have to do anything, be anyone, or change yourself to be accepted. Perfectionism and Conditional Belonging One potential offshoot of conditional belonging is fear of failing and perfectionism. Where we become influenced by the consequences of messing up. Perfection is described as “the action or process of improving something until it is faultless”. How could we possibly reach such a place? ‘Perfectionism’ is not about achieving a tangible outcome. It’s an attachment to dissatisfaction in the face of everything. Perfectionism is not simply a desire for high standards and top-quality results. It is always in pursuit of satisfaction but can never be satisfied. No matter how good it gets, it will never do quite enough. Despite appearances, perfectionism is not about producing quality. It’s about our relationship with our belief in the idea of ‘faultless’. Perfection is like a black hole. It’s a void, made conspicuous by its lack of definition. And there’s no space for ordinary weirdness in there. An Ode to Imperfection and Ordinary Weirdness I wrote this ode to imperfection. https://youtu.be/-9cjSnV4wCk Stop Caring THAT People Think We might defensively say, “I don’t care what people think of me“. But of course we care what people think. We are social animals with a basic need for safety and belonging. But when we allow ourselves to care about other things MORE, we can unshackle from the fear and shame-based responses to other people’s judgements and criticism. Self-consciousness is a disconnection from our self. Seeing ourselves through the projected critical or ridiculing eyes of the world around us comes in different shapes and forms. We can’t control WHAT people think, but we can make peace with the fact THAT people WILL think of us sometimes. By accepting that people will judge us and view us with criticism, envy, disdain and so on, we begin to change our relationship and stop caring THAT people think of us. Otherwise, we might stop doing what we love doing. We might not start doing what we’d love to do. And we might shrink ourselves and not contribute to our lives, our relationships, and the world at large in ways we feel calling from the ball of sensation inside us. Ordinary Weirdness and The Courage to Be Disliked In The Courage to Be Disliked, Kishimi and Koga introduce Alfred Adler’s school of Individual Psychology. They speak to the ordinary weirdness of everyday life and how we will be disliked no matter what we do. In other words, they suggest, we might as well be ourselves and contribute to creating a world we actually believe in as we go. This is not a case of acting IN ORDER to be disliked. It’s acting DESPITE the inevitability of being disliked. Being liked or disliked isn’t the driving force…our deeper values and principles are. Identifying Our Path – Confidence in How We Go Self-belonging gives us confidence in HOW we choose to be, not in WHAT we are allowed (or not) to be. Likewise, there’s something beautiful about getting to know someone over time and seeing glimpses of their weird normality. No one is entitled to those parts of us. Letting our weird out is a choice. In safe environments and when we experience the safety of other people, our weirdness will probably slip out. We need these environments, these people, and these places, because our everyday weirdness can get locked away, stuck behind glass. Of course, Introverts and Highly Sensitive People get told to come out of their shells or speak up. But no one is entitled to an open you. It might be that right now, you let your inner weird breathe when you’re alone. In your studio, bedroom, kitchen, garden, etc. as long as you have somewhere to keep in touch with it. I would hate for it to stay behind glass! The Temple of Dreams In Blessed Are The Weird, Jacob Nordby shares a story called, The Temple Of Dreams. In the story, the wise woman asks the man what he wants. He can’t answer. He says he doesn’t know. But then comes the realisation, “I do want something, or I wouldn’t be here. It’s just that I have become content with my things.” “I want everything exactly as it is,” he said. “I know that life unfolds to give me what is best.” “Well, I have a house and comfortable things. I enjoy my work and appreciate my friends. I have everything a man should want except….” “Except,” she said. “Tell me the except. ‘Except’ is everything you have never dared to ask.” In our Haven Kota conversation, we explored different ways of relating to the “except”. Maybe we know what our “except” is, but something stops us from following it. Or perhaps we understand we want something, but we can’t figure out what. There is ALWAYS an “except” at some level. Something is always alive in us. And I finish the episode with a reflective question that can help us identify our feelings and needs at any given moment. What is Alive in You Right Now? https://youtu.be/eSCCxOWRyrg