Wholeness

The stack of guava and papayas I ate the day before were still doing spin cycles in my stomach as they had all night when my alarm went off at 5am. The thought of getting out of bed felt hard, but the thought of joining two thousand people I didn't know for a walking meditation felt impossible.

I made a mental note of the palm tree where my shoes lay, and stepped barefoot onto the beach to meet the Caribbean sunrise. With each step I began to feel lighter, the effects of my foodborne illness combined with the neighbours enjoying spring break through paper thin walls began occupying less of my mind.

I moved into a light trance, and began to feel as though my body was walking me. I couldn't explain what was happening in my system at that moment, so I decided to do the only thing that felt logical and let go completely into the experience.

Then, like a freight train, it came out of nowhere.

Standing with my feet firmly planted in the sand, my hands folded over my heart and the early morning sun shining upon my face, I experienced what I can only describe as an instantaneous awakening.

Energy ran through my body like a lightning bolt, and in a flash of insight it was as though my entire life made sense for the first time. A sense of love that I'd never experienced overtook my entire body, tears began streaming down my face.

A deep sense of connection to everything and every one was the only thing occupying my consciousness, and in that moment it would've been impossible to want for anything else.

"Oh my God, this is what everybody is after — what I've been after for 32 years."

It wasn't a sense of accomplishment, I'd experienced that plenty of times before but it always felt fleeting and left me quickly longing for the next mountain to climb.

Ineffable as it was, the only word I've been able to tie to that experience is wholeness.

It's the feeling the entrepreneur is secretly after when he sets out to build an empire.

It's the feeling the athlete is after when he creates a picture in his mind of winning a national championship.

It's the feeling I was after in everything I had ever done, but always felt just out of reach. That's because, wonderful as they are, things outside of you aren't designed to bring you wholeness.

If you only read one chapter and received one message from this book before running it through a paper shredder (please don't), let it be this one:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.

Take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and please let that land for a moment.

Every book you've read up until now likely sold you on the idea that if you just implemented the one secret strategy, you'd finally be enough.

Until you get the email from the author saying that there's been an error, and if you join their 12-month mastermind, then you'll be enough.

Throw it all in the garbage.

Whatever you have or haven't achieved, mistakes you've made, accolades you've collected, people you've done right or wrong — none of it has any bearing on you as an individual.

Four hundred trillion to one were the odds of you being born into the parents that brought you into this world, but still you find a way to feel as though something is missing. It's not.

The feeling that something is missing is a game that the ego plays to keep you in a constant state of dissatisfaction.

The carrot always moves a little bit further, the stick gets a little bit longer, and just around the next corner is where you'll find true lasting fulfillment… right?

Most people are terrified that if they begin to live more from wholeness and less from lack, that they'll become complacent and lose their drive.

But what if the opposite is true?

What if wholeness could be the one thing that pulls you from survival mode, worrying about whether your needs would be met, and acting from your ego?

What if self-worth were the foundation, the starting point, instead of the mirage in the desert that you chase through external achievement?

If you're waiting for an accolade, an accomplishment, an acquisition, an award, that finally fills the self-worth gap…

You might just be waiting a very long time.

The Bison Principle

When a storm is approaching the plains, every animal does exactly what you'd expect and runs in the opposite direction.

Every animal, that is, except the bison.

When a storm is approaching, bison turn and run directly towards it. They do not run towards the storm because it will be most comfortable. They run towards the storm because they know that the fastest way out is through.

Running from the storm means having to not only exert the energy to avoid the inevitable, but to eventually have to face it in the end.

When you live from a foundation of wholeness and self-worth, you can move towards the storms that most others would run from. You can move through seasons of life that would break those around you, from a place of calm and indifference.

This does not mean you don't experience the same fears everyone else experiences before moving into the unknown, it means you use it as a signal to act rather than a signal to retreat to safety.

You know that safety isn't something that you find "out there", but something that rests within you as a deep feeling of certainty in your ability to handle what life brings to you.

Challenges are perceived as opportunities, setbacks are perceived as setups for greater increase down the road, and the storms of life are viewed as something you meet head-on.

Silencing the Sergeant

We all, myself included, have an internal drill sergeant that tries barking orders at us from the moment we get up until the moment we begin drifting off to sleep.

"Get out of bed! Don't you know it's 5am already!"

"You have work to do!"

"Nothing you ever do is going to be enough… keep pushing!"

"It's 10pm! You were supposed to be in bed an hour ago!"

For years, especially after starting my first business almost a decade ago, the sergeant ran the daily bootcamp that was my life, every hour of every day.

No matter what I achieved or how hard I worked, nothing ever felt like enough. Especially me.

Only when I started getting curious where this drill sergeant was sourcing his fuel, did I start to connect the dots backwards.

The sergeant wasn't my own voice, it was an accumulation of people I thought I needed to impress, society, and the motivational gurus I spent too much time listening to in my early years.

They would tell me that no matter how hard I pushed, someone was pushing harder. No matter how early I got up, someone was up earlier. That I had to keep up with the people leaving the gym when I was arriving, rather than celebrating the fact I chose to work out in the first place.

This cycle of suffering came to an abrupt halt when I asked myself, "to what end?"

What would ever be enough? What would ever make me feel like I had earned my keep and could finally exhale for once?

I type this before I've even taken off my shoes or running pack after a 15km run, so don't confuse this message with laziness, lack of ambition or an unwillingness to step outside of your familiarity zone.

The difference is that I didn't run 15km because the sergeant told me to. I ran 15km because it's a sunny late spring morning and I respect my body enough to give it the movement it needs to stay healthy.

You can push your limits mentally and physically, not from a place of self-hatred, but from a place of curiosity about what you're actually capable of.

If you fall flat on your face, which I have many times, your foundation of self-worth will catch you on the way down.

Richard Bandler, co-founder of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, states that all human behaviour has a positive intent. Everything, illogical as it may look on the outside, makes perfect sense to the unconscious mind which does not operate from logic.

Your inner sergeant, the voice that tells you that you are not enough no matter what, will change his tone when you stop pushing back and begin to get curious.

The odds are, if your sergeant is like mine, the intention is not to ruin your life or lead you to burnout (though that's a likely outcome). It's quite the opposite. It's to make sure that your core needs, the ones that were most vital for your survival in childhood, are always being met.

If achievement meant recognition at an early age, and recognition equated to love, then you can bet the sergeant will keep your nose to the grindstone to keep receiving what was once deemed necessary for survival.

If maximum effort meant you gained approval, and approval was the only way you felt you could receive love, then expect your unconscious mind to ensure you keep the hammer down every waking hour of every day.

The problem with this is it's completely unsustainable over the long-term.

When you swap the sergeant's ruthless orders for a state of wholeness, "never enough" turns into "always enough".

Push turns into pull.

Self-focus turns into mission-focus.

You take risks you've never taken because you finally don't care if they fail or not, because you'll be fine either way.

The Complacency Trap

Almost everybody I've ever taught this philosophy to has pushed back at the start.

"If I start by feeling good enough now, I'll probably lose the drive that keeps me going every day." I believe the opposite is true.

When fear and low self-concept are running the show, nothing feels authentic or good enough.

Tony Robbins says that "success without achievement is the ultimate failure", and I couldn't agree more.

When you're no longer chasing approval from out there, you have more congruence. When you have more congruence, everything you touch seemingly turns to gold.

Mind, body and spirit are all working as one well-oiled machine that has a seemingly infinite amount of energy. An infinite amount of energy because it's no longer relying on the toxic fuel of external achievement to feel okay.

Many professional athletes and celebrities take radical career pivots after they've climbed the highest mountains time and again. The entrepreneur with multiple exits under his or her belt suddenly feels called towards philanthropy.

These aren't actions taken from "should" energy, they're actions taken from a deeper calling that began as a whisper and eventually turned into a scream so loud they couldn't ignore it.

Their cup was full, and they were ready to see what else was available to them.

The fear of complacency comes from a fear of identity loss.

"I've spent all of this time building this persona, what would my life be if it was suddenly taken away from me?"

Not only the loss of identity, but everything that would come along with it. Sunk cost fallacy creeps in, and the nervous system's fear of anything new is quick to steer people back to what feels safe and familiar — exhausting as it may be.

Instead of a complete overhaul, what if you just got curious?

Ask your unconscious mind what the worst possible outcome is if wholeness could become the starting point instead of the finish line that never truly arrives?

An inner sense of wholeness carries the energy of "I'm fine with whatever happens", infinitely more attractive to the outside world than "I need the next level as quickly as possible, at any cost".

When wholeness is the foundation, and the nervous system is out of "results now or I'll die" mode, something interesting starts taking place.

Your value on yourself immediately skyrockets, and in turn people start seeing and treating you differently.

The creative centers in your brain, the same ones that lie dormant when you're in survival, finally switch on and start creating magic. New business ideas land, performance goes up, sleep is deeper, and time begins to seemingly slow down.

You feel a sense of safety you may not have felt for a long time, if ever. You go from hammering emails or training deep into the night, to catching a movie on a Monday afternoon. Halfway through the movie, a life-changing idea drops into your consciousness because you're finally open to receive it.

Let your curiosity lead you. If it feels like a big commitment, run a 72 hour experiment and see what happens. Magic might just be waiting for you.