Learn Life Skills for Extreme Situations

The sun was blazing, the terrain barren and unforgiving, and the instructors were working us hard.  The extra twenty pounds or so of gear we were wearing just added to the fatigue – a Kevlar vest, knee and elbow pads, sometimes a helmet, a pistol strapped to the right thigh and an American M4 or Russian Kalashnikov assault rifle in hand…

                            At the firing range, carrying an M4 assault rifle

That was last week for me.  I was privileged to attend an elite training course down in the deserts of the south-western US, a course taught by special forces veterans and frequently attended by everyone from members of such elite organizations as the British SAS or Canada’s JTF2, to ordinary people facing deployment to the world’s most dangerous trouble spots. 

(The trip also allowed me to explore some issues of leadership, teamwork and corporate culture with these people.  Did you know that what we consider the most advanced leadership and corporate culture solutions in the corporate world today were actually developed by special forces units decades ago?)

The “Yang” Side of Resilience Training

You may have noticed I like to divide resilience training into its “Yin” and “Yang” aspects.  And I tend to talk more about the Yin or “soft” aspects, such as meditation, mindfulness, Qi Gong, Yoga, nutrition, relationship skills and the like. 

However, we should never forget the other side of the coin – those Yang skills that will keep us and our loved ones alive when the unthinkable happens.

In North America we live the pleasant delusion that we personally will never face an extreme situation.  That situation could be street crime, a home invasion, a natural disaster or something as commonplace as a car accident out in the country, where you’re on the scene and the nearest first responder is still twenty minutes away.  Meanwhile, the accident victim on the ground in front of you may only have two minutes to live, not twenty, unless you personally take some very specific and simple actions.  Do you have the skill sets required?  Do you have the right medical kit with you?  What if that victim were your spouse or child? 

  

                            Rescuing a man down, moving him and applying 

                                          a tourniquet to save his life

Our delusion is the ingrained belief that we don’t need those skills because the paramedics will save the day.  Likewise we assume we don’t need to know how to carry an unconscious person out of a burning building or know how to defend ourselves because the firemen and police will do it for us. 

Yet the stark reality is that when the s**t hits the fan, you will more than likely be on your own for the first five to fifteen minutes of any serious event.  And by then, it’s very often too late.

The Value of Acquiring Extreme Skills

One of the most challenging features of last week’s course was that you never knew what challenge the instructors would throw at you next!  This is when you find yourself worrying about whether you’ll screw it up and look like an idiot, whether you’ll have the energy, and whether the back muscle you pulled yesterday will hold out…

                            Participant learns how to escape when tied up

                                          with rope, hand-cuffs, etc. 

And then you realize that you just need to surrender.  You can either continue wasting energy worrying about what comes next, or you can surrender, live in the present and mentally let it all go.  So one of the greatest benefits of the kind of training that tests your physical and mental limits is that you learn a lot about yourself. 

Some of the other specific benefits of learning some of life’s extreme skills are:

• Improving your personal resilience
• Passing on these skills to those around you
• Boosting your self-esteem
• Becoming a greater asset to your family, workplace and community
• Acquiring the confidence to face extreme situations
• Learning how to function effectively under extreme stress

                                          Clearing rooms and rescuing hostages (hint: 
                                          the way you see it done on TV shows will get
                                          you killed)

So although the Yin side of resilience training (improving your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health) is absolutely vital, it’s important not to forget the Yang side of resilience training, where we acquire the personal power and the critical skills to handle life’s most extreme situations. 

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Body Image Propaganda: Are YOU a Victim?

For those of us who work within the emerging field of energy psychology, there are few emotional issues that we run into with our clients as frequently as "self-image" and especially "body-image" - the "my body isn't good enough" syndrome.  

Truthfully, though, as an Orthodox Christian priest with a couple of decades of pastoral counseling experience, I can tell you it was no different.  Thanks in part to the media, we're living through a bizarre period in history where almost everyone seems to think there's something wrong with how then look.  


And it's quite bizarre when you think about it - women are trying to attract guys by making themselves thinner and slimmer, not realizing that we guys prefer cuddling flesh to cuddling skin and bone.  And the guys are trying to look like body builders, not realizing that the vast majority of women find the body builder physique repulsive.  

Naturally, the most vulnerable segment of the population is the youth, and especially the females.  The statistics on the video below may not surprise you, but they should at least give you something to think about, and you may want to share it and discuss it with your own kids:









Lest you think that the women are the only victims of this propaganda barrage, think again - the guys suffer from it too, just in slightly different ways.  Here's a look at the problem from the male side of the house:










So, however you cut it, we're a culture with a huge self-image problem.  The mild cases lead to unnecessary mental anguish and wasted time (consider that statistic about the average woman spending over two years of her lifetime doing her hair alone!), while the severe cases can head toward depression, eating disorders and death.
 

Not a pretty picture, but one we need to take seriously if we're to become more resilient ourselves and prevent the young people around us from being sucked in to the media-created illusions they're being bombarded with.  

So if you think this post or the videos we've featured her could help anyone you know, please feel free to pass it on!

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger 

Want to Feel Fantastic? Use Your Body...

Today I promised you I'd talk about the second great resilience activity I undertook last week. 

From the start, I knew last week would be tough - there was lots of work to do in the office, most of it intellectual and a significant drain on my time and creative juices.  So when I realized how preoccupied I was with the workload, and especially with one particular upcoming project, I knew it was time for the distraction strategy.

"Distraction" in this case meant finding some other challenge to take me out of my head, give me more energy and "steal" some of my focus and attention, all with the aim of making me more effective at the intellectual work.


Why Take On Another Challenge?  Isn't One Enough??

You might think so, and this is where we often delude ourselves.  If I had allowed myself to think, "Oh, so much work... I'd better make sure I have lots of veg time with my favorite TV shows," the week would have been so much harder!! 

That's right... I would have found myself with even less energy and working less efficiently.  So here's what I did instead...

I set the ambitious physical goal of doing 1500 push-ups and 500 squats within 5 days - about triple my usual number.  And here's what I found:

• Some joint pain in my hips, one knee and one shoulder went way down and virtually disappeared!
• My energy level went through the roof (interesting since, as you know, I was on a cleanse at the same time and therefore operating on less and lighter food)
• Mentally and emotionally I felt fantastic in every way.  Only experience will really convince you what this kind of challenge does for how you feel about yourself and your body.

My daughter found out I was doing this about half way through the week.  She was totally gobsmacked, as they say, and asked, "Aren't your legs and butt killing you??"  Truth was, I was in no pain at all, which surprised even me ;-) 

Some of the lessons that come out of this are:

1. If you've swallowed all the propaganda about the dangers of over-training (which people often interpret as "you shouldn't do the same exercise two days in a row"), be assured it's just that - propaganda.  The vast majority of people who exercise are nowhere near their limit and are no more in danger of "over-training" than I am of winning the Boston Marathon ;-)
2. It was the best "distraction" possible - For whatever reason, focusing on the physical goal left me feeling a lot more in control of the mountain of work and supplied a ton of motivation on all fronts.
3. Those 1500 push-ups and 500 squats took almost NO extra time!  Since I did them in sets of 50 for the push-ups and 25 for the squats, it was easy to squeeze them in whenever I had a few minutes here or there throughout the day.
4. Do something like this and you'll feel physically like solid steel, mentally you'll experience crystal clarity and emotionally you'll be on top of the world

A Word of Caution:

Yes, as always I have to tell you not to try something like this without the approval of your physician.  In addition, though, you need to pick targets that are doable for you.  I picked these particular exercises only because my body is very familiar with them and because I do them regularly to a certain level.  If you've never done these exercises before, they'll damn near kill you, even if you're a decent athlete.  

On the other hand, you might pick, say, 25 laps of the front crawl in the pool daily.  I sure wouldn't do that for myself, only because I haven't swum laps in years.  If you have, then that might be a target for you.  So it all depends on how in-shape you are and what your body is used to doing.  And the possibilities are endless: walking, running, cycling, weight training, body weight exercises (the ones I used are "body-weight" exercises),  calesthenics, Pilates, Yoga, circuit training, swimming...

Remember, you don't need to imitate a tri-athlete to get amazing results.  You just have to pick an exercise appropriate for you and a target that's doable, but a bit of a stretch.  

Try this some time and I'll pretty much guarantee you'll never look back!

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger 

Resilience Tip: Honor Your Occupation

Does your job or career get you down?  Do you ever have the feeling that it doesn't matter and neither do you? 

Do you think, "Oh, I'm just an accountant crunching numbers all day.  Who cares?!" or "I build websites and they call me a 'code head' and a 'geek.'"? 

One of the most harmful features of our culture is our tendency to undervalue certain jobs and the people in them, while doing the opposite for jobs we consider to confer higher "social status". 

We fail to notice, or course, that our valuations of different jobs are culturally learned and bear no resemblance to reality.  Actors enjoy great social standing today, for example, whereas they used to be a despised profession. 

I used to work for an organization that greatly undervalued its subject matter experts and greatly overvalued its management.  However, replacing managers was really easy since their skill sets were general and possessed by 30% of the population.  Replacing a subject matter expert was murder - far less than 1% of the population had those skills.  And if your subject matter expert was away, production suffered.  If your manager was away, your production would probably go up!

The bottom line is this: don't wait for society to value what you do.  No matter what kind of job you have, no matter what kind of mediocrity or stupidity you're surrounded by, start to consider whatever job you have as truly important.  Give it everything you've got.  Forget what others think and don't apologize for what your line of work, even if you don't want to stay in it!

Then something amazing will happen.  Once you start giving it your very best, you'll feel a sense of pride in your work.  You'll begin to see the importance of what you do and how it positively affects others.  You'll realize that even if you're just waiting tables, you're still serving your country, your fellow citizens and ultimately your place in the great scheme of this magnificent universe. 

Your sense of self-worth will grow.  Your self-confidence will grow.  And finally you'll probably outgrow the job or career you have now. 

The genius of Authentic Ancient Traditions was the realization that the outward aspect of your work is secondary, because any work your pour yourself into with dedication, sincerity and love can itself become a work of art and a gateway to enlightenment itself.

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Resilience Tip: Dare to Believe in Yourself

Isn’t "believing in yourself" it just plain arrogance?  Doesn’t it make you sick when you see someone who is so arrogant and self-assured that he or she won't listen to anyone?

Sure it does, but there's a huge difference between healthy self-confidence and the arrogance of the ego.  The arrogant believe in their egos.  Those with a healthy belief in themselves believe in a power greater than themselves.  The arrogant flaunt their opinions, talents and accomplishments.  The wise do something far different...

The wise first empty themselves out to make room for this Greater Power.  They allow themselves to become painfully aware of all their failings and mistakes.  They put aside all their own opinions.  Then they become what the great Sioux medicine man, Frank Fools Crow, called "little hollow bones" - they wait for the Greater Power to enter them, fill them, guide them and make the right path obvious. 

This is why the wise appear to have extraordinary self-confidence without a trace of arrogance.  To watch them, you would say they're actually humble in their self-confidence.

The arrogant can't do this, because this Greater Power cannot teach the know-it-all, guide the egotist or perfect the one who thinks himself already perfect. 

When this greater power finds an empty vessel, though, it speedily rushes in.  And then miracles ensue…

Do as the wise do, and you will never lack confidence again.

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Fitness and the Fallacy of Overtraining

Hi all,

I've spent a good deal of effort emphasizing the fact that you need to maintain a baseline level of physical fitness if you want to enjoy:

- Superior health (since health depends partly on fitness)
- Peak performance (since energy level and focus depend on it to)
- Self-confidence (since fitness goes a long way towards providing that)

As you know from experience, everybody's stiff and sore after starting a new exercise program or even a single new exercise. I know, for example, that if I go a week without doing any squats, I'll pay for it when I start up again.

Then there are the inevitable minor aches and pains of training. Yes, they're inevitable and no, they're not going to go away. On the other hand, they're a testimony to the fact you're actually doing something!

Unfortunately, though, the first thing that seems to pass through our minds when we feel a twinge here or an ache there is, "Oh, I must be over-training. I should take a few days off!"

Indeed, the myth of overtraining has been so drilled into us that it's become part of our mentality. Why's it a myth? Only because most of the people who think they're overtraining are NOWHERE NEAR overtraining and probably haven't overtrained a single day in the last twenty years.

Now don't get me wrong; real overtraining DOES exist. You'll find it among professional body builders, for example, who have actually damaged their muscles and created large amounts of scar tissue in the process. You'll find distance runners who have damaged knees and shins through repetitively pounding the pavement. But all this is much different from the minor aches and pains of ordinary training.

You see, the vast majority of people UNDER-TRAIN. They may only do 2 or 3 days a week, they don't push themselves or they're none too regular about what they do.

If you want your fitness program to give you the results I mentioned above - superior health, peak performance and enhanced self-confidence - then you absolutely need to train seriously at least 3 times a week and do a lighter workout at least twice a week. Anything less won't get you anywhere. In a future article I'll talk more about WHY this is. For now, though, I'll simply ask you to trust me on this one.

Remember that, if you're serious about becoming a more RESILIENT person, you need to train the BIG 3 - strength, flexibility and endurance - in a balanced way. This means thinking of overall health and fitness as you train, and not just focusing on your immediate goal of toning your derriere, building your biceps or running the 10K in X number of minutes.

Of course, if you have any kind of pre-existing injury or medical condition, you need to take that into account. But if not, your fears of "overtraining" are probably unfounded. And when you stop undertraining, you'll discover a whole new level of fitness (and therefore health, performance and confidence) that can be yours.

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger