Imagine.
Imagine you are out in the wilderness.
Imagine you have no knowledge of what to do if you see a bear.
You are hiking with your loved ones. Maybe that is family. Maybe a few great friends.
You are equipped with your favorite hiking gear.
Shoes with sticky traction.
Clothes that are made for the outdoors.
Your favorite pair of sunglasses.
You feel the wind on your face. The summer weather brings a cool breeze to counter the warm sun.
From the hike, you look out and you see a beautiful mountain range.
The sight is breathtaking.
Enjoying your hike, you come across something unexpected.
You have no knowledge of what to do.
You have no idea how to respond.
And you are with those you love the most.
You find yourself surprised by a bear.
Time immediately slows down.
This is not just any bear.
This is a brown bear.
This is the largest land-based predator on earth.
You notice the large claws used for digging.
The jaws and skull of the bear are massive.
At 1,300 pounds, 9 feet tall, you are frightened.
Suddenly, the bear lets out a growl.
You see the 9-foot beast rise on its hind legs.
You do not know much about bears, but it becomes quickly obvious that the enormous physical strength of the bear is deadly.
Unaware, untrained, and filled with fear, you decide to run for your life.
At the time, filled with shock, you do not realize running triggers the bears chase instinct.
Maybe you get away.
But odds are you will not.
The bear will find you.
The bear will catch up to you.
The bear will kill you.
PAUSE. Slow down.
You are still alive, are you not?
Great.
Consider this the crossroads.
Consider this the moment you raise your awareness to regain control of your life.
Because if you are like most people, you are not in control.
This truth is not about "other people." Right now, I am talking directly to you.
If you are not willing to unlearn and re-learn behaviors, the bear will continue to chase you.
(It is ok, remember, you are safe. I speak these words with love)
(Also, I believe I am doing the best I can, with what I have been given, with where I am at in life. Because I believe this about myself, I believe this of others and I respect everyone's journey. I speak these words calmly.)
The above story about the bear is very real. It is something you deal with all the time.
It lives in your blind spot.
You do not experience the bear in the wilderness.
You experience it in your mind.
You may never figure this out.
You may run from the bear your whole life and never know what you are running from.
Meaning, the bear will eventually kill you in front of your loved ones.
I know I sound direct. I know I am intense. I am talking directly to you.
How the bear is experienced
Remember, you run from the bear when you are unaware of how to respond to the massive bear.
You are unaware because you do not know what you do not know. This is your blind spot.
When you see the bear on your hike, you run because your survival instincts take over.
The body perceives a danger and releases certain hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. You are unaware of this, but your body is smart. It knows what to do when your life is at stake. Various nervous system functions change. Your digestion slows down. Your heart rate speeds up. Blood rushes to major muscle groups. Your awareness intensifies. Your sight narrows on the threat. Impulses quicken.
Said another way, when fight or flight response takes over, you get a major burst of strength and energy.
To understand the power of this state, you need to understand what hysterical strength, or superhuman strength, is.
I am talking about a display of extreme strength. Strength that is typically believed to be impossible. When is it said to appear?
In life or death situations.
I am talking about a mother lifting a car up long enough for her pinned child to escape.
Google to learn for yourself if you must.
I share this so you understand how strong this survival state is.
When in this state, everything is a possible threat to your survival. Rational mind gets bypassed. Immersion in the present takes over. This is survival mode.
This force is powerful.
The bear in the mind
Now, if you are paying full attention to this article, you understand the bear.
You understand how deadly it can be.
You understand how you would respond if you were unaware of what to do. (You would run)
Now, understand that the bear I speak of does not exist in your physical world.
The bear I speak of exists in your mental world.
The bear exists the moment you attach your identity with your external world.
The bear exists when you attach your deepest sense of self with the things you do.
The bear exists when you connect who you are with what you do.
The bear exists when you identify yourself with something you do.
The bear exists when you "make it personal."
This is all in your language.
This is about the words you choose.
It is easy to write this off as “overly thought” or “words do not matter that much.”
It is easy to write this off and say, “that is not me, I do not do that.”
It is easy to get distracted or think about something else while reading this because you cannot focus.
The more you fall victim to these lies, the higher the odds of you spending your life running from the bear in your blind spot.
You decide.
Few people learn this lesson because few speak about it.
The bear is particularly strong within entrepreneurs and creatives. These are people who take from the mind and create in the external world.
An entrepreneur creates a business that started as an idea.
A chef cooks food.
A musician plays music.
A writer writes.
A painter paints.
These vulnerable acts, by nature, connect your deepest sense of self (thought, and often purpose) with your external world.
The stronger this connection, the more this truth must be respected.
Examples of the bear in your mind
The bear exists when you connect two simple words with more words.
“I am...”
“I am a failure.”
“I am a mistake.”
“I am dumb.”
“I am stupid.”
“I am forgetful.”
“I am wrong.”
“I am an accident.”
Whenever a statement is made like this, it feeds the bear in your blind spot.
Whenever a statement is made like this, it connects your identity to an often negatively perceived word.
It is not about avoiding these words “most of the time.” It is about never saying them, ever.
Let us work backwards from these words.
What happens when you use these phrases...
When you use these phrases, you attach your identity to your external world.
This is the exact same thing as your surprise encounter with the bear.
In the physical world, your body goes into survival mode when you see a bear.
In the mental world, your body goes into survival mode when you are running from the bear out of fear because your identity is at stake.
Once again, in your internal world, the world that exists in your mind, you are in survival mode because you are running from the bear.
Earlier I said that in survival mode everything becomes a threat.
Think about it...
Depression exists when you get physically and mentally tired from spending too much time running from the bear. Running for your life because your body has been in survival mode longer than is healthy. Running because identity is threatened.
Anxiety exists when you feel threatened by an imagined threat in the future. Why? When running from the bear, everything becomes a threat. The body is fighting for its survival. When running from the bear, everything in the present and in the future becomes a threat. Often this looks like non-stop thinking about the future and possibilities to avoid the threat. Depending on how extreme this is for you (which is related to how sensitive of a person you are), this is why alcohol is nice. It numbs that survival voice. The inner voice dominates because identity is threatened.
Addiction exists when you are running from the bear and simply trying to stay alive. Because everything is a threat, escape is needed. Who would want to live in a fearful world? Addiction to drugs. Alcohol. Eating disorders. Shopping. Fantasy. Technology. Games. Reading. Learning. Addiction is a weak, but very real, attempt to cope with the bear. Addiction provides a false relief from running from the bear.
Paralysis exists when you find yourself fried. Numb to life. Burned out. Unable to move. Why? You are running from the bear and you are tired. Different than depression, it is when you are stopped and unsure which direction to run. You have calculated all the options, or so you think. But that is not enough. Being in survival mode too much of the time leaves you tired when you come to your next crossroad.
Rage exists when you unleash your anger on everyone around you. Survival mode can do that. Maybe it is anger and you do not call it “rage.” Remember, in survival mode, everything becomes a threat. Identity is at stake. Tired, burned out, always running, little energy leaves you with the only natural response you have. Like an animal response. Rage. Anger.
Blame exists when you discharge your pain and discomfort onto others. Blame others. You are the victim. Maybe not all of the time, maybe some of the time. Maybe you still run from the bear some of the time. Unsure what to do with your pain and discomfort from non-stop running because your identity is threatened, you discharge your pain onto others. Survival instinct leaves you discharging pain while you are running.
Resentment exists when you have a combination of disappointment, anger, and fear. While you are running from the bear, you try to find safe spots with people or things. You seek temporary relief from running. When you find yourself giving more than you get in these safe spots, you become resentful. Survival instincts leave you with temporary relief until you realize you did not find what you were looking for. It is called resentment.
When you do not escape the bear, you unleash him and allow him to chase others. Knowingly or not, the bear lives within generations of families or within the workplace culture.
Specific encounters with the bear
You are driving and you get cut off on the freeway. You respond out of anger because in survival mode, everything is a threat. You are in survival mode because you associate your identity with what happens to you. Because you do this, life is lived from a place of fear and survival instead of actually living. Threats get responded to in animal-like ways. Animal-like responses are the lowest forms of humanity that limit the growth of your species.
You make a mistake or fail and it frustrates and affects you. If your mistakes and failures affect you in any way, they have power over you, and the bear is strong within you. You are affected because you associate yourself as a mistake or as a failure and that thought scares you. Your survival instinct will not allow it. Starting from the inside out, your feelings are affected because of your thoughts about the bear. Said another way, your feelings are affected because identity is threatened. If you ignore this thought, you do not get it. If you think, “It is human to feel bad about mistakes,” you do not understand. If you think, “Everyone makes mistakes and feels bad about themselves,” you do not understand. When you think these thoughts, you give power to the bear. These are survival thoughts trying to protect the powerful survival force that consumes you.
You have a small misunderstanding and that quickly turns into an argument. When you are in survival mode, everything is a threat. Even the smallest of misunderstandings. Responding in a heated argument speaks to your animal-like response because you are fighting for your survival. “This is serious,” your mind says. Irrational anger consumes you. If you think, “But you don’t understand what I’ve been through,” you do not understand. If you think, “You don’t understand my situation,” you do not understand. These are survival thoughts. They are trying to limit your power and keep you running.
You never get serious because you are too busy being funny. Humor has its place, but too much humor is an attempt to cope with the bear. Instead of confronting the bear, you share jokes non-stop and never get serious about your life because it is too "scary" to get serious about life. Humor is about creating connection, or safety, during the run. Humor is about being liked. It is about detachment from something deeper. Again, humor has its place and with care it is powerful. However, left unexamined, it gives power to the bear. (I know this truth, it lives in my past).
You demand uncontrollable perfection in everything you do. You think that if you are perfect, and if you do things perfectly, you are safe. Because your identity is associated with what you do, you (knowingly or not) believe that perfection is safety. Imperfection is a threat. While running from the bear in survival mode, this leaves you focused on opportunities to be perfect instead of opportunities to live.
You are in a conversation with someone but you are not listening to the words coming out of their mouth. Instead, you are focused on what words will come out of your mouth. Why? Connection is safety. When you connect with someone else, you create temporary safety. It is a temporarily relief from running. Regardless of relevance, regardless of what the other person seeks, you share because you need to feel safe.
You buried a dream deep down and told no one. Or maybe few others. You never act on the dream because you know when you put your dream into action you initiate the chase with the bear. In other words, the possibility of failure could mean you are a failure. That fear consumes you. If left unrealized and unexamined, you may die with your dream inside. That dream could be the thing that helps others and betters your world. It could be the thing our species needs the most. Regardless, if it makes you feel alive, it matters. It matters because when you live from your deepest core it makes you feel alive and you inspire life. The world needs more of that. Instead, if unexamined, the dream never comes to reality because that would mean identity is threatened. That would mean you put yourself into survival mode and instinctively that must be avoided.
You need help but refuse to ask for it. Some call it stubbornness. There is no time to ask for help when you live a life running from the bear. Running away from the threat. Opening yourself up and asking for help is not desirable because it is dangerous. It means disconnection. It is the opposite of safety. When you do this, you disrespect the natural law and the basic foundation of our shared human experience. You disrespect human connection.
You believe you "never have enough time" and you wish "there was more time in the day." In survival mode, you are fighting for something so strong that you believe you do not have enough time. You are trying to do something forcefully and you disrespect the natural law of time. This belief is a common giveaway to the bear because if you were not running you would not say this. You would simply execute against your vision. Step by step, minute by minute, day by day, building momentum. Would you fight gravity? No, that is silly. Then why would you try to fight time? Right, of course, the powerful force of the survival instinct blurs your focus.
You are the founder/CEO of your company and you have everything under control. That is, you control everything. You micro-manage. You make decisions for other people. You over-exert your dominance on other people. Not only does this weaken the people around you, but it makes you the bottleneck of your future. You need to be saved from yourself because what brought you here will not get you there. The ability to control the external environment is often a gift for entrepreneurs, but it is also a curse when disrespected and unexamined. Because everything is a threat, you find an obsessive need to surrender your power to everything and control everything.
You hear the phrase, “it’s not personal, it’s just business.” Nothing is personal, ever. If you make it personal, you give power to the bear. If you make it personal, you surrender to an outside force and you disrespect your power. If you challenge this belief I am sharing, it is your loss. It is your world that you choose, knowingly or not. You construct your reality.
What the bear in your blind spot does
The bear that is chasing you and causing you to live in a constant state of survival because you associate your identity with the things you do is neither good nor bad.
Let me say that again. Running from the bear is neither good nor bad.
I am not being critical or judgmental.
Remember, you live in a species of ~7 billion humans. Your species invented language. This has nothing to do with “good” or “bad” because I just ripped the English language from your world. This has everything to do with acknowledging, objectively, what exists and is real in your mental world right now.
It is.
I write with power to bring your awareness to this behavior you may be unaware of.
Running from the bear robs you of self because it is outward focused. Think about it... what puts you into survival mode? It is the story you tell yourself about your external reality.
Personal growth is not personal at all. It is about those around you.
Do you think depression, anxiety, addiction, paralysis, eating disorders, rage, blame, resentment, bullying, and violence only affect you?
It affects everyone around you. Spoken and unspoken. People feel it.
Unfortunately, when you disrespect the bear within and allow the bear to chase others, it has the potential to end life.
Non-stop running from the bear ends life in suicide.
Non-stop survival mode simply does not know how to cope. This force is powerful beyond human understanding.
Maybe it is not suicide. Maybe it is a stroke due to stress from non-stop running.
Maybe it is a near-death car accident where you fell asleep at the wheel and your exhaustion wakes you up.
Maybe it is a divorce that leaves you completely broken that wakes you up.
Maybe it is the death of a loved one that wakes you up.
I do not wish this upon anyone. Often, though, they are the only powerful forces that have the potential to make you see the bear. (Or not.)
When you do not wake up to the non-stop running from the bear, natural law will take over and something will force a surrender. Or you will leave our human existence having unleashed the bear on everyone around you.
The bear inside of me
I write powerfully because I have intimate understanding of the bear.
Nice, cute, playful, friendly words and flowery language do not counter the unmistakable force of the bear chasing you.
In my lifetime of running from the bear, it has robbed me of many moments.
It has left me powerless. It has taken away my joy.
It has forced a surrender and brought me to my knees. Sometimes, crying uncontrollably. The fear started showing up in my body. Eczema. Shortness of breath. It consumed me.
I have had dreams in my past where I was running from something. (Which I do not have anymore)
I understand the bear very well.
And I see it in you, too.
I see it in every spoken and unspoken action you take.
I hear it in your phrases and how you describe your life and how you tell stories.
I can see it when I look into your eyes on the street.
I feel it standing next to you.
What I cannot understand in myself I cannot understand in others.
This truth is true for you as well.
Understanding the bear
You probably determined your relationship with the bear before you ever became conscious of the bear.
Yes, I am implying that there may be a child driving you.
Until this response to the bear is examined, it has the potential to chase because your default instinct is to run.
Maybe nothing I have said has resonated. Maybe you learned how to confront the bear. Bravo. It can still show up in your future if not understood.
You may never confront the bear. You can get through life without dealing with it. You may die sooner because the systems in your body are weakened from too much stress.
Maybe you unleash the bear and allow him to chase your kids and those you love. Another generation running from the bear.
If you are an entrepreneur, maybe you are blinded from running and you lose a few million dollars. Or maybe you miss out on a large opportunity. Maybe you ruin a partnership. Or maybe you unleash the bear within your company culture.
(I say this not to scare you, I say this to objectively acknowledge the effects that you can cause)
But if you do learn to confront this, it will be the start of stepping into your power and regaining control of your life.
(Otherwise, do not expect to proactively write the story of your life)
Tell me, if you are running from the bear, what are you focused on?
Answer: you are focused on finding safety.
In survival mode, your human biological response narrows your focus on the threats. When this happens, guess what you are blind to?
You are blind to all of the small, beautiful moments of life.
You are blind to the small accomplishments and small wins that happen all around you.
You are blind to the person who wants you to genuinely listen and connect with them.
You are blind to the flourishing nature and life around you.
You are blind to how much you have and how many opportunities are around you.
When you are running from the bear, you do not know how to listen.
I hear examples of this multiple times a week when I am in public places. One person says something and someone else responds without addressing the question or the statement that was made. This is often not a power play, this is a blind spot.
How to powerfully confront the bear in your blind spot
At the beginning of this, I invited you to imagine.
I invited you to imagine seeing a bear in the wilderness.
I said, if you were unaware, your default response would be to run. Running triggers the bear’s chase instinct. Death is inevitable.
Right now, I am making you aware.
I am making you aware if you are slowing down and opening yourself up to receiving this truth.
I am asking you to confront the bear.
Newfound awareness means you now know what you must do.
There is no escaping this reality.
There is no going backwards. You have the answer to step into your power.
In real life, in the physical world, when you see a bear, you are wise and true when you value your survival and know that you must confront the bear.
You are wise and powerful when you stand your ground.
Disconnect who you are with the things you do.
Do not attach your sense of identity to your physical world.
Your language will eventually be...
“I failed on a project.”
“I made a mistake.”
“I did something dumb.”
“I made a stupid mistake.”
“I forgot something.”
“I did something wrong.”
“I had an accident.”
Remember, you are not your story. Your life story is only that, your story.
Remember, you are powerful. You do not need to surrender to anything around you.
You do not need to respond out of frustration.
You choose what affects you.
This is your decision.
Confront the bear. Embrace your power. Embody the courage you possess.
When you master this, you learn how to slow down to speed up.
Look at the first responders in your world.
Look at firefighters. When they run into a burning home, they do not do it in survival mode. They move deliberately.
Look at navy seals. When they move into dangerous territory, they do not do it in survival mode. They do it intentionally with highly honed habits.
Slow down to speed up.
What you cannot do slow, you cannot do fast.
Strength and power lives in your ability to confront the bear.
It lives within your ability to define yourself and find your value separate of your external world. Money, material objects, even people, do not affect your identity unless you allow it to.
This is about internal balance. Unbalance exists to bring you back to balance but often this is overlooked. When you live in survival mode running from the bear you only understand fear. You miss out on healthy feelings such as happiness, sadness, and surprise. Fear can be healthy too when it does not irrationally drive your life.
When you understand this, you can harness the survival instinct and call upon that power when it is absolutely needed. You control it, it will not control you.
This is your time
I believe the human experience is about connection. Connection with your life begins with the connection to yourself. It begins with understanding the connections, or the habits, or the patterns, and examining them. When you understand your deepest sense of self, you can begin to understand others.
This is your time.
Right now, in this moment.
You will decide the next step.
One simple answer to confronting the bear is altering your perspective.
It is getting out of yourself.
It is a perspective that can save you from yourself.
It is practicing objective awareness.
Objectively speaking, you are 1 of ~7 billion people.
Objectively speaking, at the core, everything you experience is related to your biology or the stories in your mind. 3 hours of sleep will affect your day. If you believe the world is a scary place, you will live in that fear.
Learn about practical ways to change the stories you tell yourself.
Learn about the unrealized power of increasing your self-awareness.
This is about your internal freedom.
Now, imagine...
You are hiking with your loved ones. Family. Friends. It is beautiful outside.
Suddenly, you see a brown bear.
This is the largest land-based predator on earth.
You notice the large claws used for digging.
The jaws and skull of the bear are massive.
At 1,300 pounds, 9 feet tall, you are frightened.
Suddenly, the bear lets out a growl.
You see the 9-foot beast rise on its hind legs.
This time, you are aware.
You stand your ground.
You do not run.
You do not turn around.
You place your feet firmly into the ground.
You breathe calmly while staring at the bear.
Although, you do not stare the bear in the eyes. You do not want to be a threat because you do not want to provoke his survival response.
The strength of your power in that moment is felt by the bear. You are not attacked. You are wise.
When the bear decides to stand down, it slowly walks away.
When the bear is out of sight, you calmly walk away.
More powerful, filled with potential, filled with possibility, filled with newfound courage.
This is you.
This is your internal freedom.
