I am currently reading Mastering Fear by Brandon Webb. It is one of the most riveting books I have ever read and it is non-fiction. The way it talks about fear is so palpable and relatable. One of the things that I realised while reflecting on the first few chapters is that my fears seem to follow a certain pattern. It is related to losing my footing.

I am scared to go on a headstand even after years of practice. I am uneasy doing aerial exercises that require me to not be on the ground. I am super afraid to jump off a cliff and into water although I have tried it before. I get scared of swimming when I can’t reach the base despite knowing the proper swim techniques and form. I like being grounded and feeling the earth on and with my feet. Maybe that is why I like running, it gives me a rhythmic feedback every step I take.

At work I am afraid of making a misstep. I used to scramble in the face of uncertainty but have gotten better at dealing with this. I worry when a lot of things are “up in the air”. I always like knowing that I have a safety net. In the past, most of the risks I took or the edges I explored were marked by safe spaces or boundaries.

I hope that after reading this book I get to apply the learnings immediately on one thing. I will do so with my headstand. I am particularly inspired by what Kamal Ravikant said when he was embracing his fear of swimming- “If something scares me it means there is magic on the other side.” Looking forward then to the magic from being turned upside down.

I have just started listening to Becoming by Michelle Obama. The book is a memoir, a personal account of her experience in the various roles that she has played and continue to play. I like listening to books read by the author themselves. It feels as if Michelle is personally sharing her story with me.

As she recounted her story as a young girl driven and determined to learn how to play the piano, I was struck by a line she said – “I did not know how to deal with flawless and perfection. Because I was not that.” It occurred to me that this is how I am too. Despite the deliberate effort to keep everything together, I will never be the polished woman that I used to aspire to be. I have my own story and that is one marked by brokenness as much as it is imbued with beauty. In short, I will never be fully put together.

More than leaving me with unease, this realisation gave me comfort. That I’ll be okay. I’m fine as I am even if I can never be the most refined person. I actually like my edge. I think that is what makes me interesting and worth having a conversation with. Perhaps I can even sharpen it further, not to be perfect but more as a practice in this ongoing process of becoming and being.

I have been consuming as much content as I could over the past weeks. This is because I said I would embark on a year of learning. I have to be mindful though not to overly do it and get burnt out in the process. I sometimes have a tendency of just keeping at it without much thought just to say I complied with what I said I would do. It is a displaced doggedness that can just end up wearing me out.

I want to be able to enjoy and take pleasure in what I consume. Relish is the word that comes to mind. I want to pause and ponder on what I just read or listened to so I get to see how it speaks to me right now. And if it doesn’t I should give permission to myself to leave it and move to another one that sparks joy and inspiration.

A breather is also needed and I allow myself to succumb to the urge to check out social media. I’ve avoided browsing through Facebook and Instagram because they just leave me feeling envious at times as well as drowning in a lot of noise. I keep it to short bursts so I don’t get sucked into the rabbit hole and spend hours on end. I replace it instead with articles from blogs I truly admire. But just like in training and in work, ease is needed to counterbalance the effort of learning.

I first learned about this response from an improv class that I attended. It is way of staying attentive to what the other person is saying or not saying then responding accordingly by receiving what is given. It is acknowledging and accepting what is offered and building up on it. That is why it is a “Yes and” reply.

I encountered it again in the context of dealing with fear and uncertainty. The typical response to both would be hesitation or downright avoidance. Often times it is a statement that starts with a “but”. Just like when we say “I want to run but it’s raining” or ” I want to create something but I don’t know how to start .” In both cases the lid has been set. The mere replacement of “but” with “and” opens up possibilities. I want to workout and it’s raining so perhaps I can just look up indoor workouts I can do instead or maybe I’ll just run in the rain, that seems like a lot of fun. I want to create and I don’t know how to start so maybe I can ask someone who has started something or I can start with what I am curious about. Such a small tweak in language that spells a whole world of difference. I have always been a fan of this type of change.

I would like to interact with the world with a yes and attitude. I have always been open and curious but I think I can still dance with my fears and self doubts better. There is always room to improve and grow. Moving forward with perpetual curiosity, saying “yes and” to all that comes my way is my way of being everyday.

Often times we save our most creative works for only the most ideal of circumstances. Everything has to fall into place for inspiration to come alive. There is the belief that the muse arrives at the most opportune of moments. But I ascribe more to the practice of creating everyday, even when we don’t feel like it or rather more so when we don’t feel like it.

This is the hard work that goes into art. It is combined with luck and talent, both of which we do not have full agency over. But the act of showing up is what we can control and calibrate. As we do so, we get to realise that it is not simply about what is created but more about what and who we become as we create. This is a process of self discovery as much as it is self expression.

Every creation, in whatever form, is a manifestation of a YES. It is an agreement to commit time and energy to come up with something. It is a willingness to do and to be, a kind of generosity that comes with a desire to imbue the world with value and ultimately with beauty. Willingness as a way in the world is utterly beautiful, where the default is not a rebuttal or a “but”, instead it is a “Yes and”.

Today’s lesson comes from an interview with Adam Robinson, founder of the Princeton Review. He talks about how rehearsing is the best way to learn and get better. It is the deliberate effort to practice a skill across various circumstances, both expected and unexpected that gives us the opportunity for improvement. It is only by doing that we get better at things.

If you want to present better, do so in front of people you don’t know. If you want to do better at taking exams, do practice tests with questions that are not part of the teacher’s review questions. If you want to manage people better, constantly get feedback as you interact with your people. He also talks about learning from a single minded approach- to learn one thing and learn how to learn about it better before trying to understand other things. It’s about deliberate and focused practice.

As we live a life of learning we also live a life of constant rehearsing. We keep doing and trying what it is that we want to master until we hit our stride. It is about showing up to hone our craft everyday, applying this in all that we want to be great at, across the various aspects of our lives.

I always like to believe that people are doing the best they can. It is about trusting that one does not intend to do harm to the other nor does he or she deliberately harbor any ill intentions. It seems like a naive approach but I would like to think of it from a perspective of openness. It is not about blindly trusting but about taking stock of all the available and present information and paying close attention to cues and indicators.

What I have learned though is to couple this stance with a framework that also validates as much as one trusts. I have yet to learn to do this more consistently and consciously. For me it was always about taking in information on hand and weaving it with my instinct. I have made mistakes by employing this method. It is a good thing though that I have not lost belief in the innate goodness of people. I just have to practice validation.

Tied with this is also a call to look at things from the perspective of the other. It is not just about empathy but about asking questions related to the intentions and motivations why someone acts in a certain way and why he delivers a particular message. It is always going back to intention. An interaction is not just a meeting of the minds then but an intersection of intentions. Every conversation is a chance to unearth a genuine and generous motivation for doing and being. I hope to always choose to view the world as such not with rose coloured glasses but with authentic presence and attention.

I’ve been reading up on Stoicism and trying to practice not being too focused on the outcome but more on the process. My husband says (and I would like to believe him) that I have shown marked improvement in dealing with uncertainty. I’d like to think in I have gotten much better at handling things that don’t go as planned.

But today I still felt disappointed. I allowed myself to feel this instead of succumbing to a much stronger emotion like frustration and anger. I still felt bad because I had to go through something that filled up my headspace only to be told that plans may have to shift. I just felt that everyone was given clarity of options right from the start of the conversations but chose to do otherwise. I know that ultimately outcomes are out of our hands. It’s just hard to not feel anything when you go through the process and spend energy as you do so. It’s energy that I could’ve spent elsewhere.

I am also disappointed because I was already looking forward, excited for the plans to be carried out. A lesson here is to really just do your best and be present as you do the needed task. It’s staying true to the process, enjoying what I am learning from doing and engaging with what needs to be done. Maybe if I remember this more I would be less disappointed next time. But for now I will just give myself the permission to feel disappointed.

I welcomed the new year as if it were just another day. Not much fun fare, a little subdued if I may say so. It was spent with family and the closest of friends. I went about my daily practice and vowed that this brand new year will be a continuation of what I try to do everyday.

It will be another year of practicing genuine loving presence, seeking connection as I stay open and curious in every interaction. Adding to this as an ongoing evolution of practice is the deliberate effort to lean into every moment and finding ways to delight the other. This year I would like to focus more on the other, expecting magical miracles to happen as I choose to shift my attention outside of myself and my agenda.

I like this steady start. There is something about having a sense of calm at the starting line. I’ve seen this before in races and it has given me the focus, determination and drive to perform at my best. It is just the right beginning for another year of showing up everyday.

I just recently discovered Sharon Salzberg’s Metta Hour podcast. Sharon is known for teaching loving kindness meditation and I was privileged to have sat through a couple of her sessions at 1440 Multiversity earlier this year. For today’s podcast, she had a conversation with George Mumford. I chose this particular episode because George’s book, The Mindful Athlete, is one of the most instrumental content that I used in my run training.

I felt that the session spoke directly to me as I’ve been struggling lately with a sense of being off-center. I realised that this feeling springs from not being right here, right now. George succinctly put it as “There’s nothing wrong right now.” What worries us and causes so much anxiety in our lives are things that happened or might happen. But right now, there really is nothing amiss and that this moment is all we have. We hear this all the time but we still live as if our lives were not in this one present. We scramble, frantic and unsure of what to do. But if we pause and just be in the moment, we really will know what to do. It is already in us, just waiting to be heard and accessed. We just gotta listen.

Meditation is a way of tuning into these moments. It is a streamlined approach to nurturing mindfulness, cultivating attention, tranquility, keenness and insight. The active practice of slowing down to acknowledge every action and their very intention gives us back our now. I like the idea of meditation as a daily continuity practice, available in even the most mundane and repetitive of actions. It’s in the repetition that the shift happens. I hope I can get back to this beautiful process. I need it most right now.