strength

Fear of Failure

January 28, 2018 By John Du Cane

“There’s no success like failure and failure’s no success at all.”—Bob Dylan

Success is a leaf blown hither and thither by the gusts of opinion and belief. Success is a shape-shifter. Success is the canny chameleon, changing colors to match the melting rainbow of our desires. Ever-elusive, success mocks our vain attempts to possess her. One fleeting gasp, it seems, before she slides away again, beyond our grasp…

And failure, by its nature, is always yelping at the heels of success. Failure dogs and mocks our hopes. In our dreams, we can feel the fingers of failure falling on our shoulder—just waiting for us to stumble…

For those of us in recovery, it’s important to recognize the elastic relativity of success and failure. And we need to protect ourselves from getting too caught up with either the allure of success or the perceived ignominy of failure. For our sanity and our serenity’s sake, let’s stay modest in what we define as success and failure. Our overarching need is to protect ourselves and our recovery from undue vulnerability. The irony is that our fear of failing can make us more vulnerable—which can put our recovery at further risk.

We have seen how our fear of failure is a brilliant recipe for just one thing: more failure. So, let’s choose to face our fear of failure in the same way we’d eat an elephant—one bite at a time. Let’s face our fear in manageable increments. What we imagined to be a looming shadow of disappointment, then disappears when looked at in the light.

Over time—and taking it gently—we can recalibrate our definitions of success and failure. We can measure success and failure against our core recovery values and priorities. We save what protects us and exalt it. We discard what is destructive and stick it with a warning label.

Let’s take a minute today to reflect on a failure we are fearing for ourselves. Could we be giving this fear some undue power?

The movement for today is an old stand by for strength building—and is also a movement that lends itself to fear of failure. That movement would be the push-up. Any way you cut it, the push-up eventually becomes a toughie… The push-up dares you to succeed—while it waits to envelop you in a cloak of failure. The answer today, is to come close to the precipice of failure without making the leap.

Here’s the success strategy we will employ: determine the number of good-form push-ups you can perform with significant effort. Aim to hit that mark. However, give yourself permission to recalibrate success, by stopping one rep before you would utterly fail to perform that extra rep. Voila, you have succeeded in the teeth of failure…

Kneel on the ground. Place your hands on the floor at shoulder’s width. Raise your knees up and extend your legs until your whole body is in a plank-like posture. Keep your butt in line with your spine. Tighten your abs. Take about two seconds to gently lower yourself down until your chest almost touches the floor. Push up into your original position. Inhale and hold your breath on the way down. Exhale when you push up. If the full push-up is initially too challenging for you, perform the movement while resting on your knees.

It’s exhilarating to face a fear of failure—and win the face-off!

Quick Fixes and The Perils of Hacking

January 27, 2018 By John Du Cane

“In the soil of the quick fix is the seed of a new problem, because our quiet wisdom is unavailable”—Wayne Muller

The notion that we can hack our way to faster physical transformation has gained widespread currency in our modern Want It Now culture. But, while there are undoubtedly effective hacks to be had, is the hacking mindset a safe one for those of us in recovery?

In our using days, we were bedeviled by our hunger for the quick fix. To lurch back onto the path of instant gratification—physically, spiritually or emotionally—could set us up for disappointment, impatience, frustration or irritation. None of these emotions are exactly supportive of our serenity!

The urge to hack for quick results is essentially immature—a product of the teenage impulse. We are creatures of the natural order—much as we try to wriggle and scam our way out of it… The natural order dictates a path for growth which, across nature’s board, is slow and deliberate. Consider how plants grow over time. Consider animals in the wild. Consider our own kind, in the earlier years. We see a gradual growth, a gradual maturing, a gradual strengthening.

Many of us, though, remained stuck in the house arrest of teenage impulsivity. We kept on punching and punching the quick-fix buttons in our play box. We stubbornly continued to trick and trigger our way into pleasure hit after pleasure hit after pleasure hit.

The hacking mindset tends to deny the need for consistent effort over the long haul to reach our goals. And yet, the Way of Resilience and of Stable Strength—be it of body, mind or spirit—is the deliberate application of time-tested wisdom on a daily basis. Let’s seek that resilience and stability and maturity of outlook, to better safeguard our recovery!

There is finally no magic fix to getting and staying stronger and more resilient. But, there is a secret: persistent, consistent effort. Regular, daily movement—however minimal—is a sure-fire way to maintain that all-important, multi-dimensional resilience.

Let’s buttress our recovery today, then, with some sweet and sweaty effort:

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Cross your arms over your chest and squat down as low as you can, preferably below parallel and eventually with your thighs touching your calves. Keep your knees from bowing in by aligning them with your feet. Keep your back as straight as possible. Come back up and lock out your legs and hips completely. Squeeze the muscles in your legs as tightly as possible for a second, relax and repeat the squat. Inhale and hold the breath as you descend. Exhale as you ascend. Do three sets of twelve repetitions. Rest at least a minute between each set.

It feels so good to be making steady progress with my health and strength, by committing to consistent, daily movement.

Stepping Up to Change

January 12, 2018 By John Du Cane

“We are only stable because we constantly change.”—Charles Richet

Change is a core condition of life that in and of itself has no value attached. Change becomes good, bad or indifferent, only when we attach our own particular perspective to it.

As addicts, we tended to want to lock down change as our personal property. We would try to muscle change to obey our will—bend it to our own desires. We would attempt to control and manage change into our own image. Got a difficult partner? Change them or lose them! Not high enough, satisfied enough? Grab more and more and more… Work getting you down? Quit! Not enough money? Steal some! The list goes on and on…

Often, we would bang our heads against an unchangeable force until we’d be left with cracked and bleeding skulls… Or we’d slink away, tails in the mud, from the changes we could—and needed—to make.

In recovery, we famously learned to accept change when it was clear there was no other sensible option. We learned to be courageous and make change happen—when the change was there for us to make. The art and wisdom though, is to discern what can indeed be changed and what cannot. In recovery, we cultivate this discernment one careful, considered step at a time. We step up to make a change. We step down from a misguided attempt to force ourselves on change. Step up, step down. Step up, step down.

Here’s a secret: if you meditate on something while you are in a physical activity, it helps empower that meditation—when the movement is practiced with good attention. So, when you do the very simple drill below, meditate on the nature of change—and your relationship to change—while you perform the movements.

Find a stable surface that’s anywhere from one foot to around knee height. Select a height that is somewhat challenging, but which you can manage with good form. It could be a bench or a staircase, for instance. Stand close, then step up with your left leg onto the bench. Step up now with the right leg, so you are standing upright on the bench. Step back down with the right leg, keeping the left leg on the bench. Repeat the stepping up and down with the right leg for from ten to twenty repetitions. Switch to the other side.

Voila, you just made some positive changes to your strength and mobility!

It feels great to take an action today that has a positive effect on my body.