So it turns out this is just the beginning

When I started my mindfulness quest in 2017, I had a definite plan.  Learn, qualify, teach!  I took comfort from this well formed plan with its clear start; well defined milestones and final destination.  

So just rewinding a little...my first inclination that I was onto something fascinating was a chance encounter at work.  Setting out on my usual lunch time walk, I was looking forward to being outside when I bumped into one of my colleagues.  A real talker, so I was mildly conscious that this chance meeting would eat into my walk, but like a good friend, I stood in polite silence listening. What came next really shocked me and I had no idea how it happened.

As she offloaded her latest trials and tribulations, I could literally feel my energy draining away, making way for what I can only describe as a heavy sense of duty and responsibility.  When we parted, I noticed that I spent the majority of my walk in constant thought wondering what I could do to solve her problems.  I felt physically weighed down by them, as if they were my own.

This observation or noticing was just the strangest thing. This was the first time I'd ever noticed how a conversation had made me feel, and I wanted to know how  this magic had happened?

At the time I'd been getting up early following the "Miracle Morning".  It left me feeling sharp and on top of the world.  I wondered whether this was the key to this new skill, or whether it was one of the 6 activities the book recommends. As I began studying mindfulness I realised that this noticing our inner world, is mindfulness 101, but this left me with another question.  How long had I been picking up other people's emotional baggage?  How long had I been  weighing my own life down with other people's responsibilities?

I've taught mindfulness to a lot of people in different guises and there are many who come to see me for that all important time out.  But mindfulness has changed my life in so many ways and it's been the absolute foundation to helping me work on so many things such as boundaries, relationships, self reflection.  I've had some really powerful insights into my human emotions, whether I wanted them or not.

So I really wanted to bring all of this to life, and to share, warts and all, these emotional human complexities we all hustle with every day.  That daily negotiation with the challenges of life. This really is what the Emotional Hustle is all about.  Eventually it will be a book with a definite order and path, but along the way I'll be sharing self contained videos, podcasts and practices.

I hope you find this stuff as interesting as I do and will stick around to find out more, and to see what unfolds.  So, until next time my friends... Take Care