Fear and Unicorns

Earlier today I asked my athletes what inspires them and we had many wonderful answers. 

I told the team that my inspiration was each of them. 

The things they have achieved and the dreams they are chasing along with the privilege they afford me by allowing me to be present whilst they chase (and tame) their own unicorns.

But I got to thinking, is this inspiration or just joy? It makes me glad and joyful to be part of this but what is the inspiration that drives me, me personally, to get out of bed and do, well, anything? 

Then I realised. 

I’m inspired by fear. 

I find that all the things that drive me have fear at the base. As a younger me, I was totally afraid of physical confrontation so sought out confrontation in an effort to head it off at the pass. 

I heard Matt ‘The Immortal’ Brown talk about fear a few weeks ago during preparation for his headline fight (against Jonny Hendricks) in the UFC. 

He said, ‘I am afraid of every man’ and I nearly cried. To hear one of the worlds best and most feared fighters describe his motivation in this way somehow normalised my own thoughts. 

I am afraid. 

I’m afraid for my own family, that I’ll lose them or some harm will come to them so I keep going on when I really want to curl up in a ball and give up. 

I’m afraid that, if I don’t keep learning and don’t keep obsessing about ‘movement’, I’ll lose touch with what I’m trying to do with each of those beloved people who share their dreams with me and that I’ll let them down. 

I believe that we live in a reciprocal universe and as such, I’m afraid that if I don’t ‘serve’ then I’ll be found out at the arse end of that reciprocation. 

I’m afraid that if I ever stop being afraid, I won’t be able to summon the all consuming rage that can and has and will protect me against all that would work against me. 

I’m afraid of success. What if all my dreams do come true, can I handle it? It would all be too big! I’m too small, I’m too weak…

And here we are again. 

Fear and me. 

Standing looking at each other, guards up…and I’m frozen…what do I do? 

‘Keep looking down, don’t make eye contact. Slowly back away. Retreat. Curl up’.

But no, sometime ago I realised exactly what to do. And here it is. 

Look that fucker right in the eye and smile. 

Walk forward and slowly lower your guard. 

Put your arms out and embrace this ‘opponent’. 

Fear is your friend! Look what it’s helped me learn and achieve. Look at how it helps me protect and love! 

Embrace it and know it. 

I am my fear and my fear is every part of me. 

I firmly believe that if fear is the yang then love is the yin and shadow cannot exist without light. Hate is not the opposite of love, it’s just a silly misunderstood reflection. The real opposite of love is fear itself and once we embrace it, understand it and know it as a whole and furious part of ourselves then we can first marinate in it then absorb it and connect it with all the love that is at its centre. 

‘There is nothing to fear but fear itself’ and once we can overcome this singular fear we have the universe in our hands. 

Perhaps the ‘Unicorn’ we chase is fear itself? 

“Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?” 

Book of Job 39:9–12.

God and Steam

Today, I met God. In the Steam Room. 

God’s name was Ken. 

Ok, for a first post in this blog, that might seem intense but let me explain…

Hard times have befallen me and usually, during hard times, the Universe likes to make little suggestions and whispers, nudges and pokes. 

During these recent times, I’ve experienced great loss, pain and (as I imagine is part of the recipe) a great deal of confusion. A lot of why’s and a lot of ‘woe is me’ coupled with some shaking of fists at the sky…(and at some rather unfortunate strangers)! 

“WHO THE FUCK IS KEN?”

Calm down, I’m getting there.

I went to the gym because I’d been drinking too much and it seemed like a decent way to kickstart some self respect and to attempt to centre myself. 

It went badly. I spent over an hour cursing my injuries and cursing everybody who happened to walk near me or look at me or simply exist and generally I was hating everything and everyone so I thought ‘fuck this for a lark, I’ll have a swim and a steam’.

After a few laps of the pool I thought ‘fuck this for a lark, I’ll have a steam!’.

And I did. 

And I met Ken. 

In the dark and through heavy fog, I spotted a body and immediately hated it. 

I thought I was in there on my own. I’d even congratulated myself for having picked a decent moment to enter the room but there he was. In MY steam room. Just sitting there. Steaming. How DARE he! Utter bastard.

Then, ‘I like your tattoos’. Oh now he wants to communicate!! Outrageous. *I’m trying to boil in my own skin quietly here!!!*

‘Yeah, thanks.’ I said. (That showed him). 

Then, ‘They’re kinda awesome (*Wtf? Keep your speedos on, pal*), I wish I’d gotten mine finished but well, hard times befell me.’

Oh.

‘Tough times mate?’ I said. 

He explained the hardship of a military life and an embedded culture of drinking that had permeated that existence, but that through that world of suffering he’d met a girl. A girl he married.

Ken went on to explain that this girl, his love, his wife, had died. 

3 years ago. She had a neurological condition that eventually laid waste to her every function and that after a brave fight she had left her body behind and started a new journey. 

Her name was ‘Marie’ he said with a massive smile in his eyes. (We were now sitting opposite each other like two old chess players who hadn’t noticed the lack of board or pieces). 

After his wife had died, Ken went on something of a journey that led him to read the Great books. 

He looked for meaning and he found God. 

Through this he found a partner (and now wife), and he found himself. 

‘Marie’s death saved me.’ he said. ‘Through that pain, I was forced on a journey, forced to climb and to keep climbing lest I fell.’

Somewhere in the middle of this I thanked Turkey for steam (because they invented it right?) because I was crying. 

I had become acutely aware that my rage and hatred and anger was wrong. Simply wrong. 

Ken quickly taught me that even in the darkest of places, beauty can be found. Maybe not immediately but it’s there. 

How often, as a child did the ‘Night Night’s’ happen and then you could see nothing.  

Nothing at all. 

Scary, Huh?

But slowly…’Look, I can see Superman or (*insert nice stuff from your childhood room here*) and things seemed different. More promising. More exciting. More wonderful. 

I was impressed at Ken’s candour and we talked at length about how we both believed that the usually held or preached idea of ‘God’ was just an easy way to pin a tail on the donkey and to describe a higher consciousness.

And we giggled about how we could be afraid of each other in steam and the dark. In pants. 

Then he said ‘I’m dying.’ and I said ‘GET FUCKED KEN, YOU’RE TAKING THE PISS?!’ and he looked at me oddly and said ‘No, I mean it’s so fucking hot and we’re talking so much, my heart rate is through the roof. I have to leave!’ 

‘Hahahahaha’, I said. 

Ken came back and said ‘You’re alright. You’ll be alright.’ and then he left. 

I stayed for a few minutes longer then I left too and I looked for him. He wasn’t there. I went to the changing rooms too but no Ken. Like that, pffffft, he was gone (KAISER ‘EFFIN SOUZE!).

Now ok, I know, I get it. Ken is just a dude. Right? 

But what if?…WHAT IF??

Ken was exactly in the right place at the right time for me. And I for Ken (yes, I shared too. I’m not entirely selfish). 

Now, is that just coincidence? Well if you say it is, then (for you) it is, but I wonder, if we go with the theory that ‘God’ is simply an implication of a larger consciousness…if every moment is a moment we are ready to receive and a moment that can teach and offer us something then….maybe….maybe…

I met God in a Steam Room and God’s name, is Ken.