Hey there, it's Michael. Welcome to Whole Again, A show about helping us embrace life with mindfulness and resilience through the wisdom of cons, Sugi on Fridays. I love bringing you short episodes, little tips that can help you approach life more mindfully. With more resilience and a bit more grace. And today I'd like to talk with you about icebergs, not the ones up in the north or south pole, but more as a metaphor.
But before we get there, let's take a moment to breathe. So wherever you happen to be, take a nice, generous breath in, notice your lungs expanding, and then release the breath. Give yourself permission to relax the body. All right. I hope that felt good. We don't do that enough. We take over 20,000 breaths a day, but we don't really notice many of them.
So let that last breath be a reminder or permission that you can steal a few moments during the day. To take a nice deep breath in and a slow releasing breath out. Alright, I am so glad you're here because I bet you've heard this phrase, or at least something similar to it, the phrase is, everyone's fighting a battle we can't see.
Or in other words, everyone's going through something. How true is that? But also, how easy is it to forget that? Especially as we're going a thousand miles an hour with everyone else and we're trying to navigate all the uncertainty in the world, it's very easy to feel just a little bit of stress. That feels quite normal now, but when someone cuts us off in traffic, we don't like it.
We think they're a jerk or that client of ours that seems to pick at every little thing and their demands seem unrealistic or simply not fair. Or the stranger we come across in our travels or that barista that gives us just a little attitude. Chances are we won't say anything, but that doesn't mean we won't have a reaction.
We'll begin to wonder what's up with them. Like why the attitude, and we start off there, but quickly, we do a very human thing. We turn the tables and make it about us, like what's their problem? With me? We become the focal point after all. That's pretty normal. We are the star of our story. But here's the thing, what if it's not all about us?
I know that might be a little too out there, but what if the things that are happening around us have nothing to do with us? This is where the iceberg comes in, what we see in others, their tone, their toed, their mood behavior. That's just the tip of the iceberg. That's what we see. That's what we judge.
That's what people judge in us, but beneath the surface, which. Happens to be the largest chunk of the iceberg out there in the North Pole or the South Pole, all that stuff. We don't see. We don't see their stress. We don't see the pressure their boss may be placing on them. We don't see if they're sick, they're going through something.
Maybe they've lost a loved one. They're going through the stages of grief, or they might have anxiety or even trauma that they still carry. Or they simply feel lonely. All that, all that stuff below the water surface, the part of the iceberg that we can't see well, that impacts the tip of the iceberg. And to pull the thread of this analogy just a bit further, many of us are simply trying to do our best, trying to stay afloat while parts of us feel like they are sinking to the bottom.
So the next time you receive a bit of two from someone, and this can even be your teenagers. If you have teenagers, I know this because I've gone through this, it may not be about you. Instead, you can reframe the situation, which is part of our grace model here at Whole. Again, you can get curious and wonder, what might this person be carrying that I can't see?
Now, this doesn't mean that we excuse away harmful behavior. No, not at all. But what it does mean is that we change our story, the story that we tell ourselves, that it's all about us. So instead of getting defensive, which can happen when we make it all about us, we can lean into empathy or perhaps compassion.
With compassion. We take a step to try to ease whatever burden they might be carrying that we can't see. So try that out. Again, it's not all about us. We're all going through something,
and as always, thank you for being here. If you wish to receive my free text messages to help you navigate today's uncertainty with more grace, simply text Whole again to 8 6 6 6 1 2 4 6 0 4. I'll set you up
and if you wish to further enhance your digital health, I'll invite you to take my smartphone wellness check and you can access it through the link in the show notes, or you can visit my website, which is Michael O'Brien shift.com, and it's absolutely free, and it'll help you scroll less and live more.
And of course, I hope you'll join us here on whole again every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and discover how to heal, grow, and become more resilient and celebrate our scars as golden symbols of strength and resilience. Until then, remember, you can always come back to your breath. You've got this and we've got you.
