Step Five: The One Thing

Yesterday we talked a bit about holding space for yourself, continuing to do what you love through anything and everything you are going through, taking advantage of those best days, and disengagement from any personal, societal, or professional labels as parts of our true selves.

The One Thing is about feeling accomplished, feeling like yourself, feeling as though you retained your personal integrity and values at the end of your worst day.

Next time you are suffering, before turning to a coping mechanism or act of escapism, try to ask this simple question: “If I truly loved myself, what would I do right now?”

I am unsure of where I originally heard it at this point, as I have heard mention from multiple sources, so I in no way take credit for coming up with it myself. Nevertheless it is surely a heavy hitter and I am glad it is floating around in the collective consciousness. This question has changed my life and I have come to ask it often. It has become my ‘feel like shit?’ Mantra.

The one thing that matters most in your worst moments? Providing for yourself. Showing love and compassion and finding comfort not in cookies or Netflix but in your values and in your faith. That is where true relief is waiting.

If you were born around 1990, then you would have been the perfect age to catch the short lived craze of a hilarious kung fu spoof movie that aired in theaters in 2002 called Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. In today’s politically correct -so correct at this point that we’ve parabolically rebounded in the opinions of many- atmosphere, the makers of this crap would be crucified for even pitching it to production companies. But there are still some lessons to be gleaned from amidst the insanity.

In one scene the headmaster of the kung fu school is being carted through the streets, very much near death after losing a fight to Master Pain, aka Betty, the movie’s main antagonist. Along the way to help he manages to blurt out “Tell me.. if you see.. a RadioShack..”

The old man is bleeding out multiple tears from the iron claw, can hardly speak, cant hardly move, but he’s still dedicating what one moment of clarity he has to his daily process. On that day apparently, the most important thing he felt would leave him fulfilled was getting his hands on some replacement batteries in a day and age where Amazon one click ordering hadn’t yet saved us from the mundane running of such errands.

My point is no matter how bad things got, having escaped a quick death at the hands of Betty’s iron claw technique, he was still determined to do the one really important thing he’d promised himself upon waking that morning. Even when near death.

When we are feeling like absolute total shit, we have a tendency to retreat toward creature comforts that are often also harmful habits, that cause more stress or more inflammation. We do these things as an act of love, but doing something with nurturing intent doesn’t always mean we end up with an overall net-gain toward our best selves, especially when we are already down in the dumps.

Choose comfort over wisdom and we run the risk of greasing the groove for the coping mechanisms of younger, more naive and simple versions of ourselves, while our emotional, spiritual, and physical highest selves suffer the consequences.

Learning to tune in to our greatest and most truthful needs in times of our greatest pain, crisis, loss, or illness is one of the most powerful practices I’ve stumbled into in my healing journey. The psychological benefit alone of going to bed on your worst day still knowing you satisfied the needs you held dearest is beyond measure.

This practice opens opportunities for still feeling like ourselves even at times when we can’t be present in the roles we play. When you can barely speak, can barely walk, when your pain is nearly unbearable, perhaps you and your toilet have developed a very intimate relationship, or you have been bedridden most of the day, and you still express what you feel is your Truth, the day does not feel like a loss. Granted, lessons from the Pain Teacher are never without value, but hot damn does it help to feel as though you have not lost out on much of anything for being detained by Its lessons.

You end up having gained something that is hard to put to words. Let’s just say for now that it feels as though even while you are watching yourself fall to pieces, other bits of you still are being eloquently laced back together in such a way that makes you all the more beautiful, and your focus in retrospect is drawn to that work as it graciously plays itself out amongst the wreckage. Ultimately, is this just a shift in perspective? Well yeah, but isn’t your perception of an experience equivalent to its value?

How do we manage to bring about accomplishments on our worst days? Its the easiest thing you might learn from this entire series. What’s the one thing you’d really love to do on your worst day? We arent talking about attending meetings or nailing a round of Dr. Eric Goodman’s foundations training here, I doubt you could be having one of your worst days and pull that off. I mean meditating for an hour perhaps instead of succumbing to social media or cartoons. Showing myself the kindness of laying down in bed instead of getting stuck in my living room or kitchen dribbling over a screen aimlessly, hopelessly unproductive. If I am too unwell to focus on reading, I will still refrain from tuning out passively in front of the TV. I mean taking a shower and putting on comfy clean clothes instead of feeling like a dirty mess all day. Maybe still going for a short walk to get sunshine and some fresh air.

On a recent horrible day for me I ended up coming around in the evening well enough to bother glancing at a list self-love actions I had written the day prior as my preferred scheduled routine. I knew I had planned to take an ice bath and do rounds of Wim Hof Method breath work. And at ten o’clock at night, looong after I am usually in bed, I fumbled into my practice. I was gonna shower anyway. 3 bags of ice and ten minutes later I stared at the tub, not knowing if I could will myself to even start breathing. Then came one big, long, drawn out diaphragmatic inhale, the wonderful empty bliss of space between breaths on the exhale... and then came another, and another... before I knew it I was tapping my fingers as I had done so many times before on the count (which I often need to do lest I climb too high to keep track till the end of a round)... 15, 20, 25, 30, 33... Hold! ...and as customary for me I fall into my meditation mantra between rounds, having done something that seemed so incredibly intangible just two minutes ago but was now all but effortless. As was the rest of the experience. I went to bed having attained a higher, truer state of consciousness as if my day of misery never happened.

The impetus of this practice came with a simple proposition to myself I turn to often in times of duress. Never forget to ask: “If I truly loved myself, what would I do right now?”

Show dedication to the most basic instinct of Love. Then pick the one thing u are gonna do today. If you have a chance to try it, let us know please how it changed your experience! If you inquire within often enough, you will soon find small wins begin to appear.

If you’ve gotten this far in our series We’d like to say THANK YOU! You are Loved.

Please feel free to reach out if you need help or have any feedback.

Tomorrow’s post dives into the critical importance of maintaining a team of loving, devoted, and open-minded professionals throughout your healing process. Dont miss it!