Why Possibility, Perspective and Empowerment will help you to save a Relationship; And it’s possible to also build a better one than ever!
Project Possible
When we operate out of a place of possibility, it seems like there’s very little that we cannot achieve.
An amazing example of this is the real life story of Nims Purja as told in the Netflix film14 Peaks.
Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal (Nims) Purja decided to attempt to climb all fourteen 8000+ meter mountain peaks in the World within a record time of under 7 months. To put this in perspective, the first person to summit all 14 was Mountaineering legend Rheinhold Messner who took 16 years to do so in the 70s and 80s. Even the most recent record had taken over 7 years to accomplish…
Why did it take so long?
In part this is due to Time and Money. The enormous cost of high mountain expeditions includes having to obtain permits to climb. For Everest for example this is usually in the region of £10,000 per person. Then there’s the cost of the climbing equipment, crew and travel. Add to this the time factor of limited weather windows; for Everest there’s usually 2 weeks in May which can be Ok to climb in. You have already got yourself some highly tricky starting conditions to begin with.
Then there’s the more obvious things: size and danger. Climbing any of these massive peaks is a high stakes game – one of the deadliest 8000m peaks, Annapurna, claims almost a third of the lives of all the climbers who ever attempt it. The remainder average about 1 in every 5 or 6 people dying on the mountain. And remember that 8000 meters is equivalent to over 26,000 feet tall. Commercial Airplanes fly at around 35,000 feet so that gives you some sense of just how high up you get Air rescues are not possible high up these mountains as Helicopters cannot hover at altitudes beyond 13,800 feet. So if you are get into trouble you are unlikely to make it of the mountain. And let’s not even get started about the Death Zone…
You get the idea though…
You get the idea though. This sort of undertaking is no joke! You have to be prepared to die for what is, for many who attempt it, a hobby; or, more depressingly, a bucket list item. And whilst of course standing at the roof of the World is literally a mountaintop experience, it’s known that some people who perhaps have much more money than mountaineering skill, will pay teams of Sherpa people to basically get them up and down Everest. And it’s people like these, without adequate skill and experience, or even any real passion for the craft of mountaineering, who simply are looking to tick off some major bucket list items. As they do so, they are endangering not only themselves, but the lives of many others on the mountains, including most often the very people they pay to carry their gear up there.
[Heartfelt rant over.]
All about Survival
So, even Surviving this challenge was a big ask, let alone doing it within the time frame Nims had set.
Yet Nims was not going to be dissuaded; even despite hundreds of people telling him they would not give him funding or sponsorship for the project because it was simply ‘Impossible’ .
However, clearly someone with a steely determination, Nims named his passion project ‘Project Possible’. Nims totally believed in the project, his team and himself and this attitude of possibility ultimately paid off. He smashed his target completing all 14 climbs in under 7 months.
Watching this makes the rest of us feel like mere mortals in comparison to Nims.
Epic Mindset
Yet, what Nims had in buckets that many people do not, was 2 things:
- Vision – He used his imagination, and not the story of what had gone before, to write his future.
- Belief – He didn’t listen to the naysayers and he totally disregarded the word ‘Impossible’. He wanted to live in the realm of what had not yet been accomplished and he knew this was totally possible.
You don’t need to be trying to perform superhuman physical feats to see the lessons in what he did though. At the very least, you can feel inspired just by his attitude.
With this story of epic achievement made real, it’s far easier for us to believe we can do something as pedestrian as changing the fate of our Relationships! Yet sometimes we dwell in impossibility rather than possibility.
‘It’s Possible’ is just a Mindset
When we were fixing our Marriage, I learnt something surprising; So much of the success of your Relationship is actually down to your Mindset; and possibility is just a Mindset.
The stories we tell ourselves about what’s going on; what could happen and what has passed all contribute to the way we approach our current Love Relationship.
However, when we actively weed out disempowering thought patterns and replace them with positive ones, we get radically different results.
Possibility
The highly renowned Motivational Speaker Les Brown, once gave a speech whichis not widely known as simply: ‘It’s Possible’. In it he simply focuses on the power of believing that something is at the very least, Possible.
Because if you ask yourself the following question, what’s the answer?
“Would it really be impossible for me to change my relationship?”
The vast majority of people would answer ‘No’ because of course we do believe that a possibility always exists.
Les’s famous speech started off like this:
“I want you to look at something right now. Think of some major goal you want or maybe it’s one you’re already working on and you have experienced a lot of setbacks; a lot of defeats. You’ve experienced a lot of disappointment. Maybe you’ve already given up and maybe you just need a little fun, little encouragement to get back in the game again.
Here’s what I want you to look at. There are winners and there are losers and there are people who have not discovered how to win. And all they need is some coaching. All they need is some help and assistance — just a little support. All they need is some insight; or a different strategy or plan of action to make some adjustments, that will open up the key to a whole new future for them; that will give them access to the unlimited power that they have within themselves. That’s all that they need.
So what I want you to do is think about something you want for you; that’s real for you, that’s important for you, that will give your life some special meaning and power. And I don’t even want you to say ‘I can do that’ I don’t want you to assume that. See, five years ago when I started out in this area, I would not have been able to make the mental leap that I would be up to where I am right now. I don’t want you to begin to just psych yourself out.
No, no, I want you to be able to say something to yourself that will enable you to maintain a level of integrity with yourself. That when you say this; even when you face tremendous setbacks; it will be a benchmark to keep you in the game. To keep you moving forward and experimenting and readjusting your strategy and your plan of action; continuously looking for ways to win.
So what is that something? When you’ve got an idea you want to move on. You might not have the money, you might not have the education, you might not have the support or the resources you need. What is that something that can keep us going, that will enable us to act on our dream? What’s one of those keys that will begin to help us to discover the secrets to our dream?
‘It’s Possible’.
Here’s what I want you to repeat after me please with power and conviction, say:
‘It’s Possible’.
It’s all I want you to do when you look at your dream, just say to yourself every day:
‘It’s Possible’.
Just say that every day to yourself: ‘It’s possible.‘
Because what does that do? See, it begins to change your belief system. So the way in which we operate, ladies and gentlemen, it’s a manifestation of what we believe; what’s possible for us. Whatever you’ve done up to this point, all that it really is, is a duplication, is a reproduction of what you believe subconsciously that you deserve and what’s possible for your life.
Most people operate out of their personal history, out of their memory, things they have done, things they have experienced, things they have seen, things that they have observed. What I’m suggesting is that you operate out of a larger vision of yourself; I want you to see yourself doing what you want to do; experiencing what you want to experience; having what you want to have; doing what gives your life some meaning and value.
Operate out of your imagination, not your memory. Because whenever you look at where you want to go, I want to warn you, you will have some conversation back here; after you go through the data that you’ve experienced in life saying you can’t do it. And so what you want to begin to do is ignore that inner conversation.”
Les Brown, ‘It’s Possible’
The Stories we tell Ourselves
Les refers to the dialogue that goes on pretty much all day in our heads as our ‘Inner conversation’. This familiar chatter comes from an area of the Brain that is most often referred to as the Chimp Brain.
If you think of a time you might have seen Chimps either in real life or on a Wildlife programme, you’ll recognise the pattern of their chatter. It starts off as the low pitched, relatively quiet chatter of ‘Ooh ooh ooh’; but can quickly build into a very loud high pitched scream of ‘Ooh Ahh ahh ahh ahh ahh ahh!” (A little bit like the vocal stylings of the singer from The Disturbed in fact).
Similarly, this part of your brain can kick off & escalate very quickly, becoming over emotional, dramatic or even catastrophic. It’s not particularly concerned with Facts or Reason and much rather prefers emotions or instincts to draw its conclusions. If left to run wild, it can have you behaving in an irrational manner; and thinking or believing things that have little basis in reality.
Your Brain
There’s no doubt that the Human Brain is an incredible machine. But it would be a mistake to think that it’s always acting in your best interests…
In many respects your brain isn’t always helpful and this over-emotional part of it can definitely be a big driver of self sabotage.
Part of the reason your brain isn’t always super helpful in relationships is because it loves to automate tasks based upon past learnt experiences. It’s of course more efficient as far as your brain is concerned to make things automatic and sure – for process-related, functional things like breathing and having blood pumping round your body, we can’t argue!
However, when it comes to how you react in situations that are clouded by emotion, this is not altogether helpful. There are multiple variables when it comes to how we humans behave – it’s not really something you can predict with certainty. You also cannot account for all the variables that another human has experienced in their life, let alone all of the ones you have experienced in yours.
“All Men Are Bastards!”
So I think we’ll all have heard at least one woman in our lifetime assert that “All Men Are Bastards!”
Which simply isn’t true. At best the data to support this opinion falls within a bell curve but then I don’t believe that all men are bastards so in my personal experience I don’t tend to find that they are. But our minds look for patterns and generally, we usually alter, construe or otherwise (mis)interpret evidence to confirm our beliefs or bias.
Equally, as I say, you minds wants to automate tasks to keep you safe so if you burnt your hand on a cooker once, you’ll have learnt not to do that again. Your brain wants you to avoid pain & danger and it’s safe to assume that a hot stove is not going to be good friends with your skin at any point in the future.
Translate this to emotional pain though and the equation doesn’t work quite so well. In the “All men are bastards” example what’s happened is that, as we know, ANY hot stove will do us harm. However, a careless, disrespectful or downright nasty man is not EVERY man. So whilst your brain is being lovely and trying to keep you safe, happy and pain-free, it doesn’t have all the variables available to make future assumptions when it comes to interactions with other humans.
However, we still tend to make many of the decisions, assumptions and misinterpretations of our partner’s behaviour based upon that which we’ve experienced in the past; not on who they actually are.
Perspective
In this way, our perspective in any situation is somewhat distorted. If we base our expectations of our current partner on the behaviours of people in the past – be that parents. primary caregivers or exes, we will undoubtedly find ourselves putting our current partners in a story which they had no part in writing.
Keeping a check on our perspective requires vigilance and effort but is definitely worthwhile because it’s really easy to misconstrue things.
Take this note for example:
Read this left to right or as 2 separate notes and the meaning is completely different…
And it nicely illustrates the point that sometimes the way we are looking at things does not always offer us the most empowering meaning. Which therefore means it doesn’t give us the results we are looking for…
I found when I was healing my own marriage, that simply changing the way I looked at things was a complete game changer.
Once you intentionally take on beliefs & meanings that are designed to give you the results you really want, you can make progress quickly and easily towards getting the Relationship you really desire.
Because our beliefs are rather like a Filter: they change the way you see things. But it’s not always for the best!
Some beliefs (like “All Men are Bastards!”) don’t offer you great results because your mind is also looking for evidence to support your beliefs – not to contradict them.
However, with a little practice, you can consciously choose how you see things in a way that ultimately gives you the reality you want.
Perspective is Everything my Friend.
I truly believe that Relationship issues are THE greatest opportunity we are given for personal development – and to embrace this idea, we just have to see them as a blessing, rather than a curse.
Sometimes, Life asks you nicely to level up -it maybe gives you a gentle tap on the shoulder and a “Please, could you just…” but the thing is we don’t always listen to or act upon the pleasant, non-urgent requests and most often we’re like:
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get round to it…”
But when nothing changes, it’s then Life gets all angry-ass parent on you and it says:
“No! NOW!“
It demands change by putting you into crisis. Because in Crisis we have no option, no retreat, no excuses. We simply have to deal with the situation in front of us.
Here’s the tricky thing though: we have to get out of our heads & our perpective of blaming or wanting to be right or playingthe victim and instead look inside ourselves and ask:
“How has this situation been sent to benefit me? What can I learn from It? Is it trying to teach me something? Where is the good in this situation?“
Make no mistake though: Being able to change your perspective; Being able to see the silver lining in any situation, IS a skill. And it’s one that you can learn. You simply need to get curious and start looking for the good, for the positives, for the lessons.
If you are experiencing issues or crisis in your Relationship & you can look at that as something sent to help you to Grow, not something sent to crush you, then you will have given yourself the most incredible gift. The gift of a new perspective.
Empowered
When you can see Possibilities and when you can totally change your perspective; you quickly find that things you once saw as obstacles you now just recognise as learning curves. You allow yourself to see the World in a whole new way and In this way you also fully empower yourself to change everything.
Believing that something is possible and having the vision to look beyond your life experience and into the realms of ‘What If’ lets you break free from from being stuck in the same old story.
In fact, it allows you to write a completely new one.
Holly Skey is a Relationship Repair Expert, armchair Mountaineer & founder of HEA-RT.com. She helps Couples to pull their Relationships out of crisis; and get back on the same team – even if only one person is trying.
So, is it crazy to imagine that upgrading your Mindset could help your relationship? If you’d like to know how to overhaul your Perspectives & Beliefs and create the kind of Mindset that puts you on top of the World (and helps you with saving or fixing your Relationship most importantly!) then check out out Relationship Training programme. In just 8 weeks we can help you turn things around for good.