Welcome to the Freedom Fridays project with me your host, Pete Clark, The Whispers Guy.
So this week, it's been all about me. It's been my birthday this week. And that's raised a couple of interesting things that have happened to me. And the first thing I'll share is I read years ago in a book called "Mutant To Message Down Under". It was written by an American woman about supposedly a real road trip she had with some indigenous tribes in Australia. And it's since turned out that it wasn't it was fictionalised. It is still an interesting story, even fiction. And one of the, and I don't know whether this is true or not, I hope it is, one of the fictions in it was that there was a tribe that she came across that birthdays weren't celebrated chronologically. So they weren't celebrated each time the birth date clicked over another year, and you became 21, or 36, or whatever the age was. So it wasn't celebrated consecutively like that. Birthdays were celebrated when you grew. When there was something that happened that caused you to expand or explore some different way of thinking, perhaps it was a ritual, perhaps it was some test. But there was evidence amongst your community that you as an individual had grown. You'd evolved, you'd expanded your capability, maybe it was a strength or a fitness thing, or your capacity, maybe it was a thinking or a mindset thing. But I find that an interesting perspective on birthdays. And you know, in most of our worlds, we probably celebrate consecutively. Every time your birth date comes along, you celebrate another year. And I wonder how old we would be, and again, 'old' there's a connotation around old, but I wonder what age we'd be if we celebrated them based on periods of growth. And every time we grew in some way, shape, or form that we celebrated, the rebirthing. And if I reflect on my birthday week, and that concept of celebrating when you've grown shares, gees I would be in triple figures by now. Based on what I think I've learned, and how I've grown over the last, you know, nearly 18 months, certainly since the beginning of COVID. What's interesting for me to reflect on though is, I wonder if anyone's noticed that? So I feel I've learned more, read more. I've developed more content and IP. I've bought more books, read more books, listen to more podcasts. I've done my own LinkedIn videos, Weekly Whispers, Freedom Fridays podcasts, I've built a home studio and just ways in which I've expanded psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, philosophically, it's been a huge growth period for me. But it's interesting, I wonder if my community would notice? Would anyone actually notice if Pete is growing in any significant way? Maybe they just see the old Pete and because our brain is designed to find the evidence to prove what we believe. That those slivers of the old Pete still there, inevitably, and that's what they see. I do think, and I've had this confirm, because I've checked before I recorded this. My wife has definitely seen some changes, not necessarily just in the last 18 months, but certainly over the last two or three years. I am somewhat different in company, I'm somewhat different sociallly and she's noticed that she's definitely noticed. The way I've expanded some of my interpreting and thinking on certain things, the work I'm doing on myself, is definitely a big growth area for me. And so I thought that would be the first thing I would share with you just this. It's been my birthday week. And I wonder when you celebrate your birthday, what is it you're celebrating? Are you celebrating the click over and over another year? Are you celebrating some growth and development in your capability or capacity?
Now the second thing I want to share with you is actually hot off the press. I actually worked on my birthday. And I was quite happy to do so. I didn't let anyone know, I didn't let the client know, I didn't really feel it was about me and wasn't really that important to them, so I didn't make any big deal of it. I was definitely then confirmed to use my Friday this week, as a way of celebrating my birthday. Then another client thing came up, and my need and want to serve kicked in. And because we had already planned and evening and a weekend away for my birthday with my wife, I felt that that was okay. And maybe in the past that would have resented it, I'm not sure. But now because I have this Freedom Friday's project ongoing and it's constantly having me think about how I invest my time, not just on a Friday, as you know, but just overall generally how I invest my time. I feel good about it. And so that's the second thing.
The third thing that struck me this week is, is this distinction between having thoughts, or being had by your thoughts. Because I think in previous experiences on that, and I can think of a specific occasion, when, as I reflect I'm a little bit embarrassed about this, but I was really upset that somebody pretty close to me, had forgotten, forgotten my birthday. Hadn't been in touch and hadn't got me a present and you know, as that person normally would. And so the thoughts I had were things like, oh, he/she doesn't like me, he/she doesn't love me, he/she doesn't care. Then they extrapolated onto me as well, I'm alone, nobody loves me, nobody cares. Which were complete fabrication and complete stories. But it's interesting how my mood and mindset changed because I was had by those thoughts, those thoughts had me in their grip. They they had me at their beck and call, they caught me, despite them being my thoughts. The distinction between having thoughts and being had by your thoughts is this year, for example, seems like things are happening. Some people have forgotten, I'm sure because they're busy. Because they don't like me or care. And I don't feel anywhere near as had by those thoughts. It's now easier for me to distinguish having thoughts. And so I can separate myself from the thoughts I'm having. And my response to the thoughts because that could be a different persona could be a different part of me that's actually responding to the thoughts that another part of me is having. And so I thought that was an interesting distinction. In my birthday week to share with you. I wonder how often we get caught by our thoughts or had by them? As opposed to the distinction and a little bit of detachment in having thoughts. Because in having thoughts we can either believe them or not. We can either find them helpful or hindering. We can choose to repeat and build a normal catastrophizing, exaggerate the narrative, or use it for good, whatever is beneficial.
The fourth thing I'll share with you is a really simple example, one of our family's cars broke down this week. And it needed maintenance, obviously. But interestingly, the time that had passed between the last service had gone on 18 months, which I feel a little embarrassed about. At that time just seemed to go so quickly. It just wasn't on our radar. And so the car broke down, because it hadn't hadn't been maintained. Now we know that's probably added a little premium to the repair bill because had we done the little bit of maintenance over that period of time, it probably wouldn't have required the huge fix that it actually required. And it got me thinking about, I wonder how many other things in our life we only fix when they break, or perhaps in our current day and age we replace rather than fix? And I wonder if, whether it's a relationship or whether it's your health, or whether it's your business, or your career, or whatever it might be - I wonder how we only tend to pay attention to it when it needs fixing or it breakdowns, or there's some requirement to pay a huge bill to address the issue. Whereas the difference there for that now little bit of consistent maintenance, whatever that is, that consistent maintenance perhaps addresses some of those bigger issues and the fixes that are required. And it just got me thinking about whether there was anything else in my life or in your life that needs a little bit of maintenance. And it might not be much, it just needs a little bit of metaphorical oil and water, and a little bit of TLC, that will help it just continue momentum. Continue being okay.
So those are my random thoughts for this week. The idea that we celebrate consecutively or do we celebrate when we've grown. The changes I've had in not being hard by my thoughts, so much and more having thoughts. And just this idea of maintenance. I wonder what things in our life need maintenance versus we only address it when it's broken.
Thanks again for listening. If you have enjoyed this, please give it a rating that's going to be helpful as I build the audience and build out some different aspects of content.
I look forward to chatting to you next week. Cheers.
