Martyrdom is the perfect emotional crime. Most martyrs get away with it for a very, very long time.

Hopefully you will only ever face martyrs in the workplace, or in a misguided friendship. If it appears with your loved ones though, know that even though pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. All you can do is try and develop the resilience it demands when they eventually die on their hill, or come to you for retribution.

Not wanting to engage with the shaming inflicted by martyrdom does not mean you lack empathy, or cannot feel sorry for someone. In fact, many martyrs do deserve our compassion, because if a soul goes to such extreme coping mechanisms for safety, it is often shame that sits deep within them. Guilt and shame are easily distinguishable by the way. Guilt feels like “I have done something bad”. Shame feels like “I am bad”. And why wouldn’t we have compassion for someone who believes they ARE bad?

My mum used to wallow in the fact that she was the only one taking care of the house. According to her, not doing our laundry ourselves was proof we didn’t love her. (Escalate much?) We did (and still do) love our mum. So we did the laundry. But now, doing the laundry was us trying to prove that she wasn’t a good enough carer and that the household had slipped away from her and how dare we prove our Dad’s argument in the divorce proceedings. We were the devil’s spawn whether we did or didn’t do the laundry. I’d find workarounds like going to school with bathing suits under my clothes, because I could wash them in the sink or just shower with them.

I was a dependant, so I found solutions.

You’re an adult. Resist the urge to jump in with a solution. Remember: you are not responsible for rescuing a martyr. In fact, you cannot rescue a martyr by definition as their whole existential purpose is not to be rescued. What they want you to do is to be a witness. It is your decision whether you watch the show or not.

If you choose to stay put, or have to stay put, you are now in a place where you have to watch someone live in denial or fear of their purpose as they are handing over all self-agency and responsibility to others and thus, inevitably live in a perpetual state of suffering and disappointment.

If you choose not to bear witness, and take on precisely the kind of self responsibility a martyr deflects onto others, they will squirm and see it not only as proof that their suffering is righteous as they are left alone with their particular burden, but they will make sure to brand you as cruel and a bad person, because how can you walk away from someone who is “suffering”?

It is the ultimate double bind, in which you simply cannot win.

If you cannot, or do not want to walk away from someone who is in the grips of martyrdom (yet), the best practical thing you can try and do, is hand them back their agency:

First, acknowledge their suffering.

Then, know that they have chosen their greater cause.

Finally ask them what their next choice will be.

If you have to deal with someone who is a martyr at work, or in your circle of friends, simply choose not to negotiate with them. If asked why you’re disengaging, try and avoid the reactive urge to justify yourself.

In the case of two-hours-sleep-Jeanette, the response may be:

“Hm. That sucks Jeanette. What are you going to do about it?”

If you have to deal with a martyr within your family or your relationship, where you deeply love the person and it physically hurts you having to watch their self inflicted suffering, the impossibility of this dynamic can truly break people. I know because it almost broke me.

In the case of your loved one, you may say:

“I’m really sorry this is happening to you. What would you like to do about it?”

Read that again. It is not: “What would you like me to do about it?”, it is: “What are you going to do about it?”.

Hand martyrs back their agency!
If they evade their choice, and instead keep pushing you for a reaction, simply say:

“I don’t negotiate with martyrs.”

As a young girl I clumsily told my mum a version of:

“I’m really sorry, I can’t help you with that. Do you want to find someone who can?”

It broke my heart that she never did.

Fortunately, people are more than one thing, so seeing you, and hopefully other people in their lives, move past them when they go into martyr mode may trigger some sort of unravelling of the victimhood. My mum didn’t make it, even though I know she tried in her own way.

I’ve long forgiven mum as I understand her now, and I love her even more now for all the beautiful things she did give us. But it was equally regrettable and inevitable that I had to move forward.

If it’s not a loved one but a work situation, you must find someone else to negotiate with or go spend some time with alpacas instead...they’re just as self-righteous, but at least they’re fluffy.

↠ ↠ ↠ Ok. I won’t negotiate with cowards, potential-ists, unable people or martyrs. What now?

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The kings and queens of the double bind.

When I worked in the film industry there was a particularly challenging branch of colleagues who would always manage to out-suffer everyone. Film production, especially during shooting time, is a very high pressure environment. It’s a time constricted hot pot full of egos, with both real and imagined sensitivities, with all its edges rubbing shoulders with the constraints of the real world. I have never worked on a movie where there wasn’t at least one person crying and another having a tantrum at some point. I’d show up to set after four hours of sleep, with no chance of making it to the catering truck for a coffee because someone had lost a key to the truck that needed moving, or a driver had gone to the wrong hotel for a talent pickup, and the hair and makeup truck was leaking water onto the prized wigs all night. Oh, and even if I had made it to catering they’d inform me that their truck doesn’t have the correct cable attachment and they have no power.

So we’d fix it all, hopefully still in time to be ready for rehearsal call, until some kindly electrician would comment on how tired you looked. You’d respond with “yeah well...only had 4hrs last night cause we had to...” and as if summoned by the demons of comparison, this commentary was inevitably cue for someone to say “well, I only had two hours of sleep, because...” Alright, shut up Jeanette, we get it, you have it worst and you work hardest.....insert enormous internal eye roll.

In my early twenties I would be hugely impressed by how hard the Jeanettes of this world worked and would wonder if I should work just as hard so I’d get hired for the next job. Until I noticed that everyone who did, would end up in an arms race on “who’s running on the least amount of sleep and most amount of energy drinks and cigarettes”.

They didn’t, in fact, get much more work done. Later on, I realized that actually, we were doing something very wrong in our jobs, or the system we were in was operating extremely dysfunctionally, if we had to operate this ineffectively.

But you may never mention this to Jeanette and her disciples. Since they...are martyrs.

Martyrs would rather die on that hill of virtue-signalling values than change their ways. Because their goal is not the work, not the solution to a problem, not the learning of new skills. Their goal is perpetual suffering for an often ostensibly good cause, as it makes them feel righteous.

In personal relationships and families martyrdom is often much harder to spot. It may sound like (with varying degrees of deep sighs and pseudo demure puppy eyes):

“I guess I care more than you”,

“If you say so”,

“If you truly loved me, you’d appreciate everything I do for you”, and worst of all:

“Fine.”

The etymology of martyrdom: Ancient Greek Origin: Greek: μάρτυς (mártus) → Meaning: “witness”

In ancient Greek, a mártus was simply someone who gave testimony or evidence, especially in a legal or judicial setting. In early Christianity, the word took on a spiritual and theological meaning. A mártus became someone who bore witness to their faith — and specifically, someone who did so under threat or persecution. Over time, it came to mean someone who was killed for their testimony of faith — turning “witness” into “one who dies for the truth”.

Jeanette feels as though quite literally, she is dying for her truth. What greater sense of righteousness can one have? Martyrdom, especially when used to emotionally shame someone, is quite cruel:

“Oh you think you’re suffering? This is nothing. Look at how much more I am willing to suffer for the greater cause”, is the core message of a martyr.

Martyrdom’s lifeline is the publicizing of its own suffering. A martyr is only affirmed in their value if there is an audience.

Some especially skilled martyrs will suffer in silence for as long as possible to eventually weaponize their quiet suffering:

If you notice the quiet suffering and mention it, because you hope it will ease their suffering, you inadvertently only encourage it, because you have now given affirmation and accolade to their righteous ways: “Oh, it’s nothing, anything for ‘insert greater cause’”.

If you notice it and do not mention it, you are a villain who has confirmed their righteous ways: “Look at me giving up myself for *greater cause* and they don’t even appreciate it. I will take the high road and not say anything, ever, so they have to watch me wither away and die under their very own eyes / under their watch, and it will be on their conscience / I’ll show them...”

If you try and confront a martyr by pointing out their methods, they will either deny deny deny, or point out your inferiority because unlike them, you: “don’t seem to have a greater cause, otherwise you would not try and destroy them, but recognize their greatness”.

So what is one to do?

How do we deal with the double bind, when we can’t escape its creator?

↠ ↠ ↠ Ok, but I HAVE to deal with a martyr. What now?

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This is not clickbait. Instead of yet another “season prep” post, here are two ordinary off-season work days: Monday and Tuesday of the first week of November, right after the chaos of moving and my cat BamBam catching the sniffles from the stress.

I’ve split the notes into: what’s *actually* happening (=WH) and what I am thinking (=WT). Sometimes, they match.

Monday

06:30
WH + WT:
On the way to work. It is cold and dark outside but at least we’re not late. A bit anxious because it’s my boyfriend CG’s first day working at the new resort and my cat BamBam’s first day alone in the new apartment. That spicy thai doesn’t sit right. I’m glad I pooped already.

07:30
WH:
Meeting with big boss and marketing about a gimmick add-on for our weekly adventure ski show, as suggested by our service company. I said I don’t see the benefit as it would just introduce confusing new branding. But if Marketing says it would definitely help our numbers, ...sure.

WT:
I’m glad big boss is asking for input, but isn’t this a plain numbers decision? Why are we not running impact numbers? Maybe no one knows how? Maybe we’re all just pretend adulting? I know I am.

Meeting was adjourned to the next day.

10:30
WH:
After unloading a literal truck load of chairs for the new mountain restaurant, I get in the truck with the driver to help her navigate back down the gravel switchbacks and unpaved service roads that already have ice and slippery snow on them.
Both the truck and her are overheating and cursing in Polish. The steep roads are getting to them. A bottle of cooking oil gets loose and rolls around the cabin. Truck driver and I both fear it will lodge under her pedals. I catch it, and continue to calmly guide us down to safer roads.

WT:
Send calm vibes...be...the truck whisperer. Oh, look! Olive oil. I’ll stick it over here. Is that a pee bucket? Of course it is. She must be covering long distances and it’s dangerous to go pee at a truck stop as a woman. I like her drapes, they’re pretty.

17:30
WH:
Back at the main office. All the head-of’s are standing around chatting. CG is offered a Feierabend beer also, but declines. There’s a bit of banter and we head off.

WT:
Oh god I hope his first day went well. Oh no, he looks tired, I hope he’s OK. Please don’t take the beer, please don’t take the beer, please don’t take the beer... oh thank god he didn’t take the beer. I hope they’re not gonna be weird about it now. I just wanna get home to BamBam. She needs her medicine. I’m so dirty from work, I feel disgusting.

Tuesday

07:30
WH:
Meeting with big boss, Marketing boss and contractor on conference call. Marketing boss had a great idea to just use existing mascot with an extra branded backpack to promote the weekly ski show. The service contractor talks more than she listens, but agrees.

WT:
Nicely done people. Service contract lady, you’re not doing yourself any favours not reading the room. I get it though, you are trying to justify yourself. I smell fear.

08:00
WH:
We’re putting metal covers on the electrical cable tray for the alpine coaster. It’s cold, we have to lie on the ground to hammer them into the teeny tiny sockets. We talk about horses. Colleague M tells me she has a horse named Dakota. I tell her about the Dakota people I read about in a book called: “Native American Wisdom”. I mention that I also read oppressive patriarchy and the evolution of agriculture go hand in hand and how nomadic cultures, broadly speaking, had more gender equality.
I get no response.

WT:
God, I wish I had someone to talk books with. I wish I was a nomad. Not a digital one, but with a tribe, roaming free in nature. I would take BamBam with me and we’d just ride and ride and ride. I wanna get out of here. Not...here-here. I like the mountain. But out of this system, out of this version of the world.

12:00
WH:
Safety meeting and on location walkaround for the technical inspection of the ski show infrastructure. There’s the TÜV assessors, the big boss, police, the technical head-of. Everyone is being very sombre and serious but vibes are positive. Mostly.

WT:
Uh, a gun. I wanna touch it. Focus! I am not super sure what exactly my job is here. I’ll just write it all down and try and put a system around the chaos. Don’t get nervous now Hanni, you’ve been a showrunner for ages, this is just another show.

18:30
WH + WT:
Home. We do laundry, clean, cook, talk about work, CG’s son and my sister. I finally unpack BamBam’s new GPS collar. It even glows in the dark.
Once we ride free across the prairies I’ll need to be able to find her.

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In case you are unsure if someone is genuinely unable to negotiate, here is the empathetic review of the three cases in which it might be so:

A circumstantial inability may be because you currently have duty of care. Trying to negotiate with a 5 year old to put on fresh long johns because it’s winter and he just peed himself, is a bad idea. Just help the kid out.

A physical inability may be that someone is heavily sedated after a forearm fracture but is adamant he can ride down on the bike himself because he “...totally can ride a unicycle”. Also, no point in negotiating with him, just hide the damn bike.

An emotional inability to negotiate may occur when we are in the midst of emotional upheaval. When tragedy or chaos hits, and we get engulfed in emotional pain. Our horizon of the future must become much smaller to continue forward. Sometimes even as small as just the next minute. Being pushed into a negotiation on the broader strokes of the future in that state, feels like a threat to one’s very existential safety.

Now you may argue, in the case of my potential-ist ex, that imagining himself in a negotiation with me about our future, put him slap-bang in the middle of the emotional inability category, because maybe it triggered some core wound he is terrorized by.

True. The answer to someone who cannot negotiate for air because they are suffocating, is generosity and grace. However, if the situation isn’t acute anymore, if it isn’t an emergency anymore but a chronic ailment, if a deadline was set and missed, we must attempt confrontation with the monstrous shadow.

Because letting yourself be terrorized, may make you the terrorist for others.

As a young woman I was often told not to be so impatient, not to fight, not to cry at the Greenpeace commercials about the whales getting hurt, to just shut up and do like smarter people do, not to rage against my Mum’s mental health issues, and to generally “be nicer, calmer and not so sensitive”.

I had night terrors (still do sometimes) of being either choked into silence, or ignored into oblivion. My insides felt like death by ignorance. Worse than death actually, because to die, you need to have existed first. I sometimes felt like I was floating in a pitch black void, with even the void denying my presence. The void was both outside and around me, as well as inside me. And it was infinite. I tried to claw my way out of the void and into existence by all means. Overdelivering on both good-ness and anarchy, underdelivering on existential duties like sleep and kindness towards others and myself. Drinking, partying, changing jobs, men, location - all at lightning speed.

I knew if I stopped and looked at the void I would die. It wasn’t just insurmountably hard or scary, it was an existential threat. So I kept clawing for sweet relief, and I hurt people.

My sister and brother, some friends who aren’t anymore, and I’m sure there are a few broken hearts along the trail I have unironically forgotten.

However, one of the many, many attempts at salvation eventually hooked the tiniest latch, and it was a combination of preparation, timing, circumstance, and crucially, the right therapist, who helped me look at the void. Together.

I’m still fast, I still like to party and I still change location a lot, but the void and I are best buds these days. His name is Sandro and we hang out sometimes.

So even in the worst of times, the worst attempt at solution, the most meager push for understanding, the weakest effort of helping yourself is more courageous than the cowardice of neglect.

Emotional inability to negotiate ALWAYS hinges on the unable person wanting to help themselves. They may not make it on time, by the book or alone, but if they’re willing, they’ll get there.

This free will is the core of our existence. Dante Alighieri, who wrote the ‘Inferno’, knew it, the Bible knows it, modern clinical psychology knows it, most spiritual practices preach it, heck, even Taylor Swift sings about it.

So if you see someone emotionally unable, but trying - give them grace and negotiate gently. If they're emotionally unable and blocked - step away…softly.

Which brings me to one additional, particularly notorious player it is futile to negotiate with: Martyrs.

↠ ↠ ↠ Ok cool. What about martyrs?

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“I know I should work on these things, and I will, because I love you, but I just can’t yet.”

I have an ex, who was insistent that the reason our relationship was not working was because of my emotional instability, whilst also admitting that he was too avoidant and clearly had some deep-seated issues (specifically with his mother). Whilst I threw myself into the problem, trying to fix myself and coming to the unfortunate yet inevitable conclusion, that yes, it must all be my fault, he told me that even though we “suffered some unfortunate incidents” (inflicted by me) during our relationship, it reasonably and realistically cannot be accurate that it is all my fault, and that he knows he should be doing the work on his end, yet he just doesn’t want to...yet.

When I was in kindergarten I would spend my summer afternoons standing in the garden watering the rocks. I had seen my mum water the flowers and they’d grow big and beautiful, so I figured if I ever wanted my very own mountain in the backyard, there was only one way. I had to water the rocks.

Banking on someone’s potential instead of believing what they show you is like watering a rock. Admirable, and kinda cute, but heartbreakingly futile.

Behaviour is a language. If someone says they care, but acts like they don’t, even if they themselves truly believe both, over time, people are how they act, not who they say they are.

The “unfortunate incident” was me losing my shit and eventually hyperventilating into a full blown panic attack landing myself in an ambulance while out in the city. My mum had passed away a few weeks prior in an emotionally quite violent way, I had severe abandonment issues (oddly unrelated to my mother’s death) and he had just told me that he was considering leaving me, because I was not the fun, joyous outgoing person I was when we first met. Again, my mum had just died.

After many months of blaming mostly myself and trying to negotiate a new deal between us, I failed miserably. In the end, I was stuck with his things in my apartment because he had moved to Canada and simply left what he didn’t want in his new life. Myself included.

The emotional warfare that ensued is another story, but one of the things that pissed me off the most, was that I had to literally - take out his garbage for him. And if you happen to live in Europe you know how retentively anal our recycling system is, so it took weeks on end.

Refusing to negotiate implies that you would be able to, if you wanted to. It’s a particularly manipulative version of stonewalling, one that exploits the other party’s trust in future potential. It’s quite cruel really.

Giving hope for a future negotiation could mean that you will be negotiated with at some point down the line, but still should be given a severely limited life span. In my experience, one moon cycle. One month. One season. One switching of the tides. Whatever feels natural to you. Any longer than that, and you are not in a negotiation, you are in a stalemate, usually enabling weaponized learned helplessness.

There are as many variations of these two core statements (“I know I should”, “I can’t yet”) as there are people. Even though it is admirable to believe in someone, we have to be super careful not to let perceived potential overrule required action.

The tipping point is this:

If we don’t negotiate...will you be left with someone else’s shit to clean up?

Or, if it’s you who’s avoiding the negotiation, will they be left picking up your slack?

↠ ↠ ↠ I’m all action over potential. What now?

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Have you ever had that feeling that it won’t matter what you say or show someone, it won’t make a difference? Good or bad?

Most likely, it’s because you are already sitting at the negotiation table, wants - needs - considerations - solutions - ideas all laid out, raring to go, maybe even excited to learn something new about or from the other party(ies), but you forgot to check whether they’d even show up. You may be so overwhelmed by the chaos of your wants, that you just assumed everyone necessary for the negotiations would be there. And when you look up from your battle plan, you notice, they’re not only not at the table with you, they’re not even in the room with you.

So you panic a little, get up, start looking around for them, maybe they’re behind that big plant in the corner? Maybe they’re just getting a coffee and prepping their end of the negotiation and they forgot the meeting time? Maybe they’re held up in a different meeting?

You can’t find them, so you try and re-schedule, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but after the third reschedule you suspect they are actively avoiding you, so you check by the water cooler, and there they are...happily chatting away with someone else, leaving you and your strategy papers looking like fools.

If you’re prone to self-doubt, you may start blaming yourself, if you’re more disagreeable you may get angry, there are as many reactions both natural and learned as humans under the sun, but the stark truth is this:

Your negotiation partner didn’t show up, because there is no version of their future in which they find it necessary to negotiate with you.

Your strategy papers and efforts left undealt with, are now the manifestation of their core indifference or very low priority to the matter at hand. One time, I showed up to a job interview with a hand drawn design board and several original pitch papers for TV shows. I was overprepared because I thought I was interviewing for my dream job. The interviewer showed up 20 minutes late, only to comment that I was blonder than he expected, and laughed at my board. I was devastated. A month later, his golf partner was hired for the position. The cliché of it all was so loud it had circled back in on itself and I became the caricature of a mid twenties go-getter whose naivety became the exact reason she couldn’t be promoted elsewhere in the company.

I know that’s shitty news and can be heartbreaking, but despair not, because there is respite in being the “not cared about” one. The logic of someone not caring is so ironic, it will make your however flawed attempt at showing up, triumphant:

The mere statement of not showing up at the negotiation table makes the stater irrelevant to you. If the thing you care about doesn’t matter to them, then the person saying or acting like it doesn’t matter also doesn’t have to matter to you anymore.

Even if they still do, they don’t have to. Consider the breathing space for your soul here. Imagine what it feels like if someone doesn’t have to matter to you.

They can, and maybe you let them matter to you forever, but you can go on caring as intensely and deeply about whatever you want, as they fall into the very oblivion they chose in the first place. Most casual nihilists aren’t conceived by careful philosophical contemplation anyway. Most are just contemptuous cowards.

Imagine the guts it would take to actually listen to a younger employee, break with the cronyism tradition and change the system. It’s been twenty years since that failed interview, and those bosses have long been replaced by overzealous tech bros. I still care deeply about movies — I went on to make plenty of them professionally — but I don’t care anymore if anyone hires me to do it. Turns out, one can just tell stories without anyone asking.

↠ ↠ ↠ I’m no coward. What now?

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We’ve established that being able to negotiate is a luxury. Now we look at the absolute beauty of approaching our wants via a negotiation process. Negotiation has one absolute advantage over expectancy, demand or hope:

You don’t need established trust to negotiate. You can open a negotiation with anyone, instantly — by assuming they have full agency until they show or tell you otherwise.

However, we may be stumbling through our lives along a sliding scale of awareness - of the deals we are working. If you’ve gone to your car dealership to look at that minivan you swore you’d never buy, you’ll be painfully aware of the negotiation you’re about to enter. A long-standing friend blindsiding you by commenting they’ve always really enjoyed watching the shit show that is your life, may sound like a friendly in-joke rather than a negotiation, but believe-you-me, you’re either gonna renegotiate the terms and conditions of your friendship, or you’ll end up in an emotional Mexican standoff.

So, the more conscious we are of our negotiations, the more effectively we can turn that life stumble into a purposeful walk, a gruelling but do-able marathon, or even a decisive sprint.

Talking to our friends, partners and pets about our woes, therapy, writing diaries, making lists...any form of articulating what we are dealing with, is essentially a negotiation not just with others, but more importantly, with versions of our own, and collective, future. And this can be done anywhere, with anyone, immediately, and with no holds barred.

So, whenever you feel despondent, know this:

The feeling of hopelessness is proof that you are actively negotiating with your future.

If you didn’t imagine your future self, you could not come to a conclusion of hopelessness. The very feeling of hopelessness is, paradoxically, a manifestation of engagement with life.

Engagement with your experience, whether hopeful or hopeless, is all that is asked of us by the gift of consciousness. Thus, if you feel hopeless, worry not, for it is simply proof that you care.

The only feeling and behavior you should worry about when heading into a negotiation with yourself, or trying to sit down at an actual or metaphorical negotiation table with someone else, is indifference. Because the opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference.

To negotiate is to care. To show up. To show up for life.

↠ ↠ ↠ Ok cool. I care. What now?

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A negotiation is reserved for two parties, both of equal autonomy in possession of something the other party wants. A classic trade. Product for money, commodities between sovereign nations, more responsibilities for increased wages, a farmer wanting fresh pastures for her goats and a landowner wanting clearing of the brambles before the frost.

We can negotiate well when both parties want, or both parties need something. If one wants and the other needs, it is not a negotiation, it is a power struggle.

Don’t let the “bootstrap” brigade tell you otherwise. Being in an objectively weaker position doesn’t make one helpless. It just means we have to be aware that negotiation is indeed a luxury we sometimes can’t afford yet.

Sometimes you need to take any job so you can make rent the following month, and sometimes you’ll make desperate attempts at emotional contortion to avoid the abandonment by a partner...in those cases you are in a fight. Not a negotiation. Your nervous system detects the imbalance of power and puts you on high alert, a state in which we are notorious for making bad decisions.

We can sustain this imbalance short term, even attempt to fake away our need and pretend it’s only a want to make false progress in a saddening caricature of a negotiation, but any results will soon implode if pressured by our truths. The strategy to “fake it, ‘til we make it” is too fragile to withstand whatever monster (and ultimately treasure) is hiding behind our greatest fears.

Let me give you an example. I once literally begged someone, on my knees and all, not to leave me. He had re-triggered my abandonment trauma. It would have been more humane to just leave, instead of threatening me with the possibility of it all the time. Slowly but surely the constant threat put me in survival mode. Like a lobster being boiled alive.

I wouldn’t touch that man with a ten foot prong now. Hell, just one year later someone mentioned his name and I genuinely didn’t know who they were referring to. I was too busy creating a new life. At the time though, I was humiliated and if he had wanted to, I would have negotiated away my dignity, my apartment and possibly my whole career.

If the fear of abandonment by others drives us to abandon ourselves, we will still have been abandoned.

If the fear of failure drives us not to take a job when we need it, we will still have failed.

When reality offers such sharp edges, all the mindset coaches of the internet, the clever books and Pinterest boards seem laughable at best, and are fodder for more self-flagellation at worst. Not only will your mind be racing with the very real mental and physical shit-show vortex that comes from fearing for your existential needs (shelter, food, sleep, reciprocal love, social inclusion), you are now adding the pressure of apparently only needing the right “mindset” to get on the road to success. Additionally, you may blame yourself for evidently not having had it so far, otherwise you wouldn’t be in this position in the first place, and on and on and on.

It’s like staring down the barrel of a gun but because you’re a self-reflecting adult and love a good self-criticism, you’ve decided to hold an additional gun to your head.

If you saw someone else do this, wouldn’t your heart break for them? Wouldn’t you step in, and tell them to go easy now, and fix one problem at a time? You must do the same for yourself.

Emergency situations of the nervous system are no place for crucifying yourself for mistakes made, nor pre-judging yourself for a future not already perfectly curated.

To pretend otherwise, or for someone to claim your only problem is an attitude problem, is ignorant, dismissive, and blind to their privileged resources. So put the metaphorical gun away and deal with the barrel you’re staring down, first. If you can do that, you already have the positive, can-do mindset you need.

You can, and probably should, open the box of self-analysis later. But for now, park it.

Simply work the problem.

Humans can accomplish monumental tasks under pressure, but to do so, we must focus. One cannot negotiate for air, whilst under water. They must either be given it, or come up for it, first.

That’s important to recognize, especially if you’re the one in the more powerful position. This doesn’t mean you cannot want something from someone who simultaneously needs something from you, but it should remind you that now is the time when a little generosity goes a long way.

↠ ↠ ↠ Ok cool. I have the luxury to negotiate. What now?

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^{My big sister with our Dad.}

When I was 10 my Dad gave me a birthday card that read: “Starting now, you are responsible for your own face.” Now, that I made double digits, he explained that I was old enough to understand concepts such as emotion and reason, and that with understanding came both the freedom and responsibility of choice.

From now on, I could choose how I would face the world, and those choices would be etched into my actual face over time.

Who I would be in old age started now.

I was ten, so old age felt like, I don’t know,....thirty? But I got the gist of it. Dad had started teaching me about agency. He would also always say: “The worst thing is not having tried it”, reinforcing my zest for adventure. I live by those two beacons of guidance to this day:

Everyone is responsible for their own face.

The worst thing is not having tried it.

Fast forward twenty-three years and there I was, contemplating driving my car into a tree, so I could set myself free. I’d had a good day, an animal, family and friends to take care of, but at that moment, I was genuinely convinced the tree would be the best solution for everyone. Except my car, but she’d understand.

I won’t tell you how I got there. That part is mine. What I can tell you is how I got out of the proverbial car of my life and into a life that feels truly worth living, in the hopes it may help someone else.

Another self-help book, you wonder? What good can she tell me that’s not already written in a thousand texts, taught in readily available lectures, spoken in many more podcasts, and summarized in ever more music, poetry, art, and maybe...pottery? I agree. I am also not sure I’ll be of any help.

But I know this is the handbook to life I’d give to my children if I had any.

The handbook I would have needed when trauma annihilated my becoming of a Self, grief shocked me, relationships crushed me, work burnt through me, adventure saved me and beauty and love overwhelmed me. For all the times I wish I’d known learning to love and accept myself would start from the outside - in, brought on by the pure love of an animal.

When I was in my darkest hours, I never had a problem finding advice. But I was so unsure of myself I trusted everyone and believed nothing.

In the fog of self-help...how do we know which advice to follow?

I yearned for practical, step by step, “if x - then y, if y - then z” guidance. On the day - in the middle of the storm stuff, instead of reverse engineering gratefulness and meaning after the fact.

I needed something that didn’t demand I already know who I am before I could choose.

Dad gave me a card. I’m gonna give you the book he never got the time to write. So if you want to learn HOW to choose your face, this is for you.

Thank you, Mum and Dad. I miss you every day.

There are six sections, which can be read in any order:

Who am I - on Self

Who are they - on Others

What do I want - on Decisions

How do I get what I want - on Negotiation

How do I want what I have - on Perseverance

How do I enjoy the ride - on Courage

Each full chapter does three things:

1: How to define the situation you are in - right now.

2: How to get operational — your next practical steps. Each chapter ends with a downloadable flowchart: a guide for the day itself, mid-crisis, to get your feet back on the ground.

3: Personal, tried and tested book recommendations on where to learn more, once you have the time.

“Out of Bounds” chapters come out in seasons.

Each chapter comes out in short parts.

We start in autumn with “How do I get what I want — on negotiation” — for free.

From there, each new season is for paid subscribers.

Joel, maybe 10 or 12 years old at the time, went into full Hulk mode. Throwing his ski poles, ripping his helmet off and chucking it as far as he could into the queue of people waiting at the T-Bar drag lift, grabbing his gloves with his teeth to wriggle his hands free...When he tried to get out of his ski bindings, he discovered he couldn’t anymore, because he’d already disposed of the poles, so he comically, grumpily figured out what every skier eventually discovers: that you can open ski bindings by stepping onto them with the base of the other ski. He went ahead and did that, carefully picking up one ski, carrying it to the edge of the lift line and chucking it in, then walking back to get his second ski and do it again.

The other ski school kids were confused, and I could feel their curious glances ping-ponging between Joel and me, their teacher, waiting to see how I would reel him in. All I could do was stand there and watch him, and so did all the other adults in the lift line, all of us enthralled with the goings-on of Joel’s performance, with absolutely nobody reacting.

Something was off, and we all felt it. Most of us have seen a temper tantrum before, as a ski instructor I certainly have seen my fair share of them, by all age groups mind you, but this was different.

And then I heard it. The silence.

Joel went through the whole emotional spectrum of agitation, starting with his lingering anxiety the group would ditch him because he was always too fast or too slow, followed by frustration because he couldn’t find the entrance to the lineup, eventually panic, and finally humiliation because he couldn’t get out of his skis - in absolute and complete - silence. Not a grunt, not a scream, not a whimper, not a mumble of curse words. Absolutely nothing. He didn’t even seem to breathe any louder due to the physical effort exerted. All the people that had witnessed this curious meltdown, adults and kids alike, could do nothing but watch him.

By the time he had decided to get out of his jacket, for reasons probably as unclear to him as to me, I snapped back to life.

I turned to the rest of the kids, told the most responsible one, a girl whose name I forget, but who was keen to be my second-in-command, to take everyone up the T-Bar as normal, gather at the top, and wait for Joel and me. Then I remembered what Joel’s mum had said to me at drop-off: “He can be a bit difficult. He has a few diagnoses, and he normally doesn’t do well in groups, so if you want to get rid of him earlier in the day, just let me know.”

Ouch.

I slalomed my way through the lift line crowd, picking up all his discarded gear, and carrying it back towards him. He looked up and when he noticed me, it seemed like he had just remembered that he wasn’t alone, but that he was in the middle of a ski day with a ski school kids’ group. When I dropped his gear in front of him, he flinched. Like I had just slapped him across the face. My heart broke for him. I knew that feeling so well. Being unable to express with words or reason what you need or feel, so your body takes over.

Joel started to mumble incoherently, I assume some attempt at explanation or expression of frustration or just some general commentary. I lifted both his hands palms facing me, did the same with my hands and started to push as hard as I could without pushing him over, so he could push back towards me, as hard as he could, until all the anxiety and nervous energy had left his body. We must have looked an odd pair, a ski instructor and a 10-year-old, wrestling, doing a kind of weird circular sumo dance because all the pushing with your upper body makes your legs step sideways.

When Joel had exhausted himself, I patted him on his shoulder, we simply put his gear back on, got in line together, and shared some gummy bears. Not a word was spoken.

We had come to an agreement. He needed to let his ramped up anxiety out, and I needed him to choose a better target. He also now knew, that I could be pushed against safely, and that it didn’t affect my kindness towards him. Hence, the gummy bears.

For the rest of the week, I took him out an hour earlier to get a few strong turns in, and to ease his body and mind, before we met up with the group. He impressed both himself and the group, by showing up every day, getting along with everyone and even making second place in the weekly ski school race. I have never seen a more ecstatic silver medal winner.

I never could figure out why exactly he had trained himself to be vocally still at all costs, even during the throes of absolute desperation, when he was perfectly chatty otherwise. Then, out at lunch one time, I saw his parents shushing him like it was an Olympic sport, and had a strong suspicion why quiet was the way to go for him.

He had negotiated a world for himself in which being quiet was the price he had to pay, because it had been made clear to him that his physical, visceral reaction to the world was not acceptable and made him a bad person. Sure enough, a different culture, a different time, different circumstances would have celebrated him for the very same thing.

But Joel was a child living the reality of his time and place, so he had no choice but to make a deal with himself to survive.

Healing

Healing, to me, is the active replacement of a bad experience with a good experience of the same nature or the active replacement of one need with another.

I presume Joel was scolded his entire ten-ish years on the planet for being “too much”. Too loud, too much energy, too whatever. I saw myself in him. I was the same. Heck, I AM the same. I was punished at jobs for wanting to push forward. Enough to start to believe I am a bad storyteller (Red Bull Media House). I’ve had multiple ex-boyfriends who were attracted by the “larger than life” energy, but scolded me in public when it took away their spotlight (think: the infamous Miley Cyrus and the little-r Hemsworth brother red carpet scene.)

Step one to healing is the radical acceptance of your feelings. There’s a great book “Radical Compassion” by Tara Brach. In it, she teaches the R.A.I.N. meditation. It stands for: Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Nurture. If, like Joel and I, you get pushed to abandon your own feelings from an early age for the demands and needs of others, this book is a solid start. Then comes the hard part. Proactively making different choices.

I’ll be honest, to this day I haven’t “forgiven” the weak bosses and cowardly ex-boyfriends. If I saw either in a dark alley tomorrow...I have enough angry energy toward them to have to call a lawyer after they’d “tripped”.

But what really fixed it was taking risks and working hard to make things better for myself. I quit and got different jobs. At first, some were inconsequential and just paid the bills, but eventually I had made all the right moves into a job I feel appreciated in.

When it came to relationships I had made a future for myself in which I truly didn’t want one anymore, because not only did I not want to break myself into a version in which I wasn’t “too much”, I didn’t want to let go of my guiding value in life: freedom.

When Christopher showed up, I didn’t need a relationship anymore, I just needed freedom.

I couldn’t fathom that he’d give me that. But he does so every day, and over time, we both have become more supportive and patient with each other, but we haven’t become less of ourselves. We are enhancing what was already there. I am still annoyingly “energetic”, as he calls it, when we are in a fight, and Christopher pauses way too long before he explains his true feelings about any given issue, but we have fun. The man came with the added bonus that he never turns down an adventure. Whether it’s backpacking to a remote lake, eating one of my culinary “creations” or even changing jobs and moving with me.

He can be accused of many things, but being cowardly or weak sure ain’t one of them.

So, healing came with the active replacement of the negative experience with a positive one, or accepting a need I tried to suffocate before.

I didn’t heal by meditating to forgiveness podcasts, wearing pastel clothes to create a softer-edged vibe, or writing my grievances on a piece of paper and letting it burn up in a bonfire ritual. (Though to be fair, the marshmallows and girl talk helped that day.)

When Joel and I added the hour or so of extra skiing, we added more positive time, of the same experience, easing him from doing it alone with the instructor into skiing with the group. He started laughing and singing, and just being a kid in the snow having a good time. I think of him often and wonder what happened to him. I hope his little, now adult, soul remembers:

Fight for a version of the same experience that makes you feel whole, instead of bending (and eventually breaking) into a version of yourself that you were never born to be.

Fight for the radical acceptance of a need you have and see if by accepting it, the need changes.

Fight forward. Don’t fight back.

Godspeed, my friends.

Here are some repeat offender scenarios that make my responses seem wise →
when actually, I’m just tired:

• Tired of people sidling up to me next to the scene of an incident and telling - not asking - me they can help because they’re a doctor. You’re a dentist Steve. Unless you’re gonna over-charge my patient into painfree shock, go eat your homemade banana bread somewhere else and let me work in peace.

• Tired of weak men and entitled women. One blaming the other for their miseries, hijacking the gender debate in a haze of false inferiorities. Motherhood is not martyrdom, Celine, and taking responsibility is not heroic, Mike. Someone always pays the price for your emotional havoc and I sure hope, by some divine intervention, it ain’t the kid.

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• Tired of people who over-promise and under-deliver, simply because they are not willing to do the necessary hard graft work. No Peter, you may not produce a sloppy AI pitch deck, charge an extortionate consultancy fee and then blame others for your “hurt feelings” when you get negative feedback. Stop bitching. Just do your job.

• Tired of people who grew up with the privilege of a stable home not just being oblivious that it is an accident of birth, but expecting the same standards from everyone else. No, Melanie, we can’t just drop the lost kid off at the hotel, we don’t know if their parents are drunk, in a marriage-ending fight, or even around. Sometimes we gotta look for the nannies, not the parents.

• Tired of myself. I’m tired of being in my own way. No, you can’t write a feature film script by getting up at 4 am AND work 50 hours of physical labour Hanni. You’re too tired, your writing suffers, and you simply need to make a choice. Nobody gets away with anything, ever. Not even you.

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I rescued a toad. Somehow the beautiful little thing made its way into the alpine coaster garage next to the gas tanks for our lawn mowers. I was cleaning up, and there she or he (how can you tell gender in toads anyway?), pressed into a corner, trying to squeeze herself as small as she could, dry, skinny and clearly terrified.

We have a lake with a nature recovery zone about 400m away and she clearly got lost. I put on some cleaner gloves, got her into my hands and at this point, we were both terrified.

A) I didn’t know toads were disproportionately heavy and

B) I also didn’t know when they clench their legs around your finger, it’s a surprisingly strong grip.

Toad and I made our way out to the lake, I dropped her off by the shore and we both sighed with relief when she found the water. I imagine I saw her look back at me with a grateful nod, but maybe she was just reorientating herself.

Now that I have told you this, I violated the rule of Intoku. It’s a Japanese word for ‘good done in secret,’ born of Zen Buddhism. Intoku is mostly referencing the hidden jobs someone does without expecting reward or praise. Like someone emptying the office kitchenette dishwasher, or hikers picking up other people’s trash, or in my case, rescuing toads. I never told my coworkers that day, I just had a moment with the toad, and felt - better.

That day had its usual array of screaming children, hordes of tourists somehow missing the 6 billion trash cans we place all over and ride customers making stressed complaints about not being able to ride at full speed because it was busy (that’s what happens when you vacation with everyone else during school holidays).

I will never understand this attitude. This attitude of “consuming” nature, rather than visiting or protecting it.

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By the lake, near my toad, are plenty of people trying to take pictures of her and her friends, so they can post online showcasing their “connection” to nature, forgetting that, as they are doing so, they are stepping all over the high grass she needs to hide under.

It hurts my heart.

It seems to me, that the majority of overly privileged, pampered, serviced and able folks (as we are in this part of the world), only realize their natural status of visitor and custodian, once they get humbled by nature. When they hurt themselves on a bike track, or a friend suffers lifelong consequences after being hit by an avalanche. I worry too. I worry that I am right and it isn’t just my biased impression because I work in the recreational industry, but that it is in fact, a majority who live by a credo of consumption more so than creation.

Tourists are primed for consumption by definition, of course, but what if they are also tourists in their own lives back home? People who, when they do do something good, like showing their kids the beauty of the mountains, or doing something kind for someone else, are unable to do so in secret?

If that’s the case, we’re fucked.

If you have to be seen to do good, won’t humility create resentment? And if you’re resentful of your purpose as custodian of creation, won’t you destroy it, rather than protect it?

Isn’t that what’s happening in the world right now? I asked my toad about it and she says:

“Qwaaaaaaaark.”

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I’ve just come out of a meeting where we discussed the 10 new avalanche towers the resort is currently placing, how our 6 seater chairlift construction site is progressing, and why the suggested circus artists for our weekly “ski show” (like theatre on skis) aren’t of high enough quality.

It really made me miss…skiing. So, instead of telling you more about the fancy of our overly developed European ski industry, I’m gonna tell you about a beautiful little place in Chile: Antillanca. In 2022 I spent a European summer skiing all over Chile, and this place was one of three that truly stole my heart:

You know those ultra hipster bars that have secret doors with passwords shared on MySpace for the retro cred, overcharging for cocktails with vegetables in them? Whoever goes there, Antillanca is their Valhalla. They’d rebrand it as a “bespoke artisanal” resort with the rust stained lift pylons featured in an “authentically vintage” logo.

The road to Antillanca is long, windy, and so filled with potholes it makes for a fun game of pac-man style driving. It takes some serious commitment to get up there, but once you do, there’s a small hostel to spend the night, or you can just sleep in your car.

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Founded in 1938 by a couple of expat Germans and Austrians who disagreed with the NS politics back home, the two buddies bought a couple of old drag lifts, dug out a parking lot and built a hut to have a base. Antillanca means “jewel of the sun” in Mapuche and the meaning truly rings true. Built on Mapuche land, this place is still both significant for the locals spiritually and financially. Everyone involved seems to have every job on the mountain, so don’t be surprised when you see the kitchen staff also pop up as lift operators or driving heavy machinery. Technically there are 4 T-Bars, but only three of them are either working or have the people to operate them at any given time. Off one of them, there’s an extremely steep black run perfect for race training, and on the other side of the bowl there’s a spread of chill plateau runs, with flowy tree lines scattered across.

The Austrian tradition of racing lives on, so lots of local kids are doing some serious GS and Slalom race training. Their gear is probably the most expensive thing on the whole volcanic hill. Their young mums release the kids at the base in a blur of flying poles, helmets and duct-taped gates, and ski tour up to the hut that sits bang on in the middle of the few runs, to enjoy a deliciously tangy Pisco Sour on the sunny terrace. Inside, it’s packed with grandpas playing cards, having beers, and judging by the wild gesturing, either discussing politics or what constitutes an acceptably sized steak to barbecue.

Speaking of barbecue, there is a little restaurant but most people, like everywhere in Chile, bring their own meat and veg to grill on the many readily available BBQ racks, giving the whole place a homely smokey smell / aroma. I bought a woolly hat in the little shop, that was presumably knit by one of the grandmas, and I sometimes put it on when I need to be reminded why we are all here in the first place. Because of our love of nature and a sense of community.

I often miss my ski-bumming days, and I wonder if it wouldn’t do us all good to dial back on the technologically driven convenience, and instead lean into the freedom of inconvenience. I’m also fully aware that this notion is very much first-world privilege tone deaf. I watch the news.

Maybe that’s why I miss ... real skiing so much. Places like Antillanca. There, everything seems to line up, to fall into place. Humans made sense. In my world, as I cater to the rich and not so famous, I just wish there was some kind of shortcut, some reminder, that actually,

we are all just visiting.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find my woolly hat.

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Below is a video recorded by the lift staff whose station sits below a rescue we did in the “Schindler” chutes in St. Anton am Arlberg. It’s from far away, but you sort of get the idea what’s going on. The bundle of people to the left is a ski instructor’s off-piste group containing the patient, and I’m one of the little dots wrestling down the helicopter winch paramedic. Before this, I told the group to dig a little ledge to keep the patient level, while I performed the limited medical aid we can do out in the field. Paramedic came in, drugged her into the happy zone, we got her into the vacuum board, hooked back onto the winch, lifted her out - job done. Pretty standard stuff, nothing to write home about.

The group gathered themselves, the instructor was an experienced lead and they safely skied down through the chutes. I waited until they were all out of the chutes and back onto piste, in case someone else got hurt I would be above them. Sometimes people underestimate the adrenaline drop after incidents like this, so they are weaker than they believe to be. Back to back incidents are quite common.

The fallout of “the greater fool”:

I followed carrying the patients skis on one shoulder, and because I was super hot, I remember taking my gloves off and skiing down bare-handed, plus, I’m pretty sure I was also distracted by my phone or radio or both. All things that seemed normal to me, because at this point I had done so many rescues in the chutes, it felt like a normal run to me. But routine kills in the mountains.

That’s not brave or cool. That’s just stupid.

You see the station above the Chutes? Ever since they built the new gondola there, the chutes are very easily accessible and are skied by people who are not ready for them. They get tracked out very quickly, plus, a lot of it is in the shade all day, it ices over quickly, which basically turns the whole thing into a narrow, frozen, steep, mogul-ish hellscape for under-skilled skiers.

Back in the day, some greater fool, some brave soul who charged ahead and showed her peers the chutes are skiable, and fun to do so, lowered the entry bar. The threshold of inhibition got lowered for her followers, and follow they did. The chutes became a status symbol, the new gondola was built including a middle station, skiers were hauled in, and let’s not forget, a lot of money was made.

I admire the idea of the greater fool. I fancy myself to be one of them. Seeking out uncommon paths, questioning the status quo, not taking anything for granted and trying things out, just because I can.

The greater fool is prone to injury - of body, soul and ego - failure and ridicule. The greater fool is the one who kept betting on something when everyone else conceded it wasn’t worth it.

It was my birthday last week, I just turned 42, so naturally I am wondering if greater fool-ing my life has been worth it.

I have been called:

Stupid, weird, unhinged, selfish, reckless, lazy, too ambitious, lost, … just for living my life. For:

- wanting to work in ski patrol and explosives as a woman;

- loving the smell of adrenaline and skidoo fuel in the morning;

- wanting to work in the film industry when I grew up in a world of sensible careers;

- wanting to be a storyteller for a living;

- not building kids into my life plan by default;

- believing I can parent the world and have a legacy in other ways;

- choosing adventure over a secure financial future;

- brazenly being a committed cat lady.

Rarely did I shrug it off, mostly it hurt deeply. Especially when it came from my own family, friends or colleagues I admired. (Side note: my cat never hurt me, so fuck you.)

Often I think I’m just delusional. Where does bravery end and stupidity start?

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When my bank account and body suffer from depletion, I do wonder if maybe the other fools are right? I wonder if the price I pay for being the greater one is worth it. I wonder about my fallout.

The consequential injuries I cause through my choices.

I cannot know them, as everyone chooses for themselves if they want to ski the chutes of their lives or what they do with my example, if they even see me, as I do not overestimate my influence.

But I do know this: As a greater fool in this greatest adventure of all that is life, I am ever unsure and I am often uncomfortable.

So just like I have to anticipate pain when I sneeze too hard, now that I’m in my forties, I have become comfortable being uncomfortable.

The comments about my choices still hurt, but the pain is almost satisfying now. It is the solidification of never being “broken in”. Because somehow, in the perverse logic of human pleasure, being uncomfortable keeps things exciting.

For what good is it to be a fool, if you’re not poking the bear?

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Then I got my next “cool career“ ...patrol, and the first thing they handed me: a radio. Put the (literally) life saving functionality and necessity of the radio aside for a minute. What bugs me about it, is what it represents:

That I am a work horse.

When I was in my teens I was fascinated by ballet, and dancers, and VOGUE magazine, the theatre, and basically all the girly things you’d expect. (Still am, though I shifted to Interior Design magazines...more attainable). I pictured growing up into a stylish big city dweller, sex-and-the-city-ing it up jet-setting around, cocktails in hand, gossiping with my aspirational friends about the gallery opening or the show we just booked. Now, I did all that, kinda... I went to university in London, studied theatre, and even though I loved it, I always felt out of place. On the hard days I dreamt of the mountains, and on the even harder days I felt like the city wouldn’t let me breathe.

Working film crews was a great middle, it was physical, outside, but still in the arts world. The backend of making movies is essentially a complicated logistics circus, and the better I became at running it, the more I got promoted into positions that are further and further away from the artistic end of the game. I would see all these make-up artists, and wardrobe assistants, and set decorators and actors, all working hard, but still being majestically stylish. Meanwhile, I was in my Gore-Tex, with my radio, lugging heavy, muddy cables into a truck, wondering why some of the mud smelled funny, only to realise it was covered in dog poop. Oh, the glitz and glamour of the movies.

Whatever I touched, wherever I went, the laws of natural disposition seemed to land me in the more physical, more dirty jobs. And when I tried to become white-collar and worked in an office as a producer, it made me physically ill. So I quit and went back to skiing and set work.

I always saw these people, the stylish people, as pure bred Lippizan horses.

With shiny flowy manes, polished saddles, shimmering coats, long legs elegantly prancing about life. I longed to be that:

I hated that I wasn’t one of the aesthetic, slow living girlies. And when I stood next to a poised gorgeous person, I would feel scruffy and rough…still do sometimes.

I would feel envy, and feel lesser than, and sort of...useless.

But we can’t escape our genetics. (Yet. Hopefully never.) Because, you see, I am not a Lippizan. I am a Haflinger.

The ultimate Austrian workhorse:

Our military uses them for support, mountain farmers have used them to survive for centuries. They are sturdy, blonde, built for crossing mountains, a wild but gentle demeanour.

Just like me. I seem to have built in all-terrain endurance, and my hereditary factory settings were never gonna let me be a ballet dancer.

I didn’t understand for a long time that beauty also comes from being placed in the right environment.

By putting myself into wind and weather, I learned that within that literal work-flow, I started to feel beautiful. Messy hair, dirty clothes and all.

These days, when I read Vogue, or watch aesthetic DITL videos on youtube, I feel no envy. I am in innocent awe of the pranc-y people, and just enjoy their beauty and elegance.

So next time you feel out-of-place, or envious, don’t turn to bitterness or cynicism. Maybe your beauty is lost in the wrong environment.

Maybe you’re a powerful show pony standing in a field of dependable draft horses.

Maybe you’re the draft that’s been accidentally placed on the starting line next to high-strung race horses.

Maybe you’re the race horse reined in by a bunch of hardy Haflingers.

Whatever you are, the world needs you to be it on purpose.

Me, I’m a working Haflinger. And I feel beautiful.

P.S.: Maybe it's no coincidence my boyfriend used to be a Haflinger handler when he served…🤔🥰

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Anyway, we sometimes get called out to bike and hike accidents alongside the volunteer mountain rescue crew, since there’s no full-time summer hike/bike patrol needed. So here we are, with a 50-something male who fell off his mountain bike in a tight turn, couldn’t brace his fall with his hands or arms, and ended up taking the whole impact with his hip. We presumed either a hip dislocation or a femoral hip fracture — either way, the dude was in pain.

As my colleague Max dealt with finding a landing spot for the helicopter and coordinating with dispatch, I had some alone time with Hip Man. There is not much “patching up” work we can do in those waiting-for-the-cavalry moments. Patients mostly already lie whichever way is least painful for them, so you don’t want to faff around much if they’re not lying somewhere precarious. Also, by the time we get there, bystanders and family/friends usually have done all the peripheral “let me fix your cap, do you want water, I’ll stand here so you get some shade” work. So we use this time to gather the patient’s information (name, DoB, health insurance, etc.) and some more details about the accident mechanics and timings, as these can be useful for the doctors.

Now: what isn’t immediately apparent when I take someone’s information is what I’m actually taking in, is all of his information. As I gather his address, the fact that he’s a Gemini and doesn’t take any medication but is gluten intolerant, I learn something much more important:

Is there a delay in response, does he slur his words, does he repeat himself, does he remember every detail about the fall or just the beginning and the end, etc.

What looks like a casual conversation to the patient is a covert CIA behavioral assessment for me. It all feels very exciting and takes a lot of concentration.

In this particular case, I couldn’t have told you if our biking friend was concussed or stroking out, because the man had a very vocal girlfriend. She stood over us, casting a balmy, albeit threatening shadow, and confidently, loudly, and very quickly answered all my questions for him.

Girl... I get that you are trying to be useful, but if you want to help your man, just shut up. (And before any sexist connotations arise in your mind’s eye — men are just as chitty-chatty over their women, not to mention parents who like to control their injured kids’ answers.)

Normally, it’s enough to not make eye contact with the “answerer” and remain solely focused on the patient. People will pick up on the social cue and simmer down. But this lady had no such finesse. Somewhere along the line I had picked up her name, so I said: “Petra, I need you to let him speak.”

That did it, and bike man and I promptly paid the price for the audacity to shut her up, as not only did she shut up, she also removed herself from our location, taking her convenient shadow with her.

Soon enough, bike man got sorted out, the scene was cleared, and we all went our merry way — except maybe Petra’s ego, which got a little dented. My point is this:

Sometimes, the very best thing you can do for your loved ones is to not try and actively help. Just be there. Just stay put, let the professionals (first aid in our case, therapists, teachers, whoever...) do their job. Let whoever is struggling, struggle.

Even if it’s hard to watch.

Your job as a spouse, friend, or parent is to just BE there. Cast a comforting shadow and be present. Calmly and steadily. Don’t fix things, steer things, control things. Just be there and shut up.

And if right now, you are the one struggling, and you have to do so alone, because there is nobody around, let me assure you, there is. On a higher level. David Wagoner’s poem Lost says it best:

LOST

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

So if you just fell off your bike, let the forest find you, and just ... shut up.

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The method sandwich runs parallel to an athletes ability levels: Beginners, advanced athletes and professionals are driven by intuition, then data, then intuition again:

The Baseline

...is non-negotiable.

Good quality sleep, nutrition and a somewhat robust emotional constitution and a Plato-nian knowledge of thyself, are prerequisites for any training theory argument.

What constitutes “good” in those categories opens an onslaught of fields of study, so for the ease of this article we will only assume the following self evident truths:

They are irrefutably intertwined. One improves and/or destabilizes the other and for the sake of ourselves and those around us we should strive for the best quality of sleep, nutrition and self knowledge we can muster.

Proprioception. What is it and what’s it got to do with performance improvement?

Proprioception is the sensory information your muscles, tendons and ligaments are sending to your brain. Your mind-muscle connection. Standing on a beach in bare feet with your eyes closed, arms stretched out, head tilted back, sea-air filling your lungs, the sun on your skin, the tingling sensation in your ears as a seagull sounds out to its mate, without you losing all sense of bearing...that’s it’s job.

When you squat, your feet tell your brain where they are in time and space and which muscle to activate to not fall over. It’s our system to “make it make sense”.

Proprioception is often falsely interchanged with motor skills. Motor skills and performance are in direct linear relation to one another (improve your motor skill = improve your performance), whereas proprioception and performance are not.

Motor skills improvement shows relatively easy on data results, such as improved levels of perceived exhaustion, because of better technique.

Interestingly enough, motor skill deficits are clearly linked to psychological trauma or impaired genetics, but proprioception is sometimes even improved under those conditions.

The hypervigilance of a PTSD survivor is one such example. Whilst research papers are inconclusive, because the overlap is simply too large, proprioception is fast getting a rep for being the scientific explanation of the ever elusive 6th sense. Our instinct.

So: unless you’re in a brain scanner during your workout, the closest thing to decent representation in data of your proprioceptive ability is at the far end of the data funnel: For example proneness to fatigue injury, performance ability under heightened cortisol or adrenaline (i.e. competition mode), etc...

Simply put, if your deadlift weight increases the data will reflect it. If you learn to get a better sense of why your push-ups feel more flowy than usual or which mental pain cave you can afford to go into during an extraordinarily hard workout...there is no app for that (yet).

Proprioception and instinct are more than how you *feel* on any given day about your training routine. There are days you might feel like you’ve been hit by lightning simply because you stood up too fast, yet still have this guttural feeling that today might be a good workout day.

Why is this relevant to the sports performance sandwich of goodness? Let’s see:

The advantage of being a beginner

Much like youth is wasted on the young, the joy of first year training progress is wasted on the beginner. Struck down by lacking a clear purpose, struggles of scheduling, and surrounded by an indecipherable amount of training information, beginners who (crucially) stick with it, often fail to recognize the most significant training progression of all: Turning a whim into a habit.

First let’s define a beginner: It takes the mind roughly 3 months to create a new habit, and another 6-9 months for our lives routines to adapt it into all its repetitive yet unpredictable circumstances (holidays, travel, sickness, changes at work or in family). The brain will have built new neural pathways in the same 3 months and now needs to test run them through all that daily life throws at us. Quite a lengthy process, but once set, hard to ignore.

Dr. Mike Israetel, popular YouTuber and Sport Sciences professor at Lehman College NY, states that in the beginning stages of any kind of regular training, people see both the most rapid improvements and equally make the most objectively measurable mistakes.

How does such a blatant contradiction come to be?

Well, because in that first year of training, mistakes are actually what help build those neuroreceptors. We need that first year of continuous trial and error in order to teach all our senses how to deal with this new challenge. Making “mistakes” is the closest thing we have to tangible, perpetual dialogue with our bodies. The word “mistake” is absolutely substitutable with the word “learning”.

As a beginner, the only data you should be obsessed with is your numbers of consistency. Just show up. Your sixth sense will do the rest.

Advanced training and it’s love affair with data

After a year or so of having successfully programmed a new sporting habit, and sharpened our mind-body connection instincts, we should be good to go, right? A sharp learning curve in the beginning may eventually decelerate, but we should still progress, right?

Well...kind of.

The negative psychological effect of loss of momentum can spiral backwards quickly, and you run the risk of finding yourself back home on the couch, Pringles tube in hand. Sure, you can willpower your way through the loss of endorphins, but willpower is a limited resource, which anyone who’s ever tried to taste only a single Pringles chip will confirm.

Data driven training, focusing on numbers, reps, hours, amps, whatever your sport supplies, is now your anchor. With those ever increasing data challenges and points you can happily monkey-swing your way to your next level of athleticism.

The far ends of the statistics

Courtney de Waulter is amongst the top 5 ultra runners in the world. Amongst both women and men. She is the first person ever to win the hattrick of the ultra world (Western States 100, Hardrock 100 and the UTMB) all in the same year. Rachel Entrekin recently became the first woman to win the Cocodona 250 ultramarathon, and did so simply by “not taking everything so seriously” - as she told Rich Roll on his podcast.

Both cases in which woman hold number 1 titles across both sexes. Ultra endurance sports, not just running, but also biking, sailing, swimming, shooting are generally dominated by women on the high performance end of the scale. Not just due to the nature of the sport, but female athletes tend to prefer instinctual training over rigid data obsession.

Caveats about data

You know how real estate is all about location - location - location? Well, data is all about context - context - context.

A simple thought exercise: if I were to make a factually correct yet stand alone statement: “Mary goes running twice a month, for 45 minutes, at a 7.8 minute pace” and were to ask you: is that good or bad?

-> I sure hope you would reply with the only correct answer: “I don’t know. I need more information about Mary”.

Data value is also quite frail in the context of volume. It takes a considerably large volume of data to obtain reliable readings. Individual data points are prone to technical failure and human imperfection.

As non-professional athletes we obtain most of our data via training watches, which, granted, have improved dramatically in terms of GPS or heart rate accuracy, but they are far from perfect and so are we. All it takes to mess up a full day’s worth of training data is forgetting to charge the watch in time, run into a GPS blind spot while hiking, or pressing the wrong lap button during training. Thus, to get a somewhat accurate interpretation of the data you generate as an amateur athlete, volume trumps quality. It’s better to look for patterns and trends, rather than PB’s or the perfect sleep score.

This is what sports scientists and (well educated) coaches are for. Much like your lawyer knows how to read, and explain back to you, legal mumbo-jumbo, so it is the job of your coach to read and explain back to you the mess that is the data you are creating.

Caveats about intuitive training

Intuitive training is sometimes mistaken for prioritizing the joy factor in training. Now, while the innately tenacious personalities will experience overcoming hardship as joy, someone more hedonistically inclined will simply stop working out once the hard stuff comes around. They will plateau, initially making peace with the maintenance of status quo, only to eventually give up training altogether because inevitably, they will hit bore-out. You cannot escape your shortcomings with the argument that training difficulties make your sport “not fun” anymore and retreat into old patterns. Like most things in life, intuitive training is only effective if you dare to look deeper into your mind’s musings and your body’s doings.

Intuitive training does not only ask the question: what do I feel like doing today? but rather, what does my mind, body and soul tell me I need today?

Much like when we care for someone we love, we should know that giving them what they need, is often not what they want. Though the capacity to push one’s comfort zone can certainly be developed (emotional maturity helps also), an athlete with the intrinsic temperament of a war horse has a much better chance at success with intuitive training, than those of us who’d rather prance around a petting zoo.

Be who you are - on purpose.

In order to get the best out of both data driven or instinct driven training, you need to first know WHO YOU ARE and WHERE YOU ARE in your journey:

If you’re highly conscientious, analytical or maybe a little neurotic in your planning, data is what will sustain you quickly during mid-level performance plateaus.

If you’re quite open, creative, maybe a little disagreeable, intuition will be your favorable guide, maybe letting you stumble into more mistakes, but still accelerating you through the slump.

For either training principle to work, you first must want to do hard things, because

you can do hard things.

Either way, the more you know, the better you’ll do.

Godspeed my friends.

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One day, I was stuck in the tiniest tree well of Bamboo while skiing in Japan. Now, if you know, you know. If you don’t know…read on:

If you ever make your introductions to a baby bamboo tree well, it’s the fastest way to humility by way of humiliation. They look adorable, but are deadly. Bamboo have a thin trunk with thin long leaves branching out and so in the fluffy Japanese snow create little forest trap zones, funnelling loose snow at the bottom that never settles in on itself. If you get too close and fall, you are trapped with the bottom constantly falling out under you. It’s a horrible feeling.

My particular specimen was only chest high (the bamboo, not the well, that would have been impressive) a dainty little thing, and as I wiggled and huffed beneath it trying to get a grip with my skis on it’s smooth trunk it seemed to look down at me and...mock me?

What we do when we get stuck

How we get stuck varies, sometimes it’s an abrupt awakening like skiing into a bamboo, or having an epiphany and recognising we are in the wrong job, marriage or indeed, train cart. Mostly, it will be a mix of these two particular versions of hell.

Once we notice we’re stuck we go through a set of responses. First, there’s the shock absorbance directly after impact. These reactions are visceral and an attempt at life affirmation. Deep breaths, frantic assessment of escape routes, maybe a scream or swearing, sometimes a swell of panic.

Then we do the attempted escape. A frantic wriggle and hustle. The mental acrobatics and physical work of applying to different jobs with no timely results, reworking the budget to see if you could afford to live alone again, googling “can bamboo actually laugh at me?”. This is accompanied by the steady hum of trying to analyse the error: “How did I get here? Why am I so stupid? What exactly did I misunderstand?”

Sinking deeper

If you’ve ever actually gotten stuck in snow you’ll know the more frantically you try and wriggle your way out the deeper you burry yourself.

Now, you notice you’re sinking deeper, cue the self-help books and the wellness gurus who tell you to “reframe the problem”!

Aka: “years ago you would have been happy to be stuck in this position” - “gratitude makes hope sustainable” - “you’re not stuck, you’re being planted”, and my favourite: “just manifest”. 🙄

And sure, these help alleviate the pain of stuck-ness for a minute or two, but the moment that goddamn bamboo leaf tickles your face again and you can’t brush it away BECAUSE you’re ACTUALLY stuck, the reframing efforts just expose themselves as what they are: an illusion. Albeit a comforting one, yet still, unequivocally, an illusion.

The unfairness of the systems come crashing over you, and all but reconfirm that indeed, you are not just stuck, but to an extent, helpless.

Now, the real work begins.

Realities

You can’t forgo trying to escape the sticky situation, since trying is what lets you know if you’re actually stuck. There are no shortcuts here, unless you are a professional victim and just collapse into someone else carrying your responsibility, but that’s a story for another time.

If trying to help yourself by wriggling and reframing hasn’t (yet) or cannot work because of immovable realities, like power structures, dependants, age, economic circumstance, timing, etc. you have three options:

1) Settle in for the long haul. Endurance. Remind yourself of the stamina you have, the fortitude it already to took to get to where you got stuck in the first place.

Even the bamboo tree well isn’t immune to spring. The snow will melt, your tenacity will pay off.

“I don’t have that kind of time, I’ll starve or freeze to to death” you say.

If that is correct, you now must:

2) Ask and hope for help to arrive. Don’t let pride get in the way. Because I mean actual help. Not a career coach who’ll give you supervisory recommendations, or a relationship influencer who tells you to “just love yourself”.

Ask and hope for someone with a shovel who’ll help dig you out. A ski patroller who’s a part-time arborist. A social worker who can help you work the system. A friend who will let you stay on their couch. Someone in the dirt next to you. Sweating, struggling, swearing down in the dumps with you. Wielding a threatening saw over the bamboo or whatever traps you, if he won’t release you.

If help doesn’t physically arrive after you’ve asked for it, which is also a very real possibility, all you’re left with is with option 3.

3) Make peace with the fact, that yes, you may never become unstuck. What will life look like of you never do?

Is it a life still worth living?

This will prime you for deep, honest, acceptance, and in that, maybe you’ll even look up and notice that the bamboo is kinda pretty in the dawn light. So your senses open and you look around in peace, which in turn will make you more likely to recognise help and opportunity.

In time, one of the three things will happen:

The snow will melt and you’ll naturally become unstuck.

You never become unstuck, but you’ll be at peace.

Or, maybe, in that peace, you’ll be able to see someone materialise on the horizon holding a shovel.

Godspeed my friends.

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I am not having fun anymore. Everything is wrapped in real high stakes like purpose, and money to pay the bills. From grocery prices, to the crushing weight of trying to earn a living, to the worry that both my cat and I need to lose some weight and are fast approaching middle age together. From what I hear that comes with a free side serving of existential dread. What even *is* middle age? If we are all going to live to 100, is it 50? Is it mid 40’s? Shit. Am I already in it? No one told me!

I was on the river the other day, a beautiful day, clear water, spectacular scenery, a spot I’d never seen before, my boyfriend happily commenting on all the different kinds of rocks or something about flow and water dynamics acting like electricity (tbh, I barely follow when he goes full nerd mode, but I nod along enthusiastically)...a gorgeous day lay ahead.

Yet, I felt as flat and drowning in (self-appointed) demands crushing over me, as the water on the worn river rocks. All I could think was: “Been here, done that. I can’t breathe. What if it never works out?”.

The demands

Recently, I had been to Vienna where my sister and I went to a women’s business event (my sister is as smart as she is gorgeous and successful) where we met remarkably impactful and accomplished people. There was a panel discussion, during which the lack of self promotion of women in the STEM industries was discussed and the consensus had been something along the lines “they/we have to be more self confident”. The discussion moved on, but I never did.

The people on the panel had straightlined to a specific outcome of how that confidence would show. Being more show-y being one of them. So I kept wondering of which image everyone was modelling this “self confidence” by?

Words are loaded. They are fuzzy and muddled by layers of overuse in one prominent context over another and often revert to meaning only this one thing in this one context. An obvious example being the word “gay”, which used to just mean jolly and happy and now only means homosexual.

…Like to me, self confidence looks like the character “Rip” from “Yellowstone”. Strong, quiet, action before words, get-what-you-want-with-just-the-tip-of-a-hat-and-a-glare energy.

Unfortunately, by nature, when I want something, I am more like a golden retriever who couldn’t pass K-9 training. All bright eyed and bushy tailed.

And this is why I am not having fun.
I am trying really, really hard to be Rip, when I’m actually - just me.

You can’t compete with someone who’s having fun.

So whilst we are trying to reach a goal, we are also conjuring up an image of what the actual process of trying must look like, priming ourselves for double worry, double failure, double misery, double performance anxiety.

But I know one thing for sure: perseverance is only sustainable if we are IN LOVE with our process. Otherwise we burn out.

In my last letter I mentioned the issue I have with the rather flat credo of “just believe in yourself”. What if you can’t, because you believe you don’t have an image of yourself believing in yourself, in your mind?

I don’t think you have to believe in yourself. I think you have to know yourself.

If the indoctrination of the image of what you think other people who “believe in themselves” actually look like or feel like while they are doing “it”, doesn’t match your own behaviour and feelings, you’ll never trust your instincts, which is a prerequisite for that elusive self belief.

If you stay curious, and just keep going, you’ll get stronger in trusting your instincts, and whatever behaviour and feelings transpire from that -> that’s what you actually look like when you believe in yourself. In turn, you will enjoy the process rather than the goal, and thus, have fun. And if you’re having fun, you are unbeatable.

What does fun actually look like?

I had a friend who is long lost to Scientology, but she did teach me one useful thing: Always check the true meaning of words. So, instead of trying to copy the picture you have pre-installed as a reference, look up the etymology of a word, and then consider what you actually look like doing something in that vein.

• “Confidence” comes from the Latin con “with” and fidere “to trust”. So it literally just means doing something “with trust”.
  If the goal is to be more confident, then maybe it’s enough to just picture what you actually look like when you’re doing something with trust. (hint: for me, it’s not cool, calm and collected).

• “Courage” comes from Latin cor, or the French “coeur” meaning “heart.” Being courageous just means doing something “with heart”. So what do you actually look like when you do it with heart? (hint: when I do something “with heart” there’s a lot of fear and bursts of anger. Whilst I am doing the thing, I do NOT look courageous.)

• “Amateur” just means someone who is doing something for the love of it. If someone calls you a amateurish or you feel like you’re a total beginner, congratulations! You are acting your interest.

• “Enthusiasm” comes from Greek entheos “possessed by a god,” literally “the god within”. Enthusiasm just means being divinely inspired. So, you don’t have to look like a Disney princess in the middle of the best friend montage when you’re enthusiastic about something. You can be enthusiastic, yet, still.

• “Peace” comes from Latin ‘pax’ related to agreements or pacts. Peace just implies a state created through agreement. It does not mean you must fly to Bali on a yoga retreat meditating on a beach at sunrise.
  Being at peace simply means you’re in agreement with yourself, your values, and your circumstances. Which also means that peace, must be infinitely re-negotiated. It is the friction between your actualities of life, your values and your instincts which propels you forward, so be under no illusion that peace is permanent. However, if you manage to enjoy the negotiation itself, aka, the process rather than the outcome, then life truly IS all fun and games.

My point is this: I would like to say to the people on that panel, who tell the women in STEM (or in my case, blue collar work) to be more confident, that I absolutely agree. We should have the confidence not to play by the rules (and images) that others made up for us, but instead by the essence of the word, so we can act in honest confidence, not performative confidence.

Because:

I don’t want my gravestone to say “She gave a good Rip from Yellowstone impression”.

I want it to say “She was always Hanni.”

Godspeed my friends.

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To kick off the summer in style, I figured I’ll let you know a few ski patrol related highlights of fuck uppery over the years, and some respective learnings (if any). Maybe this will break the conversational ice, and be a reminder to only compare yourself to who you were yesterday. I know I have to, for comparison really is the thief of joy.

The highlight reel

These are in no particular order or timeline:

• I dropped a primed, albeit not lit, explosives charge right below myself and my colleague on the blasting ropeway stand, because I forgot to hold onto the spring loaded lever that secures it for travel. Luckily the loads are impact proof, but for a second there, I thought: “This is it.”

• I believed an overly dramatic teenager when he claimed both his wrists were “broken”, despite my better knowledge. Got him transported by helicopter unnecessarily. Nobody was amused. I just didn’t have it in me to argue with a teenager.

• I flipped a skidoo on a run, splattering it’s contents everywhere, breaking the windshield and bending the frame out of shape, gas spreading everywhere.

• I never told a chauvinistic, short tempered colleague to just lay off, when he blindsided me with an outburst of anger about something he believed I had supposedly said. Instead, I literally cowered and went out of my way to avoid him the rest of the season.

• I told people more than once that “Ah - I’m sure it ain’t broken” when it was, indeed, broken, even though I have been trained extensively on why we never diagnose a patient.

• I had to leave someone in a panic in a foggy white-out, because I couldn’t get the skidoo to grip to a complete stop. (I came back for them.)

• I forgot to hook myself into the safety line whilst descending a 45m tall lift pylon.

• I have put slope signs up facing the wrong way and spread to the wrong distances, so I had to reset the entire marking system, by myself.

• I overestimated a kids strength and encouraged them to carry on skiing in a snowplough (pizza), when they lost it and straight-lined into a tree. (They’re fine, but my heart stopped for a minute).

• I rushed to a scene, overtook someone on the edge of the piste and got the Akja (sled) stuck in a ditch, which turned out to be a little creek. It flooded the sled and I had to get someone else to do the call, whilst sorting out the little Aquarium I had just created.

• I forgot to take pictures of the scene of a hit and run collision to give to police, making the insurance process even more difficult for the patient.

• I never know the opening times of town services and just make them up, to get people off my back. The same goes for weather forecasts. Even though I watch the weather religiously and know it intimately, I pretend and say “I haven’t checked yet” just because I don’t want to get roped into the conversation.

(Incomplete) learnings

• If you have to do something sketchy, do it fast.

• Don’t be afraid to ask for help or tell your bosses/company their training culture is lacking or even - *gasp* - appalling. No-one will thank you for staying quiet after you’ve hurt yourself or others.

• HALT before making life changing decisions. If you’re hungry, angry, lonely, tired - try and fix that first if you can.
  If you’re forced to make a decision anyway, act as educated as you are intelligent. Don’t pretend to know something you don’t, and don’t pretend to not know something you do.

• Do not let others stress you out on their timeline. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

• Never, ever, tell a German with a plan that the weather may not allow for it. Just...duck and pray.

Know thyself

I’ve had imposter syndrome and too-cool-for-school syndrome, been late, hungover, hostile, a push-over, ill prepared, overly anxious, reckless, and everything in between.

When it comes to inspirational reverse engineering of why our imperfections are beautiful I like to use the imagery of rope or cable splicing as a metaphor:

You see, when a cable needs to be connected to form a full loop, or when there’s a broken section, it is done by “splicing” the two loose ends. The strands of a rope are woven back into themselves to create a strong, secure, seamless connection without using knots, to make a full loop. The two loose ends become fully integrated.

To do this you need to know how the cable is actually constructed and take apart its individual strands in order to put it back together. Mistakes and broken bits of yourself won’t haunt you, if you integrate them into the fabric of yourself. In order to learn from them, you must stay curious and generous towards these parts instead of exiling them into oblivion, only for them to rage against your ignorance.

This is what it means to know thyself. This is what Carl Jung called “shadow work”, Tsultrim Allione calls “befriending the monster”, and Britney Spears breath-sings about in “Oops - I did it again.”

If you deeply know yourself, and how to talk to all your parts, believing in yourself becomes a secondary effect, not a prerequisiste to success.

And if you fuck up as much as I do, the “just believe in yourself” credo simply won’t suffice. But more on that next time.

Godspeed my friends.

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