I go to a workshop or a course or buy a book because I believe it might be the answer or solution I’ve been looking for that will turn it all around.

Intellectually and logically, as I’m sure we all do, especially when we are looking outwardly to someone else suggested this, we know it’s not likely to happen. When we hear it from someone else it even sounds ridiculous!

However emotionally and secretly – even to ourselves – we do want to believe this.

That’s why advertising works. Intellectually we know that cream can’t turn back time and that aftershave won’t make us irresistible to women, but we still buy it.

That’s how it’s marketed because deep down that’s what we want and hope is true for us and why we are willing to pay for it.

And that’s always my conflict.

With everything I’ve learnt throughout the years of participating in workshops, qualifying in a plethora of methodologies, of reading extensively and using myself as a human guinea pig  I’ve never found a panacea. 

A stand alone system that elevates the human condition in its entirety that afterwards delivers us as a new person.

What I have discovered are lots of ways to cope with, to manage and perceive my current reality that allows me to experience it better. 

That maybe handling a traumatic episode or appreciating a moment in time that may other wise have been missed. 

There are times when stress or anger dominate my life and from what I’ve learnt, there’s ways in which I can alleviate the frequency or alleviate the fallout quicker than if I was left to my ‘natural’ coping mechanisms would take much longer and cause me more pain.

There’s ways to help reduce anxiety and depressive episodes and times of disparity or despondency. 

There’s ways to generate confidence where prior to using these systems I would revert to default beliefs and behaviours.

There’s lots of ways to be the best version of who we are, rather than what I often hope to find, which is a way to be someone else. 

Which is sad when I hear myself say that out loud or see those words as I write them here.

But this is a great example of a method, such as writing something down showing us how we are thinking.

Writing something down is what I call ‘thought fly paper’ because it’s stops disruptive thoughts buzzing about and distracting us. 

And as we look closely at them stuck to the page, we can see them for what they are – (which often are much smaller than they appear to be from the sound they make or the psychological damage they are inflicting as the vibration of their movements isolate violently the longer they fly around in our confined head space that we inhabit when we are troubled.)

But even then there’s work to be done. 

There’s introspection but then we need to be willing to take action. 

There’s the constant game of snakes and ladders that no method ensures a perfect role of the dice each time.

All I know is that regardless of what systems are out there, change takes a lot of work and it’s constant and can at times feel futile. 

And I don’t have the answer, or the solution. 

But what I constantly strive for whilst I continue to search for the Holy Grail is to hone the skills that allow me to carry on that search, regardless of the mental and physiological challenges that come my way.

When we role the dice that sends us down the big snake to the bottom of the board what I do have and offer others (often after a hissy fit from being so pissed off with what’s just happened) are ways to continually get up, look up and start moving forwards and back towards the summit. 

Not with one system and certainly not pain free or effortlessly. 

But systematically and progressively. One foot in front of the other and with an understanding that we can keep going. 

It not about being ‘part smart’ but recognising that who we are as people, is a holistic unit that must be addressed as such, via lots of different approaches and with experimentation and most importantly a willingness to work.