This is a powerful speech at Danny Frawley’s Funeral today in Melbourne Australia by Wayne Schwass. See previous blog entry for more details of who Danny was.
Men need to have the courage to speak up and ask for help when something deep inside is not okay. Rather than being strong and covering up, be courageous and open up. Get help.
“Manning up in the past was to suffer in silence, manning up now is to put your hand up.”
(Danny Frawley, AFL Football Great/Coach, 2019)
Danny Frawley died in a car crash hitting a tree last Monday afternoon. He was only 56. The whole Australian AFL football world was in shock that this great man had died.
He was the second longest serving captain ever of the St.Kilda football club – the club that I follow – so I remember his playing days well. He also did some good things in his coaching days and then was a great host and commentator in the media, radio and TV. He was a great leader and inspired many. He was much loved by all.
Danny had major depression issues over the last ten years. He was one of the first men in football to go public with his mental health issues. Having them splashed across the newspapers would not have been easy. This was such a brave thing to do for a celebrity and for a man so much in the public eye of the australian football world.
I am hoping his legacy will have a wide reaching effect on all men, to stop playing tough and pretending ‘she’ll be right mate’ and be brave and courageous enough to speak up and ask for help without feeling it is a sign of weakness. In fact it is a sign of great courage.
It takes great courage to face your demons. It takes men even greater courage to do that, because of cultural conditioning growing up. I believe it is the beginning of a death sentence when a man decided to completely suppress his real feelings in order to be or look strong. This is just not healthy whatsoever. Blocking off feelings reduces your life span.
It takes great courage to face what you have going on within you. I see this regularly with new clients, coming in shaking and scared at what will be revealed. I was the same. Having been through it myself, most are able to calm down fairly quickly and begin the deep inner process.
Looking back at all the sessions I had over the years, I would often be sitting in the waiting area terrified at what I was likely to show to the therapist which had never been safe to show ever before in my life, even to myself. This type of courage leads to freedom and greater health in your life. It’s not easy, but it is worth it.
Doing a regular Body Mindfulness meditation practice means you will have to go within and eventually face some of your old traumas and demons that you could not face in the past. Don’t give up when uncomfortable feelings arise. Just take a smaller piece, whatever is manageable and face that. Do that regularly and you will progress further than ever before. You will thrive.
“…focusing on everything means focusing on nothing. It’s almost impossible to accomplish anything significant when you’re racing through an endless litany of tasks and emergencies. And yet this is how many of us spend our days, weeks, months, years – sometimes, our entire lives.”
(Michael Hyatt, Free to Focus, 2019)
I’ve talked about this information overload many times over the years. It’s a sign of the times. It is so important to be able to narrow down what you want to accomplish and then spend time just working on those specific tasks related to what you really want.
To do that, you have to constantly say NO to a lot of things that bombard you along the way. Your smart phone tends to be the biggest distraction. If your head is too much in control of your day, saying no will be very hard. But if you have a regular mindfulness practice, it makes it much easier to train yourself to switch off the distracting thoughts and the corresponding external information overload.
Having a deep connection to your internal world and internal space is very precious. The more body mindfulness work you do to inhabit/embody yourself, the more you will guard it, the more you will say No to things. The more focused you become on tasks and information that really matter to your goals.
Looking back, I found that the more connected I became to my body and inner self, the better choices I made.
I noticed I began to choose and do what worked rather than what was popular.
This is a very important point to make here. Your mindfulness meditation practice helps you access the real you. It helps you clear the way to accessing your true home, which is throughout your physical body. Then your guidance system becomes your own heart and not the ‘convincing’ information your head is brain-washed to need.
You are unique, a magnificent human being. Very precious. And the more you can embody this, the more unique choices you make, more often. Following the herd mentality, is not fulfilling, so that begins to lessen. You live a life that is much more rich and alive. One that actually contributes something special to the world that makes a real difference.
You have that in you.
“According to the World Health Organization, stress is considered a worldwide health epidemic. The American Institute of Stress links stress to the six leading causes of death (heart disease, accidents, cancer, liver disease, lung ailments, and suicide).”
(Joe Burton, Creating Mindful Leaders, 2018)
Working in a high performance, high stress major company, the stress will eventually takes its toll. After 20 years and in their mid 40s managers and staff start to burn out and if unchecked, in the worse case scenario, leads to one of those leading causes of death.
If you survive and don’t die then there are other issues that arise, frequent sickness, anxiety, depression, loss of direction, moodiness, lack of fulfillment, relationship breakdowns, unemployment, financial issues, addictions, family issues, ageing faster, and general poor health. Luckily many companies are now turning to mindfulness meditation to improve mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.
It sounds crazy that this is the state that our work culture is in. What leaders would design a company like that? Rather than push a person for the maximum output, hence into a zone of high prolonged stress levels, why not find the sustainable level of work?
How do you know when you are working at the optimum sustainable level? My gauge for this is to ask the following question…
At the end of the day when I arrive home – am I calm and relaxed?
If the answer is NO, you are overworking, and over time it will take its toll.
If you are self employed or have a decent boss, you are able to adjust your work week to work at a sustainable level. And by sustainable I mean that you can keep doing those hours and activities indefinitely, for years to come and not tire. That’s the beauty of sustainability, it’s repeatable over and over and over again without much wear and tear.
This is a big work secret to long term health, success and happiness. Find the level for you that is repeatable, over and over again. The added length of time, gives you the benefit of accomplishment – higher income, more experience, and fulfillment in being able to do the things that need time, without burring yourself out in the process.
I adjusted my number of work client hours years ago when I was seeing too many people in a week and almost burned out and collapsed a number of times. Once I asked the sustainability question my whole practice changed. I now see the exact number that I know I can keep seeing indefinitely for years and decades to come. It has worked beautifully now for about a decade.
Initially you seem to earn less, but the quality of your work goes up because you are not stressed out. So over your work lifetime you actually earn much more and also feel happier in mind and body.
You also get the benefit of having a great buffer that you can draw on when unexpected stressors and traumas hit you. Your body has room to absorb the impact and see it through with less reaction. I had some major ones (totally unjust) hit me like a ton of bricks over the last six years, major assaults, that would have adversely affected many people. But my body had room to absorb the impact and release it over time.
I’ll be talking more about this process in future articles.