Engagement

Engagement has been the key when I've seen the most progress and dis engement is the polar opposite in every regard.  

Engement is like trust, you have to work at it, feed it and nurture it. When you lose trust it requires so much more effort and time to rebuild it and the same thing applies when I've disengaged.  

So here I am re engaging and working on re building those habits that served my engagement. I still have that little voice in the back of my head that wants me to "take a night off" because I worked hard all day and I'm a little tired. If I listen to this voice even once I'm giving in and I'm on the road to disengagement. 

There truly is a time when this becomes easier and to a degree effortless, but for me it takes real effort and constant dedication.

Mr. Repay

Feeling better

 The last couple of days have been pretty awesome.  Things have gotten clearer for me and my attitude has improved.  I watched the last virtual lesson to prepare my self for my next class.  

I had a mentorship meeting with my company on Monday and we watched a pretty cool Ted talk about mentorship.  I’m currently enrolled in a year long mentorship program with my company that kicked off about two weeks ago.  After the Ted talk we had a group discussion where I talked a little bit about our school and the I Ho Chuan program.  I even talked about “table talk Tuesdays” and how that exercise helped people get to know each other, thanks Miss Ferris.  While I was talking about the I Ho Chuan program the moderator had her camera on, watching the look on her face was pretty interesting.  She was stunned that there’s a program out there like we have.  She was actually taken aback (in a good way) about why we have this mastery program and wanted to know so much more.  After that meeting I sat back and reflected upon how lucky I am that at this exact moment I have the opportunity to participate in the program and with such an amazing group of people.  

I’ve taken my Kung Fu and the I Ho Chuan program for granted at times over the years.  If you ever want to feel the awesomeness of what we’re doing try explaining it to a non martial artist.

Mr. Repay

Crawling

 It’s been a very difficult time recently for me.  I’ve struggled the most mentally than I have ever struggled in the past.  The past six weeks have been the most difficult as I’ve leaned far away and let the pandemic take a hold of me.  This was something that had been building slowly at first then hit me really hard.  I’m a person that really needs the interaction of others.  I fed off of and give energy and without an outlet to do this it’s been very hard on me mentally.  

I pulled back to the point that I almost quit.  Just typing that is difficult.  I almost quit because I felt an immense level of guilt.  I made promises when I joined the I Ho Chuan that I broke.  My personality is that of keeping my promises and doing what I say I’m going to do.  I felt because of these broken promises it was easier to just fade away.  However in the back of mind I kept telling myself if I fade away then truly what does that say about my character?  What kind of example would I be setting for my family?  

The biggest take away for me was realizing how important my thoughts are.  During this time, I was obviously down on myself.  Because of these thoughts they became my words.  Those words turned in actions (or no actions at all which is the same) which in turn influenced my behaviour.  I’ve realized that this lesson was taught to me many years ago by an informal mentor.  He tried to teach me how important this is in my life and how easily you can move through this process without even realizing it.

Today I have a great conversation with Sifu Brinker.  We talked about theses things and most importantly had some laughs.  Right now I’m crawling my way forward even if it’s just one cm.

Mr. Repay

Slown and steady wins the race.

It's been more of a struggle this year than last.  Lots of reasons (excuses) for this and none of which are justification for where I've been recently. 

What I have been focusing on is getting back to a routine. Working on my push ups and sit ups in small sets. I'm not pushing hard right now to do fifty push up sets but rather ten push up sets multiple times through out the day.  I'm throwing in some forms as well as some techniques.  It's kind of like I've "weaponized" my training in small bites Vs setting aside a big chunk of time.  Ultimately this works for me and it's easier to sustain. I've realized that I need to do what works for me and only for me when it comes to my training.  I'm getting to a better mental place because of this which is helping with my physical training as they're intrinsicly linked.  

This I Ho Chuan year is going to be messy and dirty but perhaps this is exactly what I need?

Mr. Repay

Resentment and negativity

 I’ve struggled with resentment for a very very long time.  I actually can’t remember a time where I haven’t felt resentment of some kind.  When I think of resentment I thinking more toward comparing my pain and that of what I perceive in other people.  I look at myself and my struggles throughout my life.  Then I look at other people and expect them to struggle just like me.  When I see someone who isn’t struggling like I had I feel immediate resentment and in some ways I want them to not be as successful or as positive as they are.  I can’t shake this even though I’ve tried to change my thinking.  I’ve even looked at it in such a way that other people may be struggling with life in ways that I’m not.  It works for a little while but then I get back to my old ways of thinking. I really want to get past this as when I’m in this mindset I’m not a very good person and I pull back to the extreme.

This is where I am right now.

I don’t want to feel like this, I don’t want to carry this negativity for any longer in my life.  I know I have to let go but I don’t know how to fully let go?  I keep carrying this burden of pain that seems to have embedded it’s self into my very core.  

When I think back to when it all started for me I can almost pin point it.  When I was very young I was cut from my hockey club.  I was too young to really understand the reasons but from what my parents told me the reasons were “political” in nature.  Up to that point I had never felt failure and I was always succeeding at a high level.  Looking back on this moment I felt a lot of anger that someone (an adult) could take this way from me for reasons that had nothing to do with my ability.  I used that anger to push myself and to prove them wrong.  What I’ve realized is that I haven’t stopped trying to prove myself.  But what am I trying to prove and to whom?  

The second instance I can think of was a particular teacher in grade nine that told me I wouldn’t amount to anything.  He physically threw his keys and black board brushes at me, hit me in the back of the head and actually had one of my contacts come out and land on my books.  He constantly “bullied” me in a mental and physical way during that school year.  I was determined to prove him wrong, to show him that I was smarter and that I would amount to more than he ever thought I would.  I’ve resented him for all of these years and through writing this blog I realized how deeply it’s hurt me.  

I need to let go, to let myself feel like I have nothing left to prove to anyone.  Writing this blog has helped me move in the direction.  I still don’t feel like I’ve let it all go and I’m still fearful that I’m going to fall back into this mindset.  As I type this final sentence I feel a tremendous amount of weight lifted from my soul.

Mr. Repay

Poverty

This is a topic that I must admit I haven't experienced first hand. However as I'm getting older it's something that has become more important to me.  

My wife and I grew up in small town Saskatchewan.  I have a really close knit family that had a farm and everyone had a massive backyard garden. We never went hungry, ever.  But we also didn't have some of the "luxuries" that my friends had growing up.  This never bothered me because my parents raised me to appreciate what we had not to envy what others had.

My wife and I started our family before we both turned 20.  It was hard, we didn't have alot and we struggled finacially for many years. When we moved to Alberta in 2001 from Saskatchewan it was a shock to say the least.  Culturally the two provinces were at opposite ends of the political spectrum. My wife didn't work and I was making very little at the time. 

We never were below the "poverty line" but if it wasn't for our families helping when they could I think we may very well have slipped below it.  Over the past ten years things have drastically improved for us and we been able to travel quite a bit.  We've been to quite a few central American and Caribbean countries.  We love the culture and the people so much but the poverty has been eye opening.  To see how much people earn and how much it costs people just to eat is tough to comprehend. I know that my family has wasted more than many families in these countries earn in a month, year etc.  

I've been so "busy" working on making my families life better that I've not taken a look at what I can do to improve other's lives. Through my Kung Fu I've developed a higher level of mindfulness and empathy that has helped me see things like poverty in a different light.  I'm beyond thankful for where I was born as we have so much opportunity in this country. At the same time there is poverty all around me and I don't even have to leave my province or country. I'm ashamed to reflect on my own wastefulness as so many people could benefit from what I take for granted and for what I waste.  I would like to say that I've erradicated all of my wastefulness and moved to a minimistic style of living. But that's not true.  I'm working with my family to be more aware of where we are wasteful so that we can change our habits. It's a slow process but we are making the changes and seeing improvement in this area everyday. 

Mr. Repay

Friendships

 I'ts been a tough two weeks.  I developed what I thought was a really good friendship over the past three years.  It started out through my work and grew from there. Two weeks ago things fell apart and it's hit me really hard. I've been struggling mentally and emotionally and I didn't really see it coming.

Friendships are such an interesting dynamic.  There are times when those relationships feel like family and then there’s times where they feel just awful. I love people and I really value meaningful relationships, maybe too much.  I really enjoy meeting new people, understanding who they are and what makes them who they are.  I enjoy seeing these relationships develop and helping any way that I can.  I’ve developed relationships through business that have been amazing but most of them haven’t turned out the way I expected them to.  Too may times these relationships are there because someone wants something from me.  

This is where my problems lie, I want to always see the good in people not the side of them that they show me just to get something from me that benefits them.  I’ve been taken advantage many times before because I trusted right from the start where there are some people that live by the mantra of “you need to earn my trust”.  

I don’t want to change who I am but I also need to be more aware of the reasons people want to be my friend.  I don’t know where I going to be from here in regards to who I let into my life.  Recently I’ve been really careful who I let in.  As I’m getting older I don’t feel like I want more people inside my inner circle, I don’t want my friendship to be taken advantage of.  I want people to show me who they truly are not who they think I want them to be. 

I’m sadden right now because I’m dealing with a situation just like I’ve described.  We’ve both made mistakes and I really hopeful that we can move past them.

Mr. Ian Repay